Re: FMA at EEC: was Re: [GZG] Re: GZG ECC X: Indy's AAR (parts 1 &2)

["john tailby" <John_Tailby@xxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damo" <damosan@xxxxxxxxx>
> GW does what it can with the stat system it has developed over the  years. 
> There is a certain flavor to the various races though.  Tau  don't like 
> close combat and rely on their weapons to settle the  score.  Their stat 
> line reflects this with poor close combat values  (Mr. Acord knows *all* 
> about this).  Whether this dislike for close  combat is a result of poor 
> martial skill or just a deep seated  psychological hatred of getting messy 
> is beyond GW's scope methinks.
>
> To me it leans towards the psychological but what do I know?
>
> Damo

What do you mean "beyond the scope of GW". The Tau attitude to warfare is 
pretty well described in their source book. They regard HTH fighting as 
rather primitive and don't practice it preferring to rely on technology to 
assist them in fighting their battles. Their profile accurately reflects 
their indoctrination and training.

In order to be able to inspire people to buy the models in any numbers 
people have to be able to relate to their figures. You don't want people 
coming along and having a hard time telling which is the head of a model.

GW has Tyranids (6 armed extra galactic predators) all their technology is 
organic, weapons are sybiotic collections of creatures genetically modified 
to exagerate their natural traits. Imagine a weapon made by genetically 
modifying a skunk so that it's defensive secretion is a toxic nerve agent 
and it has the range profile of a flame thrower. that's the sort of weapons 
Tyranids have.

Most of the GW figures are humanoid, I guess we need to be able to relate to 
the look of the models and maybe see a bit of ourselves in the models, even 
if it is playing the bad guys.

Pretty much all Sci-Fi has humans vs. some kind of humanoid alien. The 
original aliens "the Martians" from War of the Worlds were not human nor 
were their vehicles. One of the most popular icon aliens from TV are not 
humanoid at all "the Daleks". People love Daleks, they are dead simple they 
run around and go exterminate a lot.

Pretty much all human legends describe things in human terms, even ancient 
god were human bodies with animal heads rather than non human blobs.

One thing that most war gamers seem to go for is maximisation of control. 
They want a number of completely predictable, completely responsive units. 
Surprising in a game control by random chance. I can see why people would go 
through a phase of "these units are broken" especially when there are 
alternate units that don't suffer from their perceived faults.

Several players in our group don't like the perceived complexity of the SV 
ships, preferring the simplicity and variety offered by human tech ships.

John


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