3rd October - A/W Conclave Meet @ WHW

[Dosdamt]

Congrats on the wedding mate! Great news... Long time no speak as well!

It'd be great to see you, have a chat and perhaps a sneaky beer to celebrate your wedding there too! The more the merrier.

-Ben

[Simeon Blackstar]

First weekend of uni, so I won't make any promises.  Could be good fun though.  does it cost anything, or are we just meeting up and having a laugh?

[Dosdamt]

No cost other than showing up for this one. Not sure of the plan / structure. I think if we just have a bring and game and the GM-will-make-it-up-onnaspot for this one, ahead of the more structured GT, it'd be funky.

-Ben

[Kasthan]

I'll come. What times etc. would be useful, also any themes and other gaming details would be helpful in planing. See you later.

[Dosdamt]

well, I'm not planning on running anything formal at all, so I'd imagine it's likely to just be a bring and play day. There'll be no overriding theme. My only suggestion would be to take it easy with the stats, I'm going to be moderating all my characters down a touch in terms of weapons and stats.

In terms of times - from whatever time the place opens until the end of the day, pretty much. It's always a good laugh.

[BeardMonk]

I could do an Oct/Nov meet.  the date would be work dependent

[Dosdamt]

The meet is on the 3rd of October, a Saturday.

-Ben

[BeardMonk]

The meet is on the 3rd of October, a Saturday.

-Ben

Yer - I don't know if im working that date.  Also im in India most of Sept.  Want to attend.  Need to get some games under my belt .

[PM102]

I initially held off saying whether I would be able to attend. But now with the A-level results out... I will be able to go!

[Kaled]

My only suggestion would be to take it easy with the stats, I'm going to be moderating all my characters down a touch in terms of weapons and stats.

On this subject, I remember the first Conclave event I came to - I'd given all my characters stats that were lower than the ones in the rulebook and that seemed to be roughly in line with the 'power-level' that many people on the 'Clave advocated.  However, when it came to actually playing some games I quickly realised that my characters were actually somewhat less powerful than almost everyone else's.  E.g. Characters that I had intended to be good shots couldn't hit a barn door in comparison to other characters that were supposed to be of a similar skill level.  The first thing I did when I got home was to adjust most of my characters and to make them a little more powerful.

Not really sure what the point of this anecdote is - maybe just to warn people that they may well find that their characters seem much less powerful than those of other people, or they may well find them to be somewhat more powerful; either way some tweaking may be necessary - either after or during the event to realign them.  We've had a raft of new characters posted recently, and almost always there has been a suggestion that their stats are too high - so maybe the point is to just warn players that although there is a vocal movement towards lower stats, this may in fact be a vocal minority and that a lot of players do play using slightly more powerful characters (although still generally below the sample statlines in the back of the rulebook).

Personally, I try to work mainly from the guidelines on p15 of the LRB with a few slightly higher stats on some of my more 'heroic' characters, and I'd say that puts me somewhere in the middle as far as power levels go (I don't know if other people would agree with that assessment?).  I can certainly think of players with more powerful characters, and others whose seem less powerful.

EDIT: On a related subject, I was again looking through Marco's revised armoury the other day and was reminded that some weapons in there are somewhat more powerful than the rulebook versions.  The revised armoury seems to be getting more and more popular, so I was wondering what the consensus is then it comes to events such as this one - is there a movement to go to the revised stats are are most people sticking with the rulebook ones?

[Dosdamt]

A few things I'll be revising

- My AdMech Warband

I'm definitely going to be reducing the heavy nature of some of the weapons, in particular the use of the Multi-Melta. The character's stats are more or less in line with what I want, I just think the weaponry needs toning down

- My Inq + Daemonhost Warband

It is likely I'll be fine-tuning Landen and Euri. In particular, the Neural Shredder host scream will likely be removed, but I'll beef the psychic powers instead.



I think there's been a minor power creep at WHW / other meets, largely focused around the use of heavier and deadlier weaponry, and high speed characters. I'm not immune - my Eldar Pirate Princess comes to mind - but she was a warband of one. There are certain characters, and indeed combos, that are heavily brutal and game changing. I think the key thing to remember is to keep stats and weapons in mind at all time - they influence one another, and there needs to be a moderation of speeds on characters.

We'll see though. Some on the fly changes may be needed.

[greenstuff_gav]

power creep at WHW / other meets, largely focused around the use of heavier and deadlier weaponry, and high speed characters.

whereas my heavily armed and armoured CIDD servitors failed to hit anything all day
i must be unique in the face i'm having to make my Explorator Team *more* powerful 

[Magos Exarratus]

I think the three main things I've learned about power at conclave meets are probably:

1. Graviton Guns are stupidly, stupidly powerful. I've never used one against a Space Marine but as the rules stand they  would be stupidly effective. Admittedly, they don't kill anyone, but disabling someone for six turns can be the difference between trashing and getting trashed.

2. Yes, weird, wonderful and obscure psychic powers are cool but they require the character not to fail every roll and it helps to have something that actually causes damage.

3. Handicapping a servitor because it has a power axe and breacher can be done more effectively than simply reducing the speed to two. With a higher speed they might actually be able to move.

There are other ones popping into my head, but they won't really be helpful (not that any of those are particularly helpful now I think about it, except number 1, Graviton Guns really are too powerful (but fun)).  They all really boil down to the one principle that I probably am never going to learn. Using a new, untested warband each time isn't the best idea. If I had somewhere to test warbands not at the meet it might be easier, ah well.

So, now it's simply a matter of finishing my models, sticking back together that have fallen apart, deciding on a warband, checking to see if I have character sheets for them, making sure I have the models, checking to see if the models are obviously not GW models, checking dice and double-checking I can make the date. Right. It would seem less daunting if I actually had glue...

[MarcoSkoll]

On a related subject, I was again looking through Marco's revised armoury the other day and was reminded that some weapons in there are somewhat more powerful than the rulebook versions.

People mixing the two at events is a point which I'm a little concerned about, because some of the weapons in the RIA have, by necessity, become rather different beasts to the LRB armoury.
I don't want to do anything to force people either way - but nor do I want to be the source of a power level problem at events.

The common choice of semi-auto pistols/stubbers are probably not a big problem to mix. Other areas are... somewhat less consistent in "power" to the rulebook though.
I imagine the trouble will emerge around shotguns, if anywhere. They're popular weapons in Inquisitor, and the damage upgrade would probably make itself apparent - even with the drop in fire rate and capacity on the popular pump action.

The revised armoury seems to be getting more and more popular, so I was wondering what the consensus is then it comes to events such as this one.

Bear in mind, although the RIA gets quite a few mentions around the forum, that may be a vocal minority (to continue your earlier point).
As it stands, even I've got no idea what the percentage split is.

But it is a point that will need sorting out. You could mix them, but you might find it gets a little interesting - particularly if you're mixing the bolters (with the RIA's double cover rule) or Plasma weapons (with the RIA's different failure tables).
If players do use the RIA, GMs unfamiliar with it will probably need the player to do some of the legwork.

As a last point, the RIA is still lumbered with the big void of the Lasweapons, so I couldn't really recommend it as a "default" armoury for meets because of that. Still, I hope to get that space plugged by the end of the month though.

[Kaled]

checking to see if the models are obviously not GW models

Not yet sure which warband I'm going to bring, but it's worth saying that so far I've never had any problems using non-GW models at WHW, so I may give my explorator warband another spin*.  However, the rules for WHW do say GW models only, so if anyone plans to bring non-GW models then it would be worth having a backup plan.

* Alternatively I may give Ostrakov and the gimp warrior a try...