Over the weekend, I was able to play my first game of The OId World, actually more accurately by some miracle I was able to play 2, but one of them was my first game so itll still count. As always with these articles, these are just my gut reactions after one game. Im sure once I hit a good number of games these will change, but for now, Im just putting down my initial reactions.
Excited:
Customization/Faction Feel/Nostalgia- Im combining all these into one, because they are in fact all there. Pretty much exactly as I thought it would be. This game does in fact feel a lot like the Fantasy I remember. And touching on all the customization, after playing 2 games with 2 different factions, Im really excited to tweak the lists around and see what I like and what combos I can come up with.
Templates- Templates are back, and I kind of forgot how many issues they have the potential to cause. Arguing over the exact scatter dice arrow direction, if a model is actually under the template or not, etc. Luckily that didn’t happen in my games, but after using templates a bit I remembered how many times that happened back in the day. Not really in pick up games, but in the tournament scene it may be an issue. Although at the end of the day, Id rather have templates in the game then not have them.
Hesitant:
Scenarios- Yea, so….we played two differently randomly generated scenarios. And they were both basically exactly the same. They changed deployment around a little, not a lot mind you, but outside of that it was just slightly different flavors of “Kill your opponent”. Im not going to really harp on this, I think I covered my thoughts on this pretty well in the last article. But yea, it definitely seems like the game needs a scenario revamp. It was great for 1st games, but would definitely get old quick.
Grindyness- So the game is definitely more grindy and less killy than it was, but actually, it kind of worked. I was not bored with it like I was worried I would be. I don’t think its necessarily better or worse, its just different. But I did not dislike this like I thought I would. That being said, if I had to play 3 rounds in a day for a GT or something, by round 3, I don’t know if I would still think that.
Magic- This ended up being my biggest disappointment with the game. I understand they were trying to take away that “slot machine” feel of magic from previous editions, where you throw a number of dice and hope for doubles 6s. But now that everybody is throwing 2 and adding wizard level, it almost feels more like a slot machine to me. The disparity between a level 1 and a level 4 is just massive. At least in the old editions if this were the case, you could save your dice and roll 6 dice yourself and hope for double 6s. Or throw a lot of dice to stop little spells, and just eat the big ones. Now you just cant stop anything. In the first game I had a level 4, and my opponent had a level 1 and a level 2. My level 4 was mounted and not in a unit, so it just kind of flew around wherever it wanted and did whatever it wanted. It got to the point that by turn 3 we both kind of realized, he just was never going to get any of his spells, and I was always going to get mine (barring any miscasts or, oh no I rolled a 3 and you rolled an 11 situations). I don’t have the math on it, but Im sure the odds were very high in my favor. Now luckily magic has been toned down a lot, so its not game breaking, just a disadvantage. But you know what else it is? Not fun. When Im rolling 2D6+4 and you have to beat my roll with 2D6+1, there is just very little player interaction involved in that. Theres no choice you can make to help you (other than the choice of making your list with a level 4 wizard to start) or game mechanic you can use to stop this, unless you can catch my wizard in melee (and even then I can still cast some specific spells) or try to get out of range. I think it just creates a situation with very little player interaction, which ultimately leads to very little fun. We got to the point where I rolled my two dice, and he rolled his, but we both already knew the outcome. We were just going through the motions. Believe me I understand the need to change magic from the way it was in 8th edition, but I think GW just missed the mark with this one. Neither of us were having fun in the magic phase. He got one spell off the whole game, and that was 1st turn when nobody had range. And conversely, I got almost every spell I cast off, except for the ones I failed to cast, but they would have failed with my opponent there or not. Having infinite dispels kind of helps this, as you don’t have to choose which spell you are ineffectively trying to stop, but you’re still just rolling dice because you can, with very little chance of success. Im not really sure if this will still feel the same way after several games, or even if it feels this way when both people have a level 4, but I really don’t think this is where it needs to be.
There you have it, my updated impressions. And you even got a bonus game from me before I was able to write this. Overall Im just excited to be playing fantasy again. Ive had a fully painted army sitting in a box since like 2015 or whatever it was, and now Im able to bust it out and use it again. For all its ups and downs, Im glad its back, and Id rather be playing fantasy with my friends, then not playing it. Until next time, keep rolling dice!