One Page Rules vs Games Workshop Part 2: Top 5 Reasons Why OPR Rules Are Better 

"One guy is using legos for his units and it's awesome" Que Everything is Awesome song!

Real nice comparison. I am not really a fan of GW two big games, so it is nice to find something I can use the armies I have for. Will have to give this a real shot. I do wish they had some more in depth rules once you get comfortable, but maybe some adjustments to AoS for house games could work too

@@kaz9357 OPR do have "Full Rulebooks" for sale on pdf. Each book only costs $5, and adds a bunch more options. Maybe look into those, if you haven't already. Though with the games as simple as they are, adding house rules can be fairly straightforward. Just make sure that the house rules try to do the job they need to without being too complex. The advantage of OPR is its ability to use a simple foundation to facilitate complex interactions _on the table._ Often, a very simple addition can be enough extra granularity to fulfill that niche.

@@kaz9357 if you subscribe to their Patreon for just one month you get every single full rulebook as part of it, along with some other goodies. They get added to your wargame vault account at the end of the month.. then you just cancel Patreon I f you don't want to pay anything anymore

@@Bluecho4 that is good to know, thank you! Hopefully I can find something akin to MESBG

Surprisingly enough GW cant seem to wrap their heads around this. The top tournament lists for their game is almost always the army with the best alpha strike.

@@tylerwellman8252 that's just wrong lol

Them fuckin ironjawz

exactly that! "You would be stupid to not use this special rule from this book which gives you an artifact that basically lets you ignore all wounds" So much stupidly broken stuff...

And bretonions could come back

Colin, are you playing Fantasy or Sci-Fi?

I wouldn't speak too soon- wait until you see "Dutchies of Vinci"'s genre, it's power, and the fact that it's being promoted for sale

It's amazing, isn't it? We've all just accepted wound rolls because that's what so many systems use, but they don't make any logical sense when you stop and think about it 😂 If you hit something, then the only thing stopping that thing taking damage should be the saving throw. Like, what is the wound roll even for?!? 😂

@@peterclarke7240 It is very annoying. I understand *why* they do it because just the two dice make it a very lethal game very quickly. Your units would die relatively very quickly in 40k without a wound roll. OPR leans into it and accepts that and balances the rest of the game to match how fast the lethals are, and I think they do a good job

@@SirProdigle Yep. And also I think we have to remember that, despite being updated every couple of years, 40k is an OLD system. It's got a lot of what I suppose I would describe as "legacy rules" which were sort of sensible, or at least weren't questioned, back when Rogue Trader was new on the scene (and that's when I started playing! where have all the years gone?!), but now just feel a bit outdated and sluggish. And I do feel that 40k tries to balance itself essentially through rules bloat, but this creates a problem, as we all know, when a new edition comes out and codices are updated over the course of two years- every new codex has the potential to unbalance the system, because they're all trying to offset the unbalancing done by the LAST codex. It's a constant game of catch-up where the Tau codex is designed to rebalance the Chaos codex (for example), but in doing so makes them ridiculously overpowered versus anyone else still waiting for THEIR codex.

Same here. I feel like new players to wargaming will fall into the GW honeytrap then get put off wargames altogether because of escalating rules

@@jasonbaxter3658 @Time Matic agree, well said!! I don't get how GW doesn't recognize how convoluted the rules have become. Not just 40k, some other games bloat so wide and move so fast, like Warhammer Underworlds- that a peson with 2 degrees and a gaming history is confused about how to even start and wonders what rule books (or cards I guess) are needed. Why is this faction I want not showing up on the website- is it outdated already? It's not been a year!? Yep- welcome to the watermill that is the GW profit-paradigm

I like the idea of strategems as a way to further diversify army gameplay, but in practice the amount of complexity they add bogs down games more than it invigorates them. That said, I think scenario-specific strategems that both armies have access to is a neat way to shake up a game.

@@ecyor0 IMO they should just give each army one hyper specific optional rule, like the Necron regeneration, beef it up a bit, and then do that for every faction. Then give a selection of 5 weaker generic ones. Each faction get's a hyper-specific game changing rule and a choice of a weaker game changing rule. Enough variety but digestible enough to learn

OPR has stratagems also as an optional rules expansion. Though in OPR they do not feel like a burden but they actually add to the tactics and gameplay.

Sweet! Getting the wife on board is the real accomplishment!😁

Opr makes kill team its called fire fight

It's better, but still imbalanced because the creators make snow that they profit from and whether they realize it or not they want the armies they invented to be the best, so they're sadly overpowered.

Glad you liked it!

1. Introduce it at your gaming place - you will likely get several people who will want to play. 2. Solo play! Set up a solo game at said gaming place. If anyone is interested, get them to play the other side. If not, still have fun playing solo…. :)

Also you can explain that you can proxy 40K into OPR.

So with Legion, it sounds like each unit activation is for a specific unit so you're not choosing order? That's an interesting dynamic!

@@gaminggeek241 Correct! You can give some command tokens out at the beginning of the round depending on the initiative card played, but the rest of the units are blindly drawn in alternating order.

@@jaradsneed22 There ist also a rule for that in the full Rulebook. I like those order driven activations myself too.

If I were to sit down and intentionally plan a way to piss off everyone, I wouldn't have been able to come up with the fiasco that was Cursed City.

Same... they hyped it up so much to immediately drop it (and lie about longevity). Sure covid threw everything out of whack, but even the smallest of communication would have gone a long way.

yeah...Honestly thinking about buying a "no-mini box" on Ebay and just 3d printing some models. Only issue is finding models that look right and don't cost an arm and leg for a file.

Great, tell me how it goes!

It's really good, but *some things seem quirky, like super advanced sci-fi (robots, drones, self- repairing machines) in an army that's overpowered. Why? Because someone there had a big ego about an army they invented and they want it to be the darling army. And let's not forget who gets 90% of the profit of it's sales.

@@thingsmac What are you even talking about, my dude. 🤣

Yeah, I want to try out FTL as well!

On the other hand, the rules can fit on a scant couple pieces of paper (if you include army lists), so getting a GW veteran to learn OPR games isn't that big a task. The big hurdle is convincing them to try a non-GW game in the first place. You could probably come to a club or game store with a folder full of the rules and army lists, help them put together an army in a few minutes, and be playing on the spot. Assuming they are available to be convinced, of course.

Yeah, thats the struggle for a lot of wargamers who branch out from GW. Theres so much brand loyalty that youll never get those people to budge unless they try their first game. I guess some people are too scared to admit that other systems are better.

Of course, as demonstrated in the previous video in this series, some GW models are better than others. If you're unlucky, the army you're most conceptually interested in may not have had a new model in years, and still be using some models that are old enough to vote. Some models age better than others. Compare the Lumineth Realmlords to, say, the GW Seraphon or Flesheater Courts.

They look like standard HO scale model railway figures (passengers waiting to get on the train when it arrives at the station).

They are Ikea Billy shelves with the optional doors on them.

What I like about the OPR is that all of those rules are _optional._ And not the _fake_ optional of GW's rules, where you technically have Open Play, but no one ever actually runs games like that. Because when GW publishes all these codexes and campaign books that add flavorful rules - or indeed add the rules that make your army what they're supposed to be - it's basically impossible to convince people to just play using the unit datasheets/warscrolls and nothing else. Or at least it is that way when the competitive/tournament side of the fandom dominates the discourse. With OPR, the rules can literally be printed on two sides of a single sheet of paper (with additional sheets for army lists). These aren't the stripped down, beginner only rules. They're what the games are assumed to be by default, with no expectation of using more complex ones. It's the other way around from how GW does it, and the games are better for it. Using more complex rules is framed from the outset as an opt-in addition, existing for those players who really want them.

@@Bluecho4 I like how modular they are as optional rules too. You can take pretty much any combination and it still feels like a well-designed game. Even taking them all and you have a high-level tactical slog that still resolves faster than a 40k game with half the points. They're bringing out their version of stratagems as an optional rule soon. GW stratagems are awful but OPR might hit gold if they can make them digestible enough to learn your opponents within a few minutes

Yeah, when you have that much of the market share, you don't need to change. I've actually been impressed with their simpler rulesets through the Barnes & Noble exclusives like Blitz Bowl and Fire Team. Also entry-level prices at $50.

On top of that, i agree the 40k ruleset is just too complex for me to enjoy. I just want to roll dice with my mates. Games now take way too long.

Yeah, I think you'll like the ease and quick play of OPR--and you can use your current minis!

Luckily for you, Grimdark Future has an army list for "Dark Elf Raiders" waiting for you.

Also for those of you not in the know, if OPR invents an army that they're selling, expect it to be overpowered.

That's GGGG

*EDIT: [critical remark about how OPR can get off track with similar delineations of otherwise good TTRPG endeavors.]

@@thingsmac I've been playing now for 2 months.. Firstly, the games way better than Warhammer at this point particularly since there is a unit calculator so if you want to rebalance the game you get to do it at your own whim. I don't think the unit balance is particularly much much better than GW anyway but slightly better, there is definitely wonkiness however I don't play competitively, I don't care much about meta gaming and I'm only playing on a casual narrative games with some campaign mechanics so for the price it serves me well. Anyway the files are dirt cheap and have been 70% off for the past 3 months for patreons.. if I don't like a rule it can be easily changed, don't like the balance? Rewrite the army list, want to add something I think is missing? Easy peasy.. I think it's a much more modular and fun system. I'm also enjoying the GF 2.5 version balance and I think think they are heading in the right direction.

@@DeusMachina71 Yeah, I didn't do all these aspects justice in my comment. Ya'll are the majority enjoying the game, as you should and I'm glad. I got kind of traumatized by spending so much time & effort into collaborating an WFB army, and after the better part of a year when it was finally g2g tabletop- GW vaporized the system, leaving us with no game and no balance system at all. (When that's the standard, it is pretty easy to beat, but doesn't belong in that conversation- yet (and I truly hope NEVER)). 9th Age was a response to that madness, which found GW making FALSE PROMISES ON RECORD like that players would always be able to use their current bases in the new edition, and that rules would be provided for free. At one point you needed 2 or 3 books and had to be a semi-scholor to get your head around the fast-moving changes which I don't need to go into. But 9th- the savior of the system, brought a TEAM together to then bring the WORLD together and preserved the GW system "with just a few tweaks to ensure balance, but nothing major would ever be changed". I loved 9th for the rich depth of WFB 8th that they kept going, to facilitate the World Team Championships and keep the rules free- and most of all balanced, so that things would never, ever take a heart-breaking down-turn again. THAT'S what 9th age is about. Until they weren't. There is no accountability, besides a forum which is a nerf gun, for the categorical FALSE PROMISES that have been coming out of the 9th leadership. I mean ON-RECORD, over-affirming statements of "NO FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES". Army I follow: Ratmen. Let's check out where the army is now, with changes since the original edition: - ARMY WIDE DROP IN TOUGHNESS - CHANGED LORE FROM MOST CHAOTIC, TO "ROMAN ARMY" THEME (??????????) - THE ARMY HAS MORPHED SO MUCH IT WAS ALMOST UNRECOGNIZABLE When you literally barely recognized an army you played/followed for the better part of a decade, and 4 editions leave it looking like that lady from Hollywood with the perminantly swollen face & lips from too many plastic surgeries- and the BEDROCK of the gaming system is that "NO FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES" would occur (there's not one thing that hasn't fundamentally changed- the point adjustment didn't even reflect the Toughness loss, lol). So I'm realizing this is a theme, and the theme is PRIDE. I feel that after BLESSING THE WORLD with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Peter Jackson got such an ego he went far beyond being an amazing reproducer of the father of modern fantasy's work- and debased the Hobbit in such a sacreligious way I could imagine ALL of the Inklings being speechless. From the fond book written for his children, Peter twisted the storyline into a half-baked love story that begins when a dwarf prompts an elf to put her hand down his pants. The storyline of the final movie delineated so much to involve this character I legitimately wonder if the Battle of 5 Armies- the crowning pinnacle of Tolkein's Hobbit- didn't see less screne time on fight scenes because of the sideward storyline Jackson tripped out and took people on. Enter One Page Rules. My original comment was critical of a red flag, but first I need to say I appreciate them & support the designer. I am grateful for his work, which he has worked hard to bring to us and has broken ground so well. But the red flags are going up, and he if he can be prevented form going sideways because of my comments, that's good for everyone. What's the red flag? Well, I think GW too too much creative liberty essentially making a 40k force a fantasy one. They were thirsy for new ideas that broke the mold of the fantasy genre and isolated their own IP. So flying dwares happened- not just "I've got a flying machine" cute gyrocopter stuff from the DaVinci era that could have happened- I mean airships and guns. A little steam-punk, ok- though it stretched the fantasy genre because... look at the flying bomber, that's a 'fantasy' stretch, especially since they are basically more advanced than 40k orks with guns and flying bombers. I appreciate the creative licence our man Ferran took with OPR, but I'm conscious of a paradigm. That is: 1) an army is 100% made by him (ok, cool, but), 2. it seems overpowered (which forces anyone who wants true balance to at least involve some units), 3. He's profiting from the sale of the army, which is unique and only available through his channels. There's a 4th thing, which cued me into something amiss: the army is not really fantasy at all- it's in Age of Fantasy though. WHen you have 40k warriors still driving beefy motorcycles, this 'fantasy' army is using flying drones with automatic weapons, fully robotic warriors & mounts, and even self-repairing technology in the robots. This isn't a ;burring' of a line between fantasy and sci-fi- it's unapologetically crossing it. It leaves me fearing OPR will grow, lest this pattern grow anymore when it needs to reverse (and there's a way he can practically do that, I believe). So the two issues again are the power-product creep, which ruins GW for anyone that wants to follow without having to buy new things to stay competitive. And there's the quiet, subtle pride (which none of us are immune to!) that grows in the light of success. It's a confidence that forgets it's humble origins, and crosses lines that it never intended to. GW started is Citadeal Miniatures, desiring to bless people more than they shook them up. 8th started out with noble ambitions, but they became everything they adamantly were opposed to (and can't be honest with themselves about it). Peter Jackson pissed off a lot of people and straight up ended off less respected than when he thought he'd re-write the world that took Tolkien a lifetime, with precious feedback from decent God-fearing men. And I see Ferran's SINCERE efforts getting too much uncontrolled momentum and his baby child is being favorited (at least to my perception, though he agreed with me on that to his credit- the balance with them) and I fear that not only is the army going to be hated, but people ultimately can't rely on the system when creators forget the humble origins. It's not easy, man it's a lot of labor of love- and he gives the rules away for free, and is SO dedicated. OPR is in my opinion the best TT wargame out there for fantasy/sci-fi lovers, But we're fantasy & sci-fi lovers, and if we want a system we can confident rely on, our dear Creator friend needs to step back and relax a bit, and be humble to the origins that are threatened by power-creep, and sci-fi/fantasy blur.

there's lots of videos about why Warhammer fantasy was killed off by GW. I think the reason it was killed off is because after you learn the game, if you don't play for a couple months, you forget half of the rules and have to start over .lol

Do you know that One Page Rules has a rank and flank game called Age of Fantasy: Regiments? I have never played it but you might want to look into it as an alternative.

I think this happens because GW is motivated primarily by profits which determines which armies get attention. I don't know when Tau are going to get any love from GW.

@@gaminggeek241 That's exactly my point. OPR just releases all the rules for every faction all at once. They don't go "well we just made this new jackal faction, better make them better than everyone else then nerf them after everyone's bought them."

@@thingsmac You’ve been kinda spamming the same messages while still being vague and seemingly confused on what factions fit into which game, care to elaborate?

@@tfan2222 I'm critical of robots, drones, auto-repairing machine animals being alleged to be in the fantasy genre when these things didn't exist until my lifetime and still don't even exist. There are less advanced things in the 40k universe. When the genres get so blurred that armies supposedly from medeival times and tens of thousands of years in the future are are so similar you have to double check- it blurs the genres and they essentially become meaningless- it may as well all be sci-fi. If you don't know what faction I'm referring to, just check out the AoF rules (it's not like it's a lot of pages!), it sounds like you're not too familiar with them maybe? I really respect the creator of this gaming system though, and I prefer it for any wargame for sure. It's not perfect, but it is pointing in the right direction and has great intentions. It's quite the achievment and I know the designer puts a lot of effort into it.

Grimdark Future: Firefight is the OPR sci-fi skirmish game, and has a Gang Wars supplement (not at all expensive) and some "Gangs of Hive City" army lists.

Yeah, I think it's crazy that whoever gets the first turn can win like that--might as well just roll the initiative dice and stop at that!

@@gaminggeek241 Tau has won a GT by not playing a traditional gun line their know for . Early 2022 Tau are getting a new codex , can we say "gun lines" are coming back ? GW is giving into the noisy ones with new model line up also

Honestly, the "game" part of 40K is probably its weakest element. (That, and the current approach of uncritically perpetuating a fascist worldview in a fictional universe that stopped portraying the fascism as satire years ago, and started depicting the actual fascist elements in the setting as heroes. But that's another matter entirely.)

I wish I could like this video twice!

No but I want to try it--looks really fun.

I bought them on Amazon--link in the descriptions.

I think the Same, but i Love it! And Theres Always houserules...

Have you played it?

Yes, absolutely! Which armies do you have painted up?

@@gaminggeek241 I have two different Battle Brothers armies, a Human Defense Force army, a Battle Sisters army, working on an High Elf Fleet army and a Wood Elf army for Age of Fantasy.

@@WardudeProxies Wow, you have a lot of armies! I only have my lizardmen and a bunch of smaller squads for skirmishes.

@@gaminggeek241 honestly having a game that is easy to play made the army assembly portion of the hobby so much less tedious. And it's so easy to get into other armies. Before OPR if I had stuck with 40k and AoS I probably would have only ever had one maybe two armies as it's so hard to get another army going.