Here's an easy example that seperate the two: Vorthos loves the fact that arc-rifles are anti-vehicle and not anti monster, because electromagnetic gun should mess up technology. Melvin hates that monsters and vehicles are different things in the first place because that means some weapons just don't do thier job against tyrannids.
We went through this during the game Dawn of War 2 that the only Dreadnought/Wraithlord/Carnifex/Deff Dread stompy boi immune to melta bombs was the Carnifex, it was *painful* to deal with Carnis back then with Infantry, unaware with how it was on the table at the time.
Idea for a future episode, 40k tier list for ease to kitbash/convert armies with @petethewargamer as a guest host Could consider cost, skill, creative range
We need a serious, no joking life on the line discussion on the following ; -You open a restaurant in the warhammer universe, what food are you serving, what are called? And most importantly what models are your employees? Who are you serving!? Nurglings welcome! (rip hygiene rating) -Its the Olympic games!! Which models / characters / factions (spitballing) are winning which sports? Just spitballing, you guys could talk about the weather and I'd be invested! Love you guys! ❤
-a mobile caravan/pub that follows a Waaagh around to serve non-fungus beer, servers are some squats who are super proud of our beer brewing skills -olympic wrestling is dominated by the oiled up banana boys/custodes
My faborite Melvin is the Burn Through Laser from Dropfleet Commander. Really the whole game system feels amazing and has a pretty strong Vorthos feel/capability. Its weird because I love the aspects of the game but have not played for a very long time.
I love these episodes, also thanks for the podcast recommendation. I appreciate mentioning looking at the games in different perspectives. One of my problems with how some people act, when it comes to discussions, is I wish people would also compliment things that they thought the designers did well in addition to their criticism. I understand the idea of "they are designers, their job is to design things well. Why would I compliment them?" But I just think if you like the direction that someone, or a team, is moving in. Then praising the parts of their work that you enjoy is a great way to communicate what you would like to see more of in the future. That's just my little rant.
See this makes me feel a lot better. Im not an idiot for bringing my Death Company heavy Blood Angels list and losing six times to my wife, im just digging into that Vorthos/Spike aspect of me! This was a really fun episode, Poorhammer always makes the day better
I would love to see more of these!! They are pretty much my favorite things you guys have made. It's so interesting to learn about and such a different thing than what other 40k youtubers do.
Plot twist, a full dragon army in AoS (at least when the v3 stormcast codex was released) is a very very spike type list. Being able to move your dragons 12" before the movement phase and still be able to move them later was really something to say the least
For two episodes in a row now, I am falling more in love with the Vindicator. Not because it’s based on actual tanks, but because it being based on actual tanks tilts out Brad worse than ketchup on a Chicago dog.
Usually I'm just a listener, but I gotta say, these are my favorite episodes to listen too. Having you guys deep dive into mechanics is such a treat, and you are able to dumb them down even for me, someone completely blind to the game and it's mechanics. I don't play, probably wont ever due to the price of time and materials, but I love hearing your breakdowns on all things Poorhammer. Thanks for bringing us this awesome content.
Even before the episode started I was debating sending a joke email complaining about the objective markers, really disguising a compliment. But then to hear that the community helped you have a better week was really nice Brad. Love the show, keep putting in the good work guys.
Nice! I just saw a kind of similar topic video about "oldhammer" rules (and I started with 4th Ed myself). I'd say 40k went in table sport ("Mel") direction from that time. It's not bad or good, just a change in design. I'd argue though that often there is a tradeoff between focus on rules and on immersion. If GW indeed wants to create a perfect tournament game, then maybe let's branch out a spinoff with casual but immersive top-down rulebook with all the crazy rules for weapon templates, rolling for random effects, vehicle flanking, replacing models on board, using improvised models etc. This way both gamer personas could pick the ruleset they like the most. Also the spinoff edition would need much less maintenance since it wouldn't focus on game balance.. and would of course improve sales of minis to those who stay away from tournaments (including non competitive minis). Just an idea
Always a fan of when y'all start bringing game design stuff from mtg to bear on warhammer, as a mtg player who was pulled into warhammer by friends who also play mtg (plus finding your podcast). Lots of love for the episode!
These different perspectives and priorities are a useful lens through which to understand and interpret your own enjoyment or frustrations with a game as well as those of others. Also GW should keep it in mind when doing their updates - taking away psychic and thunder hammers from Grey Knights absolutely kills them from ALL of these perspectives (Timmy, Johnny, Spike, and also Vorthos/Melvin).
I do like hearing about the terminology used in these things, whether it's community-wide (such as everyone knowing what a FNP save was shorthand for even in 8-9Ed) or specific to a group (such as Vorthos & Melvin in this case). It's absolutely entertaining.
Stupid but the reason I didn't click on the video is because of the image. Even though 40K is in the title, I didn't recognize the art and thought it was too much like MTG and probably off-topic. Boye was I wrong! Great episode I learned so much :)
My first ever hearing of Melvin and Vorthos. Still may not entirely understand, there's a couple scenarios that I don't know what these would be categorized as: -Abaddon the Despoiler, all his bonuses are things Terminators already have, yet he leads terminators. Seems like a waste. -Deathwatch arguably being better/able to do more things in Space Marine Codex detachments than their own index.
I think people who are both Low Vorthos and Low Melvin but still participate in games are probably primarily motivated by the social aspect of Games - they might not particularly care about the game itself, but they like using it as an reason to get together and hang out with friends. I think it tends to be most common amongst socially driven Timmy players and I see it a lot with my boardgamer friends and some "beer and pretzels"-type TTRPG players.
Remember Kharn the Betrayer in 8th? He hit on a 2+ in melee, regardless of modifiers, but he couldn't reroll 1s and any roll of a 1 hit a random friendly nearby. You could send him out alone, BUT he gave a potent buff (reroll hits) to any friendlkes in his melee range. I'm going to call this Vorvin, or maybe Melthos- a perfect synergy of rules and theme. Kharn's as lethal in melee combat as you'd expect from a warrior with 10,000 years of experience, but he doesn't particularly care WHO he kills as long as somebody's dying. Despite his habit of killing friendlies, he's skilled enough to always have followers willing to accompany him into battle.
Honourable mention to the 9e AdMech codex for being an arcane nightmare of overlapping buffs that the players ourselves couldn't understand let alone our opponents, where list-building was performed via the medium of "this other AdMech player did it and it worked, so just trust them and copy it even if you don't understand the principles yourself." I couldn't imagine anything more fitting for the AdMech.
I dont know if anyone else feels like this but i started out 40k as a Timmy, but got a bit annoyed at how i wasn't good at all at the game and kept getting stomped, so i focused more on painting and embraced the Aesthetic Part of the hobby more, pivoting toward Combat Patrol and Kill Team to keep the lid on the mechanical can. One day I'll Dial up the Mechanics Appreciating but for now, Lore, Nice Models (eventually) and being a Timmy (I love my Canoptek Doomstalker like a son)
I am high Vorthos and mid to high Mel, I need to love the aesthetic and the rules. That high Vorthos is about the only thing keeping me in 40k but it's battletech that tickles them both
And last comment regards the WoW vs Final Fantasy 14...we know from leaks that WoW dipped to just under 1 million subscribers during the whole BFA/Shadowlands era whilst FF14 shot up to 1.4 million subscribers and was WoWs dethroning moment when it lost the 'World number 1 MMO' crown. As for whether it recovered with Dragonflight, I don't know.
Talking about the Rhino, I felt that with the fact that none of my Rubrics realistically physically fit in my Chaos Rhino, yet the Chaos Rhino can fit 10 of them in the rules.
Anti-vorthos anti-melvin is the good old classic league of legends/counter strike player. "I hate this stupid game" being the most common phrase you can hear from them, yet they still play it.
I don't actually have anything substantial or meaningful to comment, I just want to add engagement to the video because I like this style of video and want to see more. RU-vid pleasantries 👍
Do those Magic cards actually exist or did the guys do some kind of editing fancy stuff to make them? Cause I kinds want that Spike card to give to my friend
Timmy, Johnny, Spike, and Vorthos all have cards. Melvin's hasn't been made yet. They do a new one with every Un-set, so you're probably another 3-4 years out from Melvin.
A perfect way to describe Vortho for me is with how Custodian Dreadnoughts are worse than space marine ones. The banana boys are supposed to have the best and cleanest tech in the whole imperium, yet theor Dreads only move 6, while SM redemptors move 8. Also worse stat lines.... You mean to tell me a walking coffin with guns is worse than a mechanised mausoleum of gold swinging a spear with the grace of a thousand ballet dancers?
"Melvin and Vorthos aren't faction specific." 10e Sisters of Battle is like Melvin being strapped down and having his balls electrocuted until he dies. Check out the character synergies with the squads they can join.
ahhhhh, Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, that game was a shitshow on release. I remember when a designer said that in an interview before the games release and kind of poisoned the release for a large part of the community. Especially damning considering that his answer was given basically in response to the question "Why does the game not include many older fan favourite characters?". Like he just couldn't understand that the franchise began with capcom characters and x-men characters, so fans wanted to see x-men characters come back into the game. Doesn't matter that other characters basically inherited movesets from those characters, they're not the x-men so people felt unfulfilled by it. Their opinion of "mechanics matter first" ended up influencing the development and left the game kind of looking like shit too.
@@frankie-leighcollins7291 little bit, there’s a lot of controversy behind it, but I heard it was found they lost the rights to the X-men but couldn’t say it, or something like that. I have nothing to substantiate that claim though
@@suspecthalo Oh, there was almost definitely a rights issue! I completely forgot about that shit until you mentioned it. The Deadpool game began disappearing from digital stores a few years prior because it featured X-Men characters and other digitally available games that had X-Men in them also were removed from online store fronts, which I believe mostly affected Activision but it's not a stretch to imagine it affected other companies. Previous MvC titles are still available but it likely affected MvC:I as well. I guess my issue is that it's really strange that while they can't say anything openly about it, why choose to fully tell a fanbase that they just don't know what they want? Rather than giving a vague non-committal answer and moving on?
My vorthos is very irritated that my cool cyborg space Marines don't have their feel no pain anymore so they don't feel especially durable. Melvin is also mad that our cool cyborg leader dude only gets his feel no pain if he's in a unit. But then loses his ability to have lone operative if he's by a vehicle so it's a total nonbo
and this is why im angry that the custodes, the faction built up by main characters with lore specifically talking about how names is like medals to them, only have 3 named characters you can run when including the sister
I'm just gonna take the chance to complain about a Data sheet that pisses me off in BOTH ways: Vashtorr. You release this sick new character with the best introductory lore a Chaos character has ever gotten, heroes journey him and everything (which is quite impressive for a being whose sense of time is eternalist). You give him one of the most impressive models ever, set him up against a rather important character, overprice the single release so you can rake out the money out of anyone who wants him... And then, in both 9th and 10th, give him a datasheet that just fails to tickle anyone. Why is he as powerful as a regular demon prince? He managed to give Belakor a hard time. Why is his only gun an ok Flamer and not a sick ass melta? Why doesn't the being that Fixed and Upgraded Abbadon's ship, a thing so powerful and old that it has lasted since the Horus Heresy through the largest battles in the setting, NOT HEAL MODELS!? Why is his Machine disruption ability only really affecting the target's melee capabilities? Why is he just a big ol becon of shoot me in the face with little protection when he is a support character? Why is he a support character when his main means of attacking is in close range? Why is his nerfing ability only good at 18" when again, he is support, he isn't gonna move often? Why is he 190 pts when he sucks? There are just so many things wrong for everyone involved. I hope he gets a heavy rework in the codex.
Something that the Melvin part of me loves and the Vorthos part of me hates as a Astra, militarium player is the Lord solar leontis. He is amazing on the table top! But why is he as strong as a custodes??? He's just a dude on a horse!
Recently had a game where everyone had to stop and realize that the highest toughness unit in our Ork player's list was the Beastboss on Squigosaur (T10), when that list had Ghaz (T6) and deffdreads, buggies, and planes all at T9. This highlighted how every player at the table was pretty Vorthos and confused and upset at this one number in a codex. Why does the naked man on a pig require higher-quality ordinance than the mega-armored iron man ork or the mech suits?
@@CMTechnica I feel like the mistake with Ghaz was having him lead meganobz. That seems to be why they gave him a 6 toughness. Offense wise he's very strong and can wound any datasheet on a 2+ but yeah his toughness just doesn't make sense.
Id like to raise the argument that Admech in 9th having loads of total excessively complicated nonsense going on mechanically, is at a meta level very lore integrated
I miss 9th... Admech really felt like you were tweaking all these little gears and cogs to make your machine army run efficiently. Now it's just a lever with 2 positions.
I fully, genuinely agree. That was extremely fun and made games unique, and then they gutted the entire army identity in tenth to add simplicity the game already had. They were red guard
100% Ad Mech were SO much fun last edition, everything but one model was viable and could do it's job. Giving skitarii a 2+ armor save wasn't even the worst of it, you could also make them ignore AP -1 and -2
My time being the most annoyed about rules not matching lore is how when the Boarding actions game mode was announced as a T'au player I can not take a Coldstar Commander. The Coldstar suit was designed specifically for void warfare and boarding actions in the Farsight books.
Not a Tau player but that would piss me off. Like if Terminators couldn’t be used in boarding actions… when that’s literally what the biggest terminator based spin off was about
Something else with Tau that annoys the crap out of me is how way of the short blade has always been treated. Farsight is specificly mentioned as training his subordinates in close quarters combat and with the exception of 9th it's always a better ranged buff because Tau arent allowed to melee
the most baffling and hilarious part of that is (I assume) you could take farsight himself, yeah? in his personal modified, upgraded coldstar suit? like, normal coldstar suits like the one farsight used in his first book to literally board a battle barge? nah, but farsight in his specific coldstar? A-OK.
I love that the no melee is also something that everything that plays against the t'au hates about them, they should definitely be weak in melee and the best shooting army.. I guess Kroot will come to the rescue?@@cipher4e
i fucking love your podcast, you guys and adeptus ridiculous are life fuel when i have nothing to do, y'all can't even comprehend how much more fun cleaning or cooking becomes once i have these bad boys in my headphones
Duuuude are we living the same life? 😆 i am so glad to hear someone else watches/listen to both my favourite channels while cooking/doing stuff haha Take care mate ~
@games-wz7sz It's my disability too and has been joked about on the show before. I'm sorry if the joke hurt your feelings, but this seems a pretty selective time to be upset about it, given we're on a channel that has had similar jokes in its content.
@games-wz7sz So if you have problems with that content too, then legitimately, why are you even here? Christ on a cross, if something has content that offends your sensibilities, you can just leave dude. I can't believe I have to explain this, but every action online is a social contract and you can- at any point- revoke consent to engage and head out if you don't like it. You are the one in charge of what you do/see. But making a big deal out of it when you continue to be here too is just for attention and virtue signaling, let's be honest here. Do you, man. I wasted enough time on this discussion.
@@games-wz7sz Hold up. When in the actual fuck did I compare autistic people to animals?! You put that in there, chief. Fuckin hell, I'm starting to think you're just projecting.
This really helped me understand my conflicting feelings on T'au in 10th. On Melvin side, I really dig the whole ftgg rule and how it makes the army more strategic, units working together, focus firing and not just 'shoot at whatever until everyone is dead'. On Vorthos side, however, It is really frustrating to look at 90% of 'deadly T'au guns' and realise how underwhelming their profiles are. Dealing damage by quantity and not quality of shots, really makes you feel like a slightly better imperial guard
Your T-sons argument hit exactly right with codex CSM and our system of relics, warlord traits, god marks and legions where you could make units that suited your legion perfectly and had a good use case in game along with having enough of a fun factor to encourage mixing it up And then we got hit with 10th and my beloved iron warriors have recently hit the shelf until we get a codex that enables play that isn't just a shitzlion chosen
I kept hoping Brad would just substitute "[THIS]" after a while. It's how the rules work behind the scenes, so it would be appropriate. Especially for a bottom-up design example.
Funfact: There's a lore explanation for the rhino thing. In either Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work or the first Dawn of Fire novel (after a while these books sort of blend together in my mind) Cawl mentions that one of the reasons the Primaris technology (not the marines, but, like, all their new tanks and guns that he also designed) is so much better is he did not hobble himself by taking backwards compatibility with previous marine tech into account when designing it -- he made up all new, all-better tech for everything and used it exclusively. So even though they can fit inside, they can't interface with the new targeting or command-and-control elements. Basically he made up a new wifi standard and invented Apple's Lightning connector, and all the oldmarine stuff uses conventional wifi encoding and USB. Primaris Marines can't ride in rhinos because they can't connect to the wifi or even plug in manually.
A pretty fun episode, and an interesting perspective. Though with them coming from MtG, I feel like the fancy names obscure the fact that this is just a rehash of fluff vs. crunch, at least the way they are usually seen in 40k. If you just talked about how fluffy or crunchy things are, it would be more familiar to WH.
Something that really stimulates the Melvin portion of my brain is when an effect has a good *downside* in addition to its benefit. It creates tradeoffs, choices, and opponent interactions. It's why I generally prefer shroud and ward over hexproof as mechanics.
I appreciate you using the Clue character in Magic-themed cosplay as the stand-in for "mechanically interesting, not necessarily flavorful" player profile.
Around 15:00 you guys mentioned LVO. Will we get an episode of you guys covering it? Would have love to see your guys reaction of why and how Necrons won the tournament.
We talked about it yesterday, but Eric only watched some Saturday games and the big box cars moment from the finals and by the time we record and release an episode about it most people would have moved on from caring. It's the problem with our schedule. It's just a better topic for others to cover. I will say unrelated to the games: letting Joe cover the finals is a huge win over past years where the coverage for the last rounds would suddenly take a nose dive as WGL wasn't allowed to cover them.
As a designer by trade, having more design-centered episodes makes me think like I'm working *a bit* when I'm slacking off having an hour long painting break and listening to Poorhammer while working from home - so keep those coming!
ooh yah, Im definitely leaning towards top-down vorthos.....custom chapter = terror birds! budgies, cockatiels, cockatoos! need fast movers, flying things...BIRDS. FInd a theme, then make it work. LOL
In the Timmy/Johny/Spike video I incorrectly said giving Knights backstories is Johny. It's actually almost all Vorthos. All of my Knights have names, both the pilot and machine. I know roughly what world type each of their home planets is. If I run them as chaos, I know why each of them fell, usually because another Knight tempted them. If you don't name your Knights, you ain't playing them rights!
I don't like Warhammer 40K as either a game or a setting, and yet am still listening to this podcast. :) (I do enjoy the visual aesthetic of many models, and *used* to play the game, so your point is still valid.) Vorthos vs Mel seems to be measuring many of the same values that Narativist/Simulationist/Gamist measures in role-playing games, just on a slightly different perspective. (Mel would seem to be the overlap between sim/gamist, but Corthos and Narativist seem to map together very well.) That sort of game design theory is super interesting to me, so I'm happy you did this episode.
Yu-Gi-Oh straddles the Melvin-vorthos line great (for the most part (looking at you, Valmonica)): each different archetype has a very specific mechanic/game plan that fits the theming and aesthetic design of the cards! For example, the sushi archetype is one rice monster and a number of topping monsters, who can be searched with menus, and all of the boss monsters in the deck are made with different combinations of topping+rice.
I tried being a Vorthos in a semi serious tournament. Full destroyer cult (before codex), absolutely zero non-destroyer cult models on the field. I got wiped out by the same list (Necron lychguard death star unit pre codex) twice in a row. It wasn't fun to play against and I wasn't having fun with my list. So, I decided to just stick to playing as a Melvin. I am now bringing 100 necron warriors to the field because I find it funny and the last guy I played against got angry that warriors are busted (Codex). I don't know what I am, I just exist to anger people and play not guard. I will be playing this list in a team tournament with an admech player as my partner. It's the same thing in nearly every wargame I have ever played. Tried to build a lore friendly list for World Eaters in 30k, got smashed by a few dreads. I am now saving money to fill my WE list with angry robo paraplegics. HoS mortals, I'll look around to see what other warbands say what each unit is supposed to do. I got beat by trolls, I will now flood the board with arrow ladies with gimps. Am I a revenge player? Am I just salty that I can't into list building? Am I just insane? I don't know nor care. I've already spent $300 dollars on a Word Bearers list where it's nothing but evil plasma cannons. Who knows what it'll turn into when I get beat, maybe it'll be an alternate time line where the Word Bearers thought tanks were cool and Logar was a Christian nun.
Its unfortunate that, while they managed to get some good flavor wins in the crusade rules, Admech at large fails from both the Vorthos and Melvin side of things in 10th edition. The statlines and rules on display largely fail to convey much of the aesthetic of the army. I think the fact that they failed on both fronts really underlies Admech players' frustrations this edition. They can't even fall back on "well at least it feels like Admech". On the Vorthos side, GW describes them the imperium's "premiere shooting army"... but their cyborg troops with lenses for eyes shoot no better than a guardsman. Their melee specialists, who are body-horror'ed to slice away unnecessary parts of the brain and enhance aggression... also hit on 4s in melee, and without any army rule to say "well you can't let them have 2+s". And with underwhelming Damage and AP, their weaponry fails to deliver on the concept of being weird, arcane, or "the best stuff they keep for themselves". No explanation is attempted for why so many rules require Skitarii Vanguard/Rangers to stand near a unit in order to fully use the unit's rules. Are they carrying Wi-fi routers? Are Pteraxii better at operating a flamethrower when there's some ground troops standing around giving them emotional support? Do Sulphurhounds need their friends to say "go get em champ" before charging to fully activate their Linebreakers ability? (though this is an example of an ability that matches their design, if you take away the requirement). And from the Melvin side, these positioning requirements call for strange setups, like outriders, jump-pack deep-strikers, and infiltrators, all of whom should be your way of moving around the board making things happen, all having to stand near footslogging infantry to really take advantage of their special rules.
If they ever do allow Rhinos to be taken with Primaris, you will never want to put them in a different transport again. They are too cost efficient and hold so much stuff (which is the primary role of an IFV) that they make the other options look silly. I think its telling that new hotness just likes to strap on more gun while invalidating its original combat role and adds flavor to Primaris being big idiots with no real combat experience who like to bull head their way through problems thinking their technology and physiology will just win the day.
I feel like this is the episode that finally helped me wrap my head around Vorthos and Melvin - they were always a little tricky for me. I think detachments offer an interesting split between Vorthos and Melvin. When the Gladius Task Force was first announced, a lot of people complained that they “Didn’t want to play Ultramarines”. But there was a Melvin part of me that really liked the idea that you could run one detachment this week, and then run the same list in a different detachment the next, especially in Crusade. It may lose that fluffy aspect that every chapter has their own immutable unique rules, but it does a lot to make your army feel adaptable, willing to change their strategy to best meet the needs of a situation.
It's actually better this way, because SM chapters are supposed to be adaptable. They may have their preferences when it comes to tactics, but they still train in all types of warfare, because not every battlefield situation is suited for their favorite tricks. The Ultramarines simply specialize in being generalists.
As a tyranid player who started collecting in 9th but only played in 10th, i gotta say that both the vorthos and melvin part of my brain despise my choice of army.. GW is really trying to convince me that this big hive mind universal menace cant kill shit and is only good at doing secondary objectives with a total lack of combos in the datasheet.
I think 40k has transitioned from a top down to bottom up philosophy for designing the new rules and armies. Bit disappointing since the lore is such a huge part of everything.
This is super interesting to me, its always fun to analyze why we like or play certain things. I definitely have big aspects of Vorthos, lore is a driving force for why I pick my factions. Initially when I first got into 40k ages ago it was before Gorgon was fleshed out and I just made my own custom Hive Fleet that would have slotted in fine there with tons of poison all over the place. In fact most of the time when I find a faction I'm interested in I'll think up my own subfaction with its own quirks and then listbuild around that, its just the most fun way to engage for me. Think the only two times I haven't done that was my ancient nascent Necron list that was based around one dynasty or another and Space Marines. Salamanders are just the coolest thing to me already, so no need to make my own I suppose. I don't really lean into Mel all that much, unless it hits my really specific niche of gameplay. I LOVE debuffs and DoT style play, so that's always a hard draw no matter what. The whole plague and debilitating enemies thing got me super interested in Death Guard, when I never really cared about them as a faction before from their lore. It's why I'm kind of mixed on 10th edition the more I look into it. On the one hand detachments make it super easy to build a custom subfaction, and pick the rules that match it without being tied to the lore that subfaction might have had beforehand, but the lack of unit customization hurts the ability to really dig into the details and sell the theme or lore built up for that creation. It's like being able to take first step but then hitting a wall.
This was really interesting. I wasn't familiar with this concept before. I have to give a shoutout to Flesh and Blood TCG. If you guys are disillusioned with MTG, you should absolutely check out Flesh and Blood. It does an amazing job of having the mechanics tell the story of the character. Rangers load arrows before launching them. Ninjas have quick but weak attacks. Guardians do one huge overwhelming attack with mechanics that prevent you from blocking properly. The newest set comes out in about 2 weeks and it's looking to be my favorite set yet.
Legend of Five Rings attempted to include an ongoing story with the new sets. Characters would get stronger (warning: trap mechanic) or switch clans depending on how tournaments went. It was an interesting idea but, at least around me, it never became popular enough to easily be able to grab singles and make it work.
When I first got into Magic Arena thanks to some friends, I remember seeing the archetype avatars and going "hey, I know those guys." Then I saw the unfamiliar Vorthos, thought "who's this chick in yellow? She seems lame." And then I carried on with my monoblack skeleton necromany deck with lots of antergy because I like skeletons and thinks it's cool and flavorful
It's been a long time since I played magic, but they have skeletons now? I always ran zombies in my monoblack necromancy deck, but skellymen are way cooler.
I've noticed some people are vorothos and/or melvin with their own faction, but don't extend that to other people's factions. Like a Custode player that hates that abberents are super durable or a thousand sons player who says that neophytes post nerf are "broken" People don't just have opinions on their own faction. They have opinions on yours too. For some people, for their faction to be special, yours can't be. Thankfully, they're not the ones balancing lol
I had a guy once telling me that, for the "health and narrative of the game", Guardsmen and other human units should be moved to Toughness 2, so that Marines can be truly superior. Really makes you happy the community isn't making the game, sometimes.
