40K Friday - Mayhem Pack Complete

I finally finished up the trio of helbrutes that forms the Mayhem pack for my Iron Warriors. Each is painted somewhat differently, but I think they look they still belong to the same force. They have some custom bases (to help them stand out), with snow (to help them blend in with the rest of the snow-themed army) and while I don;t think these pictures quite do them justice it'll have to do.

Nothing like deep-striking multiple crazed chaos dreadnoughts into the enemy backfield to stir up some trouble. I may get to field them in their final state as soon as this Sunday.

"Unplayable" RPG's

I've been listening to a podcast that talks about old RPG's and it's been pretty entertaining both with games I know well and games I passed by. I'll talk more about them later but one thing that comes up in some of the conversations is "unplayable". I'm not going to pick on them specifically because I hear it all over the place. The recent listening just brought it to top of mind and I decided to discuss it in a post.

A strong "get off my lawn rant" advisory is now in effect. 

First, let's talk about what people mean when they describe a game this way. To me it really breaks down into two categories:

• Literally, mechanically unplayable - I mostly hear this from younger gamers describing older games. I suspect it's more "I looked at it and looked too complicated for me to enjoy so I went no further with it" or "I've heard stories about it". I personally have yet to find a game that is literally "unplayable".
• Complicated to the point that it's not worth playing, especially when there are alternative games available that cover a similar niche - this is far more common and it's how I feel about quite a few games out there. Really, it's more "not as enjoyable" rather than "unplayable". 

I make this distinction because every so often I hear a game dispatched as "unplayable", sometimes with a bonus of sneering attitude to go with it, which happens to be a game I've played or run for an extended period of time. This of course immediately puts the lie to the "unplayable" description. 

Somewhere along the internet's lifespan theoryhammer/theorycrafting became in some people's minds as valid a set of thoughts about a game as actual experience. Someone looks at the math of the game and declares it unworkable. Someone finds a rule with some kind of logic flaw in it and declares the entire game invalid as a result. 

It's bullshit.

RPG's have never been "here's a book - do everything exactly as it is written here." Never. Different people have interpreted things differently, modified rules into something they liked better, and added new rules to cover something they felt was missing or underrepresented. 

A typical response to this from the non-players is something like "well sure if you start changing the rules it works" - no! It probably "worked" just fine before! I'm changing the rules because I think it works better!

Another common cry: "Why should I pay for it if I have to modify the rules to make them work". If that's your attitude you probably shouldn't! In fact if that's your attitude I'm not sure you should be playing RPG's at all! I don't say that to be some kind of snob - I say it because it's a just part of what people do with  these kinds of games!

Let's get into some specifics:

• Rifts - I regularly hear when the game comes up about how it's "unplayable". I ran a game for over a year, pretty much by the book. Core book plus whatever add-ons struck our fancy. yes, the rules are clunky and sometimes inconsistent. Yes I think the new Savage Worlds version is going to be a much better experience for most people. By no means though is it "unplayable".
• Shadowrun: one of the things 4th edition SR touted was the new "better" task resolution system that made it much easier to figure the odds of success compared to the older editions where it was "almost unplayable". Seriously? One of the most popular RPG's of the 90's was "almost unplayable". I played in and ran multiple campaigns through 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions and we typically thought the system was damned innovative at the time. 
• Twilight 2000: I was surprised when I ran across "unplayable" applied to this game online last year. When games like Aftermath exist? T2K 1st and 2nd are fairly simple games really. 1E is a percentile skills system not unlike BRP games and 2E simplifies it down from ratings of 1-100 to 1-10. Sure, you'd better like playing with military hardware as that's one of the attractions of the game, but there's nothing particularly complex about either one. Again I have played and run multiple campaigns in both versions so it's completely playable if you're interested.
• Champions: "Combat takes so long, characters are so complicated, it's just unplayable" - one of the pillars of superhero gaming, something we played a bunch when we were 13 years old and  somehow figured out even though we didn't have the internet to explain things to us is now described by people at times as "unplayable". Please. 
• GURPS: I actually saw GURPS described as "unplayable" online in the last month. It's not my favorite game anymore but "unplayable"? Sure you have a lot of choices when making a character but once your character is finished the game mechanics are pretty simple. It's 3d6 roll low! For almost everything! I assume this is mostly because it has a bunch of thick hardbacks for rules, despite the fact that you won't be using more than a few of them in most campaigns. 
• Aftermath: Exhibit A for the classic over-complicated games of the 80's. I own it  - it's playable, it just not much fun IMO. Heck, it has a flowchart to show you how the mechanics work! Actually it has several of them. "Not something I want to play" is not "unplayable.

Even AD&D gets this nowdays - "This game is a mess, how did anyone play this?" - well, we read it, used our brains, and figured it out. 

"Weapon speeds?" - not in first edition.

"Grappling?" - not usually. We used some replacement system form an issue of Dragon.

"Level limits" - sure. Multiclassing was cool.

"AH-HA! So you just ignored the parts of the game that didn't work!" - Pretty much. We still do. There are parts of ICONS that I mostly ignore, and that's a pretty simple very modern system. That doesn't make it a bad game or, god forbid, "unplayable". It means we modify something we already like to make it better in our eyes. Like people do with clothes. Like people do with cars.  Why is this so shocking to some people? Are they under the impression there's a trophy for following the book as written? Have you seen the errata documents for most big RPG books?

Does this really look all that complicated?
Boring, sure, but complicated?

This usually happens though after we have played the game as written a few times.  Not before we ever play a game. Not after we play it once. After 3 or 4 sessions though you have a fair idea of how your group works with a game and what might be better for your group. The games I discuss on this blog are almost always a game I am running, a game I have run in the past, or a game I am about to run - there's a reason for that. I'm not terribly interested in opinions about a game from someone that's never played or run it so I try not to do that. I'm much more interested in practical experiences. 

As one example Savage Worlds suffers from the "let's change stuff after reading the rules once" problem quite a bit.  It mainly seems to happen with people whose only other experience is with some form of D&D, but that's not a strict rule. Someone comes into a forum or a Facebook group and announces how much they like the game and they have a couple of genius changes that they're going to use. Inevitably they've played once and something fluky happened or they haven't actually played at all yet. SW players tend to be a friendly lot but the usual response is "OK, but you may want to try it by the book rule a little longer before you change it." You want to know why? because the game has been around with only minor changes for 15 years now and it works. It works very well for fast playing pulpy RPG campaigns. There may  be a genre-specific thing someone is trying to do and that's cool but there isn't much that needs to be tweaked in the core rules. A more common problem is people not understanding the rules and trying to make changes based on a misunderstanding but there are parts that are tricky to explain purely on a page so that's not always the reader's fault.  Someday Pinnacle will find the perfect way to explain the Shaken rule and we will enter a new golden age I am sure, but until then a little conversation helps explain it much easier. 

Maybe it's the guns that make all of these "unplayable"?

My closing take: no game is "unplayable". Some are harder, some are easier, some will be less fun for your group than others, and that's how it's all supposed to work! I don't have any interest in playing or running Rolemaster but I know groups that have played it for years - clearly it's not unplayable. There was a Kickstarter last year for an updated rulebook for original Deadlands and it blew my mind - why would anyone play that when Reloaded is available? Apparently quite a few people because it funded quickly and went way over the goal. 

Oops! - Nope, that's not it!

I suppose I could re-title this "a word I don't like" because that's what it boils down to. I think we can do better. 

British Runequest

Runequest 3rd Edition is mainly known as booklets in a box from Avalon Hill, at least in the US. It's also known for not being over-illustrated to be kind. It's the version I played the most back in the 80's, but there was another version released by Games Workshop in the UK.

The Avalon Hill version:

It's not terrible but it's all sparse black and white line art.


The GW version:

Also, they are hardcover books. They do have the infamous 80's GW binding which means they will come apart on you, but it's still cooler than a pink paper pamphlet.

The internal art is very different:

I'm pretty sure that's a chaos warrior from Warhammer. In fact, Warhammer's 3rd edition (where they went to hardbacks with some color inside) came out the same year as this book (1987).

 More warhammer style art.

Even the black and white art is from warhammer. This gives the book a very different look and feel than the restrained presentation of the AH version. Not all of the art is repurposed from the miniatures game but even the other pieces use a lot of the same artists and so have a similar style.

Some stay that art in an RPG doesn't really matter. I will use this as a prime exhibit that it does, The art in here appeals to the 16-year-old in me way more than the AH version. Pictures of people picking fruit or preparing food or guys in weirdly ornate armor in weird landscapes or surging in the middle of a mass battle? That's an easy choice.

I'm sure a lot of this was dictated by the decisions to separate the rules from Glorantha in this edition. once you lose a setting like that you need something strong to replace it. "Fantasy Europe" as presented was not all that compelling in the AH version. GW's unstated but definitely illustrated option of Warhammer is much much stronger. It's not as culturally developed as Glorantha, but it's a visceral world full of conflict, magic, and enough history to get a party going.

I was a little surprised at the timing on this one when I went back and checked. GW had released the Warhammer Fantasy RPG in 1986. This came out a year later. There are enough similarities that I would guess RQ was one of the games the WFRP designers had played previously, probably more so than D&D or AD&D. I'm guessing RQ was popular enough to make it worth printing a new version - especially if you could save money by re-using Warhammer art - but it had to be separate from the WFRP line due to licensing  restrictions. It's an interesting situation where one company had two fantasy RPG's in print at the same time.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting enough to share. If you're a Runequest fan they're worth checking out.

Something New for Monday: D&D Beyond

Well over the weekend some news broke about a D&D digital toolset that stirred up some excitement. The article and discussion at EN World has some interesting questions and answers. What jumped out at me:

• It's not a virtual tabletop, it's designed to enhance play at a table. OK, cool. Since we play face to face I'm more interested than if it was another VTT.
• Character builder - ok that's expected. Are 5E characters really complicated enough to need one though?
• Digital character sheet - ah, so presumably you'd be able to run your character from a tablet or a laptop, maybe even a phone. If you're going to have one of these. might as well include character creation too. Makes more sense now.
• Rules Compendium - hyperlinked rules is a handy thing to have. This is already covered to some degree by the SRD. The official one is here (and downloadable) with others here and here and here. I suppose if you're going to have a D&D application then including a rules reference makes sense too.
• "D&D news, articles, forums, and more" - I suppose it's handy to have these built into an app too but we've already had these for decades accessed through an app called an Internet Browser. I'm not sure this is really something you can tout as a special feature of an app. 

So sitting at a table with this new app on all of our devices, what do we get? We get hyperlinked rules (OK, but I already have those), a character builder, digital sheets, and a way to distract all of my players with news and forums built right in - great!

Oh yeah, Call of Cthulu - there's a game that just screams "I need a character builder" - sigh

As far as the character builder, I just don't see a huge need for one. Sure, it's D&D so someone will make one (we've been doing that since the 80's at least) but I don't think it really solves a problem - it's more of a nice to have. Compared to 3E, 4E, Pathfinder, and other games like Hero System, GURPS, and Shadowrun 5E creation is just so simple that this seems like making something because it's expected rather than a real challenge. Also considering 5E's relatively glacial pace in adding new character options it really seems like a stretch. This is not a question I have with just this app - HeroLab offers a Savage Worlds set too. I can make a SW character in 5 minutes, because they just are not that complicated. I suppose it's worth it to someone or it wouldn't exist but it does surprise me sometimes.  For D&D maybe it will be an easier way to get the Unearthed Arcana stuff out to people for playtesting and feedback for eventual inclusion in some official material, but that's the biggest benefit I can see. 

Digital character sheets are alright but I have had players using HeroLab for iPad in my Pathfinder game and they lock up at least once per session - I don't know why, they just do. My paper sheets never do, and they never run low on battery power either. I'm a fan of technology in general but I've noticed gamers in particular tend to think that adding tech to something can only make it better and sometimes that is not the case. The digital sheet is handy in games that use a lot of conditions, like D&D 4E and M&M and I can see some benefits there. Most D&D types games though ... I just don't see it. Sure, you can get an app on your tablet and use it to build and manage your character for $ every month - or you can do it on paper for about zero additional cost. Oh, you're hasted? you can use that app etc or here's a sticky note or an index card with the relevant modifiers you can hang onto.  Plus, you lose so much character with the lack of doodles in the margins, cheeto fingerprints, Dr. Pepper splashes, and pizza grease stains! 

Advanced 2050's interface by way of the 90's

I suppose I'm in a weird place for this as I'm trying to reduce the amount of device involvement at the table these days. With the M&M campaign I'm fine building a character in HeroLab but I'm back to running the game without it as much as I can. I use it as a rules reference for powers sometimes but that's about it. For Deadlands it's all about the cards and chips and miniatures on the table - I just don't need a  PC or a tablet to run it. I find physical stuff like sheets or cards that can be handed over to a player as needed- whether it's a condition, an item, or an NPC - is just more fun than one of us reading a screen to each other. 

One big exception - I'm running a lot of adventures from PDF's. I like to have physical copies of rulebooks and things the players might use but adventures are something that is really only used by the DM. I'll print out maps and any player handouts but I don't really need to print the whole adventure. It works pretty well so far for DCC, RQ, and ICONS and I figure it will expand into other games too. 

In the end, I'm not playing 5E so there's no immediate impact to me specifically, but I am interested in seeing where this goes. We will play it sooner or later and you can bet I'll be checking on the status and the business model for this tool. 

40K Friday: Traitor Legions

I'm a little late to the party on this one but better late than never, right? In case you were taking your time on this one like I was the short version is this: It's great, and if you're playing a chaos marine army in 40K you should seriously consider it. Since I'm trying to finish up my Iron Warriors -as much as any 40K army can be "finished"- I'm glad I picked it up now  as it changed the direction of my army somewhat.

So why is it worth getting?

1. It complies the information from multiple other chaos marine supplement type books (mainly Black Legion and Wrath of Magnus) so if you never bothered to pick those up - like me - then it saves you some money. Having it all in one book is nice even if you have the others too. 
2. It's mostly crunch, not fluff. If you've ever seen the Iyanden codex you'll understand why this matters. Each legion gets about a page of backstory and then we jump right into army lists and special rules. 
3. It does give more flavor to each of the legions, through a mix of new formations, special rules and access changes. For example, Iron Warriors have Feel No Pain on a 6+, can't include units with marks of any specific power, and can take obliterators as troops. You can argue about whether all of these things fit with their back story but it is a unique mix of rules that no one else has. 
4. It does make the Chaos Marines more competitive. There's nothing equivalent to scatter laser jetbikes in here, or wraithknights in my opinion, but it is still an upgrade to what we've been working with the past few years. Just having some formations beyond the basic CAD is pretty refreshing. There are still a lot of things to explore when it comes to tournament power combos but if you just want to make a strong list centered around a particular legion with some rules to reflect their composition and philosophy it's a notable step up right away.

I'm in the middle of building out an Iron Warriors army and I have a Plague Marine force as well. Both were originally designed around the traditional CAD. Both started out as ad-hoc forces as some unit caught my fancy and was added to the horde. Over time I developed a philosophy with each one and started a more guided approach to acquisitions. The goal was to fill out a CAD and maybe have some units allocated to a second CAD for bigger fights. 

With Traitor Legions this changes. My IW's are mostly straight-up chaos marine squads. This makes them a perfect fit for the new Chaos Warband formation:

• Chaos Lord (rides with the Chosen)
• Chaos Sorcerer (on a bike in my case)
• Unit of Chosen (in a Rhino)
• 2-4 squads of CSM's (in Rhinos)
• CSM Biker squad
• 1-2 Havoc Squads

Now this is all stuff I already have and plan to use already. These guys all get objective secured (from the formation) and have Veterans of the Long War and  6+ FNP (from the IW rules)

There are a lot of other interesting formations in the book. Many of them require a warpsmith and I do have one, but I'm going to go with the good old CAD for the second part of the force. This lets me bring the rest of the units I have. It also gives me objective secured Obliterators which is an interesting new wrinkle.

• HQ: Daemon Prince and/or Warpsmith
• Elites: Helbrute
• Troops: 2+ Obliterators
• Fast Attack: Heldrake, Chaos Spawn
• Heavy Support: Predator

The final element of the army is the Helbrute Mayhem Pack. This is one of the downloadable dataslates that consists of 3 individual helbrutes that deep strike in simultaneously. This is an awesome mix of surprise, effectiveness, and hilarity as at least one always seems to do something unexpected. Who needs drop pods? The loyalist scum are weak! Our dreads drop in with no protection at all!

One further option: Moving the Daemon Prince to a "Lord of the Legion" element and the chaos spawn to a "Spawn" element I can take the "Iron Warriors Grand Company" decurion and get Stubborn on those units and the Chaos Warband. 

So, if you've been frustrated playing Chaos Marines in 40K for the last few years, or if you would just like some more options as far as building your army, take a look at this one. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. It's not the return of the 3.5 Codex but it is closer to that kind of book than anything we've seen since. 

First Game of Frostgrave

After talking about Frostgrave as an RPG a while back and looking at the miniatures game even farther back I figured we really ought to play the damn thing. So, over the weekend, Blaster and I did just that. It was just the two of us and we just played the "standard game" from the book, not any particular scenario.

Table-wise they recommend a 3' x 3' area, so we flipped over our X-wing mat and started dropping ruined city parts on it. It's not all that pretty but this is a "prototype" after all.

I took an elementalist because I figured getting a feel for the blasting wizard would give me a solid baseline. Blaster took a necromancer because he was in a zombie kind of mood. We both took apprentices because it makes a ton of sense. Soldier-wise I took a barbarian, a ranger, an archer, two thugs, and a war hound. Blaster went templar, infantryman, 2 archers, 2 thugs, and a war hound. He managed to summon a zombie before the fight while I failed to craft a construct.

We set up our forces and commenced to fightin'.The goal is to hurt the opposition and steal away as many treasure tokens as possible. With 2 players we had six of those on the table.

I quickly discovered that it's very important to keep soldiers close to your wizard and apprentice. First, they provide cover! Second, the sequence of play is wizard + up to 3 soldiers within 3 inches of him, then Apprentice + up to 3 soldiers within 3 inches of him, then your leftover soldiers. It really sucks when you realize all of your heavy hitters have moved off on their own so you're activating just your wizard, then just your apprentice, then all of your other guys while your opponent is moving the full 4 guys each time.

Now you can't always do this. Somebody needs to go retrieve that treasure token on the bridge and it's not going to be my wizard ... hey Thug Bob, why don't you run out there real quick and grab it for us, ok? That means Thug Bob may get to move in the last segment next turn, but it keeps the wizard safe.

Man Down!

My wizard performed pretty well when it came to blasting things. In one memorable moment I lighting bolted an archer right off the top of a monument for the first kill of the game. I was not doing real well on the recovering treasure side of things so I ran my apprentice up to the nearest one and discovered dogs are pretty fast. I also discovered that even dogs can roll really well and he took out my apprentice in one round.

It does take a little getting used to how fragile things are. Figures have hit points which might make you think they're going to take a few hits to kill - maybe, maybe not.

• Combat is a d20 + your Fight bonus which is typically a zero to a +4. This is an opposed check, high roll wins. 
• Damage is whatever you rolled, minus the losers Armor number, which is typically 10. You then subtract that damage from the targets Health, which is also going to be around 10. 

As you can see, a d20 + a few, minus an armor number around 10 vs. a health of around 10 means a high roll can kill in one shot. There's also no mitigation from a high initial roll, so if I lose a fight 21 to 19 and I have 10 armor and 10 health I am dead - just as dead as if I had rolled a 3. I don't think it's a huge problem but it did require an expectations adjustment from me after seeing it in action. 

In then end we came out about even. Blaster had more treasure but I had done more damage. He did much better in the gold department but when we rolled for character status after the game several of his soldiers will be sitting out the next game. All of my soldiers came thru OK but my apprentice will be out next time so that will be a challenge. 

We played 5 turns in about an hour and a half and that's with building our warbands, choosing spells,  and fumbling around learning the rules for the first time. I'm pretty sure a regular game will be less than an hour assuming you don't have to pick your forces all over again.

We had a lot of fun and he was already talking about "next time" as we wrapped up so I think it's a winner. I'll post more when we play again. 

The best thing about the new Guardians of the Galaxy Trailer is ...

...this:

Starlord's dad is clearly Jack Burton! It explains so much!

I know , I know, - he's supposed to be Ego the Living Planet. Let's just see how that turns out/

Campaign Concept: Rogue Trader as Black Sails

It's not like I needed another campaign, but the ideas come when the ideas come.

So is that picture above really all that different from this:

The Rogue Trader typical campaign as presented is basically you can do what you want while staying one step ahead of any local governors, admirals, inquisitors, and the other agencies and aliens and military units in the area, but the big picture take is that you're (at least on paper) on the Imperial side. You don't really have to stick with that though. You get far enough out on the fringes of the Astronomicon and "the will of the Emperor" gets pretty fuzzy.

I mean, you could probably try and run it like a Traveller free trader campaign. Why though? You have more wealth than many planets! It's not like you're scraping to buy fuel! I'd say for that game just play Traveller.

You could try and run it more like a Star Wars smuggler campaign but how does it work when the smuggler has a Star Destroyer? Star Wars does the smuggler game better I think.

In terms of power level the game is much more like Star Trek - the players are in charge of a ship that could level most planetary defenses all by itself. In RT they also have enough wealth to wreck most planetary economies if they chose to do so. It's civilization-destroying power! Yet they are not bound by a Federation-style Prime Directive or oaths of service. You could say it's more like a Klingon campaign would be but it's different even from that as it's not just honor and military might - economic goals are a big part of it.

With a Rogue Trader game the longer term goal might be to locate a long-lost planet from pre-Great Crusade days. Assuming the party eventually does that the outcome might be exploring it and putting a colony on it, exploring it and looting it, exploring it and eliminating any competing interests (including xenos), using it as a secret base, or returning and selling the location to the highest bidder!

That sounds a lot more like a pirate type game than a straight-up merchant campaign. A distant but powerful authority that's theoretically in charge, multiple independent competing parties looking for wealth and personal power, local and regional authorities with vary degrees of power and influence, foreign entities competing as well,  all taking place in an area where knowledge -and maps - are incomplete. Violence is at least as common as negotiation, and betrayal is all too common as well. It's an environment where one man could "change the map".

Black Sails is in its 4th season and is concerned with various pirate captains and crew and governors in and around Nassau in the early 1700's. It's also a prequel to Treasure Island so there's one idea of how a "sequel" campaign might go. Various issues during the course of the show include things like :

• How can we take that giant Spanish treasure ship?
• Who has that giant gold hoard?
• What are the Spanish doing?
• Who is this new governor and what are his plans?
• Where is Blackbeard?
• Who's the best captain?
• How long is this new captain going to run his mouth before someone kills him?
• What's this about a secret island settlement run by escaped slaves?

There's a ton of intrigue, infighting, and maneuvering for power. 

• Some of the captains just want to raid ships and be left alone
• Some of the captains have a vision of an independent Nassau and have been fighting for that for years
• The newly-appointed governor sees this as his chance to secure his family's position by bringing order to this corner of the Empire
• The business operators in Nassau are caught between the independence movement and the governor

Constraints they operate within:

• Go too far and you might force the British to take action - like sending in a new governor, which makes things difficult for most
• Go too far and you might anger the Spanish, making everyone's lives harder in a different way
• Go too far and some of the legendary pirates might find their interests in Nassau's fortunes rekindled - like, say, Blackbeard.
• Get too stupid on the island and you might force the plantation owners from the interior to band together and take action
• Move too fast as governor and you might find the pirates unite to oppose you

Substitute in Eldar, Inquisitors, Space Marine chapters, the Imperial Sector fleet, and various local governors and you have pretty much the same scenario. 

I think it has a ridiculous amount of potential. Sure, maybe you start out as "agents of the throne" in the beginning but will you stay in that role? Opportunity abounds, but the more constraints you place upon yourself the more those opportunities slip away. What will your crew think? What about your profit factor? Your ship? Your place in history?

I think a nudge in this direction eliminates any chance of "well what do we do now" happening with most sets of players. Rogue Trader, of all the 40K RPG's, gives players the most freedom to do as they wish. For the GM that might be tough to manage with all of the interesting things in the 40K universe. Start viewing it as a pirate campaign, particularly a location-based one ala Black Sails, and I think you have an awesome mix of "centered" freedom for a great campaign.

 

Final Complication: The "Hyborian Sector" is something I wrote up for Traveller a long time ago. The jungle planets of Kush, the trade stars of Zingara and Zamora, the "local empires" of Aquilonia and Nemedia ... I'm not sure I need it for this campaign but I do have to consider it. Is mixing in yet another "inspiration" too much? Not sure yet. I'll let you know.

40K Friday: Making Terminators Great Again

If you've played 40K for any length of time you've heard the legends of the Space Marine Terminators. Maybe you read them, maybe you've heard tales from earlier versions of the game, but you probably haven't seen a ton of "legendary" behavior from them in any recent games. The only type you tend to see these days are Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield Terminators and while they do usually perform as expected they are still an expensive and limited-purpose choice. I really dislike this state of affairs as they are one of the things I loved about 40K in the early days, so here are a few ideas about how to fix this problem:

1. Give them the Special Issue Ammunition rule from Sternguard. People like sternguard, and not just for the combi weapons, Their special ammo rule makes them amazingly flexible and capable of taking on almost any enemy unit. In-universe they are 1st company veterans, as are terminators, so there's not much reason to share this rule. Sternguard do not get to use it with storm bolters - fine. Maybe terminator storm bolters have special ammo feeds that can handle the complication. This is the single easiest change GW could make to improve this unit - no modeling changes required at all, just a change to the rules for the unit, and no, I would not change the point cost they have now. People would still take sternguard because they would still be cheaper, could still take combi-weapons and heavy flamers, and you can fit more in a drop pod. They might also consider using terminators in some situations though, and that would be better for the game. 
2. Let them swing their powerfists at initiative. Terminator armor is rare and special, right? Let them ignore the "unwieldy" rule. Yeah that, especially combined with #1 above makes termies really scary - isn't that how it's supposed to be? Yes it makes characters in this armor really nasty but then maybe we would see a few more of them and a few less on bikes. This is another no-modeling-change-required option.
3. Bump their toughness up by 1. I know, I know, but if a bike makes you that much tougher, why the hell doesn't terminator armor, the ultimate form of personal protection in the game? It lowers their vulnerability to massed small-arms fire which is the main way terminators die these days. It helps reset the balance when it comes to "how do you kill termies" from "50 lasgun shots" back to "plasma guns". Again, no modeling changes are needed. The models are already huge compared to the old Rogue Trader days anyway, so this seems completely appropriate. 
4. Terminator suits are super-strong right? Those legs are pretty bulky, and they're supposed to enhance the already Captain America level strength of the guy inside, right? Make them jump infantry! They don't need jump packs, they just leap! heck, make it a once-per-game thing if we have to and we've mitigated their other big weakness - they're slow! 

Now I would be happy if any one of these was implemented and ecstatic if any two were. I'd say #1 and #3 make the most sense and would solve the two biggest problems they have in the game right now. #2 might be a little too much and #4 is probably too radical for how the unit has been portrayed but really any or all of these would help put terminator marines back in their proper place.

Special note: Chaos terminators? Yeah I'd do the same thing. Let them have some fun too.

Agile-Style Gaming

Agile development has been a thing for a while now and if you know what it is you don't need to hear anything more about it from me, and if you don't you probably don't care. That said there have been some interesting parallels between work and hobby recently so bear with me.

We've had a lot of talk here about games we'd like to play more and the downside of being locked in to a set game for every available session time. I had a new plan but as it turns out we're only really following about half of it so far.

The first weekend of the month is Mutants and Masterminds. That's held steady. I was originally thinking we would rip through Time of Crisis in a few sessions and get on to the "main" campaign. My players though are having a ton of fun with the adventure which means more RP and talking and more deliberation over choices and also means it's just a really meaty campaign. So I have stopped worrying about when we will "get through it" and just started enjoying the journey instead. That's kind of the real goal, right? I have it! Right here! So all is well with that game.

We also planned to run Deadlands on the second weekend each month. That worked for January. For February, one of my three players was going to be out that weekend so I opened up the conversation about what to play. Apprentice Who was going to be around  and based on the past that meant Marvel Heroic sounded like a good idea. Then Apprentice Red ended up coming home that night while Apprentice Who had a school dance to attend. We didn't have a pre-existing "default" game for that particular combination of Paladin Steve, Apprentice Blaster, and Apprentice Red so now it was really open.

I ended up running Runequest, second edition to be specific.

So now our "gaming matrix" looks like this:

• Two of the boys usually means ICONS
• All three of the boys is Star Wars d6
• Steve + Blaster + Who = Marvel Heroic (Red has played in this too)
• Steve + Blaster + Red = RQ2
• Steve + Dave + Blaster = Deadlands
• Steve + Dave + Tsai + Lady Blacksteel = DCC

So instead of having a set game I run all the time and drop players in and out of - or have them ignore because they are not interested - I pretty much run a set game based on which players are available. Now this does mean I have a ridiculous number of campaigns that are technically "live" but they may not have been touched for 2-3 months. 

To touch on the "agile" parallel this is my backlog: Each system is an Epic, each specific campaign is a "feature" (because theoretically I could have multiple campaigns in the same system, like I sort of have with Deadlands and do have with M&M). each session is a "story". It's not a perfect analogy but I needed to call it something. It's not a traditional campaign setup. It's not really an open table/west marches type of game. It's really its own approach in my view. It just kind of developed over the last year or two and now I'm embracing it as an actual plan rather than happenstance.

How do I organize it? well, each campaign has its own binder with notes on prior sessions, ideas for future sessions, comments on using some published material where I can, and probably some character sheets. I keep a folder with material on the computer too, from notes to HeroLab files. I'm also playing around with some online resources for the players too - more on that if it becomes a real thing. My memory hasn't completely failed so once I skim through some notes it's not difficult to pick up where we were when we ended last time. I have started having the players tell me what they remember first, going around the table, and then I sum up with what I have noted myself. It seems to work and gets everyone's wheels turning about where the game is right now. 

One of the side benefits: this helps handle any "Gamer ADD" I am feeling by ensuring that we rarely play the same game three times in a row.

Of course the maximum flexibility approach here means that we may only play some of these a few times a year. No one seems to mind. Yet. It's something I will be watching for, and I have no problems with trying to "force" a session on occasion - "Hey, I have an open Friday night coming up and we haven't played X in a while - can you 3 make it Friday night?".

Anyway, that's how things are going around here.