42 - I'm Not Dead Yet: 40K's First Balance Update

Steve is fighting off a Nurgle infection, Erik is fighting off bad habits with Cursed Legion Necrons, and everybody on the internet is convinced their faction is dead. Spoiler....they're not dead yet. 

Erik and Steve are back to discuss 11th Edition's first balance update, dig into what's really going on across Erik's now ten-army tour of the new edition, and somehow turn the whole thing into a conversation about Agile development methodology.

Along the way they cover:

• The first balance update — why this wasn't a major Nerfing Eye of Sauron event and why the guys think GW is running what amounts to a data normalization exercise disguised as a balance patch
• Agile Warhammer — Steve connects the dots between sprint planning, backlog management, and how to actually play your secondaries in 11th Edition and neither of them can quite believe the conversation they're having
• Ten armies, every force disposition — Erik's running observations from playing across the full breadth of 11th, including why he's not sure he's a great Purge the Foe player despite being one of the most aggressive players in the room
• The Cursed Legion problem — why Erik keeps going back to a list he can't quite make work, what he's getting wrong, and why he's pretty sure it's a him problem and not a list problem
• WTC roster hot take — the rosters are out, the lists are coming, and Erik has a cautionary tale about why "everyone at WTC is playing X" doesn't mean X is the best way to play that faction
• Papa Nurgle weighs in — Steve sounds like a Muppet, Erik recommends the Emperor's Children approach to cold medicine, and somehow they end the episode with a Death Guard game on the calendar

Whether you're here for the data engineering deep dive or just want to hear Steve suffer through forty minutes of podcast while visibly dying, this one's for you.

📖 Read Erik's battle reports at gmpwt.blog
📺 Watch on YouTube at @GrownMenPlayingWithToys

Transcript

Intro & Welcome

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Well, tenth edition was Waterfall and eleventh edition is Agile.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

It's coming. It's coming. I feel it. I heard it too. I gotta stop myself.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

We're nerds.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

A little bit. Yes, we are.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Snuffelothogus.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Yeah, I'm rough. I am rough. So I apologize to everybody listening to this, unless for some weird reason it makes my voice a little more tolerable. But yeah, I am uh definitely under the weather, folks, so bear with me. Um, so Eric, a lot has been going on since our last podcast, and uh I'm gonna be honest, most of it's been in your court. So I'm gonna kind of kick it over to you. You I know you got a couple things you want to talk about tonight. So what is it that you're you're itching to talk about?

SPEAKER_03 1:42

I mean, there's there's a couple things. There's the recent balance update that GW did last week. We could talk briefly about that. I don't know that we need to do the line by line, here's what changed, or even the hot takes, pretty much there yeah, I was gonna say I think there's plenty of that content out there already. Yeah, and they are all more qualified than us to do it. But you know, I can give some summary level and kind of my you know impressions of adding a little bit of dose of of sanity to all of the hysteria that some of those content providers are providing. Um, second one is I've played a couple more games of 11th, so I've now played every force disposition and I've played across 10 different armies. So eight. Holy cow. Okay. Yep, so I have uh a whole bunch of observations of just kind of what I'm liking so far, what I'm noticing is different. And then lastly, the big one for me is they just announced the WTC rosters. They haven't shared the detailed list, but they've provided the here are what each country is playing as far as what armies, what force dispositions. And I think that's pretty cool because this is kind of like my version of the World Cup that I like to watch every year.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

I was gonna say, so so there's there's an aspect there where this is where you nerd out about a nerdy thing.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Yes, I mean, let's be honest, Teams 40k is where the people who like spreadsheets go because all of them have a team comp matrix built that is a spreadsheet that they then get to bring to the table and use to do all their matchups. Like, if anything in Warhammer is my jam, that is it.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

I mean, for sure, I can I can see the connection, right? I mean, there's a lot of matrixing and um aligning and optimizing of your matrices. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see how you sit there on a Sunday and you're like, oh, I can't wait for them to watch this. I mean, I'm a huge F1 fan, so I also nerd out on things, but I get it. I get it.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

I still stand by a statement I made after the last WTC, which is I don't know that we have a big enough group of friends that play 40k to make a good eight-man team, but I think you, me, cousin Josh, other Josh, and Chris have the making of a pretty solid, well-balanced five-man team, especially if we have other Josh build the matrix, me manage the matchup process, and then you sit there behind me and just read the other players and tell me which ones you think are gonna crack under pressure.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

I I think this would be a lot of fun. I don't I I mean, I'm sure that there are these tournaments around us. I'm sure there's something we could do. Maybe that becomes something we do in the future. I don't know. Uh I'm I'm game for it. I like I like Teams tournaments, I like the idea of it. I like watching it, um, you know, and analyzing it. There's there's a it just adds an element to it to me, um, that I think is pretty cool. So yeah, so I'm down. So well, let's let's go through all three of them. How's that sound? I th I think that that's that's a good setup for tonight. Let's go through all three of those topics.

The First 11th Balance Update

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Why don't why don't we start with the first one? Because let's let's you know let's acknowledge the spiciness that is the first update that came out for 11th, and and let's all take a moment and and take that in. And uh, I don't know, what are your thoughts on it? Because I I do have my own thoughts on it, but I want to hear yours first.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

So I mean it I like like I said, we won't get into all the details, just you know, art of war, art of war down under, poor hammer, whatever your 40k, you know, chugging out content every day, every week of you know, subscription of choices. They already did the detailed by faction, what all the changes were. So we'll stick summary level, but it I will say my initial observations that I kind of jotted down when we thought about talking about this are first and foremost, it looked to me as if the first balance update was not just about balancing the game and fixing some of the obvious rules loopholes, it was also about GW testing all of the balance levers that they have at their disposal to see which ones have a bigger impact and which ones don't. Because it looked like other than changing things that are on the physical mission cards, they did something with just about every other balance lever that they could. So that was the first one that I had. See that? Yep. Second one is I think they focused on trying to encourage diversity in the player base. So anything that looked like it was starting to trend towards being a mono build, whether it was things like Orcs Green Tide, Thousand Suns, Hex Warp Thrall Band with the Sekatar Robot Detachment, or just the large amount of players who are playing Purge the Fo. It seems like GW focused on nope, we're gonna try and get the player base to disperse evenly across as many of the factions, as many of the force dispositions as possible. Which to me is the combination of those two things. It's almost less about balance. Like I think that was a big part of it. But what I found myself thinking about, because you know, background, you and I both work in in engineering and technology. You are a hundred percent in kind of what I would call a data engineering job, and I would say I'm data engineering adjacent. To me, what this read is they're trying to create maximum incentives for the player base to produce as much data on as many of the factions and as many of the force dispositions and as many of the detachments as possible so that they can use that for future balance updates. Because that a lot of this read to me as trying to get folks to evenly distribute across as many options as possible. And I think that's cool because they they've got the update to their app where they can track games now, so they're obviously getting all of that data that they can use for balance updates. I've heard that they they have an agreement with things like tabletop battles where they can get all the data that comes out of that, or BCP, which is the tournament tracking. So that the last observation I had is you get a whole lot of folks reacting to like you go to Ospec's Tactics and he'll talk about the tournament win rates for each faction, and everyone will go ballistic of like, oh my god, why did Thousand Suns get nerfed? They only had a 53% win rate. Well, that's only tournaments, you know. That there's a whole subset of data that GW gets access to from casual players and from LGS players that aren't playing in tournaments, and maybe Thousand Suns were going crazy in that forum, and it's just we're not seeing that data on things like Auspecs or on Reddit, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and it doesn't mean that it's not good. GW is using it to balance or just encourage diversity in the game. So I I kind of had those four takeaways of I think they're really just testing all the levers that they can pull and trying to maximize the amount of data that is produced so that they can use it later in the edition to balance the game.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

I didn't know you were gonna hit me with one that's gonna come that close to like the thing. I hit you right there in the nine to five, huh? Oh man, you did. That that that could send us into a backlog. Um and I don't know that I want to backlog that. So, okay, audible. I want to talk about that for a hot second. You were just sitting on some spiciness there. Jeez.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

Um, you give me 10 days between episodes, and I'm gonna come up with a knuckleball to throw at you.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Listen, I couldn't have done I couldn't have talked this long without dying uh like two days ago. So it was really like seven to eight days with a nurgling event, okay? Give me a little bit of credit. Um yes, when I when I read the updates and and you know, I after my initial take, I actually I'm gonna go on a little bit of a story here, but I I had a a four-hour ride to New York City with my wife, right? Um, which means traffic. And the updates came out in the morning, and I was playing my best passenger princess, um, and she's driving, and I could read the updates, and I'm going through them, and my takeaway, which is gonna be a part of why I'm pretty excited about this top this aspect you just brought up. My takeaway from reading all the updates was oh, well, this wasn't a nerfing event. This this no, this wasn't eye of Sauron because nothing really could be I of Sauron yet. Like we don't we don't have enough data. No, what this was was a normalization event. And I had that thought as I'm reading all these things that oh, it's just it's just it's taking what was an outlier in your data, you know, of your initial data set, and you're normalizing it. And why are you doing that? Well, because there's a lot of new rules and there's a lot of new things, and it's a new addition, so you're normalizing it so that you can get take the baseline reads and and bring them all back to a a calibrated level so that now you're starting with something that's that's not already off the chart, right? Yep. And and to your point, right? So, all right, so a little bit of my data engineering nerdiness is coming out here, and that's fine. But if you already have an outlier at the set of what you're considering to be your baseline, then you're gonna skew the rest of your results. And by wanting to bring in all of this data the way that they are, and and they're telling you that they are, right? They're telling us that they're tracking us on the different apps and that they're paying attention not just to tournament meta, but what's being played, what's you know, plus they have all the data around their sales and all the data around everything else. I mean, every time you go onto Reddit, I guarantee you that there is somebody over there at GW that's logging, hey, there was this post about so and so on Reddit today. Um they're taking that and they're they're they're gonna use that to help them to understand this now normalized aspect that they've that they've put out there. And and the data set now is ready to be used for analytics. That's what I was thinking when I was reading everything, and and I'll be honest, I spent most of my time reading about the factions that I care about, just like everybody else, right? And feeling my feels about those things. But I did read everything because I just had the time to do so. And I I walked away going, oh, okay, they're just they're just kind of they want to establish a baseline here and get this baseline to be, you know, apples to apples across the board, and make sure that that's what they're they're putting out as a product. So I I didn't walk away going, oh, I just everybody got nerfed, or this thing obviously was too powerful already, so it had to it had to get whacked back into mediocracy. Like I didn't I didn't walk away with that. And to be honest with you, I walked away with the opinion of going, okay, this is a little different than how they've done things in the past. This is really kind of new. Let's see where this goes. That was my opinion of of the you know of the update.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

Yeah, it I largely shared it. I think there was I would say two and a half examples of true balance, and then the rest of it, like you said, was I kind of viewed it through the the lens of data normalization and trying to create a distributed meta so they can keep gathering more data as as the addition goes on. And the the two and a half kind of balancing uh examples I saw is one orcs green tide, because it was it was starting to focus in on a mono build, which is you played orcs green tide as take and hold with either tactical brigade or more DACA, and you just you had more models, more units than your opponent, and you brick walled your opponent, and you just stat checked them because you could sticky all the objectives and you just rushed them. And so that that one I think they said, okay, what we're not gonna take it away, but we're gonna make Green Tide a three detachment point detachment, so you can't combo it with anything else. So that toned down the power a little bit, and that makes it so it's no longer the obvious choice for orcs, especially given that it seems like a lot of folks are enjoying exploring the two plus one DP uh combos. And then the other one is you know, Thousand Suns. Like the the overall consensus seems to be, oh, GW took thousand sons out back and shot them. No, they they did a similar thing with there was one build, Hexwarp Throll Band plus the Sekatar Robots, that was becoming a mono build. It was becoming the default way to play. And I actually had a conversation with my LGS owner, and he was saying, like, yeah, that that one also was incredibly oppressive to anyone who was not a tier level skill at the game because you could just brick wall your opponent and blow them off the board. And so that was a you know, he that was a Beetle Smasher, like that was a a a list and a way of playing the game that was incredibly unfun to newer players right as we're launching a new edition and a bunch of new players are coming in. So I think that got that one on the hit list. But other than those two, and maybe a little bit with Tao, the rest of it just seemed like, nope, we're just gonna shuffle the deck a little bit, encourage you all to go distribute and play a bunch of different stuff.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

So I have another takeaway, and it does blend work a little bit in with my analysis. So one of the things that I know in in the community that is a big thing that you hear all the time, right? Is that that GW doesn't play tests enough, and and they don't take in enough, you know, information from anything other than tournament meta that you know adjustments really don't filter out. And there's often times where in additions factions just become kind of like the forgotten ones, right? Um and I know I've seen it, like I'm not disagreeing with anything that folks are saying like that.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

I see that you've

Data Normalization as a Tool for Balance

SPEAKER_03 18:00

been on the guard subreddit lately.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Well, yeah. So, but anyway, what I thought about it when when I was reading some of the updates, and again, I was thinking that this is more of like a normalization was wow, this is almost like agile development, what they're doing, in my opinion. Um, and I spend a lot of time in agile development. Uh, you know, I I at work run an agile team. And for those that don't know what I'm talking about, um, most of us, or especially if you're around our age, and I don't know if kids mandatorily have to do science projects at school anymore. Eric, you would know more about that than I do. Um when you're learning, when you were learning how to do uh a science project, right, there was an aspect of you know, you build out your hypothesis, you then test your hypothesis, you write down the results, um, and then you summarize the results, and then the whole idea is that you then bring that back and you you start that process over again, and you keep working until you can get to a result that you know was your goal or was the expected result, or a failure that that was not expected, but but changed the entirety of of the process. I feel like that's what they did. They said, Hey, we're gonna roll out 11th edition, it's gonna come out, it's got a whole bunch of new stuff, it's got some weird stuff, right? These forced disposition things that that you know no one's seen this before. We don't really know how it's gonna roll out. They rolled it out, and then they said, Okay, in our first update, we're gonna let everybody chew on that. We'll see what it is. There's been a couple things done, tournaments have been played, whatever. Let's go and normalize that and then see see what where the experiment takes us, and then keep iterating off of that as they go through. And I hope they continue to do this. And you know, it's kind of that guest test revise aspect that I think is kind of cool, but I think the thing that many people aren't taking away from it, but I kind of felt like is no, they are they are play testing, they are because in order for them to normalize, they had to take in all that data and they had to get it from somewhere. So maybe the playtesting isn't necessarily that, yeah, you got 15 people that are all sitting in GW headquarters playing the new rule set. Maybe they do, I have no idea. Um but they are paying attention to all that data that's coming back, and they are paying attention to the couple things that have happened so far from a tournament perspective.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

Yeah, it it's it reminded me of the agile process as well. And I I don't know. I I was very pleased with the balance update from a macro perspective because I love the fact that they probably changed, you know, tried pulling all of the different balance levers that they could get away with given how early into the edition we are. Like realistically, they were never going to change anything that's printed on one of the mission cards while they're still selling them in stores. But everything else, they changed the maps, they changed some rules, they reshuffled the force dispositions, they changed some points, they changed some detachment points. They basically pulled every other lever they could. And I think to to your point, uh there's probably behind the scenes that we don't know about a series of hypotheses uh associated with each one of those levers that they pulled of okay, if I pull this, I think this is the impact it'll have. Now let's observe and see.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

I don't know. To me, it was really encouraging. Um, and I I know, all right. I read the feedback sometimes that we get on the podcast. I get it. We're very positive about you know the things that are happening and what's going on and our view of 40k. I get it, but that is that's because we really care about this this hobby, and we really care about this community, and we want to see it to continue to grow. Um, and I've been a part of plenty of hobbies and communities that went the other direction, and guess what, they're no longer available anymore. Um, but even with that, right, even with the fact that we put a positive spin on things, I I think that you sh you have to take away from the fact that when when they put out an update, they didn't just update one or two factions, they updated everything.

unknown 23:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

That to me was like, yes, right, that's where that normalization aspect came in. And man, you really hit on something for me. I wasn't expecting to talk about this at the length that we are.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

I knew I was gonna get you with this one because of the data and the agile tie-in.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Yeah, I I'm I mean, that's that's what my gut was telling me as I was reading this, and it's kind of funny because when we started this, I was like, Yeah, I have my opinions about it too. Now you're getting them in full time because that this this was my opinion about it, and it's like I don't love everything that GW does, right? I I don't I you know, just to give a negative spin to some of our friends that like the negative side of things, right? I can't stand the clunkiness of their app, and I hate the fact that I can't get to other factions information because it's all locked behind a paywall. So there, I said it, I said a negative thing. But in the end, I think it's really positive what they're trying to do with how they're collecting this data and how they're moving things, you know, in the right direction.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

Yeah, I I am very positive on most of the ways, most of the levers that they tried to pull in the data slate. Dear God, do I wish they had a better way to summarize everything they changed rather than making us all read 30 different documents, but other than that, yeah, I I'm I like the approach behind it. So, like you, there you go. I s I said a constructive thing as well. I don't like the delivery mechanism for the the data slate as much as the old. Here's one document that's a hundred pages long with a bunch of red lines was bad, the new way was worse. I don't know I want either one, but I love the methodology that was used behind it. And I've played two games since the balance update, and I've played it with a couple of factions that the internet told me were dead, and they're not dead. I still was able to have fun with them. Not dead yet! Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

That's funny. Well, I it's kind of funny that your your negative thing is the delivery of the of the data slate. That's kind of like that. That's so funny. So I I have a spicy thing that can go along with that, right? So and I didn't do this, so I actually did read, click and read. I had plenty of idle time on our trip, right? Um, but I know others that were like, hey, Mr. Claude, this data slate came out. Tell me what I need to know, and then they got what they needed to know really quickly. So there were avenues for you to be able to get to the information faster, and you didn't even need a spreadsheet.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

Yeah, but Steve, haven't you heard according to the internet, AI is the devil?

SPEAKER_00 26:17

I don't know if it's the devil, but it's definitely slot.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

I mean, it's the devil. I heard from Bobby Boucher's mom that it's the devil.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

That's funny. So all right, so we kind of talked a little bit about the data slate and uh about how you know exciting we are about data. Um you've been playing games and you've you've talked about it a couple times here. Like talk to me about some of the highlights of what's what's going on in the in the old garage hammer world over there.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

All right, let me pull up the least so games that I've played since we last spoke. Um I think last time I briefly hit on so the first two games that I played of 11th that I think we talked about prior is I played uh Emperor's Children and Necrons uh against each other, and then I played a game of Raven Guard against the Grey Knights, and then since that I've played Orcs vs. Blood Angels, CSM vs Chaos Knights, Thousand Sons, which was one of the factions that it the internet told me was dead against Adeptus Custodies, and I am mostly through Salamanders up against uh another flavor of Necrons. And yeah, I'm still having fun with it.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

I mean so I guess right off the bat, listening to you talk about the diversity of what you are playing, there is a group that you're playing a lot of, I feel, lately, which is Necrons.

SPEAKER_03 27:59

Is there a space marines?

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Yeah, is there is there a reason for that?

SPEAKER_03 28:05

Um, twofold. One on the space marine side, I'm really enjoying the fact that I have options that aren't ultramarines playing Blade of Ultramar or Gladius Task Force that are powerful enough while also being really fun. So I'm having a lot of fun with the Raven Guard and with the Salamanders. And on the Necron side, I got to go back to HyperCrypt, which was my favorite way to play Necrons through all of 10th edition. So I did that in my first game, and it was a ton of fun. So that was just a, you know, I I love armies that have a ton of mobility. It's why I love my Grey Knights, it's why I love Emperor's Children. So HyperCrypt Necrons is a way to do that. And then the the latest one is I for me, dad joke incoming, the cursed list that I have yet to make work is cursed Legion Necrons. And I'm determined to figure out how to make it work. So I'm playing that up against the the salamanders right now. Um, just because I I want to see if I can make it work because I know it's good. It's a me issue, it's not a list issue. Um, so I I keep going back to the well of that one to see if I can make it work. So you're saying the pun was intended? Oh yeah, the pun was come on, man. You know me. 100% intended that my cursed list is the cursed legion.

The Cursed Legion Problem

SPEAKER_00 29:33

So can we touch on that for a second? Because I think this is something that goes unspoken sometimes in the community when we're playing a list that we really love, right? You you said something kind of profound there, right? Like, I know it's not the list, I know it's me, right? Yep. What's what's the indication that you think it is the list and not or that you think it's you and not the list?

SPEAKER_03 30:01

Um twofold. Well, actually more than twofold, probably threefold. First one is, and we're starting to Tenfold, let's be honest.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

You got a one through ten on your spreadsheet over there. Let's go.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

I do have a one through ten, but we'll cover the first three because they're the important ones. Um the first one is you know, kind of validation of the data when you go to things like stat check, where they keep their their addition dashboard of who's playing what and what are the different win rates and whatnot. Um Cursed Legion Necrons is one of the most popular ways to play it. It's one of the most successful ways to play it. So there's some validation there of, you know, okay, if if large aspects of the community are making this work, then it's got to be at least a certain baseline of good. Now that doesn't mean it works into everything. I know, I'm taking the bait. Second one, and this kind of leaks into the last topic we're going to talk about, is they just released the WTC rosters, and Cursed Legion Necrons was one of the most uh one of the most frequent ways that Necrons showed up as one of the top choices that teams were playing. They're playing Cursed Legion on Purge the Foe. And then lastly, it's just it I can tell by playing it. I can tell when when I'm getting it wrong, and what I'm getting wrong is the timing of how to play the list. And what I mean by that is I like to play high maneuverability, very aggressive type armies. Cursed Legion on paper looks like a very aggressive army. But there's kind of this weird balance you have to strike of how much shooting to bring versus how much melee to bring. And Necron melee isn't great. So like Scorpic Destroyers are are good. The Scorpek Lord is good, but they're not CSM or Emperor's Children or Custodies level good. And Necron shooting, like the Locust Destroyers, Locust Heavy Destroyers, whatnot, is good, but they don't come in with all the built-in re-rolls of things like Space Marines without a moment. So there's where I find myself struggling is I've got all the tools in the list, but I'm almost playing the list more like it's a CSM or a Space Marine list, and I'm falling into the habits of some of the factions that I play more frequently, and I can tell that's what's holding me back. And specifically looking at a retro of the three or four times I've played it, what I screw up is not having enough built-in redundancy when I go to shoot, because I'm used to having rerolls from things like Oath of Moment, and I don't get them with Necrons, and that is even worse now in 11th edition because of cover. And then I also mess up the timing of when to flip the Necrosor Amentar from a buff piece who is buffing range shooting to be a go to go be a melee smash piece. And I've played, I think, three or four games with him. Three games I held him back too long, and then it was too late for him to get in and do anything meaningful in melee. And then the fourth game, you I almost did like a this isn't happening again, and he died turn two because I put him out too early.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

So I mean you I think you kind of know where I'm going.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

I didn't know you were gonna talk about this, but now we're here, Eric.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

I'm just I'm hitting on all of your raw nerves today. Let me do it for you, already you tell me how how close to the hole I hit this t-shot. Go for it. Wait a minute, Eric. So you're saying that I can go look up a list on the internet and it won't just automatically win the game for me if I don't know how it's played. You know, it's like you read my mind. It's almost like we talk frequently.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Well, we didn't talk about this specifically. I didn't know that you were struggling with this list. I honestly just noticed a pattern when you were saying you're that you know, when you're telling me what games you're playing, that you keep playing this list. And I and I tried tried to understand why, why you're playing this list all the time. And and I get it, like you want to figure it out. Like, I I think that that's pretty cool. And I also think that it's pretty cool that you're continuing to play a list, even though it like challenges you um, you know, to to play at your best, right? Interestingly enough, as I was listening to you kind of break down like what why you continue to play the list, like there's an aspect you you called out like timing. Yep, and this is also something that I struggled a lot with in 10th edition, and actually, you've spent a lot of time helping me through the timing thing, and it's been an aspect where you would tell me, no, Steve, sometimes you just gotta listen to your intuition, and your gut's gonna tell you something about what's happening in front of you, and that's the timing to go, not necessarily what is prescriptively optimum, right? And so, like you're playing, you're playing these flat rules, and you're playing on a flat table, but it's a dynamic situation in front of you. The one thing that the rules cannot do is take into account the dynamics of the table that are playing out in front of you. Yep, they can't do it, right? They're flat. And so you beat it into me last edition, especially when I was struggling with the Voton, of like sometimes you just gotta play what's in front of you, and your gut is gonna tell you when and how to make that move and to go after something better than your interpretation of the flat rules would tell you. Maybe it's not a you thing in that, hey, you're screwing up or you're missing something, but it could just be that maybe that list doesn't fit your normal intuition, so it just feels a little off-cued or a little um obtuse to the way that you would normally play. And and yeah, you can attribute that to things like you know having a re-roll here because you're used to playing this other thing, but but it's also, you know, could be a factor of the list felt on paper like it was gonna play to the way that you want to play, but the dynamic aspect of it on a table just doesn't work.

SPEAKER_03 37:12

Yeah, I I think that's a great way of saying it in that that matches, you know, the because when I do play Cursed Legion, like I again, I can see that that it has the potential to be really powerful, but it just it doesn't jive with when my brain says go on certain things, like it almost reminds me of so I played a lot of baseball growing up, and my brother, my younger brother, played a ton of baseball. And first summer I went to college. I went to college, I got really into weightlifting, I put on about 10 pounds in the weight room. I came home that summer and went to go practice baseball with my dad and my brother, and my brother had a huge laugh at my expense because first time I went up to to go take batting practice with them, my dad started throwing batting practice, and I had this weird moment where like I'd see the pitch coming in, my brain would say swing, I would swing, but I'm 10 pounds of muscle stronger than I used to be. So I would be done with my swing and the ball hadn't passed yet. Right. Because my internal timing mechanism hadn't caught up with how my body had developed. Yep. And I I get that same kind of feeling with necrons of just the it's like you what you were going through with Votan last of edition before you got in the groove of the thing my brain is telling me to do isn't in sync with what this particular list needs from a timing, from a momentum, from a pacing perspective. And actually part of my observation with 11th edition is uh getting all of those things in sync by choosing the right force disposition is almost more important than anything else. Like I one of my big observations so far in 11th, I don't know that I'm a very good purge the foe player.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 39:20

Even though on paper I should be, because I'm very, very aggressive with how I play. But what I've found so far is one, purge the foe can be very predictable, uh and two, it doesn't lend itself like that of all the games I've played, interestingly enough, what I would characterize as the best and most skilled games that I've played have been on recon and disruption.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

That is fascinating to me, considering the types of armies that you know coming out of 10th edition, you really liked to play. But I'm not I'm not saying that those armies don't fit that, it's just that it's just a new aspect of it, right? That it's that new facet that the force dispositions provide.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

I I've I think I think this is something that I run into as a player. I I I don't know if the rest of the folks in Barnhammer run into this. I I would assume that they are going through their own aspect of it too, at points, right? But that you know, everybody has an awkward moment growing up through your teens. And if you're young and you're listening to this and you're like below the age of 10 years old, I'm gonna tell you right now you're you're in for some really awkward moments because they're coming. Um, but you know, growing up in your teens, there's there's that aspect of where your body is just different than what your brain is, right? And that connection, like whether it's eye-hand coordination, whether it's you know, just just the maturity, like people talk about maturity in kids and stuff like that, um, that hasn't quite got there. Um, yeah, you're gonna go through that moment. And I feel like with the dispositions coming out and people having kind of their way of how they've played their factions in the past, and um how you know there's an expectation of what their faction should do. I I feel like people are gonna go through that awkward teen stage for a little while until they start feeling it out, and and I think they should pay attention to that. Like, kudos to you for saying, hey, I don't think that this is a list problem. I think it's a me problem. And kudos to you for not going, hey, well, this list is smashing everything else. So, you know, obviously it was the dice's fault, or you know, I don't know, the table layout was wrong for me, or something along those lines, but you're more so identifying, hey, there's something here that's not jiving with my intuition and what I want to do on the board. And I think that that's that's uh that's a really good way to look at it. I would implore that a lot of people that are going through change and um you know in the new edition and that are dealing with a faction that maybe feels a little clumsy and different. Um I'm kind of going through this in my own way a little bit um with some of the factions. Like honestly, Death Guard is that way for me right now. Um I I I was so excited about Death Guard at uh you know during 10th, and I was having a lot of fun and I kind of discovered a me moment inside of playing that action. But in 11th, I'm kind of struggling with it a little bit. Um I think you know, where was I going with this? I I just I just think that it's a it's a thing that that is gonna be this way for a little while, and I think it's really cool to kind of put it into a structure and thought of you know, now that there's all this change that has happened, you know, maybe your faction's in a gulky phase for you. And you know, you could probably work it out if you play it and get reps in it and and think about it and kind of try to make it work towards what you're doing, but also it may require you to kind of look at other force dispositions and and play the play the army a little bit differently.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

Yeah, and it I mean you're hitting on a lot of the major takeaways I have so far from playing in 11th, which is you know, the the high flyers I wrote down were force dispositions matter more than anything else. Timing of the game and flow of the game and momentum of the game is different than it was in 10th edition. And it's gonna take a while to get used to how those new things interact. And uh, you know, echoing back what I'm hearing you say is there are some armies that based off like especially folks who've been playing this game for a while, there's probably this built-in perception of this is how my army has to feel and there are certain force dispositions that just aren't gonna feel that way. And there are certain armies that if you want to play a f certain force disposition you're gonna have to really think out of the box, or you're gonna have to play it in a really tr non-traditional way, or you need you're gonna have to face the fact that it's an uphill battle. Like the ones I've heard is like Gene Stealer cults on purge the foe. Oh boy, is that uh difficult and counterintuitive. Yeah. The other ones I've heard, like necrons on disruption. That's a real weird juxtaposition between what disruption is telling you what to do and what necrons are good at. And I think there's little sprinklings of that across the game that that folks are gonna have to

Agile Warhammer & Secondary Card Management

SPEAKER_03 45:12

get used to. But the other one I've personally really not struggled, but it it's just taking some getting used to is the fact that you can hold on to secondaries now, and it's not this built-in like I gotta do this thing this turn, otherwise I'm stuck with this card. Like you get one of two habits, and you gotta find the sweet spot between the two, which I will freely admit I'm still trying to figure out the balance of. The first one is the 10th edition muscle memory of draw a card, I have to do this this turn. And that's gonna push you to potentially pay play the game at a pace faster than you need to, and to expose things at a rate faster than you need to, and to play the game a little bit recklessly. But the corollary to that, which I found that I I boomeranged into and developed a bad habit around, is you you kind of go, Oh, I can hold these cards for as long as I want. And in the last turn, I can score like four cards and drop 15 points, boom, there you go. And you get in this bad habit of like, I'm gonna hoard my cards, I'm gonna hoard my cards. Oh my god, it's round four, and I haven't scored any secondaries.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

So I think that was a big adjustment for me in my my game in 11th um was kind of figuring out kind of the Ketty Rogers song, know when to hold 'em, no when to fold them, right? Uh, you know, and I think that um trying like there yet for me, I haven't found a way to to know how to time that. There's no like as far as I have seen, I have not seen a you know, clear cut, okay, when you draw this one, you know, you should want to do X, right? I felt like that was the way it's been through like 9th and 10th was, you know, when you draw all this, um you know, you know when to use it, right? I feel like the secondaries now are more of you know, think they're kind of like the the like chance cards in Monopoly. Like, you know, you can land on the thing and get the game a chance, and it could be a good one, it could be a bad one. Um, and you know, trying to time it just right might be a problem, you know. Um, I just think that there's a lot of there's a lot more thought that has to go into when is the right time, how to use the secondary, when is the right time to hold it. What I found was in the past, I would I would burn a secondary because oh well it's not gonna do anything for me this turn.

SPEAKER_02 48:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

But now it's like, well, wait a second, because I have this thing that I'm setting up that I'm probably not gonna get to for like another turn or two, potentially. So maybe if I hold that there and I don't use it early, or I, you know, I could potentially set that up so that I could go for the big swing instead of the little swing. And I think that that aspect um played a lot into like that dynamic on the table in the game type aspect that I was poking at earlier. Um I I just I think the way that the secondaries are built so far in 11th, I I think it's brilliant. I think it adds a just another edge to the game that's really cool. I think people will figure out how to optimize them. And what you're gonna get is like, you know, we talk about the and then, right? I think you're gonna get a lot of and thans through secondaries. There's gonna be like special ways to stack the secondaries that are gonna set up moves that are like cross-table type interactions um that are gonna have a lot of people going, wait, what which one of you just hit me, you know, type of thing. I think there's ways to do that. Um, I also think that my opinion, I think that in 10th edition, your scoring was kind of always an afterthought. Like the game was happening, and like you would have, you know, the combat situate on the table or the shooting situate on the table, you're removing things and you're doing things, and it's kind of like, oh yeah, and I scored this on that, and I scored this on that, and like the the the way you were scoring points was almost not um not engaged with the game. I I don't know a better way to say it. Like it's not engrossed into the game. It didn't, it just felt like a second uh pun intended, a secondary part of the game of like, oh, and uh yeah, I killed all this stuff and I did all this things, and oh by the way, I scored five points here. Okay, great.

SPEAKER_03 50:24

You know, it felt like almost you would start your turn, you would draw your secondaries, you would have the primary mission, which both you and your opponent were playing the same one, and you would almost get this okay, start of my turn, what's the paint by numbers that I need to do to get my score? Do the bare minimum to do that, okay, now what's the real thing I want to go do? Because it was so heavily structured on the scoring side, whereas now it's more free form of hey, you could have a fistful of cards and you can do them or not, that's up to you. And oh, by the way, on the primary mission, you may have two to four things that you have to do, and so there's a lot more free form of here are all the options, but now it's on you to decide which lever you're gonna pull.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

Yeah, it's it's sorry. Sorry, I I promise you things are trying to come out of my mouth, but uh the noises are are uh just not there. Um, so I'm trying to talk.

SPEAKER_03 51:30

You're playing the Papa Nurgle.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

Wow, yeah, I'm like choking over here. Um yeah, I I just I just think that that the way that the secondaries are now engersed into the game, they play a part to the strategy more, in my opinion. I don't know if this this may sound silly to all you out there, but I'll give I'll give you an example.

SPEAKER_03 51:53

So I picked up this habit. I didn't you know I didn't originate it. I got it from the Art of War down under from the host Adam there that he recommended that he said he does, which is once you get past about turn one, the the recommendation he had is start of your turn, draw your secondaries, look at the board, think about what it is you need to, you know, look at the primary, look at the different ways you could score points this turn, look at the things you want to do tactically, and then what he recommended is you start making piles of your secondaries and forming groupings in front of you, and the groupings you form are things to do in a future turn and things to do this turn. And he says, you know, his recommendation, and I've started to do it, and it's been really impactful, is you start moving the cards around in front of you, or you'll walk up as you're going into your movement phase and put a secondary card next to a specific unit and say, Okay, this unit's gonna do this card, this unit's gonna do this card. And it's a way of forcing the differentiation into your brain of these are the decisions, these are the priorities that I'm deciding on this turn. And to your point about optimizing it, I've actually taken that to the next level of even if I've got cards that are going into the I'm not gonna do it this turn, I will start grouping them together of things that look like they could logically be scored together. So I'll be like, oh, I drew behind enemy lines, forward position, and cleanse. I think if I can bait my opponent off their home objective, I can deep strike a unit in there, get on their home objective, and cleanse it, and I can score all three of those cards with one unit. Those three go together as a group package when I decide to pull them out of my backlog.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

I think that that's that's it. Like it's it, I feel like you're I don't know. I feel like you're like building a hand in poker or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 53:59

Can I blow your mind for a second? Yeah, and I'm taking it right back to your nine to five. Hey, this is backlog management with your secondaries. You're curating your product backlog and you're deciding what to pull into work and when, and it gives you a whole lot of agency of what to pull in and when.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

Yeah, and it allows you to create the timeline, right? So throughout your game, if you have an idea of where you want to go with your strategy, it allows you to kind of almost put that on a roadmap. Oh my god, we're nerds.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

So yeah, I was gonna say we're we're ramping up to the whole, well, 10th edition was waterfall and 11th edition is agile.

SPEAKER_00 54:39

It's coming, it's coming. I feel it, I heard it too. I gotta stop myself.

SPEAKER_01 54:46

We're nerds.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

A little bit, yes, we are, but a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 54:51

That's what it reminds me of is I find myself spending more time thinking at the start of each round or the start of each turn, and it's almost like doing a mini sprint planning session of okay, what are the things that are high priority objectives to do in this turn? Let me physically pull the cards out of my backlog and say these cards are priorities, they're now being pulled into my must-do this turn pile. Look at the priority, same thing. Is there anything on there that I must do? Look at the opponent's army. Is there anything on the board where I need to get there or I need to kill that thing? I find myself building the equivalent of a sprint, you know, set of stories to go work, and then everything else goes into the backlog, and I'll have a rough priority for it, but that's free to be adjusted as I go.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

I think this is pretty cool that that like the patterns that we're starting to see, and it's early in the edition, but I I think that the patterns that we're starting to see are are really a lot of fun. And and I don't know, the the the part that I am excited about is it just feels like it just feels different, right? It just feels so much different, and it's like learning something new again, and and to me that's just super exciting. Um yeah, I don't know, it is cool, but yeah, I've been I I I noticed that when when we were playing in the Barnhammer event that the secondaries were just so important. Yep um and matter of fact, I think it was cousin Josh on the second Necron game at the Barnhammer event. He kind of got he kind of got hung up in secondaries a little bit. I think that's what happened. Um and I think a little I think at one point he had like a whole bunch of them spread across the table. And and he really had anyone he could choose from. Um but yeah, it was it was just you know, you I I think you can live by them and you can die by them. Like you can do damage to yourself too if you don't have a roadmap. So something that's like not super intuitive to me, and we've talked about this in past, you know, podcasts, is that I just love to kind of get in there and wing it a little bit. Um I I think that it could hurt you if you do that. I think you have to spend some time planning your strategy um with what you want to do. And I think the the winging it aspect is gonna come with the dynamics on the table of well, what was your what was your plan B? Right? What was your plan C? And when you find yourself down on plan F like I think cousin Josh was in his last Necron game, you know, how are you gonna come out of that?

SPEAKER_03 57:46

Um Yeah, and there's there's a be careful there, and this is an area where I have heard some criticisms of a Lemeth edition. I don't know that I agree with them, but I certainly can acknowledge that they're there, and it's the be careful is actually for someone like me, because this is a hundred percent a way that I would play the game, which is so let's let's build a scenario where you're you're having those kind of struggles of you're kind of just going through and you're winging it, or you're locked into kind of the 10th edition of you know, I'm gonna let the cards dictate what I do. If I'm playing, say, like my Emperor's Children, I can just rush you early in the game, throw my entire army at you, and there's gonna be a point where if I keep the pressure on, you're gonna be looking down, you're gonna be like, oh my god, I've got like six to eight secondary cards in front of me, and I have no idea which one of these I should be doing right now, and I've got Eric right up in my face. I think there's the opportunity almost more so than there was in 10th edition, to put the other person into analysis paralysis.

SPEAKER_00 58:59

I think that's what happened with Cousin Josh on that that second Necron game. I think that's you're explaining exactly correct. Is and I think he got out of it really well, actually. He he kind of stepped back and he he started making a comeback after it went, but but I think it it to your point for those who maybe suffer from analysis paralysis sometimes, um you know, a tactic could be just overflood them with secondaries and give them way too many choices to have to to make. And if if you're on the other side of the table and you can control kind of like anti-secondary act, like anti-secondary strategy, like how can I how can I control rather than thinking through your secondaries, how do you control your opponent from getting to their secondaries? I think that can be very, very effective in this edition.

SPEAKER_03 59:58

Yeah, and it's I don't know. I I find those kind of things, that's what I'm really experimenting with and and having a lot of fun with. The other one that's kind of a wrinkle that that goes along with that is I found that a lot, not a lot of the primaries, but some of the primaries, some of the matchups, especially when you're playing against things like Purge the Fo, there's almost an incentive there where you can put your opponent into analysis paralysis of like, hey, you're I'm playing priority assets and you're playing Purge the Foe. I really just have to tow on to like one objective, do an action, and then just wait for you to come to me. Right. And now the entire agency is on you to push forward. And if that's not the kind of player you are, I can force you to be incredibly uncomfortable by doing a whole lot of, yeah, I'm just gonna hang back. Yeah, I'm just gonna stage. Yeah, I'm just gonna hang back, I'm I'm gonna focus on my secondaries. And I I found that I got into that when I played the CSM and Knights game of, you know, I looked at the matchup pregame, and I'm like, this doesn't look very good for the Chaos Knights, but I know CSM is playing Purge the Foe, and I know they're playing mostly a melee version of Purge the Foe. I'm just gonna hang back, toe onto one objective, score not a maximum amount, but a decent amount of primary every turn, and I'm gonna wait for them to slog their way across the board because they're not gonna be scoring primary as well, and I'm gonna get to shoot at them until they eventually come in into range with me. And it it one, it created a very frustrating experience from the CSM perspective. Like I had the picture of the Highlander movie where the the Highlander is walking around in the early battle, like, why will nobody fight me? Because you can hang back and do that and score points in certain matchups, and as the opponent, it feels really uncomfortable to be have to be the one taking all the chances. So I think there's another version there where you can do the same thing of you you can put your opponent into uncomfortable situations depending on how the mission and the secondaries and everything else you're drawing.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

I mean, the truth is the reason why they didn't fight him is because there can only be one Highlander.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:29

Yeah, it I listen, I got it. We're not doing a Highlander podcast. The Kurgan wanted to be able to fight him himself. I got it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

But in this particular one, prior to ask you can do a Highlander podcast if you guys want to strap in for another hour. It's gonna be more than that given what I know about you and Highlander. I definitely am a fan.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

Um no, I I I think I think it's it's just I don't know. It's fun to talk about this stuff because I think the way that strategy is formed is just changed now. And it's kind of like I feel like it's like a green field. Like we can go out and try stuff and go explore things and and it's okay, right? It's okay. It doesn't it doesn't detract from the game when you do try to do something and it's not working right now. I think that's kind of a really cool spot to be in.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:25

Yeah, agreed. I I'm it's why I'm enjoying 11th so much. It's why I'm majority positive on it when we get into things like this podcast. It's it's legitimately really, really fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:42

Yeah, I agree. So, alright. I took you all the way up to the limit, and I didn't let you talk about your teams.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:51

Let's do that next week because then they'll have the full the full list revealed and everything

WTC Roster Hot Take & Wrap Up

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

else. But it I I will leave it with this, which is a a cautionary tale and a be careful to folks when they when the list do get released. So one of the major changes in WTC this year, and I think it is very, very interesting, but it is going to come with a giant caveat that everyone needs to consider is historically teams was whether you're playing a five-man and eight-man, it's go build your best eight lists and put, you know, make sure that you've got your best eight players and then go. Well, now for WTC, GW added the wrinkle of you need to cover all of the force dispositions. So you can't just have eight people playing priority assets. You need to have at least one disruption, at least one purge the foe. You gotta have at least one of everything. In addition to the already existing rule of you can't duplicate codexes on the same team, so you can't you only get one person who's playing you know all of the space marine factions. So you can't bring blood angels and dark angels, you only get one Astardis. You only if you bring a Caldus Assassin, you can't bring an Imperial Agents team. Not that I think anyone it is. If you're souping in a knight, you can't bring knights. And so they've got this added wrinkle that I think my cautionary tale, I think folks will struggle with when all the lists get released of you're gonna get this discussion and this consensus on the internet of like, oh look, everyone is playing Necron's Cursed Legion. Another reason why I think it's a good list. And they're all playing it on Purge the Fo. That has got to be the new meta way to play Necrons. And from what I've picked up in some of the podcasts and everything that I listen to from the guys who are playing in WTC, their opinion is more along the lines of Now, if I were playing singles, this isn't the best way to play Necrons. There are better ways to play Necrons. But those better ways are in forced dispositions like take and hold and priority assets. And we already had those slots filled on our team by other armies that we think play priority assets and take and hold better than Necrons. So this is just Necrons being the best available choice for purge the foe from factions that we hadn't already slotted into other force dispositions. And that is a very nuanced take. Yeah. And I think that's going to lead to a lot of confusion and a lot of what you and I jokingly call upsetti spaghetti. When when people do the oh, look, like everyone is bringing Dark Angels on recon to WTC. That's the new way to play Dark Angels. And then it's not as good in singles as it appears. And it's because I think there's this added balance of in the background, the teams are probably doing some level of prioritization of okay, we think priority assets is the top force disposition. So we're going to put our best armies that play priority assets. We're going to fill those slots first. Okay, those two factions are out. Priority assets are out. Now let's do take and hold, fill those up. Those armies are out, those force dispositions are out. And you're skinnying down the choices for everyone else as you go. So there could be some quote unquote meta ways to play Dark Angels or Orcs or Necrons. And I think it's this applies more to things like Necrons than to like orcs, because orcs are one of the stronger armies. But as you get down further into like recon and disruption and purge the foe, I would be willing to bet you're getting the well, that was the best available option that we had, given that we had already eliminated a bunch of other options. Which is a very different statement than, well, that's the best way to play that faction. So that's that's my hot take from the WTC release, and I don't know. Next week when they release the lists, I'll I'll probably geek out on it. I'll have at least one more game under my belt, and we can build from there. Or we can just talk about Highlander for an hour.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:35

No, no, I can't be defeated by Highlander. Uh I think that's awesome. I think let's break it down. I think you you kind of I wasn't actually ready for that much thought to rush into my head as you were talking about WTC. Um that's really interesting. Your your warning is is kind of cool. Um and I I I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:02

I'm I'm excited to break it down. I'm gonna make a bold prediction for 11th. And I don't have the depth of experience across editions that other people in the community do. I started at the end of 9th. But it seems like in prior editions, especially in 8th and 9th, and then parts of 10th, the strength of your list and the faction you were playing mattered way more than anything else. And not that the game became an autopilot, but you know, if if you brought the right list, your probability of winning went up substantially. I think 11th edition, what we're seeing is player agency and getting alignment between the player skill, the force disposition, and the faction they're playing, and then their ability to manipulate the timing of the game and play their opponent. I think all those things are gonna start mattering not to the point where they trump list strength, but they're gonna start mattering much more than they historically have, and that is something I'm very excited for.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:15

It's gonna be fun to see these big tournaments play out. It's gonna be fun to see the first like real big, you know, the the celebrities show up and like the like the you know, just a big slug vest. I'm pretty excited about it. I I you know, as the as the WTC kicks off, I mean, maybe what what we do is uh you know, we get together and we watch it like it is a World Cup thing. I don't know. Because I I think it is gonna be pretty cool to see not just that, but like any big tournament that's happening. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun to really watch it. Um and just to watch how people interpret this and and see if all of the things that you and I are picking up from all this, whether or not you know they're feeling the same way. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun to see it play out and and I don't know, I'm just excited about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:09

Yeah, same here. I'm I'm really excited for it. So we're we're a little bit over time. We should probably get into wrap-up mode, but yeah, it I don't know. There's a lot of cool stuff, and I I love that I was able to get you with the comparison to agile and data engineering.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:27

I was not expecting. So pleasant surprises. Um, well, that's what we do here on this podcast. I mean, we don't have a script, we just kind of really are just two buddies I'd like to get on here and talk about Warhammer. So um, yeah, that was that was a lot of fun. You kind of threw me for a loop a little bit. So I promise to everybody that I will get over uh whatever Nurgle has in store for me here, so I won't have the annoying sniffles.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:56

I think Papa Nurgle is telling you to stop poo-pooing the Death Guard and to try them out in 11th.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:01

Could be, yeah. Maybe that's what we'll do. Maybe when you and I get together and play our next game, we'll play a Death Guard game. How's that sound? That works for me. Cool. Alright, well, listen, I'm gonna go drown myself in some NyQuil and Musinex, and um, hopefully I can wake up in the morning for work.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:20

That sounds like an excessive amount of medication.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:24

Yeah, but it allows me to breathe, so you know who approve of taking excessive amounts of medication, Steve.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:32

I hate you.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:35

The Emperor's children.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:38

You know, I'm not even gonna I'm not even going to acknowledge it anymore. Just gonna ignore it. Alright, everybody. Enjoy the rest of your week and your weekend, and we'll see you next week when I don't sound like a Muppet. Alright. Have a great night, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:59

Take care, everyone.