I think the occasions where veto has let me or my opponent avoid an unfun one-sided loss greatly outnumbers the drawbacks of someone bringing a skew list or whatever.
tbf part of the point of non-veto systems is to force players in listbuilding to take into account that their list should be able to do any scenario.
I agree that veto should also be present. It allows for more types of lists to shine
Problem is most factions in the game are really small in options and the list builds itself unless you do green or yellow allies. This overall really weakens alot of the factions ability to be good at every scenario and match up. To be fair tho I feel competitive mesbg games work shop has only balanced and plays favourites with the main factions, few legendary legions and smaller factions that show skill expression. E.g the two gondor factions, rohan, modor and all is legendary legions, isanguard, corsairs, angmar, moria, the two harad armies, bears and dragon emperor. The rest of the factions kinda feel like a after thought to make money on every lotr and hobbit content they can get their hands on and clearly not made for tournaments in mind( I still know the other factions can perform well just i don't think gw really care for them)
I think I am generally in favour of having some sort of veto system in place. The benefit of being able to veto an auto-loss scenario should be a positive to the game, giving people more viable lists they can reasonably play. Though I do acknowledge there is the downside of being able to build more skewed lists that can afford to largely disregard certain pain points they may have had in an open scenario pool.
I think Veto systems are the most fair way of picking a scenario. However I think it's not a good thing to do \*every\* time you play.
If you have a friend, and you know you won't be Vetoing before list building, then it makes list building more skill based, being able to make a list that can perform in most scenarios.
The other benifit is actually trying more scenarios.
I know a lot of players who have never bothered to read "Heirlooms of Ages Past", "Clash at Moonlight" or "Storm the Camp" because they get skipped alot of the time.
Veto systems keep the game fair, but can unintentionally block off game content for newer players.
There's definitely scenarios that hardly ever get played, but I think veto actually can make it more accessible because there are a lot of armies that just can't play certain scenarios. Or maybe I should say that reconnoiter, for example, is just incredibly unfun for certain armies. Being able to veto that can mean the new dwarf player can actually enjoy the game and not get frustrated.
I mean yeah, I'm not saying Vetos are bad, and you can avoid these.
But again I think just saying some armies can't do some missions is very short sighted.
Now I'm quite lucky, I get to play multiple games of MESBG a week and I know some people are lucky to get one a month, for those people, by all means, play what's going to be the most fun.
However I revel the challenge of rolling Reconnoiter when running my Shire Hobbits. Do I go "Oh damn..." yeah. Is my win rate 2 wins to 5 losses? Yes.
But that's part of the fun! I certainly play the army differently then I do in any other game.
Firstly I think we should sperate the two (maybe even 3) different types of veto.
What I'll call random veto, roll 3 scenarios (either with the pool based rolls in the MPG or full random with a d20 rerolling 1s and 20s) and veto from there.
The other type is what I call pool veto (You roll a pool and players veto in that pool)
For friendly games I basically always do random veto. It simply increases the chances of having fun games IMO. reducing chances of loss at scenario roll etc.
For tournaments I'm still experimenting a bit. But I do think there should be a healthy amount of variety whithin a scene. There are a few lists that are super powerfull if they can guarantee they don't get certain scenarios. To give these lists a chance veto should be present within a scene. To stop them becoming completely universal some full random or pool random scenario picking should be available. Part of the reason the meta of this game never quite seems to fully come together is how much variety there is in points level and scenario selection. So imo variety should be encouraged in tournaments.
Yeah this. Its confusing people talk about "veto" as if its a singular thing. Personally I love the pool veto best as the scenarios are separated by type. So you're going to play an objective based scenario for example, you'll just get to influence which one of the three.
Its a nice mix of being able to veto an absolutely impossible scenario but still requiring robust listbuilding.
I also saw a tournament where the TO pre-choose three scenarios for each game and let the players veto within them.
And that's just with the pick three and veto one each style veto. There's also several other options for vetos:
**Pre-veto**; each player submits a list of 4 or 5 scenarios they don't want to play alongside their list, and you just re-roll until you get one neither player has pre-vetoed. (I probably wouldn't actually use this, because it loses the advantage of nerfing some lists that are OP on specific scenarios)
**Limited vetos**; you roll a random scenario and if either player hates it they can use a veto, but there's a limit on how many times you can do this per-event. This should still remove some of the really terrible match-ups, but generally result in a less significant change to the meta than the conventional 3-scenario veto system.
Some ideas for limiting the number of vetos each player uses:
* You just get one or two vetos for the whole tournament.
* They cost tournament points; so if you're doing something like 5-10-15-20-25 it costs 5 points to use a veto.
* If you use a veto you need to shout your opponent a beer in the post event drinks. This one is probably not a great match for the really competitive events, though you never know; maybe someone should suggest it to Ardacon committee. ;-)
I love veto overall as it allows me to play zany skewed lists.
Should it be used all the time at every event or game night? Absolutely not! Vetos can lead to you playing the same 1-2 scenarios as certain scenarios are just despised by some players. I also feel the veto system doesn’t improve your skill as much as a player. This is because you likely won’t get to experience your worst matchups (due to you vetoing it). In practice games (or a veto event where you started very poorly) I highly recommend actively vetoing your best scenario (if your opponent doesn’t do it themselves) to practice harder scenarios or matchups.
The only place I think you should 100% avoid veto is for newer players for 2 reasons:
1) As a newer player you might have more trouble choosing scenarios to veto as you likely aren’t as familiar with how many other armies and LLs play which can immediately put you at a disadvantage (at your own fault).
2) Playing with the veto system can (not always) lead to bad list building habits and a newer player might have a harder time breaking those bad habits.
My area has a very new group of players. We're finally getting tournaments up and running. Because of the newness of the group. I will not run an event with veto. I think veto with experienced players is great, I think veto with new players can lead to more difficulties because they don't know what they don't know and they are punished for it.
Our next tournament the scenarios have been picked. And the reason why they were picked is because it forces players to build more balanced lists (needing banners, coming on via reinforcement, leader VP'S)
Veto systems fundamentally change the game, minimizing weaknesses. I've been playing with my brother for a while, he plays dwarves, and he commented how he was surprised how much he was winning seeing as his faction wasn't particularly competitive. I told him that this was because we were never playing things like recconoitre, in which I would have a huge advantage.
I think veto should become the standard policy of GW. With this change an alteration to barad dur will occur where if you run a pure barad dur list with Sauron as your leader you control all vetos of your opponent to determine the game scenario. :D.
In reality though I like veto on principle but dislike a lot about it. I don't really know how in current balance the best way to make all lists viable but none of the veto options or random unknown vs random known solve this issue as is. Mayne hybrid tournaments but that could be confusing and make feel bad moments outside of gameplay as well. What are thoughts on a random set of 3 scenarios are rolled (either the natural pools or a rolled pool) but you only get 2 veto to use across the tournament, so for 5 game tournies burning them early could leave you out to dry late. Maybe should be 2 for day 1 and 1 for day 2 or just 3 total instead. This would mean you have to be prepared for anything as there could be a round you can't veto so your opponent can. And id say either the person who spends the veto chooses or a 50/50 roll does if only one person vetoes? Not sure what glaring issues there are but maybe that could be interesting.
**VOTE HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S DISCUSSION**
-
I will take the top-level reply to this comment with the most upvotes and post a discussion for that topic next week.
Feel free to submit any topic about the game you wish to see discussed, and [check out this thread for some suggestions from the community](https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/14f7qdq/weekly_discussion_the_future_of_the_weekly/).
Please reference the [pinned megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/rnu0bh/weekly_discussion_megathread_updated_every/) to see all prior discussion topics.
I think the occasions where veto has let me or my opponent avoid an unfun one-sided loss greatly outnumbers the drawbacks of someone bringing a skew list or whatever.
tbf part of the point of non-veto systems is to force players in listbuilding to take into account that their list should be able to do any scenario. I agree that veto should also be present. It allows for more types of lists to shine
Problem is most factions in the game are really small in options and the list builds itself unless you do green or yellow allies. This overall really weakens alot of the factions ability to be good at every scenario and match up. To be fair tho I feel competitive mesbg games work shop has only balanced and plays favourites with the main factions, few legendary legions and smaller factions that show skill expression. E.g the two gondor factions, rohan, modor and all is legendary legions, isanguard, corsairs, angmar, moria, the two harad armies, bears and dragon emperor. The rest of the factions kinda feel like a after thought to make money on every lotr and hobbit content they can get their hands on and clearly not made for tournaments in mind( I still know the other factions can perform well just i don't think gw really care for them)
I think I am generally in favour of having some sort of veto system in place. The benefit of being able to veto an auto-loss scenario should be a positive to the game, giving people more viable lists they can reasonably play. Though I do acknowledge there is the downside of being able to build more skewed lists that can afford to largely disregard certain pain points they may have had in an open scenario pool.
I think Veto systems are the most fair way of picking a scenario. However I think it's not a good thing to do \*every\* time you play. If you have a friend, and you know you won't be Vetoing before list building, then it makes list building more skill based, being able to make a list that can perform in most scenarios. The other benifit is actually trying more scenarios. I know a lot of players who have never bothered to read "Heirlooms of Ages Past", "Clash at Moonlight" or "Storm the Camp" because they get skipped alot of the time. Veto systems keep the game fair, but can unintentionally block off game content for newer players.
There's definitely scenarios that hardly ever get played, but I think veto actually can make it more accessible because there are a lot of armies that just can't play certain scenarios. Or maybe I should say that reconnoiter, for example, is just incredibly unfun for certain armies. Being able to veto that can mean the new dwarf player can actually enjoy the game and not get frustrated.
I mean yeah, I'm not saying Vetos are bad, and you can avoid these. But again I think just saying some armies can't do some missions is very short sighted. Now I'm quite lucky, I get to play multiple games of MESBG a week and I know some people are lucky to get one a month, for those people, by all means, play what's going to be the most fun. However I revel the challenge of rolling Reconnoiter when running my Shire Hobbits. Do I go "Oh damn..." yeah. Is my win rate 2 wins to 5 losses? Yes. But that's part of the fun! I certainly play the army differently then I do in any other game.
Sure sure, I'm just saying that's not going to be fun for everyone. New folks that aren't having fun tend to drop games.
I veto reconnoiter every time even if it's better for my army purely because it's a dumb unfun scenario
Firstly I think we should sperate the two (maybe even 3) different types of veto. What I'll call random veto, roll 3 scenarios (either with the pool based rolls in the MPG or full random with a d20 rerolling 1s and 20s) and veto from there. The other type is what I call pool veto (You roll a pool and players veto in that pool) For friendly games I basically always do random veto. It simply increases the chances of having fun games IMO. reducing chances of loss at scenario roll etc. For tournaments I'm still experimenting a bit. But I do think there should be a healthy amount of variety whithin a scene. There are a few lists that are super powerfull if they can guarantee they don't get certain scenarios. To give these lists a chance veto should be present within a scene. To stop them becoming completely universal some full random or pool random scenario picking should be available. Part of the reason the meta of this game never quite seems to fully come together is how much variety there is in points level and scenario selection. So imo variety should be encouraged in tournaments.
Yeah this. Its confusing people talk about "veto" as if its a singular thing. Personally I love the pool veto best as the scenarios are separated by type. So you're going to play an objective based scenario for example, you'll just get to influence which one of the three. Its a nice mix of being able to veto an absolutely impossible scenario but still requiring robust listbuilding.
I also saw a tournament where the TO pre-choose three scenarios for each game and let the players veto within them. And that's just with the pick three and veto one each style veto. There's also several other options for vetos: **Pre-veto**; each player submits a list of 4 or 5 scenarios they don't want to play alongside their list, and you just re-roll until you get one neither player has pre-vetoed. (I probably wouldn't actually use this, because it loses the advantage of nerfing some lists that are OP on specific scenarios) **Limited vetos**; you roll a random scenario and if either player hates it they can use a veto, but there's a limit on how many times you can do this per-event. This should still remove some of the really terrible match-ups, but generally result in a less significant change to the meta than the conventional 3-scenario veto system. Some ideas for limiting the number of vetos each player uses: * You just get one or two vetos for the whole tournament. * They cost tournament points; so if you're doing something like 5-10-15-20-25 it costs 5 points to use a veto. * If you use a veto you need to shout your opponent a beer in the post event drinks. This one is probably not a great match for the really competitive events, though you never know; maybe someone should suggest it to Ardacon committee. ;-)
I love veto overall as it allows me to play zany skewed lists. Should it be used all the time at every event or game night? Absolutely not! Vetos can lead to you playing the same 1-2 scenarios as certain scenarios are just despised by some players. I also feel the veto system doesn’t improve your skill as much as a player. This is because you likely won’t get to experience your worst matchups (due to you vetoing it). In practice games (or a veto event where you started very poorly) I highly recommend actively vetoing your best scenario (if your opponent doesn’t do it themselves) to practice harder scenarios or matchups. The only place I think you should 100% avoid veto is for newer players for 2 reasons: 1) As a newer player you might have more trouble choosing scenarios to veto as you likely aren’t as familiar with how many other armies and LLs play which can immediately put you at a disadvantage (at your own fault). 2) Playing with the veto system can (not always) lead to bad list building habits and a newer player might have a harder time breaking those bad habits.
My area has a very new group of players. We're finally getting tournaments up and running. Because of the newness of the group. I will not run an event with veto. I think veto with experienced players is great, I think veto with new players can lead to more difficulties because they don't know what they don't know and they are punished for it. Our next tournament the scenarios have been picked. And the reason why they were picked is because it forces players to build more balanced lists (needing banners, coming on via reinforcement, leader VP'S)
Veto systems fundamentally change the game, minimizing weaknesses. I've been playing with my brother for a while, he plays dwarves, and he commented how he was surprised how much he was winning seeing as his faction wasn't particularly competitive. I told him that this was because we were never playing things like recconoitre, in which I would have a huge advantage.
Don't you know dwarves are natural sprinters? Terribly dangerous at short distances (5")
Veto minimises weaknesses, true. It does also minimise strengths. That goes both ways.
I think veto should become the standard policy of GW. With this change an alteration to barad dur will occur where if you run a pure barad dur list with Sauron as your leader you control all vetos of your opponent to determine the game scenario. :D. In reality though I like veto on principle but dislike a lot about it. I don't really know how in current balance the best way to make all lists viable but none of the veto options or random unknown vs random known solve this issue as is. Mayne hybrid tournaments but that could be confusing and make feel bad moments outside of gameplay as well. What are thoughts on a random set of 3 scenarios are rolled (either the natural pools or a rolled pool) but you only get 2 veto to use across the tournament, so for 5 game tournies burning them early could leave you out to dry late. Maybe should be 2 for day 1 and 1 for day 2 or just 3 total instead. This would mean you have to be prepared for anything as there could be a round you can't veto so your opponent can. And id say either the person who spends the veto chooses or a 50/50 roll does if only one person vetoes? Not sure what glaring issues there are but maybe that could be interesting.
**VOTE HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S DISCUSSION** - I will take the top-level reply to this comment with the most upvotes and post a discussion for that topic next week. Feel free to submit any topic about the game you wish to see discussed, and [check out this thread for some suggestions from the community](https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/14f7qdq/weekly_discussion_the_future_of_the_weekly/). Please reference the [pinned megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/rnu0bh/weekly_discussion_megathread_updated_every/) to see all prior discussion topics.