This thing only goes to eleven...

A quick, late-night chat this, but I saw something today that brought home a thought I'd been having for a while. Specifically, it was about Cyberpunk 2077 and the developers' decision to go first-person with it, but the issue goes a far bit deeper than that.

Now, I'm not all that happy with CDPR's decision, but here's the thing- that's as far as it goes. On the miff-o-meter, it's a 4 at most- miffed, possibly even grumpy, but that's it. To read the Internet headlines, however, I'm apparently part of a 'backlash' or I'm 'outraged' or 'furious'. A lot has been said recently about how gaming, be it video-gaming, hobby games like 40k,  PnP RPGs or whatever needs to be more 'inclusive' and one of the things used to justify that statement is a perception that gamers are angry man-children who won't hesitate to throw their toys out of the pram the instant something in their favourite pastime isn't exactly as they want it to be.

I had to do it- they nerfed my Dreadnought!

That suits the internet news machine, of course. It's much more click-worthy to talk about gamers being 'outraged' at women being depicted as front-line troops in a WWII game than it is to say that they're scratching their heads at the idea a bit from a historical perspective. A nice juicy wrapper of misogyny makes the argument far more likely to explode into an ad-revenue generating flame-war. Never mind that many of the people raising the historical points had no problem with women in FPS games in a more modern setting where it makes sense- if they complain, they must be knuckle-dragging chauvinists. And of course you can rely on a few useful idiots to send Twitter death-threats to the developers into the bargain.

There's a related issue there about whether games set in historical periods should be criticised for not sticking to the social norms of those eras. This one cuts both ways- I've commented before on the (terrible) pirate-themed game "Raven's Cry" being pilloried because its cast were violet, foul-mouthed racists despite the fact that by all accounts pirates of the 17th century most certainly were all that and worse. It seems to me that there's a thin wedge being driven in here- if we say that historical accuracy isn't important, it makes it harder to use it as an 'excuse' for content and attitudes in a game that people consider 'problematic'- people say you're using the setting because you want to push those attitudes. But I digress to the extent that I'm going to stick this paragraph in italics.

To get back to the point- I think we've known for some time that the internet has a problem with nuanced discussion. It's hard, though by no means impossible, to find any forum or thread discussing a contentious point without someone getting angry and personal about it. The media, or at least that part of it that relies on clicks to survive, doesn't help, turning every disagreement into a massive, community-splitting Armageddon. I think that much of the time, the truth of the matter is quite different, and many of these things actually only have the majority of the relevant communities wanting their quite sensible points to be heard. The problem is that as soon as the Red Lanterns of the internet turn up- and if they aren't there initially, some hack will soon see to it that they're summoned-that's it. The reasonable people check out or watch silently in despair as someone claiming to agree with them proceeds to act like Pol Pot has possessed their keyboard.

The problems with this are twofold. Firstly, it allows people with an agenda against a given community- and it can be any community, from gamers to S&M devotees to Vegans- to paint that community as a bunch of angry cretins. Secondly, it allows developers, film producers and other creatives to make hideously bad decisions and then often look like heroes for standing by them because the Red Lanterns turned up to attack them over it. Other times, of course, those same creatives are simply making a decision that's unpopular with a small but vocal clique of their so-called fans and standing by it is exactly the right thing to do. The problem is that in an online world where everything only goes to eleven, those two situations look very much the same.

Can you Keep a Secret?

Not pictured: An official Keeper of Secrets

There's been a bit of chat recently about the possibility that we might see a new Keeper of Secrets model, or maybe even a new wave of Slaanesh Daemons in general, as the Age of Sigmar story rolls onward. At the moment, the Keeper is in a very odd place on the 40k battlefield.

Hurt Me Plenty
The Keeper of Secrets is by some distance the weakest of the four Greater Daemons (if we're lazy and lump the various forms of Bloodthirster, Great Unclean One and Lord of Change together). It's fast-moving, true, and certainly capable of doing some damage with its close combat attacks and a couple of psychic powers, but all it has between it and a first-class one-way ticket to the Warp is T7, a 5++, and 12 Wounds. Compared to the considerably cheaper Winged Daemon Prince, which has 3+ armour and the protection of being a Character with less than 10 Wounds, the Keeper is almost impossible to, er, keep on the table for more than a turn.

I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me...
In part, this is understandable due to the state of the current Keeper model. With no nice new plastic combi-kit to call its own, we can see why the Keeper might be a little lacking in the rules department, too. But even this doesn't entirely make sense. Compare this:

I'm scary, honest

With this:

Jog on, pipsqueak

Now, although those two pictures aren't quite in the same scale, they're both on 60mm bases. We can see that in terms of mass, the current Keeper and the Daemon Prince are about the same, though if they were getting ready for a weigh-in I suspect the Prince would be desperately cutting water whilst the Keeper ordered a Big Mac Meal. The point is that going by the models, there seems no reason why the Keeper should have 4 more Wounds and suddenly be a fire magnet whereas the Prince gets to sit happily in the sweet spot. As things stand, the Keeper is what my Grandmother might have called 'Too tall for Dick and too short for Richard'- it's supposedly a big target, but it's simply not tough enough to roll in that league. It's like putting Manny Pacquiao in a fat-suit and on stilts and then throwing him up against Vitali Klitschko.*

You gets what you pays for (sort of)
Now, to be fair to the authors of the Daemon Codex, they at least made the Keeper considerably cheaper, to the tune of about 100 points, than the other Greater Daemons. But I'd argue that in its current state it's not even worth as much as a Daemon Prince unless you're lucky enough to run into another army with next to no shooting. There's also really not a lot you can do to protect the thing. (It doesn't help me that my Keepers are third-party models and are far bigger than they really should be)

No way is this hiding behind a Soul Grinder

There are Stratagems that can help, at least a little. You can reserve the thing with Denizens of the Warp, but that just delays the problem- the Keeper can't do much when it arrives other than throw a few powers and hope to make a 9" charge. Warp Surge can boost it to a 4++ for a phase but that still feels very flimsy, especially when poison or Deathwatch special issue ammo is about. (It's particularly perverse (appropriately) that Hellfire rounds, designed to kill Tyranids, are considerably better at killing the Keeper than they are at killing the armoured Big Bugs)

You could also try to summon one with Daemonic Ritual. Stop laughing at the back! (The advantage of this is that at least you can then spend the points on something else that might be useful and easier to summon.)

Don't get me started on the Daemon version of Delightful Agonies only granting a 6+ FNP when the Astartes version is 5+. Seriously. Don't Go There.

Where do we go from here?
Hopefully it's not too much to expect for any new Keeper kit to be accompanied by new rules, just as those for the other Greater Daemons were. So, what might we do to the Keeper to help it stay alive long enough to do something, assuming that dropping below 10 Wounds so it can hide isn't an option?

One possibility might be to simply ignore that aspect of the Character rule. Rather than dropping the Wounds of the Keeper, give it a special rule called, say, Bewitching Glamour, that means that the Keeper can only be shot if it's the closest target. Another might be that old favourite, a -1 To Hit for shooting attacks to go with the one it already has in close combat.

We could also consider giving the Keeper a version of the old Look Out Sir rule, perhaps allowing it to take a 2+ save against a hit in exchange for putting a Mortal Wound on a Slaanesh Lesser Daemon within 6". This would make using it to support Daemonettes much more viable, rather than the situation at the moment where it's basically suicide.

Of course, these are only my quick thoughts on the subject, and it's quite possible that GW will surprise and delight Slaanesh players if and when the new model is released, and not just because it'll mean Slaanesh is Still A Thing.

I'm keeping my fingers and... other extremities crossed.




*Note to boxing nerds: I have no idea how that would actually go, but I know how the people who wrote the weight rules would expect it to go.