Erik....yeah, that would be cool, except it is canceled out by a couple of other cards. It only effects those figures in base with others too. It would therefore be good for breaking-up formations and for dwarven melee armies. Besides, it is only 1 damage on a roll of 1. If the card costs points to use, no one would ever use it, or most any other domain card.

I disagree. I am taking it to an extreme, but not out of context. You said that game balance isn't always neccessary. I then illustrated a logical consequence of that, which isn't what you intended but which does follow from your statement. I think most of us want some level of balance. Its just a question of where the line is drawn. I then gave illustrations of why I believe a good balance is important.

What limits if not a balanced game? We have limits on time, limits on number of actions, what else do points limit?
Perhaps the sarcastic tone of my post was missed. I was saying "why have balance at all?" to illustrate the absurdity of saying that balance doesn't matter
There is a difference between poor planning (say, taking all grave robbers since necromancy is so handy) and having to come up with one precise limited combination that will win the game regardless of how it is played. You would rather build armies, I would rather play a game. Its a matter of taste. Oddly, the huge focus on building only seems to crop up in collectable games...perhaps because those are the least balanced!
We have seen two domains, and we know they will each CRIPPLE a certain type of army. What I fear is not so much a domain that will give great power to a certain army (that can be countered by other domains at least) but a strong army that cannot be stopped by domains and will therefore dominate over all other armies which are face the risk of being destroyed just by a certain domain.
This is not my opinion. This is what I have read time and time again on MKRealms, over and over. Its the reason people are saying that v2 will make more of their army playable while it is completely destroying the abilities of half their models! If all the models are balanced and useable, there isn't really a need to improve the balance is there?
Personally, I use almost everything. As I've said before, my choice of models is going way down in v2 since there are currently only about 4 models I am not willing to use. But then again, I almost never play a tournament standard game, so I can't judge that. I can just go by what everyone else has said.

They say that in all likelihood, the domain cards will be tourney legal, but in casual play they will be optional.

For me, I can't imagine anybody in casual play saying..."no, you cannot use your all aquatic domain card" (am I focusing too much on this?), "now play your aquatic army anyway!

Yeah, the odds of me walking away are going to be pretty good.

It's not about balance. It's about interest level, options, and exploiting what the game can be.

MK is not a card game. Fashioning it as one was obviously good marketing, but way too limiting.

As a result of that limit, the number of options was limited. Standard 'terrain' is a joke (to the point where Low Walls were banned at Nationals); way to limiting in the creation of a dynamic play field. THE major strength of a minis game was thereby neutered. Power creep was inevitable - the only thing that CAN be varied was New Things in the figs.

And as a result, MK just got dull. I think it's showed in sales (though WK being a private concern we'll never know), and no amount of tweaking of the rules would change that. It'll take an ENVIRONMENTAL change to rekindle interest in the system. Hence, Domains.

Now, if they don't screw the pooch by expecting me to go out and buy another complete set of their Disposable Minia... I mean Collectable Minatures Game, I think they'll have a system that stays around for years.

Time will tell.

Stormknight....By your reply and subsequent posts I can see that we are not understanding eachother at all on this matter. I KNOW that you are not getting one single bit of what I'm saying, and I must not be getting what you mean either. Instead of a pointless continuation of me saying something and you taking it in another way or not understanding it, let's just agree that we have rather different viewpoints considering MK and 2.0.

Lawn_Gnome, It doesn't seem to me that StormKnight's comments are any more extreme or out of context than suggesting that people who want balanced pieces should be playing checkers. Also, if you believe that all of the figures are balanced, what's the point in making a statement which seems to defend the lack of balance in MK figures? Ok, maybe "potentially useful" isn't the same as "balanced" but aside from some bizzare scenario, when are you going to use a wonderful figure like a strong Serpent Sniper (for 67 points, you can deal one point of damage)?

You go on to say that you doubt that any domain cards that come out will cause problems. While I applaud your optimism, you haven't seen a complete set of domain cards so you can't rule out the possibility of problems. Of course, I haven't seen them either but I have seen things like power creep making older figures obsolete, quite a few FAQs with new rules to fix things that were too powerful or not working properly, and many figures that just aren't even worth considering in standard 200,300,500,800,1200, or 2000 point games. So, even as much as I like MK, I have a strong suspicion that 2.0 is going to have its share of problems but I hope to be proved wrong.


Perhaps you are correct, but this statement seems like it could be paraphrased as I think that you are an idiot if you are concerned about the relatively small number of army types and figures seeing competitive play. On the other hand, you might want to consider the possibility that there are skilled creative players that share these concerns.

Lawn_gnome -
So we agree to disagree? :D
While that's fine by me in principle, its not very useful for resolving discussions that tend to sort of be the point of these threads.
Unfortuanetly, an awful lot of this stuff is personal preference, which there isn't any way to resolve. And there is also a lot of it that's just an unknown factor at this point, since we have no idea exactly what the final rules and domains will be!
While I tend to be awfully confident in my opinions and willing to fight for them, I also try to keep an open mind and will admit it if I change my mind. I really do like hearing what other people think. If my ideas can't stand up to critisicm, they aren't worth holding onto. Of course, I have on occasion argued some points that turned out to be pretty dumb! :D
Ok...long and short of it, I'm not saying that domains WILL unbalance the game. I've just read a lot of posts saying how they WILL help balance the game, but with what I consider insufficient reasoning or thought behind that argument, and I wanted to get an idea of what exactly people did think, and what they would say to counter arguments.
Ok...<phew>...end of speech. You may all resume the argument/discussion/imminent flame war.

Stormknight.....Good reasoning. As I stated before, I don't think domains will have a large effect either way. We'll just have to wait and see when all of them are released. From what we've seen/heard thus far, I maintain my statements. There, that's my opinion.

Personally I think the domains will be a DOMINATING factor in MK2.
Think of Domains as Enchantments in Magic.
Ever played against a "Worship" deck when you have no Enchantment removal or against "Survival of the Fittest" and all those "come into play" creatures.
Those Enchantments "define" the deck,
so will certain Domains define their army as well,
just like certain Domains will be "a killer" against certain types of armies.

Domains are THE factor (IMO) to keep the environment balanced and to PREVENT one army from becoming too dominant.
How ?
Simple, if one army becomes too dominant and sees too much play, take along a Domain that "kills" that army
or if that domain doesn't exist yet, let WK come up with one.

Domains could be used to "enhance" your own army
or as a "sideboard" card against your opponent's army,
whatever you think you need the most.

As such Domains will be a much easier way to keep the environment balanced, instead of having to tweak SA's (Like what happened to Magic Leviation a couple of times)

Well Lawn_Gnome, we are definetly agreed on the "we'll have to wait and see" part! :D

Yes, we'll have to wait and see. And then one of us, or both, will be able to say: "I told you so". That is one thing that is for sure: there will be a lot of "I told you so"s after 2.0 comes out.