|
El Estrago Bonito posted:Like, I don't want to say you were playing the game wrong because I haven't seen you guys play, but you sound a bit like people I hear complain about how OP snipers are in Infinity when they don't do busy enough table layouts. The threat range for most mounted units, and the fact that you can bring large amounts of shooting in most lists for very little points and the fact that you're on a 3x3 table means that you shouldn't be getting kited for an entire game until someone is able to camp enough dice to wombocombo you. I have no idea about infinity, but I know what you are talking about (as we encounter it all the time in FoW with newbies to that game) and that is what we figured. "We must be doing something wrong" but the FAQ wasn't very informative about the issues we were having and responses from internet were more condescending than helpful. So we dropped the game. Has a lot changed with the SAGA since its initial release? Half the stuff you mentioned doesn't even ring a bell.
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 03:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2024 04:13 |
|
|
A lot of the warbands they added after the first book have very different ways of using the battle board, especially the ones in Northern Fury. Saxons are the Horde army, they don't need to use the activation pool to activate units with 10 or more members. It's extremely good at rooting out turtle lists because they can constantly keep attacking with big units of warriors and levies as they have mostly abilities that buff big units in combat. Jomsviking use wrath as their mechanic, you basically have abilities that either trigger effects or gain you wrath (your opponent chooses) and then a couple of abilities that let you spend wrath to produce absolutely massive amounts of combat dice. Also the whole army is Hearthguards. Bretons are the ranged combat army, they mostly suicide big units of shooters close by and then use all their good shooting abilities. Notably they are the army that gets to use fatigue when shooting. The Ravens Shadow warbands also introduce some similar mechanics. Franks have the most customization options and also have abilities that get more powerful when you are camping large amounts of dice, I don't like them much but Roland and Charlemagne are real good and the Merovingian variant get mounted berserkers. Irish are pretty boring IMHO and they have low armor but they get units of single dudes who are wandering unkillable asskickers which is a neat gimmick but not very good. Norse Gaels duel people, they get bonuses and buffs for winning duels and can use challenges to control where your opponent goes and to force him to fight. My buddy plays their theme list which is a bunch of wizard pirates and is really awesome but ultimately very difficult to use well. Strath Welsh are ambushers and use alternate deployment, they sweep in from board edges on mounts and hit you in the back, they aren't great in a real fight however. Pagan Rus are the lockdown faction, they stop you from doing poo poo and then overwhelm you, Fear of the Dark is maybe the best ability in the entire game (it lets you auto exhaust a unit that is more than M away from any other unit). The Rus Princes list is mainly the heavy combat mounted list, I've never seen anyone play it ever. The Byzantines are probably the best army in the game, if I were to point one army as being actually unbalanced it might be them, they are really strong overall and have few weaknesses. They also added Nomad Mercenaries at some point, they are fast moving mounted archers that are good at drive-by shooting dudes and then running away, also basically the only good mercenary unit. Also technically Crescent and Cross is a soft second edition for SAGA. It's considered the "correct" edition to use rules wise and does clarify some stuff, mostly about unit cohesion. I don't have a huge amount of experience with C&C warbands (mostly just the Christian militia one) but they tend to have more options overall than your default SAGA forces and in general are a bit more flexible. The addition of priests and dogs of war (greatly expanded Mercenary units) is cool as well and priests go pretty well into several of the other SAGA bands. Specifically Warrior Priests give good options for keeping your army mobile and dealing damage.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 04:59
|
|
|
OK, time-out. I need you to stop making this game sound so cool and good and balanced, because seriously - I don't need (by which I mean I can't afford) to pick up another miniatures game. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 05:20
|
|
|
Ilor posted:OK, time-out. I need you to stop making this game sound so cool and good and balanced, because seriously - I don't need (by which I mean I can't afford) to pick up another miniatures game. It's cheap enough to get into. Plastic vikings are inexpensive and that's basically all you need to play, but the 4 point starter sets are reasonably priced and are legal forces. However, I disagree with a lot of what El Estrago Bonito is saying or at least my anecdotal experiences differ from his. The main thing I want to point out is that if you aren't breaking the rules and you find the game to be anti-fun or unbalanced, that's not you playing the game wrong. It is literally impossible to play the game wrong if you are playing by the rules. What that is is a flaw in the game design that was overlooked by the designers and thus it is a bad game. El Estrago Bonito sounds like he's describing the development of a meta and not a clarification of the rules. If his area is having fun because of how list building and counter-strategies developed that's great, but it's equally valid when strategies in a different group arrive at a different conclusion. For my part, I found the battleboards too reliant on random chance. If you don't get the rolls you need to make the combos you want, you're kind of SOL. This is less true for some warbands than others, but I had a lot of issues getting my Milites Christi to cooperate.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 07:24
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:This is really neat but I'm sot sure I'd be able to get a hold of it. Does anyone even still sell it? A haven't been able to find a "2 player starter" for sale, just individual army decks. Individual army starters support two players. Most of the factions come in "starter decks" and "reinforcement decks", which are both non-random. The starter has enough units to do two 1500 point armies if you don't mind civil war and sharing a command deck, which is a totally playable intro. The reinforcement deck contains a whole bunch of additional unit cards so you can play pretty much anything you like. Starting with Dark Elves (the set I led designed), the Fantasy factions are all-in-one boxes - same number of units etc but they just come in one box. Currently this is the Dark Elves and the Wuxing (terracotta warriors and friends). These factions also have better art if that matters to you, though it's all CGI stuff so if you want it to be super pretty you'll want minis. The historical factions (Punic War, Alexander and Persia), come in big boxes that are "versus", which is the two faction starter equivalent - there's a Basic Game box that has enough to play each of the two forces, and then a Reinforcements box that fills out both factions with tons of stuff. But you can get the same effect for just a little more MSRP by just buying two Fantasy starters, and again, you can play a civil war out of just one Fantasy starter. It's definitely the lowest entry wargame I know. They're sadly not available through LGS distribution right now because of the ownership change, but I expect them back soon. In the mean time, there still appear to be plenty on Amazon at or below MSRP, I just searched "battleground fantasy warfare" or "battleground historical warfare" plus the faction name and I got a fair number of hits. If you don't like Amazon or if you try it and dig it and want to get it in to your local store ASAP or whatever I can probably put you in touch with the right people, you can email my username at gmail.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 07:29
|
|
|
Ultiville posted:They're sadly not available through LGS distribution right now because of the ownership change, but I expect them back soon. In the mean time, there still appear to be plenty on Amazon at or below MSRP, I just searched "battleground fantasy warfare" or "battleground historical warfare" plus the faction name and I got a fair number of hits. If you don't like Amazon or if you try it and dig it and want to get it in to your local store ASAP or whatever I can probably put you in touch with the right people, you can email my username at gmail. Well I'll be damned. My FLGS in Bangkok has 4 starter boxes (Orcs, Monsters, Dwarves, and Elves). They're reasonably priced at about MSRP and each of them says they have enough for 2 players. I might have to pick one up next week.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 08:19
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:Well I'll be damned. My FLGS in Bangkok has 4 starter boxes (Orcs, Monsters, Dwarves, and Elves). They're reasonably priced at about MSRP and each of them says they have enough for 2 players. I might have to pick one up next week. Yep, any of those would be just fine.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 08:27
|
|
|
Yo, don't know if this is old news or new news but the new Kharn is $60 Aussie dollars, for a single figure, on foot...
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 09:58
|
|
|
Irate Tree posted:Yo, don't know if this is old news or new news but the new Kharn is $60 Aussie dollars, for a single figure, on foot... Of course it is. Meanwhile, you can get two whole armies for Sharp Practice for less.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 13:09
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:It's cheap enough to get into. Plastic vikings are inexpensive and that's basically all you need to play, but the 4 point starter sets are reasonably priced and are legal forces. However, I disagree with a lot of what El Estrago Bonito is saying or at least my anecdotal experiences differ from his. Yeah I didn't want to go into great detail because honestly I don't remember them but my group was already having problems with how some things worked in the rules and some of the scenarios. The thin FAQ and jerkwad online playerbase we encountered was just the final nail. I'm not going to say SAGA is a bad game, it just wasn't the kind of game most of my group and I are interested in.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 14:33
|
|
|
Jesus Christ. This is $100. Not dollarydoos, not moosedollars, United States dollars: It looks like about the size of a Land Raider standing on end.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 19:25
|
|
|
I'm curious as to where they get the skulls that are slightly larger than the other skulls.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 20:10
|
|
|
El Estrago Bonito posted:A lot of the warbands they added after the first book have very different ways of using the battle board, especially the ones in Northern Fury. Saxons are the Horde army, they don't need to use the activation pool to activate units with 10 or more members. It's extremely good at rooting out turtle lists because they can constantly keep attacking with big units of warriors and levies as they have mostly abilities that buff big units in combat. Jomsviking use wrath as their mechanic, you basically have abilities that either trigger effects or gain you wrath (your opponent chooses) and then a couple of abilities that let you spend wrath to produce absolutely massive amounts of combat dice. Also the whole army is Hearthguards. Bretons are the ranged combat army, they mostly suicide big units of shooters close by and then use all their good shooting abilities. Notably they are the army that gets to use fatigue when shooting. The Ravens Shadow warbands also introduce some similar mechanics. Franks have the most customization options and also have abilities that get more powerful when you are camping large amounts of dice, I don't like them much but Roland and Charlemagne are real good and the Merovingian variant get mounted berserkers. Irish are pretty boring IMHO and they have low armor but they get units of single dudes who are wandering unkillable asskickers which is a neat gimmick but not very good. Norse Gaels duel people, they get bonuses and buffs for winning duels and can use challenges to control where your opponent goes and to force him to fight. My buddy plays their theme list which is a bunch of wizard pirates and is really awesome but ultimately very difficult to use well. Strath Welsh are ambushers and use alternate deployment, they sweep in from board edges on mounts and hit you in the back, they aren't great in a real fight however. Pagan Rus are the lockdown faction, they stop you from doing poo poo and then overwhelm you, Fear of the Dark is maybe the best ability in the entire game (it lets you auto exhaust a unit that is more than M away from any other unit). The Rus Princes list is mainly the heavy combat mounted list, I've never seen anyone play it ever. The Byzantines are probably the best army in the game, if I were to point one army as being actually unbalanced it might be them, they are really strong overall and have few weaknesses. They also added Nomad Mercenaries at some point, they are fast moving mounted archers that are good at drive-by shooting dudes and then running away, also basically the only good mercenary unit. You really make me want to play this game
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 20:27
|
|
|
BULBASAUR posted:You really make me want to play this game You can play it in 15/18mm or 1/72/20mm for real cheap.
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 23:36
|
|
|
15mm is probably my favorite scale. Stop talking so dirty to me!
|
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2016 23:38
|
|
|
Maxwell Lord posted:I'm curious as to where they get the skulls that are slightly larger than the other skulls. Ogryns, of course!
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 01:25
|
|
|
The skulls are actually unauthorized reproductions made on the renegade forge world Indochinus Secundus.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 01:33
|
|
|
That is a storage rack for a goth Time Lord's sonic screwdrivers, no?
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 02:47
|
|
|
BULBASAUR posted:15mm is probably my favorite scale. Stop talking so dirty to me! So we're playing this then? 15mm?
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 05:25
|
|
|
Played some Kings of War today, my elves versus my friend's dwarves, 1500 points. I still haven't quite figured out what I'm doing wrong against the dwarves. I took too shooty hordes and a two mages to cast Bane Chant on them every turn, but I just didn't do enough damage before he got into melee and broke my army. The Steel Behemoth is a nasty unit and his Rangers in the wood with -2 to shooting were particularly frustrating. At the end of turn 6, I only had my two mages still alive and we called it there rather than seeing if there'd be a seventh turn.  Here my Drakon Riders took a hindered charge to try and break the Rangers. This didn't work out so well and on the counter charge with "Herneas" the Riders were routed.   These Drakon Riders did a bit better. They broke a horde of dwarves then survived a round of shooting to charge a troop of sharpshooters. Unfortunately they didn't survive the next round of shooting.  The Palace Guard went alongside the Drakon Riders and helped bring down the dwarf horde, survived a rear charge by the Steel Behemoth (72 attacks, 6 damage), took out a troop of sharpshooters, and were finally destroyed by another round of attacks from the Behemoth.  My last horde of archers. Between breath attacks from a Flame Belcher and the surging Greater Earth Elemental, they didn't stand a chance.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 10:47
|
|
|
tallkidwithglasses posted:So we're playing this then? 15mm? I would totally play. Now that you have a terrain budget we can even get some fancy stuff for it. It's either that or you drag me into starting a napoleonic army. Here's the game that made me realize how badass 15mm is as a scale. I never played, but the models and tiny bases seem the perfect middleground between 28mm and 10mm. I wish 40k was this scale honestly: http://theionage.com/collections/15mm-ion-age-structures http://theionage.com/collections/15mm-prydian-vehicles
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 12:23
|
|
|
BULBASAUR posted:I would totally play. Now that you have a terrain budget we can even get some fancy stuff for it. It's either that or you drag me into starting a napoleonic army. You know you want it. I'm into my second month of painting, and close to 32 painted men. Soon it's play time. :P  SAGA in 15mm should be nice too though, the small number of troops means it's cheap and quick to paint it all.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 12:42
|
|
|
BULBASAUR posted:You really make me want to play this game Avoid the Gripping Beast Metals, I bought their Viking starter kit and a friend bought their Norman one and both sets were garbage. Misshapen, shallow detail, poor casts, etc... Like everything wrong with a metal mini you could imagine. I kept a few of the decent ones and all the weapons and shields but most of it went right into the garbage. Their plastics are nice though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2016 17:50
|
|
|
I remember when I was a kid and 4th edition was brand new I was going to buy a space marine dreadnought. Then I found out that it was 40 loving US dollars and decided to go and buy a video game instead. The game was Advance Wars 2, a very good game. How much does a dreadnought cost now? The Skeleton King fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Sep 5, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2016 21:29
|
|
|
The Skeleton King posted:I learned a bit about the 40k Roleplay games recently, and holy poo poo why isn't there a tabletop adaptation of that? That stuff is fuckin rad. Something to do with skulls, I guess.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2016 21:31
|
|
|
The Skeleton King posted:I remember when I was a kid and 4th edition was brand new I was going to buy a space marine dreadnought. Then I found out that it was 40 loving US dollars and decided to go and buy a video game instead. The game was Advance Wars 2, a very good game. That'd be 47 clams, friend. That actually might be one of the less-inflated items. Most of GW's poo poo seems to be about 25-30% higher than it was when 4th Edition came out. A regular Space Marine squad for instance was 25 or 30 smackeroos, but is now 40.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2016 22:08
|
|
|
i remember buying a slann for $30 back in 6th but theyre something like $55 now
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2016 23:50
|
|
|
I had a friend over who played 40k and fantasy twelve or so years ago and we checked out the Games Workshop online store because he could not believe the new orc boss on wyvern model costs (130 moosebucks), and he was blown away by how many of the old models have not been replaced or updated since he played.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 02:40
|
|
|
PupsOfWar posted:That'd be 47 clams, friend. Huh, I was expecting it to be around 65 USD. Still absurdly overpriced for what it is.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 04:14
|
|
|
Weirdo posted:I had a friend over who played 40k and fantasy twelve or so years ago and we checked out the Games Workshop online store because he could not believe the new orc boss on wyvern model costs (130 moosebucks), and he was blown away by how many of the old models have not been replaced or updated since he played. There is tons of stuff that GW has never bothered to redo. Some of it is sort of understandable, like the Tallarn models that basically represent an alternative IG type from the two main forces. Then you have stuff like the Eldar Warp Spiders, which haven't been updated in 25 years, or the High Elf Swordmasters, which were resculpted in plastic for one of the starter boxes, but after they pulled the starter they put the 30-year old sculpts back on sale instead. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 14:53
|
|
|
Ashcans posted:the High Elf Swordmasters, which were resculpted in plastic for one of the starter boxes, but after they pulled the starter they put the 30-year old sculpts back on sale instead. what. why?
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 14:59
|
|
|
spectralent posted:what. Possible they broke the moulds, that happened with some of the frigates from Battlefleet Gothic which you cannot get anymore because the moulds snapped and they didn't have the masters to replace them. Also GW stuff is in clearance in Hobbycraft lol. Still £15 for 5 space marines though, christ.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 15:26
|
|
|
As far as I can work out, it's because GW was so dumb that when they were designing the sprues for the starter box, they just mashed all the models together however; so once the start was discontinued, they had no way to just produce the new Swordmasters, because the sprues were mixed in with Skaven. Apparently it never occurred to anyone in the design phase 'Hey, these are some of the oldest models we are redoing, maybe we should set this up so we can continue to make the new versions'. Note that this also applies to the Elyrian Reavers that were part of that starter box, although in that case GW seems to have just canned the unit rather than putting the older version back on sale. Edit: To be clear, this is 100% not a broken mold situation, because these figures were multipart plastics made for the 8th edition starter in 2010. Which were then replaced by the finecast copies of the metal figures the late 80s/early 90s.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 15:38
|
|
|
Pretty much they never considered people 'parting out' the starter sets (or if they did they decided to deliberately make them annoying to split between people). Black Reach was similar iirc, some of the sprues had both Ork and SM stuff. I think they've gotten better recently? Can someone with Overkill confirm whether the Deathwatch and Genestealers are split up sensibly?
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 15:46
|
|
|
It's not really about parting out the sets though; it's that they put work into making new models for the starter, and that starter is always going to be a limited-life box. So it is just plain sense to arrange it so that once you cancel the starter, you can continue to produce the new/better models that you already sculpted and made molds for. In the case of the Swordmasters, not only were they replacing really old models with new plastics, the new version included command optiosn (standard and champion) that were not even in production anymore for the metals. Although now you have reminded me that they did the same thing with AoBR, the box included a new plastic Deffkopta and when it was pulled they just kept on selling the old metal one for $33 a piece instead. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 16:00
|
|
|
Zark the Damned posted:Pretty much they never considered people 'parting out' the starter sets (or if they did they decided to deliberately make them annoying to split between people). Black Reach was similar iirc, some of the sprues had both Ork and SM stuff. Can confirm. The Deathwatch dudes were recently split into their own box for the Deathwatch codex release and from the way the Genestealer Cult is split up you can tell they're probably down the line for a re-release. The Starter sets still have all the models mashed together on massive spruces, though they have gotten better at keeping all a model's pieces in the same general area rather than across 5 different spruces. I'd imagine the move from traditional sculpting to CAD sculpting has helped this along, spruces in general are just better laid out with better use of the available space.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 16:45
|
|
|
Same for Death Masque--the Eldar and Deathwatch stuff are on different sprues. Hopefully they've learned that lesson. In new "Games Workshop is dumb as hell" news, the upcoming Chaos book features a formation that is meant to be fielded in non-apocalypse games that costs a minimum of 2,664 points.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 16:53
|
|
|
TheChirurgeon posted:Same for Death Masque--the Eldar and Deathwatch stuff are on different sprues. Hopefully they've learned that lesson. Isn't 2850 a standard value in the US or something? I remember in the 90's when 3000 points was considered a huge game that would take forever
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 17:01
|
|
|
MikeCrotch posted:Isn't 2850 a standard value in the US or something? 1850 is pretty standard. 1750 and 2k are also popular, so is 1500 depending on where you play. 3,000 points is literally the starting point for playing Apocalypse games.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 17:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2024 04:13 |
|
|
TheChirurgeon posted:In new "Games Workshop is dumb as hell" news, the upcoming Chaos book features a formation that is meant to be fielded in non-apocalypse games that costs a minimum of 2,664 points. And still no Slaanesh.
|
|
#
?
Sep 6, 2016 18:03
|
|
