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The rolling mechanics in Scrappers doesn't seem all that different than Deadzone. It's more fiddly because you're modifying the score rather than the dice pool, but you're usually only rolling one or two dice at a time which isn't bad. I've played a ton of Battletech though so I don't immediately run away from modifiers. But it does definitely come across as an rpg light. I'm not bothered though since it is designed to be played with only a handful of models.
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Jun 12, 2017 02:00
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Great and simple fantasy skirmish is Relic Blade to a t. It's 3-10 models, d6 based, played on a 2x2 board. Good guys(knights, clerics, etc) vs bad guys(pigmen, skeletal monsters, fishmen) in a fight over an ancient item of power. Recently updated with campaign rules but it plays just fine as a one off. Frostgrave is fiddly but it is very similar to old school DnD. Build up your hideout, assemble your lackeys and keep trying to find more power. There's a lot to keep track of but I have had some of the most fun playing it because of the investment in the character. A game I will recommend even though i haven't played it yet is Tribal. It's supposed to simulate pre gunpowder battles and it's main resource is Honor. You hire a leader and then "squads " of 5 guys and for each squad, you can hire a hero. It uses a deck of cards for pretty much everything including measuring movement and squad coherency. There are rules for a bunch of different groups such as Maori, Vikings, Samurai and there are skills that can be used to customize your tribe. It's worth looking at and it could easily be used as a framework for other genres.
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Jun 12, 2017 03:50
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Southern Heel posted:So having watched a few games of AoS Skirmish and being very underwhelmed, and at the same time really enjoying the games of Firefight I played (that is, relatively streamlined rules, few models) - I wonder if there's anything to scratch the fantasy itch in the same way. Two that come to mind are Wrack & Ruin, and Otherworld Fantasy Skirmish
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Jun 12, 2017 05:13
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drrockso20 posted:Two that come to mind are Wrack & Ruin, and Otherworld Fantasy Skirmish Otherworld Fantasy Skirmish is a lot of fun. It is simple, and the hero classes cover all the thematic bases for adventures that you need.
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Jun 12, 2017 05:16
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Otherworld Fantasy Skirmish is a lot of fun. It is simple, and the hero classes cover all the thematic bases for adventures that you need. I'll admit I haven't actually played it, I just happen to have the PDF for it lying around and had heard good things about it elsewhere Not to mention the official minis for it are delightfully retro in appearance(I'm a sucker for Pig Orcs)
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Jun 12, 2017 05:55
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OK! I will spend some more time with Frostgrave and review those posted. In the interim last night I decided to finally put some money towards Ganesha Games after pirating all their stuff for so long and bought the "Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes" book. The first section is a background for the SoBH world, which I'm not interested in at all. The rules are solid, but need to be explained at a top level before jumping straight in IMO - having read the original SoBH so this wasn't quite the shock, but there's not really much of an introductory section. For those who aren't famililar:
Essentially all rolls are against one of the two statistics, and the complexity of the game mechanics are the modifiers around those rolls: long range shooting, charging from a hidden location, wearing armour. The complexity of the game itself is around the 'Trait' system - essentially these are an encyclopaedia of universal special rules that models aggregate to make a Stone Giant 'lumbering, gargantuan, hard-hide', or a dark elf assassin 'Assassin, Expert Parry, Difficult Target'. All of those rules add to/remove from/preclude Q/C rolls. My first impressions are that it certainly provides significant depth to the game, but I'm now a little shy of games with simple statistics but lots of modifiers: the game of LADLAG last friday epitomised the difficulty in layering many adjustments ontop of otherwise simple rolls. Would anyone be interested in a little mini-batrep?
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Jun 12, 2017 11:25
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I am always interested in battle reports for different systems; I have a really hard time watching youtube videos of people playing and find it a lot better to read about it.
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Jun 12, 2017 14:08
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Southern Heel posted:OK! I will spend some more time with Frostgrave and review those posted. In the interim last night I decided to finally put some money towards Ganesha Games after pirating all their stuff for so long and bought the "Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes" book. You people and your inability to grasp 
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Jun 12, 2017 14:54
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I love Ganesha Games for their flexibility in what you can bring. I'm definitely interested in the Advanced rules for SoBH and I'm hoping it doesn't slow down play or require extra bookkeeping.
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Jun 12, 2017 18:13
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I was worried at the number of rules, but honestly while there are 180+ traits, your warband is typically going to only have a few, and they are very easy to remember. I ran the following demo having read the PDF once, and spending a few minutes writing out my unit stats:JcDent posted:You people and your inability to grasp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44-CMNwkFAo I can see some things to improve, happy to document further batreps with slightly less laborious explanation if there's any interest. EDIT: and while checking out Otherworld Fantasy Skirmish I checked out their models and holy poo poo if they aren't perfect: http://otherworldminiatures.co.uk/shop/drow/dr1-drow-warriors-i-3/ Southern Heel fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Jun 12, 2017 |
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Jun 12, 2017 18:35
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Gosh, the problem with a warband based game is that I don't need any number of R&F troops, and buying purely characters is ending up quite bloody costly! It seems no matter which way I dice it with GW, Gamezone, Avatars of War, etc. I'm always ending up around £50 per warband!
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Jun 13, 2017 19:48
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maybe give blood eagle a look? says 3-15 models per side
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Jun 14, 2017 03:36
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Do you have access to other miniatures you can use? I've been using old Cadians and Yu Jing dudes for playing Necromunda instead of buying brand new things.
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Jun 14, 2017 03:42
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Yu Jing sucide bombers, I presume?
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Jun 14, 2017 04:50
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Yes, right now I'm using Dungeon Saga figures for 'Generic Evil Warband' . Speaking of which, I've played a little demo game of Frostgrave and I'm not particularly overawed. The game started with two level 0 wizards and some soldiers, no apprentices. Stunty the Witch had an expensive ranger and a man-at-arms, Frilly the Necromancer had four goons. The game started with Stunty poisoning one of the goons with Poison Dart, while his Man-at-Arms clambered over a fence, only to be zerg'ed by thugs on the other side - with no charge bonuses per se, he was on equal footing with a generic mook and soon succumbed. The ranger shot the poisoned goon a few times (who was now also cursed) before being dragged into combat as well, where the weight of bodies took him out. Frilly summoned a zombie to join the party and with one lucky hit, said zombie knocked 10 HP off of Stunty in a single hit and took him out of action. Campaign results: the Man at Arms was injured, and Stunty was dead. I can see how the game plays quite quickly and it does seem quite intuitive but I think it's in an odd place - it's not as detailed as Infinity/Mordheim/etc. and not as simple as ASOBH.
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Jun 15, 2017 19:43
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Righto, so I ran the same 'scenario' three times - dwarfs vs undead. In Frostgrave this was as a Stunty witch and his rather short group of soldiers against a Necromancer and his rather mouldy thugs. In Otherworld Fantasy as a good vs. evil party. The latter was proobably the most interesting game, but it took me over two hours to put together the warband sheet with ALOT of flipping back and forth through the rulebook:  There are SEVEN conditions to keep track of - Weakened, Dominated, Scared, Stunned etc. which all have different effects in different ways. With so few members of the warband (four vs five) and almost no fate-points of consequence, there was precious little to do once combat was locked in, other than to get to the bitter end. As a result, the Immortal Fiend with a Ring of Regeneration clung on to the bitter end, while his ghouls were chopped to pieces by Dwarven runesteel. Playing the game felt like slipping to a worn pair of sweatpants even if it was a bit clunky and complicated. For example, weapons have a 'to hit' stat, like '5+' that you most roll equal to or above, to hit in melee or via shooting after modifiers. The 'to wound' roll is done like Warhammer's comparitive rolling (str 3 vs tough 4 = 5+ to wound), and then stat tests (like morale checks) are done with Warhammer's 'to hit' roll mechanism where the number is subtracted from seven to get the target you must roll over. I played again as an ASOBH warband to refresh my memory, and golly the other two games have alot more going on in them - I think ASOBH is definitely the most dicey of the three (I don't think I managed a single activation without a failure in the whole game, then one reaction permitted me to attack a prone leader which garnered a gruesome kill, and the whole opposing warband legged it off the table!). I'm quite torn, because I like the campaign part of Frostgrave, but have almost zero interest in the fluff, in having a magic user be my party leader. The setting, units, etc. of Otherworld Fantasy are much more my thinking, but the game is just nowhere near as playable!
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Jun 15, 2017 23:31
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Have you used magic in ASoBH? I like that it's actually different effects now and it seems pretty interesting. There is a supplement for Frostgrave to add a captain but hes really just a little better than a regular merc. I really think you might like Relic Blade. The demo is free If you like it, the game uses an upgrade system similar to X Wing, so there is a lot of flexibility in list building.
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Jun 16, 2017 03:14
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I didn't, I guess that's a chance for round #2! Speaking of which, I played another quick Frostgrave game this morning, switching board sides. My Necromancer warband is just destroying the Dwarfs: four thugs (fight 3, +2 damage if they win combat) just steamroll through anything! I'm playing with small warbands on a sheet of paper, with the distances in CM - (so roughly 30" x 20" if it were a real game) and it's quite fun. I will try Otherworld Fantasy again, and give Relic Wars a shot tonight, I think.
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Jun 16, 2017 06:59
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Your issue with Frostgrave sounds like it may be because you're deliberately playing with very small teams instead of using actual warbands - see http://www.battletortoise.com/frostgrave/roster.html How are you getting Thugs with Fight +3 and +2 damage btw? They're normally +2 fight with no bonuses.
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Jun 16, 2017 10:26
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 WARNING!! EFFORTPOST AHEAD!!! I played another game of Otherworld Skirmish yesterday, this time both the Bar-Room Brawl (which is the introductory scenario) and re-fought the Heroes vs. Undead now I was familiar with rules on both sides.The Bar-Room Brawl game was fairly deadly - it's a small area with a chest in the middle, a single action against which allows your figuress to attack with their real weapons, instead of just brawl (which is a 5+ 'weapon' that can only make enemies prone). It was a no-brainer to have everyone bee-line into the chest, and with almost everyone having 4+ weapon and then 3+ or 4+ to kill - it was very dicey and not altogether unexpected. It was alot easier to manage, and with the newfound confidence of that I decided to re-play my more fully fledged game: Otherworld Fantasy - Gameplay Fighting over a disused laundry complex that served as a lookout post for the undead (now defending) - the forces of evil were represented by an Immortal Fiend (evil wizard) with the Haste spell, 4+ Force of Will (cause enemies to be weakened), 5+ Drain (damage and weaken) and a Ring of Regeneration (recover 1 wound on a 5+ at the end of each turn) accompanied by his Wight with Rage (enemy must pass morale test or recieve another attack when it is charged), Invulnerability (reduce all damage by 1), and 5+ Bite (causes 2 'to wound' rolls), and four hanger-on Ghouls with 5+ Bite (causes 2 'to wound' rolls) Seeking to cleanse the rot from their hereditary homeland were the dwarfs: A Valiant warrior with Onslaught (reroll a miss), Heavy Armour (5+ to ignore any damage) and a 4+ Broad Sword (which can parry). His brother the Ranger came along, with various shooting bonuses and being invisible within cover, and two of the clansmen: a Berzerker and a Worshipper. The Undead were able to capitalise on a stunted (ha!) advance and retrieved many of their treasures that were spread around the area, and by accumulating more fate AND having a larger warband were able to mob the tougher attackers - the Wight's hardy invulnerability to small injuries pushed the Berzerker down long enough for a ghoul to bite off his face, and the coup-de-gras occured when the Warrior, injured from taking on three Ghouls was knocked down and had his life drained by the Fiend. Honestly, it sounds more exciting than it was! Otherworld Fantasy - Game Mechanics The defener places adventure tokens on their side of the board, which typically permit re-rolls or adding fate points. The system of activation is IGOUGO, determined by a dice-off at the top of each turn. The difference in rolls represents 'fate', which are divided as tokens between the two players, the difference going to the player with the highest roll, who then activates first. The fate tokens can be used to boost a dice roll, or a pair of tokens can be used to buy an activation - which is important since you only ever get as many activations as HALF your warband by default. It means you need to zero in on what matters, specially since you'll rarely get more than two fate tokens per player, per turn. All models activate and can do any two actions for their activation (except aim/shoot) - the only mitigating factor is that in combat, both figures participate and as such you can find yourself being mortally wounded in your own turn. Weapons and Melee attacks have a flat 'to hit' roll with a variety of modifiers (are you prone? Are you fighting over an obstacle?). Then you compare the weapon's STR with the enemy's DEF to get a comparitive roll (like old 40k/Fantasy - 4+ for equal, increasing or decreasing depending on your relative stats), and 'wounds' are taken as hits unless the target has some mechanic like armour or invulnerability. Magic is performed by adding the value of your Magic ability, plus your intelligence, plus D6 to hit a target difficulty number. You can 'chant' as your first action in a turn to get an additional +2. Difficulties are typically in the range of 7-10. Any non-opposed rolls (for example, being scared) you have to subtract your value from 7 to get the number you have to beat. Otherworld Fantasy - My opinion~ Having played three games I now feel I can offer an opinion. I think the game is an interesting framework and shows a very clear lineage to GW of an earlier time - the dice rolling, the mechanics around facing, magic, etc. While there's certainly a nostalgia to the artwork in the book and the miniatures that are produced, I don't think OWFS has a niche any more: there are games which simply perform what it's trying to achieve in better ways. My primary grumble with the game is the redundancy: there are seven statuses, there are three distinct dice mechanics (D6+stat>target, D6>(Stat vs target) probability matrix, D6>stat-7),. each monster and NPC has multiple paragraphs of options and unique points costs, there are something like five different 'ability' types: special powers, otherworldly traits, abilities, weapon effects, and spells. To me the most striking example of this is simply trying to build your warband. It took me multiple hours to put together a non-mook warband for my games. Here's where you have to go to collate information about a single unit, the Valiant Warrior. Now I do appreciate this isn't unique to OWFS, but it is indicative of the kind of game it is: p55 Legends: quote:Good Legend | 50 gP p40 Equipment: quote:Heavy Armour p39 Abilities: quote:Martial Training p33 Table 7: Basic Attacks: quote:Brawl - Stun special rule p35 Weapon Effects: quote:Stun p19 Status Effects quote:Stunned p33 Attack Tables quote:Table 7: Trained Attacks back to p35: Weapon Effects quote:Two-handed p39 Abilities: quote:Onslaught Otherworld Fantasy - Overall As you can see, it's very, very weighty and laborious with much flicking back and forth. and this is how the game feels. The Fate system is probably the only concession to a command-and-control mechanic that we see in games like Chain of Command or ASOBH - and it just doesn't really work. The probability curve of 2D6 it so weighted against vastly different results that typically you'll only gain a single fate token, and if not just enough for one additional activation, and with the limited activations you have per turn, once engaged in anything resembling an advantageous situation there's very little reason to attempt anything else (especially when the danger of death is so high in combat), and it comes down to simply rolling dice after dice to see who cracks first. The Adventure Token mechanic (wherein the attacker can try to capture all the tokens instead of going into combat) is also a system with potential that falls flat - a single dice modifier or reroll in a game that requires many, many rolls is just a bit boring. I would say that the game is playable, very flavourful - and reading the book reminds me of pawing through old White Dwarf magazines and 3rd Edition WHFB rules and sub-clauses - but that the indy game market is so full of amazing games that OWFS doesn't do enough to rise above the pack. It feels like someone has attempted to merge early D&D with an early GW ruleset, effectively ignoring the last 25 years of game design and development. Zark the Damned posted:Your issue with Frostgrave sounds like it may be because you're deliberately playing with very small teams instead of using actual warbands - see http://www.battletortoise.com/frostgrave/roster.html My bad - it was Infantrymen on one side, versus thugs on another. I was using this: http://frostgrave.ash.pikselin.net/ and created roughly this warband:  I'm going to give it another shot today if I have time - since as above I think I may have wrapped up my testing of OWFS. Then, maybe Relic blade?
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Jun 17, 2017 10:29
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Well after that effortpost thoroughly killed the thread, here I am back with another! My first 'real' game of Frostgrave, and it was a good. We played two warbands I put together: Chronomancer vs Illusionist, with the same henchmen : 2 thiefs, 2 thugs, an archer and a barbarian. Highlights included a super-charged gnoll thief taking down a thug, my wizard and another thief - and my lone treasure-laden thug having the Illusionist apprentice teleport infront of him blocking his escape - so he dropped the treasure and ran off in the other direction only to face an arrow to the back of the head. It was a total massacre, but despite being tabled (other than one thug with a grimoire that got off-board), my Wizard recieved a crushed arm and only my barbarian died. The swingy-ness of the D20 system was abound: my chronomancy only managed a single spell in the whole game, and he rolled a 19 for mind controlling my barbarian on turn two, so I had a maul-wielding nordic psycho trampling through my squishy areas. It was good fun, and he wants to play again - I can't wait.
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Jun 25, 2017 14:13
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Would rolling 2d10 be less swingy?
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Jun 25, 2017 14:46
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Well yes - it would make lower and higher rolls less likely:
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Jun 25, 2017 15:03
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I'm dumb, which scale is best/most desireablr?
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Jun 25, 2017 15:07
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The more of a bulge, the more you can predict where the result will be - notice how the 1d20 line is flat? It means that you're equally likely to get any result. 3d6 on the other hand has a big bulge in the middle which means you're much more likely to get results in the 5-15 range than outside it. It makes rolls more predictable which is more/less desirable depending. Honestly I think I'll stick with D20 because this isn't a WM/Malifaux-type competitive game.
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Jun 25, 2017 15:46
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Frostgrave is king of the play with friends who-gives-a-poo poo style of play. God I love it so
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Jun 25, 2017 17:13
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Beerdeer posted:Frostgrave is king of the play with friends who-gives-a-poo poo style of play. God I love it so 100% agree. I miss playing regularly.
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Jun 25, 2017 18:53
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I've only played a couple one off games of Frostgrave but I had fun with it. I'd like to actually have a constant game though
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Jun 25, 2017 20:04
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I think that's an honest problem for my buddy and I - we've flitedt from game to game like crazy! In the last couple of years for skirmish games alone we've played Infinity, Malifaux, Warmachine, ASOBH, and now Frostgrave. I've 'test run' Otherworld Fantasy, AASOBH and was about to run Relic Blade. That's not to say anything of Firefight, Kings of War, Pike and Shotte, Lasalle, and DBA. Honestly I think that the lack of options might be a better thing - when we were kids we just banged away at 40k 2nd edition over, and over again - and it was fun and different every time (mostly). We could get into the playing the game, rather than playing the game - if you get my drift?
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Jun 26, 2017 08:40
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I have a question concerning constructs/demons in Frostgrave; It says in their FAQ that a range of things, including constructs and demons, are not considered armed with anything for the purposes of spells. Does that then mean that they're considered unarmed and always fighting with a penalty? I'd like to think that's not the case and it's just them not taking a step further to explain the rule but it's a thought I had 
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Jun 29, 2017 11:44
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It means you can't "enchant" their fists and such, as far as I can see. They have weapons, but if a buff/nerf spell specifies weapons then the spell won't work.
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Jun 29, 2017 15:07
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If the FAQ specifies that it doesn't count for spells, then I would interpret that as being restricted to that case - if they meant that they were supposed to incur the 'unarmed' penalty, then I think they would have just said 'are not considered to be armed' and not mentioned the spells part at all.
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Jun 29, 2017 15:16
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That's what I'm leaning towards but it still seems confusing. It says; "For game purposes, animals, undead, demons and constructs are NOT assumed to be carrying weapons and thus, spells that target weapons cannot be used on them." It's the 'assumed' part that gets me. In the book, though, it says that demons and constructs can be anything and everything under the sun. It doesn't say anywhere that they're restricted to hand weapons, nor does it mention anything about whether they can or can't have a ranged weapon - none that i've seen, anyway. Would this be more something that you clear with your opponent? Say, "I've managed to animate my construct! He's armed with a hand weapon and crossbow, is that okay?" While also keeping the ruling on not being capable of buffing their weapons in mind?
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Jun 30, 2017 02:49
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The Frostgrave thread is real and it is spectacular. But to answer your question and reiterate why Frostgrave rules: if your opponent is ok with it, do it. Frostgrave plays very well with houserules. I would personally ask you to pay the gold cost for weapons for the summon but whatever you negotiate is between you as players.
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Jun 30, 2017 06:48
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Could have updated the OP there, moths
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Jun 30, 2017 08:35
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Thanks for the replies, thread  jodai posted:The Frostgrave thread is real and it is spectacular. Fair enough! Thanks for the input and like JcDent said, that OP needs an update =S
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Jun 30, 2017 09:01
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Sure would be sweet if Frostgrave's plastic miniature sets would actually be in god drat stock
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Jun 30, 2017 17:11
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Fireforge has some really good plastic soldier boxes. Templars, Mongols and Russian infantry that work really well for Frostgrave. The frostgrave stuff will probably work foe conversions with them when they're restocked, too. Has anyone played Osprey's Black Ops? I had the book but I'm wondering if it's worth trying to wrangle up an opponent.
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Jun 30, 2017 23:23
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Any recommendations for 1/72 scale dwarves with gunpowder that aren't Caesar? Figures from 15mm to 28mm ranges, including non-dwarves that'd work well (preferably not humans from 15mm, for proportion reasons and since those are already subbing as halflings) are fine so long as they don't stand any taller than 19mm or shorter than 14mm. Roman dwarves in that size range would also be dope as hell, and I know a handful exist in various scales.
Loomer fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Jul 3, 2017 |
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Jul 3, 2017 07:48
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Does anyone have a link to that WD snippet where the guy talks about the exact opposite of netlisting? I don't think it was even in the internet era so maybe just referring to min-max army lists of that era - he talks (possibly tongue in cheek) about supergluing and gloss varnishing his miniatures, having them as parts of a whole but not varying the size of the regiment or what banners/etc. it was equipped with. The idea being that over time you just know what to do with them; good or bad.
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Jul 11, 2017 19:46
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