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Keiya posted:I skimmed the first few and last few pages so forgive me if somewhere in the middle this was discussed but is there a good option for relatively lightweight kitchen sink fun times? Wizards, power armor, goblins, men in black, WWI paratroopers, cyborg catgirl mercenaries, dragons, whatever? I mean I expect to have to do some work for weird stuff but having the right hooks to do it helps a lot. As I brought up before, An Interdimensional Dance of Blades and Heroes, is now up on the website for Miniature Wargames Magazine.
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Jan 19, 2021 17:57
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JcDent posted:anyone has any experience with this crazy thing? I have played a couple of battles after a friend bought the first age bundle on Kickstarter. It is very good, but the core mechanics are much less polished than the faction creation rules. as an example the how to play video is 7 minutes on building a faction and setting up the table and less than 4min on how movement and combat work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjV5sdXFbNc In terms of building your army, the level of customisation is very deep. I built a bunch of test armies, including Elven Witch Soldiers, Rat Blacksmiths, and catapult wielding bumble bees. I have been using the Glowing Port Guard, a village of Bear Riding Stone Elves cross Preying Mantids, they are soul slicing aether punks. I have played two games and lost both. First against a clan of dragons with too much healing magic, and second against an army of Ghosts and their mummy sorcerer. We are playing on Table Top Simulator, which has worked well. I built the Glowing Port Guard around some cool STL files, and used them in the game. You can build anything, that doesn't mean it will be good. Building a 'taking all comers' army is difficult because of the breadth of what you could be up against, and because of the randomly assigned win conditions. Some basic rules which are still not clear to me. If you use your action to move, do you move twice? And do you subtract defenders combat situation (advantages) from your advantages? The core rules are very short at about 40 pages, and are well laid out for learning the game, but not for looking up rules during play. If anyone has seen some video of people actually playing it would be great to watch to see what we might be doing wrong.
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Jan 27, 2021 04:49
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Stargrave, releasing this April: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdZdz312bwM 20 minute flip through the main rulebook, starting at 6:45 and ending at 26:30 Xenos - Formally Xenos Rampant, a Lion/Dragon Rampant spinoff in a scfi mold - has been announced by the author for release in 2022 by Osprey games in hardcover format. They still have their house rules for sci-fi Dragon Rampant up, although you may want to be familiar with The Men Who Would Be Kings or Pikemen's Lament for some rules pinched for their books, but there will be a number of changes and suggestions on various 'themes' in the finished product - Weird War II, Post Apocalyptic shenanigans, Not-X-Com, "World of Darkness/Dresden Files But It's Sci-Fi" and finally Space Opera, with Optional Retro-Future-Gothic. "Strength Points" go from 6/12 to 5/10, with some units allowing as many as 15.
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Feb 25, 2021 14:33
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LashLightning posted:Xenos - Formally Xenos Rampant, a Lion/Dragon Rampant spinoff in a scfi mold - has been announced by the author for release in 2022 by Osprey games in hardcover format. They still have their house rules for sci-fi Dragon Rampant up, although you may want to be familiar with The Men Who Would Be Kings or Pikemen's Lament for some rules pinched for their books, but there will be a number of changes and suggestions on various 'themes' in the finished product - Weird War II, Post Apocalyptic shenanigans, Not-X-Com, "World of Darkness/Dresden Files But It's Sci-Fi" and finally Space Opera, with Optional Retro-Future-Gothic. "Strength Points" go from 6/12 to 5/10, with some units allowing as many as 15. It's back to Xenos Rampant - https://richardcowen.wordpress.com/2021/02/22/xenos-rampant-an-official-announcement/
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Mar 7, 2021 19:06
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Gotta admit, I'm not too keen on reverting to "Xenos Rampant". The "Lion/Dragon Rampant" made sense because it was a heraldry term and could work for the sort-of-medieval theme they were going for. While keeping the "Rampant" reinforces its connection to previous versions of the rules "Xenos Rampant" doesn't really make any sense in itself. Hell, call it the "Spacemen's Lament", "The Men Who Would Be Space-Kings", or "Space Rebels and Space Patriots", something that makes sense in itself.
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Mar 8, 2021 02:29
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Or just "Xeno Rampant" if you want space medieval a la Hams.
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Mar 8, 2021 05:54
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Yeah I don't think Xenos is a good choice for the name, to me it feels very 40k specific (I know it isn't, but given I've been invested in the 40k universe for 30 years the word is pretty linked in my head). Would have been better to go with a non-Rampant name like Pikeman's Lament has. Pity Forbidden Stars was already taken 
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Mar 8, 2021 18:52
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JcDent posted:Or just "Xeno Rampant" if you want space medieval a la Hams. Xeno Rampant is just logic puzzles and paradoxes all the way down.
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Mar 9, 2021 19:32
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Modiphius are publishing Five Parsecs From Home. https://www.modiphius.net/products/five-parsecs-from-home It's cool.
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Mar 24, 2021 18:16
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Aw poo poo, Blessed Ivan is moving up in the world!
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Mar 24, 2021 21:03
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90s Cringe Rock posted:Modiphius are publishing Five Parsecs From Home. This is right up my alley.  I'm going to expand on this because I think it's really cool and I would have missed it if I didn't click the link.  quote:Five Parsecs From Home is a solo adventure wargame where you assemble a ragtag crew of galactic trailblazers and head out to explore the stars, pick up jobs, and every now and then — engage in some action-packed, sci-fi combat!
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Mar 24, 2021 21:34
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This looks exactly like what I want.
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Mar 24, 2021 21:48
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Helical Nightmares posted:This is right up my alley.
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Mar 25, 2021 00:32
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I always get these confused with the 5150 books. Does it play substantially different from those?
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Mar 25, 2021 05:41
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Stargrave minis: the metal goofiness you love, now in plastic: https://www.instagram.com/p/CM0ZhgaHnWf/?igshid=1cam8xbexrtox
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Mar 25, 2021 11:13
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I finished up my Stargrave crew last night. They're a mix of Wargames Atlantic dwarfs and then kitbashed same dwarfs and Frostgrave cultists parts. I'm looking forward to the Northstar plastic ones. I like the old school low budget scifi movie vibe.
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Mar 25, 2021 12:27
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Another good option for Stargrave might be these guys.
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Mar 25, 2021 12:43
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That set reminds me of the Mantic Rebels box.JcDent posted:Stargrave minis: the metal goofiness you love, now in plastic: It's a drat good badger.
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Mar 25, 2021 12:46
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Atlas Hugged posted:I always get these confused with the 5150 books. Does it play substantially different from those?
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Mar 25, 2021 14:50
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Atlas Hugged posted:I always get these confused with the 5150 books. Does it play substantially different from those? 5 Parsecs is pretty different from 5150. The combat engine is very traditional. Drop dudes on a map with a little terrain and everyone take turns blazing away, roll above X to hit, roll above Y to bypass toughness. Add modifiers for either based on skill and weapon. There isn't a reaction system or unknown potential enemy contacts to add meaningful surprises to solo play. When I tried it, it came down to two groups plinking away at each other until everyone on one side fell over or failed a morale check. There just wasn't enough you could do within the game system to overcome one side having bigger guns, and once everyone was in cover there just wasn't much of a point in maneuvering. The only surprises came from rolling on lots of event tables which just never seemed to lead to interesting gameplay. After combat you get a few choices about how to spend down time and roll on a bunch of huge tables to generate random events. I'm a bit surprised at its popularity. 5150/2HWgames stuff has its own issues, but it gets you through the plinking bits faster, while keeping things interesting with reactions and potential contacts moving around the board. It's a much better procedurally generated Xcom-like experience if that's what you're going for, albeit with some tweaking needed to increase player agency. Rangers of Shadowdeep has a combat engine as uninspired as 5 Parsecs but I get why it succeeds because the crafted scenarios unfold like a light D&D campaign and that's kinda neat. Even Nordic Weasel's own FiveCore manages to do space dudes blazing away at each other with a much, much more interesting combat engine that works better for solo play and incorporates reactions as well as unknown contacts. I love the guy's work and I'm glad he gets a book deal. It's a very approachable game, but it's also one anyone who has played W40K could design in ten minutes. I find the rest of his stuff a lot more interesting.
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Mar 25, 2021 15:16
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I agree with this assessment. I got these as part of a humble bundle, and we tried 5 Leagues (which is essentially the fantasy version of 5 Parsecs) as a trial as we burned through our RoSD material and were pretty underwhelmed. It's got a nice 'downtime' system and I like the encounter creator but the actual gameplay is completely forgettable.
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Mar 25, 2021 15:47
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Cheers folks, Nordic Weasel guy here to answer any questions you might have I hope that doesn't break any forum rules. Appreciate the kind words about FiveCore above. If you guys don't mind, I wanted to outlay the reasoning behind how the combat systems work in 5P / 5L. Not to argue with anyone because obviously no system will hit everyone's preferences but just because I always find that stuff interesting. Fair? You are absolutely right that combat in 5P is very very simple and simpler than other games I have written (or other games available). There's a few reasons here: 1: Time. The campaign sequence can be fairly time consuming with assigning jobs, rolling for outcomes, fiddling with equipment, rolling up mission objectives (in the new version) and so on. The goal was to be able to squeeze an entire campaign turn or even two into a single evening of play, so people can feel like they are making progress and can see the campaign begin to progress. So to accommodate that, I wanted the handling time of the miniatures aspect to be as quick as possible. 2: Since the game was conceived as a solo game specifically, I wanted it to be very easy for one person to manage. I have a strong belief that solo games need to be a bit simpler than a multi-player game, because there's only one person to keep track of everything. Since the player is already managing the stats of 5-6 crew members as well as the enemies, I wanted the cognitive load to be pretty low. 3: Adding more tactical options can of course be done (and various expansions have added them) but any option needs to also be handled by the AI (or be purely player facing which isn't always very satisfying). This means it needs to be scripted in somehow which can lead to some brutal flow charts or it needs to be assigned randomly, which is something I absolutely wanted to avoid. If there's for example 4 different ways to attack at range (lets say aimed shot, quick shot, overwatch and suppressing shot) then that needs to be evaluated in every situation the AI finds itself in. Now, Im confident there's ways to solve this (and they may be already solved somewhere) but from my experience games with "meatier" combat (my own FiveCore, 5150 etc.) tend to avoid such options in favor of baking more results into the attack mechanic (Fivecore with different states the target ends up in, 5150 with its reaction rolls). 4: The obvious additions to spice things up would be a form of suppression (which we did introduce cautiously in Five Klicks) and a reaction type system. I opted to not include the former since I didn't feel it fit the space opera feel and the latter to avoid the player simply sitting tight on the board game and waiting. I know a lot of people enjoy AI systems with random factors to them, but that's a personal pet peeve of mine: I hate rolling for what the enemy does, though it's entirely possible that's irrational and I need to get over it 5: A bit of marketing to be honest. While a lot of folks enjoy a more involved combat system, there's also a lot of people who prefer something "stupid simple" that's easy to remember. I play ASL and I play the Neil Thomas "One hour wargames" systems, I can get down with both. But I definitely had the latter group in mind for this one. tldr - moar simpler stuff. Now, gamers being what we are, everyone likes to swap stuff out. I've gotten emails from folks who have swapped the 5L combat system for something else, including one guy who did an absolutely mental mash up of the 5 Leagues campaign with the Rangers scenarios and combat system, which was super cool. The combat rules and campaign rules are fairly compartmentalized specifically to let people tinker. Those of you who are familiar with my other games know I always try to encourage house rules and tinkering. So overall, I hope those reasonings make sense. Not saying they are objectively KORREKT or that they are the correct decision for the style of game, I just wanted people to understand the how and the why, since game writers don't tend to talk a lot about this sort of thing. Feel free to ask away
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Mar 25, 2021 16:28
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Ha, holy poo poo. I did not expect you to show up. FiveCore is goddamned amazing and Squad Hammer is everything Dragon Rampant and friends ever wanted to be but better. You've done some incredibly creative work and you've got a great eye for taking wargame conventions and chucking them into a garbage can when they're boring or inconvenient. I think part of why I bounced off of Parsecs is that it was so drat traditional. It's awesome you got a book and I hope it does well, even if personally I wish it was FiveCore based.
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Mar 25, 2021 18:47
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Nordic Weasel guy posted:Cheers folks, Nordic Weasel guy here to answer any questions you might have Happy to have you here, thanks for providing your insight as the creator.
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Mar 25, 2021 18:53
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Ohthehugemanatee posted:Ha, holy poo poo. I did not expect you to show up. FiveCore is goddamned amazing and Squad Hammer is everything Dragon Rampant and friends ever wanted to be but better. You've done some incredibly creative work and you've got a great eye for taking wargame conventions and chucking them into a garbage can when they're boring or inconvenient. I think part of why I bounced off of Parsecs is that it was so drat traditional. haha, I don't do forums or social media very much, because I always get self-conscious talking about other people's games, but I tend to read SA fairly often. I just always worry if I say something like "well, rolling for each missile in battletech is kind of a drag" then it'll end up on someones twitter as "IVAN SLAMS OFF COMPETITORS IN FIT OF JEALOUSY" or something I appreciate all the kind words and I am glad you enjoyed Squad Hammer. Jason is slaving away at an absolutely mental "fantasy cyberpunk" hack of it that I think will blow everybody's mind. I think at the time I was also just really geared up to write a "very trad" game and see what came out. Move, shoot, morale, boom, you know the drill. I have theories about how "wild" a game system can be before people start checking out mentally, but they may be all wrong. It used to be that anything that came in a box was pretty traditional, but I wonder if maybe that is changing a bit?
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Mar 25, 2021 18:57
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goodness posted:Happy to have you here, thanks for providing your insight as the creator. Glad it was useful. Obviously don't let me get in the way of anyone discussing this (or other) games honestly. Not here to internet-battle anyone
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Mar 25, 2021 18:57
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Squeee! And yes, maybe you should consider random AI reactions a la Blackstone Fortress' AI sheets!
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Mar 25, 2021 20:23
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Nordic Weasel guy posted:well, rolling for each missile in battletech is kind of a drag  Missiles in BattleTech are a great example of how things can go very subtly wrong when you add complexity to a system. An RPG group I was invited to years back somehow ended up using the LRM rules to apply SRM damage and thus didn't understand what the point of SRMs even was. I'm pretty happy they never tried to use LB-20X ACs...
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Mar 25, 2021 20:39
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Back in them days, the only Btech custom design we ever banned was my machine-gun-brute. 80ish ton mech with as many machine guns as you could fit in there. The plan was to lumber into the center of the table and then unload like 12 shots per turn, along with some punching and kicking. It was quite effective, but it was absolutely miserable to play with (and against) since resolving that one unit took as long as the rest of the battlefield combined.
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Mar 25, 2021 21:28
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It sounds like you got out of BattleTech way before that sort of thing became a canon design so. Anyways, I took a quick skim of the sheets last night and this seems to hold up: Arquinsiel posted:This looks exactly like what I want.
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Mar 25, 2021 22:56
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The phenomenal Sonic Sledge did a blog post comparing Stargrave and Five Parsecs, concluding people should buy both :-) https://sonicsledgeblogroll.blogspot.com/2021/03/choosing-your-next-sci-fi-skirmish-game.html You could probably use the same mini's too, though I try to encourage 15mm where I can
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Mar 27, 2021 18:46
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On that note, anyone have good 15 mm sci fi recommendations? 15 mm drives me nuts. I use Demonworld for fantasy and their miniatures are legit on par with or better than 30 mm stuff I've painted. They are an absolute blast with amazing sculpts and lots of character. For sci fi I have a hodge podge of various ranges, none of which match each other at all. Ion age is creative but the sculpts are awful. Rebel minis are detailed but true 15 mm and tiny compared to everything else. Khurasan are off scale with each other and sculpts are inconsistent. Every now and then I pull up another range, squint at terrible photographs and wonder if I'm going to eventually find something on par with Demonworld but if it's out there I sure haven't found it.
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Mar 27, 2021 21:16
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The stuff I usually use is: Khurasan, Rebel, Pico Armor (they have a small but very nice 15mm scifi range) and Darkest Star (which has some great cyberpunkish and Ghost in the Shell'styled figures) and when shipping returns to normal: Ground Zero Games (for army dudes). As you say, there's not a ton of consistency. Khurasan can be all over the place but tends to be large. The Rebel and Pico figures I got seems to match pretty well with GZG. There's also older ranges like RAFM and Laserburn. The latter have a ton of very charming adventurer types but the sculpts are very old and look kinda grungy. They paint up nice though. Part of the problem too is that 15mm doesn't tend to photograph well, so a lot of times you get really up close photos that make the figures look like trash, when they'll be fine on the table. Obviously for scifi monsters, a lot of fantasy critters or random D&D plastic monsters work well, and "small critters" for 28mm can make great monsters for 15mm play. Nordic Weasel guy fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Mar 27, 2021 |
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Mar 27, 2021 21:30
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Ohthehugemanatee posted:On that note, anyone have good 15 mm sci fi recommendations? White Dragon Miniatures do amazing mecha and power armour. Brigade Models have the Old Crow 15mm/Hammer's Slammers range and those are excellent sculpts in spite of their age.
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Mar 27, 2021 21:46
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Osprey's got a sale on for their books that came out before January 2021. Are there any particular standouts among their games? Also I know A Billion Suns isn't included in the deal, but I'm curious if anyone has a verdict.
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Mar 27, 2021 21:57
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Yvonmukluk posted:Osprey's got a sale on for their books that came out before January 2021. Are there any particular standouts among their games? I'm also really interested in A Billion Suns, but my copy hasn't arrived yet
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Mar 27, 2021 22:35
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Folks on my discord have been really excited about Billion Suns for the whole campaign-economic aspect that's integrated into it. Plus, there's really not that many good starship games out there right now. Full Thrust is getting rather long in the tooth.
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Mar 27, 2021 23:04
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Yvonmukluk posted:Osprey's got a sale on for their books that came out before January 2021. Are there any particular standouts among their games? Zone Raiders is like Blame! the wargame. A bunch of scavengers on an infinite scifi sprawl, lots of versatility. The mechanics aren't perfect, but they're good enough and don't get in the way unlike a lot of other Osprey wargames. I did come up with a house ruled campaign out of action table because the one in the book is brutal and I don't like being punished multiple times in a game. Zona Alfa is Stalker the wargame and is very solid. Great excuse to get some moderns and get real nuts with gear.
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Mar 28, 2021 06:36
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ahahahahahaha no, I'm not laughing at the website itself. that's peter pig standard. scroll down to see the cover image for the new pdf version, I'm begging you https://www.peterpig.co.uk/FANTASY%20INFO.html
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Mar 30, 2021 07:54
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the publication date is for the original release, the cover appears to be new for the 2021 "we ran out of printed copies" pdf
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Mar 30, 2021 07:55
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