Weekender XLBS: Could You Create An Epic Mega Game?
June 5, 2016 by dignity
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Morning all!
Bright awake since 5.28am. It’s great to have a new puppy..
Happy Sunday!
I used to work at a game store that hosted, once a year, a weekend of WWII Microarmour from GHQ. This was set up and played on four tables linked together covering 5′ by 32′. This was run by a club, and they reserved the minis area for the weekend. They started playing on Friday morning through Sunday afternoon only stopping when the store was closed.
Happy Sunday!
Happy (Early) Sunday!!
I’m glad you’re giving Hoard a boost; looks a fun little KS that’s been ticking on…
Warren, Bren – the base game you need isn’t Risk, it’s Diplomacy. Now -take that and add a fog of war aspect…?
My idea? A giant Frostgrave table with continuous play – groups enter various points and can wander around finding artifacts/treasures that they can immediately make use of, set-up camp to rest-up or wander back to the inn/off-board camp to cash in what they’ve got to get more forces/resources etc.
Meanwhile, different parts of Frostgrave are opening up slowly throughout the game as the ice melts, or as a group set-up camp to dig their way (or let’s be honest – more ikely blast/melt their way) into an interestin structure. They’ll need to post guards in case someone else creeps up on them. Cthe apprentice or captains can be split off do go on a supply run (although what’s the risk if their loaded up that they might do a runner – need some loyalty aspect).
Please reassure me that Peter Molyneux has nothing to do with Fable Fortune? (Godus anyone?)
Hang-on… is this pay-to-win collecting virtual cards? Hmmm… not so sure….
‘The Great War’ board game by PSC would be rather fitting for a Mega Game. With the Centenniary of the Battle of the Somme imminent..rather fitting indeed!
I really like both @lloyd ‘s V1/V2/V3 idea and @johnlyons ‘ Kursk idea. They both sound like awesome fun!
Market garden lends itself to a mega game. Just an idea
Ben the game of thrones idea could be based around the board game by fantasy flight just enlarge it. But the basics of the game could be used.
Not sure if this might help, but have you heard of Wargame Developments, http://www.wargame developments.org They have been creating ‘mega’ style games for many years and have a wealth of experience as well as material to peruse on the subject, such as their popular ‘matrix games’ (nothing to do with the film!) Their forte is producing multi player participation games, trying to create an atmosphere ‘believable’ to the setting, rather than complex rules sets to ‘simulate’ the realism. Their games help to create much narrative and post action dialogue, as alluded to by Warren.
PS, sorry, I messed up on the link: http://www.wargame developments.org
Bloody f*”%$&ing autotext f*$k off!!!!
http://www.wargamedevelopments.org
Happy Sunday, well that was carnage. It’s interesting to see the group dynamic at work when you guys started to talk about Mega games. I was thinking this week about it and actually ended up on a similar path as Warren with an enlarged version of the board game Escape From Colditz. Some great possibilities for scenery and easily scaled up or down to meet player numbers as required.
the game Ben describes is Diplomacy, its been played globally for years, from written letters sent round the world to faction leaders and gm to now in the digital age facebook groups, private messages, emails and voip calls, there are many different versions covering all eras and genres, extremely simple rules plenty of places to grab the free versions.
i played in a game of thrones game last year with a bunch of ppl from facebook id never met, i played house tully, many ravens were sent, many alliances were made and broken, marriages, births, deaths, and most of all war for the iron throne!
ive even played a version locally, set during the napoleonic era, but every battle that occurred between player countries was played out on the tabletop at our local club, so it would lead to clandestine meetings between faction leaders in pubs or supermarkets or slyly palmed messages handed to ppl with offers of alliance or intel. would lead to classic moments when you would turn up for your battle at club and your opponent would be there waiting, thinking he was only facing your nation and then see their face drop as you and your ally walk in the door and field your army 😀
Ben your game idea is not nuts at all 😉 its great fun.
happy sunday and why there was no mention about preacher or outcast series? both based on fantastic comics?
I’d rather play the Marvel Hydra base version with Captain America personally. Sorry @warzan 😛
John Sean Bean did die in one episode but it was a fake death so does it count?
Ben the game you’re thinking of exists in a modern sense called “Watch the Skies” where I’ve played the Russian Leader who launched Nukes before shutting them down for a PR boost.
http://www.megagame-makers.org.uk/megagamet-wts.htm
@elessar2590 I was the Prime Minister of Russia at the ‘Watch the Skies’ megagame on Sunday at the UK Games Expo. It was awesome fun!
Watch the Skies is the type of thing I think of when I hear ‘megagame’, rather than just a bigger version of a game.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/welcome-to-the-world-of-megagames-300-players-take-part-in-watch-the-skies-board-game-10213384.html
Okay so Ben’s game really intrigues me… but I think that a day is the wrong setting for it.
So imagine you guys are going to this convention, right? Everyone knows everyone else in a small circle say something from some website, say from some forum? I don’t now Beastly mess of a place 😉 but this is small compared to the convention, like say ComicCon or something that is ungodly huge.
Moves can only be done every hour, so you have time to talk and such, but there is a time limit on things. So there are ‘mechanics’ to the game but only in the abstract. Then each persons role allows them to do things, like the ‘hand’ maintains peace among the people, the ‘master of coins’ taxes people, the ‘master at arms’ is the only player that can move armies, the ‘master of whispers’ is the only player aloud to talk to anyone or is given special benfits from the GM or something, and then there is the Lord, if ever you want to formally approch someone, you must go to the Lord. Whenever someone approaches a lord everyone finds out automatically via forum or text or whatever.
You tax more the people become more upset, the hand helps the people the army is well supplied, so and so on, so these will be the factors the GM balances when armies clash, if they clash. But it is done literally behind closed doors at a hotel or hotels so that in the hours of the night when people are still buzzed from the convention they have something to do. Additionally the next day while people are waiting in lines, trying to find there way somewhere, there is always that chance of rouge excitement.
I think that as a side ‘event’ to the main event it would be AWESOME, more so than a main event itself, because if things go badly, if people feel the game has been unfair they just do their thing at the convention rather than being bored/upset and so on.
Anyway killer idea Ben
@elessar2590, No it doesn’t. Besides, in the book series, Sharpe nearly dies at least once or twice a book.
My mega games is 1) (if I had all my AVP KS stuff, But NO Predators would be used!!), doing the search and battle of Hadley’s Hope Colony from the movie Aliens. I have run it once years ago as an rpg, but doing it as a miniature game, it would be more interesting.
Game 2) massive game of MERCs. and MERCs Recon. Team 1 has all 10 mercs from their faction on the table, their objective is to secure entrance into a facility. team 1 then splits into 2 smaller teams, team A which has to enter and complete a MERCs Recon mission, and Team B which has to hold the entrance until Team A can extract.
The true Deathwatch ‘Overkill’
So my original idea for a mega game is this. So imagine a 5,000 point genestealer cult army, just colossal. Now imagine a twelve by six foot (3.65 meters by 1.82 meters) table with just the most dense terrain imaginable. And this game goes length ways.
The Deathwatch is goal is to get to the otherside, last three turns while they send the planetary distress signal.
Now this it a two player mega game. So the Genestealer player sets up first, they get to place down 1/3 rd of ther army in the last 3 ft, this game then they may set up to one 1/3 rd in the next, and then up to 1/5 and finally up to 1/10th in the in the final area. So the Genestealer player can choose to spread his forces as much as possible. Math is definitely out, but that doesn’t matter concept not execution currently (not execution force!) so yeah not as important.
So the Deathwatch player has all of the of the death watch squad. They start out as a single unit, the difference is all of the people with the exception of the squad can split like an independent character but cannot rejoin… so why might you do this you may ask?
Each turn, if an enemy sees the Deathwatch they must peruse and attack them. They see a bike drive by they all chase it. Whatever they see first. If they have a heavy weapon they may remain but they must turn all of the models to face that model or where that model is heading, if it has moved out of site every model it has moved out of site for it follows it.
So here is where things get exciting…
The alien intelligence. After that first turn, if an enemy has seen the Deathwatch, there is a chance the patriarch has noticed. If the enemy has seen them, the genestealer player may roll 3d6 if that player rolls under the remaining number of models they have enough of a synaptic connection to the broodlord to be commanded by them.
Additionally if a Genestealer Prince unit, THE Magus or THE Primus is within 12″ this roll becomes 2D6 if there is an additional one of these, the roll is reduced to a minimum of D6, if the Patriarch is within 12″ they are assumed to have passed, and if THE Magus or THE Primus is inside that squad they are assumed to have passed.
Also if they are within 12″ of another squad, they can inform them to their enemies location, for all intents and purposes radio communication doesn’t work here.
So the Patriarch could form quite a mob, but not necessarily control them all…
So every squad you go by do you send out one of your fast moving guys as bait? Do you try and shoot your way though the city in hopes that the Patriarch isn’t able to connect with them? Do you leave someone behind to take the fall? Like the terminator, to hopefully tie up multiple squads as they can’t kill him, but they must attack him, but you know in the long run he will die.
I think it would be an awesome game to play, but you would need a monumental amount of terrain for it to work, buildings everywhere, cargo shacks to move through so the enemy doesn’t see you and so on. But yeah I think it would be really fun.
I’d do a massive game of…my own game lol. I’d have it based around a micro-planet and actually realise the entire thing and have the battle based around some rare precious mineral that all the factions want. I still wonder how I could realise upsidedown warfare (due to the weird physics ect)
I’ve played a Megagame like Ben has described, it was the one based on XCOM, heres a video of one I havent been to to show how it sort of works
https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/susd-play-megagame/
I’m with Ben on what a mega game is. Watched this video a while back, the people that run this particular mega game run lots of offer different themed events through out the year – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1090049874342797/
Round of applause for that T-Rex! Oh, sorry.
@johnlyons If you have access to a 3D printer you might try checking out something like this http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:129789 for your cosplay.
JOHN, Hey check out http://www.volpinprops.com/ he is a great prop and replica maker he even has some fallout props available I believe.
Happy Sunday!
Mega games for my friends & I, are huge 40k games with teams of 3 or 4 on either side. Sometime we mixe it up by having 2 or 3 guys attacking a single defender that controls a force as large as the attakers but, usually have the advantage of terrain…
Our next objective, is to recreate some of the Tau campaigns in War Zone Damoclès, in big games.
1:08:40 – @johnlyons hands-down wins the megagame challenge. Kursk, Kursk, Kursk.
Actually built a special table for Prokhorovka (“climax” engagement of at least the German phase of Kursk – July 12, 1943) in PanzerBlitz. Even with each counter representing five tanks or a platoon of infantry, and each 3/4″ hex = 250 meters, we needed a 7′ by 4′ table (about 7,200 hexes in all), and about 1200 counters.
We did the research, set it up (printing hundreds of our own counters, of course), and started the game . . . never finished it for SOME reason. Can’t possibly imagine why . . . maybe because the FIRST TURN took a DAY?
That is impressive. 1200 counters? Dang, that is a huge PanzerBlitz game =)
Well, sadly, it didn’t work, even for a mega game. 😀 Too much mega … not enough game. 😀 I always wish I’d taken some pictures of the table set up, though. But this was almost 20 years ago before I had a digital camera.
@warzan and @brennon you should combine your mega game ideas. Every house / clan / nation would have politicians, advisors and generals. The diplomacy part could be the roleplaying part of the game, the military aspects could be played out on a board and it would be up to the advisors to decide what and how to communicate. This could potentially even create tension between members of the same house / clan / nation which gives you another level of gameplay.
Well, before Warren went all Prison Break.
Bens idea for a mega game could be run based on the Diplomacy rules. I had a blast years ago playing Diplomacy in a 7 person game.
My mega game would be playing Diplomacy with all 7 countries represented, but with 5 players per side. The players would get the roles of King, Head of the Admiralty, Head of the Army, Minister of Interior and Minister of Foreign Affairs. All roles could do diplomacy with the other countries, but when it comes to writing down the troop movements they would have to negotiate between the roles in each country.
If you guys havnt tried Diplomacy, you really should give it a try.
Happy Sunday! Ben’s mega game was a cool idea. I was kinda upset with Lloyd… I thought it will be a capture the flag kind of thing 😉
Nice one guys, for the mega game you could have teams in different continents for different groups with a central table being used to plot progress in the game?
My idea for a mega game would be using Mantics upcoming Walking dead. Have it o. A massive 8 x 10 board, with epic ruined terrain or forrests with hundreds of zombies roaming as two teams of players scavenge and fight their way across the map.
Once played a fantasy mega game on an 8x6ft table where the entire table was covered in a graph paper map with 1 inch squares drawn into a massive tunnel cave system that was the lair of a goblin and an orc clan and they had kidnapped the royal family as they were traveling across the kingdom. The 10 players (us) were the surviving guards had to enter the caves and fight/sneak our way into the caves and rescue the king and queen. If I am remembering correctly we had to fight through like 40-50 goblins and 30-40 Orcs ran by a game master. We used the 4th or 5th ed Warhammer fantasy rules and each of the players created their character’s from the hero/character’s portion of the army books and we’re allowed like 25-30 points of magic item’s the Orcs and goblins were standard stat lInes and there was a few do not rember how many wIzard between the orcs and goblins. The Orcs and goblins could be encountered in groups of 1-5 and you never knew how many there was until you entered the room and the GM flipped the tokens he was using as markers for hidden bad guys so we would not know how many we were about to encounter.
Happy Monday afternoon everybody…………….
Took me longer than the 1 hour and 19 mins to watch the Sunday show, and i must say i`m truly sorry “Warren”. But while watching the show i hand Kerrang on the box which i had as back ground noise, and while you where talking about “Mega Game`s” i kept having to pause you. The main reason was some of the music being played……………….such as Matallica`s “One”, followed by Dragon Force “Through the Fire & Flames. Then a few mins later it was Disturbed`s “Land of Confusion” and then i was treated to Iron Maiden`s “Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter”………………….
You all had great idea`s for Mega Games, i`d be hard pressed to pick which order i`d play them in, but i think Lloyd`s “Bolt Action” could just pip the other`s to the post. I like the way he`s thought it out, but i think i would have to re-watch that section of the show a few more time`s and take note`s. Then go away and look at each one over a few hour`s, and see weigh up the “Pros and Cons”……………And would you know, i can here Slipknot playing in the other room, catch you guy`s later……………………
Lol
Good afternoon, everyone ~
@lloyd ‘s idea also sounds great, sort of a “Vengence Weapon” hunter-group, somehow coming up with a narrative that explains why these V1, V2, and possible V3 weapons can’t be hit from the air (maybe the Germans have them in old U-boat pens or something) – so you h ave go in there with special forces and take them out on the ground “Point du Hoc” style.
As far as Zeus goes, to reinforce what @warzan says at 42:35 … Yeah, no Weird War II for me please. 😀 Certainly nothing against that kind of gaming, it’s just not what Zeus is about. Later, if BoW wants to run (for example) a Dust campaign, I might well participate as a player, but I don’t think I’d know enough about it to be a facilitator or a creative force behind the campaign.
Last but not least, in regards to what @dignity says about the available equipment for Zeus … indeed we are setting this in September, 1943. However, I would encourage BoW and any prospective participants not to get too hung up on this date. There is no way the Allies would be ready to launch a campaign like this in Sept 43, and the Soviets are still back behind the Dniepr River, hundreds of kilometers to the northeast (Kursk was only in July-August of 43, after all, and freakin’ Stalingrad only wrapped up in February). So we’re already giving the Allies and Soviets a big “head start” on their general geo-strategic position and posture, no reason we couldn’t give the Germans / Italians a “leg up” as well and allow them to take a little Late War stuff as well.
One of the primary objectives of Zeus was to allow as many players to participate as possible. There are a lot of players out there with late war German forces. I say bring it, and have fun! 😀
I completely concur!
Very entertaining WXLBS =)
It had me laughing out loud many times. I especially like how DIRTY Warrens brain is. Always seeking a dirty angle on every joke!
The Game of Thrones game seems a cross between RPG-I would use FATE probably and Diplomancy
This is a perfect example of what I think is a mega event.
http://www.wwpd.net/2016/06/bolt-action-d-day-campaign-team-event.html
To the back-stagers, I just want to say how much I appreciate what the BOW team does for wargaming. I know it may sound trite but I hope it never hurts to be reminded from time to time. I am in the United States and envy the cornerstone to the gaming community that everyone across the pond seems to be. I do live in an area that is gaming heavy (Chicago) but still wanes in comparison to what the gentlemen at BOW supply for the entire gaming community. So not to “wax lyrical” as Warren says, but I just thought I’d say how phenomenal this channel is. Ofcourse there is Ben with his awesome updates and cutting edge perspective, Lloyd and his laugh makes every set so enjoyable, Justin and his true gamers excitement and perspective, John and his never-ending fountain of historical knowledge and modeling precision, and ofcourse Warren and his spirit and joy in what he does. Every single member of your team should be proud to be a part of the most important hour of my day everyday as I visit this site. Bless you all and thank you for helping me get through each day with something to look forward to. Just became a backstage member after 2 years of “squatting” on the free side and am donating some sheckles as well to keep this endeavor thriving and helping to brighten my day. Sorry to ramble, just wanted to remind everyone how lucky we are to have these gentlemen in our world! Take care and I am sure I will ramble on in future…
…and now my Mega-game idea: 6 to 8 players per side with already established rules involving bolt-action, a naval fleet (ww2) game mechanic, and an air war (ww2) game mechanic. I just don’t know if there are games that have world War 2 naval battles and ww2 dogfight/air battles. The breakdown would be to start 2 players controlling a naval force: 1 American navy and 1 british navy versus 1 German U-boat fleet and 1 German naval ship commander. These 4 players would determine the amount of (bolt action ruleset) forces that land on the beaches or even if they do land or turn tail and cancel the invasion. The air battle of 1 british air commander and 1 American air commander (air war ruleset) versus 2 German (luftwaffe) commanders would be fought and determine as well the amount and effectiveness of allied airborne landings controlled by 1 US airborne commander and 1 British airborne commander versus 2 forces of inland German forces commanded by 2 German commanders. The naval battles would as well determine the amount and effectiveness of 1 American beach force ( Omaha and Utah) versus a German commander of the western beaches and 1 british beach force ( Gold, Juno, and Sword) versus a second German eastern beachhead commander. Where this all ties in would be that the outcome of the naval and air battles have modifiers to the land battles depending on who is victorious in the air and sea. I.e., if the Germans won the naval battles then the 2000 point bolt action force attacking a beachhead would lose a certain amount of points to start due to the ineffectiveness of the invasion and same goes for air battles…. if the Allied troops completely owned the skies (which they did to some degree) then they could have a negative modifier to the total number of points that the inland German forces start with (once again maybe a vase of 2000 points) a couple hundred less points due to allied attacks on the ground forces… this way the 4 allied ground commanders following the bolt action ruleset are very vested in how their allied counterparts perform because it directly affects their starting forces and vice versa. So, I guess there would be 8 allied commanders ( 2 beach-head, 2 airborne, 2 naval, and 2 air force) per side with the ground forces directly affected by the performance of the air and naval commanders. So, as I don’t know a ruleset or game for either ww2 air fights and naval battles, any suggestions would be appreciated to see if the fellas at BOW could pull it off. What do you all think? It could be a very different outcome to D-day if played… kind of a revisionist history miniatures game combining air, land, and sea…
I am probably wasting my breath here as I am sure Justin has already started on what his Jacks using John’s advice….if i could i would like to suggest paint your base colours including the metallic’s on the base as well… then Gloss….and instead of using the blue wash use a oil and grease enamel from Mig or AK…let is start to dry, when it looks matte wipe it off with a old T-shirt or cotton wool buds and because it is on a gloss the enamel sides off nice and stays in the recesses much like a wash.
Good stuff- me and a bro did a sort of mega game years ago playing Epic over a few months. we played on the weekends on a 4×8 board in a meat grinder fashion and anything we could get painted monday to fridday cound come on at the week end as re-enforcments- was a lot of fun.
Look forward to see what you guys come up with. 🙂
Ben was entirely accurate in his description of a megagame that has been run as per the links posted by others.
I’m also looking at a megagame idea utilising Risk for Star Wars Clone Wars 2.5
I’m pretty sure the megagame @brennon is referring to is the one video’d by Shut Up and Sit Down as linked by others on this comments page. I took part in a ‘Watch The Skies’ megagame based on this rules set on Sunday at the UK Games Expo. There were around 60-80 players all together, including a team of refs.
I was the Prime Minister of Russia and with me were the President, Chief Scientist, Foreign Minister and Chief General. It was a full-on, non-stop day of roleplaying hilarity. We didn’t start off too well, but were able to blame most things on the US. By the end of the game however we were dominating the UN in partnership with the US, persuading the Security Council to endorse our breaking of international law and then taking the lead in the fight against the aliens. (I used some of my stolen wealth to fake a DNA test and clear myself of suspicion that I was infected by the aliens…)
There was a map which the generals were able to access to deploy forces on, but there was also a table for the UN to sit at, a media desk, etc.
It was amazing fun. @warzan , @lloyd , @dignity and @johnlyons – I highly recommend watching https://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/susd-play-megagame/ to see how it works.
How did you do in the AGoT tournament and what house did you go with, @brennon ? Did you get tempted down from the north to join us at the rock?
So what we leaner from this episode is that Ben fully understands what a megagame is and exactly how they are played out there today and that the Justin, Warran and Lloyd don’t know how to research something on the Internet first. I genuinely find you guys hilarious but the way you laughed and talked over Ben while he was the only one having a bloody clue what he was talking about was pretty shitty behaviour
We were giggling (if i remember correctly) mostly down to the fact in the run through before recording he described a completely different game (the one on the running order)
The mad genius that he is then proceeded to throw us completely off the scent with his new idea 🙂
Im pretty sure we mentioned this in the segment 🙂