What’s Coming in the Future For Dwarf King’s Hold?
July 22, 2011 by dignity
For some website features, you will need a FREE account and for some others, you will need to join the Cult of Games.
Or if you have already joined the Cult of Games Log in now
What difference will having a FREE account make?
Setting up a Free account with OnTableTop unlocks a load of additional features and content (see below). You can then get involved with our Tabletop Gaming community, we are very helpful and keen to hear what you have to say. So Join Us Now!
Free Account Includes
- Creating your own project blogs.
- Rating and reviewing games using our innovative system.
- Commenting and ability to upvote.
- Posting in the forums.
- Unlocking of Achivments and collectin hobby xp
- Ability to add places like clubs and stores to our gaming database.
- Follow games, recommend games, use wishlist and mark what games you own.
- You will be able to add friends to your account.
What's the Cult of Games?
Once you have made a free account you can support the community by joing the Cult of Games. Joining the Cult allows you to use even more parts of the site and access to extra content. Check out some of the extra features below.
Cult of Games Membership Includes
- Reduced ads, for a better browsing experience (feature can be turned on or off in your profile).
- Access to The Cult of Games XLBS Sunday Show.
- Extra hobby videos about painting, terrain building etc.
- Exclusive interviews with the best game designers etc.
- Behind the scenes studio VLogs.
- Access to our live stream archives.
- Early access to our event tickets.
- Access to the CoG Greenroom.
- Access to the CoG Chamber of Commerce.
- Access the CoG Bazarr Trading Forum.
- Create and Edit Records for Games, Companies and Professionals.
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
more stuff 😉
I like the elves and undead the most from Mantic so far- the Abyssal Dwarves + evil elves will be interesting as a boxset. Avoid abyssal or twilight- shudder, Forsaken??
Anyway id love to see a heroquest type rule tweak, a tile only set (see following), more scenarios, solo and multiplayer rules, above ground tiles, cavern tiles, dungeon tiles, city tiles ad more race vs race dkh box sets.
Writing a scenario intially is easy the tricky bit (takes ages) is making it fun to play
…and making it balanced.
if its fun does it need to be balanced? 😉
It depends on the game and the expectations.
When I worked for GW they published a board game I designed called Lost Patrol. This pits Space Marine Scouts against alien nasties in an ever-changing jungle. It is deliberately not balanced, and quite a bit harder for the Scouts to win than the gribblies. I have lost track of the number of times I have told this to people, and I still read posts moaning about how it isn’t “fair”. It was never intended to be. That’s the whole point. It’s a Deathworld! What do you expect to happen on a Deathworld!
Fun is great, but people generally expect balanced too. If you don’t make it balanced then you’ll have to let people know in 12 foot tall blinking pink neon letters (and they’ll still complain).
@quirkworthy, lost patrol!!!!! Great game!!!!!!!!!!! Had some great times with it!
Thanks Tor, glad you liked it 🙂
at 3:10, it is a clockwork suit. they did have it a lot more clockworky in the concept art, but they toned it down for the actual model, its a shame, cuz he looked badass in the concept art
Clockwork sounds like lots of fun. I have an evil thought brewing…
Love how expandable this game is. Fantastic races with some great scenarios and a lot of scope for expansion :). Also making a game thats 3/4 player instead of just 2 is a key thing a lot of these dungeon running things make a mistake with. The ability for more people to get involved at once is awesome.
Currently, playing with more than 2 players in DKH requires a little imagination, but it’s far from difficult. At Mantic’s Open Day I played with me against 4 Necromancers, and that only required some tiny changes.
That’s fantastic. Will have to try some multiplayer and see what we can make of it.
I play board games in a group of 3+ so 2 player is great as long as i have two games or some people dont turn up.
Multiplayer rules, basically you need to write em up and stick em in dkh3 😉 a free pdf for those who have 2 copies of other dkh1 or 2 wouldnt be a bad idea
BGG has spoilt me, i just expect lots of free pdf support for games these days
ps
dwarf driller scenario- will it ever be a free pdf??
What I’m currently thinking of is sticking up the sort of “get you by” multi-player rough guide that I’ve been working with. Not a finished piece, really, but then I’m a bit of a perfectionist.
I really need to potter by BGG and answer some questions,. Not been by in a while. I’m sure there are some.
Driller scenario may end up being a free pdf at some point, I’m not sure yet. It’s only fair to the people that bought it as part of the bundle to let them revel in the glory of exclusivity a while first though. Not entirely my decision, so we’ll have to see.
After seeing the Orclings the other day, I thought – how cool would it to have them in Dwarf King’s Hold. So I have written some rules for them. Each ‘figure’ is depicted by several Orcling figures on a small base. I am working on a few scenarios to include these little guys in, but would love to know if Jake has designed some rules for them? Could they have a place in your Dwarf King’s Hold games?
Mine are primarily designed to be annoying, but not too much of a danger unless they start ganging up.
Game Values
Model: Orclings Swarm
Movement: 6
Dice: 2
Armour: 4
Special Rules: Nimble, Weak Rabble, Scatter
Weak Rabble: Orcling’s dice may be reduced below 2 to a minimum of 1, but their Armour will never be reduced as instead of representing their toughness, it represents the many individuals darting around, biting, clawing and generally being annoying!
Damage Table:
Damaged Model is: Orclings Swarm
1 Damage: Nimble
2 Damage: Scatter
3+ Damage: Dead
Scatter: When the Orclings scatter, the base is removed from the board and placed next to the tile it was on. A d6 is then rolled. A result of 1-2 counts as 1, 3-4 counts as 2 and 5-6 counts as 3. This number is the number of turns that will pass before before the Orcling base may be placed back onto the same room they were Scattered in. When being placed, they may not be placed adjacent to an enemy model.
As far as what I’d like to see in the future, a scenario design kit (maybe a PSD file with the graphics in it so we can make scenarios with the correct graphics) would be great, more races of course (would love to see Lizardmen/Frogmen/Fishmen)
Cheers,
Ben.
@boromirandkermit orclings would be cool indeed! One of the early versions of Green Menace did indeed include the orclings as a playable piece, mounted several on a base as you have done. They’re too small and insignificant to mount individually. My rules are rather different from yours, and that’s not a criticism, that’s rather entertaining 🙂
As I have said all along, I think of DKH as a toolkit of fun for people to play with in whatever way they want. The boxed sets are stand-alone games in their own right, but in my head are also parts of a whole that will allow people to mix and match their favourite bits together and make up their own scenarios. It’s a bit of a retro idea as spoon-feeding seems to be the modern fashion, but I’m a bit long in the tooth for that…
Thinking about it, I’d say having more than one version of how a given race works is fine too. It’s all part of the happy mix of elements that people can choose between and play with.
A scenario design kit is a very interesting idea. Technically, I’m sure it could be done online, though it’s not my skill set so I don’t know how hard (or expensive) that would be to implement. You will have a selection of races to play with in due course. When the contents for the next box(es?) of DKH are sorted with Mantic then I can plan how I’m going to do the bits in between. I want to plan things in a broad sense as you almost always end up with power creep if you do things just as they turn up. Doing things together gets a better balance overall (even if I don’t release them all at the same time).
Have to say that I particularly like the scatter idea, and would possibly consider use something similar for Rat Swarms (if you don’t mind) 🙂
@quirkworthy I’m glad you found the Orclings rules entertaining. I would be very interested to see how you approached them. I think its great that the system is flexible enough to have multiple approaches to a particular figure (or figures in this case). 🙂
By scenario design kit, I think even a PSD (Photoshop file) with all the relevant room graphics layered in would be enough. Having said that, it is fairly easy to do this ourselves, it would just improve the accessibility. The more accessibly is, the more likley someone will try it. (A sad truth).
Am very eager to hear which races will be designed for DKH (I imagine it will be the Abyssal Dwarfs, Evil Elves, Goblins and Humans, but I hope that other races will be given a nod – or that Mantic expands a bit past the ‘given’ races at some point). But it is great to hear that you are designing things in a broad sense – its smart working and what I have tried to do with my games as well. You are right that it makes things easier to balance.
You’re more than welcome to use the scatter idea – I think it would work well with Rat Swarms (I have used it to represent cockroaches in another game).
Looking forward to more Dwarf King’s Hold stuff Jake – good luck!
Cheers,
Ben.
@boromirandkermit thanks for that. I can see how it would work very well for cockroaches. I may simplify it a little, but the core idea is great.
I’m aiming to nail down the next stage of the plan in the coming fortnight, and part of that will be knowing which races are needed for what ends. Partly cos I haven’t finished playtesting them, and partly as a tease, I’ll just say that the way I’d done Orclings they didn’t have an attack, but they were possibly a bit too powerful. Make of that what you will 😉
Ease of use does indeed = greater appeal. In general, us humans are lazy. This is a map builder you’re talking about (which sounds a little easier to produce than a scenario kit), which could be part of a scenario kit. I’ll have a word with Mantic and see what they think is possible.