Weekender XLBS: RambleFEST 2019
March 3, 2019 by dignity
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Still no Let’s Play of B&B , or Frostgrave , for that matter, shame.
One day maybe ?You never know,the guys might have 1 or 2 in the can waiting.
Happy Sunday!
Time for XLBS
As far as the discussion about rectifying the rules and making them your own.
I have always run with the attitude of, “Read the rules, understand the intent, and then keep what works for the game session you are about to play.” Play the rules, don’t let the rules play you.
Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday guys!
my list always has my most recently painted units or figs no matter what haha
Great show guys always fun to see the 4Ground Guys in Studio.
Back in First Edition Bolt Action we used to have pages of house rules, everything from LMG’s costing less to Transports having a single crew member to fire a weapon. Most of the separate communities came up with their own rules that were basically the same as the one our group was using (or ours were the same as there’s depending on who came up with it first) and now almost all the communities “House Rules” are in the 2nd Edition Rulebook.
Ben mentioned Darkstar. @oriskany and I sat down a few weeks ago and designed some Prussian Ships for myself. They were based on some ideas/designs I’d come up with and they had some weird turrets on them that meant they’d be less effective on the tabletop, the turrets pointed to the corners of the ship rather than Forwards or Backwards, and he applied a discount on the ships to reflect that disadvantage.
Those Titan Bases look incredible. That’s how to play Titanicus. Little Marines and Chaos Marines scattered on the bases of Titan s and Scenery would add a giant level of immersion to the game.
Morning all, just wishing is wasn’t having to role play shopping with help of Zuma, a bumblebee and a dancing robot… and no am not high (unfortunately!)
you had my curiosity now you have my attention!
The joys of an (almost) 4 yr old! Zuma and the bee are plush toys, the robot is some god awful Xmas gift from my mother that has no volume control! Luckily I was allowed to stick on Fridays Belfast v Fife game (?) that distracted the beast a bit but cars still needed to be pushed about even then. Roll on him being “mature” enough for gaming… (he doesn’t loose well enough or a game based on chance… it will come)
I think every set of rules probably has something that doesn’t work exactly how I would want it to but for me the main part of any rules and there are multiple ways of achieving this is is to have a mechanics in place whether it be pips as per DBA etc or C&C rolls as per fire and fury or warmaster or with some of the TFL rules that have tea break card that automatically ends a turn and it doesn’t matter whether all the units have had a good in a particular turn of not but the main thing is that your troops don’t always do what you want them to do.
I do agree with @templar007 that with any set of rules they need to be played through as written a couple of times to see how all the phases of the game interact with each other before modifying them with house rules
Happy Sunday one and all.
Following @dignity and @avernos un-boxing the WoE Skellies,i’m leaning towards a Harryhausen homage skeleton Warband to kick off Age of Magic when it drops.
have you seen the metal necromancer they have done, very persian looking and sowing dragon’s teeth 😀
No i haven’t,i’m off to look it up now,cheers @avernos .Does anyone know if the Necromancer is available on his own ? I’ll be throwing an email at Warlord soon,but if not,91 skellies will be getting divided up between me and my friends at my flgc.
Is there anything on the interwebs about a date for that Lone Wolf KS ? Or am i just shit at web searching ?
not yet, don’t worry when it lands I’ll be mentioning it, probably at length until the others throw things at me like they do when I say Rorke’s Drift *ducks under the table*
Cheers ( again ) @avernos .Tell the others to just re-set the Rorkes Drift clock,rather than resort to throwing things…
Great show, great debate topic too! If! One’s thing is more for cinematic, narrative creating game play, then Two Hour Wargames ‘Chain Reaction’ system is ideal for promoting this style of play. Definitely no ‘IGO UGO’ I agree with much of ‘Big Ben’s and Jerry’s comments and input.
That episode went all over the place but I like where it went and particularly where it ended.
The system that I would love to see adjusted and adapted is Hail Caesar. Firstly I want a fantasy version. secondly, if that system (and KoW for that matter) have a failing it’s it shows unit degradation really badly. A unit gets into combat, takes a beating but continues to fight as if at full strength. Personally I’d love to see units bought in squads and as the unit gets beat up the squads are removed. It would also allow for unit formations like hogs heads the Zulu “bulls horns”, squares and other formations to be shown on the battlefield. It would still allow for scenic/dioramas in unit bases, and would not slow the game down at all.
Hopefully this Rick Priestly kid I’m hearing about can do something about that.
Not a rules thing, but that Roman Fort 4Ground spoke of….. I wants it! Make that happen PLEASE!
I think there is a homebrew version for a fantasy version of HC out there but personally for me as HC is just a slightly updated version of Warmaster I would play that instead.
and warmaster had the base removal that @horus500 is after so there was degredation of the unit before it collapsed
I never understood why it was in Warmaster but not in HC. They are almost the same rulesets at different scales in many respects.
I’d also like to see the dice bag system from Bolt Action etc in a rank and flank game. It would really force players to prioritise charges and shooting. The only criticism I have of that system is that it encourages lots of small units to build up dice. Ideally a maximum number of dice limit, dependent on the size of the game could possibly fix that however.
what about one dice per commander in the bag, then you have to pick the commander to activate and then use the standard test to command the troops under their control?
Damn. I can’t find a flaw in that idea. I’d give the general 2 dice but otherwise that’s perfect. I might send that in to that Priestly kid you mentioned
PS @horus500 I think you’ll find we were focused and on point throughout the show, any randomness must have been on the side of the viewer 😉
I knew I was getting confused when Big Ben’s tangential ramblings started making sense to me. That man would be an ideal partner in a trivia quiz.
I think the degredation of units is beside the point with hc and bp etc. As they are mainly representing huuge units and they have given units a binary value. It’s either combat effective or not. Also, for me anyways, getting a wole army out, and spending a few mins per phase putting models away piecemeal is a nause,(i play nids in 40k lol). I think it’s the idea that units didn’t often fight from 100 blokes down to 10 unless there was no choice. After a few considerable casualties, guys would be bricking it. A few more and they leg it. Yes 1 or 2 may hold fast. But for all purposes the unit is negligible for combat.
Happy Sunday folks
Favourite games for mechanics – Bolt Action, Adeptus Titanicus and Necromunda. Purely as they keep you engaged throughout with the activations, but I do love my HH so I can cope with “I go, You go” as well 🙂
“marbles”
I think i lost mine just as Ben said that,an utter champion of a man he is ( must remember to simply say hello at Salute ).
Matchsticks from from springloaded artillery pieces is the way forward
light them first and that will sort out the plastic brigade from the proper metal miniatures 😀
If you wrap the heads in tin foil they explode as well
Great bit of chit chat.
It certainly is a complex issue around house ruling and home brewing games. As someone who has played tabletop wargames for over 30 years now I am confident in changing stuff I don’t like or feel makes games one dimensional.
It is perhaps an unfortunate consequence of broadening the hobby that more players have less experience and less confidence in taking matters into their own hands to improve the gaming experience.
One wonders whether the surfeit of games on the market also plays a factor whereby people find a game unsatisfying and instead of looking at the reasons why and making some small changes to improve things they move on to another game in the hopes of finding that holy grail of gaming experience.
Conversations like this will hopefully help to make people realise that having invested £100s and possibly hundreds of hours into models, terrain and game time they can be masters of their own destiny and do what they like to the game to make it their version of fun.
Perhaps the starting point for everyone is to ask what do I want to get from a game.
As an example, my friends and I are playing a lot of Frostgrave at the moment and one of our number is a died in the wool power gamer. He plays very aggressively against underpowered warbands and writes custom scenarios that can easily be used to grind out 100s of easy experience points and a lorry load of gold coins just to enable him to get an apocalyptic strength warband kitted out to the teeth with every killer magic item he can find.
The rest of us find ourselves creating mods and adaptations to level the playing field and it frankly is difficult. As a result a couple of us took him to one side and just started the conversation about what Frostgrave is really about. We made the point that just because you can snipe the opposing wizard out in turn two, should you?
As a result he is starting a new warband and I am joining him to try and tell the story of our warbands and play up to the narrative intent of the game.
I guess the message is that the game should always come second to the people involved. Without this consideration you’ll quickly become the loneliest hobbyist in the world.
P.S. @brennon My new warband is made of B&B models. A purpose to which they are eminently suited especially if you use the black powder rules from Issue 1 of Spellcaster (Joe’s digital magazine supplement for Frostgrave and Ghost archipelago)
that’s a really interesting point that I never even considered. That people would “jump ship” if the rules don’t do exactly what they’re after instead of trying to make up for whatever the shortfall is within the system. Thanks for that @warbossd
I quite appreciate Corvus Belli’s activation system. It’s still IGO UGO but both players are always involved. Even when it isn’t my turn, my troops can still react, taking shots of opportunity or identifying obscured models perhaps.
As far as modifying rules goes: as long as it’s fun, why not?
If you want fuzzy mats, why would you not start with Cigar Box Battle Mats. Using fur and going through that effort does not seem worth it given the final result.
cost, a cigar box mat is 4 times the cost, 5 or 6 times once you ship to the UK if customs catch it. So for a club or people wanting their own tailored mats its much cheaper. Also even Cigar’s long fleece mats don’t come close to these
My favourite games are 40K and Bolt Action. But without doubt 40K is the most frustrating to play, especially if you are going second. I tend to play a very fluff oriented army and my favourite is Elysian who used to be able to deploy from turn one. They have no access to real heavy choices and if a get to turn 3 I have done well. But with a good group of friendly players ignore some of the rules as written to get a good game in. When playing tournaments I tend to have a balance of fluff and optimisation to field either catachans or cadians, if I get turn 1 tend to get a victory 75% of the time, if I go second then it’s only a 25% chance of victory.
Basically it is down to the players to decide what game they want to have and use the game books to achieve that.
To balance the game very much follow Warren’s mantra of using dice bag to remove the alpha strike of losing 50% of army on turn one. This brings victory in at 50/50.
Very fun and super interesting show, really enjoyed it.
Since i have come back into table top gaming i find i am more fascinated with the mechanics and theory of gaming as much as i am with playing itself. I have been thinking about making my own game for a long time now and i feel that i am ready to do so. This episode of XLBS has been a real inspiration to that end and has given me a lot of ideas to chew on and work with going forward.
Recently i have thought that rather than making a specific unique game i would instead like to create a campaigning system that could be used with a plethora of games already available. I may even start a project page and seek the feedback and ideas of the OTT community.
Loved the dichotomy of shallow levity and serious depth of today’s discussion, great work and thanks for the work you at OTT and also the 4Ground chaps are putting in.
Happy Sunday all and see you on the flip side 🙂
Some interesting topics, but sometimes during the first hour it just descended into a cacophony of noise! When two pairs of people are having separate discussions, or one is laughing at a private joke while others try to move the topic on, it can be really difficult to listen to.
As to rules, it seems like many players forget that it’s a game – it’s supposed to be fun – the participants are called “players” not participants; the most important aspect for me, particularly with cinematic tabletop gaming, is that everyone enjoys playing. Play. Playing. House rules are fine for clarifying (and sometimes even correcting) intent. Maybe even to influence the “story arc” of the game. Playing the game, not winning it, is important. Blood Bowl (esp. earlier editions) actually made this part of the game rules – nobody plays goblins or halflings in order to “win”. Nobody could seriously argue that the game was spoiled because the sides were unbalanced – that’s part of the fun. It’s all just make-believe anyway 😉
@OTT — my comment timed out while typing so I had to repost. Sorry for the dupe.
If you want fuzzy mats, why would you not start with Cigar Box Battle Mats. Using fur and going through that effort does not seem worth it given the final result.
There are those here who far more versed in rules than I so I cannot comment on the best or the worst and will only comment I things that I like:
I like things that bring tension to the game. To me that is what is exciting. Not knowing what will happen next.
I like command cards for activation like in SW Legion. Do I use my best initiative now or save it for later in the battle? It bring great tension.
I like dice. IMHO, many battles in war and life often come down to luck. While there are great moments of strategic minds, a lot comes down to luck. IMHO, the no dice crowd wants a script. My issue with no dice games I have often found is they can be worse than having dice. There is point where you know best on the cards drawn there is no more chance and you done many moves ahead are just playing to make it to the end. With dice, there is always a chance that things swing back. Some people believe that just means the best dice roll wins and not the best player. I disagree. The nice can mitigate a small mistake you made while with cards often your fate is sealed.
I like simultaneous turns. You move, I move. You shoot, I shoot. I hate it in games where one person does everything and you are just waiting to die.
I dislike the heavy the meta games. Victory goes to the spreadsheet warriors or those even took the time to write simulations for themselves as I have seen using some existing game system. To me, that is not fun. The person who spends the most hours wins the meta game makes want to quit.
Just like keyforge, I rather have a per-made army/warband and that is balanced and let people choose what they want to play so that it is balanced. This is what my group has done with Frostgrave. We have created a warband around each of the schools of magic and have play tested so that they are very well balanced and relies on the player making the correct moves. To me that is more fun because everyone has an equal chance to win.
There are a lot of people who would like to play wargames but do not have the time to invest as the heavy meta gamers. What we did with Frostgrave gives anyone a chance to win. I feel far to many games like WH require a PhD in the rules in order to win. While yes, you can make changes at the club level as suggested but I have also seen more often than not the guys who simply want to crush the newbies. It is a reason many including myself have quit WH among other reasons.
Finally, I like the bring your miniatures games. I have far to many years of collecting that I do not want yet another collection. I also rather stick to skirmish games than mass battle games for time and cost reasons.
That is my two cents, glad everyone had fun at ramblefest.
Was out at my parents at Christmas – while I was up in the attic lifting down the Christmas decorations I found my old copy of Hero Quest (like many of a certain age my first introduction to tabletop gaming!). I pulled it down eagerly and had a look through it. Something I had totally forgotten was that quite a few of the magic or item cards got lost or destroyed over the years – and I found a bunch of custom cards that I had written and had printed out and stuck to card to replace them. Definitely my first attempt at homebrewing when I was probably only 11 or 12.
Hoping to get a game in with my brother soon using the custom cards to see if they were any good! 😀 😀
I really like the flexibility we’re seeing in a lot of games lately. Use what minis you like, bugger about with stats, lists and so on. I picked up WoE recently, and have the majority of the *Rampant books. It just feels a lot more relaxed than the more prescriptive rules. Just chuck down whatever minis you have painted and have a laugh together.
great weekender worthy of a pot of tea. @brennon thanks for the mention glad your gonna put those pieces to some use, much better than gathering dust with me.
as for home grown rules I always wanted a Fimir Army (that’s showing my age) and had some movement trays which reflected the background namely just cotton wool fluff to represent the fog they produce. it was only when an enemy got within 12″ of the unit were the troops visible and revealed. all the locations written down and declared prior to the start of the game to a third party.
never got to become a reality due to figure cost and today its the same excuse I look at the forge world stuff sigh and wait for the lottery win lol
Oh, @brennon that LotR book on your shelve. The green one. I have the exact same book. And man, I tell you, when a non-native English speaker (like myself) thinks he’s good on English, that books gives you a run for you money. Half the time I had to look up things in the dictionary XD
To be fair it was written by a professor of English and linguist par excellant. 😉
Lol happy Sunday.
That was a brilliant fun show Guy’s.
Who’s the editor for this?? I’m loving the little visual gags and funny VT!
What I really think stinks in *every* game: people meta-gaming the sh*t out of it even in casual games. But we all agreed on that on before so moving on to the next topic.
Great Weekender. If Big Ben and @avernos somehow end up being at Spiel in Essen this year I might have to rethink my stand on “it’s to early to go there with the kid” just for some shaking of hands and clashing heads. 😉
I love the ruleset (and man is it old now) In the Grand Manor for Napoleonics (A number of years ago, I wrote a battle report for BoW using this very system). Similtanious movement for each army. Charges declared and resolved first before movement and shooting, casualties and morales at the end of the round. The club I go to (not for a little while now, but I hope to rectify that) have added a number of house rules over the years, tweeked this rule a bit, removed that rule for something else etc.
The way I see rulesets is simple – Rules are a guideline. They should only be 100% stuck to at tournaments etc. If its at a club or a mates house, add house rules, discuss changes to rules if people are either unsure or just dislike the rule.
I can remember playing those rules with the late Peter Gilder at his Wargames Holiday Centre. Thanks for bringing back a good memory of a guy I had a lot of time for. ?
Mark Freeth currently the owner of the Wargames Holiday Centre still runs games using those rules.
Very nice models there,Cad!!! The machine god double approves!
What we have to remember is a game is just a game, no matter what type it is. Now i
ve never played power games, its not something that has ever entered my head. When ive come across someone who plays to win no matter the cost, i tend to stay away as ive had experience in the past of the dreaded ass holes.I have over the years drifted away from mass battle games, and now tend to play smaller games. I do play the odd mass battle game at least one weekend a year, thats when me and a group of friends meet up for our yearly gaming weekend. We do play other smaller games, which can and do turn out to be a barrel of laughs……….such as cards against humanity.
Loving the bases on the Adeptus Titanicus, i passed some epic bits and pieces to a friend for his Adeptus Titanicus will get pics next time i see him. Not a game i see myself getting in to, but one i might (I say might) play on a occasion.
Love Big Ben and his True Grit comment, Laughed so hard I almost cut my finger off working on my WWX minis
let Gerry be in charge of the technology!!!!
you takin the piss son, I can’t tell *peers*
of course not! the most professional person on the xlbs
I grovel before your superiority
🙂
Fun show, probably the most entertaining set of guests to be on a Weekender.
I have to say though, some people cannot help but view official rules a certain way, It’s comforting to know that experts ( they imagine) have crafted those rules to work correctly. Like I wouldn’t drive a car that some of my friends built for fun if they weren’t automotive-experienced. I trust the car manufacturers to make vehicles that are safe and efficient. Not saying it’s right, but that, I think, is the mentality of those who only like official rules.
Of course, that speaks to an ‘official is best’ mentality and ‘corporatization is good’ that we are all being conditioned to accept.
What did you reset the Clock twice for – why should Squats have to suffer for Ben’s B&B obsession?
?
If they hate playing primaris so much because of the wounds, use Adeptus Custodes against them… Troops with 3 wounds each, 2+ armour save and toughness 5 as standard.
I believe the most fun game I’ve ever played is Dark Age. It is such a big lowdown for me that many people didn’t get its care about the cinematic of every combat and how is a game where everything is so unpredictable until the very end.
I think 40K and Kings of War are the most frustrating games I ever played, simply because if you don’t get to attack first, you’re done. I like games where you can have fun until the very end, not knowing from 2nd turn already that there’s nothing you can do. I’m really hopeful for Conquest, seems a very balanced system and that Card Deck activation system is something I’m really looking forward to try.