Weekender: Team Yankee History Lesson & Replacing Rulebooks With Dized
September 2, 2017 by brennon
We're back to bring you more awesomeness from the world of tabletop gaming this weekend with our little show known as The Weekender!
Weekender Podcast Download
We've got some awesome news to share as well as a great interview with @oriskany about a new article series that begun this week.
Off To Mythic Day!
Az & Justin are off to Mythic Day in France this weekend and will be chatting with Leo and friends about not just Mythic Battles: Pantheon but also Time Of Legends: Joan Of Arc too.
Follow them for lots of awesome pictures and videos across Saturday to see what's going on in the South of France.
Prizes & A Hobby God Bag Winner
Additionally, we are giving you another week to get involved in the Gen Con Live Blog comments and potentially win yourself some awesome goodies from the event.
All you have to do is Comment To Win on the particular posts for companies in the Live Blog and you could be in with a chance of walking away with some goodies.
We also announce the Hobby God Bag Winner from the last Hobby Night Live as @fishman and his project showing off some ace Goblins although we had to give a resounding honourable mention to @tmsmnns' amazing Redemptor Dreadnought.
News
We've got some great news to share with you today so let's dive in...
- New Grymkin & Sorscha From Privateer Press - Get a look at some new models for both sides of the coin.
- Micro Art's Ace Infinity Terrain - Some new terrain which inspires a fast-paced tabletop.
- Games Workshop Announce Necromunda Underhive & More - Get a look at what came out of NOVA this year.
- Age Of Sigmar: Blightwar - A new way to dive into the narrative battles of Age Of Sigmar. Check out our General's Handbook Review too!
We hope some of this news caught your eye today.
Talking History & Team Yankee
Az and Justin sit in with @oriskany to talk about the new article series he is writing alongside @benc and discuss how Team Yankee would have unfolded had it actually happened.
This article series is going to be well worth checking out in more detail and you can read Part One Here to get started.
Fundraisers
Just one IndieGoGo for you this time and it might be a robotic replacement for Az (don't worry buddy, we wouldn't replace you with an android...yet).
- Dized: Board Game Companion App - Learn your board games as you play.
Personally (BoW Ben), I think this is a great idea but we share our thoughts and want to know what you think too.
Have a great weekend!
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Good morning all
Happy Saturday – Long weekend so time to work on some DfC
Hurrah for the weekend and a chance to relax and catch up on what’s been posted this week. Work really does get in the way of my hobby time. Still, it does pay for all of the shiny!!!!!!!
Huge thanks to @az and @dignity for the great interview segment. 😀
Yes @warzan – Challenger went up in January 1986 (Reagan’s second term). I was a freshman in high school taking English midterms when we heard.
I was in my second month of recruit training (Weapons Training Battalion) when the Wall came down. You are so isolated in that training (absolutely no TV, newspapers, phone calls, no Internet in those days, and even your mail in censored) I didn’t even learn much about it until a month after it had happened.
I notice Warren and Az are going for the Americans, Justin is going for the Germans. No one picks the British. No surprises here. This is one reason I advocate “sliding the time scale” either forward or backwards just a little bit. 1985 really is a year when the British armor is “half a generation behind” the US and West Germans, with 1960s Chieftain upgrades trying to keep up with brand-new Leopard 2s and Abrams.
Go back to 1982 and they’re half a generation ahead (Abrams and Leopard 2s haven’t arrived yet and the Chieftain is still a world-beater). Forward wind later into the 1980s and the Challenger 1 starts showing up, and the British have totally “pulled even” with the Leopard 2 and Abrams.
Looking very hard at the Red Thunder expansion, if for no other reason than the T-64s. Hallelujah. What a huge step forward for Team Yankee, especially for the Soviet players.
Now if someone would just manufacture some T-80s . . . 😀 😀 😀
Yeah the American influence on me during those (formative?) years was incredible looking back.
And you know what… I love it I think the 80’s was an awesome time to grow up 🙂 lol
And I meant to say, @warzan , great job with the American Presidential history. It’s sad to estimate that only one out of three Americans could probably do that off the top of their head.
The Challenger I was in service from 1983.
I’ll be damned. I’m always very wary of the phrase “entered service” or “was introduced” or some such. Prototypes, production started, . When does the tank actually enter battalion or regimental service, and a quick click to Wikipedia doesn’t count as research.
But sure enough, I found on more than a few sites (Janes, WorldSecurity.org, etc) that you are absolutely right. Finally found (quote):
Initial Challenger Mk 1 production vehicles were received in March 1983 and these were delivered to British divisions in West German as a deterrent from Soviet invasion through East Germany. Some five regiments were equipped with this very capable tank in the theater
So well played, sir. 😀
Next question, why the hell aren’t these available in Team Yankee then? 😀 I’ve heard more than a few stories of British players having trouble with their Chieftain forces, which actually makes sense given the Chieftain’s age by 1985.
Hopefully that’s coming out soon as a follow-up to Iron Maiden release.
Happy Long Weekend!
Happy Weekend everyone
Some lovely models for the Hobby God bag.
I do like the look of the sculpts for the Necromunda release and have been thinking about the question posed by Warren.
For me I think there is definitely a nostalgia component to seeing the game released again but the big draw is the character/gang progression which was done so well in the past version and bitz box building a gang.
With the huge increase in companies since the original release the potential models and bitz available are now so much more. I am looking forward to building a gang that will likely consist of a number of models from different ranges based around a theme and shoe horned into a generic gangs ruleset for gameplay until I have a feel for the balance and then make my own.
I think a big part of the fun will be hunting for the right model, weapon, gear or equipment to make my own custom gang and taking them from concept to tabletop.
Great response 🙂
That feels a bit like you ‘loving’ the game rather than this ‘product’ (package of the game)
If the books and rules were available separately does that mean you would maybe skip buying this box?
I do love the game and that may be me seeing it through rose tinted spectacles.
I think the models look good for this product but nothing else is jumping out at me and I am unsure if additional scenery would have made a difference to my wish to purchase. I think this is because I am a nostalgia buyer which means I have access to ample scenery to play and am not really seeing this as a product but a game that brings back happy memories.
I feel GW are not necessarily pitching this as a tabletop game but are instead keeping it on the boardgame side of the fence when marketing. The tiles fits this theme while the addition of 3d scenery would steer it more towards a tabletop wargame.
I would look at buying the rules rather than the Boxset if that is an option but I think that is coming back to nostalgia. In my mind, having played it many years ago it wouldn’t feel right playing on tiles. It needs that hive feel with a lots of terrain and volume.
I love the idea of making my own gang but even more I have begun thinking of the potential models I could use for the Enforcers with ranges like Infinity.
I think you’re right about the board game marketing, and i think the reason they are doing that is because they are designing their games, as much as possible, to be both a game that can be played out of the box and as an expandable hobby.
The reality mimics the game theme. This isn’t Necromunda (as the community have maintained it over the decades GW haven’t given a s#!t) – this a sanitised, packaged commercial revenue stream for GW I’ll call “Necromunda(tm)”.
OK – nice sculpts… but apart from that this will be another 3 month revenue stream they re-release every few years which will end up gathering dust on 80% of its owner’s shelves; 10% will play it occasionally and hopefully 10% will venture beyond the board edge to discover the underground community of hand hobbied 3d terrain and personalised crews assembled from a wide range of mini ranges that is Necromunda (Community Edition).
I would disagree with the gang progression being done well in the previous version. It was terribly flawed and led to player drop out quite quickly or 1 or 2 gangs have so much dominance it wasn’t worth fighting them after a couple of games
I would agree with this completely back when I was playing at its release and shortly after but now the older me plays keeping the objective in mind, with more emphasis placed on keeping my gang members alive and that actually made the system work a lot better.
I used to treat it like a 40k battle when I should have been using guirrella tactics, especially when fighting the dominant gangs. The other thing we found was we were not using enough scenery or volume which again made a big difference.
I will say it did die the death at our club a couple of times over the years before resurging but most of the time that was because of how players played, with them forgetting that really the first objective is to try and keep everyone alive to gain experience.
This is just my opinion from within my community though and would on occasions make for frustrating games of me taking potshots at gang members who refused to engage, or remain engaged, unless they had stacked the odds in their favour as much as possible. To be fair though that was the smart play as the mismatch would see them getting more experience even for just surviving.
I totally see where you are coming from @torros.
The Challenger mishap took place on my 20th Birthday which all seems a long time ago now? I remember watching the wall come down live on TV after weeks of protests in various countries . I have a bit of it in the house somewhere? A lady I work with was in Bucharest when Ceaușescu fell. She remembers being scared and hopeful all at the same time
To add a little to TY . The big games I mentioned in another thread were always based smaller Satellite states of the Warsaw Pact. Rumania Vs Hungry is an obvious choice given the animosity between the countries but may Greece Vs Turkey where a the revival of the Greater Hellas idea that was became a short war in the 20’s could be used as the Greeks try to retake Smyrna and then push into Anatolia
Great ideas, @torros . 😀
Wow. Tough crowd this morning. That’s what I get from not doing up my bases 🙂
But seriously. Congratulations, @fishman. Those goblins look absolutely awesome! I love the magical style that they have. I tip my hat to you, sir.
So I guess I’ll have to try even better next time? Challenge accepted! Getting a hobby god bag before Steve Jackson just became a life goal 😀
Mate you could have (to paraphrase the hound from GOT) won all the f******g hobby god bags lol
Your stuff is genius 🙂 Looking forward to see what you have up your sleeves!
Nah, just admit it. You just want to keep that carrot dangling in front of my nose to see how crazy I can go, don’t you? 🙂
Well now I am @tmsmnns I want to see you at your craziest! <3 Az
It’s the Weekend! (I think… been off for 2 weeks so every day’s like the Weekend)
Reading the printed rules for some games is important to know what rules are where. A tutorial app is all well and good for the core mechanics etc – but how many games a serious gamer will play have countless little ‘rulettes’ dotted about. When you need clarification mid game “Who you gonna call?”
Ohh that is a brilliant point! We totally overlooked that one!
Dare I mention that Ben looks like he’s been overdoing the “furious and sexy” – ease up Ben, you’ve got to take that stuff at a pace…
… either that or it’s jet-lag!
This is an interesting one – Privateer Press does a really good job of making rules on War Room cards link directly to descriptions and specific rules, making searching for the rules when you need then very easy.
If Dized has similar system I’d be very happy. Az
ghostbusters..
dized works well for somethings, board games certainly but i think it would struggle with tabletop mechanics and things which dont resolve as move n square or collect n tokens as it currently stands, had a look at games expo and seemed ok, at best, perhaps as a demo game in pocket system, but with out the known constraints of the board i think it will struggle i.e. if you dont have the same terrain and exactly same layout as they use a demo of say 40k would be the same crappy getting started battle as you get in the book but on your phone, the main thing for me is that i want something to remove as many tokens/wound counters and similar clutter from the table as possible which you forget to update till you have finished your turn and get rid of the accountancy involved in some games, i.e. it needs to track what my opponent and im doing…
That said and its way to early for me to announce anything i am working on a companion/game tracker app framework of my own devising which will do things in a bit more of a war gamer way, which i plan to make compatible with warconsole’s battle report system…..
ah, the week is back on track starting off with a weekender.
Not even a hordes player but I want all the new Grymkin models, the entire collection is great and might just turn me into a collector.
The dized app is interesting but I would much prefer to watch a Lets Play. A shout out to @thisisazreal for his recent Dark Souls lets play, watched those and they pretty much taught me the entire game but was done in a way I was enjoying the show and learning at the same time.
Only a couple of weeks now until the Bootcamp, really looking forward to it.
Martin
ah, the week is back on track starting off with a weekender.
Not even a hordes player but I want all the new Grymkin models, the entire collection is great and might just turn me into a collector.
The dized app is interesting but I would much prefer to watch a Lets Play. A shout out to @thisisazrael for his recent Dark Souls lets play, watched those and they pretty much taught me the entire game but was done in a way I was enjoying the show and learning at the same time.
Only a couple of weeks now until the Bootcamp, really looking forward to it.
Martin
Many congratulations to our latest Hobby God; @fishman. And kudos to our Demi-god; @tmsmnns. Great and deserving winners!
Could listen to @oriskany the whole weekend!
I’m very much looking forward to the article series 😎
Thanks very much, @suetoniuspaullinus . 😀
First part is live. More parts to come every Monday (as Az says) through the rest of September.
http://www.beastsofwar.com/team-yankee/history-team-yankee-part1/
I am finding the Team Yankee stuff really fascinating. I am not normally ‘into’ historical minis/games, but there is something about the ‘Cold War gone hot’ theme that is rather appealing. That and being born in the seventies means that for me, the Cold War is something I was born into, and the imagery is something I grew up on.
Lookign forward to seeing how the article series progressed 🙂
Thanks very much, @avicenna . Although it’s technically “historical,” I agree Team Yankee can feel somewhat different because it obviously never happened. The tanks were there, the APCs, the infantry, battalions, helos, order of battles . . . so there’s plenty of rivets for us grognards to count . . . but at the same time it’s “open” for non-historical gamers (no actual campaign, battles, dates, generals, etc). So in many way it’s the best of both worlds. 😀
The new Necromunda has cash-in written all over it. Setting aside, is it really Necromunda with different rules and 2-dimensions?
Yes, you can use 3d scenery, if you have it, but the tiles look boring and uninspired.
Good question, and I think only time will tell if this new style Necromunda is going to feel the same as the old version, however I think not. Either way it will likely, as you noted, sell well.
Fo me, the deciding factor is going to be how much of an after thought the 3d terrain is. It could well have been designed with 3d in mind from the start and have been a decision to remove it and add a 2d element. We just don’t know yet – it might be the best thing since sliced bread!
I think, in many ways, you could argue that between Necromunda and Shadow War, Shadow War is the cash in. Using existing figures and bits of an old 40k system – They probably should have waited and put the two together.
That’s probably my problem with it. Between Necromunda and Shadow Wars: Armageddon, the whole thing seems backwards. SW:A, as a skirmish game using 40K models, would have made much more sense if it used the modified 40K rules that Necromunda will be using. And vice versa.
Instead we have this bizarre situation where the relaunched Necromunda won’t play or feel like Necromunda. At least not out of the box.
gangs of commorragh has 3d card terrain so there is a precedent within “new gw”. i was gutted when i saw the flat munda layout, it would cost the same to do 3d. still buying it though 😛
A few crappy card spikes doth not a return to the card terrain business make.
It’s also technically what @warzan calls 2.5D – it’s a 2D board with 3D scenic elements. But I don’t think GW could have realistically produced card scenery like that in the original game without potentially undermining sales of their sector Mechanicum range (launched with Shadow Wars). What I think they’re hoping for is for people to buy into either the Sector Mechanicus or the Zone Mortalis boards
Ah the Weekender and a free weekend to watch it… how I’ve missed this 🙂
Team Yankee – I bit the bullet a few weeks ago and picked up the US and USSR starter sets and hoping to drag some of the local club guys in with me, so article series is perfectly timed for me, looking forward to seeing where it goes 🙂
Necromunda – If you look closely the tiles are based on FW’s Zone Mortalis tiles, and are designed to replicate the sewers of the underhive. They’ve already stated that the game is fully compatible with 3D terrain, so I think it’s more of a budgetary constraint of the box contents rather than “make it a board game”. There’s 2 large gangs with multiple options included so the sprue contents are going to be fairly hefty with them alone. To include the SW:A terrain in on that as well would push the cost above the magic £100 mark which will put a lot of people off.
One of Team Yankee’s best features is its accessibility. Start with just tanks and the rules are so streamlined the guys at your club might be playing in as little as 20 minutes.
Getting them to play won’t be an issue, getting them to buy into anything outside GW can be though! 😀
Gotcha, @olliep – if this helps, the new BF plastic tank boxes are usually $45 USD for five tanks, or $9 per tank. That’s gotta be a drop compared to GW prices. 😀
Happy weekend all.
@ben, without glasses, looking good, and nice for us, the Reflexion of your laptop was always on your glasses.
Morning All,
@oriskany Nice interview and thank you for your kind words. I’m still a bit spaced due to jet lag so I haven’t had the opportunity to get fully engaged with the discussions from Part 1 of the TY series.
Fully agree with your points around the technological advancement. It’s a discussion I’ve had in my FLGS and various online areas.
Time to do some more work to my TY T-64 Battalion.
Thanks once again, @benc for all your help with this article series. It’s always great to have another viewpoint. There was at least one error you “saved” me from before these were written and published. The photos and additional writing were a huge help, time saver, and ‘quality control’ measure. 😀 😀 😀
On necromunda. I was a huge fan of the original game, which I owned and played when it first came out. I too was disappointed at the prospect of the new game being a 2D board game. I understand that the rules will still include the skirmish/campaign game played on dense high rise terrain which we loved as kids, and that including such terrain in the box would have increased the cost. I also understand that unlike when Necromunda first came out, there is a profusion of such terrain available on the market now, including the shadow war stuff produced by GW.
Despite all that though, I cant help but feel that necromunda just won’t be necromunda without a big box full of flat-pack terrain. The ability to open the starter box, and have everything you need to build modular gaming tables that looked great, and were fun to play on was a huge part of the appeal.
I know people will say that card stock terrain doesn’t cut it in the modern tabletop gaming market, but it wouldn’t have needed to. Better plastic and MDF options would still have been out there for the people who wanted to take it further. Or the option to buy in via a separate rulebook and miniatures could have been there for people who already had better quality terrain. But cheap modular card terrain in the starter box would have been that fantastic starting point in the hobby which necromunda was for people of my generation, and that’s a missed opportunity in my opinion.
I can’t help but feel that the reason for not including it is a marketing decision. Maybe cheaper modular terrain in the starter box would have eaten into sales of GWs existing high quality terrain kits, which they will want to push alongside necromunda.
Grindr for gamers? Gamr.
@oriskany
Was an infantryman in the mid80’s, and really looked forward (not) to the annual Reforger type exercises held in Germany every year. Used to amuse me how the Officer types and SNCO used to make a habit of stressing how short our expected survival time would be in the event of the Warsaw Pact coming over the line. It seemed that as far as BAOR was concerned, it would be similar to your recent topic (Dunkirk) on a larger scale, very much a defensive and delaying action in pre-identified choke points.
Later transferred to RSigs and found out that at Div/Brigade HQ level survival predictions were shorter, providing the AFV436 actually made it out of the barracks without breaking down of course.
Do you think shear weight of numbers would have seen the East come out on top (allowing for the fact that the average USSR soldier was actually well trained, quite well equipped (in reliability terms anyhow) and well motivated/disciplined.
@bonesbs – great post! Another veteran on the thread, one of my favorite things about this topic, it brings out all the vets who were getting ready to play this game at “1:1 scale” as it were.
Indeed, Warsaw Pact forces would have inflicted horrendous losses on that first defensive belt of NATO defending formations. If nothing else, the 200,000+ troops the Soviets had in their dedicated chemical attack regiments and demonstrated willingness to use it (Afghanistan).
Our Part 03 goes into the “Corps Containment Zones” you’re referring to (different armies and planning staffs / bureaus may have had different names for them), the trading space for time, and of course the political fall out that would have cause with the West German government.
I would agree that the Soviet soldier (at least in the GSFG, Category One, Guards Tank Armies that are being depicted in most Team Yankee games) is a helluva lot better than 1980s culture gives him credit for.
And in the course of our article series, we try to refrain from officially “picking a winner” because the whole project, remember, is trying to support the Firestorm: Red Thunder campaign that Battlefront is running at the moment. We don’t want to say Warsaw Pact or NATO “definitely would have won” while they’re enjoying a campaign that strives to answer that very question (at least in a casual gaming sense).
For my money, I honestly don’t know. On the one hand, the 1991 Gulf War analog shows us just how much numbers don’t matter. So that suggests a NATO victory. Then again, we have the presence of an actual enemy air force, an enemy three times the size of the Iraqi army, they’re hitting us first, and they’re trained, equipped, and motivated much, much better than the Iraqis (and not softened up by six weeks of Coalition air strikes). So that suggests a Warsaw Pact victory or at least a bloodbath stalemate.
Even all of these predictions are incredibly incomplete because they don’t take politics into account. One very plausible path to a Warsaw Pact victory is a West German political collapse. Given the amount of conventional, chemical, and possibly nuclear devastation that West Germans would have sustained, the huge humanitarian crisis of the refugees, and the fact that NATO would have been “trading” West German territory for time anyway, would their government have simply said “enough?”
The same is possible for the Warsaw Pact. Taking a look at the holocaust-losses in the first 24-48 hours of the war, would the Poles, Romanians, East Germans, etc, have calmly marched into the meatgrinder? We know in hindsight how fragile the Warsaw Pact really was, and of course there are the Soviet economic issues that wind up causing their collapse in 1990-92.
So it’s tough. We get deeper into this on Parts 02 and 03, and a little in Part 04 when we see what the “real world ” writers and analysts have published on the subject.
Must agree, the Battlefield chemical low persistent threat was always higher and more likely and let’s be honest the West would have deployed it sooner than nuclear. We spent far more time training in the detection and working in the environment. Will we see NBC regiments make an appearance in 15mm I wonder?
Really looking forward to this series, not a Team Yankee or Modern player but this amount of balanced background must give players endless scope for current and future campaigns.
Great question on the chemical warfare elements, and how they might one way work into Team Yankee. Honestly it might just be a “neutral” scenario element. Or say a Soviet chemical attack is dropping in – in advance of an actual ground attack.
So NATO has set up a defense and the Soviets are about to come on the board.
Every NATO unit has to make a save at the beginning of the game. Fail that save and the unit comes off the table before Turn 1. Maybe 2+ for tank units, 3+ for infantry units.
Okay, now the Soviets come on (already in MOPP protocol so they’ve lost no units and had to make no save – obviously they knew the chemical attack was about to happen).
But now everyone has to fight in MOPP gear. -1s for to-hit rolls, infantry movement rolls, etc.
Who knows?
Awesome, now you’re cooking, must be some way of showing the debilitating effects of fighting in “noddy” gear as we used to call it, sliding scale reduced accuracy on hits for each turn in the affected area or whilst the agent is considered persistent?
More an affect for Infantry possibly, maybe I’m creating too much complexity, but a real consideration for Commanders as can gain casualties just through being in protective equipment.
I’ll shut up now, thanks for persevering
Yeah, I suggested the infantry w/a reduced save (longer to put on full MOPP gear than to dive into your AFV with NBC overpressure-filtration protection system) … and then give the infantry a lower movement rate (NBC-protected vehicles would not be effected) while the infantry have to trudge around in those suits (MOPP-4, the full fit, the only protection against the nerve agents the Soviets would’ve been using).
I dunno. Something like that.
On the subject of Chernobyl, I’m personally fascinated by the history of the disaster, and the fallout, speaking both figuratively and literally.
The controversy about the ecological and public health impact of Chernobyl demonstrates how little we still know about radiation and it’s impact on the biosphere.
I think Warrens surprise about the fact that people still live in the exclusion zone, and the fact that it will be many thousands of years before some areas are safely habitable (both of which are true) stems from the vastness of the areas covered.
The site of the reactor itself is still incredibly “hot”. That’s why the concrete tomb is required, and why so much money is being spent on the new one. Nothing can survive under that shielding, exposure times of literally minutes would be fatal, and it will be thousands of years before that changes. The key is and will continue to be containing that contamination to the site of the reactor itself.
However, even relatively close to the reactor, it is safe for humans to work. It has to be – hundreds of construction workers go there every day. Their exposure times are limited, like many workers in the nuclear industry.
Pripyat was a city, now within the exclusion zone where many of the workers at Chernobyl and their families were housed. Durung the disaster, radiation levels in Pripyat were high enough for many people to suffer acute radiation sickness, although I don’t believe there were any immediate fatalities in the city. Pripyat, like the rest of the exclusion zone was evacuated.
However, as Justin pointed out, there were, and there still are people who refused to leave the exclusion zone, and who still live within it to this day. There are also lots of people who enter the exclusion zone regularly, either legitimately or less so, including companies which operate tours. Pripyat is a tourist attraction today.
It’s relatively safe to enter the exclusion zone, and get pretty close to the reactor without radiation levels getting much higher than background. As I understand it, the main risk is contamination from radioactive material in the soil which can can be dangerous if inhaled or consumed.
Great post, @tachycardia – I don’t know nearly as much about this, but I have seen where fauna and wildlife has flooded back into much of the area, wildlife populations have recovered at rates far exceeding the most optimistic estimates. I saw one biologist call it “an unlikely Garden of Eden.”
Seems that, at least for nature, even nuclear disaster is preferable to having hundreds of thousands of people pouring waste, filth, and pollution into the ecosystem on a constant basis. If this wildlife could speak, might they be saying: “we’ll take your radiation levels, just get the hell out of here and leave us alone!”
There are companies that do holidays to the area – a friend of mine visited and came back with very ‘Fallout’ photographs. No luck trying to persuade ben_c to go though…
That would be an interesting vacation to be sure. And I thought I took @gladesrunner to some strange spots for holiday. 😀
@warzan You’ve might seen it already, but some ace cosplay photos taken in Chernobyl from the cosplayer Maul Cosplay and photograpther EOS Andy: https://www.facebook.com/pg/maulcosplay/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1385235881553190
There was “Eldar Jetbike chase” rules for 40k in a White Dwarf maybe 10-15 years ago. The idea was that after they player turns you’d move the terrain down the table lengthwise to simulate the jet bikes zooming through jungle or whatever setting you were playing in. When the terrain piece reached the end, on next turn you’d place them back from the other end.
We played it slightly modified (but way cooler!) with Orks vs. Dark Eldar. Dark Eldar were on Raiders and jetbikes and Orks on Trukks and other vehicles. We had rules for boarding and fighting on the speeding vehicles. If the models fell from the transports, they stayed on the board but got moved with the terrain. We allowed limited turning angles and amount that you were able to slow down, so you really got into situations where the vehicles crashed into trees and buildings.
Couple thing I have some thoughts on,
Necromunda- When I saw the tile laying thing I had the same reaction Warren did about you lose all of that cool different level terrain after thinking about it I think its probably a good idea and here’s why. I have a boardgaming group that wants to expand into Skirmish gaming and possibly Wargaming but the main blocker is…measuring, line of sight, cover concepts are so foreign I don’t think they’d understand it just yet.. Its a gateway to that new world of gaming that I have enjoyed for years and hope to bring some other folk along for the ride. If the rules for that 3d terrain are included great I still have my original NEcromunda sets.
On posting more: I’m also part of that group that posts very little,but have enjoyed the content for a while now as a backstager, hobby night live is a great concept as well Unfortunately I live on the west coast of the US so I completely miss the whole night,but I do watch the stream when I get home from work. I’ve just recently gotten back into mini painting so the skills are rusty and I’m not sure I’d really want my stuff out there for public consumption yet.
On Dized:
I love the idea of this program, my poor hosts of my Boardgaming group basically Cram Rulebooks for many hrs the night before our group meets up, just so they are sharp on the rules. Sometimes, I think it would just be easier if we all learned together then a total dump of all the concepts of the game before turn 1
@warzan I adore Necromunda from it’s original game way back when. My friends and I still have a handful of anecdotes from our underhive days. We were all looking forward to this but the flat boards really sucked the wind from our sails. It NEEDED 3D terrain in my opinion. It’s no small part of what made Necromunda so damned good. It resulted in a heck of an awesome table. Sniping from on high was amazing!
As is, I’ll still get the box. Always wanted Eschers to go along with my vast Orlocks gang as well as my Spyrers, Arbitraitors and Ratskin tribe. The minis do look beautiful.
One thing that was pointed out to me about the boards though. They apparently match up to Forgeworlds Zone Mortalis boards. If so, they will give me the exact dimensions to build my own and that’ no bad thing, bringing a touch of the 3D back.
Finally, I still have a vast stash of the classic Necro bulkheads. It may finally be time to buy some plasticard and recreate the old terrain and more!
@warzan
What you say more or less is the main concept of the last scenario from Gorkamorka, we have already modified the concept and run it as a biker gang chase event last years gencon.
Terrain moves models stay (that is the main idea variations according to speed ectr exist).
Happy Weekend!
Thanks for the show guys
Happy Saturday!
For me the tile system does make sense to me for Necromunda, as I picture the underhive its a very Claustrophobic setting not a wide open area. I mean some areas might be open with gangways and such but I don’t feel it would be the norm. I picture the underhive more like Zone Mortalis than Cities of Death. I like the 2 ways to play as you can get the base game up and running quickly but with the second way to play if you want the more 3d expierence you can move on to that. Honestly they already have Shadow Wars and could just release stats for the gangs in that. I think with boardgaming be as big and growing as it is this probably is more likely to appeal to those crowds then a box with a bunch of assembly required terrain that would have to cost 2-3 hundred dollars to make it look and feel like a proper 3d game out of the box and not something with a few pieces as a gimmick. You might say they could go the cardstock route but for quality easy to use stuff can get fairly expensive, look at Battlesystems. A 3d boardgame is out there with Deadzone and while a good price, I always felt you needed more terrain then what comes in the base game. But I don’t know how well thats even caught on as I haven’t seen anybody playing it in awhile tho that means nothing.
I think the app is great for boardgames but I don’t know about bigger games. But we all know how I feel about rulebooks, my favorite gaming item after all =)
I’m just tired of staring into computer/phone/tv screens. I don’t want to have to buy those special glasses and I just want some time were I don’t have to stair into some screen every few minutes. Thats just me tho, for everyone else its probably fine.
I like the idea of Necromunda but I don’t think I’d buy the game because of the non 3D look, but I can understand why it would be a good marketing idea to get someone into 40K. I’d play it no problem as long as I could use my Black Templars or Krieg.
Good discussion @oriskany. Succinct and very informative. Although not a player of Team Yankee (as it still hits a little too close to home for me) from what I’ve seen and can see why people like it. Having served here in the U.S. Army during the 80s your discussion is dead on track from what I experienced. We did have plans that included the arrival of more units from the U.S. that went beyond 30 days but whether or not they could have made it across the Atlantic is questionable and would the ports have been intact is another question. Offloading M1s on the beach would not have been easy! THat was always a thought in the back of my mind while serving here. It was definitely different times. I vividly remember getting on the plane to come to Germany back then thinking to myself. This is it, I’m going to what was then the front lines of a cold war that we fully expected to go hot!
Who knows maybe someday I’ll jump into Team Yankee, but probably never as a U.S. player. Probably German! No @wayland it wont be any time soon!
Thanks very much, @silverfox8 – hope you’re doing well since we met at the FoW 4Ed boot camp. 😀
Indeed, in future parts we talk about Soviet plans for north German ports and Dutch ports (we actually have some of those plans in hand now), and of course V and VII US corps as part of CENTAG in the south.
I know what your mean about not wanting to play the US. I went in later (1989), wasn’t in nearly as long, and of course was in a different branch (USMC), but still, when the Team Yankee boot camp came along for some reason I just wanted to play the Soviets.
If you ever do get into Team Yankee, I can recommend the Germans. Their units are fantastic and the Battlefront minis for the the Leopard 2s in particular are superb. Whoever designed how the track segments attach to the sprue deserves a Nobel Prize. Usually that’s a huge pain point in minis for me, but these were the cleanest, easiest attach points I’ve ever hard to cut out of a sprue.
The Necromunda box, I suspect, was designed around cost. The price I am hearing rumours of is in line with Blood Bowl (~£65) however to include the plastic terrain would cost something like Shadow Wars (we have to assume and accept that GW are unlikely to head back into the card terrain business any time soon). However, as cool as the Shadow Wars scenery was, it wasn’t enough to effectively play the game on unless you already had a collection of scenery to put with it. Necromunda, in it’s current form, comes in at a lower price and can be played straight out of the box BUT it has a set of rules that also allow you to play on 3d, multi-level scenery if you want. I think, that all things considered, the Necromunda box is a lot more accessible to anyone who doesn’t play 40k and has no scenery of their own, but also remains attractive to people who do play 40k and do have a scenery collection.
Thanks for a great show., I really enjoyed the @oriskany interview. Some great insights right there.
Thanks very much, @aurorainbag ! 😀
Happy weekender!
Firstly, Heroquest had 3d terrain. As did Space hulk – well 3d doors anyway. Advanced Heroquest, and Warhammer Quest also had some 3D terrain, so Necromundas original release with lots of 3D terrain wasn’t unheard of – but it did seem to have quite a lot at the time! And I have to say, I’m a little disappointed (again) with a GW re-release. And this is why:
When Space Hulk was re-released I knew the game was pretty average. It was inherently difficult to even get close to success with the marines, but that was always the intention.But the re-released minis were stunning, and I could incorporate them into my 40K army, so I jumped right in. Kinda regretted it, as I suddenly realised I had too many terminators already, so I sold the whole lot off.
When GW announced they were re-releasing Quest I was over the moon. A game I loved, and still played, was being brought back – hopefully with some beautiful new minis. What GW did was create a whole new game, and stick “Quest” in the title to try and tempt us to buy. I had a look at the rules, had a little play-test was thoroughly unimpressed. I didn’t buy it – it just didn’t feel like Quest anymore – it was just A.N.Other dungeon crawler.
Then came Bloodbowl – I remember thinking this was the bees-knees as a kid. Then I played it again for the first time in many, many years, at my local club (long before GW announced a new edition) – I hated it. It felt far too punishing and far less tactical than I remembered. Maybe I had been spoilt by the many fantasy sports games that exist now. Either way, I didn’t buy it.
Now we have Necromunda – a game I owned as a child and I had loved. I was really looking forward to getting this again. But looking at the new set, it’s utterly underwhelming. The sculpts are so fussy, so OTT – it’s almost as though GW have said, “we have the technology to cast thousands of small bits on every surface, so let’s do it”, rather than actually thinking about the overall aesthetic. And no terrain? The whole premise of the game is about using terrain – especially height, to your advantage. Remove that and you have 40K at 500 points.In a flat, featureless desert. With no Marines. Or aliens. I actually fear they are going to change the entire ruleset so much, it no longer feels like Necromunda – is that likely to bring people back? I’m not so sure. If they had just updated the minis, I would have seriously considered this – but as soon as I knew they had looked at the rules, I started to panic.
With so many great games in the back catalogue, I wonder how many will be re-released as “board games”, with whole new rules, and no link to theprevious edition. Space Marine was great fun, As was Adeptus Titanicus. No elements of roleplay, or campaign progression, so they should be a cinch. But does anyone remember Dark Future? It had a full campaign, character progression – it was great fun. I’m will to bet, if it gets an update, it won’t be the same. And it won’t be better. They have the chance to improve these games, but instead re-hash them – in every sense of the word.
And that’s why I have so little love for GW right now.
And is there any better smell than the “new book” smell from a brand new game? I didn’t get that when I bought a new tablet. And that’s why Dized doesn’t interest me 🙂
On the flip side, Grymkin and Sorscha look pretty damn cool.
I think all of my comments today may be of the “Get off my lawn” variety. 🙂
– Necromunda: I played it when it first came out and the 3D element was key and it was king. Being able to keep your wits about you and surprise your opponent with a line-of-fire through the terrain was huge. But the Advancement rules were seriously broken and favored some gangs over others, which made power gamers tremendously powerful and annoying.
If I could get my hands on the Escher figures without needing to bother with all the other junk in the box. I would do that in a heartbeat. I think they’d be great for Moderators or Jaguars for my Nomads, or even as a squad in Rogue Stars.
– Dized: A lot of the points that were made about the app were very good and helped changed my mind about it. But I still think I’d be sitting across from an opponent using it and being irritated with the whole “Hang on a minute, I need to check the app and see what the computer wants me to do.” I’d just about bite through my tongue struggling to not say “Use your own brain and stop relying on that machine.”
Hmm, digital rules and apps. They’re convenient and it’s great they’re easy to update whenever things get FAQ’d. However, having attempted to play a game using a digital rulebook all I can say is physical books are currently so much better. When you need to look up a specific rule, you can flick back and forth through the book so much quicker than you can in a digital rulebook
I do like the idea of tutorial apps though
I prefer a physical rulebook, but the search function on a PDF rulebook makes it so much easier to find things when you’re learning the game and don’t know where everything is. It made learning the now deceased MUMG so much easier.
My experience of them comes from tablets and for some reason I have found PDF readers, even the Kindle app, to be a bit unstable, especially with some of the big full colour digital rule books. Laptops work better but they’re more cumbersome and their batteries don’t tend to last as long. I think long term, digital rule books are definitely where it’s going to go but they need to be available on Tablets and Smartphones and IMO at least, we’re not quite there yet. One thing that would help is publishers realising that big, full colour PDFs are a problem and create mobile optimised versions of their digital rulebooks (i.e. no background art and watermarks, just plain white pages)
nice one guys.
@oriskiny before we deployed to the Gulf (artillery unit) we were told that if we experience return fire from Iraqi artillery then we can expect around a 40% cSualty rate. Heaven knows what it woukd have been if we’d gotten a tank action and had to defend against a tank squadron. Though we trained to get 1 shot off, if we wete lucky at a tank before the likeky hood of getting taken out. So against Soviets I imagine those would have been the expected casualty rates.
Thanks @warhammergrimace – That actually brings up a great point that I don’t think we hit in the article series . . . Soviet counterbattery artillery fire.
For those unfamiliar – counterbattery fire is when you start taking enemy artillery fire, you somehow fix where those shells are coming from, and you put suppressive or destructive fire down on that source to stop the enemy’s barrage.
Modern counter-battery fire is often facilitated by radar and computer, where you actually track those incoming shells and compute backwards to their point of origin.
This is why displacing your battery is so important. “Shoot and scoot” – because as soon as you splash out a few volleys, you can bet the enemy already has shells in the air coming back at you.
In the Gulf I don’t think the Iraqis threw very much (or any) counterbattery fire back at our positions ( @warhammergrimace would know far better than me) – but God knows we were throwing plenty back at them. The instant any of their artillery opened up on us (any batteries that had survived the air campaign, that is) we had counterbattery barrages heading back at them.
In a prospective World War III the Soviets had this capability that the Iraqis seemingly did not. Granted, the Soviet CB capability wasn’t quite as good as ours, but they did have it, and holy **** did the Soviets have a lot of artillery.
Then of course, there’s the armor break though into NATO rear areas and tanks overrunning of NATO artillery positions, as you mention as well. 😀
No as far as I know there was no.couter artillery fire from Iraqi positions. When you consider that the Gulf war saw some of the largest artillery fire sincecthe first world war its not surprising. 50 rpund fire for effect was a common order from the CP, a regiment of say 20+ guns firing 50HE shells per gun is quite devastating, and on some fire missions that was followed up with MLRS firing similar as well. I remeber finishing a fire mission and the MLRS unit directly behind us fired a 50 round fire mission. It was a scary sight and sound watching it, heavens knows what the receiving end was like and thankfully we never found out.
There was a day, I think it was before ground forces went through the breach across the mine field that all artillery gun in the coalition compketed a fire mission of around 30 or 50 round fire for effect. It was said that in total over 400 artillery pieces took part. I’m not a hundred per cent sure how accurate that is but it would have been roughly 20,000 rounds of HE shells.
10 days before we entered the breech, we did shoot and scoot missions on our first we finished the fire mission. As we pulled away our track threw, which meant we were left thier on our own to attach it back on. Which was quite scary because we expected return fire.
Did you get to see the ground after the bombardment?. I am sure modern artillery is more effective than that of WW1 but would be interested in the comparison between the one you were involved with and the ground at the 3rd battle of Ypres where they fired 4 million shells over 14 days
MLRS: “It was a scary sight and sound watching it, heavens knows what the receiving end was like and thankfully we never found out.”
Steel Rain, the Iraqis called it. 😐
We went through a couple of postions and the artillery guns had been thrown about like toys. I did see the devastation on Basra road, that was awful, seeing what a modern military machine was capable of.
A couple of people I now were some of the first to get to the Basra Road after the attack. Took them a few years to get over what they saw there. Sometimes I dont think they ever really did
Not surprised it was quite shocking and the smell was the thing I still remember the most.
The Basra Highway, “Highway of Death” was indeed horrific. What most people saw on CNN wasn’t 10% of it. For Part 03/04 of this series, where we’re talking about expected levels of destruction, again we keep returning to the Gulf One for analogs – and I was pulling images of the Highway of Death to make the point.
Suffice it to say I didn’t feel comfortable using / publishing the first three or four higher-res images I came across. 🙁
Now picture that on every highway and autobahn in West Germany.
The destruction in Europe would have been horrendous, the Gulf was in a desert environment, so no urban centres. You only have to look at the destruction in Syria for an idea of how bad it could get.
Can’t argue with that.
Great show as always, guys.
I think gaming tools such as Dized are always good to have, but I’m like Az where I like to read the rulebook and have a good idea of how a game plays beforehand. I like knowing all the different options I have when it’s my turn. When I’m teaching someone a game, I like to give them a few options during their turn so they don’t feel like I’m just telling them how to play the game (alpha playing). I wonder how Dized will handle special rules or caveats. In my gaming group we always ask questions when we are first trying to learn a game, but this can slow down the game when someone has to hunt down an obscure rule or special condition in the rulebook.
I do understand not wanting to read a rulebook before hand and just get stuck in right away. I have friends like Ben who do not like to read rulebooks. Well, that’s not really true because I know that they have read D&D manuals cover to cover countless times over the years! Two of my friends (who I’ve known for about 25 years) like to give me shit and say that I cheat because I read the game manual and know the rules. Not because I exploit loopholes in the rules, just knowing the rules makes me cheater.
I feel like Az during his rant now…. First I thought Dized was a good idea, but hesitant to go with it. Now after my little rant, I think I’m going to get Dized to shut up my friends!
There is an app called Game Findr which is essentially Grindr for gaming. However, as Az mentioned, I really just go to my FLGS and the owner hooks me with other players. Wait, does that make him my game pimp?!
@nteger
Yes… yes it does
lol 😉
I have actually been a Backstager for 5 years & 1 month. haha & have made a grand total of… wait for it. 1 comment on one post. I just wanted to say you guys actually make my frickin week. I’m a wedding photographer as a job & as is usually the case when your hobby becomes your job you have very little time for anything else. I have had a space wolves army unpainted for a good 2 years. I get the odd game in but have only painted 2 dudes. haha. I have actually been in & out of the hobby since 2nd edition 40k. Normally your faces are blessing my screen while I’m editing some love struck humans. In fact I’m pretty sure my neighbours think I’m Irish now. Anyway I might not comment or create posts or do anything interactive but you guys are literally my fav thing on the internet. Happy to forever be a back stage lurker. Much love. Ryan
lol Epic first post @eternitygate 🙂
Nice to ‘e’ meet you mate 🙂
Haha I had a fleeting moment of Warren! We’ve known each other for years man. Don’t be like that! Then I realised that it’s been a one way convo & my computer screen isn’t actually a human being. I just said to AZ on Facebook that going to one of your boot camps is on my bucket list right after Disney World & Stroking a Koala.
I mean you guys are awesome but you’re not that good. Much love & thanks guys.
PS I made this comment & the whole site went down for 5 mins hahaha