An Ordenstaat can still make a lucky hit. It's ten percent less propable, but an Ordenstaat rat deals one point more damage on the rest of the attacks. It's lucky is better(3 on armor, 1 on VY) just more rare, and the Ordenstaat's crit is also better and have the same propability.

In short, luckies are great, but enemies on heavy armor rarely have 1 or 2 VY(I don't know any). Means, you have to smash down the armor regardless of lucky chance. You have to be really lucky to aproach someone and roll up enough luckys and crits to get it down whitout smashing it's armor to zero first.

I was leaning more toward using Militia against medium armored or shield based opponents. If something is in heavy armor, It will likely make more than one attack, and see Rat Raiders as little threat.

Additionally, when not making Anti-charge Reactions, they can use their shields, giving the Targe back to the Militia, dealing 2 DE with it, which balances out against the Poleaxe.

So the basic Attack/Armor profile comparison is:

Militia 1 AP 2 DE + 2 DE, 3 AR
Orden 1 AP 3 DE + 1 DE, 2 AR

So the Militia has more armor and luckys on an 8
The Orden is immune to stuff and Cleaves.

I forgot about the shield... that balances things out.

But then does the Ordenstaat has to have Pike in addition to Poleax? Talking about WYSIWYG one would not expect a unit having two polearms. It looks like just complicates a lot of things. (but does give them anti-charge)

Nothing forces you to use the pike with ordenstaat you have the pike as per a normal rat raider. The minute you make him an ordenstaat rat, he has his pike but he also gains a poleaxe. As we said you choose which weapon you use in an attack...

And like I said, you shouldn't need to worry about modeling standard equipment....

Yes, you keep the Pike, it becomes a choice for an Ordenstaat Rat whether to use the pike or the poleax. Only Shields and Body Armor replace lower levels.

I'm not a fan of WYSIWYG, and as you said, its contradictory to how Brushfire works. As long as it is easy to identify different models (I gave all the ones with poleaxes cape bodies... I gave all the medium armor models helmeted heads...etc). The tourney scene will need to decide on their own if WYSIWYG is something they need.

The Ordenstaat is a special case. The new Ordenstaat Faction will have a model that is just the Ordenstaat Rat Raider, and will get a model of its own in the future (including a poleax), which Vandal players can use to represent the variant.

What I worry about is that the game is going towards these wierd things like a unit carries two polearms. It's not the same as the Warlord's sword later becomes a Bastard Sword and the sword becomes redundant with it's same kind but weaker stats, the pike and the poleax are different weapons.

It's not even that the Ordeenstat rat carries both which is borderline rdiculous by itself, but the reasoning is creepy: It can because the poleax is some kind of upgrade equipment but it's doesn't overrides the basic equipment, but adds itself to the equipment litst.

It's not an upgrade. Armor upgrades as the old one becomes redundant and useless, but this...

Getting better in the game is mostly learning these unexpected things like you can shoot untargettable things as long as you use template-based attacks and you can anti-charge/countershoot thanks to your otherwise redundant weapon. I find these things headscratching at best.

Another key thing to remember is that Brushfire's generic weapons are Generic. We give a name for easy reference to a profile, but it can be modeled different ways. The Mongoose Legionnaires, Weasel Fusiliers, Bull Regulars, and Otter Ashigaru all have Rifle as an option, and all three are using distinctly different forms of Rifles/Muskets.

So you could represent the Ordenstaat Rat's ability to make a 3DE Reach Attack however you like. One way to do it, since the Poleax doesn't have 'Extended Reach', is just trim the length of the weapon so that is different from your Dishonor Guard Rats.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
What I worry about is that the game is going towards these wierd things like a unit carries two polearms. It's not the same as the Warlord's sword later becomes a Bastard Sword and the sword becomes redundant with it's same kind but weaker stats, the pike and the poleax are different weapons.

It's not even that the Ordeenstat rat carries both which is borderline rdiculous by itself, but the reasoning is creepy: It can because the poleax is some kind of upgrade equipment but it's doesn't overrides the basic equipment, but adds itself to the equipment litst.

It's not an upgrade. Armor upgrades as the old one becomes redundant and useless, but this...

Getting better in the game is mostly learning these unexpected things like you can shoot untargettable things as long as you use template-based attacks and you can anti-charge/countershoot thanks to your otherwise redundant weapon. I find these things headscratching at best.

Except that a pike and a crossbow don't be come more or less unusable. All of the things that a rat raider, or ANY OTHER model in the game has as upgrade equipment are tools in the bag. Some games says, "Rat Raiders may replace their pikes with poleaxes" Brushfire isn't this way, and it is spelled out in the rules

I get it. Just when I try to teach the game, it leads a lot of WTF moments. I think it's really hard to follow as it is now, spelled out or not.

I one would expect that all equipment follows the same rule, but that's not the case. You upgrade your armor and your shield but you gain a new weapon on top of the others. I might think this because I assume some things based on other games but the game does not communicates the fact too clearly that this time it will be different(well, not for me, anyway).

If that's how it works, it might suggest to rephrase the unit sheets somehow like this:

Standard equipment: this and that,
Upgrade equipment: bigger shield, better armor
Additional purchasable equipment: extra weapon

I think this wouls clearly say that whatever is in the third category, it is added to the list and does not upgrades anything. "Upgrade" suggests that something is getting changed in the process.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
I get it. Just when I try to teach the game, it leads a lot of WTF moments. I think it's really hard to follow as it is now, spelled out or not.

It's not that hard to follow... "All models retain any equipment they had. So in purposes of this demo, our Tanuki Samurai has a sword, a dagger, medium armor, a bow, and a wakazashi." One of the pieces I just listed is an upgrade piece. He doesn't lose anything else... So our Tanuki is allowed in any phase to fight with 2 hands worth if equipment. So in the Shooting phase, he can use his bow (which says 2H). In the Charge/Melee phase, he can use either his sword and wakazashi, his sword and dagger, or his wakazashi and dagger.

Trust me, it's not that hard to follow, I gave at least 25 demos a few weeks ago, and at least 3 of them were to people under the age of 10...

I one would expect that all equipment follows the same rule, but that's not the case. You upgrade your armor and your shield but you gain a new weapon on top of the others. I might think this because I assume some things based on other games but the game does not communicates the fact too clearly that this time it will be different(well, not for me, anyway).

And technically your Militia Rats don't lose their heater when they gain a targe, nor do Dishonour Guard lose their light armor when they gain Medium Armor... If you read the entries for Basic Armor and Basic Shields in the armory section, it never says a model upgrades and loses previous equipment, it states that you may only apply the AR from a single Basic Armor and Basic Shield source.

When is the next update for download? I see there has been a lot of chatter here and since your aiming to wrap things up asap I'd like to see how much has changed for the better. Just incase there are still things standing out to me from before.

 Casey's Law wrote:
When is the next update for download? I see there has been a lot of chatter here and since your aiming to wrap things up asap I'd like to see how much has changed for the better. Just incase there are still things standing out to me from before.

You should have received an email since the 28th of April.

 Casey's Law wrote:
When is the next update for download? I see there has been a lot of chatter here and since your aiming to wrap things up asap I'd like to see how much has changed for the better. Just incase there are still things standing out to me from before.

Likely tomorrow, I'd like to finish another deck and have Matt do more fluff.

Yeh I'm sure I'll have the last email.

Tomorrow is good timing! If it's as soon as the next week I'll grab it and have a look through again.

Something I never realized until this chain of conversation: heroes can't join normal units without a special rule. Does that tend to make them particularly vulnerable to "sniping?"

 kenshivalion wrote:
Something I never realized until this chain of conversation: heroes can't join normal units without a special rule. Does that tend to make them particularly vulnerable to "sniping?"

Many of them can be 'sniped', but in most cases there are more important targets to deal with (The Tactician General is less scary than the 5 Badgers-At-Claw that are nearing charge range).

There is also no 'Auto-Lose' on the death of a Hero.

 Alfndrate wrote:

And technically your Militia Rats don't lose their heater when they gain a targe, nor do Dishonour Guard lose their light armor when they gain Medium Armor... If you read the entries for Basic Armor and Basic Shields in the armory section, it never says a model upgrades and loses previous equipment, it states that you may only apply the AR from a single Basic Armor and Basic Shield source.

But really, why? Is the game any better because of this? Do you really expect people when they write their army list they will write "light armor 1 AR" and then "medium armor 3 AR"? Wouldn't it be so much clearer if a unit just flat-out don't have the redundant equipment? Sure, it doesn't bother anyone, but it does not benefit the game either.

I think we don't see each-others point. I try to show you what I'm talking about.

If a model gets a Pavise as a standard and a Heater as an upgrade, now it has two shields. A Pavise is better when you are charged or shoot at than the Heather. So when you are being charged or shoot at you can use the Pavise's stats, since neither has Anti-charge, it's even the better option because more armor and shield armor of that.
In your meele phase you switch to your Heather because it's a held shield and you can shield bash with it. If you get attacked back it's better than the Pavise since that does not give armor or shield bash when you are just in close combat.

Don't you see how twisted this logic is? I would not expect anyone to switch shields in battle.

(A quick search revealed that only the Venture Co. Riflemunk uses Pavise and it cannot upgrade it to Heather, but still, if it could this would be possible. Right?)

And you don't just have to learn this - that's the easy part - you have to remember using it and the game does not help you with that. Rather it feels like it's hinding it.

For example, the Rat Raider:
Ordenstaat – Equipped with a Poleax, The Rat Raider has Immune to Shock, Immune to Fire, and Immune to Poison.
This whole converstation wouldn't happen if it would say: Equipped with a Poleax and a Pike, The Rat Raider has Immune to Shock, Immune to Fire, and Immune to Poison.

Yes, this is a direct consequence of the no equipment loose rule, but it would help so much. If you would just look at the Rat Raider card, it would make you remember that this guy also has a pike, and when your opponent questions your unexpected anti-charge, you can show it to him. But instead it says the Rat Raider's standard equipment is: Pike, Heather, Light Armor, atough no Rat Raider actually has this list of standard equipment. And after that, it says: County Training - A Rat Raider must choose one of the following Equipment & Special Rule Combinations as Standard Equipment. Again, why on earth would a unit have two polearms as it's standard equipment. (Yes, I know but bare with me). Furthermore it doesn't say "additional standard equipment" so cobining the last two logical thoght, the Ordeenstat Rat Raider might loose it's Pike in favor of the Poleax.

It's not just about the Rat Raider either, the game is full of these kind of hidden things.

Again, it's not that I don't get it. I am trying to give feedback about the book and I feel the game can be improved here.

If I remember correctly this was brought up before, it was definitely something that bothered me that's for sure. I think you've hit the nail on the head this time though Roo, the concept of a warrior changing their armour or swapping to a different shield is really strange. It's a very off putting concept and sucks the fun out of playing.

I'm wondering why the decision was made to keep this in?

I see where he is coming from after doing a little investigation. An older copy of the rulebook (using the rat raiders as an example) says, "May choose" in terms of the Country Training Special ability. It also says, "gains a [piece of equipment]" With the cards and the current pdf, it says, "Must choose" as standard equipment and says "Equipped" with instead of gains. I can definitely see why is is confusing.

A clearer way to state Country Training, and other similar abilities might be to say,
"County Training - A Rat Raider must choose one of the following Equipment & Special Rule Combinations as part of their Standard Equipment."

or

County Training - A Rat Raider must choose one of the following Equipment & Special Rule Combinations as Standard Equipment.
Militia – Gains a Targe, The Rat Raider makes Lucky Hits on an 8+.

I had a lot more written about your other points, but I feel you're adding issues that don't actually exist, I can post them if you want, they're definitely "pre-coffee" Alf rather than the "post-coffee" state I'm currently in. So they might be more terse...

The rules were worded a certain way so we did not need to write a list that people would need to carry around indicating what was redundant to what.

Originally, RAI the Shields and Armor were the only thing that replaced their upgrades. But as you've pointed out, That doesnt work with Pavises and Held Shields.

But a pavise is also what is known as a standing shield, they were not held, a soldier would place it in the ground in front of them to protect against attacks (much like the shields that come with the Ribenguo soldiers.) So a soldier could wield a Heater and have a Pavise on the ground in front of him.

As for logical inconsistencies, many Spear users carried other weapons, perhaps a pike and a poleax were not 'back up' weapons in such occasions, but again this was intended to slmplfy the rules. We have to balance between Logic, Clarity, Simplicity, and Brevity.

We could include a passage about weapon switching to highlight these concepts, but I feel they add, not detract from the strategy of the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Weapon Swapping

Many units in Brushfire can end up with more equipment than they know what to do with. Each phase, the player can elect to choose different equipment to hold in it’s two hands. A Conscript can choose to use their Sword in the Melee Phase, after using their Bow in the Ranged Phase. A Rat Raider can choose to use their Pike to gain Anti-Charge against an opponent, after having used its Poleaxe on the previous turn.

Any held equipment changes must be declared during the Phase, before any dice are rolled, and changes cannot be declared more than once per phase.

Adding this into the Equipment rules.

I found this line on the equipment tags part:

"#AR - Incoming damage is reduced by this amount before applying to VY. A Model may count AR from one of Light Armor, Medium Armor, or Heavy Armor. A Model may count AR from one of Pavise, Heater, or Targe. All other equipment that provides Armor bonuses stack with these."

It doesn't say when that model have to decide wich armor and shield it want to account or how long. It clearly states that despite a model having better item it can choose the weaker one.

And now, some fun game theory

Let's say you can change wich shiled and armor you are wearing per activation.

One unit that has upgraded from his light armor to medium and from Heather to Tagre defends against multiple members of the Rubenguo's Seven Wonderers. They activate one by one and armor does not refreshes when they pass activation from one to the next. The first wanderer attacks and burns this model's armor and shield armor, then comes the secound. Now armor does not refreshes, this time, but this unit still has a secound set of armor and shield that still holds some extra points(theoretically you keep your redundant stuff), so in theory, this unit can switch now to it's secoundary armor and shield to gain some extra edge.

I know this is sillybones, but following the game's logic, it can work, or do I'm missing something?

Then we will clarify that it does not work that way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Addendum to the Weapon Swapping Entry:

Light Armor, Medium Armor, and Heavy Armor may not be swapped. The one that provides the highest bonus is always considered equipped.

Pavises, Heaters, and Targes may not be swapped. At the beginning of the game, the player must choose which Shield a model has equipped.

 Alfndrate wrote:

I had a lot more written about your other points, but I feel you're adding issues that don't actually exist, I can post them if you want, they're definitely "pre-coffee" Alf rather than the "post-coffee" state I'm currently in. So they might be more terse...

The issue with the Pavise-Heather switch may not exist yet, but I think - or rather, I really hope so - a lot of new units will come out. It might be a problem later.

Please do tell me if I'm going too far. I have the tendency to do so.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

I had a lot more written about your other points, but I feel you're adding issues that don't actually exist, I can post them if you want, they're definitely "pre-coffee" Alf rather than the "post-coffee" state I'm currently in. So they might be more terse...

The issue with the Pavise-Heather switch may not exist yet, but I think - or rather, I really hope so - a lot of new units will come out. It might be a problem later.

Please do tell me if I'm going too far. I have the tendency to do so.

In my own personal, not tied to On the Lamb Games in anyway, opinion, I feel you're going too far, you're nitpicking things that don't exist in the game. And Pavise and Heaters haven't existed in the game on the same unit and probably won't, and if they do, we'll simply add a line to that unit's card allowing them to ignore the weapon swapping addendums that we've written today.

My addendum a few posts up should solve this problem.

I saw

You know, I reall like the Idea of having pavises separated from the units. Maybe a unit may pick up a pavise and move around with it loosing attack power and gaining defense agiainst ranged attacks during that time. Then it can drop it and go wild.

Then maybe the enemy comes and pick them up for the same purpose.

You could make shield walls and roman turtles with them. How cool that would be, no?

Another slight addendum:

Heaters and Targes may be swapped with other weapons, but not with each other.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mantlets in the Fortifcations/Siege Weapons section function much like your concept. Mantlets are bigger 'rolling' shields pushed around when assaulting castles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
After reviewing the army lists. Only 3 things had Pavises, and theyve been converted into Heaters or had other changes to make up for it. As such, the Pavise is being removed from the Rules.

Scroll up a little incase you missed Matt's multiple appended posts.

I'm going to begin the process of rendering an updated PDF/Updating WargameVault.. watch your Inboxes in the next 30-40min.

Excellent, I'll probably download it tomorrow.

 Casey's Law wrote:
Excellent, I'll probably download it tomorrow.

You'll be happy to see that Axony's Stat cards are included in this update

I will indeed! I'm definitely geared up to look into that army again. Lots of cool new stuff to play with.

Update is out, have at it!

What is the reason behind Armor Penetration working on "the highest of the squad"?

 WhiteRoo wrote:
What is the reason behind Armor Penetration working on "the highest of the squad"?

A means of keeping things simple by only having to apply one AP stat to an enemy.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
What is the reason behind Armor Penetration working on "the highest of the squad"?

Simplicity sake... and normally you don't have to worry about it since your squad (on average) has the same equipment, but Horde Infantry ignore the same equipment rule, so it's to keep the game moving.

Downloaded the updates and I've had a quick flick through, I'm looking forward to reading it more thoroughly and trying out some list building. Anything in particular you'd like me to check out?

 Casey's Law wrote:
Downloaded the updates and I've had a quick flick through, I'm looking forward to reading it more thoroughly and trying out some list building. Anything in particular you'd like me to check out?

Mainly if any of the unit rules are confusing.

But also look for typos/if a card's rule is different from the Rulebook.

I gave a read for the latest rulebook and I want to give you guys some feedback.

Basic Rolling Mechanics - I think the text should mention that base stats can be de-buffed to negative values(I think the game allows that) and what if even the roll does not bring it up over zero. If stats can't get under 0, that is also worth to mention.

Base-to-Base (B2B) - I think it's worth to mention what to do when you can't put two models in B2B because some part of the models overhang the base or simply there is something in the way, like a bump in the table or something.

Lucky Hit - I think this text should mention that if a lucky hit hits, the one point is bonus damage and does not decreases the weapon damage that goes to the armor.

Reroll - It might worth to mention that a player have to accept the re-roll even if it is worse than the original roll(if he has to). I don't know if this can be a question at all, but it might be. Sean can reroll siege stuff. It might be relevant for that.

Resources - The Gold icon is before the text "Gold (GD)" while the other two icons are after their texts.

Squad - It might worth to mention that models that are deployed as a squad and doesn't yet activated are also considered to be on a squad, and any two units is considered to be on a squad until any one of them activates without the other(I think that's how it works).

Flight - I think models that have flight, still have bases. So it might worth to mention what to do when a model with flight wants to stop over other models, impassable terrain, walls, etc...

Sniper - Are roll overs hit automatically if the original attack was made with the Sniper ability? In melee, roll overs are auto hits, but is it the same here? I mean Sniper shots still has to score over the defense of the target to apply for damage, but if I don't snipe out the Exemplar but the unit next to it, it probably has lover ES, dies in two hits and I can roll over the rest of the attacks to the Exemplar as hits even if they never was accounted against the Exemlpar's ES roll.

Squad phase: 2. Models must be within 3” of other Models you plan to activate as part of the Squad. I think it should say "Models must be in cohesion" as some models have increased cohesion distances or other rules for this. Also should mention "or models have to be able to return to cohesion".

Squad Phase: It should mention that heroes sometimes are also able to activate with squads and they also ignore limits and equipment.

Squad Phase: Here is a better definition of Cohesion than before, the previous one should mention this by page number I think.

Movement phase: Does the squad has to hold the formation during movement? I mean the way as the models arranged between each other. Or can they be rearranged during movement? What if the squad wants to go trough between two pieces of impassable terrain, but one model who is in this squad is on a bigger base and the base does not fit trough that gap? Does the squad have to break up if they end up too far from each other because their different move values?

It should also mention that the movement is measured from the edge of the base's starting position to the closest edge of the ending position - effectively increasing the movement distance with the diameter of the base, or not.
Let me emote this:
(-B-)I-------Movement distance------I(-B-)
or
(-B-)I---Movement distance ---(-B-)I

Tactical and Heroic phase: The reference of Line of Sight should mention the page number of the description of Line of Sight

Ranged Phase: Lucky and Crit hits: Is this text is just the copy of the lucky and crit definition? If so, a reference with a page number would be more efficient I think.

Template Targeting: Every template attack deviates then? If not I think it should mention that template attacks deviate unless said otherwise.

Counterfire - It should mention that a squad may not switch weapons to counterfire. For example if they activated and used guns and not crossbows and they cannot always countefire with guns, they now cannot switch to crossbows to counterfire.

Terrain: Forest: "Forests block line of sight as normal" How do you block line of sight as normal in this case?

Low Walls & Hedgerows: A model hiding behind a low wall cannot been charged then? But I guess enemy models still can walk into close combat with it. This might worth to mention here. Also "If the model is not hiding they may fire at their normal RS but gain Cover." sounds weird to me. Shouldn't it be like "If the model is not hiding it only gains cover, but can fire at normal RS".
I like the new low walls rules!

Reserve: Success of rolling for ambush/flank is forces you to ambush/flank with that squad or it just gives you the option? If you win this roll in turn two and decide to hold it, do you have to roll again in turn three?

Armory:

Weapon Swapping and # AR text: These texts contradict each other on some minor way. Also, now as for armor it can be said that always the stronger held shield is used.

I find weird that Hyperian fire and smoke bombs are deviating, but if they do, okay.

Siege weapons:
Canon: It is not clear if the canon can be used to fire if it can't aim at units. I mean if enemy units are hiding behind a low wall, can you fire at them or not?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alfndrate wrote:

 WhiteRoo wrote:
What is the reason behind Armor Penetration working on "the highest of the squad"?

Simplicity sake... and normally you don't have to worry about it since your squad (on average) has the same equipment, but Horde Infantry ignore the same equipment rule, so it's to keep the game moving.

I mean why not highest most common?

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Basic Rolling Mechanics - I think the text should mention that base stats can be de-buffed to negative values(I think the game allows that) and what if even the roll does not bring it up over zero. If stats can't get under 0, that is also worth to mention.

We'll find some place to clarify that stats can be reduced to any ammount.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Base-to-Base (B2B) - I think it's worth to mention what to do when you can't put two models in B2B because some part of the models overhang the base or simply there is something in the way, like a bump in the table or something.

That's doable.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Lucky Hit - I think this text should mention that if a lucky hit hits, the one point is bonus damage and does not decreases the weapon damage that goes to the armor.

We'll see about clarifying this.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Reroll - It might worth to mention that a player have to accept the re-roll even if it is worse than the original roll(if he has to). I don't know if this can be a question at all, but it might be. Sean can reroll siege stuff. It might be relevant for that.

That's doable.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Resources - The Gold icon is before the text "Gold (GD)" while the other two icons are after their texts.

We're still working on adjusting the formatting, that particular paragraph is being tricky.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Squad - It might worth to mention that models that are deployed as a squad and doesn't yet activated are also considered to be on a squad, and any two units is considered to be on a squad until any one of them activates without the other(I think that's how it works).

This should be in the Squad Phase stuff already, but we'll look into clarifying it.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Flight - I think models that have flight, still have bases. So it might worth to mention what to do when a model with flight wants to stop over other models, impassable terrain, walls, etc...

We'll clarify that you can't pile models ontop of each other in any circumstance, its just rude to the other play to damage their models.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Sniper - Are roll overs hit automatically if the original attack was made with the Sniper ability? In melee, roll overs are auto hits, but is it the same here? I mean Sniper shots still has to score over the defense of the target to apply for damage, but if I don't snipe out the Exemplar but the unit next to it, it probably has lover ES, dies in two hits and I can roll over the rest of the attacks to the Exemplar as hits even if they never was accounted against the Exemlpar's ES roll.

Attacks at Range Roll Over, if you have Sniper you have to declare who you are targeting before rolling any dice... and since the attacks would go against the squad first, why would you waste Sniper-ing them over the Exemplar (if the Exemplar is a viable target)?

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Squad phase: 2. Models must be within 3” of other Models you plan to activate as part of the Squad. I think it should say "Models must be in cohesion" as some models have increased cohesion distances or other rules for this. Also should mention "or models have to be able to return to cohesion".

That's doable.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Squad Phase: It should mention that heroes sometimes are also able to activate with squads and they also ignore limits and equipment.

I think this is under one of the sections that talks about Heroes, but we'll clarify it.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Squad Phase: Here is a better definition of Cohesion than before, the previous one should mention this by page number I think.

Which page?

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Movement phase: Does the squad has to hold the formation during movement? I mean the way as the models arranged between each other. Or can they be rearranged during movement? What if the squad wants to go trough between two pieces of impassable terrain, but one model who is in this squad is on a bigger base and the base does not fit trough that gap? Does the squad have to break up if they end up too far from each other because their different move values?

As long as you finish in cohesion and no model moves beyond its Speed value there is no need to stay in 'formation'.
As long as the model can fit in the area they wish to move into they may move into it.
As long as the squad remains in cohesion then higher Speed models can move further.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

It should also mention that the movement is measured from the edge of the base's starting position to the closest edge of the ending position - effectively increasing the movement distance with the diameter of the base, or not.
Let me emote this:
(-B-)I-------Movement distance------I(-B-)
or
(-B-)I---Movement distance ---(-B-)I

'Front of base' to 'front of base', so your second one. We'll clarify this.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Tactical and Heroic phase: The reference of Line of Sight should mention the page number of the description of Line of Sight

The is a few instances of this, we don't want to list actual page numbers just yet as we're constantly having to expand the text/add pages to fit that so it could be very easy for us to screw up where the page actually should referenced. We'll leave it as 'Page XX' until the rules section is finalized.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Ranged Phase: Lucky and Crit hits: Is this text is just the copy of the lucky and crit definition? If so, a reference with a page number would be more efficient I think.

We can do that, but sometimes it seems better to spell everything out.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Template Targeting: Every template attack deviates then? If not I think it should mention that template attacks deviate unless said otherwise.

We'll clarify this.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Counterfire - It should mention that a squad may not switch weapons to counterfire. For example if they activated and used guns and not crossbows and they cannot always countefire with guns, they now cannot switch to crossbows to counterfire.

We'll clarify this in the Weapon Swapping section.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Terrain: Forest: "Forests block line of sight as normal" How do you block line of sight as normal in this case?

They are usually going to be more then 2" deep(1" of Trees is hardly a forest), which blocks line of sight. We'll clarify that.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Low Walls & Hedgerows: A model hiding behind a low wall cannot been charged then? But I guess enemy models still can walk into close combat with it. This might worth to mention here. Also "If the model is not hiding they may fire at their normal RS but gain Cover." sounds weird to me. Shouldn't it be like "If the model is not hiding it only gains cover, but can fire at normal RS".
I like the new low walls rules!

Yes you would not be able to charge a 'hiding' model, as they are not in LOS. We'll clarify the blind firing section.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Reserve: Success of rolling for ambush/flank is forces you to ambush/flank with that squad or it just gives you the option? If you win this roll in turn two and decide to hold it, do you have to roll again in turn three?

You have to take it.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Armory:

Weapon Swapping and # AR text: These texts contradict each other on some minor way. Also, now as for armor it can be said that always the stronger held shield is used.

We'll clarify it. Why would you want the weaker Held Shield?

 WhiteRoo wrote:

I find weird that Hyperian fire and smoke bombs are deviating, but if they do, okay.

Think of it as the canister rolling on the ground a little before going off.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Siege weapons:
Canon: It is not clear if the canon can be used to fire if it can't aim at units. I mean if enemy units are hiding behind a low wall, can you fire at them or not?

We'll clarify this.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

I mean why not highest most common?

Because usually if you have a higher AP, it is coming from a Hero or Exemplar.

A brief cohesion description is currently on page 7 and a deeper one is on page 12. When I said that a page number should be mentioned, I thought as when it's finalized it should mention that page number, not right now.

About Sniping: I believe it would be much more clear if the rule flat-out say that only an exemplar or a hero might be sniped. It doesn't have other uses anyway, no?

You would take the smaller shield despite having the bigger if the bigger one is burned out of armor and for some reason armor does not refreshes.

I believe the highest AP of the squad as it is now, causing some problems paired with the rule that units does not loose their weapons. Like a squad of Ordenstaat Rat Raiders can hit with 3 DE from Poleaxes and 1 AP because one of them is on pike. If this is not a problem, then technically would be better if AP becomes a base stat of the units themselves.

I like the idea of Exemplars and Heroes giving AP for their squads, but min-maxing AP and DE by switching available weapons individually in a squad don't do any good for the game I believe.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Are you forced to do a reserve roll on turn two and then in every turn or you can say you don't wan to roll in that turn and wait for the next?

 WhiteRoo wrote:
A brief cohesion description is currently on page 7 and a deeper one is on page 12. When I said that a page number should be mentioned, I thought as when it's finalized it should mention that page number, not right now.

Thanks.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

About Sniping: I believe it would be much more clear if the rule flat-out say that only an exemplar or a hero might be sniped. It doesn't have other uses anyway, no?

If you've got a horde squad that is mostly Melee, but has a few guys with Ranged Weapons, you might want to negate their Ranged ability.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

You would take the smaller shield despite having the bigger if the bigger one is burned out of armor and for some reason armor does not refreshes.

You aren't able to swap Held Shields out

 WhiteRoo wrote:

I believe the highest AP of the squad as it is now, causing some problems paired with the rule that units does not loose their weapons. Like a squad of Ordenstaat Rat Raiders can hit with 3 DE from Poleaxes and 1 AP because one of them is on pike. If this is not a problem, then technically would be better if AP becomes a base stat of the units themselves.

I like the idea of Exemplars and Heroes giving AP for their squads, but min-maxing AP and DE by switching available weapons individually in a squad don't do any good for the game I believe.

Is there a unit other than Rat Raiders where this occurs?

Otter Asigaru can do this as well at range when the squad is mixed with Rifle and Longbow wielding models. You need one with Rifle to give the bows 1 AP from 30"

Veiled Assassins also can do it by mixing a Pistol with Crossbows on range.

Soqotran Corsairs also can mix sword-dagger wielding members with one with Pistols, as Pistols can be used on close combat to grant 1 AP for any other sword.

Thanks, I'll discuss the issue further with Matt & Tom once Matt wakes up and we'll post a clarification afterwards.

About the new low walls and hedges:

When a model in it's activation is allowed to switch it's hide/not hide state when around a low wall?

 WhiteRoo wrote:
About the new low walls and hedges:

When a model in it's activation is allowed to switch it's hide/not hide state when around a low wall?

It'll be at the end of Movement Phase, we'll clarify that.

As I was looking at the new mice conscript profiles (thanks for the hint about the third weapon option in the new release thread), I took a quick look at the whole list. I then saw that the limit for mercenaries is now 50% instead of 25% for everyone. That seems huge. Could you elaborate on the thought process behind that change?

 Tonio wrote:
I then saw that the limit for mercenaries is now 50% instead of 25% for everyone. That seems huge. Could you elaborate on the thought process behind that change?

Mostly from the complaints based around 'I don't want to use Fortifications/Siege Weapons and I can't spend all of my Gold!'.

The thing is in the first edition when you need them, the game give it to you. So, there is really no reason to run them as part of your army.

This might be opening a giant can of worms, but with most upgrades/weapons coming from a unit option now instead of Lumber, is there still a need for 3 different resources in the game? Lumber was used in the cost of a lot of upgrades, in War machines and in Fortifications, but the first part is mostly out, and for the second, as Whiteroo said, most scenarios gives you points to spend on them.

Could the game be brought down to 2 resources: Food and Gold or Food and Lumber? Food would buy troops, Gold/Lumber would buy Exemplars, upgrades and mercenaries. Special units would use both, like it's actually the case. War machines and Fortifications could have a cost in Gold/Lumber, be kept as part of the main rules, and in scenarios needing them, players could get an extra stash of it to be used only on those.

I think that might help correct the points people are making that some resources aren't useful, depending on your faction/army choice. I see various positive going for it:
- It would make Vandalands and Civitas army rules simpler to use
- It could let you bring mercenaries back to 25%.
- It would make list building easier.
- It might simplify balancing of unit, as you would have one less ressource to balance again.
- It would stop forcing people to field War Machines and Fortifications to simply fill up their list, but make them think if they really want to use them.

We are working to discuss your proposition internally, Tonio.

In the interim, if anyone else would like to weigh in, go ahead and post.

Also, during scenarios, you buy your siege stuff from "generic resource" which is I think either gold or lumber on a total of 100.

I also had something bugging me about Siege Weapons and fortifications all this time and I think I finally figured out what.

Let's say, you make a 300 resource army which is pretty big in brushfire as far as I know. From that, you can buy 60 five food models, but you are not going to do that, you will end up with somewhat 30 models. Even Vandalands will not go over 50 most of the times. With that, you going to fight in a big building, like a town hall or a curch and it's surrounding area, around a bridge big enough for a horsecart to go trough, or around a city block of 8 houses or so.

An army of this size still not big enough to feel like you should need a cannon, let alone a trebuchet. You gonna fire into groups of five -if you can- at top. Actually Brushfire siege weapons are pretty mobile and theoretically work well, but they just feels off.

Now I know that there are a hundred sizes for a cannon, but we know that this trebuchet can launch a steel ball big enough to fit five soldiers in it, so it's the big kind.

So the siege weapons feel off in scale.

The walls and towers and gates are also feel off, because if you have 30 models top, you want them to be mobile, and they can be. A model that can move 4 inches can rush 8 and charge from 11. That's almost a foot. you don't want to lock them with walls that you need a full turn to get up and down even if it's yours. If quarter of the table is scenery, first, where you going to put your walls, secound, there is enough stuff to begin with. And just having two walls is silly. You going to need a lot of those to have any effect.

The walls are also over the scale. 30 soilders might dig a trench or put together a decent barricade or two before a battle, but they not going to erect a wall, even if the resource is there. Let alone a castle tower.

So, the siege stuff is off-scale. It's interesting to have for the map campagins, but for general play, not so much. You are not going to siege in Brushfire, you barely going to have a medium-sized military unit.

Thinking more about the 2 resources idea, I see a possible balance problem in bigger games for Vandalands and Civitas, as the extra lumber they could usually pass as Food/Gold would no longer be there. Their army rules might need to see a revamp. They still work, mind you, they just have less resources to feed into them. Which could be a good thing, if they were dominating with hordes before. That I can't say.

A possible idea could be to give them bonus Food/Gold, perhaps a percentage of the Resource level of the game.

At this time we feel that we cannot make a decision on a change this drastic with only theoryfire to go by.

Please play more, post battle reports, and let us know the results. Try a variety of lists and factions at around 150 Resources, try lists that feature a little bit of everything and those that are focused on one type of unit.

Remember that there is a photocopy-able base template sheet at the back of the 1.0-1.2 Rulebook for ease in proxying.

Doing some Brushfire reading right now but thought I'd chime in on less resources. I think it's a great idea, I think the main benefit of different types of resource is flavour so I didn't want to suggest it would be better as one figure. 2 resources is a great idea though and I think FD and GD is particularly nice in terms of flavour.

Obviously these things need play testing although I think a lot of it could be established with theory since it's going to directly effect list building.

This also plays back to an earlier suggestion I made where I thought siege weaponry would be stronger as an optional expansion. Siege weaponry could feasibly be inserted at the cost of wood.

Food for thought anyway, I'm going back to reading.

Here is an interesting one, I have jst flipped trought the book and only found nine models that have different gold/food valules as it's basic price.

These models are most of the Wanderers, Farawahar and two Zabar units.

The rest of the models have X/Y/Y costs, their gold and wood costs are equal.

Of course counting the costs of the optional equipments can broke this, but all army specific equipment is free with the exeption of two Ribenguo ones.

Looking at the basic equipment, weapons cost wood or gold or both, and armor also one or the other, so you can't even say that gold buys offense while wood buys defense.

Gold is the duplicate of wood already, If you say, add every gold value of that things wood value and say you have X food and 2X wood to spend, it would really not change anything.

From that, you can halve the wood cost of everything and halve the starting wood, and the game is now on two resource.

Am I rigth?

Just been thinking and a question was raised. Did you decide to make Brushfire a skirmish game mainly because of the cost of miniatures to the consumer? I ask because I realised that all the references I have to draw on show that combat, especially national combat, takes place on a much larger scale. Combat forces tend to get smaller in line with development and ergo time.

So I started thinking of Brushfire as an army game; three resources, historically epic battles, siege warfare. It all makes sense like that. Now that isn't much use because of the cost of miniatures. Smaller miniatures would be the solution but then there is no point in it being an anthropomorphic wargame and the target market disappears. So that's a dead end.

Then I wondered what would make the skirmish scale slip in seemlessly. I could see the scale representing a small scattered section of a battle line. The use of different unit types still seems a bit out so that'd have to be overlooked. This again makes me see the siege warfare as something to base missions on rather than part of every army. Something like protect the battery or defend the key building. At skirmish scale the 3 resources seem less usefull as you don't have as much to spend it on. 2 resources here would work well, food for troops and gold for equipment. This feels very of the period as well, food being scraped together to stop the men starving and buying what can be bought to supply them.

Anyway, I'm pretty much rambling as this train of thought requires game redesign from the base up which isn't where you are going with 2e. I won't say any more for that reason, plus I'll need some of these ideas if I ever get to create my own game.

The question at the beginning still stand though. I'm interested to see if that was the reason.

 Casey's Law wrote:
*Snip*

Yes, it was mostly a matter of the cost to both the customer and OTLG. Brushfire is pretty odd game in terms of style, and OTLG is mostly unheard of.. telling folks they need to buy a few hundred metal models to start playing (Ala a true Army/Mass Battle Game like Warhammer Fantasy or most Historicals) would mean it'd just be folks like RiTides playing. Without the ability to produce low cost miniatures (plastics) we decided to focus on smaller game sizes.

And so, the game is designed around 150 ~200 Resources which ends up feeling like that generally-skirmish size of Warmahordes/<1k pts Warhammer 40k. It very easily scales up from there to an Army Level/Skrimish Game like most >2k 40k Games to Apoc style games. We did a number of 500 Resource Games (sooo many sticky notes attached to bases) during playtesting that were a total blast.

But we wanted to make sure the game also scaled down well, which we still feel it does. Games of 25~50 Resources are playable, enjoyable, and require a bit more tactical thinking.

The game is also intended as a parody of history and historical gaming. For both of those, sieges and war machines play a pivotal role. We felt it was important to bring those concepts into the game, even if the game did not operated wholly like 1800s strategy.

I like to think of the game in much the way as one of your central paragraphs, about detachments fighting in a section of a larger battlefield. As you point out though, they wouldnt be as many mixed units in detachments like that. Of course, that isnt fun.

Throughout much of Brushfire's development, interesting gameplay trumped realism. I don't forsee this changing in the future.

 miskatonicalum wrote:
The game is also intended as a parody of history and historical gaming. For both of those, sieges and war machines play a pivotal role. We felt it was important to bring those concepts into the game, even if the game did not operated wholly like 1800s strategy.

I like to think of the game in much the way as one of your central paragraphs, about detachments fighting in a section of a larger battlefield. As you point out though, they wouldnt be as many mixed units in detachments like that. Of course, that isnt fun.

Throughout much of Brushfire's development, interesting gameplay trumped realism. I don't forsee this changing in the future.

And while I came on board to OTL much later... I left 75% realism at the door when someone said Hamsters with axes...

I really like the engagement level of Brushfire. It could be seen as a magnified part of a larger battle, or a small skirmish on the flank of a bigger engagement. These days, I don't go bigger than that: it take too much time to paint and setup. A nice balance between army scale and small skirmishes.

I also like the inclusion of war machines and fortificatilna. Those can bring story to your battle: the player wihout them might control a small scouting force hunting warmachine emplacement down. Or it could be a close up on the siege of a fortification. Anything can happen really, and those are a par of it.

One other source of inspiration for how a large part of how the game was designed is RTS Computer games, stuff like Warcraft and Rise of Nations. Hence 3 Resources and separate Heroes with their own talent trees and unique abilities..
Sadly we haven't figured out the logistics of making the models say a series of phrases when you poke them, but we're working on it!

"More Work?"


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 Tonio wrote:
I really like the engagement level of Brushfire. It could be seen as a magnified part of a larger battle, or a small skirmish on the flank of a bigger engagement.

Aye, you could easily say that a single Badger-At-Claw is really 10~20 of them only being represented by a single model.

I have an idea to scale down the siege weapons appropriately while also keeping their presence:

What if we rename the cannon to small canon(It has to have a french name), the ballista to a heavy crossbow (like the one that Detrius has in the Diskworld books I think it's called an Arbalest) and the trebuchet to a grenade launcher or something. This would scale their image down and maybe would make them more on scale with the skirmish level. Leave everything else intact, just make them look fit in scale.

The big siege weapons can return in the missions:

In objective Destruction Team A has a trebuchet aimed for something important of team B. Team A has to fire the trebuchet while team B has to stop team A to do so. If the trebuchet fires(aka some number of turns pass), team A wins, if it gets destroyed or contested then Team B wins.

The Objective retrieval should be Team A wants to get a Cannon or Ballista that Team B transports to somewhere. The cannon is not usable, it's packed for transport, but it's sounds valuable enough to fight for it than the misterious thing that is currently the objective.

Yeh those are all good reasons to make Brushfire the way it is. I wonder if the rulebook would benefit from a short description of what its all about at the beginning? It might make new players see it as intentional parody rather than something that doesn't quite compute for them? Maybe even back up the siege warfare with some fluff? Like give a reason why small units have developed to use a range of troops and bring siege weaponry and fortifications. That could be a nice retrospective foundation to lay it all on.

Also I get that distinct RTS feel, always makes me want to play AoEIII! With all that considered I think Lumber could be best used as solely for buying siege equipment. The simplified system being you need to spend your FD to buy/feed your units, GD to to buy/maintain equipment and LR to build/maintain large items like siege equipment and fortifications. Gold could be used to upgrade both units and siege equipment. This makes army building quick and simple. You choose what units you want and spend your FD, choose what siege stuff you want and spend your LR and then upgrade whatever you want to upgrade with GD. That way no one should have any extra resources lying around and forces will balance easily.

To continue that, FD costs on Exemplars would be high which would curtail their use which a few of us have shown concern about. If entirely necessary a GD cost could be introduced to them as well although I think it would be better to give them optional upgrades for the cost of GD. Mercenaries are interesting as it means you can spend your GD on more troops, who will feed themselves off of their pay, rather than upgrading your existing troops. You wouldn't be able to upgrade them further in case they run off with the shiny new gear so they would come prepacked.

There are certain things that don't seem to fit the mould but I think they could with a little rejigging. The Valkyr for example could go in as faction specific siege equipment which can be bought as an upgrade for the unit that pilots it. Another example could be the Siege Tortoise, buy it for FD, optional siege equipment for LR and upgrade for GD.

It may also be an idea to suggest a more regimented use of Hlvls for people who want to play a more strict ruleset. Say one level per 50 or 100 resources agreed upon. Using the first that'd be 2Hlvls at 100 resources, 10Hlvls at 500 resources. A pretty tight system I think.

I think these suggestions are beneficial to the game without taking anything away from it's flavour. They are relatively easy changes to make and give the system a stronger foundation to work from. It's possible that it's just my opinion but I think they are balanced and thought out changes to make. Interested to here what you think.


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Also I like White Roo's idea.

What I don't get is the parody angle you guys mention. The game is very referential, but not really "ha-ha" funny. I mean these are not exactly waterbaloon fights, there are pointy metal things involved.

Now I not too long ago found out Redwall exist and I finished the first six books and currently reading the seventh. Those books also not "ha-ha" funny, but really engaging and from that way, fun. Brushfire is more like in tone of these books than parodying it(and I really like that). Apart from that I'm not a big military fan, so if the game parodying historical military stuff, I don't see that. Also I want those miniatures you guys are making. Even if I never get to play the game a lot, I will collect those.

Maybe I'm just not in board with the definition of parody.

Maybe I should have used a different word. I'm on the same boat as you, I'm not into my military history so I don't 'get' all the in jokes within Brushfire. I've seen a few mentions of funny bits in the rulebook but I think 90% just goes over my head, that or I am taking it slightly more seriously than originally intended.

I was referring to the fact that siege weapons are being used on a small scale as a reference to historical times rather than being there because they fit the scenario.

The parody lies mostly with historical gamers rather than a game about Napoleonic animals (Or technically in this case, Moleonic animals ).

If you've ever been around a large gathering of historical gamers, they have a certain... air about them. I'm not talking like gamer funk, I'm talking this idea that they are superior than other wargamers. Their little toy soldiers were real people on a battle field, and not a 12 ft tall super human soldier in armor and a sword. So historical gamers tend to have their regiments painted EXACTLY as depicted from historical records, down to the precise shade of grey (or w/e color was used). They nitpick the details of uniform, of history, and of the outcome of battles. So Brushfire pokes fun at that through "absurdity" (at least in comparison). We have a small scale game, we have historical looking uniforms, we have an "attempt" at getting the colors the same, but at the end of the day, these aren't people, these are animals fighting. Which is where the humor comes.

When Cy told me that we were getting Jaques de Martinique as a miniature in the AdeptiCon swag bag, I was trying to get her to push for it to be included as the "historical" mini just to mess with historical gamers, sadly that didn't come about.

And, did the game hit with it? I mean do historical wargamers play this game?

 WhiteRoo wrote:
And, did the game hit with it? I mean do historical wargamers play this game?

Not that I've seen, but probably because they're not our target audience

But then the parody angle is not very effective, no?

 WhiteRoo wrote:
But then the parody angle is not very effective, no?

Depends, are we marketing the game to people who know how anal retentive some historical gamers can get, or are we marketing the game to historical gamers that don't want fantasy in their history (i.e. animals instead of humans)?

Good point

 WhiteRoo wrote:
Good point

I tend to have those every now and then

The reason why you may not have gotten the parody angle, is like you said. You don't know much about historical games, so, it's all good.

For Redwall then!

For the record, I do know of a few Historical Gamers that enjoy Brushfire. Usually it the ones who feel the same way about Historical Wargaming as we do, but still love history.. the sort who don't care that your French Army is painted in Pink.


Again though.. On the subject of costs of Siege Weapons, Exemplars, etc:

Please try the units in a few matches as is, and post Battle Reports.
Theoryfire only gets us so far, we need actual playtest data to be able to make proper changes.

I'm planning a match for tomorrow. I doubt that any siege weapon will be involved, the plan is 50 Resource HRLV 3 Killpoint games. Should I post the army lists?


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Ribenguo Vs Vandalands

Yeah, tomorrow make a new thread with the lists/battle report.

And don't feel constrained to the models you own, test EVERYTHING. So if you want to see how a 7 wanderers list runs, run that, models or no models...

I'm not going to be able to play test anything anytime soon but if anyone wants to test out my suggestions that'd be awesome.

Out of interest. How do you guys feel the ideas hold up in theory? I have more details and stuff about implementation but it's not worth going into if this looks like a dead end.

Nothing is really off the table, but I feel that shifting the resources around really is just a cosmetic solution. Perhaps some things could use a more standardized costs (all offensive stuff is gold, all defensive stuff is lumber).

But I don't want to discourage Exemplars or Siege stuff. Exemplars give players those psuedo-historical famous characters, providing more character to their army. (From a more cynical/business perspective, it also costs a lot to make a model that people only get one of, if they don't feel they're worth it, they wont take it, and we're not selling the model to cover the costs of producing it in the first place.)

Siege/Fort also helps set Brushfire apart from other Skirmish games. Each game has to have its gimmicks beyond just art style. Now, we have a number of different gimmicks, but each of them helps. Pulling some out makes the game feel less whole.

On the idea of making the siege weapons 'smaller' The ballista essentially is just a Scorpio/Polybolos as is. We're just using more iconic terminology. Same goes with the cannon. The Trebuchet is perhaps the only 'big' one, but its just silly, no one in history tossed soldiers in metal balls to attack enemies. In either case, unless mechanics are the issue, and after lots of testing, we've felt the siege weapons are not overpowered. In fact, in 1.X they were underpowered, with the awful deviations and what not.

If mechanics are not the issue, the debate comes down to presentation. Feel free to use small siege weapons from historical armies, ones that are from a smaller scale will do the trick well. Most siege being on a 50mm base in our game provides room to pretty up the base and make it feel like an important feature on the table. With many models being on 40s or 50s as is, 50mm is not a very big siege weapon.

Edited for Clarity

I'm not suspecting more than three matches tomorrow. But I suppose if we want to test if two resource is better than three, we don't really have to play, no? The resources lost their presence as soon as the game starts, so building armies of different sizes and see if having two or three resources really make any difference would also worth something. Or am I wrong?

It's more 'Test things as they are, and if they aren't broke.. Don't fix it.'

 WhiteRoo wrote:
I'm not suspecting more than three matches tomorrow. But I suppose if we want to test if two resource is better than three, we don't really have to play, no? The resources lost their presence as soon as the game starts, so building armies of different sizes and see if having two or three resources really make any difference would also worth something. Or am I wrong?

The problem with removing one of the resources is that (if you remove lumber), you have adjust and balance the items and accessories that cost lumber. So say for Gopher Engineer, you want to run 4 of them (2 squads of 2). A gopher currently costs 5 of each resource. If you remove lumber, you now need to create a balance system. Are you going to split the costs and add them to the 2 remaining resources? So now they're 7.5 and 7.5. You can't have "half" resources, so do you up them to 8 each, or drop them to 7? Now you've got a model that is equal to 15 resources over priced at 16 or underpriced at 14. So assume we have it a 7 resources. I now have to spend 28 food and gold instead of 20 fd,gd, and lr. This is kind of simply, but what if I move it into a different model like drummers, standard bearers, medics, or hell even my Mongoose Legionnaires (who are 10, 5 and 5). It might balance them out and put them at 10 and 10, but my non-unique exemplars now have to eat the cost of 15 lumber that they no longer have. S0 a model that is 5fd, 15 gd, and 15lr now has to do something with the 15lr. Where does it go? Does it all get moved into gold? Now I have a 5fd, 30 gd model. I'm now eating up more gd than I am food. Sure I can temper this by buy weasels, but now my weasels probably aren't going to get the chance at buying axes, because to offset the extra gold I'm spending on a single Marmot Medic, I have to buy 3 Weasels without axes.

What about my named Exemplars? Like Iron Claws? He's now 50 gold? If I'm playing a 150 Resource army I'd be better off not taking him, since that's one sixth of my total resources (combining food and gold).


I'm interested in how you think to balance the costs, but no please don't test a 2 resource system. Let's actually test Brushfire before we try to test something that isn't Brushfire as it stands.

My vision of removing a resource was to merge them, not add them. That way, you average Lumber and Gold to the new Gold cost, or just use the higher of the two. Running that principle on 4 test lists (Civitas and Ribenguo, both at 50 and 150), the list came within a model or two of their 3 resources version.

Then, you can adjust the new cost in Gold to have real choice to make, instead of just filling up your list with warma./fort., to use up the lumber left. Do you want a couple exemplars and cool upgrades? Or maybe you want to run exemplars and trebuchets to launch hamster, but keep your trooper bare?. Having less resources means that you have serious choices to make during list building, instead of the "fill up food, fill up gold, then see what you can do with lumber" that we see right now in v2.

Sure, the same rebalancement could be done with 3 resources. I'm just not sure that that level of complication it's a good fit with the game. The parody of historical games mentioned earlier is a bit satirical (probably not the right use of the word, but I am faced with my second language barrier now) when you have a list building system more complicated then most of those games, even if you only need 15 models to play compared to their hundreds...

Here is my idea:

Let's start with this:
You take every gold cost and add it to the lumber cost of that thing, then remove the gold. You also say that you start with X Food and 2X Lumber.

(I remove the gold simply because it's the third, but we can agree that the actual name of the resource is not relevant)

We can assume this would not change anything big, right?




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This is not the end of it, but I would like to see what you guys think so far.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
Here is my idea:

Let's start with this:
You take every gold cost and add it to the lumber cost of that thing, then remove the gold. You also say that you start with X Food and 2X Lumber.

(I remove the gold simply because it's the third, but we can agree that the actual name of the resource is not relevant)

We can assume this would not change anything big, right?




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This is not the end of it, but I would like to see what you guys think so far.

Keep going...

So how do you determine resource level? 150 resources is for food, and then you have 300 lumber?

so now, we don't have gold, but it's ugly because you have twice as much lumber than food, buut...

It's actually does not matter if wood worth twice as much than food, no does it. Going back to the current system, if we roll up gold ten times, as long as every gold cost is multiplied by then, you just say Vandalands changes gold to food in 10:1 and we are good.

So, now we just double the food cost of everything and also double the starting food, and say Vandalands can trade 2:1, not 1:1.

Alternatively we halve the wood cost, but that can end up in 0.5 woods wery easily.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
so now, we don't have gold, but it's ugly because you have twice as much lumber than food, buut...

It's actually does not matter if wood worth twice as much than food, no does it. Going back to the current system, if we roll up gold ten times, as long as every gold cost is multiplied by then, you just say Vandalands changes gold to food in 10:1 and we are good.

So, now we just double the food cost of everything and also double the starting food, and say Vandalands can trade 2:1, not 1:1.

Alternatively we halve the wood cost, but that can end up in 0.5 woods wery easily.

Doubling the food isn't a terrible idea... but it's needlessly inflating the point sizes of a game... It's like mk1 Warmachine where things cost a few hundred points, when the current system seems to work better and just makes sense.

And dropping the gold entirely then means that things don't balance out properly. You have to remember, when we build things into this game we are doing it with the 3 resources in mind to keep things balanced.

It would not be the same but would it be that different? Actually with the exception of only nine units, all basic costs of wood and gold are equal. So if you spend you resources, you most likely spending your gold and lumber equally already.

On top of that, all fraction specific weapon or armor is free (except two Ribenguo one), also you buy weapons from gold and/or lumber as well armor. Body armor costs gold and shield costs lumber. Not too many units can upgrade into both shield and body armor(I actually don't know, but I dare say noone can buy shield and armor as upgrade equipment). So it's not really matter if that's one or two resource, the amount that matters.

And you can always say that you divide all resources by five -or any number really- no? that would make it to be smaller. (yes I know some things cost one gold, but you don't going to buy one anyway)

Everyone can take Fortifications and Siege Weapons, even if you don't want to, which cost varying amounts of LR/GD.

The Campaign system would also need a serious overhaul.

If we drop one of the resources then every unit, item, and extra thing in the game has to compete for that resource. The way it is now, some things will use one.. others with use the other.. and a few things will take from both. You have more options available to you then.

But again, we're not changing the Resource System without actual playtesting to show issues.

Let's just tought-experiment then. Maybe something good will come up. Worst-case scenario the forum will look busy.

With two resources, you would buy all your troops and then try to share the secound resource between shields, armors, horns, banners. exemplars and so on.

Of course this works with three resource now, but because your have two equipment resources, you are much more restricted. Either of those can run out first locking down all equipment that costs both, then you have to remove all equipment you can't buy so you left with... most of the times, nothing.

For example, I was building Viklanders the other day and I wanted 3 of them. I wanted to upgrade them with Targe, but I can't because I wanted to run them as a squad, but I didn't had 30 lumber left. I had only 25. I had a reasonable amount of gold left, but if I wanted to use them as a squad, I either buy 3 Targes or none.

Also, I was unable to spend the leftover 25 or so gold to anything but use it on Fatherlanding.

I'm not sure you have more options. In this case it was Fatherlanding or nothing. And not many fractions can fatherland.


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(Story is slighty fabricated)

Thanks for the solid reply!

 miskatonicalum wrote:
Nothing is really off the table, but I feel that shifting the resources around really is just a cosmetic solution. Perhaps some things could use a more standardized costs (all offensive stuff is gold, all defensive stuff is lumber).

Cosmetic maybe but many of the worries people are having have nothing to do with gameplay. Most concerns now are about pregame stuff like list building. Personally, although not having had much chance to play, I think the rules look tighter and the gameplay looks like it flows slightly better now. I still think the army building process needs to be defined though and if that's a cosmetic concern it's a vital one.
I have faith that you guys already know pretty well how units balance against each other and such, the process of choosing those troops needs improved though and that's all that's being suggested. With the information you already have on balancing you should be able to make changes without playtesting.
All in, what I'm saying is the gameplay and rules are 95% there but the army building, resources and such need a lot of work. If it was me I know pretty much everything I'd do and I've mentioned some of it recently. The ideas I have now maintain almost everything you've fought for since you have convinced me of their merit.

 miskatonicalum wrote:
But I don't want to discourage Exemplars or Siege stuff. Exemplars give players those psuedo-historical famous characters, providing more character to their army. (From a more cynical/business perspective, it also costs a lot to make a model that people only get one of, if they don't feel they're worth it, they wont take it, and we're not selling the model to cover the costs of producing it in the first place.)

I now agree that siege stuff should keep it's place but the way it's bought could be hugely improved. I understand both sides of the arguement with Exemplars and I think I have a middle ground solution. The problem with Exemplars after my solution is mainly cost, a very important problem. The thing about that is, your always going to have that problem, characters are supposed to be exciting models with exciting skills which make very little money. But the Exemplars are so many in number that you need to up sell them through the game, that's understandable but it's got no longevity. Most people don't want to be shoehorned into taking characters and putting them in that position is going to put them off and your still not going to sell a decent amount of them either way.
Honestly I think you need to pull of the gas with those wow factor miniatures and focus on the troops almost entirely. If the characters look great people will buy them to collect anyway, but your going to make note money and a better game by giving the troops more TLC.
This stuff is an easy fix though and I've already figured out a middle ground between chopping down the Exemplars completely and pushing them on people like they are now. Again I can go into more detail if you're interested.

 miskatonicalum wrote:
Siege/Fort also helps set Brushfire apart from other Skirmish games. Each game has to have its gimmicks beyond just art style. Now, we have a number of different gimmicks, but each of them helps. Pulling some out makes the game feel less whole.

I agree completely, you convinced me the last time we got into this conversation that these flavours had an important place in the game.

 miskatonicalum wrote:
On the idea of making the siege weapons 'smaller' The ballista essentially is just a Scorpio/Polybolos as is. We're just using more iconic terminology. Same goes with the cannon. The Trebuchet is perhaps the only 'big' one, but its just silly, no one in history tossed soldiers in metal balls to attack enemies. In either case, unless mechanics are the issue, and after lots of testing, we've felt the siege weapons are not overpowered. In fact, in 1.X they were underpowered, with the awful deviations and what not.
If mechanics are not the issue, the debate comes down to presentation. Feel free to use small siege weapons from historical armies, ones that are from a smaller scale will do the trick well. Most siege being on a 50mm base in our game provides room to pretty up the base and make it feel like an important feature on the table. With many models being on 40s or 50s as is, 50mm is not a very big siege weapon.

Yeh that makes sense, it's good flavour and I can buy into it. It'd be lovely to see a little fluff to back it up though, just to sell it as intentional.

So what do you think? I'm happy to help reconstruct the process if you decide you want to take this stuff and run with it. I should say again, the only slight conflict my ideas have with yours now is on Exemplars and I have a midway solution to that anyway.

I think one of my biggest concerns with dropping a resource, is TOO much flexibility. Where once you could only take say....4 Cannons with your excess resources, combining the two virtually doubles your capacity to take a single upgrade option and you could take 8 cannons with a single resource. This is part of why we went with the two secondary resources. Both with taking troop types and other options, it encourages variety instead of single-focus armies.

Why don't we look at it from the perspective of not dropping a resource, and more looking at what can be done to 'fill up' lagging resources.

Currently the options to spend GD/LR on are:

Exemplars
Non-Unique Exemplars
Accessories for Heroes/Exemps (and the few troops that can take them)
Siege Weapons and Fortifications
Mercenaries
Weapon/Armor Upgrades (These have been dropped quite a bit since the expansion of Training/Styles for core troops)

Perhaps a standardization of what uses what would make it easier?

Gold Example:
Mercenaries
Siege Weapons
Banners or Horns, but not both
Offensive Upgrades

Lumber Example:
Exemplars
Fortifications
Banners or Horns, but not both
Defensive Upgrades

Neutral Example: These could be purchased with Gold OR Lumber, but each must spend their total cost on one (so something that costs 10 cant split it on 5 GD 5 LR)
Non-Unique Exemplars
All other Accessories other than Banners/Horns

To me, i think just sliding a few things (not all) over to a 'pick a resource' would help create some flexibility, but not to an extreme sense.

Edited to finish a thought.

I don't think you should drop a resource as I detailed earlier. I think my suggestion was even simpler to implement and more elegant for the user without losing anything. I think the post got lost on the last page, I'll quote it here:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Yeh those are all good reasons to make Brushfire the way it is. I wonder if the rulebook would benefit from a short description of what its all about at the beginning? It might make new players see it as intentional parody rather than something that doesn't quite compute for them? Maybe even back up the siege warfare with some fluff? Like give a reason why small units have developed to use a range of troops and bring siege weaponry and fortifications. That could be a nice retrospective foundation to lay it all on.

Also I get that distinct RTS feel, always makes me want to play AoEIII! With all that considered I think Lumber could be best used as solely for buying siege equipment. The simplified system being you need to spend your FD to buy/feed your units, GD to to buy/maintain equipment and LR to build/maintain large items like siege equipment and fortifications. Gold could be used to upgrade both units and siege equipment. This makes army building quick and simple. You choose what units you want and spend your FD, choose what siege stuff you want and spend your LR and then upgrade whatever you want to upgrade with GD. That way no one should have any extra resources lying around and forces will balance easily.

To continue that, FD costs on Exemplars would be high which would curtail their use which a few of us have shown concern about. If entirely necessary a GD cost could be introduced to them as well although I think it would be better to give them optional upgrades for the cost of GD. Mercenaries are interesting as it means you can spend your GD on more troops, who will feed themselves off of their pay, rather than upgrading your existing troops. You wouldn't be able to upgrade them further in case they run off with the shiny new gear so they would come prepacked.

There are certain things that don't seem to fit the mould but I think they could with a little rejigging. The Valkyr for example could go in as faction specific siege equipment which can be bought as an upgrade for the unit that pilots it. Another example could be the Siege Tortoise, buy it for FD, optional siege equipment for LR and upgrade for GD.

It may also be an idea to suggest a more regimented use of Hlvls for people who want to play a more strict ruleset. Say one level per 50 or 100 resources agreed upon. Using the first that'd be 2Hlvls at 100 resources, 10Hlvls at 500 resources. A pretty tight system I think.

I think these suggestions are beneficial to the game without taking anything away from it's flavour. They are relatively easy changes to make and give the system a stronger foundation to work from. It's possible that it's just my opinion but I think they are balanced and thought out changes to make. Interested to here what you think.

The re-balance of the costs are also would be a nice change. Right now you have no idea what upgrades can you buy during army building and because of that you cannot prioritize them either.

This is my experience with my 50 resource matches.

What would be great -for example- if the price of banners and horns would be standardized. Like you can say that you need a set amount of gold and lumber to take any pair of banner and horn.

It would also help if the unit description pages would show what an unit costs fully upgraded if it has any upgrade. You would not have to flip back-and-forth between the standard equipment page and the fraction's part that much while you building your army.

In my opinion, the 3 resource system isn't bad, but the game does not make use of it. It's too unpredictable as it is now.


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Here are my thoughts about siege stuff.

Siege weapons:
I haven't played any siege weapons so far because the low resource levels we play with, but I have a few concerns regarding taking any in higher levels.
-Siege weapons slow you down: You can move them with half speed, but if you move them you cannot fire them, so if you play six turns, there is not much you can do with them if you plan to be mobile with your forces.
-Siege weapons cannot melee: Your ranged troops have something to join a melee if you decide not to shoot into it. Your siege weapons become useless as the melee units clash.
-Siege weapons are more costly than their listed price: You might buy siege weapons, but they need operators. Two or three units are out per siege weapon.
-Siege weapons are vulnerable and contestable: If your opponent can ambush or just chooses to flank and you left your siege weapons alone with your operators, then you will have a bad time. Your opponent will ambush and flank your siege weapons, take them and shoot you in the back.

In my opinion, siege weapons force you into camping. You will deploy them to lock an area, and you will forced to protect them with half of your units at least because of flanks and ambushes. The other half is not strong enough to go around on the field, so they are also protecting your siege weapons. Then you will wait if your opponent decides to run into your firing zones.

If I see the opponent deploying a trebuchet, I would immediately decide to flank with as many units as I possibly can. meaning there is no game until I can flank.

Fortifications:
The problem with fortifications is one or two of any will not do too much good, the opponent will just go around it. You may spend your leftover resource to two pieces of barricade, but that's two times six by one inches of +1 AR. So if you want to use them effectively, you have to buy into them and take a lot. If you take a lot, your unit upgrades and exemplars will be left out. And then this happens:
You put down your small keep worth of fortifications on your side of the map and in the first turn you arrange your units to use them. Then you are waiting your opponent to get close. But why would your opponent do that? Most likely he left his siege equipment home anyway. You have the advantage on your side of the map, but if you are forced to leave your fortifications, your opponent has the advantage because his units are better equipped.

So the game becomes a taunt-fest as the players try to lure the other into their side of the map.

It's more funny if both players decide to go keep mode.

So fortifications and siege weapons only work if both player is agreed to use them, and that's the attack-defense mission where the attacker gets the 100 points of siege weapons coupon, while the defender gets the 100 points of fortifications one. Why would any of them run any of those in their armies then?


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To be clear, I'm not against siege gameplay, but I don't see it to work right now.


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I just had a great idea. (well, I think it's great anyway)

So, the problem with siege weapons and fortifications is that they are part of the scenery. And the scenery is for both players, but someone has to pay for the siege stuff. You has to pay for scenery and all you get is that you can place it. And then your opponent starts to use it against you.

It's not that I would never use a cannon, a wall or any of the siege stuff, it's that I'd rather not pay for something that can be potentially used against me. So why any team would have to pay for scenery in the first place?

The game clearly benefits from the siege stuff, so it has to stay, but it can be turned around to fit!

So the siege stuff has to be part of the scenery and has to come with it. And why would not be any cannon parking around in a battle field, or why would not be walls and barricades all around the place?

So here is my idea:
At the start of the match, both players roll on a table, that looks like this:

1- take a Wall piece and put it into the field.
2- take a Cannon and put it into the field
3- take a Trebuchet and put it into the field
and so on...

And here is the genius part: You can use your leftover resources to:
-For some resource (like currently 5, since you will probably has that much left), roll again on this table.
-For significantly more resource, you do not roll, but choose one result from this table, and place it where you want.

You get one roll free but you can put resource away for this as well. The battlefields will now has siege stuff and if you don't want to pay for it, you don't have to, but if you want to, you can!

 WhiteRoo wrote:
The re-balance of the costs are also would be a nice change. Right now you have no idea what upgrades can you buy during army building and because of that you cannot prioritize them either.

This is my experience with my 50 resource matches.

What would be great -for example- if the price of banners and horns would be standardized. Like you can say that you need a set amount of gold and lumber to take any pair of banner and horn.

It would also help if the unit description pages would show what an unit costs fully upgraded if it has any upgrade. You would not have to flip back-and-forth between the standard equipment page and the fraction's part that much while you building your army.

In my opinion, the 3 resource system isn't bad, but the game does not make use of it. It's too unpredictable as it is now.

What do you mean by "no idea what upgrades you can buy during army building"? All of a models' upgrades are listed on their card and with the cost of them. If you're flipping back and forth through the book, you're being inefficient about it. I never use my book for list building anymore, I pick up the card and a calculator and make my list right there at the table.

The standardized horn and banner idea isn't bad, but each banner and horn have a different price because they are different levels of effective and situational, but it's certainly something we can look at.

The fully upgrade unit idea I will say is a bad idea. Because not everyone is going to upgrade their models in the same fashion. Again flipping back and forth between the equipment page(s) and the faction page can easily be solved by using the stat cards for the models.

Could you please delve a little more clearly and concisely into the unpredictability of the 3 resource system? It doesn't seem unpredictable, you have x resources to spend. These items listed on pages a, b, and c will always cost a certain amount of resources, it's not like you're rolling to determine the cost of something.

Siege weapons:
I haven't played any siege weapons so far because the low resource levels we play with, but I have a few concerns regarding taking any in higher levels.
-Siege weapons slow you down: You can move them with half speed, but if you move them you cannot fire them, so if you play six turns, there is not much you can do with them if you plan to be mobile with your forces.
-Siege weapons cannot melee: Your ranged troops have something to join a melee if you decide not to shoot into it. Your siege weapons become useless as the melee units clash.
-Siege weapons are more costly than their listed price: You might buy siege weapons, but they need operators. Two or three units are out per siege weapon.
-Siege weapons are vulnerable and contestable: If your opponent can ambush or just chooses to flank and you left your siege weapons alone with your operators, then you will have a bad time. Your opponent will ambush and flank your siege weapons, take them and shoot you in the back.

In my opinion, siege weapons force you into camping. You will deploy them to lock an area, and you will forced to protect them with half of your units at least because of flanks and ambushes. The other half is not strong enough to go around on the field, so they are also protecting your siege weapons. Then you will wait if your opponent decides to run into your firing zones.

If I see the opponent deploying a trebuchet, I would immediately decide to flank with as many units as I possibly can. meaning there is no game until I can flank.

Siege weapons like cannons, trebuchets, and ballista, you have a large range, it's not like you should need to spend your time moving up the board, you move up half speed on turn 1 with a melee or counter melee unit of operators. Then you spend turns 2, 3, 4, w/e firing off the siege weapon, then when you have a unit get close enough to be charged, or get charged (if you're going with a unit that has anti-charge).


The other points about Fortifications is something I'll let someone else deal with, it's not a terrible idea, I just think you're looking at this as, "This has to be so good that I'd be crazy to no take it. If it's not amazing, it's not worth it."

 Alfndrate wrote:


What do you mean by "no idea what upgrades you can buy during army building"? All of a models' upgrades are listed on their card and with the cost of them. If you're flipping back and forth through the book, you're being inefficient about it. I never use my book for list building anymore, I pick up the card and a calculator and make my list right there at the table.

The standardized horn and banner idea isn't bad, but each banner and horn have a different price because they are different levels of effective and situational, but it's certainly something we can look at.

The fully upgrade unit idea I will say is a bad idea. Because not everyone is going to upgrade their models in the same fashion. Again flipping back and forth between the equipment page(s) and the faction page can easily be solved by using the stat cards for the models.

Could you please delve a little more clearly and concisely into the unpredictability of the 3 resource system? It doesn't seem unpredictable, you have x resources to spend. These items listed on pages a, b, and c will always cost a certain amount of resources, it's not like you're rolling to determine the cost of something.

I keep forgetting about the cards. You're right. I personally didn't had the chance to use them so far. I'll print them out.... next time...

 Alfndrate wrote:
Siege weapons like cannons, trebuchets, and ballista, you have a large range, it's not like you should need to spend your time moving up the board, you move up half speed on turn 1 with a melee or counter melee unit of operators. Then you spend turns 2, 3, 4, w/e firing off the siege weapon, then when you have a unit get close enough to be charged, or get charged (if you're going with a unit that has anti-charge).

The other points about Fortifications is something I'll let someone else deal with, it's not a terrible idea, I just think you're looking at this as, "This has to be so good that I'd be crazy to no take it. If it's not amazing, it's not worth it."

It's just an idea. As I said, I did not had any chance to try out any siege stuff, but they are not sold to me. But that's just me.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

I keep forgetting about the cards. You're right. I personally didn't had the chance to use them so far. I'll print them out.... next time...

... So you can't blame me when I'm saying you're doing something inefficiently You're not using all the tools at your disposal.

It's just an idea. As I said, I did not had any chance to try out any siege stuff, but they are not sold to me. But that's just me.

Then please, please, please, please! try using them so you actually have play experience with them instead of just assuming they're not worth it. Play at larger levels, there is a reason why we list base sizes the way we do, why we have templates in the back of the book so you can photocopy them, and hell, even why we have Paperfire...

You know, if I would have the chance to play instead of talking about the game here, I would take it. But It's not that simple. But between the once-per-two-weeks games, I can talk about it here.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
You know, if I would have the chance to play instead of talking about the game here, I would take it. But It's not that simple. But between the once-per-two-weeks games, I can talk about it here.

May I ask why you are unable to play more than once every two weeks, just for curiosity's sake.

I'm working as a programmer 8 hours on workdays and I'm also playing RPG regularly. The other three guys I play Bushfire with are also part of this RPG group. So if everyone is free, then we play RPG.

We also have a tabletop gaming group we go to every Friday, but we can't Brushfire on that. We are there to play together and not all of us likes this game(I have tried my best there).

So finding time to play Brushfire is finding the time the others are free and willing to come together and play, but not everyone - because then we play RPG - and then I just see if actually anyone comes. Last week we had a game planned but everyone decided to go somewhere else.

I'm trying to held a game every week, but so far lt was only working out once per two.

Also it doesn't help that our miniature wargame is a miserable pile of paper disks.


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Actually my wargame gear is pretty decent. I have the Streets of Malifaux terraclips set now, two warbands of Brushfire starters and some more models, many other models on compatible bases and lots of shelf-made and a few manufactured terrain pieces.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
I'm working as a programmer 8 hours on workdays and I'm also playing RPG regularly. The other three guys I play Bushfire with are also part of this RPG group. So if everyone is free, then we play RPG.

We also have a tabletop gaming group we go to every Friday, but we can't Brushfire on that. We are there to play together and not all of us likes this game(I have tried my best there).

Sounds exactly like my week, even down to the programmer job Hop to it man!

Hop to it? Are you suggesting he should be putting in more effort to play Brushfire?

I may be misunderstanding but I just started feeling extremely, skin crawlingly, akward about this conversation. The tone feels very inappropriate...

It might just be me but it's provoking a strong enough reaction I feel the need to mention it.

I believe the emoticons Alf used are meant to show sarcasm/jesting.

But really... Its a thread for feedback on playtesting, actual playtesting is kinda necessary. Posting complaints about an aspect of the rules that you haven't had any experience with isn't helping.

It'd be like me going into the Infinity section and complaining that TAGs shouldn't be in the rules without ever playing with or against them.

 Casey's Law wrote:
Hop to it? Are you suggesting he should be putting in more effort to play Brushfire?

I may be misunderstanding but I just started feeling extremely, skin crawlingly, awkward about this conversation. The tone feels very inappropriate...

It might just be me but it's provoking a strong enough reaction I feel the need to mention it.

Why would you feel awkward about me asking him to play more Brushfire? By virtue of the thread title everyone should be playing more Brushfire or else we're not really playtesting it are we?

Edit: Ninja'd by Cy.

Okay, it was worth mentioning though. I wasn't even involved and I took it a certain way, I would hate to think Roo felt under attack for trying to help by doing everything he can, much more than most. I wasn't just talking about the one post and emotes aren't a free pass to negate the tone of a message. But anyway, I'm not jumping on anyone, I just don't want anyone to feel attacked. I'm sure it wasn't intentional.

Back on topic. Roo has raised some points that really interest me since he has much more play experience under his belt, he is seeing problems that I can't pick up on from reading. I'd like to hear what other players think about them but I think Roo is now the only one still doing any regular research for you. Is anyone else still playing?

I still stand by my point that not everything comes down to play testing too, my concerns mainly focus on pregame activity which doesn't effect gameplay. I'm very interested to hear what Matt's reply is when he next has time to jump on the forum.

If you only want playtesting feedback then fair enough this thread really isn't for me at the moment. If you want to hear the consumers feedback on improving the game then my points have value whether I have time to play or not. That's entirely your call and I'm happy with your decision, if you'd rather only receive direct feedback from gameplay just say. In the end we all vote with our time and wallets anyway, that's the truest feedback you can get and clearly we are voting positively as I assume Brushfire is doing very well.

Just to be clear, that was all written positively, if it comes across otherwise it'll be because it's also written very seriously so there aren't many emotes and stuff.

Pregame Activity, while important, its not as important as things like balance and understanding of unit rules... which require actual playtesting and is what we are actively trying to get feedback on.

When we hear actual feedback on things like 'X's Y ability is too powerful against Unit Z' we can adjust the ability and/or the Resource Cost, which in turn will affect the pregame stuff.

I don't agree that altering rules will fix or even effect my concerns. Examples would be good, I'm not a very stubborn person, good examples will convince me. Otherwise we can agree to disagree.

Also, you say playtesting is more important and I agree but if people don't enjoy the whole process they won't keep playing as it'll become a chore.

You're sitting on the fence a little as to whether you want feedback other than playtesting. If you don't want our/my input on the non playtesting aspects then just say so otherwise we are wasting our time researching it. Honestly, I'm not researching and developing my concerns and ideas then taking time to clearly communicate them to you solely for my own benefit. I'd hate to continue putting in my time to find out later than there was no intention to make any changes and you just didn't want to tell me to jog on. If the advice isn't what you are looking for you'd be better telling people to drop it before they waste a tonne of time.

We want feedback on everything, but we mainly want it on actual playtesting (IE 150Resources, 5HLVL). We are looking at speeding up list building, but we feel its already pretty quick and easy to do.

As for a Theoryfire VS Brushfire example, the easiest is 'Striking Leap' on the Mouse Lancers. Seeing a model with a 25" Charge Range is a scary thing on paper.. but in practice its really not.

Well I've given a tonne of feedback on non-playtestable stuff and I've said I have more details and ideas if you'd like them. I haven't seen much response to them so I figure you want to get their without outside help or something. That's fine but it would have been nice to know earlier I guess.

As for wanting actual playtesting. People are already playing as much as they can or want to. If you aren't getting the feedback you want then it's a question of why don't people want to play enough to give you more feedback? As far as I can see a lot of people have tried to help and have given up, I'd be interested to know why.

Also, I asked for an example of how changes to gaming rules effects my concerns which are almost solely about events outwith gametime, I'm not sure how that came across as Theoryfire vs Brushfire. But nevermind, no hard feelings but I'm out of steam at this stage. I don't think half of the help people give in this thread is being read and replied to carefully, it's not how I would do things but I'm just one guy.

Seriously though, no hard feelings, I'll continue to hang around to varying extent and stuff I just won't be putting in any time or effort anymore as it's not really wanted. I hope you get the feedback your hoping for.

Questions and feedback after today's match:

Tatamata is... a little bit strong. His sword deals d10DE and D10AP, he has really good stats, an exceptionally good ability, medium armor for 5/10/10.

What does the Jutte do? Reduces incoming attacks by 1 what?

The Assault move looks wierd:
-A squad assaults a wall, but the assault rule talks about models. It says a model may end up in the assault terrain if there is room for it. What happened is I assaulted some ashigarus in a wall with my Warlord who was on blade spin and with Dishonor Guards. So , there was 3 Ashigaru's on the top, two of them is instantly b2b with the Warlord because there was room, so he killed both and the other Rat Raider killed the last one with a shield crit. so now...
-The remaining Rat Raiders where not b2b with the assault terrain, but they where part of the activated squad. At this situation, can they climb the wall as well?
-We see that Assaulting comes with no loss of meele skill or damage or number of attacks despite the assaultig models just free-climbed a wall.

(the assault terrain was a tower... kinda. It was a 3 by 3 inches elevated piece of terrain right next to a 6 by 6 one, so there was plenty of room up there actually)

Actros Nevsky's The Great Hamster should be two ability. One for the attack redirects and one for about gaining the Northern Berserker rule.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Don't worry Chasey, they can't stop me for trying to make this game better!

I have the right to overanalize the siege weapons whitout ever trying out one!

 WhiteRoo wrote:
Questions and feedback after today's match:

Tatamata is... a little bit strong. His sword deals d10DE and D10AP, he has really good stats, an exceptionally good ability, medium armor for 5/10/10.

The Blade of Heaven's Thunder is great.. up until you roll 1 on the DE roll.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

What does the Jutte do? Reduces incoming attacks by 1 what?

Every model does a number of attacks, Jutte reduces that by one. So a Hamster Berserker normally does 2 Attacks, he now does one.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

The Assault move looks wierd:
-A squad assaults a wall, but the assault rule talks about models. It says a model may end up in the assault terrain if there is room for it. What happened is I assaulted some ashigarus in a wall with my Warlord who was on blade spin and with Dishonor Guards. So , there was 3 Ashigaru's on the top, two of them is instantly b2b with the Warlord because there was room, so he killed both and the other Rat Raider killed the last one with a shield crit. so now...
-The remaining Rat Raiders where not b2b with the assault terrain, but they where part of the activated squad. At this situation, can they climb the wall as well?
-We see that Assaulting comes with no loss of meele skill or damage or number of attacks despite the assaultig models just free-climbed a wall.

The Rat Raider is still within 3" of his squad buddies? He can activate with them again next turn.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
Actros Nevsky's The Great Hamster should be two ability. One for the attack redirects and one for about gaining the Northern Berserker rule.

Splitting Great Hamster is doable.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
I have the right to overanalize the siege weapons whitout ever trying out one!

I'm sending the attack hamsters...

My problem with the Blade of Heavenly Thunder is that how strong it can get when it rolls good.

This sword was on d5 d5. Why it get increased?

How Assault is supposed to work? Let's say you have five units assaulting a wall and five on that wall.

Do you do it squad based, or do you do it model based?

I mean, if it's model based, you go... First model attacks one on the wall, kills it, secound attack, kills an onther one. he made room, he goes up. Secound model has room, goes up. So the secound model may attack now?

Because when you assault to make a room and succeed then you technically moved after your meelee phase.

We removed every use of D5s, I hate rounding dice. I'm still not 100% pleased with Tamatama's attack, and I'm looking into a solution.

Assault will be clarified. You perform it like Ranged/Cavalry Charge attacks, on a squad basis.

I'll also look into writing a more elegant rule for Jutte.


Additionally, I would just like to say we are very appreciative of the help everyone has given us and the feedback provided. Much of the comments and complaints brought up over the last week will be seen to, as many of the issues from last week were changed in the last push.

We also welcome any other feed back you wish to give. I would rather hear a dozen things I disagree with just to get the one thing that I feel needs to be fixed, instead of ignoring help when offered.

Additionally, Several of the changes raised affect the game beyond just pre-game. We are taking our time working through a theoretical adjustment to the resources before putting it up in an update. We're being cautious, but we are listening.

I will be interested to see what changes you decide to make and I'm happy to hear that you are listening to all of the consumer feedback.

I get what Tamatama does. He is supposed to be an assassin kind of guy who surely kills someone important in the enemy team and then die right after that, because he is in the a middle of some angry enemy units when his Ganji stops working.

And he is really interesting that way. On bigger matches one exemplar or hero is not that big of a loss, but in a 50 point match he can hurt too much. You only going to have a hero and an exemplar top, and one is out for 5/10/10, while your only counterplay is that you hope he will roll a really bad damage.

This is my personal opinion, I have just lost a match because of him, so I might be overreacting.

I think he would be okay as it is if you can limit him somehow on this small resource limit games.

I think something like "You can only enlist TamaTama if the resource limit is at least X" or "If you enlist at least two other Wanderer"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A question about line of sight:

Let's say there is a Castle Tower. 5 by 5 inch assault terrain. Over it's northern edge, there is one model standing on it. There is an enemy model b2b with the southern wall next to the tower.
Is the two models has line of sight in this case?

And about walls, gates and towers:

All wall, wall-gate and tower models are made with battlements around their edges. What is this battlement in the context of the game? Is it low wall, or is it just cover? Or it should be ignored?

I'd like to avoid Force Org restrictions, but we'll figure out something.

Models on Assault Terrain do not treat it as providing cover or blocking line of sight.

Any benefit from standing on Assault terrain is given in the description of the fortification. Currently Gates provide no benefit, I will look into adjusting it.

I honestly have not caught up with reading all the debate back and forth, but I enjoy the 3 resource system. Unit upgrades do seem to get expensive fast, but I have no problem with how the system lets OTL balance exemplars, seige equipment, and elite army options. In fact I would love to see more exemplars and units that skewed towards either gold or lumber instead of balancing the two.

Okay, thanks. So elevated positions themselves do not block line of sight.

No, only while models are ON elevated positions. If you're targeting a model THROUGH an elevated position, they still block line of sight.

In the next update, we're clarifying LoS, separating objects into one of three categories:

Clear - The object never provides cover or blocks line of sight. Rivers and Trenches are the prime example.

Obscure - drawing line of sight through 2" or less of this object (including other obscuring objects) only provides cover. More than 2" blocks line of sight. While a model is on or in an Obscuring Terrain, it still provides cover/blocks. Forests, Low Walls, and Barricades fall under this category.

Block - This object flat out blocks line of sight regardless of thickness. While a model is on/in Blocking Terrain, it does not provide cover/blocks. High/Castle Walls, Models (with their own rules regarding this), and Smoke Bombs fall under this category.

Edited to provide some examples.

How many hand do you need to throw the satchel charge, the grenade, the Hperian fire and the smoke bomb? It looks like they are zero-hand weapons.

I think there should be a keyword for zero-hand weapons, because the lack of a keyword is always confusing.(Are they fogot it? Are we forgetting something?)

Also, is that intended if the last activating model throws the smoke bomb it gets immediatly removed after it's activation?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
More smoke bomb: "Models under the template are not attacked" means as long as the template has a model under it the template considered to hit and will never deviates?

How much of a model's base has to be under the template to be considered being under the template?

Only weapons and Shields have Hand Tags. Banners, Armor, Horns, and Accessories do not have Handedness.

Yes, a smoke bomb is removed at the end of a turn, regardless of how long it has been on the table.

Correct, a smoke bomb does not deviate if a model is under it.
Any amount of the model's base counts as being under the template. Ill get this clarified.

Can you ninja-smoke with a smoke bomb then? You drop it under your model, possibly shoking it, but until the end of the turn they are protected from charges and shots.

Yes. Although a model could still walk into close combat, through the smoke.

Is that intended that units on mounts can hide behind low walls? Or can you hide a siege weapon behind a low wall?

Yes, Cavalry can hide behind low walls. Consider it representing them ducking off their mounts (Even siege tortoises.)

We'll put a note in that Siege Weapons cannot 'duck'.

I have some ideas for the cards.

The cards are too similar to each other and it can be easier to find the one that you looking for with some clear distinctions. You will probably not going to confuse yours with the opponent's because your cards are going to be on your side of the table, while your opponent's on the other, but it would help for easy army building based on cards, tracking activations or finding the card for a model between 10 or so same looking cards.

I think the cards should use some color coding. for example Hero cards could have yellow background instead of the current red/orange, exemplars, non-unique exemplars and weapon teams(and so on) should also have different colors, since it would be a clue about how you activate them.

If a unit is a cavalry, it should have a special mark on it's ES column to indicate that this unit will not loose all of it's ES while rushing.
A similar mark should be used on MS column on heavy cavalry and on the RS column on light cavalry to indicate that these values do not change if the unit rushes.

There could be a distinction if an ability is a deployment, a free reaction, a passive or an aura ability - especially if it's an upon death ability. It's so easy to forget those.

The banner beneath the model's portrait is too bright (at least on Vandalands) and it enforces the feel that the portrait is just a cutout put on the picture of the banner. It doesn't feel like a proper portrait. On the Cult card shown earlier, it's too dark. It's not going to be good especially since the Cult units are also dark.

Here is an idea: The player who has more squads in game, have a big advantage!

So, last match I was ended up with two squads while my opponent had five. Even if he won the "who goes first" roll, he still had three activations in every turn after I finished all of mine.

Armor refreshes between activations but armor only protects against damage and not from other tactical advantages like positioning. And since he has three moves left after I finished all of mine, he always was able to have better positioning than me, since he already know how I positioned my units for the turn.

I believe this gives the advantage to the player with the more squads. I'm not sure if this is a problem, but it might worth mentionning.

Squads are not fixed, you can break up your squads to create additional activations.

The new PDFs are out! There are exciting, interesting changes. Conceptually I find exemplars costing your choice of resource to be a good thing. Plus...completely new entries, yay!


Also, because I have been meaning to ask, are the Soqotran Corsairs Meerkats?

 Galen wrote:
Also, because I have been meaning to ask, are the Soqotran Corsairs Meerkats?

Yes.

Yeah, but if I have to break my squad that doesn't going to help.

I mean I can break up my rat raiders, but I loose their number advantage. And if you activating one-by one it's really obvious what you are doing and your opponent can also start breaking up his squads to keep up with you.

We feel these are legitimate strategies. You are not just fighting your opponent's armies. You're fighting your opponent.

Deciding when to sacrifice a single model to make the attacker get stuck in close combat; Or breaking off a larger detachment forces your opponent to split their attacks, or if you charge with a detachment, they have to choose to make charge reactions, or ignore them, taking the hits, so they can attack another target later.

Okay then. If that's an intended strategy...

The book should mention this I think.(maybe it does, I haven't read the latest one)

By the way I like the new version. The item costs in the unit pages are a really nice touch. Now only if those Vandaland exemplar minies where out yet...

What parts should I focus on while I'm reading the book?

These are some things I want to go over just to make sure I've interpreted the rules correctly.

-The Poisonous Spores Ammo, and Spore tokens in general affect both friendly and enemy models. Engaging 'spored' enemy models in melee will infect my models the instant one of the enemies dies, affecting all models within 5".

-Hyena witch doctors (and all models) can use both heroic and tactical actions in the same activation.

-When a tactical or heroic action affects a squad the effect is applied to each model currently in the squad even if they activate seperately in the next turn.

-Seige weapons always activate individually and cannot activate with horde squads or in multiples unless a special rule states otherwise.



Do you guys use any special techniques to denote which model is in which squad at a given moment? I can see it getting confusing if two squads of the same unit type start overlapping and an enemy uses a whole squad effecting ability.

Poisonous Spores: yes

Both tactical/heroic questions: yes

Siege: this was changed for 2.0. The operator limit is the squad limit for activating with a siege weapon. (Unless stated otherwise) you can only activate one siege at a time.

No specific rules for identifying separate squads.
Suggested techniques: put a band of color on the bases of models with a certain load out, or a feature on the models (a shoulder pad, bedroll, satchel, etc.)

I can't wait to play the new version. This time I'll print out the cards!

About Arctos Nevsky

His Ragnarok says: If Arctos began the game with at least 5 Hamsters in his Squad, when the last one is slain, Arctos gains the Northern Berserkers rule.

Are you have to mark the Hamsters you start with and even if you re- and re-squad those hamsters those are that count? What if you assign Nevsky to a different squad or replace the fallen squadmates?

Is it intended to not work with Viklanders?

Apparently you added the new 'Facation Decks' whatever those are. I am interested to see what the other updates are. How close do you feel it is to completion?

Casey's Law wrote:Apparently you added the new 'Facation Decks' whatever those are.

Faction Decks = Decks of Cards for Each Faction

Casey's Law wrote:How close do you feel it is to completion?

Rules-wise pretty close, but we're wanting to go in and rewrite/expand the fluff which will take awhile.

Matt will be beginning on Aquitar when we get back from CMON Expo on Monday.

WhiteRoo wrote:I can't wait to play the new version. This time I'll print out the cards!

Glad to hear.

WhiteRoo wrote:About Arctos Nevsky

His Ragnarok says: If Arctos began the game with at least 5 Hamsters in his Squad, when the last one is slain, Arctos gains the Northern Berserkers rule.

Are you have to mark the Hamsters you start with and even if you re- and re-squad those hamsters those are that count? What if you assign Nevsky to a different squad or replace the fallen squadmates?

Is it intended to not work with Viklanders?

Ragnarok will be rewritten slightly to clarify that he gains Northern Berserkers when _All_ friendly hamsters are dead, both Berserkers and Viklanders, as long as 5 of them started in a squad with Arctos.

 Cyporiean wrote:

Casey's Law wrote:Apparently you added the new 'Facation Decks' whatever those are.

Faction Decks = Decks of Cards for Each Faction

Haha, yeh I got that.

Casey's Law wrote:How close do you feel it is to completion?

Rules-wise pretty close, but we're wanting to go in and rewrite/expand the fluff which will take awhile.
Matt will be beginning on Aquitar when we get back from CMON Expo on Monday.

I'll download it in a bit and see how it's shaped up. Are you taking the fluff in any new direction or just expanding in the same style? I think it could be much more engaging.

We let Alf take a crack at the writing and as an English Education major in university he sent it off to one of his professors to make it the dryest history text in the world!*

*- the above is a joke.

 Casey's Law wrote:

I'll download it in a bit and see how it's shaped up. Are you taking the fluff in any new direction or just expanding in the same style? I think it could be much more engaging.

Matt has changed the writing style a bit, take a look a the 'Main History' section right after the world map/before Aquitar's section.

Some factions will see some rewriting, most of it will be treated as not so much being retcons, but misinformation within the setting.

"Hey guys, I just got back from the Orient, and everyone there has blue hair and is 20 feet tall! I swear! Here have some 'ohpeeeum'. It's great."

Otherwise it will be simply rewriting with the same intent as the original information, or expansion to fit the new 8"x11" page size.

About the Vandaland Standard Bearer:

Does he gets the flags free? It doesn't mentions that he is, or he isn't. Does he gets all of them? Do I have to buy the flags separately? But they are not in his upgrade equipment list or he has some rule that allow him to have more flags.

It sounds like he do get those free, but 0/10/10 for all the flags is a little bit suspicius.

While we are here, the book is unclear about if non-unique exemplars are allowed to carry equipment. It says Heroes and Exemplars can have them, but I don't remember it to mention that non-unique exemplars are not exemplars. The little grey box on page 30 should mention this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sniper:

I can't really follow how "Attack roll over as normal". I'd suggest at least the example text should walk the reader trough the process. I think it would be something like "The remaining successfull hits apply on the target squad as normal ranged attacks do." (Attack roll over will not get to be mentionned until 8 more pages)

Also, my problem with the Sniper ability is once the attacking squad has it, as long as the target squad has a special model in it just attacking with normal ranged attacks is redundant. I believe if all the excess attacks would automatically be threated as miss it would be a tactical decision if the squad should snipe and cause one casuality but that's a special model or kill several models but not the special one.

Alternatively the attacker could decide how many attacks he going to use to snipe with and how many for normal ranged attacks.

For example the target is a squad of rat raiders and the attached Standard Bearer. If the attacking models have the Sniper ability, there is no point not using it. You take out X enemy models anyway but using or not using Sniper to attack only makes the difference if the Standard Bearer is one of them or not. There is really no strategy in that.

If you would have to decide that some number of guys will try to take out the Standard Bearer while the rest just shoots on the squad, at least you would have to decide how much you want that Standard Bearer dead. One guy might miss, two still but the chance is smaller, or you snipe him with everybody because you really want that one rodent dead and don't care about the rest of the rats. or how many of them will stay alive.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
About the Vandaland Standard Bearer:

Does he gets the flags free? It doesn't mentions that he is, or he isn't. Does he gets all of them? Do I have to buy the flags separately? But they are not in his upgrade equipment list or he has some rule that allow him to have more flags.

The Standard Bearers do not have every Banner at once, they just has the ability to each turn apply the effect of one to their squad. They do not need to separately purchase banners, and the banner effects apply to no one but their squad, but the banner does effect the whole squad regardless of how far out they stretch. Each turn they select a banner effect to give, but they cannot use the same banner effect twice in a row. The Drummer, Hornblower, and Roland work the same way, just with Horns instead.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
While we are here, the book is unclear about if non-unique exemplars are allowed to carry equipment. It says Heroes and Exemplars can have them, but I don't remember it to mention that non-unique exemplars are not exemplars. The little grey box on page 30 should mention this.

We'll clarify this.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Sniper:

Sniper is basically just reversing the range combat resolution rules to being that the attacker picks which models are hit rather then the defender.
Its not always in the best interest to go after the NUE/Exemplar instead of the full squad, and that is your decision as a commander to tell your snipers what to shoot at.

 Cyporiean wrote:

Sniper is basically just reversing the range combat resolution rules to being that the attacker picks which models are hit rather then the defender.
Its not always in the best interest to go after the NUE/Exemplar instead of the full squad, and that is your decision as a commander to tell your snipers what to shoot at.

Then it might be more clear if that's how the ability would be defined. Like: Sniper - Instead of the Defender, the Attacker distributes the damage on the target squad. The Attacker still has to follow the damage distribution rules(page XX) while doing so.

Altough the current version only allows this until the first unit dies.

About the cards

I think the top of the back side of the cards should have a box that shows the unit's name.

With that you could see the unit's name and costs in the same side so the cards would be more useful during army building.

Also when you print and cut the cards out it would be less puzzling to find the front and back sides.

What is the design thought behind the new unit based equipment cost system? And why it got changed?

I like the new system, just asking.

With the conversion of so many units to stance/style/training (term still being worked on) special rules, very few models had the original upgrade system. So keeping a regular cost on the equipment was far less important.

So this way we were able to tailor each of the upgrade models to fit better within the faction, filling in gaps in army building.

Is there any reason to keep the 3 resources now? The majority of the units only upgrade from one of either gold or wood.

Exemplars, Siege Weapons, Fortifications, and Campaign options.

If an exemplar costs 35 or 35 or 35, can you buy it for 0/25/10 for example? I guess no, but the book does not mentions this.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
If an exemplar costs 35 or 35 or 35, can you buy it for 0/25/10 for example? I guess no, but the book does not mentions this.

No, you pay the cost listed.

Standard Bearer again.

What happens when you select the "Flag of Conquered Lands"? (Enemy Models within 10” have -3 HM) Looks like... nothing.

I think it would be better if the effects would be listed on the Standard Bearer's profile anyway, since the banner bonuses are worded as area effects and the Standard Bearer converts them into squad bonuses. It can be confusing.

Like with the Flag of Conquered Lands which actually does nothing when selected by the Standard Bearer. As far as I understand anyway.

Putting the effects directly on the card counteracts future-proofing. If we add additional banners in other books, the Standard Bearer wont be able to use them, as the banners he can use are listed right on the card.

You are correct in thinking that the 'offensive' banners do nothing when selected for the SB. It can only provide bonuses to the squad it is in.

How about the Flag of the Holy Rodentian Empire? It's a banner. Can you choose that?

 WhiteRoo wrote:
How about the Flag of the Holy Rodentian Empire? It's a banner. Can you choose that?

No, only the ones from the Banner section of the generic armory.

If the Hedge Knight gains the Flag of the Holy Rodentian Empire, can he still purchase a banner? It looks like, he can't.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
If the Hedge Knight gains the Flag of the Holy Rodentian Empire, can he still purchase a banner? It looks like, he can't.

How many flags can a hero or exemplar hold? That should answer your question.

The ones in the banner section are the only real banners. The faction specific flags are just a flavorful description for an expanded Influence Range.

Then notation is needed! *flies away*

Just a wild idea...

Whit a little thinkering it could be possible to rearrange the unit costs in a way that Gold is only reserved for upgrades while Lumber is for siege weapons, assault terrain and siege-type units. (units with mortars, flamethrowers, dinamites or general artillery stuff)

Units would cost Food as now do, basically upgrade from gold and cost gold if they are the better troops(as now, but many Lumber cost would become Gold cost). Only units that have template attacks or weapon upgrades that give the units template attacks would cost Lumber.

Then the requiment of Food Lumber and Gold have to be equal could be lifted. What this would do is the game to be able to scale the battles on number of basic units, amount of upgrades and amount of siege warfare.

If the game is set to Food only, then the players could only use non-upgraded basic units.
If it's gold only, then only exemplars, mercnaries and heroes can be enlisted.
If it's lots of Lumber and some Food, then it's siege all the way!
If it's small amount of Food and a lot of Gold, then it's small fully upgraded armies and mercenaries.
And so on...

Maybe there should be a unit introduced that can only be used to operate siege weapons but costs only Lumber, so there can be Lumber only siege games. (Battleship!)

Food would scale the size of the army, while gold the amount of mercenaries and upgrades. Lumber would scale the size of the siege aspect.

The only big difference would be that the equal Food-Lumber-Gold starting amount would be just one of the possible starting amounts. Maybe it would be possible to the players to make armies on equal total resources but on different distributions.

This also would help to clear out what one can do with it's resources. If you have some wood, you can buy units with template attack. If you have gold, you can buy better armor and weapons, or units with better equipment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On page 31, the Satchel Charge's text says 5" Template, I believe it should say Large Template.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Luca da Vacanti

Luca da Vacanti can be enlisted to the Vandalands Army if Gotz von Federwerk is enlisted.

I believe Gotz's page should also mention this.

I'm trying to read trough every unit description and I'll try to give feedback from it. I'll see how far I get.

These feedbacks only reflect my understanding of the game.

Aquitar - Tactician General - Sinkhole(Rank 1 and 2): Squads do not have next activations. Models in the squad have. I believe it should says "models in target squad..."
-Entrenched(Rank 1): I think under 50 resource limit you simply cannot have 10 model squads. This ability is quite useless on rank 1.
-Rapid Deployment(Rank 2): Models have full activations in the turn they ambush, no? Then what does this do? An additional full activation?
-Inspiring Presence: I believe it should be a ":" after "Heroic action" and not a ",".

-The Badger in the Iron Claws - Broken Chains: It is unclear if the rush-charge is followed up by a melee phase. It's also not clear if an attached grenadier or other ranged unit may make a ranged phase before the charge.

-Nicolas Songis des Hedge - Flying Cannon - Do you need a working deployed cannon to use this ability or Nicolas is simply equipped with one? Do you choose a cannon and shoot it as his ranged phase? Do you have to account that cannon's range? Somehow I don't think Nicolas has a pocket-cannon.

-Badger Grenadier - Well Supplied - I believe it would be more clear if the text would say "all models in the squad", instead of just "squad".

I'll see about getting the changes to Satchel Charge and Luca/Gotz in the book.

Sinkhole/Badger Grenadier: Whenever we refer to a squad, we're referring to 'all the models in a squad'.

Entrenched: You could still take this talent as just a single rank while taking higher ranks of other talents. Taking a second rank of it makes it viable in smaller games.

Rapid Deployment: Ambushing allows a single ranged phase or a single melee phase. Flanking allows a full activation.

Inspiring Presence: I think most of the Boons that were tactical/heroics had commas, but I'll go through and standardize it like Talents using colons.

Broken Chains: charging is now part of the melee phase, but I'll see about rephrasing it to indicate that you can make a Melee Phase. The Free Activation allows a Move Phase and a Melee Phase, the squad may not take a Ranged Phase.

Nicolas Songis: He works just like the Siege Tortoise, as his ranged phase, he can make a Cannon attack as if he was a fully operated cannon. He does indeed have a 'pocket-cannon' or rather, he is riding a kiwi pulling a flying cannon.

Historically, flying cannons were light cannons pulled by a single horse and setup quickly. In Brushfire its a more cartoonish cannon Songis can fire while moving.

Axony- Heavy Brigardier - Feline rage(rank 3-4): I believe those two +3 AR are stacking, but it's just looks like a wording error like this. I think on rank 4 it should say "additional" at least.
-Lead The Charge: I believe it would be more clear as "... The Devon Brigardiers have Reach while they are in the Heavy Brigardier's squad."

Thomas Brude - It is not clear if Thomas Brude do or do not has a pistol otherwise.

Imperial Duke - Exploit Weakness(Rank 1) - I believe it should be "models on the target squad"
-Just as Planned: I think it would be more clear with "...instead of 1D10" added.

The Experts - For me, the italic text on the top of the page looks like flavor text instead of the rule these units follow.

Doyle - Bartitsu Master - Is there any reason why the +2 MS is not part of his base stats? There is no test for MS or use of it outside melee phase, so this is mostly just a weird extra rule. In case some effect reduces it's MS, it could be "Doyle's MS cannot be lower than 2" and have 3 MS instead of 1.

Fiedler - Unsuspected - Since you can individually target all attacks in an attack set and as far as I know a model is not forced to use up all of it's attacks, Fielder can keep this ability up all match. He just have to stop before he kills a model(but burned all it's armor), then re-target and let an other expert to finish the kill every time. (like the Agent, who ignores all armor)

Sean - 87th Rifles - it is not clear that units have or not have rifles otherwise while Sean is in a squad with them. Also it would be more clear if it would say "all models considered to have rifles for this free attack" because a unit may have other ranged weapons and it is not clear if it gains a rifle if it has a crossbow already for example,

WATCHDOG - Orwellian Security - I believe this should be in two ability. One for the re-roll and one for the activation rule. Also while Sean has the rule that he can't activate with the experts and with a different squad, this is not clear with the Agent and the WATCHDOGs. it sounds like when the Agent activates with the Experts the WATCHDOGs may activate with him. Also being a non-unique exemplar and the experts do not have to keep cohesion, it might worth to mention if WATCHDOGs have to keep cohesion(or be close to it) to activate with the Agent or other WATCHDOGs.

Bearded Highlander - Rage - It might worth to mention he may only reroll missies once. It's just one word. Also, it's the melee phase after the charge, no? As the charge is just the part when the models move close.

Gallowglass - What Is Your Quest?: Do the number of the Gallowglasses and Knights have to be equal? Can I activate more Gallowglass than knight or more knight than gallowglass?

Milnean Knight - Questing Knight: I believe that sentence has a typo or two.

Axon Howitzer - Axon Cannons repeat step 1 instead of step 2 then? It's a little confusing. How many times they repeat step 1?


Mercenaries: I've just realized, there is nothing to stop me from hiring my own fraction's basic troops as mercs to round out my armies. If I enlist Kernish Terriers to my Axony Army then hire some more as mercs, there is no difference between them. One costs one more gold than the other costs food. But these Terriers can activate in one squad if they have the same equipment, no?





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 miskatonicalum wrote:

Nicolas Songis: He works just like the Siege Tortoise, as his ranged phase, he can make a Cannon attack as if he was a fully operated cannon. He does indeed have a 'pocket-cannon' or rather, he is riding a kiwi pulling a flying cannon.

Then I think it should be worth mentioning that he really do have a cannon. Maybe on it's equipment list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 miskatonicalum wrote:


Sinkhole/Badger Grenadier: Whenever we refer to a squad, we're referring to 'all the models in a squad'.

I don't find this anywhere in the book.

I'll let misk answer the rest of the questions, but in regards to the highlanders and their rage rerolls, reroll is a common wording we have already defined in the book.

Reroll (page 7): Reroll - Roll a die again under circumstances indictated in the special rule that contains the phrase ‘reroll’. Rerolls can never occur more than once per die. Regardless of the second result, the player must accept the reroll result.

So we already have that a reroll may only be done once, I do realize it's only one word, but adding it is making it redundant. And you technically would have to write it, "Rage - During a Charge, a Bearded Highlander may reroll misses. Rerolls are only on the first attack set roll" If we wrote it, "Rage - During a Charge, a Bearded Highlander may reroll misses once" does this mean that I can only reroll it once per turn? per activation? per game? So we've already added it in there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 WhiteRoo wrote:

 miskatonicalum wrote:


Sinkhole/Badger Grenadier: Whenever we refer to a squad, we're referring to 'all the models in a squad'.

I don't find this anywhere in the book.

Page 7 wrote:Squad - A group of Models that activated at the same time.

And since you have to deploy as a squad, you do have squads from the beginning of the game.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
Axony- Heavy Brigardier - Feline rage(rank 3-4): I believe those two +3 AR are stacking, but it's just looks like a wording error like this. I think on rank 4 it should say "additional" at least.

This was a typo, its been fixed.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

-Lead The Charge: I believe it would be more clear as "... The Devon Brigardiers have Reach while they are in the Heavy Brigardier's squad."

this will be clarified.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Thomas Brude - It is not clear if Thomas Brude do or do not has a pistol otherwise.

This will be reworded.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Doyle - Bartitsu Master - Is there any reason why the +2 MS is not part of his base stats? There is no test for MS or use of it outside melee phase, so this is mostly just a weird extra rule. In case some effect reduces it's MS, it could be "Doyle's MS cannot be lower than 2" and have 3 MS instead of 1.

If your Rats Charge Doyle, his charge reaction is part of your melee phase.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Fiedler - Unsuspected - Since you can individually target all attacks in an attack set and as far as I know a model is not forced to use up all of it's attacks, Fielder can keep this ability up all match. He just have to stop before he kills a model(but burned all it's armor), then re-target and let an other expert to finish the kill every time. (like the Agent, who ignores all armor)

Strategy.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Sean - 87th Rifles - it is not clear that units have or not have rifles otherwise while Sean is in a squad with them. Also it would be more clear if it would say "all models considered to have rifles for this free attack" because a unit may have other ranged weapons and it is not clear if it gains a rifle if it has a crossbow already for example,

We'll clarify this.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

WATCHDOG - Orwellian Security - I believe this should be in two ability. One for the re-roll and one for the activation rule. Also while Sean has the rule that he can't activate with the experts and with a different squad, this is not clear with the Agent and the WATCHDOGs. it sounds like when the Agent activates with the Experts the WATCHDOGs may activate with him. Also being a non-unique exemplar and the experts do not have to keep cohesion, it might worth to mention if WATCHDOGs have to keep cohesion(or be close to it) to activate with the Agent or other WATCHDOGs.

We'll clarify this.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Bearded Highlander - Rage - It might worth to mention he may only reroll missies once. It's just one word. Also, it's the melee phase after the charge, no? As the charge is just the part when the models move close.

Reworded:

Rage - During a Melee Phase that includes a Charge, a Bearded Highlander may reroll misses.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Gallowglass - What Is Your Quest?: Do the number of the Gallowglasses and Knights have to be equal? Can I activate more Gallowglass than knight or more knight than gallowglass?

They do not have to be equal, just 5 of each max in a single mixed squad.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Milnean Knight - Questing Knight: I believe that sentence has a typo or two.

Fixed

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Axon Howitzer - Axon Cannons repeat step 1 instead of step 2 then? It's a little confusing. How many times they repeat step 1?

Obviously you hammer your opponent into the ground with a single never ending cannon.

It'll be a repeat once thing.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Mercenaries: I've just realized, there is nothing to stop me from hiring my own fraction's basic troops as mercs to round out my armies. If I enlist Kernish Terriers to my Axony Army then hire some more as mercs, there is no difference between them. One costs one more gold than the other costs food. But these Terriers can activate in one squad if they have the same equipment, no?

Fill them resources.

Wait, the charge reaction is an "activate immediately", which means if Doyle counterattacks, it's the axony player's melee phase and Doyle's melee phase.

No?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, the book should mention this "you can hire your own troops as mercs" thing. Normally why would you do that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Do you have to shoot at the same squad that you are going to charge?(I was starting with Chugoku and ran into this while reading the Dynastic King)

Yes, Doyle Counterattacks during 'his' melee phase.

The actual reason for that ability is because of how we design and stat up models in Brushfire. The FD cost of a model is directly related to the total amount of stat points put into its statline.

The +2 MS works in two ways, it makes his base MS 3, and when he rushes, he retains a MS of 2.



Mercs:
No where is it stated that you cannot hire mercs of your own faction. Why would you assume that you cannot? The Civitan Trade Alliance's fluff is completely based around the concept that they are a bunch of mercenary armies. Their army special rule is also based around that concept.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Do you have to shoot at the same squad that you are going to charge?(I was starting with Chugoku and ran into this while reading the Dynastic King)

Yes.

 Cyporiean wrote:

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Do you have to shoot at the same squad that you are going to charge?(I was starting with Chugoku and ran into this while reading the Dynastic King)

Yes.

Somehow I don't remember reading that. Where does it says that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But regardless of the stats and food costs, Doyle effectively has that bonus MS most of the time. Even if just for the rush, it is not the way the book handles these things with other units. It usually says a model retains some amount of MS/RS/ES instead like this.

I still believe it would be more clear if it would be on it's stat line, or at least that ability should have it's own name and line to stand out more. Maybe even that being it's first ability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alfndrate wrote:

Page 7 wrote:Squad - A group of Models that activated at the same time.

And since you have to deploy as a squad, you do have squads from the beginning of the game.

It do not say that a squad is a group of models that will activate in a same time, or always activate in the same time.

These entries especially stat that a squad may only exist UNTIL the model's next activation and if two models activate twice in one squad that is a mere coincidence and you are not forced to do so.

Therefore wording an ability to trigger on a squad's next activation is confusing because logically a squad never has a next activation. A new squad is formed in the Squad Phase and even if it contains exactly the same models, it is a different squad.

am I wrong?

I'll see about shifting the special rule up so the +2 MS is up near the top of the model's card/profile.


Whenever we are referring to a 'target squad' it is always read as the 'models within the squad'. If you only activate some models of the squad, or activate them in a squad with other models, they still suffer from whatever the status effect is.

In this case we were discussing Sinkhole, the models of the squad cannot charge the next time they activate.

5 models are in a squad that gets hit with sinkhole. After being hit with the effect, 2 of them activate with another group of models, that squad cannot charge during that activation. The last 3 models activate together, they cannot charge either.

"target squad" is always referring to the models that make up the squad.

I think there should be a few lines in the book that describes how you exactly deal with the "target squad's next activation" effects. I get it, it's just has a logical hiccup as it is now.

For example...

As a math based point of view...

Let's say you have a squad of 10 models that are activated together, they are now Squad A.

Next activation you take five models from squad A and you activate those as squad B.

Now you activate squad B and this activation is squad A's next activation even so Squad A and Squad B are far from being the same thing.

The remaining five rats must be Squad A and if anything targets this squad after B's activation, now only effects this five models, since Squad B now a different squad than A, even if the activation of Squad B was Squad A's next activation.

Furthermore if you activate the five remaining rats, you now have squad C and this activation is also the next activation of squad A, even so we had that before with squad B.

The thing is, calling them squads or saying thing like "the target squads next activation" is a little bit confusing.

You and I might get it, but I'm now reading this book a year now and asked a lot of questions here. This part is a little bit dodgy at best.

Don't look at it as Squad A vs Squad B, but that effects that 'target squad' instead of 'target model' are Area of Effect/multi-target effects.

The phrase 'target squad' is short and simple, we need concise phrasing. Feel free to read it as "All the models in target squad".

 miskatonicalum wrote:


5 models are in a squad that gets hit with sinkhole. After being hit with the effect, 2 of them activate with another group of models, that squad cannot charge during that activation. The last 3 models activate together, they cannot charge either.

"target squad" is always referring to the models that make up the squad.

Moving is based on the individual stats of the models so I think if some models cannot charge in the squad that is their problems, the rest can still do it. I don't remember reading that if any model cannot charge in the squad the rest also can't. The book states the opposite, as on page 12 - Mixed Stats in a Squad - it says models use their own stats and therefore it is reasonable to think that status effects do not spread like a virus in a squad. Fire doesn't either so why other effects would?

Yes, sorry I misspoke. The REST of the models activating with those 2 Sinkholed models may still charge, the other two would get left behind. (Leading to cohesion issues later on.)

btw Whiteroo, just wanted to give a quick thanks for going through everything with a fine tooth comb.

 Cyporiean wrote:
btw Whiteroo, just wanted to give a quick thanks for going through everything with a fine tooth comb.

Agreed!

Thanks!

So I have bump into a wall a this point as the book really not says anything about translating the term "squad" to "models in the squad" and even if it is meant like that it changes the meaning of the term on usage.

Mostly a "squad" like "target squad" is "models that are deployed as a squad or models that are activated together last time they where activated" as this clearly means the group of the models.

While the "squad" in the "squad's next activation" refers to the models as individuals that are in the other kind of squad currently. And it means every single model's next activation separately in that other kind of squad.

It is supposed to refer to "models the in target squad", but you can't call this also "squad", you used that term already.

Again, I get it, it's just illogical. *insert stock image of Spock here*

Also, where the book says that if you shoot a squad at the ranged phase you can only charge that same squad after that? I can't find it.

The same target every phase rule got lost somewhere, it's getting put in.

Something I kinda felt like pointing out. I love how the Cult of Exomorphism are all bugs, but their named after different mythical creatures and monsters of our world. Here was just two idea I felt like shareing. You might of already thought of them, but I wanted to share anyway. XD


The 1st is the most obvious to me. A giant mosquito Vampire, who drains animals dry of their blood. When I had to explain the cult during game demos to people who wanted to know all the factions, this was the example I used to show the monster/bug connection because some of the existing examples didn't show it clearly enough for some people.



Another Monster bug connection is Glyptapanteles and Zombies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyptapanteles

It's a species of wasp that puts it's larva inside a host, and the larva take over the host for their own needs. I could see alot of interesting ideas with that one.

We've got something similar to your second suggestion in plans currently..

A Mosquito could be interesting, hadn't thought of that previously...

 Cyporiean wrote:
We've got something similar to your second suggestion in plans currently..

A Mosquito could be interesting, hadn't thought of that previously...

I sort of have this image in my head of a giant misquito that can just pick up a rat raider in one hand, impaling the rat, then tossing aside a withered and bloodless corpse. Not to mention it would be able to fly to top it all off.

O___O

It would be like mansquito, except actually scary.

Two of the exemplars for the faction,who got a short story about them, are spoofs of Predator/Yautja and Alien/Xenomorph.

Additionally, the entire faction works like botflies, even though the actual species they are based on do not. (DO NOT look up botflies. Just accept that they work sort of like Xenomorphs or Glyptapanteles). Lends itself well to the Lovecraftian horror aspect.

I also like the idea of a "Vampyr" mosquito. Perhaps as an Adjutant, the Exomorph version of a 'medic'?

 miskatonicalum wrote:
(DO NOT look up botflies)

Too late...

Yeah, while the faction is 99% bugs.. its called 'The Cult of Exomorphism' for a reason.. those Cultists will want to 'gift' your troops with the seed of their gods.

 miskatonicalum wrote:
Two of the exemplars for the faction,who got a short story about them, are spoofs of Predator/Yautja and Alien/Xenomorph.

Additionally, the entire faction works like botflies, even though the actual species they are based on do not. (DO NOT look up botflies. Just accept that they work sort of like Xenomorphs or Glyptapanteles). Lends itself well to the Lovecraftian horror aspect.

I also like the idea of a "Vampyr" mosquito. Perhaps as an Adjutant, the Exomorph version of a 'medic'?

How would a Vampyr Mosquito heal people thow? I'm just not sure I follow.

I was thinking more like, having some sort of mechanic involving it draining enemy models dry of their blood.

Other factions have a "medic" as part of the support infantry (or w/e we're calling them). An adjuant is roughly an NCO, or someone that assists other higher ranking officers... Not sure if that's what misk is talking about. The Vampyr Mosquito would be support infantry, rather than like a medic that you might see (say in Aquitar)

I was thinking more that he just heals himself. Perhaps also infecting at the same time. Which i suppose makes him more like the Witch Doctors, or other 'magic' users.

He'll "Hold you in his arms and You can feel his disease"

 miskatonicalum wrote:
I was thinking more that he just heals himself. Perhaps also infecting at the same time. Which i suppose makes him more like the Witch Doctors, or other 'magic' users.

aaahhhhh! Now I follow. Alot of cool idea being brain stormed for this idea. XD

I think they definitely should be some type of Non-unique exemplar you can attach to other units.

 Cyporiean wrote:
He'll "Hold you in his arms and You can feel his disease"

In all honesty I just got a shiver reading that.
XD

Byakees and Mi-Goes we need Byakees and Mi-Goes.

One thing we're doing with the bugs is that they'll have several names in the fluff, but just one for the unit entry for simplicity.

So while Hamsters might know something as Trolls or Jotnar, the Ribens would call them Oni.

This should give you a good variety in army fluff to build things around your choice of mythos.


Also: Playtesting for CoE will begin in August most likely, we want to get the first 8 settled first.

 Cyporiean wrote:
One thing we're doing with the bugs is that they'll have several names in the fluff, but just one for the unit entry for simplicity.

So while Hamsters might know something as Trolls or Jotnar, the Ribens would call them Oni.

This should give you a good variety in army fluff to build things around your choice of mythos.


Also: Playtesting for CoE will begin in August most likely, we want to get the first 8 settled first.

So Vampyr, and Jiangshi would be the most ovioues choices of name. XD

Maby Penanggalan, one of my favorit verations of the vampire myth?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penanggalan

Sounds like a love bug that has lost its mate.

Let's continue then. I will call out "squad's next activation" effects just in case.

Chugoku

Dynastic King - Path of Emperors - (All ranks) - squads, models in squad confusion.
- The Jade Seal - This is also squad confusion, but worse. You obviously have to use it on a friendly squad before those models next activation. But then you can regroup those models even to one model per squad and all will cause shock with their charge/ranged attack. If you do it with rank 4 and ranged units you can paralyze the whole enemy army in every second turn.

Wu Xian of the Red Claw - It is painful to see such beautiful art crammed there like that. Also, if it has to be like this, at least move the picture's background under the text's level and a little left.

Celestial Tactician - Water Margin (Rank 1)- Squad confusion. It is not clear if "Heavy/Light Cavalry" looses their special rules or which part of those rules/bonuses, as Cavalry as it's own is rare, but I think there are a few models that are just Cavalry. And it's only grants increased charge range and retained ES. (Rank 2) - I Thought models can only flee when being charged anyway. I think I get it, but I guess a re-wording would make this more clear as "Target squad cannot make charge reaction except Flee."
-Lay of the Land(Rank 3) - When you can make that ambush? Ambush happens before your first activation in the turn, but even if you activate the Tactician first, that's too late to make an ambush as it was supposed to happen before any of your activation. So, some extra rules are missing here. Also, Can this cause any model to activate twice? Like you activate a squad then use Lay of the Land on them, ambush them again and make a melee/ranged phase. Also, squad confusion as this does not states if every model in the target squad has to ambush as a single squad or not. In theory you can remove the squad, regroup them to two or more squads and ambush them separately.
- Weapon Scrolls - I have no clue what this means. You take model upgrades in normal costs anyway. I guess it supposed to be "All models in the army may take one of their upgrade equipments free."
- Tactical Supervision - Then enemy models in this area can't be hit with lucky hits?

Kong Ming of the Green Eye - Song of my People - What happens if they fail this test?

Hua Poi Kay - Taijijian - Can she move into close combat to attack? Is that counts as a charge? Can she have a ranged phase in this free activation?

Lao Yi - Loyal Friend - I think this should be two ability. One for the no attack part the other for the free counterattack and extra attacks during that counterattack.

Pan Yu - What does this model do with it's influence range? Only heroes TS/HM can be used instead of the unit's own.

Chugokuan Color Guard - Tengpai - What kind of Hero? Is this limited to Chugoku heroes only or mercenary heroes also count?

Flying Boxer - Fighters of Heaven - Tactical actions target squads. This ability only targets single models then? Even if the target model is activated with a squad? Do the model that uses the Tactical actions get auto-hit by it or is it allowed to have a TS roll? this TS roll uses the original TS roll of the user or the Flying Boxer's TS?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lem Han - Steeds of Wuhuan - Anti-Charge is a weapon property, no? Isn't it should be "Lem Han has anti-charge on it's melee weapons."




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Civitan

Captain - Broadside(All ranks) - Template attacks do not target squads. Even a small template can be placed to hit two models that are in different squads.

Conquistador - Glory - squad confusion
-God(Rank 4)- it is not clear if they have to move immediately, or they gain this free activation and use it anytime, even carrying it over to the next turn.
-First Mate - What can this unit do with Influence range?
-Cannoneer - Is that supposed to be 2 additional attack sets?

Ral da Diabolito - Overrun(Also, M.A.V. - Overrun) - It is not clear if this 2 DE is an auto-hit, or a weapon hit. Maybe it should be "As it would attack with a sword" or "As it would attack a 2 DE weapon"

Luca da Vacanti - Read Your Contract - This is really Gotz von Federwerk's ability.
- Lucky Star - is he should be considered slain when he looses his Valkyr or if he looses it's Valkyr and not attack afterwards? This does not really do much since pilots have no resource value so when the Valkyr falls, it's goes to the lost resources heap and the pilot is worth nothing.

Maybe this should be changed as in a campaign it would be add some extra fluff if you could repair your mechs and siege stuff, so if you can save your pilots you get rewarded. In normal games the Pilots should have the food cost of the Valkyr units, so after the mechs get destroyed, the pilots would not be just meat-shields. Maybe you could save MK2 Valkyr pilots for extra points or something. Or you could capture them!

Civitan Marine - Partizan - The Civitan marine has no Squad description so it is hard to tell if they can be in a squad with Conscripts.
-Pistolero - It's 3 attacks per Pistol, or +1 attack to it's ranged attack set?

Mouse Lancer - Striking Leap - Can the Lancer move before it executes Striking leap? If so, maybe a rewording to something like "Lancers have 25" charge range for this special charge" or "A Lancer may use this ability to increase it's charge range to 25" but uses RS instead of MS on the following melee phase" as this is an activation ability and not a passive one.

Armory:
Iron Skin - 4 AR Shield, Shield - ???

Light Panzardi-guns - so if the enemy squad has 5 members, this thing fires 10 times? This description is a little bit head scratching because it doesn't follows the terminology of the book. I'd suggest to reword it as "2 attacks after every model in the target squad" as "X attacks" is used if a weapon has multiple attacks even if the weapon is ranged, so using "fires" can be confusing. Also, it should be worded in the same way as the Panzardi Speciale is, as these two are very similar.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

-Lay of the Land(Rank 3) - When you can make that ambush?

We'll clarify this, you do it at some point during your turn at your choice.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Also, Can this cause any model to activate twice?

Yes.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Also, squad confusion as this does not states if every model in the target squad has to ambush as a single squad or not. In theory you can remove the squad, regroup them to two or more squads and ambush them separately.

Ambushing models cannot 'regroup', Lay of the Land squads work the same way normal Ambushing Squads work.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

- Weapon Scrolls - I have no clue what this means. You take model upgrades in normal costs anyway. I guess it supposed to be "All models in the army may take one of their upgrade equipments free."

'Items' are a thing. Satchel Charges, Climbing Claws, Jars of Hyperian Fire, etc.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
Tactical Supervision - Then enemy models in this area can't be hit with lucky hits?

Right, if you roll a 9+ you get a Critical Hit instead.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Kong Ming of the Green Eye - Song of my People - What happens if they fail this test?

Then they can't do what it says.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Hua Poi Kay - Taijijian - Can she move into close combat to attack? Is that counts as a charge? Can she have a ranged phase in this free activation?

That should be 'Take a Melee Phase'.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Pan Yu - What does this model do with it's influence range? Only heroes TS/HM can be used instead of the unit's own.

Models with an Influence Range give out their TS/HM to friendly models, generally this is only Heroes.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Chugokuan Color Guard - Tengpai - What kind of Hero? Is this limited to Chugoku heroes only or mercenary heroes also count?

Any Friendly Hero.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Flying Boxer - Fighters of Heaven - Tactical actions target squads. This ability only targets single models then? Even if the target model is activated with a squad? Do the model that uses the Tactical actions get auto-hit by it or is it allowed to have a TS roll? this TS roll uses the original TS roll of the user or the Flying Boxer's TS?

Yes, it only goes against the model that caused the Tactical Action. Its automatic if the Flying Boxer is affected by a Tactical Action.

Ex. A Warlord uses Sabotage on a Flying Boxer, the Flying Boxer fails the TS Test and is hit by the Tactical Action. Because the Flying Boxer is affected by the TA, the Warlord is now also on fire.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Lem Han - Steeds of Wuhuan - Anti-Charge is a weapon property, no? Isn't it should be "Lem Han has anti-charge on it's melee weapons."

With the 2.0 Changes this ability should probably become something else.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Captain - Broadside(All ranks) - Template attacks do not target squads. Even a small template can be placed to hit two models that are in different squads.

We'll see about rewording this.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Conquistador - Glory - squad confusion
-God(Rank 4)- it is not clear if they have to move immediately, or they gain this free activation and use it anytime, even carrying it over to the next turn.

When the Heroic Action occurs.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

-First Mate - What can this unit do with Influence range?

Give his TS/HM to friendly models within 5".

 WhiteRoo wrote:

-Cannoneer - Is that supposed to be 2 additional attack sets?

No, its meant to be two additional shots with the Panzardi.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Ral da Diabolito - Overrun(Also, M.A.V. - Overrun) - It is not clear if this 2 DE is an auto-hit, or a weapon hit. Maybe it should be "As it would attack with a sword" or "As it would attack a 2 DE weapon"

Weapon Attack, as it doesn't have a Melee Weapon otherwise.

 WhiteRoo wrote:
- Lucky Star - is he should be considered slain when he looses his Valkyr or if he looses it's Valkyr and not attack afterwards? This does not really do much since pilots have no resource value so when the Valkyr falls, it's goes to the lost resources heap and the pilot is worth nothing.

Luca has two profiles (as do several other models like her), they are seperate entries.. When she is in her Valkyr she does not have Lucky Star.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Civitan Marine - Partizan - The Civitan marine has no Squad description so it is hard to tell if they can be in a squad with Conscripts.

Its a Conscript ability to activate with Marines.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

-Pistolero - It's 3 attacks per Pistol, or +1 attack to it's ranged attack set?

We'll clarify this.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Mouse Lancer - Striking Leap - Can the Lancer move before it executes Striking leap?

Yes.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Armory:
Iron Skin - 4 AR Shield, Shield - ???

Typo.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

Light Panzardi-guns - so if the enemy squad has 5 members, this thing fires 10 times? This description is a little bit head scratching because it doesn't follows the terminology of the book. I'd suggest to reword it as "2 attacks after every model in the target squad" as "X attacks" is used if a weapon has multiple attacks even if the weapon is ranged, so using "fires" can be confusing. Also, it should be worded in the same way as the Panzardi Speciale is, as these two are very similar.

there was a bit of copy-pasta error here, its getting fixed.

A note about the Steeds of Wuhuan, the only melee equipment the Lem Han have access to is a Poleax and the Chicken Steed. Neither of those have Anti-Charge as a weapon property. So in theory Steeds of Wuhuan could remain as it is.

Also Cyp, Chicken on page 140 should be changed to Chicken Steed so that it matches the Lem Han entry on page 139

 Cyporiean wrote:

Luca has two profiles (as do several other models like her), they are seperate entries.. When she is in her Valkyr she does not have Lucky Star.

I get that. What I referring to as she will never count toward the slain units as the plain number of the slain units is not counted as far as I know. Their resource amount is counted. And so when her Valkyr falls it's cost will be added to your slain model resource total. She may die or live once she is in foot, it will not change the total. Nor any Valkyr Pilot.

So the part that says "If this effect is still in play at the end of game, Luca da Vacanti (on Foot) is considered slain." really not change anything, no?

It only implies that if the match is part of a campaign game, after she lost her Valkyr, she cannot been saved unless she attacks at least once.

 WhiteRoo wrote:

 Cyporiean wrote:

Luca has two profiles (as do several other models like her), they are seperate entries.. When she is in her Valkyr she does not have Lucky Star.

I get that. What I referring to as she will never count toward the slain units as the plain number of the slain units is not counted as far as I know. Their resource amount is counted. And so when her Valkyr falls it's cost will be added to your slain model resource total. She may die or live once she is in foot, it will not change the total. Nor any Valkyr Pilot.

So the part that says "If this effect is still in play at the end of game, Luca da Vacanti (on Foot) is considered slain." really not change anything, no?

It only implies that if the match is part of a campaign game, after she lost her Valkyr, she cannot been saved unless she attacks at least once.

Its to prevent a player from putting an untargetable model on an objective in the intent to claim it without worry.

How phases structure then?

- Squad Phase
- Movement Phase --> before and/or after this, you can use your tactical and heroic actions
- Now you Choose a target squad or end your activation. In the rest of the turn you can only attack the target squad you choose now.
- Ranged Phase
- Now if your squad is not in charge range with your target squad, you have to end your activation. If it is, you can still end your activation.
- Charge!
- Charge Reaction
- Melee Phase
- End of activation

Is this right?

 WhiteRoo wrote:
How phases structure then?

- Squad Phase
- Movement Phase --> before and/or after this, you can use your tactical and heroic actions
- Now you Choose a target squad or end your activation. In the rest of the turn you can only attack the target squad you choose now.
- Ranged Phase
- Now if your squad is not in charge range with your target squad, you have to end your activation. If it is, you can still end your activation.
- Charge!
- Charge Reaction
- Melee Phase
- End of activation

Is this right?

Pretty much, but Charging is part of the Melee Phase and Tactical Actions also have to be against the same target of your ranged/melee attacks.

 Cyporiean wrote:

 WhiteRoo wrote:


Its to prevent a player from putting an untargetable model on an objective in the intent to claim it without worry.

But you can still move her to the objective. You can hold it with her or at least stop the opponent to get it since she is there. And at the end of the game the other player still wasn't able to get that objective since she was there, and you neither because she is not there. No?

I think you can only move movable objectives if no enemy model is B2B with it. So she can use her lucky star to stop an objective like that, no? She may bi slain at the end of the match but the objective will not move until then.