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Review of Planetary Empires in new WD.

Basically, as with Mighty Empires, it's a set of new tiles for making a map based campaign. Jervis keen to emphasise that people should make up their own rules, but basic campaign rules work thus;

Each player gets three tiles.
You pick a fight per campaign turn.
If you win the fight, you roll to see if you take one of the opponent's tiles. Various factors affect the dice roll e.g. if tile adjacent to one of yours, a simple 3+ on 2D6 is required, if it's somewhere else, a 7+ is needed. Outcome of battle also affects the roll, as do shield generators, ruins etc etc.
If a player has a greater no. of tiles before the battle, his opponent is awarded +50pts per tile difference i.e. Player A has 5 tiles. Player B has 3. Player B gets 100pts more to spend on his force for that game. The reasoning is that Player A will have spread his forces more thinly to control more ground.

That's the basic jist, other stuff like manufactorums give you extra bonuses.

Interesting, I had not looked at Might Empires that closely. I'm really excited about Planetary Empires. I've been waiting for a cool 40K campaign system for well over a Decade.

Flashman wrote:Jervis keen to emphasise that people should make up their own rules, but basic campaign rules work thus;

Of course. The less he has to commit to, the less he has to correct. Even their FAQ's now say 'Do what you want'. The only thing GW is committed to these days is staying noncommittal.

Flashman wrote:If you win the fight, you roll to see if you take one of the opponent's tiles.

Why would you make it so complex? Why not "If you win, take the tile you were fighting over". I 'spose that's one way to ensure everyone writes their own campaign rules - right rules so nonsensical and pointless that everyone just throws them out and makes their own.

Flashman wrote:Review of Planetary Empires in new WD.

Basically, as with Mighty Empires, it's a set of new tiles for making a map based campaign. Jervis keen to emphasise that people should make up their own rules,

Doesn't pretty much every map-based campaign already do this?

Because there were no formal rules?

Right.

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Why would you make it so complex? Why not "If you win, take the tile you were fighting over". I 'spose that's one way to ensure everyone writes their own campaign rules - right rules so nonsensical and pointless that everyone just throws them out and makes their own.

Some tiles are more powerful than others, so I guess they needed a way to make it harder to steal these, otherwise you could claim a Hive tile after victory in a 500pt game.

I don't see the problem? If you're playing set points limits for all armies, then what does it matter how you capture the tile. You won the game right?

Real die-hards work things out to the detail and fight for the tile block by block, or in case of the Hive, level by level.

You'd think there'd be some health hazards to living 9 MILES above sea level.

H.B.M.C. wrote:I don't see the problem? If you're playing set points limits for all armies, then what does it matter how you capture the tile. You won the game right?

I guess another way to do it would be to choose a tile to attack and decide how to fight the battle based on the content of that tile. Like Jervis says, it's all up to you. As with ME, I think you're paying for the tiles, not the rules.

spartanghost wrote:You'd think there'd be some health hazards to living 9 MILES above sea level.

Perhaps 38,000 years from now, a "mile" is about a tenth of that it is today...

They should flesh out the rules more some of us dont like to be bothered with making up our own rules. I mean gak, why not just go buy mighty empires its not likes it difficult to make those look futuristic.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

spartanghost wrote:You'd think there'd be some health hazards to living 9 MILES above sea level.

Perhaps 38,000 years from now, a "mile" is about a tenth of that it is today...

even .9 miles is pretty freakin' high.

Not if you live in Denver, CO...

My main issue with PE is that the end result looks pretty rubbish. The tiles, when you assemble them just look like a random collection of hexes with horribly huge chunky borders, rather than a realistic relief map. There are no roads (unless you model them yourself), and the spaceports, ruins and such are just random and pretty uninspiring.

The stuck together hexes offer no benefit in aesthetic appeal over paper and pen. Given the "rules" are so thin, there really seems to be no point in buying the product.

Even the jazzed up Ork Rok they showed in the August WD is only pretty mediocre in my view.

Nothing to see here, move along...!

Hey, new WD is out? I'll have to make my monthly pilgrimmage to GW. This'll probably be my last German WD purchase.

After having the amount of fun with Mighty Empires that I had, I'm very interested in Planetary Empires.

What did you do with Mighty Empies, if you don't mind me asking? I'm just interested in campaign ideas and advice.

Osbad wrote:My main issue with PE is that the end result looks pretty rubbish. The tiles, when you assemble them just look like a random collection of hexes with horribly huge chunky borders, rather than a realistic relief map. There are no roads (unless you model them yourself), and the spaceports, ruins and such are just random and pretty uninspiring.

The stuck together hexes offer no benefit in aesthetic appeal over paper and pen. Given the "rules" are so thin, there really seems to be no point in buying the product.

Even the jazzed up Ork Rok they showed in the August WD is only pretty mediocre in my view.

Nothing to see here, move along...!

Agree. Planetary Empires is one of a batch of recent non-miniature releases where I believe I am capable of producing something as good or perhaps even better myself (see also Blastscape & Planetstrike counter set). The only incentive to buy would be the rules and as they've near as damn it published those in White Dwarf, I think I'm going to have a go at my own hexes.

Oh and just been to GW at lunch to get some spray and staffers were painting up the blastscape... ugly as sin!

Where can we find these pictures? link please?

Do you think you could integrate Planetstrike into Planetary Empires?

OMG! BattleFleet gothic + Planetary Empires = The opportunity to map out the WHOLE IMPERIUM! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!

yeah,
the online store photo shows the product as

If I buy online I'm expecting a Hive City!

Does anyone have confirmation of the inclusion of a hive city tile in the box?
People have said that when they saw Planetary Empires previews in GW stores they had a hive city.
This kinda indicates that the Hives are included because you can't buy the hives instore.

WD says you can buy a set of two hive city Direct Only for £5!
WD doesn't say what tiles are in the box, only that it has 6 sprues. 48 tiles. 42 tiles are double sided
But Every picture in WD shows a Planetary Empires map with a hive city, which kinda implies you get one.
page 7 - There is a Hive City on the Cover of the planetary empires box/book.
page17 discussing Planetary Empire, and has a photo of a Planetary Empires map with a hive city
page 18 and 19 double page spread discussing Planetary Empires Tiles, including the Hive city Tile and has a photo of a Planetary Empires map with a hive city.
Page 20 example planet, has a photo of a Imperial Ice world Planetary Empires map with a hive city. The picture has a hive city but it also has 49 tiles.
page 40 and 41 shows the studio map which has four hives

I figure that they are the important tile in the set, the major cities and the capital city!
It will be a bit rubbish if they are actually selling these as a add on tile and charging £2.50 each!
Also the cost per tile in the box set is £0.62 a tile... why are the extra hive city tiles so expensive?

Panic...

H.B.M.C. wrote:What did you do with Mighty Empies, if you don't mind me asking? I'm just interested in campaign ideas and advice.

We played using the rules in the booklet. Except we added some stuff from the original Mighty Empires to allow for 'theoretical turns' where every other battle was resolved using cards and dice. This allows for a faster campaign but with more action.

My group ran through it once, then the shop I work for ran two campaigns that ended in tournaments (all using the maps)

spartanghost wrote:You'd think there'd be some health hazards to living 9 MILES above sea level.

There are, but they pail in comparison to the nasty you can catch if you live at the bottom...

in the 41st Millenium everything can and will kill you, it's just a matter of how you wanna go out...

As for Mighty empires I have little use for it. I have a collection of the Battletech hexagonal maps laminated and mounted on metal board. i can write on them with dry erase, and use magnetic tokens to denot citiesm, forts, etc. Flexible, customizable and easy to clean up.

Are the rules as spare as the Mighty Empire ones?

If I recall, it's two pages in Mighty Empires.

Seeing as this thing comes with the same "sheet of rules" that Mighty Empires did, the price tag seems a bit... excessive.

Especially as I'm pretty sure it doesn't include the tile that most people would want - the Hive City!

The price tags always seem excessive nowadays.

I doubt that they'll put a hive tile in the box, that would be far too much like common sense.

But still, looks like my chaos are going campaigning.

looking at the WD at my FLGS there is a hive city tile as online order only for a pack of 2. I didn't do more than skim the issue so I'll check today and see if it says anything specific about whether there is a hive city tile included in the box or not. My bets are on it not being there.

The hive city is a seperate piece.

Why?
Need to ask
(remeber the IG vehicle accesory sprues? no longer included )

The pic with the tiles and a hive city could be the cover of the rulebook, not the box.

The box cover has SM/orks and standard tiles on it.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
The hive city is a seperate piece.

Why?
Need to ask
(remember the IG vehicle accesory sprues? no longer included )

The pic with the tiles and a hive city could be the cover of the rulebook, not the box.

The box cover has SM/orks and standard tiles on it.

PS: are we happy about jervis great strategy cards for PE ?

Jervis great strategy cards? Elaborate.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Not if you live in Denver, CO...

QFT.

Imagine a Apocalypse game for every tile.

That single game would lasts months.