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I'll not suffer any lip about Jervis, he wrote the only GW game that was publicly playtested.

He is following in the grand tradition of British wargame designers that this is all a bit of fun between friends

That is about as far from "kitchen table" as you can get.

So I think I wasn't terribly clear here, but I think we're saying the same thing.

Kitchen table players, to me, isnt about the scale of the game itself - skirmish, mass battles, makes no different. I'm refering to people around a table, where no one really cares about whether X means Y does Z, because as long as everyone is having a good time, thats all that matters. That is, fundamentally, at the heart of a lot of British style of rules writing.

However, when you take that approach you often get scenarios that simply never came up during playtesting.

Avoid those issues, and Ricks rules are fun, and fine, if a little clunky. Paired with someone else is always better, which is what I've been saying.

Personally, I think in todays age, we're really spoiled for different games, doing different things, in different styles. So... other than a name, what exactly does Rick bring to the table? For me... not enough to hand over money. YMMV

Check out the documents in the 1-box-wargame challenge polls on Wargames Atlantic... some amazing stuff there from first time amateur designers.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I'll not suffer any lip about Jervis, he wrote the only GW game that was publicly playtested.

Which was?

 Dryaktylus wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

My point is, if you are not into that style of wargame than his designs will always fall short. That is why his most popular work is often paired with a more "modern" designer like Alessio Cavatore, and his least popular are with like-minded designers such as Jervis Johnson.

Well, if you go back, he always had people around him and that was just natural. WHFB first edition had Bryan Ansell and Richard Halliwell, Rogue Trader had some more (and was in fact WHFB merged with Laserburn/Imperial Commander). Nothing to belittle his influence, of course - I really appreciate his (past) work.

I'm curious what he did at GW in ... um ... many years. Necromunda with Andy Chambers, yes. Then Warmaster and suddenly LotR. I guess he was some kind of mentor as I remember from WD articles when he sits in his 'Ivory Tower' he only leaves for beer or tea.

Oh, and I don't think Rick, the Perry twins and Jervis are that like-minded. Rick wants a game, the twins want a simulation and Jervis wants all that, but random.

From Jordan Sorcery (perhaps the best of warhammer youtube?)'s interviews (both with RP and with others), Rick was eventually, I think the studio manager - basically the go between between management and designers. And by most accounts (with the caveat that of course, this is people mostly reminiscing about good times) he was good at it - he kept designers insulated enough from management to do their thing and satisfied management's demands.

Much as I like the elements of his persona that we can see expressed through his games and in the casual interview circuit, I do have to say I think BtGoA in particular was... not good. Like, not even fun between friends good - and I'm a bigger partisan than most for that style since that's almost entirely what I do. Part of it was down to poor layout, but I do think there also just wasn't much vision to it.

The problem with "casual" rules systems where the balance requires basically two very good gaming friends to "know what the other wants from a game" and to be able to quickly agree pre-game what to play - is that they are ever so easily broken as soon as you step outside of that very specific setup.

New people to the game; new people to the group; a competitive and casual player. And just the simple fact that the game runs through fixed mechanics and is a competition between two players; means that its so easy for a missmatch. Heck even two friends can easily bring two very differently focused armies to the game. To say nothing of the problem of when "cool" things for one person are the overpowered models in their army; whilst the cool ones for the other are the underpowered ones in their army.


I think its lazy to say that its a "modern gamer thing". Honestly I don't think it is at all; modern gamers are no more nor less competitive than gamers were 30years ago. It's just 30-40 years ago most of us were kids with the similar "not very good" skillset; often a very visual approach to "take what's cool"; often a case of "I can only afford 1 set of models so that's it" and some big rose-tinted glasses when looking back on those times.


I think noncompetitive fiction wargaming CAN work; but it almost has to follow RPG systems in running not through mechanics but a DM.

Historical games can cheat this a bit because they can run real-world simulations. Made up games can't really do that so easily because there aren't any real wars to simulate. In a sense emulating reality is kind of like bringing a DM into the equation; just that instead of a person its historical information.

 Gomezaddams wrote:


Personally, I think in todays age, we're really spoiled for different games, doing different things, in different styles. So... other than a name, what exactly does Rick bring to the table? For me... not enough to hand over money. YMMV

Well, this is the internet, so I am sure we were talking past each other. I think we ultimately got to the same place though.

Rick alone is not enough of a sell for a modern space game.

The ships might need a little work, but if it's just a book and some minis, hell, why not.

You can do worse for a couple of bucks and a download.

Add it in for ship combat in Stargrave. Scratch that Sci-Fi itch. I picked up Fanticide a few years back. Rick's in good company, he's a little long winded in the rules writing department, but he's OK. I bet he misses working for GW, no matter the bluster.

 Gomezaddams wrote:

He is following in the grand tradition of British wargame designers that this is all a bit of fun between friends

That is about as far from "kitchen table" as you can get.

So I think I wasn't terribly clear here, but I think we're saying the same thing.

Kitchen table players, to me, isnt about the scale of the game itself - skirmish, mass battles, makes no different. I'm refering to people around a table, where no one really cares about whether X means Y does Z, because as long as everyone is having a good time, thats all that matters. That is, fundamentally, at the heart of a lot of British style of rules writing.

However, when you take that approach you often get scenarios that simply never came up during playtesting.

Avoid those issues, and Ricks rules are fun, and fine, if a little clunky. Paired with someone else is always better, which is what I've been saying.

Personally, I think in todays age, we're really spoiled for different games, doing different things, in different styles. So... other than a name, what exactly does Rick bring to the table? For me... not enough to hand over money. YMMV

Yes I generally agree with this. I would also say that it's something you can take on board when deciding whether or not to play a game. I very much play 90% of the games in the 'Rick' way, as yourself and Easy E have described (not literally kitchen table, but we play games where we add and remove rules, units etc. if we find they are detrimental to or improve the game). I realise I'm very fortunate in this regard, and a lot of gamers rely on having a shared understanding of the game, it being balanced etc.

The problem I now find is that for some GW games they seem to be straddling the worst of both worlds: Taking Legions Imperialis as an example, the written rules are descriptive to the point of tedium, the game doesn't have any of the fun or 'zip' of Epic Space Marine, nor the opportunity for tactical acumen of Armageddon, but because it's poorly balanced, the objective system as written funnels you into playing in the same way each time and it takes way too long to play (I'm not sure if it's due to a lack of play testing) it's not suitable as a tournament game either.

I feel like people wanting that sort of tournament/balanced PuG experience would be better served by something like ASOIAF or Infinity, both of which have been designed with that in mind and have masses of internal and community play testing. I have been told KoW is similar, although have not played it.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I'll not suffer any lip about Jervis, he wrote the only GW game that was publicly playtested.

Which was?

Epic Armageddon



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pacific wrote:

I feel like people wanting that sort of tournament/balanced PuG experience would be better served by something like ASOIAF or Infinity, both of which have been designed with that in mind and have masses of internal and community play testing. I have been told KoW is similar, although have not played it.

KoW is interesting as it is a very good tourney game and designed to be so.

Unfortunately you then start to miss all the non tourney stuff. Fickle bunch us wargamers.

 Grot 6 wrote:
The ships might need a little work, but if it's just a book and some minis, hell, why not.

You can do worse for a couple of bucks and a download.

Add it in for ship combat in Stargrave. Scratch that Sci-Fi itch. I picked up Fanticide a few years back. Rick's in good company, he's a little long winded in the rules writing department, but he's OK. I bet he misses working for GW, no matter the bluster.

We loved Fanticide, what a fun setting that was, a clever small squad game, and great sculpts.

Does anyone have a feel yet for how this Space Battles plays? Do you really need tokens that match a suite of playing cards? sounds fugly to look at...

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

Does anyone have a feel yet for how this Space Battles plays? Do you really need tokens that match a suite of playing cards? sounds fugly to look at...

You do, the suits are systems/damage locations.Each token is a debuff to one system, and 3 of the same token = kill.

But if you're ambitious, you could make icons for the 4 systems and print custom tokens and cards, I guess, and have a deck with suits Engine, Weapons, Hull and Reactor or whatever they are

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

Does anyone have a feel yet for how this Space Battles plays? Do you really need tokens that match a suite of playing cards? sounds fugly to look at...

You do, the suits are systems/damage locations.Each token is a debuff to one system, and 3 of the same token = kill.

But if you're ambitious, you could make icons for the 4 systems and print custom tokens and cards, I guess, and have a deck with suits Engine, Weapons, Hull and Reactor or whatever they are

Thanks for the info Blackfang. So...has anyone played it, or read enough, to have any further thoughts on this one?

No experiences with this still? It's quite disheartening really.

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
The ships might need a little work, but if it's just a book and some minis, hell, why not.

You can do worse for a couple of bucks and a download.

Add it in for ship combat in Stargrave. Scratch that Sci-Fi itch. I picked up Fanticide a few years back. Rick's in good company, he's a little long winded in the rules writing department, but he's OK. I bet he misses working for GW, no matter the bluster.

We loved Fanticide, what a fun setting that was, a clever small squad game, and great sculpts.

Does anyone have a feel yet for how this Space Battles plays? Do you really need tokens that match a suite of playing cards? sounds fugly to look at...

You could use dead man's hand initiative tokens

https://www.mightylancergames.co.uk/products/dead-mans-hand-redux-initiative-token-set?srsltid=AfmBOoqiZIWc_sTbnO-Um-5bOZ9uFun9-EDtU4vY0V-i2ShXKjPKh8v-

 Easy E wrote:
Kitchen table players. LOL again.

His group of wargaming pals are the Perrys and other big names in wargaming. The Perrys' famously have a huge table and like huge battles. He is very open about it in his work on Blackpowder. That is about as far from "kitchen table" as you can get.

This is literally what people mean when they say kitchen table. Its about the mindset, not literally about the kitchen table. Most people arent the perry bros with their dedicated huge gaming space, even the perrys dudnt manage that until relatively recently, they were kitchen table gamers too starting out.

The idea is a group of friends who get together, usually at someones house, at an appointed day and time to play a game that was communally planned and organized in advance to maximize fun for all involved, which they will play on the kitchen table, the basement/garage floor, or yes - on a large fully sculpted table in the dedicated gaming room converted out of the spare bedroom. It could be a small 250 point skirmish or a game of RT with 10 modeks per sude, or it can be a huge 50k point megabattle with 12 players. That is "kitchen table gaming" as opposed to how most (esp in the US) operate where they are showing up at the local shop every tuesday at 6pm and finding a game with the first random player they encounter at a pre-fuxed 2k point level (typically).

Syrup_of_Fig wrote:

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
The ships might need a little work, but if it's just a book and some minis, hell, why not.

You can do worse for a couple of bucks and a download.

Add it in for ship combat in Stargrave. Scratch that Sci-Fi itch. I picked up Fanticide a few years back. Rick's in good company, he's a little long winded in the rules writing department, but he's OK. I bet he misses working for GW, no matter the bluster.

We loved Fanticide, what a fun setting that was, a clever small squad game, and great sculpts.

Does anyone have a feel yet for how this Space Battles plays? Do you really need tokens that match a suite of playing cards? sounds fugly to look at...

You could use dead man's hand initiative tokens

https://www.mightylancergames.co.uk/products/dead-mans-hand-redux-initiative-token-set?srsltid=AfmBOoqiZIWc_sTbnO-Um-5bOZ9uFun9-EDtU4vY0V-i2ShXKjPKh8v-

Another option is some of the old 80s/90s board games that used plastic tokens instead of cards like Ginnykub or Star Poker. You can find old sets on ebay for under $10. Ginnykub pieces are probably better for tokens, they're maybe 20mmx20mm, whereas Star Poker pieces are about 25mmx40mm or so

 Kalamadea wrote:

Syrup_of_Fig wrote:

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:

 Grot 6 wrote:
The ships might need a little work, but if it's just a book and some minis, hell, why not.

You can do worse for a couple of bucks and a download.

Add it in for ship combat in Stargrave. Scratch that Sci-Fi itch. I picked up Fanticide a few years back. Rick's in good company, he's a little long winded in the rules writing department, but he's OK. I bet he misses working for GW, no matter the bluster.

We loved Fanticide, what a fun setting that was, a clever small squad game, and great sculpts.

Does anyone have a feel yet for how this Space Battles plays? Do you really need tokens that match a suite of playing cards? sounds fugly to look at...

You could use dead man's hand initiative tokens

https://www.mightylancergames.co.uk/products/dead-mans-hand-redux-initiative-token-set?srsltid=AfmBOoqiZIWc_sTbnO-Um-5bOZ9uFun9-EDtU4vY0V-i2ShXKjPKh8v-

Another option is some of the old 80s/90s board games that used plastic tokens instead of cards like Ginnykub or Star Poker. You can find old sets on ebay for under $10. Ginnykub pieces are probably better for tokens, they're maybe 20mmx20mm, whereas Star Poker pieces are about 25mmx40mm or so

Malfiaux activation decks may be fun to use as well.

 Kalamadea wrote:
Another option is some of the old 80s/90s board games that used plastic tokens instead of cards like Ginnykub or Star Poker. You can find old sets on ebay for under $10. Ginnykub pieces are probably better for tokens, they're maybe 20mmx20mm, whereas Star Poker pieces are about 25mmx40mm or so

That's an outstanding idea. Thanks.

I love space games, I like Rick Priestley, I hope this ends up being a fun game, I'm gonna give it a try.

BanjoJohn wrote:
I love space games, I like Rick Priestley, I hope this ends up being a fun game, I'm gonna give it a try.

Let us know what you think -- there's very little coverage. I'm tempted to order the book and do a small battle on Table-Top Throwdown, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet.

Much better video with Rick showing how the game works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SDXRaCU7R0

Nice! Looks like a light, elegant game, and quick to play. Thanks for posting a link to the video.

My copy arrived. We'll do a video in fair time. Once a friend recovers from surgery so we can play test, I'll grab my mic partner and get on it.