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 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...