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In the latest mantic podcast, one of the interviewees (it wasn't Ronnie or Alessio) let drop that the next interation of Warpath will return to unit-based morale rules and possibly having unit (as opposed to individual) basing.

Thoughts?

I like 2.0 pretty well. If they multi-base, though, I think I'll take a pause. That's part of what made 1.0 less than good IMO.

Hmm, I'm of two minds about this. I mean, something that went for a streamlined large-scale 40k-esque kind of game would be a fun idea. It is certainly a scale that few other games tend to compete with 40k at (most tend to pick more down to earth game sizes). And if they are going to be doing big, cheap plastic kits for Warpath, then it makes sense to use the numbers to some end.

But at the same time, there are precious few non-generic platoon-level sci-fi skirmish games around (or at least there were, they seem to be having a resurgence as of late). I liked the general feel of 2.0 and tend to like more detailed games when I'm doing 28mm scale stuff. For grand-scale wargames I tend to like 10mm and 6mm more.

So while I can see them doing a good job with a new iteration of WP1.0 where the focus is on big engagements, I will definitely miss the platoon-level game that WP2.0 was.

But I suspect that no matter what they do there will be at least one group that would have wanted it to go the other direction.

So far, they've done a great job with Deadzone and Dreadball, so I'm willing to give it a wait and see policy.

If it's nothing that interests me then I will still be going whole hog on minis for this since I have plenty of generic 28mm rule sets that these would play well in (and of course, the obvious 40k counts-as stuff). So no matter what, the Warpath KS will have utility for me, even if the rules don't do it for me.

That said, if they could manage to do something like 28mm Epic: Armageddon then I think I would be in love.

I think I could be cool with a more streamlined/simple version of 40k, but if it turns out more like they described I think that would be fine with me too. Would save me from having to play KoW, just play the sci-fi version. As long as they turn out a bunch of cool models for it I'll be happy

I'd like them to keep both.

Warpath and Warpath: Skirmish.

Cover all bases with multiple rulesets... Deadzone for 10-20 models, Warpath: Skirmish for 20-50 (typical 40k game size), Warpath for anything bigger.

Kings of War is already definitely a game that works best with armies on the larger end (what would typically be 3k+ points of warhammer, or around 1.5k-2k of KoW).

Warpath should be the realm of the 2k+ sized 40k army.

I mainly just want them to stop flip-flopping and get on with releasing it. If there was a Warpath Kickstarter right now rather than a Mars Attacks one, I'd be going mad for it.

If they want to go with the multi-basing idea, they should just go with a 6mm not-EPIC game set in their Warpath Universe. (and maybe not-Warmaster to go with it).

Priestly and Chambers are both out there doing work for hire as well as their standbys of Calvatore and Thornton.

The 6mm seems unlikely, Ronnie really seems to prefer mass battles AND 28mm as hearable in the last podcast.

I would be OK with SS's suggestion, basically analogues for warhammer and apocalypse.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I'd like them to keep both.

Warpath and Warpath: Skirmish.

Cover all bases with multiple rulesets... Deadzone for 10-20 models, Warpath: Skirmish for 20-50 (typical 40k game size), Warpath for anything bigger.

Kings of War is already definitely a game that works best with armies on the larger end (what would typically be 3k+ points of warhammer, or around 1.5k-2k of KoW).

Warpath should be the realm of the 2k+ sized 40k army.

I mainly just want them to stop flip-flopping and get on with releasing it. If there was a Warpath Kickstarter right now rather than a Mars Attacks one, I'd be going mad for it.

Agreed, 100%. A warpath kick starter right now would make me go nuts. That said, my wallet would also like to survive. LOL

 scarletsquig wrote:
I'd like them to keep both.

Warpath and Warpath: Skirmish.

Cover all bases with multiple rulesets... Deadzone for 10-20 models, Warpath: Skirmish for 20-50 (typical 40k game size), Warpath for anything bigger.

Kings of War is already definitely a game that works best with armies on the larger end (what would typically be 3k+ points of warhammer, or around 1.5k-2k of KoW).

Warpath should be the realm of the 2k+ sized 40k army.

I mainly just want them to stop flip-flopping and get on with releasing it. If there was a Warpath Kickstarter right now rather than a Mars Attacks one, I'd be going mad for it.

Absolutely agreed on the split between skirmish and warpath. KoW's rules scale really well to larger games, but there's an inherent limit to how much you can fit on a 6x4 board and still have room for meaningful and tactical manouvres. Rather than trying to do one version which scales, why not do two versions of the rules? One for smaller than a 2k sized 40k army, one for larger.

They don't have to be radically different, just a few tweaks to the rules like;
- All measurements and LOS are from the unit leader, not individual models.
- Units MUST be grouped in a single apocalypse style formation. They are activated and targetted as a single unit.

Knock yourselves out with movement trays to speed up moves, but please don't try to shoehorn a ruleset more suited for 6mm to a 40k sized game, and don't miss the opportunity to write a decent 40k alternative.

Unit Basing = Rules I will no longer use. :(

I really hope that turns out to be a cheese dream.

The Auld Grump

Yeah, I would have to concur with that.

I wouldn't mind it, as SS suggested, in an apocalypse-type setting where it's more about simplifying the insane number of models on the table, but for the "70-ish model a side" range I probably wouldn't like it at all. Even on paper it feels like too much of an abstraction of the battlefield.

While I would love some kind of abstracted mass battle system from mantic, in 28 or 15mm, I'd like to think this would be kept separate from Warpath 2.0 and future versions, which works really well for the 30-70 model range. The rules still play fast enough for the platoon level skirmish, but any more abstraction would be too much, the current system is great. Unit basing takes it back to KOW-in-space, like 1.0. The simple fact is that this style just doesn't mesh with Sci-fi, where things like cover are more important and the battle is more fluid than just the clashing battle lines of fantasy (a generalisation both ways, I admit, but you get the idea).

After Deadzone, what i dont want now is a Warpath Kickstarter, let my wallet recover a bit!!!

I dont know, i have mixed feelings abou warpath: i love the ideia of units instead of models, and love the ideia of unit bases, but it also depends a lot on the way the rules do it...

Warpath 1.0 was a disappoint to me, warpath 2.0 was a vast improvement imho. Id hope they'd keep the basics of 2.0 but throw in some more 'grit' such as a seperate stat line for melee and shooting and tidy up the unit movement and targeting rules.

Personally although the unit rules work excellently in kow I just cant see it catching on in a sci-fi setting, unless it was at a smaller scale.

After a discussion with Ronnie yesterday, he's specifically talking about 5 man basing on a 100x50mm tray with very little terrain on the board.

I'm out if that's the case.

I'm hoping to be in on the playtesting days (there was an open call on facebook for people to email James Hewitt if they wanted in on playtesting days) and will be arguing for there to be two versions of the game as Scarlet Squig described.

IMO 28mm is the wrong scale to be doing unit basing in.

Daedleh wrote:
After a discussion with Ronnie yesterday, he's specifically talking about 5 man basing on a 100x50mm tray with very little terrain on the board.

I'm out if that's the case.

I'm hoping to be in on the playtesting days (there was an open call on facebook for people to email James Hewitt if they wanted in on playtesting days) and will be arguing for there to be two versions of the game as Scarlet Squig described.

IMO 28mm is the wrong scale to be doing unit basing in.

Well I guess I wont be playing Warpath in the future then.

Multi basing would kill it for me, along with what I guess will be over simplfied rules. At least there's Deadzone to play. I guess they might have planned for Deadzone to be the skirmish setting and Warpath to be some scale-up epic type game.

Daedleh wrote:
After a discussion with Ronnie yesterday, he's specifically talking about 5 man basing on a 100x50mm tray with very little terrain on the board.

I'm out if that's the case.

I'm hoping to be in on the playtesting days (there was an open call on facebook for people to email James Hewitt if they wanted in on playtesting days) and will be arguing for there to be two versions of the game as Scarlet Squig described.

IMO 28mm is the wrong scale to be doing unit basing in.

That idea for implementing it sounds really bad. 100x 50 square trays is just gonna look ugly. If they're doing 5-man element basing they need a smart custom solution and it needs to be clear plastic. And rounded, not square "we can use them for KoW as well" 100x50mm.

There's a lot of talk about rules which are important, but the spectacle of the game is too, and for sci-fi that spectacle is of minis ducking into cover, individual heroic poses etc. and *lots* of terrain, people love games with heavy terrain and Mantic is currently making a ton of it to sell, too, so encouraging planet bowling ball is a bit of an own goal from a sales perspective when you could instead get some really good building interaction rules (borrowing from deadzone) going and push the terrain line.

I think 5-man element basing can work, but it needs to be done carefully to gain acceptance from the regular sci-fi gaming crowd, and it absolutely needs to work with terrain as much as possible, you can't just say don't use terrain.

Here's a couple of sketches I did over on the mantic forums concepting movement trays, the first has a border, the second is borderless and acts as more of a clip-together piece for the 5 miniatures, to limit the visual impact on the tabletop as much as possible and also making it easier to fit the whole tray into terrain due to the smaller overall footprint:





Ideally any movement tray solution should comfortably fit 5 minis into a 76.2mm square for compatibility with the deadzone terrain... which would be doable, but would require a formation like the "5" side on a d6.

5 models on a 100x50 tray seems like way too much dead space... I like SS's trays, or maybe an X with a guy in the middle. I think square or even circular trays would be kinda Meh.

^ I figured I'd do another concept for the X shape, I think I rather like it since it's more unform and while the shape is essentially square, utilising the round bases to round off each corner gives it a shape that seems to work better than either a basic square or circle would:




You could "squish" it a bit to form a golden ratio rectangle too if the square footprint seems a bit funny, but I'm not sure if that would still let you fit it inside a DZ tile.

3" is 76.2mm and the bases are 25mm so the spacing is pretty tight.

@scarlet squig, nice idea for a clear plastic frame. If and its a big if, I could be convinced that this was the way forward for warpath, I.e. kow in space, then this would be probably the best way to go.

Does look a bit like a old epic square base tho. Id prefer a more random placement of holes but I guess your restricted by the dz square tiles size. And I massively agree that warpath needs lots of scenery for the wow factor.

Hmm. Could maybe even cut some of the extra material between bases to make more of a proper X to save materials/ minimize visibility.

Thinking about it again tonight, theres a real gap in the market for a 40k killer game. If mantic can get their plastic sprues upto scratch and produce a fun, balanced game system their onto a winner.

One thing that bugs me, and this is only my opinion, is that simple does not always mean better. I good games system, easily explainable to new players, which makes logical sense gamesplay wise, will always draw players.

Kow works because fantasy games are about mass regiments clashing and the rules support this imagery. When I picture a sci-fi battle I dont imagine classing units but individual squad members, ducking through cover and sniping one another through ruins. I guess I picture a sci-fi unit as more a group of individuals rather than a faceless mass of pikes or shields.

Sorry rant over! It just seems a wasted opportunity if they go down their suggested route.

Definitely liking the idea of based-unit rules for WP 3.0, as the rules for 2.0 really turned me off due to the paring down to individual-model rules focus. I don't mind if they do or don't add a Skirmish size for Warpath as well, but if they just stick with the current size then I'll be passing and using Deadzone instead at that point.

Also, the little terrain idea for WP 3.0 sounds ridiculous, especially for the points mentioned above about how they're already churning out terrain anyhow. Honestly hope that was misoverheard or a poo-flung-at-wall idea.

 Daedleh wrote:


IMO 28mm is the wrong scale to be doing unit basing in.

It's fairly common in historical gaming, that being said mostly in classical warfare where it makes more sense to have it due to the closely regimented formations.

I believe often in these games the 'skirmishers' are more loosely based. For modern/future warfare, where the deadly nature of the weaponry means soldiers are spread out and hugging terrain, it doesn't make very much sense.

All for squad-based rules for determining fire (like Force on Force/tomorrow's war or Bolt Action), it makes sense over the 'skirmish' approach for mass battle systems, but really hope they keep the basing separate.

6mm not-Epic

Give me 15mm scale not-Epic and I'm done with 40k forever

I'm with squig on wanting both versions. I really liked the Warpath 1.0 mechanics of unit stats, but not multibasing. It allowed me to play big games with a 40k style feel (we used 40k minis) but in half the time with 1/4 the rules.

I've only read (but not played) Warpath 2.0, and it looks good, but I don't want another platoon level game (plenty of those have been released) at the expsense of a mass battle game.

As I mentioned above - multibasing would completely destroy any interest that I might have in the game.

It is, in my opinion, the worst direction that they could take the game.

Most likely... it would mean that when I play a science fantasy game it will be Necromunda.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

As I mentioned above - multibasing would completely destroy any interest that I might have in the game.

It is, in my opinion, the worst direction that they could take the game.

I'm of a similar mindset. It's why I played games like 40K, and Shockforce, instead of Flames of War. It becomes too abstract.

At that point you could simply play the game with printed 3 inch tiles instead of models.

In KOW it bothers me less since it's just giant mobs of people smashing into each other until one sides resolve breaks

SciFI is about high tech shooty things wiping people out one death ray at a time !!

My enforcers are chomping at the bit to be usable in a game. I kinda want to draw a list up and get people to try playing. Should I attempt 1.0 or 2.0? Most 40k players are running 1850 lists in my area, so which is more appropriately built for that?

I think its crazy to minimise terrain in a Sci-Fi game. Not being able to hide behind cover properly is an awful idea. There is a reason the British had to abandon firing lines.