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Made in us
Disbeliever of the Greater Good



Los Gatos (San Jose), CA

Finally got my first game in last night. We played with the campaign rules, so we each had 5 characters with 10 points of abilities and $100 of items.

We played the first game, the meeting engagement. It came down to both of us having 1 model, and my friend pulled out the win.

Thoughts:

Winning: Winning the game gave no bonus to the winner. We gave surviving models on the winning team 2 xp for the win instead of the 1xp mentioned in the book. Disappointing.

Shooting: there are a lot of dice thrown in this game. That's fine (I own HUNDREDS of d6's, and using buckets is great), but it really felt like a 5- or 6RC character was going to score a hit every time he shoots. Many times, more hits were scored than could be saved, even by someone with Duck and Cover's +1 Defense; shooting is really deadly in this game. We expected there to be more "miss, miss, then BAM hit, you're dead". Instead it was, "You're hit, take a wound. YOU'RE hit, take a wound. Next shot, yup, hit, wound." We really though misses should have been more common.

Terrain: We didnt find a way to walk up to an obstacle that an opponent was hiding behind (like a fence) and shoot from short range, negating the cover. Often, this actually put people within melee range, so fistfights broke out instead of a shotgun blast from point blank range. Interesting.

Skills: There are like, what, 10 in the book? 2 of them were for melee - not to our taste, and so we found that most every character had similar skills. There just NEEDS TO BE MORE!
*Deadeye? Yes please.
*Really Tough? Mandatory. No, really. I took it, he didnt. I had 10 wounds on the table, and he had 5. Now he knows - ALWAYS take this.
*Duck and Cover: Not so useful. Going from 1D to 2D often made no difference against a 5RC character with a Repeater who got 3 hits. It helped while in cover, but wasn't as good as we had expected.

Stamina: Never got used. Nope - at the beginning of a campaign, no one is close to having a Doctor (my best xp-awarded character came out of the game with 55xp, so at 5 per game, she'll be at 75 in 4 more games. It played no role in the Aftermath...next time, we're all buying this at 1 and spending the points elsewhere, then raising it as we level. Powergaming? Yes...but this game invites this!

Death: So...Death happens...how? On a 1/36 roll of the 2d6 in the campaign aftermath? Mordheim mooks died like 50% of the time - even Frostgrave mooks die 8 out of 20 times...death doesnt scare us in this game. At worst, there will be a minor slap on the wrist for the next game...

So, overall it was fun, but hard to take really seriously. The stats other than Ranged Combat didnt offer enough in-game choices to really make them valued, and skills werent as diversified as we thought they should have been. We know Professions gives a new level of customization, but we're a few games (a lot of games, technically) from seeing those.

I think my opponent wants to try other games - so this won't get much play time while we continue searching. Bummer - it looked pretty good up front, but once we opened her up, she was found a bit wanting.

Kealios
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User



Hartford, Connecticut

Thanks for posting, gives us newbies some insight into the game.

   
Made in us
The Last Chancer Who Survived





Norristown, PA

Thanks for the report

A lot of the issues you pointed out are being addressed in the next version of the game, which will be based on the new Gangfight skirmish rules we have on our new site SkirmishGames.com. So you can check those rules out if you like. I’m in the middle of updating them now actually and will be adding the “Western” setting supplement shortly. That will be the base for Blackwater Gulch 2.0, but that full new edition probably won’t be done until this fall or winter.

Shooting is meant to be very deadly, but the new rules will basically double everyone’s health and give more options to get defense bonuses or extra health from special gear. Also, getting too close and forcing you into melee combat was totally intentional. It might not be “westerny” that way where everyone has a gun, but I also wanted to encourage big saloon brawls too.

There will be many more skills. In fact, we will be doing away with professions and adding them as extra skills too. So your character could be a Really Tough Gunslinging Doctor or a Gambling Ranger who likes to Backstab people. In these new rules, you can choose any skills you want, but you can only have as many as your Intellect level. You can move an amount of inches equal to your Quickness attribute, and Stamina is how many actions you get per turn. So, say your Quickness is 4 and your stamina is 3. You could move 3 times for a total of 12 inches, or you can move 4 inches, shoot, then move 4 more inches and duck into cover. Or you can stand still and shoot 3 times in a row. Lots more options than just moving once and shooting once.

The campaign rules do need an overhaul and those will be dealt with separately, but first I want to get the game balanced and fun from a single game perspective using our new models and character cards. That’s what the core game rules will be based on, and will include more of an escalation league type of campaign where you can add new pre-made characters to your gang. Custom gang building needs a lot more work. I almost feel like that may need to be done as a whole separate supplement including the traditional campaigns. We’re moving toward a totally-free-rules-forever format, so that will give us the opportunity to really make custom gangs and campaigns a lot more fun, rather than printing a book and having things cast in stone until the next full edition.

 
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User



Hartford, Connecticut

Your new character creation looks interesting.

But in your example wouldn't Move 4", Shoot, Move 4", Duck into Cover be FOUR actions?
   
Made in us
The Last Chancer Who Survived





Norristown, PA

Sorry by that I meant you would move that extra 4" to get behind something.. there's no duck behind cover action .. though maybe there could be? Maybe I could change Duck & Cover to an action, and come up with a fun new name for the skill like Deftly Sidestep?

 
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User



Hartford, Connecticut

Texas Two Step?
   
Made in us
Disbeliever of the Greater Good



Los Gatos (San Jose), CA

A few things were unclear in the existing rules:

Shooting THROUGH cover didnt seem to give any benefit to the target/hindrance to the shooter

With the above in consideration, does a model have to be within 1" of an object/fence to get the cover bonus, or adjacent to it?

Anyway, Im always happy to support game companies, but in this case, splurging to buy the rulebook was a waste :(
   
Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User



Hartford, Connecticut

You get benefit from cover if you are behind cover (which I take to mean you are actually touching it) or 50% (soft) or 75% (hard) obscured by the cover but not touching it.

The way I read the rules if you were behind a low stone wall (touching it) you would be in hard cover, if you were a couple of 2 inches back and the shooter sees around half the target then it counts as soft cover. If the shooter sees about 75% of the target then it still counts as hard cover.

As it now stands the shooter's TN gets a +1/+2 boost and the target's Defense Stat gets a +1/+2 boost from soft/hard cover.

You might play it as both get the boost if the target is actually touching cover. If it only obscured then only the shooter's TN gets the boost but the target gets no further benefit.
   
Made in us
The Last Chancer Who Survived





Norristown, PA

Yep Tberry has it right. Cover is also based on true line of sight, I kind of copied that off of Warhammer 40k and that's something I plan to change in the newer rules where you have to be in base contact with an obstacle to claim it as a cover bonus.

Regarding the rulebook if you're unhappy with it you can return it and I'll refund it + the return shipping cost. You can send me a PM here or use the contact form on my website and I'll give you my address.

For what it's worth though, the current rules will be current for the next year or so. The plan is to do the Kickstarter for the models I need for 3 distinct factions and then once they ship I'll put out the new rules and basically relaunch the game. But, it takes ridiculously long to make stuff so it's still a ways away. For now I'm focusing on the generic skirmish rules, and then the updated BWG rules will be based on that.

 
   
Made in us
Been Around the Block




Pittsburgh, PA

Kealios wrote:
Mordheim mooks died like 50% of the time - even Frostgrave mooks die 8 out of 20 times...death doesnt scare us in this game. At worst, there will be a minor slap on the wrist for the next game...
IMHO, if you're already thoroughly familiar with Mordheim & Frostgrave then I'm not sure BWG is really currently targeted at you. I appreciate the simplicity of the characters being fairly close in abilities, and that the game awards going on the offensive. The new rules look to be expanding the world, so to speak, and maybe that brings it more in line with "industry competitors" but I was initially attracted to the game precisely because it doesn't take a week's worth of poring through sourcebooks to find all of the hidden gotchas and broken combos.

For me, the simplicity is a strength, and less is more.
   
 
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