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 Trench-Raider wrote:

Force-on-Force..... oh wait. That doesn't allow balanced competitive play because it is designed for mission specific games. I question your criteria.

That will change in the work in progress second edition of the game. Ambush Alley has decided that they are limiting their market by not including provisions for point based "pick up" games in their products. My own set of 19th Century Colonial rules (look for it later this year) will be the first AAG game with a fuly developed points system. Future products will probably follow it's lead.

AAG's games will never be designed specificly with tourny style play in mind, but they will be more pick up friendly in the future.

(full disclosure, I'm a bit biased as I have written two books for AAG)
I fully agree that Force on Force certainly needs to be on a list of one of the best current systems out there today.

TR

Unless you were the author for the Bush Wars book, then let me congratulate you on a job well done! I own almost all of the FoF "companion" books and they are all pretty impressive pieces of work!

And since you seem to be in the know, when will AA release their WWII system? I've been waiting for that close to 3 years now!

So what was the issue with the Bush Wars book? I have heard some criticism of some portions of it, and praise for other bits. In particular the chapters on the Portuguese wars were written by a non-English speaker and were not well edited by Osprey to fix his odd grammer.

As to the WW2 project, I'm not on that develpoment team, so I can't say anything meaningful about it.

TR

There are several games I'm playing at the moment that have good rules, but I think all of them have balance issues.

Dreadball - simple fast mechanics - power creep with each season

Star Trek attack wing - again simple easy to learn rules - but recently started to feel like list building is becoming more important than tactics

Malifaux - lovely rule mechanics - every model seems to have special rules, combo building leads to some very OP crew's and some match up's are very unbalanced.

In general any game that insists on using special rules to differentiate between units instead of stat line changes runs into issues with balance very quickly.

Over games people talk about a lot;

Bolt action - enjoyable enough but very obviously re-vamped 2nd edition 40K mechanics, and showing there age for it. I'm always shocked more people don't see this.

Warmachine - everyone seems to hold it up as the most balanced system, which it might be, but the rules mechanics themselves never felt like anything special and the kill the leader play style gets old fast.

My wild card entry for best ruleset - Epic Armageddon. By far the best ruleset GW ever put out, never played any large scale battle game that matches it.

 Trench-Raider wrote:
So what was the issue with the Bush Wars book? I have heard some criticism of some portions of it, and praise for other bits. In particular the chapters on the Portuguese wars were written by a non-English speaker and were not well edited by Osprey to fix his odd grammer.

Well, I can only speak for myself, but my criticism regarding the Brush Wars book is exactly in the Portuguese wars part (I might be a bit biased here ), specifically with the battles that the author chose to include in the book.

All of the battles chosen were "gimmicky" and not at all representative of the type of battle fought during the war, there were no convoy ambushes, no outpost sieges, no jungle patrols, no guerilla HQ raids. Also, the Portuguese made the first helicopter combat drops in the continent in some very daring heliborn raids (with Commandos hanging on the skids of Alouette II helicopters) that could also have been chosen but were ignored.

Add to that, the vehicle section was severely lacking, both for the African Guerillas and also for the Portuguese forces! It was only with the release of the motorpool file that I could get the information that I needed for the vehicles on several of the missions that I was designing...

The grammar of it is, frankly, the smallest of my complains.

 Tamereth wrote:

Malifaux - lovely rule mechanics - every model seems to have special rules, combo building leads to some very OP crew's and some match up's are very unbalanced.

This also depends on your individual game targets. So a crew that is OP for one type of game will completely suck at another game type. Unless you build a crew that's built specifically to wipe the table of any opponent this will always be the case.

 Sinful Hero wrote:

xraytango wrote:
SH, I would argue the reverse of that.

Checkers is far more simple than Chess as the pieces all move in the same way. Chess pieces on the other hand move according to their kind.

Sorry I thought you said lightest not tightest.

I really must slow down my reading.

Yeah, checkers can have some odd house rules depending on where you play. Chess doesn't have much variance in the rules until you get to 3D boards and such.

Though some of those variants are pretty old - Byzantine chess (played on a circular board, rooks are powerful), then there was a 13th C. Polish chess game, which introduced random chance (roll two dice - if you get a 1 one either die you can move a pawn, if you get a 2 then you can move a bishop, etc.) - folks mess with the rules, it is in our nature.

Deadzone tops my list for recently released games, Zombicide and Kings of War see a lot of play, I avoid Dreadball, but I think that it is a great game - just for somebody that isn't me. (I am the only one in my group that doesn't play it - I played one game and decided that it was a great game that I didn't like.)

The Auld Grump

PhantomViper, thanks for the honest opinions. (full disclosure again here...) I was the lead author on the Bush Wars project*, and I'm always interested in feedback. I suppose we did not do TOO bad as it is one of AAG's top selling Force on Force supplements. (I THINK it's number two...)

That being said, the Portuguese Wars section is the source of literally 95%+ of the criticism I see about the book. The problem is that this was a cooperative effort, rather than a one person show. I wrote a large chunk of the text of the book, and did all the coordinating of the workloads, etc. But some sections of the book I had little to no hand in the actual writing of. I wrote the introductory fluff, the entire Congo Crisis section, the entire Rhodesian Bush War section (the best part of the book in my view, but that war is a special passion of mine), the introduction to the South African Border War chapter, all of the uniform and organizational essays aside from that of the Portuguese Wars, and the vehicle section, plus the revamped fog of war card deck.

The co-author who wrote the probematic section was asked to add vehicle stats for his section to the motorpool, but did not do so before the deadline. Thus most of the vehicles in the book are Rhodesian, South African, or Soviet types.

The other probems we ran into on the project came from Osprey. From the start, I wanted to write a book with a narrow scope. Indeed I would have been happy with just a book on Rhodesia, and had enough material on hand to produce a full supplement were I permitted to. Sadly, Osprey insisted on a multi-conflict book and in particular wanted us to shoehorn in that "Operation Certain Death" scenario as a tie in to a recent "Raid Series" release. We were also working under a pretty harsh deadline. Finally, Osprey's editing was shockingly bad.....meaning (and this came as a suprise to me) almost non-existant.

I regret that you found the title lacking.

I hope this does not come across too much like excuse making. It's just the reasons I (as someone very familiar with the details) feel are why Bush Wars is a bit uneven in it's quality. I kick myself for not putting my foot down on a few things and for not taking as much interest in the sections that I was not actually doing the writing on. It certainly taught me a few lessons. The foremost of these is that I will never again enter into a writing project in which I am not the lone author. (indeed this is the case with my upcoming stand-alone set of 19th Century Colonial Rules, "To the Last Cartridge", which should be on the shelf by the Fall)

TR

*-Yes yes... now those "trenchie haters" who have the discipline to do a little research can now put a real world name and face to the object of their distain. But I've never actively tried to hide my identity. What would that acomplish anyway?

Mymearan wrote:
Would love to hear some more detailed opinions on

Mercs
Warzone resurrection
DZC
Dark Age

Mercs is a system that uses d10 and is a single squad vs single squad skirmish game that each faction has differnt guys a each player just picks an assigned number of them to fight with instead of a points value. Its fast fun and well balenced. Some factions use synergy others dont need to but all are well balenced.

Dropzone commander most missions have specific objectives which makes the game really tactical using an battlegroup activation system keeps the you thinking all the way through a turn and makes 3 and 4 player games actually work really well. The basic system isnt unfamiliar to many wargamers. The game handles small and large games equally well.

 Trench-Raider wrote:
PhantomViper, thanks for the honest opinions. (full disclosure again here...) I was the lead author on the Bush Wars project*, and I'm always interested in feedback. I suppose we did not do TOO bad as it is one of AAG's top selling Force on Force supplements. (I THINK it's number two...)

That being said, the Portuguese Wars section is the source of literally 95%+ of the criticism I see about the book. The problem is that this was a cooperative effort, rather than a one person show. I wrote a large chunk of the text of the book, and did all the coordinating of the workloads, etc. But some sections of the book I had little to no hand in the actual writing of. I wrote the introductory fluff, the entire Congo Crisis section, the entire Rhodesian Bush War section (the best part of the book in my view, but that war is a special passion of mine), the introduction to the South African Border War chapter, all of the uniform and organizational essays aside from that of the Portuguese Wars, and the vehicle section, plus the revamped fog of war card deck.

The co-author who wrote the probematic section was asked to add vehicle stats for his section to the motorpool, but did not do so before the deadline. Thus most of the vehicles in the book are Rhodesian, South African, or Soviet types.

The other probems we ran into on the project came from Osprey. From the start, I wanted to write a book with a narrow scope. Indeed I would have been happy with just a book on Rhodesia, and had enough material on hand to produce a full supplement were I permitted to. Sadly, Osprey insisted on a multi-conflict book and in particular wanted us to shoehorn in that "Operation Certain Death" scenario as a tie in to a recent "Raid Series" release. We were also working under a pretty harsh deadline. Finally, Osprey's editing was shockingly bad.....meaning (and this came as a suprise to me) almost non-existant.

I regret that you found the title lacking.

I hope this does not come across too much like excuse making. It's just the reasons I (as someone very familiar with the details) feel are why Bush Wars is a bit uneven in it's quality. I kick myself for not putting my foot down on a few things and for not taking as much interest in the sections that I was not actually doing the writing on. It certainly taught me a few lessons. The foremost of these is that I will never again enter into a writing project in which I am not the lone author. (indeed this is the case with my upcoming stand-alone set of 19th Century Colonial Rules, "To the Last Cartridge", which should be on the shelf by the Fall)

TR

*-Yes yes... now those "trenchie haters" who have the discipline to do a little research can now put a real world name and face to the object of their distain. But I've never actively tried to hide my identity. What would that acomplish anyway?

Huh, hoh...

Hope I didn't offend you with my criticisms of the book, but like I said, my only critics are regarding the Portuguese Wars and I probably criticized even that section a bit too harshly because I was really looking forward to it so much and just felt really disappointed after I read it.

Anyways, I really appreciate you taking the time to come here and explain why things were made the way that they were, working with a giant such as Osprey and for such a small company like AA, it must not have been easy to contradict them on editorial decisions such as those.

Best of luck for your new project even if 19th century conflicts really aren't my historical cup of tea.

A shame this thread largely degenerated into 40k fanwank arguments.

Some great rulesets I've played:
Recent:
Kings of War (surprised this one only got Elif mentioning it - reinvigorated my interest in fantasy after years of Herohammer put me off)
X-Wing

Not-so-recent:
Necromunda (core game - not so much with Outlanders added)
Blood Bowl

Other things I hear great things about system-wise but haven't played yet:
WarmaHordes
Saga
Song of Blades and Heroes
Dead Zone
Dread Ball

Huh, hoh...

Hope I didn't offend you with my criticisms of the book, but like I said, my only critics are regarding the Portuguese Wars and I probably criticized even that section a bit too harshly because I was really looking forward to it so much and just felt really disappointed after I read it.

LOL!
Not at all, my friend.
You were fine. Your criticisms were valid, and I fully recognize that Bush Wars is of uneven quality. Likewise, I have seen far harsher criticism in the past. My favorite was something that apeared on another forum soon after our publish date by someone who had a personal axe to grind with the author of the section in question. Apparently he was an accademic rival of Jose and made it a practice of "cyber-stalking" him. It was absolutely rabid in it's intensity!
Again, I apreciate feedback.

In any event, you learn to have a thick skin about such things when you write for public consumption.

working with a giant such as Osprey and for such a small company like AA, it must not have been easy to contradict them on editorial decisions such as those.

Heh.
That is certainly the truth! You almost got the impression that we were a bother to them, rather than a business partner and source of income. But, as I point out above, it did teach me some valuable lessons.

Best of luck for your new project even if 19th century conflicts really aren't my historical cup of tea.

Thanks. We are excited about this project. It includes some very inovative (if I may say so myself!) rules mechanics, is designed to apeal to a broad selection of gamers, and the market is in bad need of a good recently designed set of rules for the genre. If it's a comercial success, we have plans for a whole line of games using the core mechanics. Sorry. Shameless plug there!

TR

I'll still put Battletech up as a fantastic and easy rule set, along with the faster play version known as Alpha Strike.

Hail Ceasar is a solid game that uses the awesome Warmaster orders system to play. However, that very system can lead to some kooky results.

 Mattlov wrote:
I'll still put Battletech up as a fantastic and easy rule set, along with the faster play version known as Alpha Strike.

I'm totally with you on Alpha Strike, it's a great ruleset that captures the BT universe in a fast playing package, even if the points system isn't quite worked out yet.

However, I've never heard anyone call BT an "Easy rule set". Isn't that kind of like calling Tractics or Starfleet Battles a streamlined rule-lite system?

 Azazelx wrote:
A shame this thread largely degenerated into 40k fanwank arguments.

Some great rulesets I've played:
Recent:
Kings of War (surprised this one only got Elif mentioning it - reinvigorated my interest in fantasy after years of Herohammer put me off)
X-Wing

Not-so-recent:
Necromunda (core game - not so much with Outlanders added)
Blood Bowl

Other things I hear great things about system-wise but haven't played yet:
WarmaHordes
Saga
Song of Blades and Heroes
Dead Zone
Dread Ball

I think that you will like Deadzone - like Necromunda it has rules for an ongoing campaign, though it handles balance in a very different way. (You are limited to X number of points - and experienced characters cost more points than new characters. So, an experienced unit of hardened warriors will be considerably smaller than a unit of fresh green recruits.)

And Elif was not the only one to mention KoW....

Mantic is capturing a goodly amount of my gaming dollars these days....

The Auld Grump

So you did. In my defence I must have started writing that post before fully reading the last page - I think I started writing it during the fourth page of 40k arguments... perhaps I didn't refresh the thread.

No problem - and the more exposure that KoW gets the better. It is a very solid system, with a lot fewer loopholes and conflicting rules than WH contains.

But, my gods, the rules for Zap! in Basilean Legacy really change the face of the game - if you are willing to risk getting your spellcaster close to the enemy, you can do some damage. (I Fireballed a unit of trolls into oblivion the other day... sadly, my Lich King was killed by a unit of orcs the next round, while he was still doing his happy dance... 6" is a bloody short range.... )

The Auld Grump

Mymearan wrote:
Would love to hear some more detailed opinions on
*snip*
Dark Age

Darkage is a really fun skirmish level game that uses some interesting concepts. The rules are pretty tight too, there is none of this faffing around like you have with 40K

I currently maintain a tournament level army for the Forsaken faction and a pair of introductory level forces, one for Skaard and one for the Brood, both which i wish to expand on.
Darkage works around the action point system where by your troops have a set number of Action Points (AP) that then determines how many actions they can take per activation. Turns are done in a yougoigo style, but instead of one player doing everything before the other the players take it in turn to activate a unit/character and perform their actions.
AP are used to determine the number of actions, with each AP allowing the unit to move or attack or perform a special action. Units of troops have to stay within coherency and any that stray must spend their AP getting back within range of their unit before they can do anything else. Units with special abilities have them noted on the card and the rules can be found in the forces book, although once th new cards come out they will be printed on alla Warmachine style. Unts have a set minimal ans maximum size and some also have a limit on the number you can field per every 500/750/1000pts.
The intro sets are well balanced, the old ones had some issues but these where fixed with the new ones, and they contain a 180pt force long with all the cards for them. Bearing in mind that the tournament level forces are only 750pts these sets get you going pretty nicely. The rules are available free, along with all the unit cards, templates and special rules on the website.

All in all it is a pretty nice game.

I also second PP's rule sets. They are amazingly well written and i have never once had an issue with them unlike GW's rules.

 master of ordinance wrote:
snip

The Dark Age demo I saw at TempleCon seems to be in line with what MoO stated. A few friends of mine bought in big with just a few demos!

From what I've played, the easiest game to learn is Warmachine. It's rules are fairly straight forward and easy to use, there's nothing super fiddly about any of it. The dice mechanic is a weighted 2d6 system, so it's fairly easy for even a newbie to dice to get down with. The starter boxes are pretty much on the level with some on the high side (Cryx) and some on the low side (Trolls). If you want to be even more introductory to minis wargaming, then Heroclix is where it's at.

Infinity is solid but super fiddly and can be very hard to learn. Malifaux, with it's card mechanics and several layers of objectives, can also be very hard to learn, more so with alternating model activations.

Warhammer stuff uses only d6 but it switches quite a bit within in the confines of its own rules as to if you want high, low, 2d6, etc. There are table to memorize versus just "I have a 6 to hit you and you have a defense 13. I need a 7 on 2d6. Got it." It really is obtuse if you take a step back when looking at the BS and WS mechanic, let alone wounding and saves. And then get the joys of true line of sight. Infinity uses this, but it seems much less an issue there than in 40k for some reason. Can't put my finger on that.

So yea, if the person likes super heroes, give 'em Heroclix as their entry (low cost, no hobby) and if they want something meatier, I'd point them towards Warmachine as it's only a $50 buy in to at least play discounting hobby supplies needed which is the same for almost all wargames.

xxvaderxx wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
Warmachine/Hordes has been the best average to competitive ruleset since 2003, Though I also find Bolt Action to be simple and balanced, so it's better for casual play than the former.

I've also played a little bit of the new 40k Editions. I thinks it looks good so far.

It would be if everything did not boil down to meeting in the center dishing it out to see who get to kill the enemy "king" first.

That is an incredibly ignorant statement. Steamroller has been around for many years and is the default tournament structure, and they are constantly fiddling with the rules and scenarios.

HandofMars wrote:

That is an incredibly ignorant statement. Steamroller has been around for many years and is the default tournament structure, and they are constantly fiddling with the rules and scenarios.

And it's free, unlike other games who would choose to charge you for new missions.

 TheKbob wrote:

Infinity is solid but super fiddly and can be very hard to learn.

It's not that it's 'fiddly' though. Infinity has a beautiful, sublime and extremely elegant rules system. I find it a joy. Probably my favourite mechanics from a technical standpoint. I think they're simply beautiful.

I'll agree with you though, but with a caveat. What makes it tricky to learn at times isn't fiddly rules. Largely, It's the fact it's a translation of a Spanish rules set. The actual writing of the rules makes it seem a lot more complicated than it actually is, in my mind. And that's down to translation and 'undisciplined' or over flowery writing as well as issues from not being native English speakers. There is a lot 'more' writing than strictly neseccary, along with poor use of diagrams and some questionable layouts.

If it was less flowery and more technical and 'straight to business' , along with better layouts and diagrams. it would be a vast improvement. The issues though are illusory though, if you ask me. Whilst the issues may combine and make the game out to be more complicated than it actually is, once you get past the jargon, and how they write the rules, and get to the tabletop, and actually see the rules in action, I find that the issues tend to disappear.

As I said, from a technical standing, infinity is my favourite rules set.

For me at the moment

Battlegroup Kursk / Overlord / Fall of the Reich
Skirmish Sangin
X wing
Donnybrook

Deadnight wrote:
I'll agree with you though, but with a caveat. What makes it tricky to learn at times isn't fiddly rules. Largely, It's the fact it's a translation of a Spanish rules set. The actual writing of the rules makes it seem a lot more complicated than it actually is, in my mind. And that's down to translation and 'undisciplined' or over flowery writing as well as issues from not being native English speakers. There is a lot 'more' writing than strictly neseccary, along with poor use of diagrams and some questionable layouts.

If it was less flowery and more technical and 'straight to business' , along with better layouts and diagrams. it would be a vast improvement. The issues though are illusory though, if you ask me. Whilst the issues may combine and make the game out to be more complicated than it actually is, once you get past the jargon, and how they write the rules, and get to the tabletop, and actually see the rules in action, I find that the issues tend to disappear.

It's more complicated than that. The English editor (an Australian) has spoken about it. Corvus Belli retain final phrasing of everything, even the English translations. So while he may translate it really well, he sends his translations back to Corvus Belli, who then go and rewrite his translation to what they think it should say in English. So you can imagine, all sorts of problems come from this. Translate from Spanish to English by someone who knows both languages but is a native English speaker, then the English is rephrased by a native Spanish speaker.

Hopefully they've taken the criticism on board and are allowing him to properly translate it for N3.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Tamereth wrote:

Malifaux - lovely rule mechanics - every model seems to have special rules, combo building leads to some very OP crew's and some match up's are very unbalanced.

This also depends on your individual game targets. So a crew that is OP for one type of game will completely suck at another game type. Unless you build a crew that's built specifically to wipe the table of any opponent this will always be the case.

The choosing missions things alleviates a bit as well, as you can pick schemes which suit your crew best, and you don't need to choose a crew until you know your scenario and opponents master, allowing you to tweak things a bit on the fly.

That said, even though I'm a fairly new player in the tournament scene I do notice sometimes through games that I've got no counters to some pretty devastating combos but that's just as likely to be with me not knowing enough about my crew or the other crews, since I've been trying new combinations and still discovering tricks (like using Ophelia to pull another gremlin forward 8" to get them to the centre line of the first activation). I do have to say that even in the games where I've been whooped it's still been good fun as it still feels like I can do something (and still get to try for a few scheme points). So I'm losing by 1 or 2 points most of the time.

 Eilif wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:


We've been having alot of fun playing ancient-medieval historicals using Hail Caesar rules, which are worth checking out if you enjoy historical gaming.

I'd be very interested to hear your impressions of Hail Caesar. I've heard a few good things about it, but don't know much.

Its a very good ruleset. Rules seem very well thought out, things like missile fire are suitably powered for the "ancient - medieval" era. Special rules, used or not used at the players' discretion, are useful, realistic, and not over-powered. The system breaks your army down into divisions of 4 units. Each division has a commander, and the commnader issues orders to his units. Each order has a chance of succeeding, partially succeeding, or failing. When units suffer "wounds", you don't remove models individually, but the entire unit takes a check. Warlord Games has issued a couple Army List books, and between the two books, they have every army you could ever wanna play that I know of. Thre are also 2-3 campaign books out.

Don't have the time now for a thorough review, but it comes recommended by me. There's a thread in the "Historical Gaming" section where this game is discussed: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/586694.page

 jasper76 wrote:

 Eilif wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:


We've been having alot of fun playing ancient-medieval historicals using Hail Caesar rules, which are worth checking out if you enjoy historical gaming.

I'd be very interested to hear your impressions of Hail Caesar. I've heard a few good things about it, but don't know much.

Its a very good ruleset. Rules seem very well thought out, things like missile fire are suitably powered for the "ancient - medieval" era. Special rules, used or not used at the players' discretion, are useful, realistic, and not over-powered. The system breaks your army down into divisions of 4 units. Each division has a commander, and the commnader issues orders to his units. Each order has a chance of succeeding, partially succeeding, or failing. When units suffer "wounds", you don't remove models individually, but the entire unit takes a check. Warlord Games has issued a couple Army List books, and between the two books, they have every army you could ever wanna play that I know of. Thre are also 2-3 campaign books out.

Don't have the time now for a thorough review, but it comes recommended by me. There's a thread in the "Historical Gaming" section where this game is discussed: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/586694.page

If they have Byzantines, I'm sold.

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they have Byzantines, I'm sold.

Oh yeah....there are 2 Army List books: Biblical - Classical, and Late Antiquity - Early Medieval . The second book(Late Antiquity - Early Medieval) has four Byzantine army lists:

Early Byzantine
Thematic Byzantine
Tagmatic Byzantine
Comnenian Byzantine

 jasper76 wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
If they have Byzantines, I'm sold.

Oh yeah....there are 2 Army List books: Biblical - Classical, and Late Antiquity - Early Medieval . The second book(Late Antiquity - Early Medieval) has four Byzantine army lists:

Early Byzantine
Thematic Byzantine
Tagmatic Byzantine
Comnenian Byzantine

That's....just beautiful.

I don't even know where I'd begin. Themes....Comnenian dynasty action....(passes out.)