Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Having not seen the rules due to the stupid bow exclusivity deal, I can't really comment on the mechanics.

However the multi basing has now pretty much killed my enthusiasm for the game. It just seems like an excuse to have lots of figures on the table that dont really do anything.

Imagine if gw said that from now on you had to have three models on a 40mm base instead of one, the rules stay the same but the battles are now much more epic.

 edlowe wrote:
It just seems like an excuse to have lots of figures on the table that dont really do anything.

And too many of them for a regular 4x6 table to boot. The core philosophy behind these rules is wrong, and it needs changing, but withhout throwing out the good parts they got anyway. As it stands, if I was presented with the current rules and asked what army I'd like to buy, my answer would be "Shaltari", and I'd send my money to Hawk.

privateer4hire wrote:

Are you kidding about custom d8s or was that just hyperbole?

The command dice in the alpha are listed as being d8s with custom faces

Multibasing can be an advantage if done right.

One army with 20 Space Marines all on single base and each one count as single team.
The other army are Tyranids, with 100 gaunts, 5 per team on multibases.
Now both armys have 20 bases/teams and can act with the same speed

 NTRabbit wrote:

 edlowe wrote:
It just seems like an excuse to have lots of figures on the table that dont really do anything.

And too many of them for a regular 4x6 table to boot. The core philosophy behind these rules is wrong, and it needs changing, but withhout throwing out the good parts they got anyway. As it stands, if I was presented with the current rules and asked what army I'd like to buy, my answer would be "Shaltari", and I'd send my money to Hawk.

privateer4hire wrote:

Are you kidding about custom d8s or was that just hyperbole?

The command dice in the alpha are listed as being d8s with custom faces

They should stick with that, possibly expand special dice use.
It's worked very well for X-Wing and Imperial Assault.

X-wing has a single, consistent mechanic, though. What Mantic is doing is like if X-wing had the attack dice it has now, but Actions required a 3+ roll on a normal D6.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
X-wing has a single, consistent mechanic, though. What Mantic is doing is like if X-wing had the attack dice it has now, but Actions required a 3+ roll on a normal D6.

Color coded dice ala the new Terminator system might help with this.
That way the game would have internal consistency (e.g., I use blue dice only for morale or Enforcers always use red dice or get double dice or whatever).
Plus Mantic could make additional sales from specialized dice packs, pre-packaged for gaming convenience.
Fantasy Flight always includes almost enough dice to be convenient (you can still play but you have to re-roll dice in many situations) in their starter games.
They then make additional money from people buying an extra starter and/or the separate dice packs.
Win-win for the company.

 kodos wrote:
Multibasing can be an advantage if done right.

One army with 20 Space Marines all on single base and each one count as single team.
The other army are Tyranids, with 100 gaunts, 5 per team on multibases.
Now both armys have 20 bases/teams and can act with the same speed

Doesn't make sense. Than I'd prefer they'd change the fluff so that 1 gaunt = 1 Space Marines, if speed is such an issue.

Miniatures games should provide rules to play with the miniatures I paint. If I have to abstract away from the lovingly painted miniatures I poured my hobby time into, I may as well go all-out wooden cubes or risk-style abstract counters. Defeats the point of playing with miniatures, if you're not playing with the miniatures.

Wonderwolf wrote:
Miniatures games should provide rules to play with the miniatures I paint.

Firstly, stop stealing my material.

Secondly, not everyone has the same approach as you, some people may prioritise play over painting. Heck, you're not even convinced balance is necessary for a game.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
Miniatures games should provide rules to play with the miniatures I paint.

Firstly, stop stealing my material.

Secondly, not everyone has the same approach as you, some people may prioritise play over painting. Heck, you're not even convinced balance is necessary for a game.

I am not convinced that balance is the be-all and end-all of a game. But it's probably in the top 10 of things to consider (though probably not in the top 5).

That said, I'm obviously arguing from my own personal bias and preference. I may end up not playing Warpath if it doesn't deliver what I want from the game, but I'd be much happier if it did and I could throw some cash at Mantic.

Well, then it's a good job these rules are in the alpha stage and Mantic have a track record of listening and changing based on player feedback.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
Miniatures games should provide rules to play with the miniatures I paint.

Firstly, stop stealing my material.

Secondly, not everyone has the same approach as you, some people may prioritise play over painting. Heck, you're not even convinced balance is necessary for a game.

I am not convinced that balance is the be-all and end-all of a game. But it's probably in the top 10 of things to consider (though probably not in the top 5).

That said, I'm obviously arguing from my own personal bias and preference. I may end up not playing Warpath if it doesn't deliver what I want from the game, but I'd be much happier if it did and I could throw some cash at Mantic.

Balance isn't important...?

Where have I read that before...in reference to 40K...

Hmmm...

Anyway, to echo some other sentiments out there, a lot of what we're being 'told' looks like it isn't adding anything other than unnecessary complexity for...some reason?

Still, I will of course hold final judgement until the final rules are released - but I was really hoping that Warpath would be a good replacement for 40K.

I been watching one of the videos from the open day with Ronnie discussing the warpath alpha. When asked about multi basing he states that although it is not nessicary he does consider it the best way to play the game. He compares it to his own dwarf army for kow, when he started it he had all his figures on single bases but has now moved to unit basing due to it being the better solution for the game. He believes that once people get used to warpaths rules people will be converted to basing their units in this way.

Another example given was to leave the comand figure for the unit on a removable base so that when a unit enters a building you place the command figure on the building removing the other models. In effect the building becomes the unit with the command unit representing this. I imagine this is to get round the inherent problems of placing the multi bases in the terrain.

I just hope mantic dial back the abstraction in the rules and throw some grit into the system. A good example would be the difference between epic 40k and epic armageddon. Epic 40k was a bit of a mess due to using a firepower table similar to bfg. Epic armageddon brought back the importance of individal models and their particular weapons and abilities and was a much better game for it. Imho.

I am not sure where I stand on multibasing for warpath, dont love or hate the idea. I really like Multibasing in flames of war for example and having each unit as a diorama is cool but not sure I want it in a 28mm sci fi game. That said I am also of the opinion that mutli basing works best at smaller scales and that any sci fi game in 28mm over 50 or so models is going to be unwieldy.

Also I kinda want causality removal to be a thing in Sci Fi games and I prefer you to be able to enter buildings and use them tactically. The command figure representing the whole unit inside a building is the exact problem people are having at the moment though. If a unit can be represented by just the commander it makes the rest of the unit purely decorative and the game would play the same way with just the commander constantly representing the unit.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Well, then it's a good job these rules are in the alpha stage and Mantic have a track record of listening and changing based on player feedback.

Having raised every issue that people have with multibasing right from the very start, before the rules were written, after they were written and now they've been publicly released, every answer I've seen from Mantic or the Pathfinders says that feedback on the multibasing is not welcome. It's how their game is going to be played, regardless of how many players it turns off.

 Daedleh wrote:
It's how their game is going to be played

Or not played, as the case may be...

Played my first game of Warpath today. Ran really fast, the terrain mechanics are extremely elegently abstracted. Suppression actually matters. Overwatch seems like it will actually be useful.

You guys are being really silly by overreacting to something you haven't even read yet. Multibasing is not even close to being required. You The positions of the other models in the squad do matter for shooting and assault. You can just place the hubs down and forget about the rest of the teams.

Measurement is from the hub to any model in the target unit. Cover is based on half of the models being in cover. The other models still matter!

 Alpharius wrote:


Balance isn't important...?

Where have I read that before...in reference to 40K...

I guess the big difference is that GW is still in the business of making models that look good, even in the rules are questionably balanced.

Just read a bunch of feedback on Mantic's forums.
Their admin states WP 3.0 is NOT meant to be just a direct 40k alternative in terms of scale and scope so that's helpful in understanding design vision.

In case you'd like to read some of the discussions, there are:
https://manticforum.com/forum/warpath/warpath-rules-discussion/228601-warpath-alpha-feedback-thread

More I think on it, I'm thinking they should get rid of the d6s altogether. The bold approach they're going with makes it sound like the specialty d8s they want to use could be expanded upon.

One of the big grievances 40k players have is how d6 doesn't let you represent a Space Marine versus a normal guy with a pistol. Having a d8 (or more) spread---especially one that uses special symbols ala X-Wing and the FFG Star Wars RPG---could really revolutionize how sci-fi battles are fought on the tabletop.

privateer4hire wrote:
The bold approach they're going with makes it sound like the specialty d8s they want to use could be expanded upon.

Only if "bold" is a synonym for "stupid".

Ordinary D6s are always going to be the most convenient form of dice, because they are easily found in bulk and your customers probably already have a ton. If they are going to move away from D6s, D10s would be the second-best option. They are also available in bulk, although not quite as readily as D6s, and the math is easy for people to wrap their heads around since we already use a base 10 counting system. D20s are also readily available thanks to D&D, but they are naturally bulkier, more expensive and don't land as well as dice with a smaller number of sides.

Custom D8s are just an astoundingly bad idea. Practically the only reason to do it is to sucker people into buying their dice exclusively from you, instead of just buying a bagful of Chessex D6s or D10s.

Thing is, sounds like Mantic want to break away from the conventional this time. If you are buying their miniatures, chances are the store you're getting them from will have special dice, too.

Add to that the revenue they could bring in-house for selling their own proprietary dice and this could really go places.

edlowe wrote:Having not seen the rules due to the stupid bow exclusivity deal, I can't really comment on the mechanics.

However the multi basing has now pretty much killed my enthusiasm for the game. It just seems like an excuse to have lots of figures on the table that dont really do anything.

Imagine if gw said that from now on you had to have three models on a 40mm base instead of one, the rules stay the same but the battles are now much more epic.

This is something they do. WYSIWYG isn't as strictly enforced because of abstraction. KOW doesn't enforce it either. Multi-basing isn't enforced in the rules. They have a small blurb about movement trays but that's all I read that from the rules on that subject of multi-basing and they just mention that its easier for movement. I'd see the enforcers in particular may not want to just becuase you have so few models by comparison to say a plague army.

NTRabbit wrote:

 edlowe wrote:
It just seems like an excuse to have lots of figures on the table that dont really do anything.

And too many of them for a regular 4x6 table to boot. The core philosophy behind these rules is wrong, and it needs changing, but withhout throwing out the good parts they got anyway. As it stands, if I was presented with the current rules and asked what army I'd like to buy, my answer would be "Shaltari", and I'd send my money to Hawk.

privateer4hire wrote:

Are you kidding about custom d8s or was that just hyperbole?

The command dice in the alpha are listed as being d8s with custom faces

The core philosophy is that you should be able to scale up and put a couple tables together and duke it out with a larger force IF you so choose. Nobody is forcing you to play gigantic games. Like KOW you have that option without it taking forever.

You can use d8s without custom faces but I agree that a D6 solution would be preferable.

lord_blackfang wrote:X-wing has a single, consistent mechanic, though. What Mantic is doing is like if X-wing had the attack dice it has now, but Actions required a 3+ roll on a normal D6.

1 type of dice is preferable for me as well.

carlos13th wrote:I am not sure where I stand on multibasing for warpath, dont love or hate the idea. I really like Multibasing in flames of war for example and having each unit as a diorama is cool but not sure I want it in a 28mm sci fi game. That said I am also of the opinion that mutli basing works best at smaller scales and that any sci fi game in 28mm over 50 or so models is going to be unwieldy.

Also I kinda want causality removal to be a thing in Sci Fi games and I prefer you to be able to enter buildings and use them tactically. The command figure representing the whole unit inside a building is the exact problem people are having at the moment though. If a unit can be represented by just the commander it makes the rest of the unit purely decorative and the game would play the same way with just the commander constantly representing the unit.

Which part of the building section made you think they weren't tactical? How is a command fig on top of a building any better than in DZC where you have units "inside" a building but rest them on top.if you don't like it don't multibase.

Daedleh wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Well, then it's a good job these rules are in the alpha stage and Mantic have a track record of listening and changing based on player feedback.

Having raised every issue that people have with multibasing right from the very start, before the rules were written, after they were written and now they've been publicly released, every answer I've seen from Mantic or the Pathfinders says that feedback on the multibasing is not welcome. It's how their game is going to be played, regardless of how many players it turns off.

I'd honestly like a Quote from the rulebook stating that multi-basing is mandatory or even mentioned. Again don't multibase if you don't want to.

MasterSlowPoke wrote:Played my first game of Warpath today. Ran really fast, the terrain mechanics are extremely elegently abstracted. Suppression actually matters. Overwatch seems like it will actually be useful.

You guys are being really silly by overreacting to something you haven't even read yet. Multibasing is not even close to being required. You The positions of the other models in the squad do matter for shooting and assault. You can just place the hubs down and forget about the rest of the teams.

Measurement is from the hub to any model in the target unit. Cover is based on half of the models being in cover. The other models still matter!

Overwatch was the one thing I personally wanted to see brought over from DZ. How was the Charge Reaction in play? I can't wait to play a game but life conspires against me

Finally I'd like to point out the sizes of the armies so we can better compare them to rulesets that are already released. because it too hasn't been mentioned.
Enforcers (Tough shooty army)
24 infantry
6 heavy infantry
1 walker

Plague (horde army)
70 infantry (30 of which are zombies)
6 heavy infantry
2 walkers

What surprises me about the plague army is that there are so few 2a's. I would probably have more if I was up against enforcers.

So are those numbers close to other standard sized armies in other games?(Warzone,ME and 40k) are the only ones I can think of. If you're on the fence based solely on the, in my opinion, overly inflated multi-basing issue I'd give it a test with whatever you happen to have on hand. see if the team's thing is an actual deal breaker or if it's something you like etc. I get the sense that this ruleset was designed with a more modern firefight in mind. Less killing more pinning etc.

 NobodyXY wrote:

The core philosophy is that you should be able to scale up and put a couple tables together and duke it out with a larger force IF you so choose. Nobody is forcing you to play gigantic games. Like KOW you have that option without it taking forever.

Except the problem is that instead of being a game designed for the company level that scales up well, this is a game designed for the mass battle level that doesn't scale down particularly well. It's a huge problem if they ever want any critical mass of people to play the game.

 NTRabbit wrote:

 NobodyXY wrote:

The core philosophy is that you should be able to scale up and put a couple tables together and duke it out with a larger force IF you so choose. Nobody is forcing you to play gigantic games. Like KOW you have that option without it taking forever.

Except the problem is that instead of being a game designed for the company level that scales up well, this is a game designed for the mass battle level that doesn't scale down particularly well. It's a huge problem if they ever want any critical mass of people to play the game.

How far do you want it to scale down? As far as I can see the test armies seem to be at a reasonable model count for a 6x4. It's less a company action and closer to each army having one or two platoons. What model count in your opinion should it have? I see few problems that smaller scale games would face. I imagine doing smaller scale games on a standard board setup would be over pretty quickly. But add a dozen or so terrain pieces that units may enter/exit, shoot from/shoot into etc. gives it a much more building to building battle feel which is something I haven't seen a lot of. With single models being the smallest piece of your army scaling down would be easier but would make scaling up a choir.

 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
You guys are being really silly by overreacting to something you haven't even read yet. Multibasing is not even close to being required. (...) The other models still matter!

 NobodyXY wrote:
I'd honestly like a Quote from the rulebook stating that multi-basing is mandatory or even mentioned. Again don't multibase if you don't want to.

We all understand that multibasing isn't literally required in the rules.

But it's like your town saying "Sure you can park on this street, but first you need to get a permit from this building between the hours of 11 and 2 on a Tuesday, and then once you park there you still have to feed the parking meter every half hour". It's legal but it's discouraged.

Individually basing your models is fine and legal but it's clearly not how the game is intended to be played. The rules are set up to make the game run fast and smooth, but keeping track of team coherency within units is the opposite of smooth, especially when the individual models you're moving around are almost meaningless anyway. Furthermore, the way weapon power is worked out is by team as well, with only a loose link to what your models are armed with or how many there are. Having the individual models floating around makes that more difficult because you have to first visually figure out who is on what team, then remember what that team's stats are while ignoring the visual cues of what your individual models have. Again, the way the weapon rules are intended to work it's much faster and easier to multibase, and having individual models actually makes it counter-intuitive.

Anyway, I'll stop beating a dead horse. Multibasing isn't even a bad thing, I'm sure it would play better in a big game. It's just that I personally would not want to get involved in another 28mm game that more or less required play at such a huge scale - I'll stick with Epic: Armageddon and DzC for multibased mass battle games. But understand that while we know multibasing is not required, it's highly encouraged by the rules. I think Mantic should be more up front about that, but I suppose they're afraid of scaring off more players.

 NobodyXY wrote:
With single models being the smallest piece of your army scaling down would be easier but would make scaling up a choir.

That's why, after we argued bitterly when this all came up last year, Mantic promised us two distinct rule sets - an individually based company sized rule set, and a multibased/movement tool based mass battle rule set.

Instead, what they've done is ignore it, and give us just the mass battle rule set they had been failing to push with some hand waving that it's totally fine for small scale battles and not multibasing - when reading the rules shows that trying to do that bucks badly against the way the rules have been designed. And yes, I have read the rules, I think I was quite literally the first backstager to download and read them.

If they want to keep pushing the mass battle thing then fine, but unless they do what we asked for and release a companion rule set designed from the core up to work as a single based company game, Warpath is going to be DOA with not remotely enough people willing to convert - especially when there are successful and well designed mass battle games in a proper scale out there already.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Multibasing can be an advantage if done right.

One army with 20 Space Marines all on single base and each one count as single team.
The other army are Tyranids, with 100 gaunts, 5 per team on multibases.
Now both armys have 20 bases/teams and can act with the same speed

Doesn't make sense. Than I'd prefer they'd change the fluff so that 1 gaunt = 1 Space Marines, if speed is such an issue.

Miniatures games should provide rules to play with the miniatures I paint. If I have to abstract away from the lovingly painted miniatures I poured my hobby time into, I may as well go all-out wooden cubes or risk-style abstract counters. Defeats the point of playing with miniatures, if you're not playing with the miniatures.

I miss the part were multibasing don't let you play with the miniatures you painted.
Or does 40k multibasing prevent you from playing your single based weapon teams?

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:

 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
You guys are being really silly by overreacting to something you haven't even read yet. Multibasing is not even close to being required. (...) The other models still matter!

 NobodyXY wrote:
I'd honestly like a Quote from the rulebook stating that multi-basing is mandatory or even mentioned. Again don't multibase if you don't want to.

We all understand that multibasing isn't literally required in the rules.

But it's like your town saying "Sure you can park on this street, but first you need to get a permit from this building between the hours of 11 and 2 on a Tuesday, and then once you park there you still have to feed the parking meter every half hour". It's legal but it's discouraged.

Except it's nothing like that, so there's that.

Nothing is stopping you from kitting out your models as WYSIWYG. You jump to conclusions regarding multibasing. It's more likely that mantic realizes that sci-fi folks are used to single bases and plan to use movement trays as a middle of the road approach. 5 man trays like the litko(?) ones with the bases to fit is what I imagine. After all deadzone and warpath are meant to be interchangeable. I see it this way WP lets you single, multibase or use a movement tray. Which ever way you pick their will be pro's and cons. Moving to just single bases would exclude multi-bases. Moving to only multi-bases exclude singular bases. Movement trays exclude none while having almost all the advantages of single and multi-bases. and fewer/less severe downsides.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NTRabbit wrote:

 NobodyXY wrote:
With single models being the smallest piece of your army scaling down would be easier but would make scaling up a choir.

That's why, after we argued bitterly when this all came up last year, Mantic promised us two distinct rule sets - an individually based company sized rule set, and a multibased/movement tool based mass battle rule set.

Instead, what they've done is ignore it, and give us just the mass battle rule set they had been failing to push with some hand waving that it's totally fine for small scale battles and not multibasing - when reading the rules shows that trying to do that bucks badly against the way the rules have been designed. And yes, I have read the rules, I think I was quite literally the first backstager to download and read them.

If they want to keep pushing the mass battle thing then fine, but unless they do what we asked for and release a companion rule set designed from the core up to work as a single based company game, Warpath is going to be DOA with not remotely enough people willing to convert - especially when there are successful and well designed mass battle games in a proper scale out there already.

Unfortunately I wasn't around for those discussions do you have a link? I'd very much like to read through the discussion. I've only seen you mention a dual ruleset and never heard anything about it before now. Was this before or after deadzone? The run up to WP 2.0? after? Appologies if this is common knowledge I haven't really payed much attention before DZ.

This was last year while Deadzone was shipping, and I'm pretty sure the thread is gone.

We were told Mantic were formulating the core concept for Warpath 3 in advance of the Alpha that was tentatively scheduled to be sent to all Deadzone backers with wave 3 (but obviously didn't happen), and that the prevailing attitude within the development group was very much to ditch Warpath 2 and return to the Warpath 1, Kings of War in space philosophy based around multibases and no unit removal. So a lot of people argued long and hard, and Ronnie announced twin simultaneous rule sets would be developed - a mass battle multibase set true to what the team wanted, and a smaller single base set to match what the majority of the community wanted. Same minis, some rules overlap, but fundamentally different cores.

Clearly that promise was dropped, because all we got was the multibase mass battle ruleset with no genuine capacity to scale down to the level most people wanted.

 NTRabbit wrote:

Clearly that promise was dropped, because all we got was the multibase mass battle ruleset with no genuine capacity to scale down to the level most people wanted.

I dont see the point, we already have a skirmish game, so why wouldn't´t they make a mass battle game? You could always play low-point games if the scale bothers you, but this is Mantic after all. Their focus have always been building big armies.