lord_blackfang wrote:

 kodos wrote:
My problem with the Firefight Alpha rules was that they just did them because some people were screaming for an alternative 40k size ruleset which is the same like current 40k (which WP already is because current 40k is way too big now for its rules)

If Firefight (& WP) would be more like Starship Troopes and less like 40k this would be a different story.

Reading the Warpath beta I definitely had the feeling that the author had never seen any rulesets other than Mantic's existing games and 40k. It is a crappy Frankenstein's monster stitched together from KoW, Warpath 1.0, Deadzone and 40k. No other influences. None.

Mantic Games
Like KoW, there will be a $50 no miniatures option, a core pledge of $125 for books and an army - and at the end, just maybe there will be an ultimate tyrant equivalent

....how many models are needed for each game roughly.

Mantic Games
Firefight 10-50
Warpath 30-150

....how many models are needed for each game roughly.

Mantic Games
Firefight 10-50

 NTRabbit wrote:
That's how many per side, fyi, so two horde based armies - Plague f.ex - facing each other in a Warpath: Mass Battle game is going to be 300 models total on the table. Not a lot of room to breath, which is why we pushed back hard to ensure Fire Fight would happen, as promised ages ago.

 judgedoug wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

C'mon, Mantic. WMH got volume right, Starship Troopers got size right, Terminator got them both right. Rules systems aren't copyright-able. Just swipe Terminator's and move on. Even Kings of War has abstracted LOS, ffs.

 judgedoug wrote:
Stargrunt 2 should be the first thing anyone reads when they decide to write a ruleset. It's loaded with good design ideas and promotes internal balance, while including several layers of abstraction to speed up play without losing the desired granularity of sci fi ground firefights.

 Azazelx wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
C'mon, Mantic. WMH got volume right, Starship Troopers got size right, Terminator got them both right. Rules systems aren't copyright-able. Just swipe Terminator's and move on. Even Kings of War has abstracted LOS, ffs.

It took second edition (which is really the third) for KoW to gain abstracted LOS, though...

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
Stargrunt 2 should be the first thing anyone reads when they decide to write a ruleset. It's loaded with good design ideas and promotes internal balance, while including several layers of abstraction to speed up play without losing the desired granularity of sci fi ground firefights.

I would add Tomorrow's War. I don't actually like any of the mechanics, but the book contains an absolutely fantastic discussion on the unique aspects of futuristic warfare that any game designer needs to consider.

Yesterday we kicked off our Warpath rules coverage with an article on Warpath: Firefight, and today I’m here to talk to you about Warpath itself.

Especially in recent years there are plenty of great sci-fi games on the market, and as such we decided that with Warpath we wanted to do something a little different, and not directly compete with those other games. Warpath was born out of the desire to create something aspirational and yet achievable. It’s that big exciting battle that you always built up your collection to play but rarely, if ever, actually played. Warpath makes that goal both affordable, and playable in just a few hours with abstracted rules and simple mechanics.



This sort of game isn’t for everyone of course, and I firmly believe that creating the Firefight rules was the right thing to do for those who want something a little more detailed. However who says we have to have just one set on rules? On with Warpath!

Warpath focuses on units rather than individuals, with small fire teams the base-level entity in the game. Essentially that means one statline for five figures rather than one for one, to improve the speed of play. There are still detailed choices to be made about the composition of your units, but these are restricted to the army-building stage so you don’t have to worry about them in the middle of a game. This squad focus does two things.

Firstly it focuses the player’s attention on overall strategy and tactical choice – the game is a lot more about which units to put where, which targets to shoot at which time, when to combine fire, when to split fire, and so on. It is less about the impact of each individual soldier, and takes more of a general’s view of the battlefield as opposed to a sergeant’s. This tactical decision making is reflected in the mechanics – suppression, charge reactions, the order of activations and Warpath’s Orders system are all designed to maximise tactical choice without adding complexity to the rules. Obvious choices are the bane of all games – it’s really important that the outcome of the game is directly influenced by player decisions to make those decisions feel meaningful.

Secondly, it means that the game can be more fast and dynamic, and that players can smoothly expand to bigger and bigger games without the game becoming clunky. We had the same goal with Kings of War, and we have successfully run 16,000 point games at our Open Days in just a few hours. We want to do similar things with Warpath, and recreate some truly epic battles.
15



Before anyone gets intimidated by the size of the game, Warpath is designed to work with forces of just 30-40 figures – the mechanics will work just as well at that size, and of course your games will be even quicker. The army selection mechanics are not fully developed yet, but we are planning that “standard” tournament-sized games will be in the 50-60 model region for elite armies like the Enforcers, with 100-150 models for horde armies such as the Plague.

Both Warpath and Firefight are perfectly valid games depending on your personal choice. Some people will only play one, and will play Firefight even on an apocalyptic scale for the cinematic experience, and others will prefer Warpath even at the smallest size for a more fast-paced strategic game. Others will start with Firefight for smaller games, and build up to Warpath for the bigger games. Whichever you prefer, I urge you to at least give both games a try – you might surprise yourself!

Look out for an updated version of the alpha rules coming soon, with all of the feedback from the community Alpha test implemented. These rules will stay in an alpha state while the alterations are tested, and we will be taking on feedback throughout the Kickstarter. Once we have everyone’s comments, we will solidify the game and go to an open beta, with plenty of time to get all of the testing done to fully balance the forces. We want to make Warpath the Kings of War of the sci-fi world, and it’s worth putting in the time to do it.

We look forward to your comments!

Remember, the Kickstarter goes live at 1:30pm BST on Monday 21st September.

overtyrant wrote:
Still think it's a mistake to split Warpath into two rulebooks and two sets of rules. They need to make a decision on one set and stick with it

WARPATH: YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
SEPTEMBER 18, 2015 CHRIS KICKSTARTER, MANTIC GAMES, WARPATH 0
Earlier in the week we asked for your Warpath Kickstarter Questions. You’ll find our answers below!



Devilmixer

Q1) how long will this KS last, 30days?

A1) It will be shorter, Monday 21st September until Sunday 11th October.

Q2) will some of the model funded in this KS get rules in DZ??

A1) Definitely, I wouldn’t expect any of the big vehicles to make it across, but certainly any new units or heroes.

Q3) are all the factions from DZ planned for WP?

A3) Where we go wholly depends on where the community can take us, we can only do as much as the funding we get. We will be starting with the Enforcers, Forge Fathers and Veer-myn, as they have the most miniatures available to form up armies with, and we’ll aim to cap them off with vehicles, and a new unit or two. From there, it’s up to the community – we’re seeing a lot of support for Plague, Corporation and Asterians, and if we get far enough we’ll be able to tackle them.

Q4) are there plans for more battlezones in this KS?

A4) There isn’t, no. Would this be something you’d like to see?

Nicholas

Q1) What TIME will the Kickstarter launch?

A1) 1:30pm British Summer Time.

Lord_blackfang

Q1) Will Plague be a main faction?

A1) Yes – they are one of the greatest threats to the GCPS as we know it, but don’t put it past us to beat them. The Enforcers, Forge Fathers and in particularly the Asterians are very experienced in fighting them.

Tony Hopkins

Q1) Will there be rules for the big gun turret from the Battlezones Defence Line sprues?

A1) We can certainly add some, if people want to see them added.

Q2) Will there be rules for scaling buildings and taking the high ground?

A2) We think this is too complicated for people would play, however in the advanced rules there are additional mechanics for how to interact with buildings. Firefight will almost certainly have it. For taking the high ground, that’s covered by the Height element in the line of sight rules.

Nic Evans

Q1) Will both these rulesets be included in the rulebook?

A1) Both rulesets will be included in the pledge levels, as two separate books.

Q2) are you going to honor the vouchers for the warpath rulebook that you gave out with warpath army boxes a few years ago? (i’ve been saving mine just in case.)

A2) Yep, customers who have a voucher will be able to go in store when it’s available and get it. There’s no way to make them apply to the Kickstarter sorry.

Drew Williams

Q1) Will warpath have a separate rulebook to firefight? or will the game (and hopefully some of the stats & rules)be folded into the one rulebook.

A1) There will be two separate rulebooks.

Q2) there has been previous rumours concerning a marine vs z’zor starter set, any news on this?

A2) This was an idea we had for a future edition of Deadzone.

Q3) Essentially with warzone we would be getting miniatures that can function in 3 different games (deadzone (if rules are included which I can only beg repeatedly for), warpath and firefight. What about rules that could be played over various miniature ranges? How does warpath scale up to ‘BIG’ battles? Would mantic consider producing a 10mm range?

A3) Warpath scales up quite neatly due to the system of building squads out of teams, we’ve played games with as few as 30 miniatures aside, and as many as 150 miniatures a side, and it stays rapid, it’s very enjoyable. It’ll go bigger than that quite comfortably. Regarding a 10mm range – that’s very interesting! We’ll have to see. Regarding a miniatures line, well, if there’s every enough demand for something, we generally do it!

Sam

Q1) Could we please have a 6 x 4 mat like the Deadzone 2 x 2 ones?

A1) Interesting! I’ll have to set the studio boffins off to investigate that one. If you’re wanting a decent playing surface though, I recommend the Tablescape Secret Weapon plastic boards!

Lee

Q1) Will we see at least some sort of presence from the “expanded” races like the cyrstallans, Sphyr, etc? Understandably they may not be separate armies, but will they have unit options?

A1) In the rules, it is likely that there will be unit options to represent some of the more obscure races in the Warpath universe. There are no plans for new miniatures for these races during this Kickstarter however.
Jirka

Referring to the Warpath Rules and the Warpath: Firefight Rules –

Q1) So this still uses same scale as firefight?

A1) Yes, both games use the same range of 28mm miniatures.

Sam

Q1) Are we going to have an open beta?

A1) Yep!

 DaveC wrote:
Warpath KS Q&A

 Baragash wrote:

overtyrant wrote:
Still think it's a mistake to split Warpath into two rulebooks and two sets of rules. They need to make a decision on one set and stick with it

I already lost that argument (largely because it took place and ML was hired before I knew about it).

I won the Break track argument though, so it wasn't all doom & gloom Got to write up a few other biggies over the weekend...............

 Baragash wrote:

overtyrant wrote:
Still think it's a mistake to split Warpath into two rulebooks and two sets of rules. They need to make a decision on one set and stick with it

I already lost that argument (largely because it took place and ML was hired before I knew about it).

chris on September 18, 2015 at 1:53 pm
Hey Patrick! We will not be tackling the Marauders in this Kickstarter.