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Just wondering if anyone on dakka plays Urban War. I have the rule book and a starter box of Viridians and Syntha and plan on trying it out pretty soon, just have to get the models painted up. Just wanted to get some take on how the game plays and if people on here like it or not, thanks.

I own the ruleset and several small forces, but have never played. The ruleset seems pretty cool, and there is a small group about a half hour away, but my schedule has never sinked up. So that will be the real challenge for you, finding opponents. My tip: buy 2 armies....

If the game is fun and flows smoothly the finding a group won't be a problem. There are about about 4-8 of us that get together about every other week and play something or work on miniatures. If the game goes good I plan on buying one of each starter box so I can demo it to everyone that I game with. I might not go that far and just get 4 different starters, that way I don't invest as much and still will get a large variety to use.

I just don't like the miniatures.

Well, not all of them, but a majority of the line I really don't like.

The VASA troops look good as more generic troops, but overall the artistic design of the game is all over the place, and weirdly chunky.

I think that's one of the major reasons why it didn't take off.

The asthetic is kind of subjective. One game group might not think much of it, others might. I like most of the minis they've released. They actually go back and resculpt any minis that they feel might be subpar. I think it's bigger than taste, though. I think it's more about the size of the company and potentially associations some of the employees might have had witht heir previous companies that they've had to overcome....

That too. Void was a game that was really poorly handled.

It also doesn't help I don't like the style of the lead artist, even though he's common in the industry. He tended to add way too much scrawling, meandering detail to his art. This didn't match well with the miniatures themselves.

It just seemed like they never sorted out how they wanted the art design of the game to be.

That's actually one of the most important things you can do help guarantee success, making sure all your artwork is coherent.

For example, both GW and Privateer Press, the two big guys in the industry, have very coherent art styles. The art all looks similar, and the miniatures match the artwork both in design and color palette. If you see a piece of GW art it's very hard to mistake it for anything else, same for Privateer.

One of the biggest mistakes an art director can make is commissioning art based on how he likes the artists, and not making sure that it all meshes together.

UW, on the other hand, you see images of the roman style faction with all this weird linework, then the miniatures don't even match that.

I like the miniatures. Never played the game but managed to buy some and I´m still eyeing the Viridian as IG count as.

M.

I collect the Mini's but do not play (no other players in the area) but the Models are very well done and I like the sculpts.

If there were other players... I'd be playin'.

im not sure which one to try out: urban war or metropolis. anyone play both?

First, this thread was almost a year old. Why bring it out? Second, Urban War is the skirmish game and Metropolis is the full army version. If you have enough figures for Metropolis, you can field 2 or 3 games of Urban War instead.

wildger wrote:First, this thread was almost a year old. Why bring it out?

because its about urban war. are the rules to the two games identical?

astrolux444 wrote:

wildger wrote:First, this thread was almost a year old. Why bring it out?

because its about urban war. are the rules to the two games identical?

Thread necromancy is frowned upon.

astrolux444 wrote:are the rules to the two games identical?

Not quite. They use the same stats and point values, but the miniatures interact differently. In UW you alternate activating individual minis and depending on a minis caliber it can accomplish more than a similar unit of lesser caliber. In Metro, you alternate squad activation and caliber becomes less of a factor as it's simply a modifier for a particular unit. Here's my suggestion:

Get UW, build a 300 point army. If you like it, expand to 500. Then, buy a CLAU and get the CLAU team ruleset. Still like? By Metro and break your UW minis in to their correspondent squad grouping and purchase as needed to get you to 1000 points. Expand accordingly.

Love the models. I recently found two starters on ebay for cheap cheap. Finding opponents will be much harder.

Meh, if you have the minis for 2 forces, all you need now is a warm body. I've found it easiest to get if you: a) host and b) feed them. Let this go on the record, by the way, if I'm getting a free meal I'll play just about any game you want me to.

The Viridian sniper models are sweet.

The game not so much...

We played it for about three weeks when it first came out and then it died faster than a fish out of water.

CT GAMER wrote:The Viridian sniper models are sweet.

The game not so much...

We played it for about three weeks when it first came out and then it died faster than a fish out of water.

What problems did you have with the game that caused interest to die so fast?

The following is my opinion and experience with Urban War.

Urban War is a very unique game. It allows you to live through all the actions or "adventure" of each figures in your army. The down side is that the entire game flow is blogged down by numerous command checks. Thus, the game mechanic starts to break down at more than 400 points. Urban Mammoth tries to compensate with introduction of CLAU. Unfortunately, it simply make the game flow more crumblesome. Even the hard core fans are not able to demonstrate with more than one on each side. There is also the revised rules for massive battle in Metropolis. It is simply a waste of your money and time because you will not find anyone elsewhere to play with you.

The game also has a rather steep learning curve. No matter how you look at it, it is not something that you can learn to play in 10 to 15 minutes or after reading the rulebook once. It is usually play on a 4x4 table but needs as many terrain pieces as possible for a better and balanced game. Usually, a standard size should have 12 pieces or more.

The quality of the sculpture is a hit or miss. There is no consistency even within the same faction. By today's standard, many show their ages. The miniature is also expensive to buy. I only get mine if there is a discount or from ebay.

The one advantage of playing UW is that there is not going to be any new units or factions so your miniatures will remain useful as from the start. With the introduction of "Warheads" and the about to come 6 mm figures, I am quite confident that UW will remain status quo for a very long time.

Finally, for those who don't know, "Warheads" are the new cartoon like miniatures introduced by Urban Mammoth. It simply gives all the die hard fans for Urban War a hard kick in their nuts after they have been waiting for more than a year for something new to come out for their beloved game.