Gangs of Rome

[Antonio J Carrasco]

I've been following the buzz at GoR facebook page. The designers have been willing to clarify some points regarding the game system. The aspect that most controversy has generated is the randomization of the fighters stats. Adam has explained that randomization doesn't imply that the usefulness of a fighter will depend on how much money you spend, in order to get the "correct" -aka unstoppably powerful- cards. All fighters are potentially equally powerful... or weak, depending on how you desire to organize your band. If understood correctly their explanations, with each blister you get common, uncommon and rare "coins" -stats and special rules-; the rarest the "coin" the more expensive it gets, at deployment. However, rare "coins" give, more or less, similar kinds of advantages. You can field rare or uncommon coins if you want, but your band will be proportionally smaller, more elite, if you wish. Of course you can try other combinations, as deciding that quantity has a quality of its own and decide to go big in common coins, which will allow you to field more fighters.

A thing that I like how it sounds is the PIM, i.e. Personal Influence Marker. You win PIMs by defeating your opponent in the tabletop. Then, if you fight the same band again -as part of an ongoing campaign, for example- you will be able to cash out one of the PIMs you acquired by defeating it. The PIM will give you a small advantage over your opponent during the battle -having a horse, for instance.

[Coenus Scaldingus]

The figures look pretty nice (previously shown toga-wearers especially) and the buildings look fantastic.

As for the rules, I too am not convinced. Having just read through (I think) all the released information on Footsore's FB page, the vast majority focusses on the coins and random character profiles. The latter I kind of like; it creates an RPG element where rather than choosing optimal abilities creating the most powerful combination possible, you instead have some characters with their own backstory and pros and cons. The problem, of course, is that purchasing more seems the key to then get the optimised little warband instead. The coins (randomly distributed with not just dozens of abilities but scales of rarity too) just make it worse. But then, you can of course make your own tokens instead, pick the preferred items and play that way? Assuming the various items will be in the main rules, as details of what they do and how they work should be written somewhere. Mostly, I'm just curious to see how some collectible element will (or won't) work in the wargaming market. It certainly is an.. interesting decision.

[Antonio J Carrasco]

The figures look pretty nice (previously shown toga-wearers especially) and the buildings look fantastic.

As for the rules, I too am not convinced. Having just read through (I think) all the released information on Footsore's FB page, the vast majority focusses on the coins and random character profiles. The latter I kind of like; it creates an RPG element where rather than choosing optimal abilities creating the most powerful combination possible, you instead have some characters with their own backstory and pros and cons. The problem, of course, is that purchasing more seems the key to then get the optimised little warband instead. The coins (randomly distributed with not just dozens of abilities but scales of rarity too) just make it worse. But then, you can of course make your own tokens instead, pick the preferred items and play that way? Assuming the various items will be in the main rules, as details of what they do and how they work should be written somewhere. Mostly, I'm just curious to see how some collectible element will (or won't) work in the wargaming market. It certainly is an.. interesting decision.

For what I understand it is not exactly that you get to optimise your warband by buying dozens of figures. Each fighter comes with its own common, uncommon and rare coins, but, if understood correctly the explanations, rare coins are more or less equally powerful in its effects, so your rare coin would be compensated by my rare coin. As both of us would receive a rare with our purchase -they are not randomly spread, but you know that one will be included with your fighter- you actually won't have any incentive in purchasing several figures just for their coins. I think they explained how it works in one of the threads.

[Kommando_J]

I am very much split on this my thoughts are as follows:

- I totally get captain Bloods earlier comments (warlord leaping on the vbcw train springs to mind) in some cases once that idea is commercialised the creativity stops as generally everyone would prefer to just buy the minis than make their own.

- Very wary about the rule set, I prefer customisation over randomisation so may give it a miss.

- I appreciate how good/well sculpted the minis are but ultimately am not a fan of either separate head/hands so might also give the bulk of them a miss.

- Did not like how they handled criticism on facebook, one guy pointed out that their was no evidence of female fighters and asked if the game was strictly historical(the answer is no) others took issue with the randomisation/interpreted things like some have in this thread, while things did spiral out which was not their fault, their deleting of the question post and subsequent mocking (then subsequently deleted) post afterwards I felt was more than a bit childish especially as it pretty much blanket smeared the guys asking legit questions/levelling legit criticism as trolls.

[Coenus Scaldingus]

For what I understand it is not exactly that you get to optimise your warband by buying dozens of figures. Each fighter comes with its own common, uncommon and rare coins, but, if understood correctly the explanations, rare coins are more or less equally powerful in its effects, so your rare coin would be compensated by my rare coin. As both of us would receive a rare with our purchase -they are not randomly spread, but you know that one will be included with your fighter- you actually won't have any incentive in purchasing several figures just for their coins. I think they explained how it works in one of the threads.

Yes, I understood that the coins have points costs anyway and that it all supposedly balances out. However, a game with apparently hundreds of variations in gang members and dozens of 'coin' upgrades will simply have some combinations that are more potent than others, thus meaning that more purchases will result in a potentially better force.
In addition, there are limits concerning the number and types of common, uncommon and rare coins you can use in a gang, so that you may get unusable coins in future purchases too. I don't even care for any sort of competitive element, but the whole idea of not having options available because you either weren't lucky enough to find them or haven't bought enough to eventually get them is just not up my street. Expanding your collection will allow for more options in many wargames (let's add some artillery to that force, get some extra heavy cavalry for them), but not knowing what you buy and opening the door to including increasingly useful things in future packs doesn't work for me. Could have achieved the same by creating some tables with a random marketplace to see what items are available to you and having yet more tables for random character creation. But then, that would not lead to the purchase of additional figures...

[Antonio J Carrasco]

Yes, I understood that the coins have points costs anyway and that it all supposedly balances out. However, a game with apparently hundreds of variations in gang members and dozens of 'coin' upgrades will simply have some combinations that are more potent than others, thus meaning that more purchases will result in a potentially better force.
In addition, there are limits concerning the number and types of common, uncommon and rare coins you can use in a gang, so that you may get unusable coins in future purchases too. I don't even care for any sort of competitive element, but the whole idea of not having options available because you either weren't lucky enough to find them or haven't bought enough to eventually get them is just not up my street. Expanding your collection will allow for more options in many wargames (let's add some artillery to that force, get some extra heavy cavalry for them), but not knowing what you buy and opening the door to including increasingly useful things in future packs doesn't work for me. Could have achieved the same by creating some tables with a random marketplace to see what items are available to you and having yet more tables for random character creation. But then, that would not lead to the purchase of additional figures...

I understand your worries, but don't share them. Not for the moment, at least. Perhaps, once the actual rules are released and I see the actual sinergies between fighters, then I will agree with your statements. At the present, I prefer to be cautiously optimistic.

[Coenus Scaldingus]

I'll try to do the same.

[Furt]

- Did not like how they handled criticism on facebook, one guy pointed out that their was no evidence of female fighters and asked if the game was strictly historical(the answer is no) others took issue with the randomisation/interpreted things like some have in this thread, while things did spiral out which was not their fault, their deleting of the question post and subsequent mocking (then subsequently deleted) post afterwards I felt was more than a bit childish especially as it pretty much blanket smeared the guys asking legit questions/levelling legit criticism as trolls.

The FB guy was questioning the split of female and male miniatures that Footsore was producing, claiming it should be more like 75% male, not 50% male. Of course you are free to buy an all male gang, that is up to you, but Footsore chose to produce an even choice of 5 models per gender. I don't think we should be complaining about a company offering a nice choice of female figures - historically accurate or not.

I'm not so worried about the coins either because you could potentially play without them and make up the difference with a whole other gang member instead.

[Kadzik]

I'm looking forward to GoR with excitation!
Firstly, we will have at last dedicated wargame for Roman gangs struggle. For many of you it doesn't really matter to have the official rules or dedicated miniatures. I was working in wargames shop for 4 years and I've noticed that there are many casual gamers who are more than happy to have a clearly marked figures for a game (i.e. GB for SAGA, where you could use Crusader, Artizan etc.) I pressume not everyone want to spend time doing proper research - insted some just want to take proper miniatures. What I'm going to say: now it will be easier to take other into gaming on Roman streets. Till now we would have to improvise with rules, change them etc. Now you could point your friend to Footsore and show - there is this game, there are this figurines, you can take this buildings also. It just increase chances to gain a new player! It matter a lot for me.

Secondly, I'm curious about making your gang. Usually in game we have set lists of warriors, skills, equipment etc. and we are allowed to optimise our choices for the best result. In GoR we will have to adapt to what we find in blister. It smells like Magic or X-Wing at first, but as I understand correctly from what author wrote there are differences. Magic have common, uncommon and rare cards which corresposnd with number of them printed and packed - in GoR there will be equipment cards also divided to common, uncommon and rare but for the matter of making a rooster not availability. In X-wing there are lots of cards with pilots and upgrades, but you perfectly know in which set you have them, there fore you have to buy one ship to get a card which works best in another one (and you could buy everything to habe every card ever made). In GoR each blister will come with individual card - truly unique. It is therefore impossible to get every card, as new and unique would be made. I can see and understand statements that in a game where you use 5 miniatures a guy who buy 20 blisters and have 20 different units cards to choose from have advantage over guy whou just buy 5 blisters and is limited in making proper synergy. It's clearly a disadvantage, but for me, it's same as in other games where you could have 30+ units to choose from and you opponent have just enough figurines to make a legal army point-wise.

In my opinion the target group for GoR are casual groups of players, who could skip optimalisation part of a game and focus on gameplay and RPG element. And from my experience - every game could be destroyed by just one player in a group who started extreme optimalisation and looked for loopholes

[Mad Doc Morris]

At current state I couldn't care less for the rules. I'm afraid, however, that the inclusion of stat cards etc will drive prices up for the actual miniatures.
That's because I actually like the minis for what they represent. Whoever thought this would be a strictly historical game has never watched Rome or Spartacus which are obviously the main source of inspiration for any more recent 'gangster games' set in ancient Rome. One could argue if there was no place for a more historically accurate approach and which impact that movie/TV-style rendition of historical topics has on people's (newcomer's in particular) perception of 'historical wargaming' in general.
But for now I'm happy first and foremost to see an increase of ancient (more or less) civilian models, and I do hope for some more in non-action poses and less fancy outfits. The more as I heard that civilian mobs will be an integral part of the game.

[Kommando_J]

The FB guy was questioning the split of female and male miniatures that Footsore was producing, claiming it should be more like 75% male, not 50% male. Of course you are free to buy an all male gang, that is up to you, but Footsore chose to produce an even choice of 5 models per gender. I don't think we should be complaining about a company offering a nice choice of female figures - historically accurate or not.

I'm not so worried about the coins either because you could potentially play without them and make up the difference with a whole other gang member instead.

To slightly wade in there, i recall one guy at least was questioning the historical accuracy of there being any female fighters(he does point out that no current evidence exists) and got shouted down as a troll.

I can understand the knee-jerk reaction to an extent as (using videogames as an example) lots of companies are now making things diverse at the behest of those that want it no matter how accurate/fitting it is to the property(for example people complaining about no POC's being present in the Witcher series)...and generally don't actually buy the games they force change upon.

In this case the diversity came before any demands were made by the internet mob...so I would be less worried if I were those guys.

[DeltaBlue]

Having read all the Falco novels, the eagles novels with Cato and Macro and watched the Rome TV series. I’m looking forward to it,

GOA seems an interesting rule set, good looking models

And if it’s no good still have the models and terrain for other things.

[psyberwyche]

For me this is all about the minis, which look lovely. I've got rules that I enjoy, so unless the GoR rules really blow me away I'll probably just buy it for the toys tbh. Assuming they scale well with my existing figs of course. Here's hoping!

[Saucy Jack]

For me this is all about the minis, which look lovely. I've got rules that I enjoy, so unless the GoR rules really blow me away I'll probably just buy it for the toys tbh. Assuming they scale well with my existing figs of course. Here's hoping!

Which rules are you using?

[rumacara]

You can use Song of Shadows and Dust from Ganesha Games.
They are specific for gangs of rome.

Also according to several people (i´ve never tried) Pulp Alley will do for Gangs of Rome.