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Author Topic: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends  (Read 10172 times)

Offline AWu

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #45 on: June 17, 2019, 10:12:05 AM »
Afaik it was first employed by Deadlands: The Great Railwars a rather excellent skirmish system, which sadly never took off, and imo suffered from too many crazy models instead of focusing on Wild West. The engine now lives on in the Savage World group of RPGs which can also be used very well for tabletop skirmish games.

Stargrunt is almost s decade older, and even final edition  Stargrunt II is older than Great Railwars

Offline Burma44

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #46 on: June 17, 2019, 01:21:46 PM »
What's needed is a 'generic' sci-fi 'warband' size game. Forces should be customizable to match whatever miniatures you have. Focus on scenarios and not "fluff" as most people will fill that in anyway. It needs solid, interesting rules mechanisms. And, yes a "points" system. It needs to be physically published and available to retailers both B&M and online. Forget kickstarter.

Easy Peasy

Well Gates of Antares was too damn slow. They had a big window to scoop up 40k players who were unhappy with 7th ed but didnt get their plastics or starter set out until 8th ed hit whixh got alot if people interested in 40k again. That and the rules are needlessly dense at times. As for breachstorm ? It just looks mediocre, it uses the same generic mass effect design that 80% of sci fi art and games use these days.

This. Though I see gamers doing it themselves quite often lately. Dragon Rampant and Warlords of Erewhon both have fan made dci fi lists.

Quoted for truth

Its has to be what Rogue Stars promised but failed to deliver.

We need Stargrave :>

I, for one, would be appreciative of easy game mechanics, fast play, and character development that creates a moderate RPG type feel. I'm also grateful for a solid AI system. I typically play solo, and when I get to sucker (sweet talk?) my wife into playing with me I can't try to play a game and teach her some crunchy system that requires four tutorial games before something interesting happens.

Scale, I am starting to lean heavily towards 15mm. Entry point is easier on my wallet when I want to jump sideways. Skirmish level all the way down to single character would be my choice. I don't want to have a faceless army of hundreds when I can care about 1-5 characters. I can't imagine anything worse, for me, than something that looks like tournament play. Points are fine, but sometimes the good guys should be outnumbered and sometimes the good guys show up with overwhelming force to put down a minor annoyance. I don't need a system to tell me how to balance or write my scenarios, but I'm happy enough to take some feedback from the creator as to what a good unit looks like compared to a bad one. Maybe it is the D&D player in me that thinks "one guy vs a dragon? Sounds like an adventure!"  lol


I liked test game we played. I think its OK system.
But mechanics are made unnecessary complicated (seriously, most of the traits just give +1 to +3 bonus to a test - why make them super complicated just to avoid saying +1 to test..) and difficult, and its just hard game to chew into.
It just fail to deliver excitement and be gaming friendly.

I can create Frostgrave Wizards and crews fir fun with paper and pencil and have interesting time without actual game play.
In RS its tiresome exercise in futility that always put me off.
And I like complicated rule sets  and have fun with creating Inquisitor retinues.

Thats why I asked for Stargrave.
Game with similar traits.
I am yet unable to find unfortunately.

This exists, and its free. Please check out Starbreach.com. You're gonna love it. Enjoy!

Please no.

Frostgrave is ok. It's fun to a degree but it isn't flexible enough to be more than a treasure grabbing wizard off. That's not to say I don't like it, I have enjoyed games of it, but it is no where near flexible enough. You want more scenarios not involving treasure grabbing to win.

If anything, I would say Saga is a better model.

But for me, you want to be able to field forces as few as 20 models perhaps in fire teams of 3-5 up to squads of 8-10 say.

Personally I also think we have arrived at a time when games don't have to be dictated by the limitations of a d6. Tabletop gaming is a popular and pretty mainstream past time and the old concept of using d6 because everyone has monopoly is a bit outdated now.

I'd push to d8 or d10 and allow for a lot more differentiation between troop types and weapons if desired.

One of the issues 40k now has is that whilst they have a vaster array of unit options and types to select from as well as equipment, most of the differentiation is how many dice you roll. It gets a bit tedious after a while. And the balance between combat and shooting is daft.

Back on point, focus on saga sized games but with the ability to have small units that can be played on smaller tables. Mass Battle stuff is more than catered for and I feel a bit of a dying breed in many ways.

Frostgrave, Saga, Mantic's Vanguard, Moonstone, Infinity and various other successful games in recent years have proven that the market for proper skirmish games is really thriving.

100% agree with how you feel about Frostgrave. I used to demo Frostgrave like it was my religion at conventions a few years back. But after playing and witnessing literally over 100 games, it was very obviously flawed. Not broken, but in major need of some updates. I reached out to Joseph with a massive report of my findings, game stats and suggestions for edit for an errata or second edition. He wrote back thanking me for my time, but it was obvious he was already getting pulled into the machine and working on expansions and such (instead of what should have been a few key revisions). Thus, I took what I learned and eventually created Star Breach. Starbreach.com. I hope you check it out and like what you find! It's free! Enjoy!
« Last Edit: June 17, 2019, 02:10:01 PM by Westfalia Chris »
Creator of Star Breach and NCO Tabletop Games: starbreach.com

Offline Easy E

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #47 on: June 17, 2019, 07:25:29 PM »
If we are talking about how to build a game to sell..... don't. 

Instead, design a game you want to play.  If you do that, chances are there is a market out there. 
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Offline 1000foot

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #48 on: July 09, 2019, 03:24:24 AM »
Hi guys. I was in the same boat as you: wanting a set of sci-fi skirmish rules, but unsatisfied with the what was on the market. I've been working on a set myself and thought others might be interested.

I'm still play testing, but you might be able to get a feel of the quirks of my game in my latest blog post.

I still have a way to go, but thought you might want to take a look.




Offline Brandlin

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #49 on: July 14, 2019, 10:43:41 PM »
My scifi game requirements are simply written but very hard to meet.

1. Realistic technologies and Ranges - we already have the ability to kill each other long before we can read the enemy's name badge; we wont get worse at it in the future. If I have to drive my thudding great tank closer to you so I can hit you with my nonsensically huge chain saw then you have failed. Likewise I want science fiction not wizards in space. Scifi wargaming should not be about driving headlong into the middle of a board and effecting melee like some 1950's hollywood western saloon brawl.

2. Combined theatres with meaningful C&C - many games skirmish well with a few infantry but have generic added on rules for vehicles that treat every piece of mechanised equipment identically. Conversely some rulesets have great detail and differentiation of vehicles but dont cope well with infantry. Most fail to include off board artillery, aerospace and orbital strikes at all. A lot of this should be reflected in a Command & Control system that recognises the critical role of information and communications while still maintaining uncertainty around the fog of war and complexity in executing plans.

3. Scale and model agnostic - I want to play small 28mm hero based skirmishes and 6mm sweeping battles with the same forces and feel of the universe i am inhabiting. I want the campaign ability to mix these types of game together in a longer narrative and have a feel for character and unit development over time. Don't tie your rules to a model range that means I have to think your re-imagining of lizards in space is 'cool'.

4. Fluff free - Playing games is about imagination. I use mine. Stop forcing your derivative background on me. Spend the time caressing game mechanics that work, not writing poor source material because you think you're a competent author - you're usually not.

5. Competent Rulebook design - Learn something about technical documentation and information presentation before you start. I've seen many rulesets that have some interesting ideas but fail to convey them. Rulebooks are often verbose, poorly organised and unreferenced, but have lavish and expensive art work and filler that does little more than pad the book out and make it more expensive and harder to read. A rulebook is a technical document, not a novel or a coffee table art book, they are very different and if you cant even provide an index then you're not dating my daughter.

6. NON-ANTHROPOMORPHIC ROBOTS - I could rant about this for days - and have done on other forums. A bipedal or multi-limbed configuration is an exceptionally inefficient platform for any kind of vehicle. It's ridiculous from every perspective including engineering, logistics and operational performance. There are simply better ways of designing almost every required system than to force fit any of it into an anthropomorphic frame. If you really feel you MUST have 50m tall walking robots then put them in a section or supplement where i can safely ignore them without your game being broken


6 is more of a personal pet hate, but I believe 1-5 should be the aim of a competent independent game designer working in the sci-fi field.

It may be the holy grail, and certainly I've not found any system that meets al these needs though a combination of stargrunt and dirtside came close-ish.

I remain pessimistic that such a ruleset exists, but hopeful I can be proved wrong.
« Last Edit: July 14, 2019, 11:00:24 PM by Brandlin »

Offline tomrommel1

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #50 on: July 15, 2019, 06:46:58 AM »
As far as I know there might be a set of rules along the Lion Rampant rules in the future . i would stick to that as i like the mechanics.
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Offline Grumpy Gnome

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #51 on: August 07, 2019, 08:49:07 AM »
Getting back into tabletop after a break of many years it has been a challenge getting up to speed on what is available to scratch my sci- fi itch. Even more complicating is that my wife has to like it too.

I showed her 40k even though I was not too excited to go back down that road and she was immediately put off by the grimdark aspect.

She liked the idea of a Star Wars game because she likes the IP but the costs put her off as she thinks our budget should focus on fantasy not sci-fi.... although she made an exception to let me get into Dropfleet after I won some good auctions on eBay.

But much as I love Dropfleet it does not completely satisfy our sci-fi interests.... particularly 28mm miniature painting and terrain building. Dropzone just does not do it for us with the 10mm scale. Nor do we follow the current taste in 15mm.

Gates of Antares looked ok to me although it seems a development of Bolt Action and that game just did not capture my imagination well,  it just felt too tournament streamlined. Maybe because I stuck so closely to the rules instead of developing house rules and unbalanced scenarios. Additionally my wife was not that keen on the art work, proprietary miniatures or fluff.

We looked at Star Saga, a bit of a sci-fi dungeon crawl. My wife and I both liked the miniatures, luke warm on the setting fluff, and were concerned it was quite a narrow experience.... more board game than table top. But maybe it could serve as a gateway into the other Mantic sci-fi games? Either way, I plan on getting Mantic sci-fi miniatures for other projects if nothing else.

Because of this forum I found out about Stargrunt... which looks great to me as an old school wargamer and former Infantry NCO. However my wife feels it is a bit one dimensional due to focusing just on war. She wants to play a space exploration tabletop with combat but also non-combat sci-fi elements. Star Trek away team type themes. We talked about Frostgrave in space with each game being on a new planet with surprise terrain and miniatures... but it would be nice to have more depth than the Frostgrave series of games. Solo play, campaign narrative.... more Rangers of Shadowdeep in space than Frostgrave I suppose.

So as you can see, our needs are quite complex and probably fairly niche. A game with rpg aspects, solo play option, generic miniature friendly...and not too complicated so more time can be spent playing than referencing rule books. No easy task!

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Offline Genghis

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #52 on: August 07, 2019, 10:14:44 AM »
Have you looked at Core Space by Battle Systems?  That may be something approximating what you're after.
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Offline Hobgoblin

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #53 on: August 07, 2019, 10:42:05 AM »
4. Fluff free - Playing games is about imagination. I use mine. Stop forcing your derivative background on me. Spend the time caressing game mechanics that work, not writing poor source material because you think you're a competent author - you're usually not.

I don't think I've ever read anything about fantasy or sci-fi rulesets that I've agreed with more!  :D

I was just thinking that one of the great strengths of Hordes of the Things is the way that it encourages players to look to mythology or fantasy literature for their army lists. The sci-fi equivalent is probably Alien Squad Leader, with its highly generic army lists, but the full HotT approach should be just as applicable to sci-fi as to fantasy: that is, armies can be drawn from a list of element types, so that the flavour of the armies comes from the elements it contains and their interaction, rather than from fiddly features of each element or troop type.

This approach is probably more relevant to science fiction, as highly developed technology is likely to result in more comparable troop and vehicle types rather than fewer - because there will be a convergence on the optimal way of doing things.

Offline boywundyrx

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #54 on: August 07, 2019, 04:10:48 PM »
However my wife feels it is a bit one dimensional due to focusing just on war. She wants to play a space exploration tabletop with combat but also non-combat sci-fi elements. Star Trek away team type themes. We talked about Frostgrave in space with each game being on a new planet with surprise terrain and miniatures... but it would be nice to have more depth than the Frostgrave series of games. Solo play, campaign narrative.... more Rangers of Shadowdeep in space than Frostgrave I suppose.

So as you can see, our needs are quite complex and probably fairly niche. A game with rpg aspects, solo play option, generic miniature friendly...and not too complicated so more time can be spent playing than referencing rule books. No easy task!

So a few ideas would be Void Pirates (or its big brother Blasters and Bulkheads) from Four Color Studios though maybe not for solo play; Nordic Weasel Games has what seems like a dozen sci-fi skirmish rulesets, some like Clash on the Fringe, Five Parsecs From Home or Starport Scum might work.  Rogue Stars (Osprey) maybe too.

Offline Elk101

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #55 on: August 07, 2019, 05:42:01 PM »
You may also like Fistful of Lead: Galactic Heroes. There's no background fluff so you can fill your own in to suit taste, interests and figure collection. It doesn't all have to be about fighting either.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2019, 06:11:07 PM by Elk101 »

Offline Hobby Services

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #56 on: August 07, 2019, 06:01:27 PM »
So a few ideas would be Void Pirates (or its big brother Blasters and Bulkheads) from Four Color Studios though maybe not for solo play; Nordic Weasel Games has what seems like a dozen sci-fi skirmish rulesets, some like Clash on the Fringe, Five Parsecs From Home or Starport Scum might work.  Rogue Stars (Osprey) maybe too.

Might also take a look at 5150 and its kindred rules from 2 Hour Wargames.  They have a strong emphasis on solo or "PVE" gaming (to borrow a term from MMORPGs) and some of the rule sets have the same kind of light RPG feel that you might get from (say) Necromunda or Mordheim.  The mechanics can be kind of weirdly hard to grasp from a quick read, but become intuitive after you play a bit.

Offline Grumpy Gnome

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #57 on: August 07, 2019, 09:27:25 PM »
Thanks for the recommendations, I will have a look. My apologies if I derailed the thread.

Offline n815e

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #58 on: August 08, 2019, 01:53:04 AM »
I think if you are looking for a fun, generic, cinematic action game where you create some heroes and villains (and followers) fighting over story elements, you should give Pulp Alley a gander.

Offline Baconfat

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Re: Desired current sci fi wargaming trends
« Reply #59 on: August 09, 2019, 12:49:32 AM »
Many of us have hundreds of scifi minis collecting dust while we fight over tiny 3x3 mats with 5 or 6 minis.

Skirmish is fun, most of the games mentioned are fun, but I want a skirmish game that will also allow for larger games.

Why can't one of you smart guys write a fun game that lets us play with a few models or a few hundred?

I thoroughly enjoy campaigns with 5 or 6 squabble to skirmish games that escalate/culminate into a glorious large fight.