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Author Topic: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror  (Read 84984 times)

Offline Mosstrooper

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Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« on: November 25, 2008, 06:56:44 PM »
Got some Westwind Vampire Wars (?) figures second hand , any suggestions on suitable rules for them ? ???

Offline Agis

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2008, 07:02:31 PM »
IMO "Chaos in Carpathia", simple the best in Gothic Horror I played!
cheers and keep on gaming, Agis - http://www.adpublishing.de

Offline theoldschool

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2008, 07:29:00 PM »
I'll second Agis. CinC are first class.

Offline Malamute

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2008, 08:42:41 AM »
Hmm, I have not played CinC so am not in a position to comment on it.

 I am probably one of a very few people to champion the original Westwind Vampire Wars rules.

The problem with them was the horrendous typsetting which makes the rules very confusing to follow.

My gaming group has however stuck with them. We have made lots of house rules and changes but now use the system for all sorts of games including most of our Victorian adventures, Old West and even have modified them for Future Wars.

They are card driven for activation - so very random and use quality dice for each individual character ranging from D6 for peasants/ non coms through to D20 for heroes, master Vampires etc.

There is alot of fluff in the rules with background to each race or party. I guess it depends on how lazy you are about creating your own background or just using one straight from a book.

 The two expansion books are good too. But you must be prepared to stick with them and fight your way through the confusion.

If you want a safe bet go with CinC as per the recommendations above.
"These creatures do not die like the bee after the first sting, but go on age after age, feeding on the blood of the living"  - Abraham Van Helsing

Offline chicklewis

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2008, 05:02:28 PM »
Yah, I was unfortunate enough to have purchased the Vampire Wars rules, all 3 books, sight-unseen.  They suffer from what I heard characterized as 'editing while drunk'.  I threw them in the dumpster, they were that bad, wouldn't consider inflicting them on anyone else, even as a gift. 

Very studly of you, Malamute, to have persevered with them. 

Chick
"Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."

Offline Malamute

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #5 on: November 26, 2008, 05:14:10 PM »
  Very studly of you, Malamute, to have persevered with them. 

Chick

Yeah, either that or I am too mean to buy a different rules set. lol

We find the concept behind Quality dice and card generated movement very agreeable for the types of games we play, but you are right they are an absolute nightmare to read through and I wholeheartedly see why people ignore them.

Offline Mosstrooper

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #6 on: November 26, 2008, 06:15:58 PM »
Many thanks for the replies , have heard mixed reviews of VWars , think a friend has a copy so I might try borrowing it . By the way I have WestWinds Gladiator Wars and found them hard to read - very hard ! , but I persisted and use them for my gladiator games now !, so will have a look at VWars . :)

Offline Malamute

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #7 on: November 26, 2008, 06:22:40 PM »
Many thanks for the replies , have heard mixed reviews of VWars , think a friend has a copy so I might try borrowing it . By the way I have WestWinds Gladiator Wars and found them hard to read - very hard ! , but I persisted and use them for my gladiator games now !, so will have a look at VWars . :)

If you ever have any questions drop me a PM. I have loads of stuff/add ons, home rules etc and pre generated character sheets I can send you.

Offline theoldschool

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #8 on: November 26, 2008, 08:15:11 PM »
I am probably one of a very few people to champion the original Westwind Vampire Wars rules. The problem with them was the horrendous typsetting which makes the rules very confusing to follow. My gaming group has however stuck with them.

I have several of the rule sets using the VW system and they all suffer from the same problem. The trouble is I still think there is a good game in there somewhere if I can only find the time to work it out. When I asked the publishers politely why they had this problem I received a reply saying that it was because the rules had been written on a PC but the printer used a Mac  :?

I might have another look at them. I would be interested to hear how you managed to get them to work Nick.


Offline richarDISNEY

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #9 on: November 26, 2008, 08:57:28 PM »
Rippers : The Horror Wars is pretty good. Easy and fast gamin' to be had!

But CiC works wonders too..
"What exactly is a 'Headpiece to the Staff of Ra'?"

RicharDISNEY

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Offline Malamute

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #10 on: November 27, 2008, 09:45:37 AM »
I might have another look at them. I would be interested to hear how you managed to get them to work Nick.

At the time they came out I bought all the figures and the rules unseen. There was nothing e se on the market at that time that was based around Gothic Horror.As it was based around one of my favourite subjects I was not going to give up!

So we stuck with them and persevered. The actual system is very simple, its based on quality dice and card driven movement.Its the fluff and way the book is put together that makes them very confusing.

Offline Mike D. Mc Brice

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #11 on: November 27, 2008, 10:00:30 AM »
Vampire Wars is certainly worth the money for the background and fluff alone. If you have a very enthusiastic gaming group that is willing to invent MANY houserules I guess you can get them working.
The rules are fun to read as you always ask yourself how the hell somebody could publish something that is merely a rules draft. It's hardly a serious playtest version.
Quite a sad thing because I think the rules combined with the background have lots of potential.

"Rippers" uses the Showdown rules which also rely on Qualitydice. I don't the rules because the background is rather boring (the world is dark and sinister and everybody is somehow evil - 40K in the victorian times). The armylists are also very uninventive and don't work very well. They are also extremely incomplete and building your own troops if pretty difficult if you want them to fit into the points system. They are not my cup of tea.

Carpathia uses the very solid goalsystem mechanics. It can be used for competitive play as well as scenario games. The background is pretty much standard, not as lovely as Vampire Wars but also not as irritating as Rippers. The rules contain only four armylists but lots of special characters to spice them up a bit. The armylsits are not as balanced as they could be but that point is easily worked out with a few houserules.
It also has a working campaign system.

I use Carpathia for gaming and Vampire Wars for the background.

I'm not aware of any further Victorian Horror rules apart from these three.



Offline richarDISNEY

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #12 on: December 04, 2008, 02:59:02 PM »
I did not feel that Rippers was sooooo Dark and Grity. I thought it had a neat kinda monster hunter or defending the village approach. 

 It uses a modified Great Rail Wars / Savage Worlds system, which I think is a great way to get 'kinda intersted' players gaming.  It's fast and not too many rules to figure out.

Offline Malamute

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #13 on: December 13, 2008, 01:20:22 PM »
I thought it might be a good idea to make this sticky for anyone new to the forum or Gothic Horror looking for rule systems. ;)

I have rememebered another one:  Occult Wars.  It has had good reviews elsewhere, I think its aimed more at modern times than period games but could be worth looking at.

Feel free to add any further rule sets as they become available or if we have missed any.

Offline Rev Nice

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Re: Wargames rules for Gothic Horror
« Reply #14 on: December 15, 2008, 06:27:51 PM »
Has anyone tried  Faces of Horror?

It seems to be a variant of the Face of Battle skirmish rules.
Introduction on their website says
Quote
Faces of Horror (FoH) is a new miniatures game from the designer of The Face of Battle. The game covers all characters, heroes, villains, creatures and monsters from literature and movies over the last few centuries. You can play The Mummy, Dracula, The Werewolf or modern horrors like Jason, Crawlers, or Rage Zombies.


Apologies if anyone's mentioned this before, I'm a new arrival here and just started sniffing around the boards.




 

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