Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Old West => Topic started by: Bloggard on September 10, 2020, 09:10:45 AM
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going off in another direction -if I want an old west skirmish ruleset that allows for fantasy / horror elements , but isn't prescriptive in terms of bespoke miniatures/ cards etc, what's my best bet?
I picked up pdfs of FFoL and the horror supplement (and 'reloaded') from the 'vault' yesterday.
will those do (and what's the relationship between the 'core' ffol rules and 'reloaded' - and do they both allow for the integration of the 'horror' supplement?) ?
I guess Dracula's America is another obvious one- just wonder if effectively you do need the 'official' figure packs, or if I could use my own and put together custom gangs?
any advice much appreciated.
[If this should be posted on the fantasy board, could a mod move it accordingly?]
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You can definitely use your own models for Draculas America. There are specific types of model etc but they generally fit in with horror archetypes.
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I believe Pulp Alley has interest mechanics for horrors and cinematic events. You could check the free intro rules!
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thanks for the thoughts @Sir_Theo and Sangennaru.
hadn't thought of the specifically Pulp rules, although some of the figures from their range have caught my interest.
any clarification re: ffol reloaded and the still available 'core' rules, and which is best for integrating the 'horror' supplement?
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Reloaded is the Old West 2and edition rules. The Core FfoL rules are intended to be a base set for creating your own settings, with genre specific supplements providing tailor made settings. The Tales of Horror book is one such setting, generally covering a Victorian Gothic Horror setting, but with all the information you need to introduce vampires, werewolves, necromancers, zombies, etc.
Core and Tales of Horror would be the 'standard's approach I suppose.
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Reloaded is the Old West 2and edition rules. The Core FfoL rules are intended to be a base set for creating your own settings, with genre specific supplements providing tailor made settings. The Tales of Horror book is one such setting, generally covering a Victorian Gothic Horror setting, but with all the information you need to introduce vampires, werewolves, necromancers, zombies, etc.
Core and Tales of Horror would be the 'standard's approach I suppose, though you could take all the ready made stuff from Re loaded too and throw that in.
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Elk101 beat me to it. ;)
All our FFoL games involving horror/fantastical elements have used the core set with the horror supplement.
They are interchangeable so you can create your groups of figures using traits from either set and combine the two.
Our games include Vampires in Victorian London or Werewolves Vs Knights in the Middle Ages. AARs with more details on how we use the rules are on the Gothic board in various AARs.
If you want your games to have an Old West setting I’d still use the core set they cover everything in Reloaded but some of the rules have been updated which are in line with the horror supplement
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Reloaded is the Old West 2and edition rules. The Core FfoL rules are intended to be a base set for creating your own settings, with genre specific supplements providing tailor made settings. The Tales of Horror book is one such setting, generally covering a Victorian Gothic Horror setting, but with all the information you need to introduce vampires, werewolves, necromancers, zombies, etc.
Core and Tales of Horror would be the 'standard's approach I suppose.
I'd go with Core and Tales of Horror too. The core will give you all you need for the Western element, and ToH will cover the occult elements.
If you've got the money you could always get all 3 lol
I think I have all the rules from the FFoL stable and each book has something useful in it :)
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thanks chaps. Great stuff. Will start off with FFoL then.
I have bought all 3 (pdfs) !
Dracula's America looks very nicely done too, so would hope to pick those up at some point.
lingering over the Call of Cthulhu - Down Darker Trails (Old West) book/s too - as much for fluff and background as anything. Expensive tho'.
Hopefully adapting the content to a much simpler skirmish approach using FFoL.
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Tales of Horror is not setting specific. As Malamute said, we've done Medieval, Victorian and modern. There's even a video on YouTube where they did werewolves vs King Arthur. Once you have Core, you have the tools. All the supplements do is add fluff for each era/genre.
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If you want your games to have an Old West setting I’d still use the core set they cover everything in Reloaded but some of the rules have been updated which are in line with the horror supplement
thanks Malamute.
just to be clear - you're saying 'core' have been updated in line with horror ... ?
(and thanks@baronvonJ )
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thanks Malamute.
just to be clear - you're saying 'core' have been updated in line with horror ... ?
(and thanks@baronvonJ )
Yes, the core set is the best one to use alongside ToH. You could use Reloaded, but some of the rules in Reloaded have been upgraded and improved which is what Core delivers. Core also includes old and modern weapons, armour etc whereas Reloaded is Old West specific.
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great, thanks.
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We’ve played lots of DAM, and its a good game, and its particular strength is in is background, and integration of those elements.
We’ve only recently found FFoL and I prefer it as a game system (there are certainly quite a few similarities with DAM, cards for activation, poly dice for quality). But I think there is more to FFoL as a game. But its a generic system with supplements, so there is less background. But if you are happy to provide this, then that’s not a problem!
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thanks for the comparison there, Fred. Certainly leaning towards FFoL.
But I would hope to pick-up DAM over time.
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thanks for the comparison there, Fred. Certainly leaning towards FFoL.
But I would hope to pick-up DAM over time.
I have both and I prefer DAM as a horror game since the the story and game system have been developed in tandem. It gives a better in-game experience.
I have all of the FFoL books. Even the PA expansion which I will probably never use but I like being able to poach ideas from it.
Which is better depends on what you want to do. If you want to use your own minis and put together a horror game then I think FFoL is a better solution. You can mix and match whatever you want.
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yes, Pixelgeek, that seems to be the consensus, and why I'm leaning towards FFoL.
What you describe as the advantage of DAM, might also be seen as tieing you into the official range of figures (which are superb of course). I appreciate you don't have to use them, but it would seem a bit 'missing the point' not to, I suspect.
Problem with the cost of all this: the FFoL's I think worked out about £20 after the dollar to pounds conversions, the DAM's would be between £30 - £50 depending on how / where bought, and the Cthulhu books another £50-60 ... phew ... !
*on which score I've just noticed that I paid considerably more by buying the pdfs from Vault / drivethru than if I'd bought directly from the Wiley website (although maybe you can't use his site commercially from outside the US?) ...
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I've ordered straight from Wiley Games with no issues before. I have playtested a few Wiley Games rulesets and supplements now and I find making what you want easy enough and actually quite good fun as you can personalise your interpretation of something.
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ok, good to know Elk101.
love the cover for 'wasteland' and am interested in 'bigger battles' ...
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Regarding DAM, the supplements are independent of each other, so if you like the theme of one, then it doesn't rely on the other. I think you would largely work them out without the core rules.
And there is certainly no need to use the official figures - but they are some very nice figures - my first two DAM gangs used generic figures, it was only for the Coven that I got the official figures mainly to get the 3 witches. If you look at some of the gangs and then at the Artisan (IIRC) figures you can see which ranges they have come from.
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Give us a bit more information on your setting? Is it Old West setting with horror and fantasy creatures?
FFoL has a fantasy set coming soon. I’ll leave the Baron to elaborate, but the Beastiary section may well be of use.
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yes Malamute, just that: Old west with horror / cthulhu etc.
FFoL core with the horror supplement looks like it'll do fine as a foundation.
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If you put up some examples of the creatures you want to use I'll show you what I mean.
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interesting @Fred, because as things stand I have just the last supplement on the way from amazon, although should be plumping for the main rulebook shortly.
@Elk101 don't have enough of a b/ground to supply yet!
what I'm seeing in the horror supplement covers the usual suspects, and would be fine to start with ...
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Thinking about it a lot of the mutation traits in FFoL Wasteland Warriors the post apoc supplement might be of use too.
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If the prices are more on Wargames Vault it’s because they take a considerable chunk of the money. I only put games there because they gave a larger audience. Buy directly from me.
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Thinking about it a lot of the mutation traits in FFoL Wasteland Warriors the post apoc supplement might be of use too.
indeed, and can't resist that cover ;)
wish 'reloaded' (good tho' it is on it's own terms) had that vintage comic book look too.
@Baron - will do if I go for further pdfs.
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Reloaded was the first book and written some years ago. The book will be getting a facelift and some retooling to bring it in line with the more current books, but it is a ways off.
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right - be great to have the full set with that styling.
tbh, I think you might consider putting the inside into colour for the pdfs?
presumably the masterfiles are (illustrations-wise)?
Mind you , I can see you might want to be consistent with the print copies
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Consistent and I'd have to raise the price.
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shouldn't increase the price of pdfs - and digital printing doesn't change in cost greyscale / colour as far as I know? Depends what kind of size of print runs you do (i.e. if Litho, then yes, big difference in cost between monochrome / colour), but something to think about?
it is a little bit of a let-down, visually, to go to b/w text pages after those brilliant covers, and there aren't many rule-sets these days that aren't in colour.
Not having a go - just (possibly) constructive (if admittedly superficial) feedback!