Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Age of Myths, Gods and Empires => Topic started by: mkultra99 on February 10, 2021, 06:51:40 PM
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Now I know SPQR was to Ancients gaming what 2020 was to a lot of people. Seems like Warlord has hired on a new dude to fix it and release it as SPQR 2.0? One Darron Bowley. Seems he works in the biz, so maybe not all bad..? Couldn't be worse than Matt Sprange..? Any one got an inside scoop on what kind of changes?
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Now I know SPQR was to Ancients gaming what 2020 was to a lot of people.
Such a perfect summary of the game
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My biggest hope is that they actually nail down what they want the game to be - the rules read as a man on man skirmish ala mordhiem but the troop options and units just made it into a smaller hail ceaser.
it's a shame they botched it - play it with a handful of heroes and one or two individual troops and it's quite fun.
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My biggest hope is that they actually nail down what they want the game to be - the rules read as a man on man skirmish ala mordhiem but the troop options and units just made it into a smaller hail ceaser.
it's a shame they botched it - play it with a handful of heroes and one or two individual troops and it's quite fun.
Mordheim style would be interesting. I did not like horde VS space marine sort of style when I last looked at the rules. . I ended up selling the rulebook really quick. Hoping 2.0 is a decent game!
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My biggest hope is that they actually nail down what they want the game to be
I think you nailed it. It was sold as skirmish warfare, but from the gameplay videos it just seemed to be - each side has two units, they run at each other, you roll some dice and then ten minutes later you declare a winner. There didn't seem to be any substance to the game. I think Warlord have to develop their games a lot more and stop publish things that people have been working on in their lunch break.
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SPQR is a coloured Book with nice pictures and in my opinion the reason why warlord is in the moment not working on the planned Armybooks for Hail Cesar...
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Interesting. I'd picked up a copy a while back in the hope it might give me something to do with the 28mm figures I'd bought before moving into the smaller scales but found it pretty underwhelming when reading, never even bothered to test it out and essentially forgot about it. Didn't realise how much negatively there was towards it until this week when I started seeing comments about a V2.
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I'd think that Saga: Age of Hannibal or Infamy, Infamy have filled the niche SPQR was intended for
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Didn't realise how much negatively there was towards it until this week when I started seeing comments about a V2.
You clearly never checked the SPQR facebook group! lol
I think you nailed it. It was sold as skirmish warfare, but from the gameplay videos it just seemed to be - each side has two units, they run at each other, you roll some dice and then ten minutes later you declare a winner. There didn't seem to be any substance to the game. I think Warlord have to develop their games a lot more and stop publish things that people have been working on in their lunch break.
Yes it was a huge issue in the community - I actually pre ordered it because I was quite excited for a skirmish warband game for historicals from a big publisher, but went into it kind of having to guess what warlord were actually trying to promote. Apparently most who bought into it had the same issue, with some people saying it played best as an age of sigmar sized game with small armies and others like me saying it worked well is you played with less than 10 men. I think which side you fell on was decided by which of the mechanics you chose to actually use - since there were rules for protracted man on man fights and then rules for phalanx maneuvering that just didn't mesh together.
Add the apparent lack of quality control with regards to photos (minis having arms cropped off due to bad formatting) , stylistic consistency and spelling and it all felt very rushed.
ultimately the botched launch and apparent dumping of the system into warlords growing mass grave of unsupported games killed alot of enthusiasm. then the fact that 2nd edition was announced before some people had even finished reading the first book and yeah...not a great start.
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I think there could be some scope for a small scale, man-on-man skirmish game for Ancients but I don't think Warlord are the ones to do it. They need to move models!
I think the hardest part about small scale skirmish, man-on-man Ancients is that our sources tell us next to nothing about this very subject. They barely tell us anything about the big battles, much less skirmishes and man-on-man fighting.
As I think about it more, I believe such a man-on-man skirmish would need an incredibly tight scope (Like Gangs of Rome) or be placed in a time of "Homeric Myth", or just alt-History (Like Broken Legions) to make any sense. Anything else might be a bit..... disjointed feeling.
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I think there could be some scope for a small scale, man-on-man skirmish game for Ancients but I don't think Warlord are the ones to do it. They need to move models!
I think the hardest part about small scale skirmish, man-on-man Ancients is that our sources tell us next to nothing about this very subject. They barely tell us anything about the big battles, much less skirmishes and man-on-man fighting.
As I think about it more, I believe such a man-on-man skirmish would need an incredibly tight scope (Like Gangs of Rome) or be placed in a time of "Homeric Myth", or just alt-History (Like Broken Legions) to make any sense. Anything else might be a bit..... disjointed feeling.
I think any light fantasy system could handle it. SOBAH does it well enough, MESBG could be useful too.
Whilst you certainly could go down a mythological avenue, I don't think it's too hard to do it by simply limiting the narrative scope of of the game.a paragraph of intro text can go a very long way in telling us how a game is intended to be played.
Instead of "hey 5 romans and some gauls had a little battle and that is in some way related to the conquest of gaul" you'd have your games be more scenario based - raiding missions, escorting diplomats, city riot control, scouting groups getting captured etc.
as to the reality of it once you take the focus away from the actual recorded history of the armies you'd likely find the physical reality was as brutal and vicious as at any other point in history. sword goes in man, man dies, other man steals his sheep.
with SPQR warlord didn't do this, they didn't commit to any real scope - it was at once a game of grand battle and kebab shop fist fights.
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Yeah, I get that scenarios and such are the way forward.
I am more thinking about how do you expand to a Mordheim type experience where you can have a battle of Romans vs Gauls week 1, Romans vs. Numidians week 2, Numidians vs. Successors week 3, etc.
That would be a strained narrative, hence why the "scope" needs to be a bit tighter. Such as a certain year with a tight set of forces available.
I am not sure I am making sense, but it could be a limit to my own creative vision.
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Yeah, I get that scenarios and such are the way forward.
I am more thinking about how do you expand to a Mordheim type experience where you can have a battle of Romans vs Gauls week 1, Romans vs. Numidians week 2, Numidians vs. Successors week 3, etc.
That would be a strained narrative, hence why the "scope" needs to be a bit tighter. Such as a certain year with a tight set of forces available.
I am not sure I am making sense, but it could be a limit to my own creative vision.
I get what you're saying - a bridging narrative to explain the change of time/location etc.
I think perhaps if SPQR had pitched itself as small battles between mercenary/veteran units it could have got away with having a larger geographical scope.
Then they could expand with new time periods in sourceboks/campaign expansions. ancient greece/rome/romano britain etc.
SPQR as is just says "eh, spartans vs romans sure whatever don't care." and it seems most people figured out very quickly that romans are basically space marines in this game so you may aswell play them.
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I get what you're saying - a bridging narrative to explain the change of time/location etc.
Hard to do convincingly in a generic historical game which I think Warlord must have intended of SPQR even though they didn't do a very good job of explaining it.
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Just one or two play test games should have demonstrated what a steaming turd they had on their hands, but I honestly don't think that Warlord do that anymore. Just rush it out and move onto the next thing.
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Hard to do convincingly in a generic historical game which I think Warlord must have intended of SPQR even though they didn't do a very good job of explaining it.
Agreed- but the problem they left themselves is that they just assumed players would know what to do with the rules they were given. So they chucked romans, greeks, persians and a few others in the same book and went "eh, you figure it out" which might be par for the course in historicals, but still feels a tad lazy.
Personally I'd have gone a more "legends of the old west" direction - A slimmer core book with the main rules and factions for a popular time frame, say the roman conquest of gaul/britain/germania. then down the line you can publish small supplements - literally no more than 30 pages, with new army lists for different periods, a little historical primer, and a few extra scenarios/campaigns for that period.
That way you've set up the idea that it's fixed time period gaming, but you also give players the tools to mix up the historical reality as much as they want. this also overcomes the issue os trying to up game size to push sales - get your profit through the rules expansions, not by reboxing the same tired lump plastic romans. it keeps the game cost down for the player who can now buy only the minis they actually need and the books they want to play with, and it focuses the game more whilst providing a framework for consistent product support in the form of optional supplements.
(I know some people don't like the multi book format but i think if done well it's a good way to keep a game alive.)
I think the biggest issue for me is that warlord seem to make throwaway games. And if you're going to make a throwaway game, don't hype it up as a major new system and charge £20 for the book. Make it a pamphlet, make it cheap and it'll go down smoother if it dies.
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Saga have stolen their thunder on this, but setting it during the Punic Wars would have meant that you could have many different warbands - Roman, Italian Allies, Syracuse, Greek Mercenaries, Gauls, Numidians, Carthaginians, Balearics, Iberians - all duking it out.
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Yeah, Punic Wars is the best venue for a bridging narrative skirmish game in my mind. Clash of Spears beat them there, so I guess early Imperial Roman could be a good place too? Lot's of enemies there.
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Reading through all your ideas in this thread I can't but think "Wow, they just are trying to reinvent Clash of Spears!".
I don't know if there is a real idea behind this game (SPQR). Having read through some reviews and paging through a lent rulebook I saw a very flat, spiritless product. Say what you want about Bolt Action - for all enormous flaws it has an idea for itself, it's command system and Private Ryan special rules.
Meanwhile, there are Clash of Spears; Infamy, Infamy; Saga: AoH.
From all corpses on Warlords corpse pile, it's not the most enticing.
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I was thinking the same thing Szary! lol
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Does make you wonder who the audience for V2.0 is?
Those unaware and just looking to pick up some rules would have bought the first edition. Those who have tried and disliked the first edition probably aren't too keen on spending more money so soon on giving a revised version another try. Those who tried and liked the first edition have limited reason to get a book that replaces their existing one either.
I'm sure WG will sell a few copies once they put some marketing behind the relaunch, but enough to warrant the new edition? If it's just a throwaway game system, why bother; if it's supposed to be a major game system for them, why not do a better job the first time around?
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An update from warlord -
"Following the initial release of SPQR in 2019, we have been inundated with player feedback concerning the game mechanics. It is always important that we take into account the wisdom of practising wargamers and humbly recognise some of the issues raised by players in the SPQR community. We have this taken some of those suggestions and reworked and streamlined the game system to aleviate these issues, as well as rebalancing and tweaking unit point structures to promote overall balance.
Despite our goal of increased player enjoyment, we recognise that putting out a new edition so soon after the initial release could be a frustration to current SPQR players. We're therefore introducing a limited time redemption scheme to help both existing players and those who have yet to dip their toes into SPQR.
Until 24 March 2021, simply purchase one of the selected SPQR infantry box sets (there's a choice for each currrently available SPQR faction) from the Warlord Games webstore or any participating retailers, and you'll receive the revised edition rulebook completely free.
This offer is strictly limited to one per customer/household. All redemption scheme orders will be shipped at the closure of the redemption scheme period, on 24 March 2021."
I've gotta say that spending another £15 to the same tired plastic sprues warlord have been giving away free and get a replacement for the £20 rulebook I already bought doesn't exactly rekindle my enthusiasm for SPQR.
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I’m afraid I remain very sceptical of figure manufacturers who produce rules . If I look at my favourite rules....”To the Strongest”, Sharpe Practice, Battlegroup....they are either produced by dedicated rules companies or have their genesis there. In my experience too many poor sets of rules hide behind shiny models and background hype, and don’t stand scrutiny.
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Partway through that text, I thought it would be leading to a free PDF or somesuch, not a "buy something you may not want to get the rules for *free*". Not a big purchase required admittedly, but why not dare rely on the strength of the supposedly improved rules to sell you more miniatures, rather than sort of the opposite?
Could have provided more details on the improvements too - "We have this taken some of those suggestions and reworked and streamlined the game system to alleviate these issues, as well as rebalancing and tweaking unit point structures to promote overall balance." is about as vague and generic as it can be (while also incorrectly written, a promising start...).
Would love to hear how much really changed and improved, but not going to touch this myself any time soon.
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Partway through that text, I thought it would be leading to a free PDF or somesuch, not a "buy something you may not want to get the rules for *free*". Not a big purchase required admittedly, but why not dare rely on the strength of the supposedly improved rules to sell you more miniatures, rather than sort of the opposite?
Could be an accounting issue.
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Could be an accounting issue.
Yes, the issue is Accounting likes to count MORE money rather than less.
Warlord has a more GW model where you get money on the books AND the models.
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I think I’ll wait for 3rd edition. It will probably be out around the time I get my first Covid jab, with the next revision possibly coinciding with the second.
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I think I’ll wait for 3rd edition. It will probably be out around the time I get my first Covid jab, with the next revision possibly coinciding with the second.
This is the kind of highly period specific niche joke that anthropologists will fight over in decades to come.
I really can't summon any enthusiasm for buying sub par minis to get a possibly sup par set of rules.
Given that fact that you can't order from warlord without giving them an email address you'd think they could just send out a free PDF to anyone who ordered the book.
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My issue is that they shit the bed so badly with the first version that even if it is improved it still wouldn't be any good
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This thread is locked as for any other of this kind.
This is a wargames forum not a chat room.
We are all free to express a constructive opinion about the hobby but not free to be rude and do personal attacks.
This type of threads, language and behaviours arent tolerated here.