Savage Worlds - miniature games?

[Sangennaru]

From wiki:

"Self-contained miniature skirmish games based upon the Savage Worlds engine were also released in print and PDF form."

Looking around in the net i had some difficulties finding this so called self-contained games. I LOVE this ruleset, but for a pure skirmish game the rules are too elaborated, and making a character is not balanced (who needs smarts in a skirmish game?).... i was thinking to edit the rules (they work great with my present rpg game, though), but if there are published games maybe it would be a better option.

Does anyone have a better link to a better ruleset?

Thanks LAFers! ^_^

Jack

[Mike D. Mc Brice]

The miniatures skirmish version of Savage Worlds is called "Savage Worlds - Showdown". "Rippers - the horror wars" features these. I also remeber a modern warfare set of rules calle "modern ops" or something simillar.

[Westfalia Chris]

We are currently planning to use the Showdown rules for fantasy gaming (a bit of Game of Thrones, and maybe more fantastic stuff). They seem to be a bit streamlined from the roleplaying variant, and there also is a spreadsheet calculator which provides preconstructed stats and helps you cost your own settings.

If you cannot find it online for download, drop me a pm and I can mail you a copy of the PDF(s) in question. It should be available on their website, though:

http://www.peginc.com/product-category/free-downloads/page/2/

[Sangennaru]

Thanks both of you, i just downloaded it and will start reading today!

Thanks a lot! =)

[Sangennaru]

Ok, i've read the manual.

First impression: They shure use a lot of copypaste.

Beside of that, the system looks quite the same, with some improvements on the magic and they removed edges, hindrances and skills, that's ok.
But... the score points is totally useless! The "super secret formula" reminds me of the Ganesha Games one: just sum a little for each trait-characteristic-special, and that's all.

they wrote on the manual "The Troop Builder isn't a competitive tool for you and your opponent to create whatever you want before duking it out. It's a Game Master's tool for creating reasonably balanced army lists."
Well... my impression was: "The Troop Builder isn't something giving you addictional informations about the unit you created, and it is not the results of hours of beta testing, balancing each element to give you a tool to have a good idea of the power of your foes. I'ts just a SUM() function in excel, which returns you (well, more or less) the sum of the various powers."

I felt in this once with Song of Blades and Heroes (great game, though), honestly i don't think it's a good thing to offer, expecially to unexperienced gamers.

[Dewbakuk]

Actually the Troop Builder isn't bad if you know what you're doing. I've used it for a few scenario's and troop set ups. The problem is you need to think about how you use it and it is open to serious abuse. So yeah, for inexperienced players or power gamers it's worse than not having it.

[Sangennaru]

Actually the Troop Builder isn't bad if you know what you're doing. I've used it for a few scenario's and troop set ups. The problem is you need to think about how you use it and it is open to serious abuse. So yeah, for inexperienced players or power gamers it's worse than not having it.

Yeah, you told it better than me. Actually, for a more experienced player having a score basically summing the stats of a character is not that useful as well, as long as you can't compare them.

That's bad, i was already expecting an ultra-pro miniature system. Do you LAFers know some alternative point system? otherwise i will just make the various stats for each monster-foe and offer them in a bid:

each player starts with, say, 100 tokens. In a random order i will show the various characters, and each player will bet on the first one, then the second one... and so on. But this way it will be quite easy to have higly unbalanced teams, since the bidding process sometimes leave no space for mistakes.

Well... at least it would be player's fault. What do you think about it?

[Dewbakuk]

If you are the one creating all the characters then it should be fine. The things to bear in mind are the skill and weapon choices. The 1st attribute and 1st weapon calculate at a much higher value than the others. It's not neccesary to have that as the most expensive weapon or highest stat however, those should be the weapon and stat that is likely to be used the most.

For example, a highly skilled swordsman and consumate horseman could be carrying a katana and a colt peacemaker. He'd have three Att abilities and two weapons. The first att would be his high melee skill, the others would be a low shoot and a very high ride, doesn't matter whether they are 2nd or 3rd as they calculate the same way. The Peacemaker is the more expensive weapon but with the low skill it's less likely to be used, particularly if he has a horse to close quickly on the enemy, so the katana is the 1st weapon.

Also, bear in mind that extras can be formed into units if they are identical in stat and weapon choices. This discounts them considerably but forces them to act as one. This is again seriously open to abuse unless you are forming similar troop types on both sides. You don't want to create groups of extras in units on one side and a group of individual extras on the other.

[Sangennaru]

interesting advices, thanks.

any opinion on the "bid" system?

[Dewbakuk]

any opinion on the "bid" system?

It can work but you can end up with people bidding massively on something they think is good leaving no real bidding on the rest. At least until they've used them a few times and know what the different characters do. You'd do just as well assigning the characters randomly.

Is this a skirmish game with a few individuals a side? If so, you could give a brief description of the character and make them choose without looking at stats etc 

[Sangennaru]

Is this a skirmish game with a few individuals a side? If so, you could give a brief description of the character and make them choose without looking at stats etc 

You know, that is a BRILLIANT idea! maybe giving some edges to "inspect" the character better, like knowing some characteristic better.
I'd do like this, i think

[Dewbakuk]

You know, that is a BRILLIANT idea!

Glad to help

[Sangennaru]

Tried yesterday night the bidding system for Savage Worlds.

I showed the stats to the other players, mainly because i did the stats and i was a player myself. I fixed a basic cost for each "group" (some little minions or a stronger foe) and started bidding sequentially. An interesting way of acting, at the end we all had some good groups of characters. Not well assorted, but somehow balanced.

Now my question is:
did anyone started already preparing stats for EACH Reaper Bones miniature?
It would be really really cool to have the stats card (like the confrontation ones) for each, using them as unique characters for a dungeoncrawl RPG system! Together with Savage Worlds rules and some other campaign rules it would turn out GREAT!

if anyone did it, i might start. With some help it would be a very nice project!