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Author Topic: Impetus - worth a punt?  (Read 1797 times)

Offline aliensurfer

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Impetus - worth a punt?
« on: January 13, 2014, 08:22:13 PM »
I've had a glance at the free rules, is the main book (and the extra impetus I guess) worth getting? for the historical periods I do currently play I already have some good rulesets from the 70's that suit the purpose - quick, easy to learn, don't require vast amounts of figures per unit. I think Impetus would suit, but what is it like for certain genres - would it give a good feel for the period? I am thinking of starting to do Feudal Japan - circa 16th century. I am nearly sold on the rules, especially given there are fantasy rules too to use with it.

I've only posted here but I know the rules cover ancients to renaissance, is there a way to crosspost on here? If not, I'll just leave it here. Thanks in advance for any info etc.

scott

Offline vonplutz

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Re: Impetus - worth a punt?
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2014, 04:24:39 AM »
Our club swears by them.

I've only played a Peleponnesian war hoplite battle but I felt it captured the flavour of the time well. Some house rules have been made at the club to fix oddly worded stuff as the rules were in Italian originally and can at times be a little confusing.

Offline Atheling

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Re: Impetus - worth a punt?
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2014, 07:54:53 AM »
Our club swears by them.

I've only played a Peleponnesian war hoplite battle but I felt it captured the flavour of the time well. Some house rules have been made at the club to fix oddly worded stuff as the rules were in Italian originally and can at times be a little confusing.

Yep, we used it for the Battle of Verneuil demo game at Salute in 2011. They worked quite well.

Pics here:

http://lajourney-bedford.blogspot.co.uk/

Darrell.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2014, 08:00:16 AM by Atheling »

Offline redzed

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    • redzed
Re: Impetus - worth a punt?
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2014, 07:56:02 AM »
I have a set for sale £10 + postage. ;)

excellent game. The army books are really impressive.
Commission Painting undertaken, PM or email me.

Offline aliensurfer

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Re: Impetus - worth a punt?
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2014, 08:32:54 PM »
you had me at I..... cheers.

Is Fantasy Impetus going to get a full book does anyone know as intrigued with that too.

Offline starkadder

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Re: Impetus - worth a punt?
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2014, 12:15:29 AM »
Definitely worth a punt.

Impetus was good enough to get me off my arse and play in my first competition in twenty years.

I had walked away from all parts of the game after watching the points lawyers and accountants corrupt Australian competitions to the point of despair.

I like Impetus for its relative simplicity, its quickness of play and general feel. The slight unpredictability makes it fun. We seem to have stabilised on 350 pts competition-style armies. This means that you can build several different armies as historical opponents or just play in different periods for not a huge money outlay.

Don't use the Basic set, however tempting that it's free. Go straight to the full Advanced stuff. It's so much better.

There are a few complexities. The translation occasionally confuses but commonsense rather than grammatical point-scoring has worked that out. The cohesion test is the thing to understand and lies at the heart of the mechanics. Understand that and the rest falls into place.

One negative is the strange habit of amending the rules with each supplement rather than a simple update on the dadi and piombo site. It's not helpful. If you have any problems there are heaps of players around to help.
It requires less mental effort to condemn than to think - Emma Goldman

Offline maxxon

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Re: Impetus - worth a punt?
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2014, 06:41:03 AM »
I bought Impetus a couple of years ago but haven't yet played it.

Quite frankly the insistence on using Italian abbreviations for unit types turned me off... but maybe I should put up a test game.

I tried Hail Caeasar and while it's kinda fun and very popular (I would say mostly due to huge publicity and easy availability), I didn't find a good linear warfare feel in it.

Small Cuts - a miniatures webzine - www.smallcuts.net

Offline Watts

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Re: Impetus - worth a punt?
« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2014, 03:54:39 PM »
One negative is the strange habit of amending the rules with each supplement rather than a simple update on the dadi and piombo site. It's not helpful. If you have any problems there are heaps of players around to help.

There's an all-in-one up date now that gets updated regularly - you can find it on the Impetus forum:

http://impetus.forumsland.com/impetus-about4236.html

Offline Lowtardog

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Re: Impetus - worth a punt?
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2014, 04:21:12 PM »
I have a set for sale £10 + postage. ;)

excellent game. The army books are really impressive.

Beat me to it, knew I had seen it was up for sale :D ;D

 

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