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Afaik it was first employed by Deadlands: The Great Railwars a rather excellent skirmish system, which sadly never took off, and imo suffered from too many crazy models instead of focusing on Wild West. The engine now lives on in the Savage World group of RPGs which can also be used very well for tabletop skirmish games.
What's needed is a 'generic' sci-fi 'warband' size game. Forces should be customizable to match whatever miniatures you have. Focus on scenarios and not "fluff" as most people will fill that in anyway. It needs solid, interesting rules mechanisms. And, yes a "points" system. It needs to be physically published and available to retailers both B&M and online. Forget kickstarter. Easy Peasy
Well Gates of Antares was too damn slow. They had a big window to scoop up 40k players who were unhappy with 7th ed but didnt get their plastics or starter set out until 8th ed hit whixh got alot if people interested in 40k again. That and the rules are needlessly dense at times. As for breachstorm ? It just looks mediocre, it uses the same generic mass effect design that 80% of sci fi art and games use these days.This. Though I see gamers doing it themselves quite often lately. Dragon Rampant and Warlords of Erewhon both have fan made dci fi lists.
Quoted for truthIts has to be what Rogue Stars promised but failed to deliver.We need Stargrave :>
I, for one, would be appreciative of easy game mechanics, fast play, and character development that creates a moderate RPG type feel. I'm also grateful for a solid AI system. I typically play solo, and when I get to sucker (sweet talk?) my wife into playing with me I can't try to play a game and teach her some crunchy system that requires four tutorial games before something interesting happens. Scale, I am starting to lean heavily towards 15mm. Entry point is easier on my wallet when I want to jump sideways. Skirmish level all the way down to single character would be my choice. I don't want to have a faceless army of hundreds when I can care about 1-5 characters. I can't imagine anything worse, for me, than something that looks like tournament play. Points are fine, but sometimes the good guys should be outnumbered and sometimes the good guys show up with overwhelming force to put down a minor annoyance. I don't need a system to tell me how to balance or write my scenarios, but I'm happy enough to take some feedback from the creator as to what a good unit looks like compared to a bad one. Maybe it is the D&D player in me that thinks "one guy vs a dragon? Sounds like an adventure!"
I liked test game we played. I think its OK system.But mechanics are made unnecessary complicated (seriously, most of the traits just give +1 to +3 bonus to a test - why make them super complicated just to avoid saying +1 to test..) and difficult, and its just hard game to chew into.It just fail to deliver excitement and be gaming friendly.I can create Frostgrave Wizards and crews fir fun with paper and pencil and have interesting time without actual game play.In RS its tiresome exercise in futility that always put me off.And I like complicated rule sets and have fun with creating Inquisitor retinues.Thats why I asked for Stargrave.Game with similar traits.I am yet unable to find unfortunately.
Please no.Frostgrave is ok. It's fun to a degree but it isn't flexible enough to be more than a treasure grabbing wizard off. That's not to say I don't like it, I have enjoyed games of it, but it is no where near flexible enough. You want more scenarios not involving treasure grabbing to win.If anything, I would say Saga is a better model.But for me, you want to be able to field forces as few as 20 models perhaps in fire teams of 3-5 up to squads of 8-10 say.Personally I also think we have arrived at a time when games don't have to be dictated by the limitations of a d6. Tabletop gaming is a popular and pretty mainstream past time and the old concept of using d6 because everyone has monopoly is a bit outdated now.I'd push to d8 or d10 and allow for a lot more differentiation between troop types and weapons if desired.One of the issues 40k now has is that whilst they have a vaster array of unit options and types to select from as well as equipment, most of the differentiation is how many dice you roll. It gets a bit tedious after a while. And the balance between combat and shooting is daft.Back on point, focus on saga sized games but with the ability to have small units that can be played on smaller tables. Mass Battle stuff is more than catered for and I feel a bit of a dying breed in many ways. Frostgrave, Saga, Mantic's Vanguard, Moonstone, Infinity and various other successful games in recent years have proven that the market for proper skirmish games is really thriving.
4. Fluff free - Playing games is about imagination. I use mine. Stop forcing your derivative background on me. Spend the time caressing game mechanics that work, not writing poor source material because you think you're a competent author - you're usually not.
However my wife feels it is a bit one dimensional due to focusing just on war. She wants to play a space exploration tabletop with combat but also non-combat sci-fi elements. Star Trek away team type themes. We talked about Frostgrave in space with each game being on a new planet with surprise terrain and miniatures... but it would be nice to have more depth than the Frostgrave series of games. Solo play, campaign narrative.... more Rangers of Shadowdeep in space than Frostgrave I suppose.So as you can see, our needs are quite complex and probably fairly niche. A game with rpg aspects, solo play option, generic miniature friendly...and not too complicated so more time can be spent playing than referencing rule books. No easy task!
So a few ideas would be Void Pirates (or its big brother Blasters and Bulkheads) from Four Color Studios though maybe not for solo play; Nordic Weasel Games has what seems like a dozen sci-fi skirmish rulesets, some like Clash on the Fringe, Five Parsecs From Home or Starport Scum might work. Rogue Stars (Osprey) maybe too.