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Author Topic: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)  (Read 6715 times)

Offline ZeroTwentythree

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Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« on: March 24, 2020, 05:01:31 AM »
After I year of planning/procrastinating I finally played my first few solo games of the coop. fantasy skirmish Sellswords and Spellslingers. My first battle was a hard fought bloodbath...   :o

https://www.zerotwentythree.com/2020/03/sellswords-and-spellslingers-game-1.html




Offline Ethelred the Almost Ready

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2020, 07:07:42 AM »
It is certainly worth giving it another go.  It sounds like your dice rolling was awful. 
It is hard going without a spell caster - magic bolt or fireball are both rather useful.
One character with ranged ability will certainly make a difference, especially if they have strength and can use a war bow (2 damage).
Shields and armour offer a significant benefit.
I would have one character with a point in Hero which allows activation on 7+ (not much good if you were mainly rolling 5s!).
Using the right sized board is important - too large and you simply cannot get from A to B.
Possibly just have three characters and use the additional points to buff them a bit more.

I have tinkered with the rules in a variety of ways for various reasons.  The tinkering that has the least impact on the rules as written is to have a rule that on the third time a Scenario Event is drawn there are no more "Reinforcements" or "They're at our back" cards.  This allows for an eventual end.  There is nothing worse than having wounded characters moving at only 1 or 2" trying to get off the board.  They take a lot of activations and therefore risk more and more monsters appearing.

I hope this helps.

My other tinkers have been to create a more Tolkien-style game and to have a more questing D&D type feel.  If interested I can pass on some ideas but would advise you first play the vanilla rules a bit more.

Offline TWD

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2020, 07:48:16 AM »
Sounds very like my first (and do far only) game of S&S too.
Though your 50% survival was better than my Total Party Kill!
I've not played since, so glad to read that you're on game 4 now. I'm considering (given Lockdown) dusting it off and giving another try.

Really like the (bramble?) bushes on your table. How did you make them?

Offline Sunjester

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2020, 09:37:59 AM »
A common beginer's mistake and yes, I made it too when I started, is to play scenario 1 first. It's the most difficult basic level scenario in the book, especially of you do not have any shooters (bows or spellcasters). Try going back to the scenario after playing a few other games, I bet you would fare better on the second run (providing the dice gods do not keep frowning upon you!).

Online Spinal Tap

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #4 on: March 24, 2020, 10:03:30 AM »
I play Sellswords and Spellslingers a lot and love the game but poor rolls can kill you quickly and ruin a narrative campaign.

To mitigate I have the following house rules:

Fallen characters are lost for good if condition not checked.

If Checked:

Fallen characters who score 19 or 20 'just a flesh wound' remain on the field.

If they score 1-10 they are off the field.

If they score 11-18 then I can choose to take them off the field or allow them to stay with the respective limitations from the out of action table; if I keep them on the field and they go down again they are lost permanently.

I re-roll on the Out of Action table after the game for the condition of any evacuated characters.

If dead (1-7) they will cost 500 to resuscitate or leave them dead.

8-18 will require a healing potion to be bought and used or they are retired.

19 or 20, they are fine.

And sometimes, whatever I do, they all end up dead and I just have to replay the scenario.



For one off games I play the normal rules and if they die, they die.


« Last Edit: March 24, 2020, 10:07:11 AM by Spinal Tap »

Offline thebinmann

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #5 on: March 24, 2020, 10:34:40 AM »
After I year of planning/procrastinating I finally played my first few solo games of the coop. fantasy skirmish Sellswords and Spellslingers.

Haha, I have been doing that for 15 years, I tried Mordheim but it wasn't for me....

Now I am hesitating between S&S and Rangers of Shadow Deep (have you played that?)

I like the cards in this game.....


How do you rate the solo experience?

Offline Arundel

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2020, 01:36:40 PM »
I have tried both and much prefer Rangers. It also has a nicely atmospheric setting, though you are in no way forced to use it. In fact I don't myself, instead using it for Conan/Hyborian Age games, which better fit my figure collection and interests. All in all, RoSD is a great system, runs very smoothly, and is well worth giving a try!

Offline Ethelred the Almost Ready

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2020, 04:15:30 AM »
I have tried both and much prefer Rangers. It also has a nicely atmospheric setting, though you are in no way forced to use it. In fact I don't myself, instead using it for Conan/Hyborian Age games, which better fit my figure collection and interests. All in all, RoSD is a great system, runs very smoothly, and is well worth giving a try!

Funny, I'm the opposite - I like Rangers but prefer SS&SS.   I just don't see Rangers as having enough to be able to call itself a solo/cooperative game.  It looks to me like any other set of rules.  I like the uncertainty of of Sellswords.  I do get frustrated with continued failed activations.  This results in a very static game as you cannot move and when you do activate it has to be spent on combat because all the fails mean more monsters.
I have played a more quest/D&D type game where we activated on 6+ (with a few other necessary rules to prevent overpowering the characters and some additional monster AI) and a bigger table.  This added only a little extra complexity to the rules but allowed for a far more fluid game.  I have only done this twice but plan to play more games like this.
Having said that, I have played at least 10 games of Sellswords  using the vanilla rules and had fun with them all.

Offline ZeroTwentythree

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #8 on: March 25, 2020, 04:58:09 AM »
I bought Sellswords a year ago and started making plans to play it. Later on I also bought Rangers and still plan to play it too. Both look like good games, but with different approaches.

As far as Sellswords goes, after playing four games I acknowledge that a BIG part of the game is the dice, even beyond my one unlucky starting game. That can kill the fun a bit... and the party. I almost had a repeat, but luckily it was in an easier scenario and although I (once again) had two of the characters acting totally inept (more fumbles shutting down spellcasting and shooting right a the start of the game... I need to check for cursed dice!) But the drama of the game is part of the appeal, I think. If a game is too easy -- you know you will win in the end, where's the fun in that? Not that I want the entire party killed, either. ;) But I've enjoyed the tension and sense of drama in Sellswords so far.

It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I do recommend trying it out if you're looking for this sort of coop/solo game. I haven't played many games at all recently, but I really enjoyed these solo games this week. And they gave a much better experience than my trying to play a normally two player game as a solo game recently.


Offline thebinmann

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #9 on: March 25, 2020, 07:02:27 AM »
It sounds S&S is more Warhammer and esp Pendragon/Cthulhu where you can die really easy - A giant in Pendragon will destroy a knight's armour, the knight, the horse and still do damage to the ground. And ROSD is maybe more D&D? But this is skirmish and not rpg...

I like both, so will try both.

I also like rolling dice and depending on their outcome for games - if I don't want that I play chess (which I like too)...

Offline Sunjester

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #10 on: March 25, 2020, 08:32:20 AM »
From my personal experience Sellswords is exactly like the D&D game I played long ago, without all the complicated charts and tables.

I haven't played Rangers, although I have talked to friends who have, and it sounds a good game as well.

Bad dice in Sellswords can lead to a disappointing game, but  I've had the same experience with Frostgrave (unable to cast any spells!) and Rangers uses the same mechanism. If I'm playing solo and the game stops being fun, I can always reset and go again. :D

Offline 6mmfan

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #11 on: April 01, 2020, 03:15:52 AM »
Sellswords is great but as you found it can be tough.

In my first game my party got wiped out and again in the third game! I made the same mistake playing Through the Badlands which is not a beginner scenario.

I found its really important to focus on the victory conditions and not use unnecessary activations on things like looting. The game by design gets harder the more it goes on, as cards get removed from the deck. That's one of the clever aspects I really like about it.

Upgrades such as the Hero bonus, increasing weapon levels, healing potions, shields all help reduce risk of failure, but dice still play a big part. Whirlwind of steel is great if you can afford it and it really speeds up dealing with hordes.

Ethelred raised some good ideas as well and Fireball is almost mandatory for killing hordes (which saves a lot of activations).

I haven't played RoSD (own it) and it reads well, but I do really enjoy the tension and chaos that is Sellswords. RoSD seems more programmed and I'm not sure about repeatability of the scenarios, Sellswords is more open to developing your own scenarios and campaigns, but than again RoSD has a number of extra campaigns already.

Offline Ethelred the Almost Ready

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #12 on: April 01, 2020, 04:48:06 AM »
I think RoSD has a bigger following because it has been marketed better, has much better scenarios, and has a nice world concept for those scenarios to be based in.
There is a lot to like about RoSD and if I had a big circle of gamers I would play this like D&D - with a games master.
The preprogramming in RoSD just doesn't work for me as a solo game.
SS&SS has a lot more surprises and you just can't predict what will happen.  It's weakness is that it is almost too random.  There is almost no point in making a strategy because it can all be undone through a few bad dice rolls.
As mentioned, we are trying a modified version where the chance of passing an activation roll is increased.  This does require some tweaking of things, especially spells (we don't want 3 fireballs a turn to be usual).  This version has a more complex monster AI.  Overall, this makes the game even more like D&D although it is marginally slower/more complex.

Offline thebinmann

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #13 on: April 01, 2020, 04:56:59 AM »
Hello

When you say we do you mean we the developers or we a gaming group? Either way I'd be interested in seeing that.

At the moment I will probably try ROSD, but I want to do SS&SS too - the cards and randomness appeal to me (esp. in solo)

Thanks

Offline Ethelred the Almost Ready

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Re: Sellswords & Spellslingers (Solo)
« Reply #14 on: April 01, 2020, 06:33:16 AM »
Hello

When you say we do you mean we the developers or we a gaming group? Either way I'd be interested in seeing that.

At the moment I will probably try ROSD, but I want to do SS&SS too - the cards and randomness appeal to me (esp. in solo)

Thanks


Sorry, by "we" I mean me, my mate and the bloke next door. 
Like most gamers, I like to tinker with rules, and I tinker more than most.  I am still uncertain about what I want from a game.  Sellswords is  a good generl engine, so the issue is:  do I play with the rules as they are; do I modify them for a Middle Earth Setting; do I make them more like a D&D adventure with a bit more emphasis on movement and adventure?  I think this is another strength of RoSD, where you can investigate clues and use non-combat skills in a meaningful way.