Brent Spivey's The Battlefield

[Hobgoblin]

Has anyone tried this for sci fi?

We played a four-player game yesterday: space marines vs orks with a side-order of zombies and alien mercenaries. It was great - and I think it will be our go-to for sci-fi from now on: certainly for multi-player games.

Some of the concepts are familiar from the same author's Mayhem (Overdrive, notably), and some things were familiar from Rogue Planet. Like that game, it's a ruleset that seems a bit complex until you get it on the table, when it plays extremely smoothly and intuitively. My 10-year-old daughter grasped the mechanics straight away (and indeed won the game playing the zombies!).

We used none of the more advanced rules ("loadouts", etc.), and we didn't end up getting vehicles on the table, but it was easy to see how those could be tailored to 40Kish tropes: space marines could get 'flak jacket' to represent their armour while orks could get 'knives' to represent their savagery in close combat. Agreeing some of those as unique preserves of particular groups might give a nice balance and flavour.

I was also thinking about how to represent primitives, not least because I've been painting up a large batch of Kev Adams orcs and orks.

My thoughts went along these lines: primitives get knives (swords, axes, whatever) as a default and appear in groups of six (like zombies). If they have bows, they don't get the anti-infantry rule and have an optimal range of just 6". Very heavily armed primitives (two-handed weapons and armour, say) could get a CQ+3 (between knives and SMGs) and the flak-jacket rule but only for close combat.

Has anyone tried anything similar?

[bermanj]

Yeah, I played it a number of times with my kids as well. It has some great ideas and mechanics in there and made for a fun time. Yes, we used W40k minis.

We played using the full range of respawn rules/specialisms and I made a deck of cards to help. It ended up feeling semi-W40k, but was a lot of fun.

One thing that I had subsequently ported over to RP was the manner in which buildings and other terrain have zones, and how that translates into firing bonuses, penalties etc. Also the manner that vehicle efficiency gets erroded - I've used that same in RP numerous times for dealing with bosses etc.

I never did find a good play through however... maybe that could be a project for another day?

PS I had some new guys at my club to try Rogue Planet last week and they enjoyed it 👍

[Hobgoblin]

Yeah, I played it a number of times with my kids as well. It has some great ideas and mechanics in there and made for a fun time. Yes, we used W40k minis.

It was your tip that put me onto it - for which many thanks!

We played using the full range of respawn rules/specialisms and I made a deck of cards to help. It ended up feeling semi-W40k, but was a lot of fun.

The respawn thing is great, I think - it's a nice way of giving the impression that what's on the tabletop is only part of a much bigger battle. We'll have to get the specialisms in next time - possibly agreeing 'thematic' loadouts for each side.

I was also thinking of a profile for 'bugs' (tyranids, genestealers, kryomeks, etc.): maybe groups of 4 with a 6" move and the SMG rule for close combat only. So lightning fast but only a threat when they actually get in.

One thing that I had subsequently ported over to RP was the manner in which buildings and other terrain have zones, and how that translates into firing bonuses, penalties etc. Also the manner that vehicle efficiency gets erroded - I've used that same in RP numerous times for dealing with bosses etc.

Yes, that's all good stuff: I thought the abstracted terrain was a great aspect of the game. We'll throw some vehicles in next time.

How have you found RP to play with more than two players? We're going to play some more RP soon, but I've always thought of it as a strict 1:1 game.

PS I had some new guys at my club to try Rogue Planet last week and they enjoyed it 👍

Excellent!

[bermanj]

Rogue Planet can work very well with more than 2 players - the whole Action/Counter Action mechanic, coupled with Action Points means everyone has the opportunity to be actively involved during each and every minute of the game.

As it happens, I'm in the process of writing up a Quick Reference Sheet (QRS) that I intend to have ready for multiplayer games. Some things that it touches upon (off the top of my head, as I was only working on it subsequent to our multiplayer game last week):

I use the term Rounds and Turns - each Round has as many Turns as there are Players.

During the First Round, everyone rolls d6 for their Action Points. The winnner (flip a coin for ties) then can choose who has the first Turn i.e. who will be the 'Active Player'.

The Active Player must use at least 1 Action Point, else exhaust their Action Points, before play passes to their left (i.e. clockwise).

Any one Player can Counteract the Active Player's Action(s) - it is a case of first come, first serve! If you want to try it (I have, it's a bit messy), you could allow any number of players to Counteract the Active Player's Action. Just think how you would go about resolving an 3 Op Fires and 2 Intercepts against a single Move. Yeah. Yuck. I've trialled Action Point bidding - fun, but with only 1-6 Actions a Turn, not overly attractive. FCFS is easiest to implement and gets people more excited enough :-)

After all Players have had their Turn, the Round ends. At the end of the Round, all unused Action Points are lost.

So this allows Players to hold some of their Action Points to power their Counters to subsequent Players' Actions BUT there's no guarantee that they'll actually get the opportunity to do so - risk/reward-type decision right there.

The above is basically it. I've got a few additional tweaks that I'm continuing to experiment with, but you could use that 'as is' and have a lot of fun. I am a big fan of a default 4, rather than 3 Action Points (that risk/reward thing at play again) and awarding Action Points rather than Moves on Partial Successes and Failures (again, I've tried a few variations, nothing's perfect).

[Hobgoblin]

That's really helpful - many thanks!

I'm itching to play Rogue Planet again, but we went with The Battlefield both yesterday and Saturday because we were playing with five people. Mind you, The Battlefield was a hit both times - yesterday's game was great fun, and I think we'll be playing it for a while. But perhaps I'll smuggle in a Rogue Planet game next weekend.

In a sci-fi context, a great attraction of The Battlefield is the small unit size. I've been looking through some old 80s figures in the lead pile, and it's really easy to find whole 'armies' that you didn't know you had. Yesterday, I found 12 old metal Eldar in with my orks. There are assault/command, anti-tank and support squads there, and if I can unearth one more, I'll put one aside as a sniper and have a full four-unit force.

And for rag-tag forces (alien mercenaries, scum and villainy, whatever), it's perfect.

Yesterday, we tried out a tank (actually a large dreadnought) yesterday, which went well; the gradual 'crippling' of vehicles is a great touch. And we had a command unit on the table too.

All of has got me thinking about Mayhem again, too. The Overdrive mechanic is tremendous; I find it's actually better for keeping everyone involved than many explicit 'turn-sharing/interrupting' rules because it introduces so much tension (and often makes turns very short).

[Hobgoblin]

Any one Player can Counteract the Active Player's Action(s) - it is a case of first come, first serve! If you want to try it (I have, it's a bit messy), you could allow any number of players to Counteract the Active Player's Action. Just think how you would go about resolving an 3 Op Fires and 2 Intercepts against a single Move. Yeah. Yuck. I've trialled Action Point bidding - fun, but with only 1-6 Actions a Turn, not overly attractive. FCFS is easiest to implement and gets people more excited enough :-)

Yes, FCFS sounds best. We played a few multi-player games of Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes in which everyone got a reaction to a failure. It worked well in that it really broke up the turn sequence, but it was quite chaotic. I suspect FCFS gives you the same involvement without the mess!

[Jagannath]

This is interesting given how much I love Rogue Planet - this is the only of Brent’s games I don’t own so must take a look especially if there’s stuff i can port over to RP.

[Hobgoblin]

This is interesting given how much I love Rogue Planet - this is the only of Brent’s games I don’t own so must take a look especially if there’s stuff i can port over to RP.

It's definitely worth a look - and it would be a great fit with all your 15mm stuff. It's also a much quicker game to get going than Rogue Planet, as there are set stats for everything.

I'm a big fan of 'design your own profiles', but sometimes it's nice just to be able to get the game going on a whim.

Have you played Havoc much? I've only played it a couple of times, and years back, but I recall it being very good - though it was a struggle to get the game out of the book!

[Jagannath]

It's definitely worth a look - and it would be a great fit with all your 15mm stuff. It's also a much quicker game to get going than Rogue Planet, as there are set stats for everything.

I'm a big fan of 'design your own profiles', but sometimes it's nice just to be able to get the game going on a whim.

Have you played Havoc much? I've only played it a couple of times, and years back, but I recall it being very good - though it was a struggle to get the game out of the book!

Once - similarly I know it's a great game, but can't be bothered to fight the rulebook. It's desperate for a second edition that game.

[Hobgoblin]

Once - similarly I know it's a great game, but can't be bothered to fight the rulebook. It's desperate for a second edition that game.

Ha! Yes, indeed! I said that virtually verbatim on my blog today!

There are rumours of an official QRS for it floating around; that would be a (literal) game-changer.

[bermanj]

I asked Brent about Havoc ages back and he steered me to Rogue Planet and Mayhem. If I recall the sentiment, it was that those two games were materially more evolved than Havoc.

[Jagannath]

Yeah that makes sense - Rogue Planet is absolutely my favourite ‘battle’ game (ie no role playing elements). I love it. I’ve got a rskinned version that allows for a bit more granularity in a fantasy setting (eg carbines are bows, I houseruled crossbows etc) that works nicely for Age if Sigmar type over the top fantasy.

[Hobgoblin]

The other two games are certainly much easier to digest. I do, though, have a dim memory of Havoc playing really well once we got it to the table (must be at least three or four years ago now). So I'm keen to dig through it and give it another go.

We played another quick game of The Battlefield yesterday, and a couple of ideas came to mind.

The first was to try a game with longer movement increments (6" rather than 3"). The reason for this is just the size of table we're using (6' x 4'); I wondered if the tweak might give the game more of a Rogue Planet-esqe sense of very fast movement. It might mess up the tactical balance of shooting actions versus movement, but on the other hand, it would allow units to dash across a narrow street in a single action (they'd still be exposed to overwatch, but not to multiple rounds of it). No idea how this would play out, but I've been thinking about unearthing some 15mm stuff for indoor games on a smaller table, and it struck me that 15mm on 3' x 4' with 3" movement might quite similar to 6' x 4' with 28mm and 6" increments. Because of the straight-line rule, 'delicate' movement around terrain would be pretty much the same, but straight dashes might be a bit faster.

The second thought was about cavalry. It's a ridiculous idea, of course - there's a reason they're not used much in modern warfare! But I've got some science-fantasy dragoons kitbashed and half-painted, and I was thinking about how they might work. I have the same unit kitbashed in both mounted and dismounted form, so I'd have lots of options for using them.

What I was thinking was along these lines:

1. Double infantry movement (so 6" if normal movement increments are 3").
2. Lots of extra dice in close combat (at least +4)
3. Extreme vulnerability to ranged attacks - so maybe + 2 dice against them (and they'd count as infantry for anti-infantry purposes) and damage from suppression as well as (or instead of) suppression tokens: either excess suppression causes damage or each suppression counter also causes a hit.
4. A 'save' when the unit takes casualties to see if any riders survive - who then form their own unit on foot.

Might not be worth the bother, but I have lots of potential primitive cavalry options along with the dragoons, and there might even be some interesting and not-too-ludicrous options - e.g. special forces mounting up to drop C4 explosives into vehicles, etc.