Black Powder Red Earth 28mm - What am I missing?

[MBear]

Hi folks,

hope you are all good.

I am a big fan of modern skirmish wargames and just bought a copy of BPRE 28mm. The minis are amazing, the artwork is crisp and all the talk of fast tactical combat, well, I guess this raised my expectations quite a bit.

Having read the rulebook (which btw does not offer a lot of content) several times and watched quite a few games I am wondering  - what am I missing? The game feels... strange. It appears to be very static and to me just comes down to rolling dice. No real movement, not a lot of tactical thinking, no overwatch, no FOW, no nothing. Just be somewhere, roll a dice, get over TV of 16 or something, killed, scrambled or alive, next one.

Might be that this is intentional, strip it down to the bare minimum of things, to make game play faster, but I feel it was overdone - this does not feel like a wargame anylonger.

Am I missing something? What are your experiences?

To me it looks as if I have get back to the gold standard of modern wargaming, which is "Force on Force" by AmbushAlley / Osprey. Even if the rules can be a bit complicated at times, I think they did an amazing job of creating tactical gameplay, which is very dynamic, quick, constantly changing and makes for a great gaming experience.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks
M

[Bloggard]

edit:

looking more closely at the sub-forum 'definitions' I guess this is the right board for this topic, so, apologies, have at it.

Perhaps there's an argument for making a sub-forum more explicitly for the 'near future' genre?
Particularly when it's so thinly-veiled 'real, modern world' stuff?

Looking at the stuff that's posted there, I would have thought that: The Conflicts that came in from the Cold board could do with a re-name, and include modern - Alt stuff like this?

[Westfalia Chris]

edit:

looking more closely at the sub-forum 'definitions' I guess this is the right board for this topic, so, apologies, have at it.

Perhaps there's an argument for making a sub-forum more explicitly for the 'near future' genre?
Particularly when it's so thinly-veiled 'real, modern world' stuff?

Looking at the stuff that's posted there, I would have thought the: The Conflicts that came in from the Cold board could do with a re-name, and include modern - Alt stuff like this?

Yes, in general theory, anything "twenty minutes into the future" without any too overt sci-fi elements would be suitable for the Modern board, under the usual caveats applying to current and recent conflicts, which may be subject to moderational scrutiny.

If the OP's intent is for a more futuristic approach, I'll be happy to leave it here. If you aim for Ultra-Modern without the sci-fi, then I'll move it for you, if you wish. Don't mind either way.

[MBear]

Sorry, guys, might then indeed fit more for the "Modern Board". Thought I saw another BPRE thread here, therefore landed it here. Thanks for your assistance.

[Cypher226]

BPRE feels very much like a board game masquerading as a miniatures game.  The miniatures are gorgeous, to be sure, but the rules are simple.  It's very much intended to be a quick pick-up game. 

There's a good chance that it will expand into a much more detailed game (the Phase Line expansion is adding a lot, from what I gather), but the core book is very streamlined.

I'd recommend you take a look at Spectre Operations if you're looking for something man-to-man, whereas FoF struck me as a very much platoon/fire team based game (plus the former is on sale at 40% off for black friday at the moment, according to Spectre's email this morning!).

[madman]

I really recommend Battlespace from Table Salt games (available on wargamevault). Two limits are solo (or coop) and as written designed for max 4 figures. But well written, complete (nothing missing), intelligent and tense. Fun set of rules, miniatures agnostic and with the many additional content, both on WGV, their discord page and Facebook makes for an ongoing game. Modiphius is supposed to be coming out with an expanded(?) set of rules. Myself I have been adapting the game for Bongolesia and heard of other people working up alternate themes for the rules including Ghost Busters!

[madman]

The BPRE game looked rather samey when I saw the previews, pity that is simple samey. Force on Force, and its variants are much deeper but I found it needed a lot of additional things added to a scenario to offset the dice size (D6 vs D8 vs D10 and forget D12) variation between sides. I also agree with the complaints about poorly laid out and hard to find stuff.

He is working on an updated version which for now is handling ultra modern PLUS future. The development version is called Next War (also wargamesvault) at full price but you are supposed to be able to get any future releases for the one price including the final copy. He has a significant presence on discord and there is a good bit of feedback and replies (as of a month or so ago when I got overloaded with life and haven't visited much since).