OK, what's the sci-fi equivalent of Pig Wars?

[Hobgoblin]

I've been reading through Pig Wars recently and plan on running some multi-player fantasy games with it in the near future: games with six or more players, potentially. But - after chancing upon some oddly shaped packaging inserts that I'd earmarked as 15mm sci-fi terrain during lockdown today - I started thinking about doing something similar in sci-if too: either in 15mm or in 28mm or both. I reckon our 6 x 4 table would look pretty good with our mat turned to its "Martian red" side and lots of 15mm figures swarming across it.

But what rules would work best for a multi-player game with, say six or more players, 20 figures per player and lots of competing objectives? I'm thinking of a scenario that might centre around an alien temple complex and might involve rival forces along these lines:

• an official Federal/Imperial archaeological team with marine escort who have just discovered an astonishing alien object in the temple
• a private collector of alien artefacts and his unscrupulous guards and companions
• a strike force from a rival civilisation that knows something about the alien object that the Federation/Empire doesn't
• a team of bounty hunters who have plan to waylay the archaeologists and make off with treasure
• another team of bounty hunters who want to settle a score with the first
• Primitive local worshippers at the temple who are NOT PLEASED with its profaning by outlanders
• Even less civilised locals who like to prey on the worshippers and don't mind a more varied menu
• The Things in the Temple themselves ...

Fistful of Lead might work (but might the numbers fall between the 'gunfighter' original and Bigger Battles?). FUBAR, maybe - but how well does it work with multiple players? Pig Wars mashed up with One-Hour Skirmish Wargames - or with Donnybrook and its 40K mods?

Or is there something out there that's ready-made?

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

FFOL works fine even with lots of figs beyond 50 or so on the board.  Just use a second deck of cards ( or half of it).  Ties go to the deck with the red backs…or dice off.

[Cat]

Whatever mash-up = Pigs in Space!
: 3

[robh]

"Space Weirdos" is designed for exactly this sort of game style. Works really well as multiplayer.

http://www.wargamevault.com/product/359157/Space-Weirdos

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks, all!

FFOL works fine even with lots of figs beyond 50 or so on the board.  Just use a second deck of cards ( or half of it).  Ties go to the deck with the red backs…or dice off.

Right - but I had a look at Galactic Heroes (for the first time in a long while), and I'm not sure it will work with, say, 120 figures on the board. At that point, I think, people might start forgetting which figures have already activate and so on. Also, I recall that our one frustration with FFoL was the amount of counters on the table - something that I think might be a bit more of an issue with 15mm (counters bigger than figure 'footprints', for example.

Just how big can it go, in your experience? I'm thinking about 20 figures per player and six to eight players - but not in units like FFoL Bigger Battles.

Whatever mash-up = Pigs in Space!
: 3

It has to be!

"Space Weirdos" is designed for exactly this sort of game style. Works really well as multiplayer.

http://www.wargamevault.com/product/359157/Space-Weirdos

Now, I have that, and we had some good games of it last year. But as with FFoL, is it really built to handle 20 or so figures per player? It struck me as a great game for a small table and a handful of figures per player. With 20 figures per player, I wonder if it might bog down a bit. I'll certainly take another look, though.

I realise this might all sound a bit pernickety. But I'm keen to get a game going that will be smooth and intuitive rather than 'fiddly' in any way. And 20 figures per player sounds about right to give the various sides a reasonable amount of staying power and sufficient numbers that they don't all have to be clumped together.

[williamb]

Wiley Games (FfoL) Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles combined with their Galactic Heroes Sci-Fi Rule Book.  Each team can have their own objective.   I have run several multiplayer games with as many as eight players.   Wiley Games has posted several youtube videos of their games and also run throughs of the rule mechanisms.  Bigger Battles has multi figure units so can easily handle over 100 figures, plus vehicles.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Thanks, all!

Right - but I had a look at Galactic Heroes (for the first time in a long while), and I'm not sure it will work with, say, 120 figures on the board. At that point, I think, people might start forgetting which figures have already activate and so on. Also, I recall that our one frustration with FFoL was the amount of counters on the table - something that I think might be a bit more of an issue with 15mm (counters bigger than figure 'footprints', for example.

Just how big can it go, in your experience? I'm thinking about 20 figures per player and six to eight players - but not in units like FFoL Bigger Battles.

It has to be!

Now, I have that, and we had some good games of it last year. But as with FFoL, is it really built to handle 20 or so figures per player? It struck me as a great game for a small table and a handful of figures per player. With 20 figures per player, I wonder if it might bog down a bit. I'll certainly take another look, though.

I realise this might all sound a bit pernickety. But I'm keen to get a game going that will be smooth and intuitive rather than 'fiddly' in any way. And 20 figures per player sounds about right to give the various sides a reasonable amount of staying power and sufficient numbers that they don't all have to be clumped together.

Markers for activated units is pretty easy.  A purple chit located next to the figure, and /or the playing card on the stats card. 

I always wanted to include a variable fog of war End of Turn timer in FFOL where some of those 2,3, 4 or 5 cards might not even get a chance to play at all!

[robh]

......Now, I have that, and we had some good games of it last year. But as with FFoL, is it really built to handle 20 or so figures per player? It struck me as a great game for a small table and a handful of figures per player. With 20 figures per player, I wonder if it might bog down a bit. I'll certainly take another look, though.

I suppose if you wanted 20 or so "named characters" per player then yes, Space Weirdos would be unplayable. But realistically if you have the 4 or 5 characters each leading a group of mooks there would be no problem at all.

[FifteensAway]

Another vote for FFOL: Bigger Battles combined with activation markers.  Did a large French and Indian War game that way recently - multi-based figures, units of 18 figures so six stands per unit, 25-30 units so the equivalent, sort of, of having 150-180 individual figures in the game.  Some people quibble with the 'lethality' of the hits of activated units and I'm toying with making just a bit harder to hit, say 6 and 9 versus 5 and 8 for short and long range.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

That was what i did, and I changed the hit results table as well by adding shifting the table up two points for the first shock and replaced the first wound with a shock.

8 sided dice still hit long range on an eight, but have to confirm it with a second roll of 5-8.  Even these rates are much too high for a historical rate for musketry( but maybe will be fine for fusion blasters!).  I don’t mind it in con games but long range fire should really produce less than 10% of the firer’s  strength on average.  Even close range fire probably shouldn’t be that high on average.  The lethality of long range fire plays quite against the time honored tactic of deciding to hold one’s initial volley until “you can see the whites  of their eyes” followed by the quick huzzah charge with the bayonet.  No worries about for it in sci-fi as all those power swords, chain saws and laser katanas have as much plausibility as a musket on the moon.  There will be no close combat, except maybe in boarding actions.

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks all for the further input - and apologies for being late in replying!

I had another look at FFoL over the weekend, and I think it won't fit the bill for this. As I said in an earlier post, I don't want this to be unit based, so Bigger Battles won't work. I also think that FFoL might be a bit too complex/fiddly for the sort of game I want to run and for the players I expect to have. My experience with FFoL is that it works best with "committed" rather than casual players (we have had problems in the past with distracted kids forgetting that they held a certain card when it was called), and I'm planning this game as a one-off. Only some of the players will have FFoL experience, and I think the special cards and shock and wounded tokens will add too much complexity. By contrast, the Pig Wars approach in which each figure just has one stat (1, 2 or 3) is about the right level.

I also had a look at Space Weirdos. As with FFoL, the read-over makes me keen to play the game, but I don't think it's right for this project: too many stats, tables and tokens, and also the "named player" vs mooks thing. One key thing for this game is that I want about 20 figures a side, all of whom can operate independently. The reasons for this are that I want each side to have a bit of durability (so there's not a complete route or elimination at the first firefight) and the ability to attempt different objectives at the same time: hence individuals rather than units - for a game that's a bit like a proto-RPG or Braunstein.

Essentially, I want something that can cope with a lot of players, is fast to play and has very simple rules, including stats. I want to be able to hand players index cards with simple, intuitive stats (like Pig Wars' three-level system).

I'm wondering if One-Hour Skirmish Wargames might fit the bill with a couple of simple tweaks: removing one joker from each deck to facilitate a reasonable length of round (so that people don't keep missing their turn); and drawing cards to see who has the highest initiative and then proceeding clockwise from that player until a joker comes up. That would avoid having to keep track of a fully randomised player order (which would be more exciting but much fiddlier).

The simplicity of One-Hour Skirmish Wargames would certainly suit it to this (a statline on a player card might be something like "6 troopers with laser rifles: infinite range, two shots, Armour Piercing 1" or "4 guards with ray guns; 18" range, Armour Piercing 3, automatic enemy removal if 5+ difference on cards" ).

I've also noticed, with OHSW and To the Strongest, that card-based games play much quicker than dice ones. The time taken to gather, shake and roll dice adds up quickly!

But while I think that's probably the direction I'll take, I'd love to hear other suggestions.

[FifteensAway]

Re: pig wars, the more players, the more the rules stop functioning.  At least that has been my experience.  Loved the idea of the rules but have never liked playing them - even with smaller numbers of players.  Is it Ravenfeast that is the free set of rules?  If that is the one I played at a convention a couple of years ago then I believe it will be a better choice than Pig Wars. 

[Leadjunky]

You might consider Grimdark Firefight from One Page Rules. It is pretty simple and you can't beat the price.

[Hobgoblin]

Re: pig wars, the more players, the more the rules stop functioning.  At least that has been my experience.  Loved the idea of the rules but have never liked playing them - even with smaller numbers of players.  Is it Ravenfeast that is the free set of rules?  If that is the one I played at a convention a couple of years ago then I believe it will be a better choice than Pig Wars.

Interesting. Can you put your finger on what made Ravenfeast work where Pig Wars didn't? Might it be the phase-by-phase aspect of Ravenfeast (so everyone move, then everyone shoots, etc., rather than one player moving and shooting before everyone in melee fights)? Otherwise, I'd have thought that Pig Wars, as a card-based game, would be faster than Ravenfeast with its dice rolls.

I downloaded Ravenfeast again and also got hold of the One Page Fantasy Skirmish game on which it was based. That looks nicely flexible too - possibly even to sci-fi levels, as profiles are built from scratch.

Ravenfeast has exactly the turn sequence I was proposing for One-Hour Skirmish Wargames: winning initiative and then clockwise.

You might consider Grimdark Firefight from One Page Rules. It is pretty simple and you can't beat the price.

Thanks for the tip! I downloaded it, and it looks interesting. Maybe a bit special-rule heavy for this project, but I'm keen to give it a go otherwise. Do you know how it plays with more than two players?

[FifteensAway]

I only played Ravenfeast the one time and it seemed to flow decent and I enjoyed the game.  It really gave the sense of a raid.  Been a lot of years since I played Pig Wars but I don't recall any enjoyment, just wishing I was in a different game.  And no sense of a raid at all.  Of course, it may have been a challenge based on the scenarios but I don't think so.  Personally, I will probably use FFOL - with mods.  There is a sci-fi specific variant but the Bigger Battles version has sci-fi lists.  And Bigger Battles doesn't need to be used with big battles, small games will work.