Warpath, anyone?

[Argonor]

I just yesterday downloaded and read Mantic's new sci-fi battle game rules, and they strike me as very straightforward, and easy to pick up.

They also, however, strike me as favouring the larger (20 man) units (because of the penalties for having damage markers), even though you can play with 5 and 10 man units.

Any thoughts? (It is hardly surprising that they would make the rules leaning towards larger units, but what do you feel about the rules in general?)

I think I'm going to use the Forgefathers test list for some old marines I have, and then try out different combos of unit sizes. If i can find someone willing to do so with me, that is....

[Argonor]

Had to stay home this morning, because of an ill child, so I pondered a bit more about the rules and possibilities they offer.

I decided to find my old 2nd Ed. W40K plastic orks and Gretchin and get them prepped for speed-painting (block out colours, wash with dark brown or black wash, finish bases), which I intend to get my eldest daughter to help me do, to use as Marauders (one of the factions in the realsed beta-version).

I also made up a 750 pts. proxy list of the Forgefathers, using my old Space Marines as stand ins, so I can get stuck in if somebody in my vicinity will accept a challenge.

If the rules are as fast-paced as they look, it might be the battle game I can get my attention span to accept.... 

[Gibby]

They look to be a direct science fiction conversion of their Kings of War rules. To me, Alessio Cavatore has gone too far with his love of over-simplification (read: boring) by totally stripping out what I consider to be key concepts in wargaming. The idea that a unit fights at full capability until its morale breaks makes no sense - if a unit takes an epic amount of damage it should do more than just wet its pants, it should be losing men, etc... and these rules don't represent that. Surely a big part of the love of wargaming is in crushing your opponents, and killin' his dudez.

Not for me. It's not that simple can't be good (I happen to LOVE Ganesha Games), but these rules are just bland and have no feel to them.

EDIT: Also, I have to say that Mantic's blatant copying of GW stuff is a bit rubbish. I appreciate they're offering people the chance to build big armies at a fairer price, but a little originality wouldn't hurt!

[Dentatus]

Read through the rules but didn't bother to save a copy. Looked like 40K-Lite and I'm simply not interested.

Might pick up some of the figures however.

[Argonor]

I agree on the 'not losing figures' part - I think it would be nicer to have units go down in size and lose firepower as a consequence.

I think it is done that way, because firepower is not directly connected to exact number of men, and that different unit-types/sizes have different firepowers, and that everyone should be able to tell the firepower of a unit right away without having to calculate much.

I'm not a fan of the concept of either 'fixed' unit sizes or 'bases' with a set number of minis (which, in reality, works the same way) for 28 mm games, but I AM a fan of simple rules - and certainly NOT of GW's over-complicated, slow and cumbersome systems, so I welcome any possibility of using some of my old stuff against people who have armies ready for games, without having to buy and read hundreds of pages about both my own and my opponent's force.

I also don't like the concept of a 'Suppression' result of close combat not resulting in anything. It should force a fall-back. But that would mean that the opponent would have to interrupt the active player's turn to make the fall-back - which would not be a problem in casual games, but imposes a disruption on the 'timed games' concept which seems to be a 'holy grail' of Mantic's games (also a thing I'm not going to use, as I'm not a competitive player).

Given these grievances, though, I'm still set on trying out the rules, as I've played both Warhammer and Warhammer 40.000 earlier, and never had much fun out of either. The game is just too far away from the fluff/setting, which I, in the case of W40K, like very much.

I know of a fair amount of wargames systems that rely on abstract damage giving penalties to the performance/morale of units, so in that respect, there's nothing new/over-simplifying about that.

And when it comes to boring, I'd rather play a fast game where there's actually some tactics and movement involved, than one of those almost static slug-fests where two armies at the table baseline compete in rolling dice.

And, of course, there is bound to be similarities with both KoW and W40K - the game designer did both of those games, too, and has clearly pointed out the direction he would like to go in.

I'm not saying this is going to be the best sci-fi game, ever, it's probably not, with the flaws already pointed out, but I shall never the less try it out, and if it is fun, I'll probably play it quite regularly.

Until something better looms on the horizon...

[Gibby]

It was probably unfair of me to say boring, it's just not a system that works for me. I like to picture the cinema in my head when playing wargames - something that's made easier with more direct representation, such as a squad of soldiers running from cover to cover and losing a couple of guys on the way in the hail of gunfire.

There's more risk involved and therefore more reward when you get a squad to where it needs to be and unleash hell with what's left, in a system where you could very well have lost the guy who had the flamer on the way to clear the bunker.

I can see the merits of Warpath, for the reasons you listed, but the flaws we both listed are enough to put me off for now.

[matakishi]

I'm having a very interesting discussion about these rules on the Beasts of War forum. They're not a good set of rules in my opinion but it's certainly an eye opener to hear what the 40k crowd like about them.

[rwwin]

I gave them a read through, but to be honest, they lost me by page 3.  IGOUGO is a deal breaker for me.  If it doesn't have something like an alternating activation sequence, goodbye.

[Argonor]

I like to picture the cinema in my head when playing wargames - something that's made easier with more direct representation, such as a squad of soldiers running from cover to cover and losing a couple of guys on the way in the hail of gunfire.

I'm very much with you there - that's why I turned my attention towards skirmish gaming the last many years, as I have not yet found a mass battle game that really does that for me. When it takes a full afternoon or longer to play a game of maybe a few minutes of real time, it becomes too much for me. I'm thus prepared to trade in some 'realism' (if that's a viable expression regarding this sort of game) for playability.

As for whether the rules are good or bad, I'll play them before I pass any judgment on that. I have often read a set of rules and thought 'WOW, this gotta be good', and then the actual game just bogged down in rules discussions, not being able to follow quite obvious tactical decisions, etc. - and like wise the other way around (Warmaster is one of those rulesets that made me go 'wtf is this about??', and then I ended up really liking the mechanics).

[Argonor]

IGOUGO is a deal breaker for me.  If it doesn't have something like an alternating activation sequence, goodbye.

I also prefer AA, Warzone was a real eye-opener for me regarding that - but again, if the game plays fast, it might not be as big a problem as it is with games where a single turn can last for ever.

I intend to try the game out with small units, only adding bigger ones if I like playing it - and then perhaps set restrictions on the large/small unit ratio to force us to think in tactical instead of just 2 or more huge mobs slugging it out.

I also consider trying/adding house rules - like trying out alternate activation, adding the 'fall back' to close combat results, etc.

Remember, as long as you play among friends, it's entirely your game - only when you enter tournaments (which I never will) you have to adhere strictly to the official rules.

As for Mantic doing things that are close to GW; I'm actually quite happy that they do, as I've lost all interest in both Warhammer and W40K quite some years ago, and I really have been a bit sad that I had all this old stuff I could either dump, sell, or just have sitting on my shelves (I also intend to use my old marines and other 40K stuff with Flying Lead, when the 'hard sci-fi' expansion comes out).

As for originality, I hardly think Mantic is the only company out there to blame for lack of it.

[Craig]

Methinks it is not 'simplification' that is the problem, it is Alessio.

He has spent the best part of his creative life writing rules for GW and it's hard to climb out of that carefully protected rut and create something completely new. Mantic were pleased to get him because of his worldwide reputation, but I can only think that they are starting to feel the disappointment at his samey output.

The rules do smell a bit like W40K-lite, which I think is to give the W40K fanboys enough to cling to as they wander across for a peek. Mantic's choice of Dwarves and Orks as the first ranges will also help many people frustrated with GW's current corporate antics make the change as well.

I think on balance though that Mantic have decided to walk in GW's shadow. This is a real shame as they have the sculptors, the marketing and the brains to do something truly original.

Other manufacturers that are challenging GW's monopoly, such as Privateer Press, are converting people with their originality as well as their creativity. Imagine if Mantic worked with AoW or the Perry's what they could accomplish.

[infelix]

Imagine if Mantic worked with AoW or the Perry's what they could accomplish.

That's definitely something I would pay to play, this on the other hand as others has said, feels, maybe not boring but flat. It's simplification taken to far and are to much of 40k-lite for me and I do have a hard time with the whole not removing models for casualties concept.

[Brummie]

The rules are fine, simple, easy to do, no hour long turn which bores everyone else into a comatose like sleep and easy for young uns to grasp. I understand the whole idea said above when it comes to losing troops and having fire power based on troop numbers HOWEVER...

1. You get to see your hard painted figs stay on the table for longer.
2. In real gun battles only so many people are shooting, watch any authentic vid of a battle from any modern war and there will be guys taking it in turns to shoot due to lack of cover, reloading, unwillingness to shoot for various reasons. only a set amount will be firing, like say the 5-10 guys in front, whilst the 10 behind take cover and await a target, if the 5-10 in front get shot dead well firepower isn't really decreased, any casualties more and they'd be running.

I am guessing though, instead of actually placing a die next to the unit, it would be easier to subtract squad members in Warpath simply due to the layout described in the rules and the space they cover to make it easy to move them.


However I doubt having issues with originality is really fair right now both rule wise and miniature wise, its a two year old company that has arisen during times of economic difficulties and China eating up plastic and metal like no ones business causing prices to rise. Space orks etc are familiar to people, thus it sells, whereas the unusual stuff does not (seriously when have you seen a company that produces pretty hefty unique stuff make a decent reliable profit and survive the pressures of the modern market?). I have picked up from various tid bits of Mantic talk that once they have covered the basic fairly well known commonly used races (and remember its only GW themed if you haven't seen what else has come before GW!!) they will be branching out into far more unique races. Its either wait or see another company go bust.

After all if they had no such plan, they wouldn't be probing their customers for what races they'd like to see get made!

[Boromir_and_kermit]

I had a read through them, but they are not really my thing.
They don't seem terribly original in any aspect other than the chess timer. The Chess Timer itself is a nice concept, however the game seems to be terribly limited because of it.

I'm really quite surprised with both these rules and the Kings of War ones. Alessio created a brilliant game back in the day - Warmaster, which was streamlined, yet quite clearly each faction played very differently. I believe that it was GW's best game. I was just suprised that Kings of War and Warpath were from the same person. I'm sure some will like them, but they are not for me.

While looking for a nice set of Sci-fi skirmish rules I stumbled across Gruntz which is written for 15mm, but I can't see why it wouldn't scale up to 28mm.

[Argonor]

Warmaster was mainly a Rick Priestly concept, no doubt AC contributed to the simplicity of the came, though.

If you look at the leap from 40K 2nd ed to 3rd Ed. you see 40K move towards the kind of game, Warpath is meant to be.