Marienburg vs. the Undeadish (update: undead & spooky stuff)

[ZeroTwentythree]

I'm sold. Still might add some more detail to the base.

[Schrumpfkopf]

ALmost forgot about the swivel guns.... They'd make a nice pair of pistols for an ogre... 

[Vermis]

They fit diagonally on a 40x40, but just barely. Not too fond of this look.

Agreed. Never liked the look of minis stuck diagonally on a square base. Especially when it created the impression of a whole unit looking off to one side. "Hey look, a squirrel! Look, everyone! Squirrel!"

Still might add some more detail to the base.

That was quick.  Looks great!

[ZeroTwentythree]

I've really been itching for a game of some sort. It has literally been years since I've played any miniatures games, or board games not meant for children aged 4 or less. I rambled a bit about my plans, and included some links to rules, army lists, etc. and I'm to lazy to copy it all over so... http://www.zerotwentythree.com/2015/11/planning-game.html

Spoiler alert: I made up my mind to take fantasy Hail Caeser for a test drive.

[Elbows]

Might I suggest Lion Rampant (or wait on the Dragon Rampant)...you could use all of your figures and it's super simple, doesn't worry about basing etc.  Cheap rulebook and very easy to get back into the swing of things.  Very non-crunchy and easily adaptable to all kinds of miniatures.

[Schrumpfkopf]

Might I suggest Lion Rampant (or wait on the Dragon Rampant)...you could use all of your figures and it's super simple, doesn't worry about basing etc.  Cheap rulebook and very easy to get back into the swing of things.  Very non-crunchy and easily adaptable to all kinds of miniatures.

I second that.

[frenchfever]

HOT STUFFS !     

[Hobgoblin]

I second that.

And thirded! It's a great system - really quick to pick up and, despite its simplicity, brimming with tactical nuance. As Elbows said, basing is entirely unimportant, and with the "strength points" rule from Dragon Rampant (explained on Dan's blog), you can have units of any size.

Also, for solo play, the fact that the Wild Charge rule gives an element of AI might make things flow quite well. You might represent a lot of your Undeadish as Fierce Foot, in which case they're acting autonomously whenever they're within charge range of their foes. And the same would apply, presumably, to your undead knights. So I think you could get a pretty good solo game fairly easily.

[Vermis]

To be honest I'm kinda curious to hear more about how the Shadow Storm rules play. Can't fault the recommendations of Lion/Dragon Rampant, except it doesn't cater so much for war machines. Dunno what you'd do with the war wagon and swivel guns. (Reduced model units of crossbowmen? Maybe...)

[ZeroTwentythree]

I overlooked Lion Rampant initially because I thought I had read that it was a smaller, skirmish type game, rather than a large battle game like Hail Caesar/Shadow Storm, Legions of Battle, Hostile Realms and some of the others that have been nearer the top of my list. Or am I wrong...? Sounds like I should give it a better look, from the strong recommendations.

As far as Shadow Storm, I like the basics of Hail Caesar, but the Shadow Storm skeletons will have some very prominent rules that I'm curious to see in action. Fear will wreak havok (or Disorder, at any rate) on the mortals, and although missile casualties to the skeletons will mount, they won't be slowed down by missile fire, so it will be hard to break their formation without slugging it out in melee. I am treating the "Undeadish" as mortals to mitigate this a bit, and also to add a bit of variety. In the end, I may tweak the Shadow Storm rules a bit, depending on how it plays out.

[Elbows]

It can scale pretty well from what I remember.  It's maybe not regiments but a standard unit is either 12 or 6 guys, and you can field as many of these units as you want.  It's based on a "half or more alive" and "half or more dead" so you can really make the "guys" in a unit into wounds for large creatures and it doesn't affect the game.

If you're wanting to field 300+ figures I'm not sure if it's the right one.

[Hobgoblin]

It can scale pretty well from what I remember.  It's maybe not regiments but a standard unit is either 12 or 6 guys, and you can field as many of these units as you want.  It's based on a "half or more alive" and "half or more dead" so you can really make the "guys" in a unit into wounds for large creatures and it doesn't affect the game.

You could also scale up the unit sizes without any problem. So, if you wanted to field a unit of 24, or 36, or 48 skeletons/Undeadish, you could just count double, triple or quadruple casualties. It would be perfectly possible to treat each base as a figure, if you wanted to field units of that sort of size. And they needn't even be multiples of six or twelve: you can use strength points to record the casualties and just remove figures in rough proportions. That involves no more bookkeeping than some five-bar gates (or scribbled numbers) on the roster.

What strikes me most about Lion/Dragon Rampant is that it's a game that works with the number of models often employed in Warhammer games. But the odd thing about Warhammer is that it's really assuming that one figure equals 20. Rick Priestley is very interesting on that here:

RP: Well, did you know, that’s precisely how the game dynamics were built? It assumes 1:20. Because I played so much WRG Ancients! So, when we came to do Warhammer, the dynamic of what the game is was largely driven by that. So, the size of the units, and the way they move over the tabletop, was driven off that scale. And some of the manoeuvre rules are based on the big scales. In reality, ten men do not wheel – you don’t have to. So although in Warhammer you always talk about and treat the miniatures as if they were 1:1, for the purposes of developing the game they’re often treated as 1:20. It is a strange abstraction. But it is an abstraction that is invisible. When you portray that to someone who is a prospective young gamer, they don’t immediately say “Ooh, there’s some strange scale anomaly going on here”. It’s not obvious. They take it as read that this is how you should manoeuvre.


That is, Warhammer is really about a game with much larger forces than are represented by the individual miniatures, whereas Lion/Dragon Rampant is a game that simulates a clash of the number of models that you actually see - small bands of warriors rather than hundreds-strong units.

One way in which that works is that units "clash" rather than getting bogged down in melee. It's a slight simplification or abstraction, but it seems to me to give a really convincing simulation of the way that small groups would fight.

And it works really, really well with multi-based figures. I've used a couple of old HOTT armies, along with individually based skirmish models. Both work fine, but the multi-based forces make a smooth, fast game even faster and smoother.

Finally, there are huge possibilities for fiddling around with how you want to represent (for example) your Undeadish ogres. Are they equivalent to heavy cavalry? To a reduced-size unit of Fierce Foot (perhaps with the shiny armour upgrade in Dragon Rampant)? Or to a slower-moving but tougher heavy infantry unit? It looks like Dragon Rampant will include loads of ways to tweak profiles (and it's out in just three weeks or so!).

[ZeroTwentythree]

I'm flexible with numbers, basing, and figure scale. What I'm after is a solid "feel" of large regiments & large battles. I don't want to worry about individual figures. I want to see how a regiment acts as a unit.

As much as I enjoyed WFB (or at least 3rd-7th editions,) it always seemed stuck somewhere between large scale battles and 1:1 skirmishes, regardless of Rick's intentions. But it never seemed a perfect fit for either scale. I think that Warmaster, and subsequently Hail Caesar (Black Powder, Pike & Shotte...) not only capture the feeling of a large battle better, but do so in a graceful and accessible manner.


On to some pics...

For about seven years now, I've been participating in the "Pleasant Surprises" miniatures exchange at Warhammer-Empire.com. We secretly exchange (usually, but not always) painted figures with other members. I just received my surprise in the mail, courtesy of King (on that forum,) from the Island Fortress of Malta (or the catacombs thereof)...




A new (anti-)hero!

I couldn't resist getting a shot of him leading some troops against Marienburg...




He's a great addition to the army. I hadn't thought of painting gold/bronze armour and I really like the way works with the color palette of the rank & file troops, but still makes him stand out as a leader. 

[Hobgoblin]

I'm flexible with numbers, basing, and figure scale. What I'm after is a solid "feel" of large regiments & large battles. I don't want to worry about individual figures. I want to see how a regiment acts as a unit.

Ah, I see. I think Lion/Dragon Rampant is perfect for 1:1 figure scale, as its units behave much as small groups of men (goblins, zombies ...) would. But if, say, 12 skeletons actually represent 1,200 skeletons - Army of Darkness rather than Jason and the Argonauts - then it's less appropriate. That said, there are some additional rules (on Dan's blog or forum - I forget) for flank attacks and the like, which would make it much more appropriate for larger figure scales. I should note, though, that LR/DR is all about units rather than individuals (unless you use a single figure for a unit to represent a hero or a wizard or something).

As much as I enjoyed WFB (or at least 3rd-7th editions,) it always seemed stuck somewhere between large scale battles and 1:1 skirmishes, regardless of Rick's intentions. But it never seemed a perfect fit for either scale. I think that Warmaster, and subsequently Hail Caesar (Black Powder, Pike & Shotte...) not only capture the feeling of a large battle better, but do so in a graceful and accessible manner.

I agree entirely. I think Warhammer worked best in its second edition, where the units were small and narrative scenarios were the main thing. Undead and ratmen raiding a monastery? Dwarves protecting their mine from orcs? A hobgoblin caravan under attack from nomad raiders? These were the scenarios that saw the game reach its peak, in my view. And that, incidentally, is the scale that Lion/Dragon Rampant works so well for. By third edition, the "mass battle" aspect had taken over, and  that, as you say, didn't work nearly so well. The tension between the 1:1 ostensible figure scale and the 1:20 tacit assumption increased dramatically with all the manoeuvring rules, and the "stat up anything you like" side of things faded and vanished.
 

[Metternich]

Nice to see those old renaissance dwarves put into action.