Urban War - Why aren't you playing it? (Or at least painting it?)

[throwsFireball]

Seriously, I've been getting into it lately and the miniatures are great. Full of flavour and character. I'd say they're kind of (not quite, but kind of) Oldhammery in style.

The game rules aren't too shabby either. It's a skirmish based ruleset so it's pretty much in vogue at the minute.

[cree1978]

I loved the idea of this when it first came out, got loads of models for it (still), loads of people at the club bought in and played, and then the Syntha gun line turned up and ruined it for everyone, till no one could be bothered anymore.  Such a shame really it was loads of fun till that tourney army broke it.

Still makes me want to dust off the the Vasa Samurai and try again but I think people have just moved on, and the figures are more likely going to get used in pulp alley at some point since everyone is moving towards that at my club these days.

[throwsFireball]

I loved the idea of this when it first came out, got loads of models for it (still), loads of people at the club bought in and played, and then the Syntha gun line turned up and ruined it for everyone, till no one could be bothered anymore.  Such a shame really it was loads of fun till that tourney army broke it.

Still makes me want to dust off the the Vasa Samurai and try again but I think people have just moved on, and the figures are more likely going to get used in pulp alley at some point since everyone is moving towards that at my club these days.

WAAC at all costs ruins a lot of games. Just look at 40k. It could be a kind of fun game if it wasn't for the attitude of winning above all else (that and the masses of mechanisation that is in every single list). Personally I'd just make an agreement not to play that list.

I'd definitely say the models are good for other stuff. I'm planning to use them for TNT if I can get anyone else to play. :p

[Malebolgia]

I played it at the time of the initial release (2006?) At first we were enthusiastic about it...but this quikly evaporated due to the faulty system. It just never worked the way it was intended with the whole "Cal" idea. So it quickly died here. The fact that UW hardly churned out new stuff also didn't help. Games like these need momentum and steady good releases. The start was good...and then it died.

[gmanrocks]

I really regret selling my Gladiator force now (although do still have the limited edition mini for winning a tournament).

It was all the rage for about 6-12 months in my local area but died a death due to the lack of gang development. I'm always still a little tempted to pick up a few bits and pieces purely to paint up again.

[jetengine]

Not enough releases and poorly advertised.

[Mr.Marx]

I've bought a fair few models over the years for other projects, but nowerdays I'm quite sour to the whole range after splashing out on their Neo-Isk faction. The models looked lovely, but somewhere in the 3D-master moulding process something had clearly gone horribly wrong. Every figure was miss-cast badly, and on contacting the company I was sent replacements which had the exact same miss-casting issues. On contacting them again they were surprisingly honest and just told me that the flaws were the result of some dodgy master-moulding and that was just how they were. I appreciated the honesty, but at the end of the day I just have a load of useless lead and the murdered body of my enthusiasm laying in a box somewhere. I've no idea if they've fixed the molds now, but to be honest myself, I really don't care to find out.

MM.

[Conquistador]

Honestly?

The rules did not make me want to play it.  Ever.

The miniatures (generally) left me cold (because I can't paint well to be polite.)

And now I limit myself to 18mm or smaller miniatures in my old age.

Might be a great game for some but it is not "on my radar screen" and never will be.

[Basement Dweller]

I got hit by the VOID/I-Kore crash and then the re-release of the same models and new models with the Urban War release.  Game was basically the same from what I could tell and I was stuck with a bad taste in my mouth with the revamp of the same game...or at least that was how I felt. 

I also really got into VOId because Kev White was the sculptor and when he was no longer with them, the models didn't appeal as much to me.

The models have some good character but I couldn't give Urban Mammoth/IKore any more of my money...although I have managed to acquire some as add ins for trades.

[Elbows]

Never really heard of it, though I recognize some of the miniatures from your post.

To intrigue me a game system has to have one of the following:

1) Laugh-out-loud fun/cool rules.
2) A development system which creates a fun story-progression for involved characters/parties.
3) "OMG must have that!" miniatures...the kind of stuff you buy immediately and then sell 10 years later when you've never painted them.
4) Not be tournament/list-building/meta-gaming nonsense.

This is predominantly why I don't buy into new systems.  I know that seems a tall order, but when you consider how much "work" it is to get into a new game, it's worth it.  It's also why I prefer to collect/build generic forces (I have Cowboys, Gladiators, Fantasy, etc.).  This allows me to play a variety of games with only purchasing the rulebook/pdf.  I just won't really do "buy our minis" games.

[eek]

Support for the game just died out after a while. The club I was in at the time got really into it with about half of the group picking it up, going to local tournaments, even hosting one.

After a while, it felt like the company just lost interest in the game. Updates became sporadic, planned expansions and updates failed to materialize, and it just killed all the momentum the game had.

2nd edition was a massive improvement, streamlining a lot of overly clunky mechanics, but it was too little too late. I'd already sold off most of my collection.

I stayed away from Age of Tyrants because news and work on its development seemed similarly sporadic, I was genuinely surprised it came to fruition. I foresee the same thing happening to it though.

[stone-cold-lead]

I painted a few of the models used on those figure boxes. That's going back a bit though. Like others have said, the game kind of fizzled out. Some nice models in the range and I grabbed a bunch of Viridians and Triads but only painted a handful of pieces for myself.

[Mr. Peabody]

Those Viridians were useful minis. Good fodder for a variety of sci-fi and even post-apoc settings.

[Hobby Services]

Not enough releases and poorly advertised.

That, and also rather expensive for what they are.  There's a lot of competition in their niche, and Urban War has never managed to stand out from the crowd for me.

[Kev the JInx]

We played it quite a lot, but found it hard to balance the forces.   I don't think my Gladiators ever won a single game, and against Syntha it wasn't even worth setting up.   Close combat troops were too expensive to be any good, as you had to bank on losing a couple on the way in, which is never good when you only have about 12 models in your force.

Having said that the rulers are ok and the miniatures quite nice, but I think they let it die out when they tried to push Metropolis, which was squad based, except that it was too expensive and the rules didn't really work.  By then Urban War had lost its momentum and sort of died out.

Funny this got brought up though as I've recently been thinking about giving it a bash again.