Warpath Firefight - Beta testing thoughts

[Hat Guy]

Hey folks, I jumped on the Warpath II KS ($1USD for PDF rules looked like a good deal) a while back and for the last couple of weeks my club mates and I have been giving it a go. If you want to see the games, check out my "Hat Guy's Back on Sci-Fi" thread, but I thought I'd start discussing the game here to keep the clutter down. I'll be cross-posting from my club's facebook discussions as well, so sorry if it feels disjointed at any point.

I'm a big fan of Firefight so far, and I'd recommend it for anyone looking for a 40k replacement or a new game for an imaginative army. I use my Saurians at the moment and they play great.

For those who haven't had a look yet, Firefight is a very "40K-ish" system, with science-fantasy combined arms in 28mm, about "platoon scale". Activations are alternated rather than igo-ugo, D6 with one roll to hit, one to wound and no saves, dice are modified for cover, Armour Piercing and range. Squad Support weapons can split fire and there are a variety of actions squads can do rather than move then shoot then assault. Pretty standard fare for newer games.

The cool stuff comes in with the Orders and Suppression. When a unit takes fire and/or casualties, it gains "Suppression Tokens". When enough accrue, units lose effectiveness and eventually can take no action other than removing tokens. A unit never flees the table and will only retreat after a poor result in close combat. Even "Grounded" units are not out of the fight and I'm yet to see a unit be unable to recover enough to make a difference.

Orders are where Firefight really shines. Orders can be used to make units perform extraordinary actions, like triple moving, combining fire or even activating twice. Each commander adds to a player's pool of Order Dice (D8s), which can be rolled to attempt orders. Once a die is used, it is gone for the turn (mostly) and if a commander dies, the dice provided are no longer available.

Scenarios will be objective based, with hidden objectives and other fun stuff, but they're not quite there yet.

I'll post some stuff about army lists and force building a bit later.

[Hat Guy]

There are 7 army lists in the current rules; Asterians, Enforcers, Forge Fathers, Corporation, Marauders, Plague and Veer-Min. There were 40k "codexes" for Warpath I back in the day done by fans, but I personally feel that there are 7 editions of 40k if you really want to play 40k.

Hopefully the finished version will also have Zzorr and Mars Attacks! army lists like the full game (Warpath II) promises.

Asterians fight with high-tech weapons and drones to aid squads with communication and firepower. They have a "Tau" ish vibe, but would work really well for any high-tech race or army.

Enforcers are power-armoured superhumans, which are a bit like Space Marines of the GW variety, but would also be perfect for Mobile Infantry.

Forge Fathers are Squats, slow but decent all-rounders with really good vehicles. Any slow but tough alien would suit, though the intention is for space dwarfs.

The temptation is to say that Corporation have an Imperial Guard vibe, but really, they're just human infantry. So much potential in this list for armies like Colonial Marines (from Aliens) or SHIELD.

Marauders have an definite Ork vibe, but more of one inspired by Rogue Trader and 2nd ed, with grot snipers, commandos and decent line infantry.

Plague are infected humans and zombies, the most melee oriented list. Could probably work ok for Tyranids, but would also suit chaos cultists or Genestealer broods.

Veer-Min are the space skaven and have one of the coolest army concepts. All of their transports are subterranean and, when they emerge, they leave an entry point for other reserves. With the right Order, you can flood enemy positions with meatshield troops in a single activation. Lots of cool potential here.

[Dentatus]

Sounds interesting enough. Rules available online anywhere? Free, I mean. I'd love to at least give them a read. 

[Dentatus]

Ah, thought that was KS backers only.

I'll go stalk the interwebs now.

[Hat Guy]

As far as I know, it is only KS backers at the moment, but it's a good game I recommend checking out upon release. 

[Major_Gilbear]

Thanks for the first-look write-up.

I hope that if you get a chance to play a game, you'll share your thoughts with us here at LAF? I'd be very interested to see how these develop.

[eilif]

Thanks for the updates.

I quite enjoyed the Warpath 1.0 rules (KoW in Space) and use them once a year or so for Apocalypse size battles.  I backed for the rulebook set, but haven't read through the rulesets yet.  I'm really hoping to use them to get my 40k and Void armies on the table again and as an impetus to finish my Squat army.

I'm also very intrigued that they are doing Firefight for platoon level and a larger company "mass battle" set at the same time.

For those interested, Mantic put out the Alpha Rules here:
Warpath
http://www.manticgames.com/SiteData/Root/File/Warpath%20Alpha%20Rules.pdf
Firefight
https://manticblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Warpath-KS-Alpha.pdf
I think the next iteration was Beta which is only out for Backers at this time.  My assumption is that like all Mantic rules, at some point a chrome-less free version of the final rules will be available for download.

[Hat Guy]

Didn't get a game in this week, but when I do, I'll throw up some detail-oriented reports for you.

For the moment, I thought I'd share a couple of points we've discussed at club after some of our games.

- The Initiative roll, which determines the order of play for much of the game, really needs to happen at the start of each turn. I'm not sure if we're reading it wrong of if it's just poorly explained, but it seems that Initiative is rolled once at the start of the game and then never again.

- Army commanders come across as a bit "standardised"; pistol, close combat weapon and Command Dice. An option to change the load-out would be good, like a standard rifle or a special weapon. Nothing as full-on as the 2nd Ed GW Codex options for characters, but something a little more than buying off the rack.

- One player commented on wanting an "Aim" short action for standard infantry (heavy weapons take a "long" action to fire), I'm not big on this idea, as I like that the game encourages movement over static shooting. That most units can move and shoot (or shoot and move) really makes the game dynamic.