Swordpoint...

[Gracchus Armisurplus]

Although basing should not be a big deal, 7 out of the 8 players in my SAGA group refuse to play Swordpoint due to the 40x40.  Had the requirement been larger to easily accommodate 25mm rounds provided Gripping Beast for SAGA, things would be different.  Most of us have the quantities of miniatures required to play Swordpoint as well and do not mind acquiring more lead.

I understand how they feel and although a bit disappointed, I will have to look around for a Swordpoint group for myself.

Your group could look into Hail Caesar or Impetus or Kings of War Historical, games which don't feature model removal and thus allow more freedom with basing? The old version of Basic Impetus is free to download (although it takes a little bit of looking to find it) and the new version is only $5 to download, while Kings of War has the basic rules for the fantasy version of their game free to download on their website if you want to have a look under the hood, so to speak.

[Nord]

That's just dumb. If 7 out of 8 of you have figures on the same base sizes, just house rule it - settle on 50mm squares or whatever is convenient for you. Not rocket science.

Or play KOW, and go and discuss it in a KOW thread.

[Lead Head]

Thanks Gracchus Armisurplus for the list of games to try.  I will discuss them with my group.

In regards to Swordpoint, I will be making lots of magnetic or movement bases enough to field both sides using just my own collection.  If any of the other players change his/her mind and join in then great.  If not, that's okay and I'm neither going to get sensitive about their choice nor call their decision dumb.  Being respectful to each other helps to promote a good gaming group.  Too many new rules to try and lots of fun to look forward to.

[WillieB]

Although basing should not be a big deal, 7 out of the 8 players in my SAGA group refuse to play Swordpoint due to the 40x40.  Had the requirement been larger to easily accommodate 25mm rounds provided Gripping Beast for SAGA, things would be different.  Most of us have the quantities of miniatures required to play Swordpoint as well and do not mind acquiring more lead.

I understand how they feel and although a bit disappointed, I will have to look around for a Swordpoint group for myself.

Same here but we simply switched to 50 x 50 sabot bases. 40x 40 is just too narrow for 28mm figures.
Johnny Reb died here for exactly the same reason in 15mm.

[Codsticker]

That's just dumb. If 7 out of 8 of you have figures on the same base sizes, just house rule it - settle on 50mm squares or whatever is convenient for you.

Bingo!

[Nord]

Anyone fancy playing a game of this and reporting back? I am finding the lack of information quite frustrating. The flickthrough and the review were both helpful, but what I would really like is a battle report. I want to know how the game works.

[Andrew_McGuire]

Anyone fancy playing a game of this and reporting back? I am finding the lack of information quite frustrating. The flickthrough and the review were both helpful, but what I would really like is a battle report. I want to know how the game works.

This is always the problem, is it not? For what it's worth, I was also undecided in spite of all I'd read online, but the 'Let's play....' feature in the current issue of WSS was more illuminating, being based on at least one actual game, and pushed me towards ordering a copy, in spite of having only recently purchased Sword and Spear. My next purchase, I suppose, should be Spearpoint[, if some enterprising publisher wants to seize on that as yet unused name, and come up with a new mechanic or two to justify it.

[Charlie_]

What Gripping Beast need to do is put up a good, detailed, in-depth game demo on youtube. Not just them showing off the game themselves, but a collaboration with some out-of-house presenters they are demonstrating it with. I actually really enjoyed watching a Beasts Of War video of them playing Bolt Action with one of the guys from Warlord Games. It was REALLY illuminating and really helped me understand how they game worked, very well produced as well.

Something like this needs to be done for Swordpoint.

[Arlequín]

I agree, this is the very model of how to produce a set of rules you don't want people to actually buy. 

It is very much becoming the norm that if you want people to shell out £20 or so for one particular rule set amongst many, you need to put some work into promoting it; which includes videos. The BoW video for Bolt Action, or even the home-made ones TFL did for Chain of Command, are the way to go.

As it stands right now, there is a distinct lack of interweb traffic with regard to reviews by people who have already bought them and hardly anything by GB themselves. If they are on sale and nobody is reviewing them, the logical conclusion is that either people are not actually buying them, or that having bought them, they did not feel inclined to rave about them.

Hard-sell by anyone gets old very fast, but this has to be the exact opposite. It's analogous to the old Rolls-Royce sales technique "If you have to ask if they're any good, you aren't the sort of customer we want sir!"

 

 
 

[Captain Blood]

Perhaps they're not completely happy with the product themselves, so have decided not to push it, just let it percolate through and find its own level... they certainly never held back on the promo effort with Saga, so it's not like they don't know how to sell a ruleset if they feel like it...

[A Lot of Gaul]

Swordpoint was released three weeks ago, on 19 November, and the first player battle report of a small test game was just posted today, on 12 December. Since some recent posts here have been comparing this with the release of Saga, I did a little checking in the Saga forum and other places online. Saga was released on 19 September 2011, and the earliest player battle report I can find in the official Saga forum was posted on 22 September. However, the earliest battle report I can find outside of the forum was posted on 14 October, on the Meeples site. The earliest detailed review of Saga that I can find was posted on 25 November 2011. The earliest video battle report was posted on 12 May 2012. There was no flood of promotional videos or other promotional material by GB, and precious little 'hype' of any kind for several months after Saga was released - in fact the comments on the Saga discussion group from around the time of release are remarkably similar to some of those in this very thread. So just perhaps it isn't so different after all, and the player reviews and AARs will come with more frequency over the next few months. As always, only time will tell.

BTW, I haven't had a chance to play a battle with Swordpoint yet - too much going on in r/l at the moment. But having read through the rulebook several times, I am quite eager to give it a go.

[Charlie_]

Swordpoint was released three weeks ago, on 19 November, and the first player battle report of a small test game was just posted today, on 12 December. Since some recent posts here have been comparing this with the release of Saga, I did a little checking in the Saga forum and other places online. Saga was released on 19 September 2011, and the earliest player battle report I can find in the official Saga forum was posted on 26 September. The earliest detailed review I can find anywhere was posted on 25 November 2011. The earliest vide battle report I can find was posted on 12 May 2012. There was no flood of promotional videos or other promotional material by GB, and precious little 'hype' of any kind for several months - in fact the comments on the Saga discussion group from around the time of release are remarkably similar to some of those in this very thread. So just perhaps it isn't so different after all, and the player reviews and AARs will come with more frequency over the next few months. As always, only time will tell.

Oh ok, that's interesting to know! Good research!

[A Lot of Gaul]

I also remember observing much the same sequence of events when Hail Caesar was released in April 2011. For weeks afterward, one could read similar 'where are all the battle reports' queries on various wargaming fora, and some very similar-sounding 'it must not be very popular' musings, as well. Eventually the battle reports did arrive, and over the past five years Hail Caesar has gradually become one of the most popular Ancients big battle rule sets around. As I said before, time will tell.

[Nord]

Fair enough, but times have changed a little don't you think? It's pretty easy these days to video, you can even do it on a phone or most cameras. It's very easy to tap out a written report and post it on facebook, fora and the like. I am keen to play the game, but I am holding back buying because I know so little at the moment. If others think this way, who is going to buy it and review it? Would it not be in GB's own interest to put in a tiny bit of effort, post up a video or article to demo the game, and try to establish a decent customer base for their new game? Not only would they sell more books, but it would have an appreciable effect on their figure sales too. It just seems bizarre that they are so reticent.

[Johnp4000]

That is an interesting point about Youtube however I am not sure just how relevant it is to historical gaming .I would always consider Warlord games the king of publicity with their many minions pushing every release however I was surprised that on their youtube channel that is nothing on Hail Caesar. A good battle report on youtube would help explain the game and highlight its mechanisms however perhaps gamers don't use this media as viewing figures on most historical gaming channels is low compared to any GW game content .
I like the rules, it has elements of several previous sets I have played, but I am struggling with the momentum concept so I would be interested in seeing a detailed battle report just to see this mechanism in play, as I probably won't get a game to next year