Just to say that I’ve not been ignoring you guys deliberately. I was away from my desk for a few days, and as soon as I left I started having trouble getting onto my email remotely. Seems to be all sorted now I’ve got more than a tablet to work with 🙂
There’s a bunch of comments that need replies from my time away, so I’ll get to them over the next couple of days.
Cheers
I try not to post all the promo stuff various companies push out, but this amused me so I thought I’d share. The chap doing the unboxing is so excited that he doesn’t seem to breathe…
Certainly looks like a full box of stuff.
Just wondering.
This comes out on the 7th Nov.
And now you can pre-order this the same day : )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5p9AbpNJLk
Conspiracies? Oh yes…
When it’s too big.
In my head I have a pretty clear definition of a skirmish game. It’s the same one I’ve been using ever since I started gaming, more than 30 years ago. It’s not a term that I made up myself, but a term I learned from the gamers I played with when I was small. As I grew older, it seemed that this was the norm, but in recent years the term is increasingly used to describe games I don’t recognise as such.
Part of this is, I think, a combination of a desire by companies to both sell “skirmish” games, and also to sell more miniatures. In this way the definition of what constitutes a specific type of game is stretched, just like the size of the miniatures that are used in them. In both cases the change is understandable as well as unhelpful.
So I thought that I’d talk a bit about what I mean when I say something is a skirmish game. This doesn’t mean that I’m right, just that this is a view that’s been consistent for a long time, and which I can’t see a good reason to change. Feel free to disagree 🙂
To start with, I think we can all agree that a skirmish is a small game rather than a large one. The real question is how small is small? The answer here is related to an article I keep forgetting to write for this blog, but is basically about how many different things you want to control in a game. For the sake of argument, I’d say 6-12 models is optimal. Much less than that and you risk losing to a single lucky dice roll; much more and you start having too much to worry about. Of course, the turn structure and other rules of the game you’re playing impact the accuracy of these numbers, but overall, in most games, they hold true.
However, size isn’t really my key defining point. For me, the essential defining difference of a skirmish game is that the models act individually. In my head, if a game uses squads of models that invariably act as a group, then it’s not a skirmish game. The only occasional exceptions to this would be weapon teams and vehicle crews which are really individuals, but are forced to act as a pair because of their job.
As an aside, it’s important to note here that skirmish games and historical skirmishes aren’t the same thing. Skirmish in military history terms is both poorly defined and variable in size.
The confusion in what a skirmish game might be comes when we have games that aren’t big, but use groups of miniatures. These might represent skirmishes in a historical sense, and be too small for (mass) battle games. This size of game allows the manufacturer to sell more models to someone by upping the size of game they can play, and also allows a gamer to take part in bigger games even if he can’t find space for a whole battle game. It’s not that this is a bad idea for a game per se, merely that the term used to describe it is confusing.
When I was small this confusion never seemed to arise. You either played small skirmish games or big battles. The in-between size was an oddity I don’t recall seeing much. And, as we’ve collectively carried on using the two terms that existed back then, this new middle ground has had to be crowbarred into one of them, even though it no longer really fits either end well.
Where I’ve got to in my head is that we simply need a new term for this middle ground. Skirmish games are, for me, individual model games, and as a designer that’s a very useful and clear distinction so I’m going to keep it. Mass battles are played on larger tables, typically 6×4 or larger. They use armies that are numerically large because they are arranged in units and need to fill that larger space. That too seems relatively clear, especially if you use the size of table as a defining point (possibly proportionate to the miniature scale).
So, if skirmish is very small, and mass battles are large, what word fits the centre ground?
Well large skirmish is a bit lame, and not distinctive enough for my taste. A surf of the thesaurus brings up nothing useful. I pondered the idea of something like grand tactical as it sounds good even if the definition is off, but discarded it in the end. Currently, I’m undecided. My best suggestion is to use qualifiers of battle. As this middle ground is really a small battle rather than a big skirmish (as it has squads), it makes sense to be related to that. And, if the big games on the bigger tables are mass battles, then maybe the middle ground was a different type of battle. Perhaps close battle would work. Close as in zoomed into a smaller area, and also because this area means you get to conflict quickly so you’re physically close.
So, in order of increasing size: skirmish > close battle > mass battle? I might try this for a while. What do you guys think?
Well I think that worked rather well 🙂
I’ve been wanting to include a poll or two here for some time. When I looked previously, the process was something of a faff. Luckily, things seem to have caught up with my degree of laziness, and my poll about SF battle games was pretty straightforward to integrate into the page. I still made some mistakes, but that’s how you learn…
So what did the poll tell us?
Firstly, that I can do polls. Expect more of them in the future.
Looking at the results themselves, Warpath was the clear winner. Personally I suspect that these numbers aren’t what we’ll see in the real world (back to the pro-Mantic bias suggested by several comments). My expectation was something closer in share. That is a guess though. What was more interesting was the tiny number of people who said they only played in 15mm. I expected more than that. Still, we could be talking bias again as I generally don’t talk about that scale, so why would they be here?
What was probably most interesting is the list of other games people mentioned. This was a broad mix, including various games that could have been in other categories or didn’t really belong (Dreadball Xtreme, Gruntz 15mm, etc). Someone said they’d be playing 40K using GoA rules, and a couple of folk have other home-brew rules, which I thought was great. Nice to see that sort of invention bubbling along as that’s where some of our next generation of designers will come from 🙂
The 3 most frequently mentioned games in the other category were Deadzone, Infinity and most frequently: Maelstrom’s Edge.
Deadzone I’m going to ignore. Partly because it’s not really what I was thinking about in terms of scale. While you can play larger games with it, the game’s really designed as a skirmish rather than battle. Plus, its relative frequency is probably only because it’s my blog 😉
Infinity doesn’t seem to be a battle game either. Good, bad or indifferent as it may be, it’s not really in the right category, so I’m going to ignore that too. Which leaves us with Maelstrom’s Edge. That turned up on Kickstarter earlier this year, and has its retail launch soon. I’m told they’re currently up to their ears in busy at the moment, trying to get it in the KS backer’s hands before the end of the year.
Maelstrom’s Edge is something I’ve read rather than played, so I’m not sure how it feels in practice, though it’s plain that they have some fans already. It does look like it’s worth keeping an eye on, if only to see what they produce in the way of models. Their plan is to only use hard plastic for their whole range, which is bold of them. Even if you don’t play their game there may be something for you to borrow for something else. I have a feeling I’ll be coming back to Maelstrom’s Edge when there’s something more tangible to look at.
So all in all it’s been a worthwhile experiment for me and encourages me to use polls as a means of dialogue in the future.
PS: having already posted this, I was looking again at my list of other suggestions, and was slightly surprised to see only one vote for Warzone. Seems to have slipped through the cracks.
It’s an interesting time for SF gaming.
For many years there’s been 40K and not a great deal else in the way of large scale 28mm SF battle games. Yes, there have been others, and some have done OK for a while, but none have really stuck. 15mm has been a popular scale for SF battles, and the 28mm games have mostly moved to smaller fights and skirmish games – apart from 40K, which GW have pushed into bigger and bigger battles.
28mm SF skirmish gaming offers a much wider set of options with many active games kicking about. So why is it that there’s so little in the way of mass battle SF gaming outside 40K? And, is that about to change?
Warlord have Gates of Antares on pre-order (it’s out on the 7th of November this year).
It’s got good quality plastic miniatures and is based on their popular Bolt Action game, so you’d expect it to do fairly well. Warlord is a reasonable size and growing steadily. Can they grab some of 40K’s market, or perhaps tempt new blood into the SF battle game space? Or disaffected gamers back?
Then there’s a re-re-launched Warpath from Mantic.
They’ve just finished a Kickstarter campaign for this. It’s looking like another interesting entry into the field, though their estimated delivery date of September 2016 is going to hurt if GoA takes off in the intervening year. Warpath might struggle to find a space between 40K and an established GoA. Then again, gamers are mostly magpies and buy way more games than they have time to play, so who knows? Well, maybe you do.
The following poll is partly an experiment for me to see if I can make polls work, and partly a curiosity about these games.
The question is what you think you’ll be playing a year from now, at the end of next year, when all 3 of these games are available.
The opponent for the Ghar battle squad in the Gates of Antares starter box are the Concord infantry. I can’t find a good close up of the painted plastic squad on its own, so here’s the whole set’s contents shot. The Concord are in cream and green on the left.
As before, here’s the front of the sprue…
…and the back.
As before, click on the pics for bigger versions.
Having seen some of these assembled when I was at the Derby show, I know that they look pretty good when they’re put together. At least, I thought so. There were others who thought that their legs looked a bit off. I couldn’t see that myself, and I rather like their non-“heroic” scaling too. Certainly it’s a point of difference from 40K.
The sprue itself has enough bits to make 5 Concord troopers with or without some sort of special weapon (on the right, below). I’ve no idea what it’s called, it’s just something a bit bigger as squad support. The standard rifle is on the left.
The sprue also has a support drone (where I suspect the real firepower lies) which played as a separate unit in the demo I had. It also includes two spotter drones (one for the squad of 5 men and another to accompany the drone): so 2 whole units per sprue, apart from bases. The support drone has a choice of 2 weapons, though one of them doesn’t seem to do anything much against the Ghar.
So here we have another sprue of armoured humans in space. I think it’s pretty nicely done, and it’s worth recognising that it’s a hard thing to make really striking. These look like being the reference point for humans in space in the game, and so are fairly vanilla in appearance. And in any case, how much can you do with humans in space? I’ll answer that another time.
Personally, I think the styling is interesting. The armoured suits are a mix of both soft shapes that blend into each other, and hard edges. You can see what I mean on the legs, below. This is a deliberate part of the design rather than anything to do with the models being “soft”. This much is clear from looking at the rest of the sprue.
I also like the helmet design, though here we come to what might be a bit tricky when it comes to cleaning up the models. The mould line’s got to go somewhere, and here it goes down the middle of the face. I understand why they’ve done this, I just wish they’d tweaked the design so it could have been avoided. The face is the focal point of the model, and any small misalignment will be a real pain to tidy up.
Overall, the mould lines are very subtle, and the small sink holes on a couple of arms may well have gone by the time we see production sprues. In any case, I don’t think they’d show on the final model, so it’s all fine anyway.
Everything on the sprue is nice and sharp where it needs to be, and overall I think it’s another good showing from Warlord. I assume that there will also be a sprue of bases in the style of the Ghar battle squad’s shallow, lipped base, plus possible flying bases for the drones.
Another little snippet from the current version of DZR.
I’ve added a Speed stat to the models. This is a way of including a lot more variation in the model’s rate of movement, and doing so very simply.
Speed is listed as two numbers separated by a dash, eg 1-2, or 2-3.
The first number is the distance (in cubes) the model goes when it takes a Move action. The second is how far it goes with a Sprint action. Easy!
Doing it this way allows me to remove abilities such as Fast as it is already incorporated into the stat line. It also lets me easily have things that are disproportionate too, with a Speed of, say, 1-5 or 2-7. In the old system that would have needed a specific ability to describe it.
The Move result of the Command Dice may make more sense now, as it is a move of 1, regardless of the model’s Speed. This helps balance the models that are naturally Speedy, such as Veer-myn (2-3).
It also gives me a nice shorthand if I need to reference movements in other rules. The effect is the same as either the first or second Speed number.
So, a helpful addition to the stats, and a very simple way to describe a variety of alien movements 🙂
One of the things I did at the Derby show last weekend was snaffle a couple of the new Gates of Antares plastic sprues – one each of the Concord and the Ghar. These are late pre-production shots as far as I can tell, so the final version may get tweaked to be even better.
As we all know, plastic sprues are the way to get inexpensive armies. It’s also my favourite material to work with, so I’m always interested to see what’s new.
Gates of Antares has just been put on pre-order over at Warlord, with a tentative release date of as early in Nov as they can manage (I’m told this simply depends on when the ship docks with the components). So I thought I’d show you what the sprues look like so you could see if they were something you’d be interested in. The first one I want to look at is called a Ghar Battle Squad (on the sprue itself), so it’s one of these guys:
To start with, here’s the front of the sprue…
…and the back.
I’ve left those pics nice and big so you can click on them for a closer look.
Personally, I think they look like neat little walkers, and I particularly like the choice of heads:
The multi-barel guns look cool too.
The sprue makes a single Ghar battle suit. As far as I can tell, without having yet assembled one yet, the only options are which head you pick (though you do look to have a fair amount of choice in the pose).
My final shot is a nice angled picture of the mould lines. Looking at this on screen, it seems like I’ve managed to find the perfect angle and just the right kind of raking light to make them look far worse than they really are. Sorry Warlord. In real life I think they don’t look like a problem at all (and remember that these are probably not final shots anyway). More importantly, looking at the sprue they’ve clearly put some thought into where the inevitable and unavoidable mould lines go, so that they’re generally on bits that can be filed or scraped off quickly. Putting one together will be the proof of the pudding. It doesn’t look like there will be major swearage required though 🙂
Incidentally, I do approve of these bases. I’m a big fan of minimalist bases, and if you’re not going with clear acetate then this looks like a good alternative – nice and thin with a small lip to hold some ground work.
So, all told, I rather like them. They are crisply cast with minimal mould lines in sensible places. The number of bits for what is effectively a small dreadnought type of model, is a reasonable compromise between getting the detail on, allowing some flex in posing, and not being too fiddly to build.
A good start for GoA.
I’ve shown a few pics of us playtesting DZR recently, and you may have noticed some bespoke D6s we’ve had lying around. So far, nobody guessed quite what they are, though there have been some fun suggestions. Today I thought I’d explain what they really do.
Meet the Command Dice.
These are, (hopefully) obviously, not final production copies. They’re my playtest versions, and incidentally a great illustration of how impermanent “permanent” markers are. Playing with these means smudgy hands.
To Start With, Why Command Dice?
The new dice are a replacement for the old deck of Battle cards. As such, their job is to provide a set of gameplay tweaks as a resource for the players to manage. How you use them is an opportunity for players to demonstrate their skill. It also helps to make every game different and reduces any predictability in what you and your opponent can achieve. With the right combination of Command Dice at the right moment you can do almost anything. If you use them well.
I was originally planning to use bespoke dice with the original version of Deadzone, but for various reasons that didn’t happen. Cards are fun too, and was happy using them. However, this new dice system is faster to play, easier to explain, and still retains the gameplay features I was after. So I think this change is a big win 🙂
What Are Command Dice?
Command Dice are an abstract representation of the training and cohesion of a well-led fighting force. They allow us to include moments of cunning and planning as well as luck without the need for complex rules. It’s easy to imagine what each Command Dice result represents. It might be a carefully lined-up shot, a sneaky ambush, a sucker punch, sly feint, or coordinated attack. Thinking about the results in this way helps make the story of your battle that much more interesting.
At the start of each Round, both players check how many Command Dice they are entitled to, and roll them afresh.
Each Strike Team starts with 3 Command Dice. Some abilities (notably Tactician (x)) alter this number.
As long as the player’s Strike Team has at least half of its models still on the table, they may re-roll as many Command Dice as they choose. If they re-roll any dice then they must keep the second result. All re-rolls must be made at the same time and before the first activation of the Round.
The results of these dice must be used during that Round or they will be lost. Unused Command Dice are discarded at the end of each Round.
How Do You Use Them?
Most results are used to enhance the actions of the active model when it is your Turn. The exceptions are adding dice to a model’s roll when it is attacked in your opponent’s Turn, and some army special effects.
Each Command Dice is discarded as its result is used.
What Do They Do?
I’ve laid out the dice in the picture above to show one of each side: all 6 sides are different. In order, they mean:
| Symbol | Meaning | Notes |
| +1 | +1 model activation | Normally players take Turns activating a single model. Use this immediately after you have taken a Turn with one model to take a Turn with another. If you have rolled this result several times then you can take Turns with several models in a row. |
| Cube | +1 dice to any normal test | If you have rolled this result several times then you may choose to add more than one dice to a single test. |
| Move | Additional Move action | The Move is restricted to 1 cube only, regardless of the model’s Speed stat. |
| Shoot | Additional Shoot action | |
| Fight | Additional Fight action | |
| Mantic Splat! without text in | Army special | The effect is different for each army. Army special effects do not count towards any other restriction on number of actions per Turn unless specifically mentioned otherwise. |
Move, Shoot and Fight allow the model to do that action on top of their normal 2 short or 1 long actions. They are very useful as they don’t count towards the normal restriction that you cannot repeat a given action within a Turn.
Special actions are defined at the army level, and every army has a unique effect.
Design Notes
As the dice are rolled at the start of each Round, and then spent during it, you reduce the amount of fiddling about off-table. You either have an option this Round, or you don’t. Changes (other than spending them) are corralled into a single bookkeeping phase at the start of the Round.
Although the dice are the same for everyone, the ability to re-roll the ones you don’t like plus the variable meaning of the special result makes them quite bespoke in practical effect. It also means that I can change what I want from them as the game plays out. So, if I have an assault army I might want to get lots of extra Move actions early on, to close the range, but then want more Fight actions and bonus dice in later Rounds. The Command Dice let you choose each Round what kind of tactics you’re going to use. However, because they’re dice they aren’t guaranteed to play nice with your plan…
Our testers so far have been really pleased with the results on the tabletop, which is gratifying. A couple were a little skeptical at first, though that seems to have quickly evaporated when they’ve tried it out in practice. I hope you find the same.
The beta rules will be out soon (though I can’t tell you when yet as I don’t know), so you might want to make your own set of Command Dice in anticipation. That’s partly why I’m telling you this now. Alternatively, you can always use a normal D6, reading the results in the same order as the table. When I ran my first playtests I had the above table printed out beside each player, and we just put normal D6 on the relevant row as reminders of what we had left.
So, what do you think?
Quirkworthy 
