/awg/ Alternative Wargames General

Lizzie and Akkad should be friends, so they can share their feels.

Warcradle give me new boats damn it!

>I'm leaving to visit family over christmas in a few days.
OK, well tell them we all said hello.

>Remember to say something to cheer up Disappointed Lizardman edition.
oh look, I inadvertently inspired a thread edition

>Disappointed Lizardman edition
>Let me axe you a question edition
I guess next one is going to have to be "remember to delete the previous edition before typing the name of the new edition edition"

>when you have to email a company begging them to update their webstore

REE I just want this guy for Christmas

I was thinking the same thing. Except the Freebooter's line has a lit of guns present, and most mooks only exist on pairs.

>I guess next one is going to have to be "remember to delete the previous edition before typing the name of the new edition edition"
Shit, thought I had! That'll teach me to create a new thread while trying to work.

it's pure suffering, i just want to start my goblin army :(

Just show us previews already you baguette twirling bastards.

I'd just call the guns Crossbows or something and call it a day. Or, worst case, homebrew up rules for guns. Something along the lines of a bit more powerful crossbow with one use only.

I'm slowly painting all the treasure markers I threw together.
Any suggestions for the colors on the wood elf spirits?
I'm thinking red or yellow.

I'm really fond of the oldschool turquoise for them, but orange would also work well I think.
Anyway, your stuff looks great, man! I'd try to maybe give the helmet glowing eyes to make it look more magical.

So Geedubs made Shadespire this year, a game that looks like "Mordheim in Name Only." The key components of this game are:

-No-loadout special characters. Not your dudes.
-Randomized objectives.
-The only customization in the game is the deck of "special powers" cards you bring alongside your prekitted minis.

Likewise, in the current edition of 40k, terrain and cover are fairly pointless, and maneuver is usually restricted to "place cheap unit in front of big gun, to prevent your opponent from placing shortrange infantry next to them." The argument is that with an incredibly reduced relevance on positioning, 40k might as well be a card game now.

Likewise, Warmachine has been called "Magic in Miniature form," since so many of its synergies are considered canned "Unit X gets a specific bonus from unit Y," while buying prepainted minis and cards alongside is what XWing does. Shadespire in many ways is the logical extreme of "CCGs in miniature form."

So what exactly separates a wargame from a "skirmish RPG" from a "miniature CCG"? A historical like DBM or an operational title like Panzergruppe Guderian are obviously wargames, but where do you draw a line? Is it a matter of scale? In theory a game like a Jutland or Starfleet Battles has a limited number of units per player but both are obviously wargames. Is it maneuver? Is it the usage of organic/dynamic options over canned/bespoke abilities? Or is it something else?

Your categories don't really exist for me.
First and foremost, a game designed with things not about combat or facilitating combat (like upgrades) is probably an RPG.

If it's a miniatures game designed around combat, it's probably a wargame, be it of board or tabletop variety. Some people like to differentiate between the open table thing and the boardgame variety and call one "Wargame" and the other "Strategy Boardgame"

If it uses cards and everything else is just tokens or offers little value otherwise is most likely a card game.

Then there's stuff like Duelyst that's very clearly a strategy wargame/card game hybrid. Calling something like Warmachine a "ccg with miniatures" is a load of cock and elitism.

What
Said. Those categories you are putting everything in don't really exist. Though some wargames are certainly trying to be card games.

>Calling something like Warmachine a "ccg with miniatures" is a load of cock and elitism.
Not him, but I don't see where you get cock and elitism from. You are reading too much into that imo.
It is a fair description if you consider that Warmachine and Hordes both use a Mana resource managment analogue with their Steam/Rage points and the synergies between units and certain cards in MtG are a fair comparison as well.

Your comment seems to imply that you consider MtG a terrible game and therefore meant as an insult, which is your personal opinion, not necessarily what user meant to say.

I mostly asked the question because those arguments are ones I have seen floating on dakka recently. While some ("Stratagems remind me too much of trap cards") are a real stretch, others ("Maneuver means little when a melee/short-range unit can insta-teleport without flaw/counter", "terrain means little when it doesn't slow down units or provide meaningful defense", etc.) are not entirely unwarranted. "More like a card game" and "Like a card game" are a degree of nuance.

It's also interesting in a "evolution of wargames" sort of context. For example, whether you consider Chess a wargame or whether you consider Kriegspiel the first true wargame is one debate. If you consider Chess a wargame, another question is whether Knightmare Chess (Chess with a point-built deck of power cards) is a wargame or not.

I'm not calling that user out for holding the opinion. In fact, I don't believe he does, going by his words.
Frankly, I don't see any semblances between WMH and MtG. You use resources in both games and try to combine your pieces in a profitable manner, but what game doesn't do this? 40k isn't like Magic now, just because you use CP to activate stuff and employ "lords" that buff your guys. It's like calling Malifaux a card game because youvplay cards to do stuff.
Anyway, "WMH is MtG" is almost exclusively thrown around as an insult, often by people that got tabled by elaborate combos when they tried to get into it.
And for the record, I fiercely dislike WMH.

The potential difference could be the "canned" nature of certain abilities. For example, in WMH, the units you take can vary dramatically depending on their combos. In MkII for example, strictly speaking w.r.t. Lights: if you didn't take Trenchers to reload it, the Grenadier was an inferior Charger. If you didn't take Kraye for Guided Fire, the Sentinel was an inferior Charger. If you didn't take Stormcallers to use its lightning conduit, the Firefly was an inferior Charger, etc. The Skorne in MkII were known for so many hyperspecific "Unit X provides bonus to Unit Y" that ultimately didn't work as intended, that the term "Skornergy" was made up to define "anti-synergy in spite of unit-combo buffs."

By contrast, in Battletech, a supply truck can carry coolant for a mech, regardless of whether that mech is a Madcat, a Rifleman or otherwise.

It's admittedly very subjective, but there could easily be a fine line in regards to whether the army works as a coherent whole, or the designers pigeonhole you into explicit combos (that you are "oh so smart" to to figure out).

So now that issue two is out, how are people finding spellcaster? This issue has rules for putting dragons in Frostgrave and new rules to turn frostgrave into a mech combat game.(?)

Anyone got it?

>"terrain means little when it doesn't slow down units or provide meaningful defense", etc.) are not entirely unwarranted.
It's hard to argue a point like that in general terms. Even if your game works in a way in which scenery only blocks line of sight, but does not provide cover or affect movement that can have major implications for the game as a whole, since maneuvering is a pretty essential component in just about every board and wargame I can think about. You always have to see the context of those mechanics in action, as there is a certain ripple effect or chain of causalities that are connected to those things.

>It's also interesting in a "evolution of wargames" sort of context. For example, whether you consider Chess a wargame or whether you consider Kriegspiel the first true wargame is one debate.
The evolution of wargames is an interesting point. Especially these days where people experiment with apps as digital crutches, different activation sequences and so on. Not sure I'd count Chess as a wargame really as it is rather abstract in comparison to what we commonly think of these days when discussing wargames. On some level each game is an abstraction of course, the ground scales, weapon ranges, army compositions and all of those things are usually not even anywhere close to representing the real thing. So the simulationist wargame that some people in /hwg/ seem to dream of is just a lofty ideal. No game can realistically represent a soldier with blisters on his left foot, malnourishment or how lice affect morale on a company level.

What I'm getting at here is that having that discussion is pretty difficult without setting some clear boundaries first. Cause if you are honest, any chess piece has similar abilities as to any miniature with a profile that relies on probabilities, the difference is only the degree of abstraction. Cards are just a means of randomization like using a table. Do the gaming materials make the genre? I don't think so.

I guess that's the real question: Where are the boundaries that define a game as a wargame? Is it "maneuver?" Is it an emphasis on "war" as two armies, rather than a duel between two superheroes and their mooks? Or is it something else?

>Anyway, "WMH is MtG" is almost exclusively thrown around as an insult, often by people that got tabled by elaborate combos when they tried to get into it.
I don't think that's necessarily the case. I've drawn that comparison many times, and I enjoy / have previously enjoyed both games.

The differences are fairly obvious, but they are united by a similarity in their design philosophy - gamist appproach over simulationist, an emphasis on the metagame and combos, the actual gameplay being mostly about efficiency of executing your plan while mitigating your opponent's, and so on.

Much like MtG, WMH can also be played at multiple levels - the most famous and ire-inspring being the high-profile hyper competitive environment which (again like MtG) is focused on list optimization and pay-to-win to an excessive degree. But there are also many variations of more casual game that are far friendlier.

Also what sets it apart from boardgames?
If you use miniatures or chits, card or dice doesn't really matter. You always have two opposing forces with clearly defined win conditions, no matter what game you play.

The most stand out feature that separates a boardgame from a wargame, as far as I can tell is basically the list building aspect or the ability to chose between game elements that behave entirely different and scenarios, i.e. narrative focused gaming.
What makes a game a wargame and not just a purely mechanical affair of pushing gaming pieces over a table like you would in a game of bridge is also more or less the implicit motivation behind the conflict.
Gaming pieces from parchesi don't telll a story. A battle set during the war of the roses or in middle earth have a different premise though. If you take that away you are left with a very complicated version of bridge.

So basically customization or narrative.
It doesn't really seem to be satisfying answer, but it is really the only way I can think of that clearly defines it as wargame, while setting it apart from regular games. And by that approach it heightens the emotional stakes on a different level than what you'd experience through a purely gamist experience of skillfully applying the mechanics of the game in order to win. You can score a 'moral victory' by killing your opponents general for example.

What sets wargames really apart is the sense of ownership and identification you feel as a player.
At least that is the conclusion I just came to.

I just hope they don't keep all the previews and shit to Instagram. Fuck that noise.

There are alternate rules put out by the creator for firearms. I was thinking maybe use minis from Blood and Plunder since they have dudes with spears and bows as well as guns. Although I can't really think of anything they have for like swordsmen.

Does anyone know how Fireforge mongol's line scales up with GW Flagellants and Marauders? For that matter, does anyone know where I could find some easily convertible Shaolin monks in 28 mm?

>For that matter, does anyone know where I could find some easily convertible Shaolin monks in 28 mm?
not sure about the easily convertible part, but Northstar has some Shaolin in their Fistful of Kung Fu range. HF also has some martial artists.

>I guess that's the real question: Where are the boundaries that define a game as a wargame? Is it "maneuver?" Is it an emphasis on "war" as two armies, rather than a duel between two superheroes and their mooks? Or is it something else?
It's a very gray area. Traditionally war games were free-movement, rules light and hobby heavy, whereas boardgames had very tightly defined rules and limits, with no hobby element. But quite a lot of modern games challenge those notions. Most modern boardgames are expandable, and many have a hobby aspect (paintable minis, at least). And a lot of war games now come with much tighter rulesets and strict limits to allow for competitive game formats. You can look at something like Deadzone or Myth, for instance, and it's not at all clear which category it falls in to. Things like Bloodrage, Kingdom Death, or Drake fall a bit more too one side or the other, but not by much.

"Concepts rat"? What's that?

I'm not too confident about the company since they produce Rpg, not miniatures.
But I will support nonetheless.

The rat was Confrontation's goblins' totem animal.

OK, here's one for /awg/

Has anyone played STARGUARD?

tin-soldier.com/sgrules.html

It features a miniatures gallery that makes Flintloque look like Golden Demon winners, there's an Aliens power loader just sort of there, the vehicle handbook literally has a picture of Dougram on it and apparently it's at "42nd anniversary 7th edition"

They are working with another company to make the miniatures. The changes to the rules sound interesting so far. Apparently they are ditching the wound table. And as the factions can't field big armies anymore, no more Rag'narok.

hurr durr

Confrontation... be still my beating heart.

I am cautiously optimistic. Glad back to smaller armies though.

Those figures almost look like silly putty.

Who Griffins here?

Post Akkads.
Laugh at my Akkad.

Haha, your Akkad.

Griffin for life, yo.

Also the Heavy Gear Kickstarter got canceled today. Apparently they saw it stall too much and realized launching it before Christmas was a bad idea. So now they're gonna do two smaller ones at $30k each. One purely for Utopia ending in mid February, and then another one for PRDF and NuCoal starting late Feb and ending in mid March or so.

Sucks, but I saw it coming honestly. I guess this give me even more time to save up and justify grabbing more add-ons when the PRDF one launches.

Yeah, I mean after the Halloween sales and Black Friday I think most people probably spent a lot on hobby stuff already without even taking Christmas into account.

Yeah, I'm not surpriaed it stalled out. They wantes to keep their promise of having a Kickstarter in 2017.

What blows me away is that people in the comments are still bitching about us not getting the Tiger and Sidewinder in the last campaign. Get the fuck over it.

Part 1 of 3: Accepting you're Akkad

I got to playtest Warstack last night on Tabletop Simulator with a willing volunteer.

Overall it went well. We used 8th Heralds of Ruin as a "baseline" before applying the Warstack turn structure to the whole thing. No real "bugs" came up, the main thing is I still need to write a good "cheat-sheet" for what a player can do when they have "The Initiative."

A notable highlight of the game was a 5-man unit of Guard Interrupts, first to jump in the way/become the closest target for a Smite, then to block a corridor.

So, when you make a cheatsheet for your game, how do you normally format it? I may re-look at the back of some Fantasy Flight Game rulebooks for reference but I want to ensure things are fairly compact.

>Yourkad
>Mykad
>Ourkad
Akkad

say something nice

>Who Griffins here?
No chance. Wolfen 4EVA.

>Yeah, I mean after the Halloween sales and Black Friday
Very much this. If they'd launched on time it would probably have been fine. As it was, they went right after a few big mini kickstarters in a row, and a couple huge black friday sales (most obviously CMON liquidating their whole stock, which consumed like my next 6 months of hobby budget).

Unless they make it Euro-friendly I will not take part in any, it's a nightmare getting any HG in yurop.

Anyone got any experience with Tehnolog?

They're a Russian plastic toy figure company, they seem to have a license to make those Robogear kits, and I've seen some well-sculpted 54mm Fantasy figures people were using to represent Ogre-size 28mm miniatures.

More recently I think they've noticed their popularity and are making more explicitly wargame-style stuff.

whos that monk in the background?

It's Reaper's Brother Roberto.

Nice little figure, looking forward to painting him.

I went to buy some new paints today. I think turquoise is a neat idea, I'll give that a go. Thanks!

I want those battlebeast dudes tho

>It's Reaper's Brother Roberto.
There are so many weird little hidden gems in Reaper's catalog. That's my first stop now whenever I'm looking for a character mini.

That's a fucking sick model.
Does all this re-launch hype mean I can pick one up in plastic or resin soon?

I know a bunch of people that use their 54mm Inquisitor rip-off sculpts to pad out their collection.

And when I say rip-off sculpts, I'm pretty sure they just did a weapon swap of Eisenhorn and filed down some of the detail before casting it up.

They are going to make all of the old Confrontations minatures again in resin, so yes. All the old figures will be use able in the new game as well. There is also Cadwallon.com if you want a recast in metal.

I must confess I've sort of fallen out of love with metal as a material lately.
The weight is nice for game pieces, but shit chips easier, breaks if it falls, is more of a pain to glue, needs pinning...

I picked up a Guild Ball team recently (FLGS sale) and it all came flooding back when I popped the blisters open.

>Cadwallon.com
Cheers for that.
It's a bummer that so many of them are $13+ before shipping.
Takes them out of the range of why-not purchases for me.

I can understand why they didn't launch it when they initially planned, though.

I get that. There are games like that here on the other side of the Atlantic.

Fucking Christ I could've done a better job on both sculpting and painting than this and I'm a spastic.

How do you guys keep your miniatures in formation?

movement trays

Multibases.

Can anyone share Gaslands?

>54mm ogres

Such as?

What's the name of the new guys again?

i'm waiting to paint my akkad till i've painted a bunch of the goblins first; i want to test some schemes and skin ideas.

Sans-Detour is the company that is putting it out. They are pretty cagey with the details, with most of the concrete information being what they have said at Conventions.

looks cool

Well yeah, Griffin is the best so they get all the coolest shit.

Wolfen have some cool ass models.

>tfw still waiting for my preorder

Finished my first piece of terrain for my Batman board today, the smallest of the buildings from Knights of Dice. Went for a pretty basic paintjob, pretty much just basecoat and wash, but I think it works well enough for a dirtier Gotham.

Going for a No Man's Land themed board, hence the graffiti, and I ordered most of the rest of it today so I can work on it after Christmas. Hoping to get some scatter stuff and tree bases done over the weekend, just to tide me over until the Knightfall and Flashpoint Batmen arrive

Did the gotham city police dept throw a tag up on that wall?

Its fucking huge.

As in, Tehnolog make 54mm scale Orcs, Dwarfs and stuff, which makes them handy for use as Ogres or similar in 28mm games.

Apparently 54mm wargaming with more toy-like figures is quite popular in Russia.

I've noticed they also quite naughtily make casts of Mechwarrior Online 3d models.

It's to do with the No Man's Land theme, when Gotham gets cut off from the outside after an earthquake. The cops become the 'blue boys' and start tagging to mark their territory

>preorders are sent tuesday
>still aren't here

That’s dope as fuck! Thanks for sharing I’m surprised by how much I’ve always wanted a tiny Gotham City the more I see terrain for it.

Do they have an online store or anything? Did a quick search but all I could find was ebay sellers with a very limited selection.

Tehnolog is pretty hard to get outside of Russia these days. Pegasus used to distribute some of their scenery (which was awesome for Necromunda and the like) in the US and Europe.

It seems to me that if you want something more recent you'll have to order it in Russia.
At least I couldn't find anything aside from a few ebay listings, when I looked into it recently.

I was looking for some of the scenery pieces though.

There was some guy on... rpgnet? who tried it. Made a nice simple board and terrain in a goofy SF style, bought all the stuff, and managed to make something playable out of the mess of the rules, but gave it up in the end.

I appreciate terrible bad sculpts - I'm that asshole who shitposts this guy's stuff manoftinblog.wordpress.com/tag/pound-store-figures/ all over /hwg/ and /awg/ when I feel bored (but I'm not actually that person) - but starguard is just. no.

> I've noticed they also quite naughtily make casts of Mechwarrior Online 3d models.

Warhansa also does this

Bronekorpus is my waifu. Tankfu. Whatever. I only have two, though, and none of the support version with unarmoured tracks and different options.

chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2015/02/21/six-dollar-tanks-from-russia/

dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/210/615960.page#7410216

Cheap, basic, goes with a lot of stuff. Although you may want to swap out the guns for something much smaller if you're using it alongside more realistic SF.

I'm calling these done for now. Thanks again for the suggestion. I had a lot of fun painting them.

>Wolfen have some cool ass models.
They do indeed. They're also the only army I've really grown since Confrontation ended, by way of the Wrath of Kings wolfen (which fit very nicely alongside the original ones).

Does anyone have Five Parsecs from Home 2e, or Five Parsecs: Gang Warfare to share?

yeah, probably not, but just wondering.

Man, those are so cheap on ebay that with them, some old WHFB 4th ed starter set goblins and some em4 orcs you could build an army for almost nothing.

I feel like those flag bits are crying out for some runes or something but job's a good 'un.

That's a dark path. One day you'll wake up and realise you can field a four-digit horde.

I figured they would.

I'vr been tampted to buy stuff from Cadwallon.com for various purposes and Wolfen have been on that list.

I have had good experiences with Cadwallon.com. The recasts come out well. In the cases of double moldlines the extra mold lines are stacked on top of the existing ones, so cleanup isn't hard. One thing that I have to really give them credit for is the fact that they put out new, legitimately good, miniatures done in the style of Confrontation, so it isn't as if they create nothing. They even work with the guys who do the fan supported ConfrontationEvo ruleset to make rules for them.

we dont usually share ivans stuff since he's a top bloke and a regular on here and /hwg/

That sounds like a great way to start a goblin army actually. Would I just search 4th edition goblins on ebay to find them? I have wanted to get some cheap bulk goblins for a while.

They seem to mix well with Gw Lotr orcs

(From the blog paintsngluenrocknroll)