/awg/ Alternative Wargames General

Are you guys for or against true line of sight?
What about measuring to a model's base vs. measuring to the model itself?
Mandating specific base sizes and shapes or allowing bases of any size and shape for a model?

I kind of want to hear the reasoning of why some people prefer certain methods over others.

>Are you guys for or against true line of sight?
Even if you use an abstraction like volumes you get into the same situations where you have to go down to eye level and check. So imo the only way to avoid LoS issues is playing a grid based game or something that's even more abstract, like a 2d game where you can draw straight lines with a ruler.
Otherwise there is always some wiggle room for arguments.

So I don't mind it. Without using LoS you basically wouldn't be able to play most wargames we talk about here.
>What about measuring to a model's base vs. measuring to the model itself?
Bases. It just makes it easier. Can't argue if you are measuring from the nose or the pinky, the base is the base and if it's round it's also always clear which is the closest point to measure from. Even in a vertical scenario it's the clearest solution.
>Mandating specific base sizes and shapes or allowing bases of any size and shape for a model?
If you have rules that take base size into account in any kind of form, be it measuring from the base or putting models into base to base contact then it definitely is a good idea to give clear guidelines about that.
>I kind of want to hear the reasoning of why some people prefer certain methods over others.
Anything that undercuts pointless arguing.
I'm a big fan of abstractions, cause I don't buy into the idea that any game has to be realistic at all. Ground scales and weapon ranges in just about any game are completely arbitrary and in historical wargames realistic weapon ranges would necessitate a switch in scale so you can even accommodate the range of a rifle on the table.
In a similar manner I think concepts like area terrain are great. What I mean by that is that if you are drawing a LoS through some woods you should disregard stuff like looking through individual tree trunks and just consider whether or not the LoS goes through the base of the scenery piece. That gives you a clear guideline and plays out faster.

...

TLOS is shit, unless you enjoy being sniped at because your model's ankle was sticking out of cover.

>Are you guys for or against true line of sight?
Strongly against it. While is right in that you'll never eliminate having to use "true" LOS, the game should never be built around it those situations can be relegated to fringe cases.
Reasons are simple: It makes the game easier to play, cuts down on pointless arguments and opens up creativity. If your dude has a fixed size for ingame purposes, it doesn't matter if he's doing a slamdunk or crawling on his belly. If buildings have fixed LOS rules, it doesn't matter if they have windows or holes in them. I've never once had an argument about LOS in games with abstracted rules. Arguments about how a piece of terrain should be clarified, yes, VERY rarely. And even then it's usually resolved quickly with a roll to everyone's satisfaction, because if you classify before setting up terrain then nobody is getting screwed after the fact. Never once while playing when it'd impede gameflow.

>What about measuring to a model's base vs. measuring to the model itself?
Always to base, never ever to model. Same reasons as above. It's also why I prefer vehicles having bases.

>Mandating specific base sizes and shapes or allowing bases of any size and shape for a model?
Fixed base sizes and shapes are just the reasonable thing to do. There's usually still leeway for stuff like movement trays or multibasing if you make clear and reasonable rules. The fact that the various Epic variations are so laissez-faire about bases is the most grating thing about the system to me.

>The fact that the various Epic variations are so laissez-faire about bases is the most grating thing about the system to me.

Epic is easy does it about basing rules to enable backward compatibility and not tick off its legacy players. In most of my games of it, the impact of different base shapes is negligible to non-existent, provided someone hasn't done something obviously naf.

I know, it still makes me autistically annoyed and new games should still have set base sizes.

Fuck TLoS. Volume all the way. All true LoS does is encourage people to model for a benefit, and discourage people from doing cool conversions or putting guys on awesome scenic bases.

It also allows manufacturers the chance to put models in dynamic poses if they don't ha e to worry about "well it'll be hard to hide him behind a wall with his leg sticking out like that." One of my biggest gripes with 40k has always been how much of the range was in the "standing around, waiting for the bus" pose because they had to make shit with that garbage LoS rule in mind.

>Area terrain
My man!

I've ddbated looking into Gaslands. I suck at conversions, but it's give me something to do with these spare Heavy Gear weapons.

I like the method that's on the picture. Kneeling and prone models are a bitch with TLoS.

Nice

Seeking hex & chit pdf scans like Valley of the Four Winds, Cyborg, Scandinavia and anything Lord of the Rings like TSR's Two Towers and Battle of the Five Armies.

All help appreciated.

So, I've been trying to get my local FLGS into something post-apoc and skirmish-based, and I've narrowed it down to This is Not A Test vs. the new Fallout game coming out.

While I personally like the TnT style better from the games that I've seen played (a lot like Necromunda), I feel that the new fallout game will probably have better brand recognition/attract more people to the tabletop if I run display games.

It doesn't hurt that the Mordiphius minis are just fantastic (if you get the resin ones).

Dunno if I helps, but there are defacto standards for epic. Most inf is on the little 20x20 squares or the 10x40 strips (unless their on troublemaker circles) while bike/cav is on the old warmaster std base, unless ancient make, then on the 20x20 square.

>Volume all the way
Fuck volume. Do we really think surveying from an abstract point to another abstract point and adding math makes things any easier to resolve? ProTip: it doesn't, it just changes where the arguments happen in the sequence.

I'd still stick to TnT, because licensed games historically have a terrible track record in wargames. Like, has there been even a single one that went over well, apart from LotR? Even LotR, the big darling, has gone through a terrible decade. X-Wing and Armada started great but went rough really quickly. Terminator and AWP, boy... We all know what happened to Starship Troopers. The Judge Dredd game lives again, I guess?
I don't know man, I'd take the models and run. Investing into a licensed game always feels like a recipe to disaster to me, just buy the models and play something else. This way, if support is pulled suddenly your community won't the crushed and wither away like pretty much every other one.

Volume just seems like an unnecessarily complicated way to do standard heights. Just include height in the profile, assign heights to terrain, presto.

Look, I don't mind doing a little Trig now and then, I make my living Engineering things, but now you're either going to bog things down with related triangle problems or endless reams of elevation/distance tables. I guess you could write an app, but that greatly corrodes the human experience I come to table tops games to have. I know I've participated in a trial of it. TLoS is just easier once you manage to manage your autism.

Huh, so buy all of the minis but play Tnt?

The problem is - I used to be able to get all of the same minis from Brother Vinni for cheap. Ah well, you're probably right that the whole line'll go to shit almost immediately.

Besides, TnT Plays like Necromunda 2.5. I'd rather support a small business-owner instead of fucking anyone associated with Bethesda.

The thing with the licence is that the licencor will expect early days earnings all the long haul, and this just doesn't happen. So the pull it to re-start the hype engine and the game dies. Yeah, the dev can start corroding their game with gimmicks and imba crap to postpone the inevitable, but in the end that just makes the zombie game a shitty zombie game.

Licenced games are like death row inmates, it's almost always only a matter of time.

X-Wing is still fairly popular, and Batman continues doing well in its niche. I feel like licensed properties work better as one off board games though than something that will get continuous support.

I honestly have no idea where you get trigonometry problems and elevation/distance tables from. Managing your autism in this hobby seems like the insurmountable problem to me and battling the raging aspergers of the community is the eternal dragon of traditional games design.
Having fixed stats seems easy to me when compared to the can of worms that is TLOS. Elevation is simple, just add the size of any terrain to the size of the model. Distance doesn't need to be covered at all, usually. If you can't draw an unobstructed line between the bases, you can't shoot it unless the heights say you can see it. It's not rocket science.

It's a crutch rules writers use when they can't come up with anything better.

Yeah, just get what you like and play with that. Hell, if you really want you can just play TNT in the Fallout setting. I'd reccomend agreeing on some setting beforehand, because it gives you a framework to build your stuff.

X-Wing is popular, but miserable. It's a neverending series of "buy this shit you don't want to get some other overpowered dumb shit".
Batman seemingly surives off of Harley Quinn and Batman, everything else is just exists. But you are right, boardgames are okay, continued lines are just waiting for the green mile.

So, basically, if I'm on a hill, I'm fuct because I can't see down the step function slope to shoot anyone in the valley. Seems dubious, senpai.

sweet ride, bro

Dood, the hell man. WTF is with this positivity, can't you see we're using this thread to go full ass-burgers on LoS?

I think you're right, I"ll just buy the minis instead of the ruleset too, and continue to buy all of the stuff from Brother Vinni too.

Oh my god, who is that?
mommy

Are you being dense on purpose? Where's the problem here?

This. It's time to Reeee at true/abstract los now.

Okay, Genius, without trig, off side worksheets, trig-ref tables, or surveying to abstract 'cylinder' volume points, tell me who the red-chick can shoot?

>X-Wing is popular, but miserable. It's a neverending series of "buy this shit you don't want to get some other overpowered dumb shit".
People keep saying this, but I've gotten by fine not buying anything I don't want.

I guess maybe this is true if you're one of those hyper-competitive fuckwits, but I have never felt I *had* to buy a ship I don't want to play the game.

>... I have never felt I *had* to buy a ship I don't want to play the game.

Achtung!

REally, you just do without whatever primo widget that it gets bundled with that you need to keep up with the new meta which is essentially play one of the new widgets or lose?

Yeah, I do. I have never gone out and bought a ship I won't use just because I felt like I couldn't play without spme card that comes with that ship. And I can still win games, believe it or not.

I don't play tournaments, so maybe that's the difference, but I've gotten along just fine without buying shit I don't want/won't use.

>I don't play tournaments, so maybe that's the difference

I think you've assessed this correctly. Mind you, if all you're doing is faffing about narratively with your good buddies who comprehend that it's about growth as a player and the xp and not chasing the win it doesn't matter what system you use, so why would you line the pockets of Disney's shareholders by buying their proprietary models?

Because I like the game and the models?

I could be lining the pockets of far worse companies.

In other news, updated picture of the MAR-DK for Utopia in Heavy Gear. Got some added details that really make it seem less flat than before.

Depends on how the system handles it. Two valid options are

>When within a building, ignore the building. Section up buildings that are too large.
In this case it's everyone in front of the wall.

or

>Draw a line from base to base. If you cannot draw an unobstructed line and your height doesn't beat the obstruction, you do not have LOS. Do not ignore terrain you stand on for this, but ignore it if you are within an inch of the ledge you draw the line through.

In this case it's only the dude on the building and maybe the dude on the box, dependant on the wording. E Z.
The thing with abstract LOS is that it requires the author to actually think about how it works out instead of tossing it to the players and let them descend into chaos whenever someone spergs out.

I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't add AUTISTIC SCREECHING above the red chick.

Casual-circle evidence doesn't make the problem go away. To borrow an old 40k meme, the fact that you play 3rd Edition Grey Knights with the suggested missions in the back of the Demonhunters book doesn't mean that the Leafblower doesn't exist.

That's a fair point. I'm just saying that this "you *have* to buy this stuff you won't run to get this one card" type statement is a bit misleading since it's not *required* to have card A to play the game.

It may be a good card, but you are perfectly able to play the game without owning it.

I've literally never had a problem with it, but I also see the potential issues. If I was playing with rule lawyer WAAC twats I could see that as annoying.

The chap on the hill because she's on the other side of the hill and there's a rule for that (reversed slope most of the time) or a more abstract everything one the one behind the last structure.

Yes it does.

>Dave, we're planning a game of 40k, want to do something fun.
>Alright, what did you have in mind for a scenario?
>How about Grey Knights fighting to escort an Inquisitor through a webay; chaos trying to kill him, eldar trying to capture the inquisitor.
>Alright, which rules are we using?
>Whateveryouwanthere. Don't bring the XYZ because that'll unblance the game a bit.
>Right-o.

The solution to 95% of wargaming problems is join a club.If you don't have a club, make one. People used to make clubs all the times for all matter of things.

Case one: What if it's not a building, what if it's a 'hill'? Also, really, a system that just lets you shoot through the earth. I guess, but that's going to cause an enormous amount of a different breed of sperging out.

Case two:
'Draw a line' - What's this, an off-side worksheet?
Draw the line from what, the abstract top of the volume cylinder? - Looks like surveying to abstract points to me.
Why did you pick 1 inch. Are you planning rigorous exemptions for 'tall' or 'short' models?

How did you define 'other side' of the flat top hill?
>>Remember, no trig ratios!

Same way you define half of a cake. Put a line across it.

I don't even know what the bloody hell a trig ratio is, I got my only C in an exam at GCSE in Maths and dropped it there.

Cheers, I really should get round to making more.

I'm not sure if I want to paint them all pink though. I really like how it came out but at the same time I figure it might ruin it by overusing it.

>Put a line across it.

Congratulations, by bisecting the hill you just did some trig. Well, more geometry, but it's fundamentally the same stuff.

You're autistic.

See:I'm in the right place, are you?

>I fully understand that in seeking more rigorous definition I'm making a simple issue near intractable. It is core though to why I advocate for TLoS in most cases. It's fast and simple to resolve and easy to demonstrate when your proselytising to potential neophytes.

they are making Zodd Soon and berserk armor check his Facebook

Anyone try the Kings of War Vanguard beta yet? I am slowly but steadily assembling my undead right now.

Not yet. I probably should, though.

Anyone know of good sci-fi fleet action games? I wanna build and paint badass capital ships and beat the shit out of things.

Dropfleet Commander?

I liked Firestorm Armada, but that's sorta in limbo right now.

I keep debating writing a set of space combat rules using a hex map. Just too pre-occupied to actually sit down and do it.

I also kinda love Dropfleet for this. It displaced BFG's special place in my heart, and that's NO small thing.

OOHHHHHH Are we having a "best LOS system" debate? Damn, I picked the right time to stumble back in to this thread. I can go on for DAYS on this subject.

Let's go right to the bonus round though, really get things cooking - what's your favorite most elegant LOS system for variable sized / variable height zone-based systems?

t. Another Fucking Engineer

>Are we having a "best LOS system" debate?

Well, we were, but then they stopped indulging me on the subject. They kinda /Zoned/ out.

>The fact that the various Epic variations are so laissez-faire about bases is the most grating thing about the system to me.
The fact that Epic CAN be so laissez-faire about base sizes and not break down in competitive play is a sign of just how well-designed that system is. Yes, it does allow you to "model for advantage", but that advantage is so miniscule that it's not worth dedicating thought to.

Like every design decision, implementing fixed base sizes have both a benefit and a cost. The benefit is limiting external variables from the design-space of the game. The cost is the need to re-base models and incompatibilities between systems. That's definitely not a "freebie" - especially in /awg, you have to be aware that everybody is playing everything. No system exists in isolation. There's also the aesthetic component - nobody wants to put a base on a tank if they don't have to.

>Are you guys for or against true line of sight?
> What about measuring to a model's base vs. measuring to the model itself?
Same philosophy applies to LOS systems. True LOS is a rules morass, sure, with a potentially bottomless rabbithole of edge cases and arguments attached. But it has simplicity going for it - easy to demonstrate, easy to comprehend, fast to execute, and no setup required. More rules-robust systems inevitably come with more overhead attached - height and mass stats, predefined terrain qualities, special widgets, charts, learning an unintuitive system, etc.

Good game rules are all about Elegance - the most effect for the least overhead. Every time you add a check, another stat or a roll, or special rule, or an IF statement to the rules - to head off whatever edge case exploit or create more realism or whatever - comes with a cost attached. Every line of rules, every little complexity of resolution, is another incremental investment of time and potential point of failure.

OK, user, well let's pick up that ball and, uh... SPORTS ANALOGY. Of which system were you the patron?

Truthfully, I like to think I acknowledge strengths and weaknesses of most systems.

As a general thing though, I favour TLoS when playing skirmish things with minis because I've found it much easier to explain when proselytising. The unwashed find it reliably easy to grok.

>I favour TLoS when playing skirmish things with minis because I've found it much easier to explain when proselytising. The unwashed find it reliably easy to grok.
Agreed, for the same reasons. With the obvious caveat that it doesn't hold up to any amount of dedicated cheese. I think my preferred general purpose skirmish system is probably some variant of the "strict 2D geometry with exceptions for snipers in towers" you see in stuff like Malifaux and WoK. Seems like it hits a nice balance between quick to resolve and mostly unambiguous. Occasionally produces unintuitive results, but I think that's an OK trade.

>With the obvious caveat that it doesn't hold up to any amount of dedicated cheese.

There are very few things that stand up to serious efforts at cheesing out. Often times the more postulates, the more things the rules lawyers can find to exploit.

At least trying to exploit TLoS tends to require some degree of modelling talent and ingenuity,

I honestly find non true LOS more evenhanded. I would take maybe quibbling over some elevation differences over potentially dealing with someone's meme tier army where they glue the heads of the models to the base and say that they are swimming. Non TLOS also encourages far more creativity in the realm of modeling, with poses that can be more interesting and cool scenic bases not being a handicap. Meanwhile creativity from munchkins comes down to crudely making minis army crawl.

>There are very few things that stand up to serious efforts at cheesing out.
If you keep it to a very restricted geometry of circles, lines and convex polys then I think you can get it pretty robust. Example would be something like WMH, which resists even the truly insane attempts to game the geometry. Again, it's always cost v benefit - in that case, you're conceding to either 2D terrain (or forfeiting some of the precision on which the robustness rests).

>Often times the more postulates, the more things the rules lawyers can find to exploit.
I should say, I 100% agree with this statement - it mirrors my sentiment about the importance of elegance and not proliferating potential failure points in a ruleset, above.

>I honestly find non true LOS more evenhanded.
What are games that use it?

Maybe, but at some point people stop playing the game and lose their way into art projects. The 'professionals' infect the hobby to the general loss of people who paint a bit for fun.

The art helps, but it shouldn't dominate the focus of the hobby. To this end, rules that are slightly conversion unfriendly aren't all bad, but it's really a cultural thing.

Mostly I like abstractions around things like forests where properly modeling the undergrowth would impede its use as a game component. In all things, the game should come first.

Any game with height values for a model. Warmahordes, Infinity, Malifaux, Kings of War, countless others.

Non TLOS?

Batman, Malifaux and Warmachine all do.

Honestly it works pretty well.

Warmachine & Batman define a model volume dependent on base size, the actual scuplt doesn't matter.
You can then use this to work out if terrain is sufficiently large to give them cover, and LOS can be determined by drawing a line (with a tape measure or laser) between attacker and target.
If it crosses terrain that's big enough to give cover, they get cover.

Dredd is back?

Is that Liono?

Oh come on. Painting miniatures well is in no way a bad thing. Conversions are fun and I don't understand how they hurt the hobby at all. I would much rather kick out the WAAC fags who cheese the shit out of TLOS than people who actually put effort into painting. Ultimately avoiding TLOS is much better for gameplay as it eases up on ambiguity and doesn't hurt the dude who didn't use the smallest sculpt possible. I would be surprised if you could find much in the way of conversions that look good that are made for the purpose to exploit TLOS, while plenty good looking ones exist that would be handicapped by said rule.

I would also add that if the company results the model into a bigger size, you don't end up with unfair LOS between the two models.

>Painting miniatures well is in no way a bad thing.
If can be when it alienates people whom are actually more creative story tellers and scenario designers rather than inspirationally bankrupt technical technique experts.

Beyond a fairly early point the experience value of 'paint job quality' brings seriously diminished returns when compared to the effort that goes into a unit of painted stuff.

The hard core paint nerds set a standard that causes would be recruits to be turned off. It's like airbrushed models in beauty magazines giving teen girls eating disorders trying to match up. Only large corporations have the resource base to do up entire armies worth of competition winning grade models which in turn means displaying those as a defacto standard has a corrosive effect on the hobby as a whole.

I'd rather see people work to decent results that they can churn out in reasonable timelines before their enthusiasm for the project wanes than even one model with shit like '65 layer OSL NNM bronze' on even one. I don't care if you won a prestigious award for the thing you spent six months painting, it's deleterious to the greater community.

TL;DR, if you want to go do art, go do art with all the other pretentious art snob and leave us to muck about with out toy soldiers doing things we actually enjoy. Stop pretending to be a hobbyist.

Yeah, okay. In theory this exists, but I've seldom seen it have a measurable impact in practice. Show me your pix where it happened in your presence, not just some friend of a friend of a facebook friend who alleges it happened to his father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate.

No one is actually elitist about painting though other than some tournaments not allowing in grey tiders. I feel like you are just making this entire issue up. I guess that you can always play Warmahordes if you don't like painting.

Can't speak to the other two, but I can't recall the last time I actually saw a game of whoremawards that actually had hills, or indeed any thing that actually projected from the table top that wasn't a model in an army. They use cut out templates of forests trenches for Christ sake.

In my observed practice, the game is even more 2d than BattleTech.

>I feel like you are just making this entire issue up.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I have lurked near the figure rack in the FLGS and actually listened to a kid have that conversation with his father. On more than one occasion, with multiple sets of fathers and sons. Hobby intimidation is a thing.

Warmahordes players hate the hobby to the point where they will rarely actually paint their miniatures. In my experience people who play Malifaux actually use terrain, and Infinity mandates it down to the core rules which ask you to have at least four levels of elevation.

WMH is a shit example, the players are cancer. Malifaux, Batman & Infinity all use Non-TLOS too and to great effect

So, you agree with me that Privateer's games are an exceptionally poor case for the implementation of non-TLoS systems because they systemically avoid things where even their vaunted systems might matter.

>Someday, if I'm lucky, I hope that thing's'll line up that I'll actually get a fair test and demo game of malifaux in.

>Hobby intimidation is a thing
I just find that shockingly hard to buy. With what game? With the three most popular games in the US (X-Wing, 40K, Warmahordes) having an army you fully painted yourself is already uncommon, much more so to a standard higher than tabletop. Do people playing Guild Ball or historicals or something do dick measuring contests over who spent the most on their Harder Steinbeck? I apologize, but while players being super competitive when it comes to actually playing the game is certainly a thing, when it comes to painting I find it hard to believe any elitism happens outside of maybe some debates on the CMON forums.

>the players are cancer
Infinity players are cancerous too, but in different ways.

They think their game is good because it's artificially complex, just like some people got tricked into thinking Inception was good for much the same reason.

Pretty much. The fact that there is a lot of base overhang in a game with a lot of precision movement and facing rules doesn't help either. I am not sure how PP implemented LOS in MonPoc, but with Warmahordes most people use it as an excuse to be lazy and avoid the hobby as much as they can.

I enjoy Infinity imo, it's stupidly overcomplicated but fluffy and entertaining regardless.

I can totally see why it isn't everyone's cup of tea though.

Sampling bias my good man, sampling bias. You're only looking at the population that passed through t he filter of having actually bought in. Even then you point out that they made the compromise of hiring out the work because it'd take them too much time.

>I've managed casual conversations with several FLGS owners in my region. THey all anecdotally report similar experiences. Selling the kits can be tricky to first timers if they think they need hard paint techs. They would know, it is their livelyhoods afterall.

So there really isn't any evidence to back up your claim the good painters are corrosive to the hobby? OK then.

I'd actually like to try the game, iff I could actually get someone who know what they were doing to show it off without the heavy heaping of condescension I usually see dumped upon poor souls who dare to ask to learn.

Infinity players are the worst players I've met hands down. I've never met a group of people jerk off so much to their game and hate on every other game. If you like Infinity, cool, I like Infinity but man, Infinity players, stop thinking your game is a gift from god cause it's not.

You've got anything to support your counter claim that they're non-corrosive? All you've done is ask questions.

I supported my case with queue balk measurement techniques from professional management studies. Lost sales are lost sales.

It's funny. The game has a lot of rules but it boils down very simply to a few things. Do I have lots of orders? Do I have an answer to camo? Do I have camo? Do I have mobile specialist to complete objectives? Do I have some good ARO troops to cover important parts of the map? Once you boil down the endless rules down to the important rules there's not a huge amount to it.