Victrix Dunlendings, Command Levels, Micromanagement and AI

There's still cardboard boxes to be unpacked but I did manage to get some painting in...

2024 LoTR Paint Count: 39

These are Victrix vikings. $1ea. My quick paint job by no means does them justice, but they are probably the best off-a-sprue minis besides GW. They are a significant improvement on, say, Gripping Beast. Assembly is a bit fiddly though.

 The White Hand of Saruman on their shields shows their alliance....

These guys will stand in as Dunlending Warriors worth 10x that from GW. They are a bit larger than the Perry-era LoTR sculpts but are close enough (and cheap enough) that I don't care. I simply can't afford a $500 army. Doing it this way is a 90% off discount per mini!

There is enough sculpt variety in the packet I could replicate all the Dunlending heroes, which is another huge saving. Admittedly I couldn't make a mounted Thrydan Wolfsbane...

...but I have only used 1/3rd of the packet and I already have a decent Dunlending force with an array of bows, 1H and 2H weapons. I'll probably pick up some 3D print ponies and crebain (crow swarms)- there's about 20 or so more wild men and warriors I've assembled, still to go. I'm aiming for 500-600pts which is pretty much all you need to use all the Dunland heroes and toys. I could tidy and detail the models more but at this stage I'm trying to just get things table-ready to avoid a backlog - which can cause crippling painting paralysis. I've been out for a while so I need to get 'runs on the board' - a bit of painting momentum.

This is a 3D print Watcher in the Water. It did cost me $40AUD - down from the official $134AUD. I'll come back and touch it up later; but it is also table-ready and functional. Not everything has to be a display piece by a full time Youtuber painter - some of us just need to paint our toys!  I did everything in an afternoon, after undercoating them last night.

Because my paintjob is a bit rushed and meh, here is the primed model to give you an idea of the detail.  In the background is my tomorrow job; some Black Numenoreans aka 'Dark Rhumenoreans' so I don't get bored of Dunlendings...

Command Levels/Micromanagement

I've discussed this before; how in wargames we usually control an unrealistic amount of things. I've been thinking about this a lot lately as quite a few PC games I should enjoy... but I don't.

Nebulous: Fleet Command - it's the Expanse; railguns, PDCs, missiles, E-warfare... and you can build your own ships! But... you need to micromanage each ship (and you have several of them) and can even program the flight patterns of missiles. This would be great if you were captain of A ship, but not when you command half a dozen. You are a squadron commander who micromanages individual systems on individual ships.

Men of War II/Call to Arms. It's a more realistic Company of Heroes which can be modded to Star Wars, or 40K. You can even play in first person mode like the old Battlezone games (FPS/TR hybrid). But... you need to tell individual soldiers to crouch, or throw grenades, or reload... when you command 30 or 40 of them. 

I've also discussed the amount of independently-maneuvering units a person can control in real life, and the sweet spot for wargames (I think my conclusion was 4-12). This obviously ignores the complication of the games mechanics - controlling 4-5 spaceships in Nebulous would be easy if your only decision was where to move and who to shoot at. 

Perhaps it could be a formula: units x decisions you need to make for each unit (besides - move to x, shoot at y). ME:SBG handles 30-40 individually moving/fighting minis reasonably well, but that's because the mechanics for most troops are so simple: most troops move 6", melee is highest wins with better fighters winning ties, and shooting/damage being 'roll over 4/5/6 on d6' depending on shoot skill/defense - so simple mechanics; with most troops moving in groups anyway. Adding just a few heroes and monsters - with special rules and resource mechanics will slow a game significantly because there is more to track/remember and just more decisions to make. A 9-man Fellowship with lots of special abilities takes the same time to play than a 30 man vanilla warband with a few generic captains.

In broader terms, this ties in with "wargames rules pushed beyond breaking point" - i.e. rules which have been either complicated or bloated well beyond their original scope or simply used to do too much; as well as "wargamer who is all-knowing god of battlefield" who can micromanage his troops with unnatural and ahistorical precision. What rules do/don't do this well?

 But what if micromanaging WAS expected? Something like a powerful AI which could flawlessly co ordinate swarms of units.

AI: Born to Micromanage

With the micromanagement in mind, since I'm also watching the surprisingly good Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles with my daughter; I've been thinking of a use for my 15mm minis.

Basically, you have warring AI (with both human, cyborg and robotic soldiers) who are allocated "processing power" - basically action points.

Units can act independently but have 'move x, shoot y' - but with the AI boosting or 'riding' the host they could do things like co ordinate actions with other units (i.e. act with 2 units on a single action); get extra reactions/actions (they process things/are more aware than usual so seem supernaturally fast to react) or even make boosted actions (like re-rolling shots due to immense calculating power eliminating all the variables). You could even 'bid' on who acts first.

Wifi range could be a factor (or just the ability to push signals through heavy jamming) - so signals must be 'passed on' by units in radius. EMP weapons could be deadly to fearless robots but be ineffective vs humans who tend to have other, different issues (suppression/morale). Humans could be better at independent action (better reactions, initiative, independent action) making them less reliant/vulerable to E-war; but have lower stats in accuracy etc. 

Basically, a paper-scissors-rock with AoE radius of wifi/signal playing a major role (also EMP disrupting AoE). Units who are cut off from the AI's mainframe cannot be assigned "processing power" so you may be unable to spend your "Action Points" - so besides killing enemies you can also deny them their buffs with EMP burst weapons, jammers, etc. 

Dreadball vs Speedball vs BB

On the steam sale Speedball 2 (a remaster of the 1990s game) is $4 so I bought it for 'research purposes.' I'll probably work on some homebrew Speedball-esque rules to use with the few Dreadball minis I actually like. 

I'm also curious about Tech!No! (Spivey's NFL rules based on old videogames) - has anyone here played it - as I think I registered it as a blip on my radar in ?2020? and never heard of it since.  I think I rejected it at the time as it seemed card-heavy (and I was/am very suspicious of any wargame that reliant on cards). Someone recently also recommended BB:Blitz but I'm not familiar with it - is it better than 7-a-side BB (the one with 6 turns etc)? I'd probably prefer the latter as you can just tape the pitch and have a normal BB option if you want. Hmm, decisions decisions. $250AUD for a BB set would buy me a crapton of Battlefleet Gothic 3D prints and I always regarded it as the GW game that aged best next to ME:SBG...