My painting has stalled a little but I've prepped and basecoated ~30 orcs and ~30 dark elves so momentum is still happening.
Space Wizards & Bolt Action
Been a little sidetracked - my son wanted a "wizards vs mechs" 15mm so I've been working on rules that are very simple/familiar/40K-ish (he learnt to wargame via MESBG) so I can tack on a magic system without bogging things. My homebrew looked surprisingly like Bolt Action, so much as I may end up merely adapting it for sci fi.
A few thoughts in this 40k-a-like game: I bounced off it hard, as the 24" maximum rifle range looks stupid (fine for 15mm though!) and Chain of Command is just so much better.
However.... I was looking though CoC with a view to using it with some of my 15mm WW2 (as part of my individual basing vs FoW debate) and.... Chain of Command is surprisingly dense.
Every paragraph has exceptions "you can do x, except when y". Typically of TFL, there are lots of ways to roll dice. Each page has little side-rules. It's like a quirky homebrew made by mates who all were along for the ride. You gotta read it through a few times unless you do have some mates to teach you.
It is a better game than Bolt Action? Certainly. They've really gone for the feel of the game over... pretty much everything else. Universal mechanics, ease of use, etc. Is Bolt Action much more accessible and straightforward? Also yes. It does a good job of "40K-plus" with orders and pinning adding an extra dimension while being more straightforward to play. You can pick it up, skim it, and instantly know what's going on, and probably eyeball the units in their familiar mechanics and know how they will perform.
But... isn't there Space Bolt Action already? Yep. Beyond the Gates of Antares (what a mouthful!) swaps to d10s and adds a lot more chrome. Funnily enough I prefer Bolt Action - I like a simple game where I can add my own chrome. Is BtGoA better than 40K? Probably. As a generic ruleset it would be pretty decent. It's got complexity without being too over-complicated, although it needs a good edit and it could still be simplified. Unfortunately it's tied to the shitty minis and I'd rather play GW rules then be forced to paint a single one of them. (Pretty much my opinion for all Warlord/Mantic rules; Deadzone > Killteam, Dreadball > Bloodbowl, BtGoA > 40K... ...the games, mechanically, are better - but I couldn't give a stuff about their generic universes or meh minis).
Melee and Other Stuff
As my 15mm sci fi homebrew is a thinly disguised old RPG (also based on a desert world, where the wizards "defile" an area and suck out the magic, making an AoE where troops are debuffed and magic is difficult to re-cast... ....to give you a hint). I've been experimenting with converting RPGs, at the same time musing about how melee can be better.
Digging through my rules cupboard, Ronin and En Garde are too dense and involved. I don't want extra tracking. I don't want a kinda resource management minigame. I think the best balanced "melee +" rules are more like Bushido - you just hide which dice are assigned to attack and what are assigned to defend in your hand, so you can surprise/bluff your opponent. Basically some type of dice pool that is not tracked.
I've experimented with d12Finity in how players can assign dice rolls to cancel out opponent hits i.e. a Tyranid has 3 attacks and may chose to put aside 1 to cancel an attack from a hapless Tau; or sequencing of attacks i.e. you roll 7 and 3 vs a 5, 4. The 7 could be used to cancel lower strikes or just do damage. The 4 or 5 might get the same choice - to cancel the 3 or just attack.
In an experimental ruleset (not Middlehiem's d10+stat which was originally a Skyrim-meets-my-Warmachine models) ....which takes place in a dark forest where using magic gains you corruption..... (you see I do like RPGs for ideas I just hate the actual rules - bonus points if you can guess this one too) I'm simply doing some sort of "attack stance" "balanced stance" "defence stance."
Q1:40K/Necromunda's Best Psychic Rules
This is an audience question. As I'm adapting 40K stats for d12Finity - which was the most detailed 40K psychic rules? .....I mean proper rules, not some sort of 10th ed keyword nonsense. I think my 40K rulebooks are either 2nd (cards?) or 5th (kinda bland, can't recall) but I'm sure I can source a pdf from the internet *cough.* I don't care about balance, etc - just what gives the most interesting selection of cool spells etc for all the factions.
Q2:A RPG that would make a great wargame...
I quite enjoy reading RPGs as long as I don't have to actually play them (like I energetically analyse/test boardgames but assiduously avoid boardgame nights) so this is another audience question.
Are there any RPGs that you think would make an amazing wargame.... ....and has readily available minis?
Or could be adopted easily without too many bespoke critters etc? I.e. I like norse fantasy but I find it hard to obtain draugr (well, affordable ones), ditto Greek hydras and harpies. But they at least have minis (or STLs) available. Talking about unavailable minis....
Sailboats and Other Stuff
....Another distraction is my new 4.5m Nacra catamaran which has eaten up lots of weekend time. As my last sailing days were as a teen, figuring out rigging took 2hrs... ....not 30mins. Which I predicted beforehand to my wife, so you can't claim I was overconfident.
Obviously, not only am I ferretting around for my 1:3000 sailing ships, I also want to make a modern sailing wargame (a la Waterworld - maybe hydrofoiling little boats like a foil moth, but with a GPMG mounted on it; or maybe ice yachts set in alternate WW1 like this. Problem is models. Even STLs are not exactly thick on the ground....
2nd edition Dark Millennium cards were the high point for the 40K psychic phase. The corresponding WHFB "Battle Magic" set was equally phenomenal. From randomly determined powers to the wide variety of power effects, it added so much to the overall entertainment value.
ReplyDeleteI don't play enough RPGs to offer a suggestion, but I play a lot of small scale skirmish games and Call of Cthulhu suits itself to that sort of tabletop gaming.
Seconding 40k 2E Dark Millennium. 40k 5E can't hold a candle to that level of detail. The current 40k and Age of Sigmar are pretty needlessly overcomplicated. The alternative is to adapt the magic system from an actual RPG.
Delete- GG
I want a list of fun 40K-specific spells for my d12Finity project, with rough idea of power etc. Being OP etc in 40K isn't an issue as I can tweak it.
Delete-eM
The Psychic Phase in 2nd Edition 40k with the Dark Millenium expansion was awesome. The psychic powers are really flavourful. They weren't just different attacks or buffs. There were also powers like portal or teleportation to speed up movement. Sometimes they used funky templates like the foot of Gork. The mini game itself with the cards was also awesome as you had make a lot of hard decisions on which powers to cast with whom and also in which order to cast the powers. The opponent also had to guess whether a more dangerous power was still to come or the cancel card should be used on the current one.
DeleteI must damit that 2nd Edition 40k is one of my most played wargames ever. Therefore I might be a little biased, but I like it so much because it is totally over the top. The psychic phase definitely was an integral part of the 2nd Edition awesomeness. Clunky as hell but memorable to the nth degree.
DeleteI'm more interested in a broad but spell list than the rules themselves, as I can always make my own if I can eyeball the math behind them.
DeleteI had a look at 10th but it wasn't even... anything....
"Look how they murdered my boy."
-eM
I think that the spell list of 2nd edition is pretty broad. IIRC, Space Marines had like 12 powers (3 sets of 4), Eldar had 8 powers, each Chaos God had its own set 4, Tyranids had 4, Imperial Guard shared one of the SM Set and Orks had at least 4 own powers. In summary, this would be around 40 powers in total. Sounds pretty broad to me.
DeleteIf you're just looking for spell lists, Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar are worth a look, along with Mordheim, etc.!
DeleteI do not play the type of RPGs that would be good wargames, because I want a different experience from my RPGs than Wargames. However, you might be interested in Lancer for your purposes.
ReplyDeleteI have found that lack of minis is the number one reason a game concept dies. Number two is lack of available images.
- Eric Farrington
I quite like Lancer in theory, although it got a bit of a bashing here:
Deletehttps://deltavector.blogspot.com/2026/03/game-design-115-rulebooks-referees-var.html
....its got some good ideas that mech games can consider.
-eM
As before, I think D&D 3E could be a good candidate for a wargame.
ReplyDeletePalladium's RIFTS has the lore for a wargame but is mechanically awful.
Shadowrun would make for a decent skirmish game.
- GG
D&D.... the setting?
DeleteDo Shadowrun minis still exist? Used to be FASA/IWM I recall....
I think I have RIFTS - its one of those kitchen sink settings.
-eM
I have written a long response which somehow got lost. A short summary of what I have written: we used miniatures for all our D&D 3rd Edition and Pathfinder games and got multiple fights done in an evening. For a narrative skirmish game, the rules are fine and lead to interesting decisions during combat. Miniatures are widely available.
DeleteShadowrun has character degradation and high combat lethality. Could be used for near future skirmish, even though character generation takes a lot of time. Character templates could help.
Savage Worlds has fast combat Resolution but is already known.
Other RPGs are either too detailed (e.g. GURPS) or too much on the narrative side (e.g. Fate).
I'm more interested in SETTING rather than RULES. I hold the view all RPG rules are crap.
DeleteI'm interested in settings that are unique, not generic, and have available minis. I'm not too interested in "this RPG setting allows you to have any mini" or "absolutely vanilla fantasy"
E.g. my 15mm sci fi is futuristic Dark Suns magicians vs mechs. I'm using the Symbaroum setting (forest, factions, corrupting magic mechanic) for my own rules - which I can make up in an hour or two....
E.g. The dark elf vs light elves of Spire could be fun, as could say... what's the Victorian era Peaky Blinders RPG set in a single city (Dakvol? something?) with demonblood powered electricity? It seems purpose built for gang skirmish....
...Only problem is they need city terrain... :-/
-eM
We used the Forgotten Realms setting for our D&D gaming. As it is more or less a kitchen sink world where you could play anything you want. It sounds vanilla at first, but if you zoom in you get very different regional settings which are also fleshed out with supplemental material. Miniatures are also available.
DeleteThe Shadowrun setting with its mixture of Cyberpunk and Magic is also interesting from my point of view. I don't know whether miniatures are available but maybe they can be kitbashed with Necromunda Gang Kits and fantasy bits.
D&D 3E is a streamlined RPG and well suited to large skirmish of up to a dozen models per side. There are genre conversions for modern, SF, etc.
DeleteShadowrun is near future cyberpunk a la Neuromancer, so modern and SF minis work fine. Corporate black ops missions by private mercanaries per old school cyberpunk.
Rifts is a world war / civil war setting, where the world has magic returned. Superscience & sorcery x COIN asymmetrical warfare. The visuals can be astoundingly good.
- GG
The miniatures for BtGoA are so ugly. I often wondered whether anybody buys them. Even Mantic miniatures look awesome in comparison. The miniatures really dampened my enthusiasm to play the game. The rules looked good in theorie though, but not whacky enough to desecrate 40k miniatures by using them for the game.
ReplyDeleteBtGoA are in a weird spot. Better than 40K? More tactics - orders, pinning etc. Depth flows more from the base game then extra "gotcha" special rules.
DeleteI feel it's a little too complex; they've added chrome for sci fi and its just a tad much; instead of the "40K but better and simpler" (Bolt Action) it's more "better but just as complicated in a different - perhaps more logical - way."
Just some rules that seemed to have too many steps, etc.
As a generic set of rules with vehicles, it'd be OK...
-eM
I also had the impression that they did not improve much on the Bolt Action formula. I sold the starter set with the rules a few years ago as it did not excite me to play.
DeleteMy take is it is more complicated than Bolt Action without adding more depth. Bolt Action, for all its 40kisms and flaws, is at least pretty basic and straightforward.
Delete-eM
I've been involved in a couple of attempts to convert RPGs to miniatures games.
ReplyDeletePath 2 Victory turns Pathfinder 2E into a miniatures skirmish game, about as crunchy and with as much tracking as the old D&D Miniatures Game. https://sanglorian.github.io/flow/path-2-victory/
It involves tracking hit points individually, so I'm not sure you'd like it.
d6s with Dragons is only in rough form. It's a hack of 5E D&D to use d6s, and MESBG style combat phases.
I like that a monster in D&D with anything from about 4 HP up to 33 or so HP can be given a single Wound (it uses WH40k style Toughness), and likewise anything from 3 to 32 damage can be a single Wound (again, with varying Strengths.)
I really like it but it's failed to capture anyone else's attention, so I'd be interested to hear what you think.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/d6s-with-dragons-hack-turns-5e-into-a-miniatures-skirmish-game.714376/
Why would you be tied to the Gates of Antares minis? You're already planning on using GW minis to adapt a WW2 ruleset to play space wizards. :)
ReplyDeleteI think space wizards could be incorporated fairly easily into a BA-style game by just making the officers wizards and letting them cast spells on a Fire or Advance action.
This would also give the officers a reason for existing instead of being basically a points tax, as they are in 3rd Edition BA.
"Why would you be tied to the Gates of Antares minis? You're already planning on using GW minis to adapt a WW2 ruleset to play space wizards. :)"
DeleteOh, that was just a general observation. My personal gripe is they've already overcomplicated the Bolt Action formula themselves. I prefer to pick a simpler game and do my own overcomplicating :-P
The wizards are officers - either as solos or attached to buff 3-5 man fire teams...
-eM
Wizards as officers? Then, consider adaptation of Tanya the Evil.
Delete- GG
"Wizards as officers? Then, consider adaptation of Tanya the Evil. "
DeleteIt's already an adaption - or sci fi modernification - of Dark Suns the old D&D fantasy setting which is what gave me the idea!
-eM
I always thought a combination of TV show 'Grimm' and Free League Publishing's 'Vaesen' RPG would make for a fun miniature skirmish game or something.
ReplyDelete