Battle Reports and Feedback

[Primarch]

For those of you who want to take the time to write up your games and/or provide some feedback and thoughts on the system in general, please feel free to do so below. Comments about specific factions should go in their own faction list thread.

Thanks.

[fromthefield]

@Auxryn, @Underdweller and I tried a 3-way game using the Scavengers scenario.

Auxryn – Tenders of the Green
Underdweller – Croc-Kin
Fromthefield – Beast-Kin

Overall, the game was fun. Because it was a 3-way game the Croc-Kin and Beast-Kin ended up pounding on each other while the elves snatched up 3 of the 7 objectives giving them a decisive victory.

Gameplay was fast and pretty smooth, but we made a couple mistakes and had a few questions.

Issues and Mistakes Made

-We assumed that adjacent enemies would get an attack of opportunity on fleeing models, but it looks like that is not actually in the rules.

-We didn’t cut off rolls at 10 when determining margins of success. For example a warrior’s target number was 5+, and he had a +4 bonus. So when he rolled a 10, he added it up to 14, giving him a margin of success of 9. But we should have cut off the total at 10 giving him a margin of 5 not 9. Perhaps it would be good to include a demonstration in the rules to make the cut off clear.

-There was a little confusion because different players had read different versions of the rules. Perhaps it would be useful to write the date that the rules were last modified at the top of each file.

Questions

-Can you dual-wield with a dagger?

-When a warrior leaves combat after passing an agility test, can he take an additional action, such as moving, charging or using a ranged weapon?

-Do warriors need to make a Guts check from ranged and magic attacks or just melee attacks?

-Do models need to make an agility test to move up ladders or should they move regularly? What should you do if a ladder is longer than a unit’s movement?

-Are thrown weapons one use or infinite uses?

-In the Scavenger scenario, can a side opt to retreat off the board once he has captured enough objectives to save his units? Do models who retreat off the board for any reason during the scenario (i.e. fleeing) count towards Victory points at the end of the scenario?

-In a campaign, do scenario victory points count as resource points for levelling up etc.?

-Can you use the 2 weapon bonus for counter attacks?

-Can non-character models buy skills?

-Are skill and spell costs included in the character point costs or added separately?

-When making a Guts check is it -1 per enemy warrior in base to base contact with a model, or -1 per additional enemy warrior?

-If a caster has access to more than one spell list, can he cast spells from more than one list or must he only choose one to cast from? For example, if a caster has access to the common spells, can he have 1 Faction spell and 1 Fire Spell or must he stick with a single list?

-When counter attacking, does a model get bonuses from things like Weapons Expert and out-numbering the target?

-Does focus give a bonus to offensive spells?

Suggestions

-A 1 point weapon option that gives no bonuses or penalties (Short Sword, Staff etc.).

-Having more than 1 wound should give a model a bonus to morale checks. Otherwise a giant creature with 4 wounds would get a penalty when fighting 2 feeble goblins.

-Count bodies of fallen warriors as rough terrain when moving through them.

-In the Morale section of the rules re-word “hit” to “damaged” in the first condition: “The warrior is hit by an attack, but not killed.”

-In the warband rules, it says that bucklers count as a weapon. I think the correct reading of that is that it counts as a weapon in terms of carrying capacity, but one of us thought it would give the wielder the dual-wield weapon bonus because the unit could shield bash. Perhaps that should be clarified, but maybe you could also add a Shield Bash skill that gives a dual-wield bonus for carrying a shield.

-When a model fails a Guts check does it immediately double move towards the table edge in all situations? For example, if a model charges into combat, but is later attacked and fails a Guts check in the same turn, will it then double move right away? If a model fails a Guts check and flees before it is activated that turn, can it still recover and take an action on that same turn? Maybe instead, when a model fails its Guts check for the first time it should use similar rules to the Leaving Combat Action. For example, a panicked unit should make an Agility check. If it passes it can leave combat (1 + margin of success), and then flee at double move if it fails its next Guts check at the beginning of its next activation. If it fails its first Agility check, maybe it can be knocked prone or something, giving attacking enemies a bonus until it recovers. On its next activation, if it fails its Guts check again it would then need to make another Agility check to try to Leave Combat.

[Primarch]

Thanks for the feedback.

Ok, going over your points in order.....

Issues
- as of the current version, fleeing warriors do not get attacked. This may change as the game develops.

- noted. All rolls cut off at 10.

- noted. Version numbers will start being used with updates.

Questions
- Currently dual wielding is too good as a basic option. It will change in the next update.

- Yes, if moving away was the first action.

- Not at present, though some spells do involve a Guts check.

- Ladders and stairs should be open terrain. If you can't reach the top, mark the warriors position with a dice.

- Infinite, well probably six or less given the scenario limits.

- No, in the scavenger scenario there is nothing to stop you from pulling objectives back out of their deployment area. Retreating warriors count as surviving the game, but still give up VPs to your opponent.

- No. VPs are for the scenario only. The warriors who score them are likely to receive RPs though.

- No. Counter attack states no modifiers may be used except weapon modifiers, Swords and Two Handed weapons. Dual wielding needs a rewrite as mentioned above.

- Only after gaining enough RPs. Regulars never gain skills.

- No, they are an extra cost, though optional.

- -1 per warrior.

- Casters can use any lists they have access to.

- No. Only weapon modifiers are taken into account.

- Yes. It boosts your Magic roll, so can give more Degrees of Success.

Suggestions.
- Good idea. I will include one in the update.

- Yes, it should. I will add that as a modifier.

- I had the same issue come up yesterday. It will be added.

- Yes, good idea.

- See the above about dual wielding. Bucklers only count as a weapon for how many things you can carry.

- I will have a look over the Guts rules and make some changes I think. They are currently the area I am least happy about.

Thanks for the feedback. If you have any more thoughts, let me know.

[The Other Dave]

Just my semi-random thoughts after my games today:

The big thing, I think, is that missile weapons might be a tad powerful. The dodge roll does mitigate them somewhat, but it felt a bit odd for my should-be-rather-pants 33 points of goblin archers to pincushion half of Konrad's undead warband - the weak half, to be sure, but literally all my casualties were caused by shooting, while the same-points-value of spearmen did a single wound - again, to be sure, against the big scary vampire. Even something as simple as saying that beating the Fight roll with missile weapons doesn't modify the Resist roll, or tying the modification to the weapon? I dunno, that's just an idle thought.

I think you've heard folks' thoughts on the beast scenario. It looked like you were playing later in the day with the game continuing after the beast dies, and I think that might be the way to go.

[fromthefield]

Here is some more feedback from my games this afternoon.

Overall Impressions
The current rules are playable, fast and fun. It is easy and fast to create a warband and learn how to play. The Faction abilities help give each warband a different feel, making games against different opponents interesting and fun. The base rules seem pretty solid now, and the Morale rules seemed better this time, compared to last time. I didn’t get to try the new dual weapon rules though.

Game 1: Beast-Kin (Me) vs Croc-Kin (Underdweller)
Scenario: Magic Minefield
Summary: A pretty close game. The Croc-Kin lost 2 or 3 units to fireballs from the tokens, but the Beast-Kin were unaffected. The giant Croc-Kin brute seemed to run away a little easily, and the Croc-Kin spells seemed underpowered.

Game 2: Malakarian Defenders (Me) vs Elvahr's Children (Konrad)
Scenario: Scavengers
Summary: Overall a close game. The Elvahr’s Children’s ability sounded powerful, but in the end it didn’t actually have as big of an impact on the game as I thought it would. The Malakarian Defenders had a mix of ranged and melee units. The ranged units were able to give good covering fire from high terrain. We had some confusion over marker point values.

Game 3: Malakarian Defenders (Me) vs Red Claws (Auxryn)
Scenario: Magic Minefield
Summary: The Red Claws all specialized in ranged weapons, but the Malakarian Defenders had a mix of ranged and melee. I could see ranged weapons being overpowering if there was nothing to hide behind. Agility tests and cover seem to balance it though. Due to the scenario, the MD were able to move most of the markers to their area. Having all ranged was not as big of an advantage as I expected. I had two bowmen and a mage with fireball, and it seemed to be enough to balance his 6 archers. At first I thought having a Longbow with the Red Claw Sniper skill would be overpowered, but it seemed to be about as powerful as a mage with the fireball spell.

Comments, Questions and Suggestions
1) Some Faction abilities seem obviously stronger than other Faction abilities. Instead of making the strong abilities weaker though, try making the weak ones stronger.

2) Most manipulation spells seem useless right now, in my opinion, or at least much less valuable than direct damage spells. Again, I recommend making the useless spells more useful, rather than the strong spells weaker. One option would be to give manipulation spells extra or stronger effects based on their margin of success. Another option would be to make some of them Free Actions, allowing a caster to Move>Focus>Cast, Move>Cast>Attack etc.

3) Can you cast spells while in Melee Combat?

4) You should specify in the rules that Focus can’t carry over to the next turn.

5) If you think Long Bows are overpowered, maybe give them a Move or Shoot rule.

6) Can a Spell Caster with a ranged weapon use one action to cast a spell and the other action to shoot?

7) You should specify in the rules that the Charge Action uses 2 Actions.

8) I wonder if spamming cheap regulars breaks the game. For example the Flesh Borne can have 36 Zombies with Claws and Bite and 1 Necromancer with a dagger for 200 points. The winning strategy might be to have 1 character and as many regulars as possible, but that would need testing. It might be a bad strategy for a scenario where climbing is necessary.

9) For ranged combat, maybe instead of the degrees of success affecting the Resist roll, they should only affect the Agility roll. That way the target would still get its full armour save even if the archer rolled really well.

[Konrad]

Lots of fun. Quick, easy and straight forward. The faction rules give each warband that bit of character without bogging them down with a lot of complicated details.

Observations
1- Like FtF, I suspect spamming regulars might be the way to go. The bonuses extra bodies give you in combat and the fact that with I go, you go, activation, the guy who has more bodies can react to his enemies tactics better. Again, I suspect, this is the case. There might be other factors scenario and campaign wise, I'm not aware of. I was playing ToD horde of Gobbos and it was like standing in front of a wave. Though the fact that I was stupid and sort of forgot the game area was only 3x3 when I placed my objective didn't help me. But even so, even with their crappy Gobbo stats, that 8+ fight is now 6+ once 3 of the little buggers are in you face.

2. The Monster Hunt monster is weedy! Of course, the Sisters did just happen to have a spell to counter it perfectly........ Me and Yellowstreak were thinking maybe as it can't react, maybe models attacking it don't get ganging-up bonuses either.

3. That Malacamacadamian (sp?) Defender faction trait is just awesome! Armour those guys up and give them swords and it's all, "I have something to tell you. I'm not left handed...". And those paper minis are pretty cool!

[kojibear]

"I have something to tell you. I'm not left handed...".

To which I would reply: "I ought to tell you. I'm not left handed either."

The points that have been raised so far, I will second.

The faction traits which is what provides the flavour for the factions is really important, and of course the most difficult to find a nice balance.

Archery as it is, does have the ability to spell doom for the player without any archers in their own warband, but as I found in my first game, if the archers themselves have a high fight, say 7+ or 8+, then with poor dice rolls and good react rolls, then the archers can be equally ineffective. In my game it was up close that archers did much better actually because the opposing player gets no react roll. Perhaps a small change can be to ALLOW a react roll even up close, but with a -1 modifier.

Regarding the actual warbands themselves, I would rather not see too much spamming myself. Naturally some factions will have more inexperienced or unskilled fighters, such as skeletons or goblins, but I think it nice to have a mix of for lack of better words, captains, lieutenants and soldiers. This adds another element of interest in the game and allows for more prioritization, management and planning. At the moment we have a rule that you cannot have more specialists than novices. Perhaps we can have a rule that novices must also be lead by a specialist. How many novices can be lead by a single specialist can depend on the faction. Or something along those lines.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts guys.

[Primarch]

Thanks for the comments so far guys, keep them coming. I'm reading them all, honest!

I think some of the faction rules do need to be adjusted, as some of them are very limited (e.g. The Circus) while others are able to be used every turn (e.g. The Malakarian Defenders).

The spamming thing does seem to be an issue which needs to be addressed.

@Kojibear - You do get a Dodge roll at -1 for short range shooting. I think Auxryn's leader had a skill that denied dodging at all ranges though.

My PC should be back up and running later in the week, so I will make a longer response to all the ideas and feedback then.

[The Underdweller]

I think that the new Morale rules are much better, there was much less running away today.

I haven't found ranged attacks especially broken, but I have not been shot at very much yet, either! When I took ranged weapons, they were useful but I often chose instead to move to objectives or charge.

The Leadership feat is really good, as ganging up seems to be one of the most effective strategies in this game. I also found that I preferred to take more regular or specialist soldiers instead of a Wizard or a Brute, for the same reason.

Could we get blowpipes? How about some "Crok-lings"? I don't have any larger figures that actually have ranged weapons.

You should specify if a charge has to be to the nearest point on the base of a model (This might not make a difference in most cases, but does in the Monster Hunt scenario!) In some games like Warmachine you can charge any point of the enemy's base.

The Magic MInefield scenario right now usually goes to whoever can get the center objective. I can't imagine that any spell would be a disincentive to move closer to it, because it is the only way to win the game. Maybe having all 5 objectives in the middle would help, as we thought about on Sunday. I thought the wall of fire worked best for the spell that it cast, but it seems less exciting than a damage spell.

For the monster Hunt scenario, it also seems whoever gets the charge in, by moving the monster closer, will probably win. Maybe making searching the nest easier, like a 6 plus, would help to balance it out? Of course, in a campaign game, having most of your warband wiped out would also make people more careful about charging.

Overall, I had fun, and enjoyed not having to rush to get through my games, and having a chance to play with lots of different people on the same day.

[YellowStreak]

My 2c, as mentioned above the Monster felt a bit weak, especially when ganged up on. I'd consider either making him stronger or (preferably) not allowing the gang-up bonus for models fighting it. Maybe up the body a little too?

I also think that specialists and Characters could benefit from +1 body. I wouldn't change anything cost-wise at this point, just add a free point of body so specialists are generally 2 body and characters 3 body. I think that'd help them feel a little more heroic compared to the plebs, I mean regulars!

Casting in combat came up in one game, and we decided that was a no. Otherwise I think the rules felt fast and fun. There were very few missile weapons in the 3 games i played, so no comment no whether they're OP.