Alternative System: Fantasy Warriors

Well last weekend I managed to read through a new rules system called "Fantasy Warriors."  I is a game system that was originally created by Nick Lund of Grenadier Models, back in 1990.  These days a company called Mirliton has the rules as a free PDF.  You can get them here.  While they do have some additions, the rules really have not changed that much since when they were originally created. 

For starters I would have to say that Mirliton is very kind for doing this.  It is in the same thing as Mantic does with their rules, which is another system that I want to review as well.  I do like some of Mirliton miniatures out there, but not a whole lot of them.  Just a different style to what I like to see in a Model, I guess. 

How it works:

When putting together an army in Fantasy Warriors, you do things that are rather different than what I have seen in other systems.  You establish a command structure in your army and  break up your army in commands.  You have the main character as a warchief, which functions as the primary commander for the army, and is eligible to have his own command of troops.  After that you have battle leaders who are subordinate to the warchief but lead their own commands.  I didn't see any specific rules against a warchief commanding the whole army, however, I can see how that can get the army into trouble in this system.  Obviously a change in what people are accustomed to these days. 

The units are organized differently which effect their functioning through the game in that you have elite, veteran, average, poor and unpredictable as a quality, and than a type of disciplined, tribal, fanatic, and stupid.  The characters are rather different as well in that some characters can be bought that really only augment someone like a battle leader or warchief.  For instance a Battle Standard Bearer is just one guy that augments the battle leader, rather than being a separate character as in Warhammer Fantasy.  There are also more variety of characters that can be bought. 

On top of more and different characters, there are rules where you are eligible to scout and determine table sides and who has the option of going first.  These are basically dice roles, however, using units designed for scouting can augment that roll.  The catch 22 is that the scouting unit must be held back at the edge of the table basically when you start, and the whole command must scot, which is one of the reasons for multiple commands.  They also have rules for day and night combat which can be effected in this phase as well. 

Fantasy Warriors is a game that is a phase based rules system, like Armies of Arcana in that you do both sides phase before you move to the next phase of the turn.  The various different phases that you and your opponent move through in a turn in order are threat, shooting, movement, combat, new order, influence, and command test.  Most of these are pretty obvious phases of the turn.  I have a hard time believing that anyone who reads this needs to have the shooting phase explained to them, along with combat, and movement.  They have their own idiosyncrasies that make them different from other systems, and it depends on what you are looking for in a system as to whether you like them or not.  I will point out that to hit and wound are similar to Warhammer but your dice throw is modified by a few more factors.  The other phases of threat, new orders, influence, and command test do stand for a more in depth explanation. 

Before I get to that, I believe that one of the concepts of the system that needs to be explained first and foremost in that every unit has more or less a standing order once they begin the game that they are ordered to carry out.  They are attack, hold, and oppose.  Attack is basically like a unit with Frenzy in Warhammer in that the unit will always move to combat, multiple combats are not allowed in this game.  Hold obviously is an order where a unit will stay and defend their one spot, and react any opposing force once they are attacked.  Oppose appears to be more like an order of harassment where a unit is mobile and basically under your general control.  These orders can change once they are in contact with the enemy ranging from basically a counter attack to running away.  There is no official fleeing the unit is just removed from combat.  When you get the new order phase there is the time where you can re-evaluate the order that the unit has and change the standing order.  Of course it requires a dice roll and can be influenced by the commanders at hand. 

At the start of the turn, you have a threat phase, which is basically a psychology test to see if the unit is going to continue with their orders or route.  This can be modified by any number of factors. 

The influence Phase is where the battle leaders can step in and shore up a unit that is going to be removed from combat in the next turn. 

The command test is more or less a test on the individual parts of the army to see if they route when the battle is going bad from what I gather.  This is where separating commands is good in that one command can collapse while the others are still active. 

I am sure that I am missing some things but this is the gist of the game. 

Final Thoughts

I would have to say that this game is very clunky in terms of game play, and most likely considered by some as outdated.  Personally I find it an interesting game system and I would be interested in playing it.  However I would not put it on a as my most favorite games just yet.  This may change after I play it but there is a lot that I did not go over still even though we are at over 1000 words right now.  There is a lot of content and charts that are harder to memorize than what you have in Warhammer, and that is a worry.  Hard to believe but I found a game system more convoluted and complicated than Warhammer ever was. 

Bringing this blog back to life, and a movie review.

So I realized that I still had a blog that I have not been posting to in several months.  Unfortunately life threw me two major health curve balls.  Not for me but for people in my immediate family.  Things have slightly improved on that front, but this part of my hobby life has been dead in the water for several months.  I am afraid that my hobby resolutions are going to be on the two year plan.  Believe that, and I have a bridge to sell you, real cheap. 

With that in mind I am starting to paint regularly once again, and I have assembled and primed quite a bit of my space marines that I had in stock.  With some discipline I can get them up as a painted force.  That along with one or two more projects that I have hobby wise this winter and spring are in the works.  Hopefully more later on this blog.

I noticed that I did not review the previous two moves of the Hobbit when I was going back in my blog, and I just mentioned the first movie in a post without actually reading it.  Now that the whole trilogy is done, I figured that I would discuss the movie as a whole.  The first thing that I have to say is that the whole damn movie series is too long.  I am just going to call them move one, two, and three, since their names are too much to repeat throughout this posting. 

The first one is just right, but could have been cut and moved up in the story line.  The last two has way too much useless scenes.  The second move could live without about a third of the move, and the last move could live without two thirds of it.  I would call the third movie basically fantasy combat porn for two hours and 30 min of actual storyline.  Movie two and three basically became the Legolas show, who was never in the book to begin with.  I would expect for him to have a part in this series of the move, but it was basically three hours grand total of screen time between movie two and three, and I may be underestimating that.  This whole move series could have been just two movies and we could all be on with our lives by now buying the extended CD's and watching it on Netflix, but NNNNOOOOOOO.(One of John Belushi's classic phrases, I am told)   Perhaps that is the reason to string out fans for an extra movie.  My only question is does Orlando Bloom have embarrassing or incriminating pictures of Peter Jackson? 

On the other hand, there were things that I did like from the move.  As a Dwarf guy, the battle of five armies was awesome with few exceptions.  I totally liked how they put the dwarf army together.  Barring the pikedwarfs, I almost blurted out, "Hey, I have one of those!"  On an overall note, I did like the portrayal of the dwarves throughout the series for the most part.  There were parts where I would have gone a less comical way with them, but overall it was as how I would have envisioned them to be.  One glaring example of this is the barrel ride from movie two, but that whole scene was overdone in general and should have been on the conceptual chopping block.  I liked how the Wood Elves army was put together, however I was expecting less armor on the elves, but small potatoes.  Since this was on one of the previews that I have seen, I am not a fan of Dwarves using cavalry, even if they are commanders.  That is my only problem with how the dwarves are portrayed.  Since other items can be considered spoilers, I will not say that much more.   

Bottom line this movie series goes way off line compared to the story, even more that the LOTR series.  If you are looking for a movie that follows the story line in the book, don't go.  Honestly, you should know by now that Peter Jackson does not follow the book, and that there is no way that he could fit the hobbit into three movies without going off the book.  However if you want to see the end of the series and honestly don't care or have never read the book then by all means go.  In short, I am not planning on getting the DVD's any time soon if anyone is asking. 

Alternative Systems: Armies of Arcana

 

Like many people I have had several months where I was not able to do much with my hobby.  It is not specifically because I did not have the time, nor initiative to do anything.  I have actually worked on getting a lot of my space marines built up and ready for priming.  However, we have had record cold even down here in the South of the US and good luck getting primer on anyone's models.  Now I have to look forward to getting pollen on my models if I go out and prime the models until the next month or so. 

On another note, I have been reading up on Armies of Arcana, which is the next installment of my posts on alternative systems.  Armies of Arcana is a system that I wanted to review for a while, and I would say that it is a system that does show a lot promise on many fronts, and provides a few interesting ideas. 

How it works

This is a game that is very different from the standard GW games on many fronts.  Instead of a turn system where you do all of your phases of the game and wait for your opponent to finish their turn, it is phase based system in that you each do your movement phase, and move on to magic, shooting, and Close Combat.  You roll who goes first per turn as opposed to at the start of the game.  Movement is virtually the same as in WFB of yesteryear, but you can skirmish any unit that you want and neither march nor charge moves are allowed.(Something that I will talk about later)  Magic is actually more like how 40k Psykers work but within the confines of one phase rather than throughout the game.  Shooting and Close Combat phases are more streamlined as opposed to GW's, where it is boiled down to one roll for every attack basically.  To wound rolls are more like modifiers to the to hit roll.  Other than that it is pretty similar to how WFB plays.  Fleeing works more like it did back in the 3rd edition of WFB where you actually have to kill everyone in a unit rather than just destroy the whole unit by outrunning them.  Catching up to a fleeing unit will not scatter them as in WFB but rather you get a free attack without any response. 

What I like

After reading through this game system, I really do like how they handled what is called "Step up" in WFB.  You are allowed to attack back but with a -1 to your roll.  I would equate this to a -1 to hit and you cant use any modifiers by your weapon.  It has been a while since I read the 8th edition of WFB, but I don't seem to recall step-up working like that, and honestly if it worked like that I would have no problem with it.  I am more intrigued as to how the phased based way of playing works more than anything else.  Everyone complains that your guys "just stand there and take it" when it is not your turn.  This is a way to alleviate that issue.  They also have a way to create that specific monster or army that is not already in the rules, and new armies are popping up every time from online.  Likewise they already have Roman and Greek army lists available, so if you ever wanted to see how your friends Greek army matches up against your Elves, there is a way to play that.  Most importantly, they are not using this book to sell miniatures like GW seems to do with their Basic Rule Book. 

What I don't like

I am not a fan of the lack of a marching or charging move.  That seems to me like it can get boring.  It seems that moving your normal move for a charge is unreasonable given that a charge is supposed to represent your troops running in to combat.  On another note they have their units move with more movement than what you see in WFB.  They have artillery shoot every other turn as a rule.  That seems unreasonable to me.  As much as I find it interesting that you only roll once when you attack, I think that it provides for not as much nuance as we used to have. 

Overall

Overall I would definitely like to test drive this set of rules from what I have read.  It has a lot of interesting ideas and concepts that I want to try. 

Happy New Year

With this new year, I took a look at what I was able to accomplish this year on the gaming front and it was rather slim.  I did play a few games of 40K and got more involved in that, however my painting did not go far, nor did my historical or fantasy gaming went far.  I have a few rule systems that I have not been able to make a review as I have promised as well as do much in the form of blogging.  With all of that in mind I have decided to have a few new year resolutions on the gaming front. 

1:  Figure out a way to play WFB from the previous editions:  I do have a few friends who like the game from previous editions more than what we have now.  I need to link up with them and try to set up a few games with them.  I have a few other ideas on this front as well.  I want to try to do a game a quarter if I can, but honestly I believe that I can do one per quarter of historical easier.  If I can do either I would be happy. 

2:  Actually Paint some models:  I have done almost no painting, which is mainly due to my current living situation is not that conducive to painting.  I will try to figure out something however.  My goal is to paint up my battle company of Space Marines, which has other problems than me not spending the time on them as I want to.  I will actually make them a FULL battle company as well, but for now I just got a few models that I am somewhat happy with after priming and base coating. 

3:  Read and review more alternative game systems:  This is just me finding the time to sit down and read the damn systems and write about them. 

4:  Blog more DAMN IT!  If I am doing my first three resolutions I will have plenty of things to blog about. 

Lets see if I am able to do it.  On another note I hit 10,000 hits on this blog.  I want to thank everyone for reading what I have to say.  I do appreciate that you are reading and a few are actually creating a dialogue.  That many hits after 2 years does not seems like much to some, but I consider it an achievement.  Thank You!

Apocalypse Gaming and handling big games

(Next time I am bringing my Wagner)

 

Well I had my first Apocalypse game the other weekend, and it was rather fun on average.  It was a 6k game with me and two other guys that had space marines, while the opposing force had two guys running a Tyranid force.  We played for four rounds after six hours and basically took turns wiping out one half of each side, with me in the center dealing with a few monsters.  I guess that Space Marines loss but it was one of those things where another turn and it would be a different story. 

All in all it reminded me of playing larger multi player games back in my days of playing WFB.  They are the fun to do on occasion but they have the same problems in my opinion.  Basically it comes down to how fast and comfortable of a player you are, in order to have an enjoyable game.  I would not call myself an expert, and I feel that I need some more experience in standard 40K before I take on another Apocalypse game.  Thus the reason why I don't recommend a game like this to anyone until they get experience in playing.  Playing fast and confident is a requirement in order to make the game go smoothly in a game like this where getting bogged down is easy to do. 

On another note, I am not sure that having different number of players is a good thing.  Usually when I play these games, I am usually ranking up against one guy and we never finish the game to the last model, so I rarely ever get to play other players in a game like this.  This is different, since I was in the center and attacking both opposing players at once.  The fun part is that I distributed playing against each other, but the bad news is that I have to vie for the attention of my opponent with my two other cohorts.  This lead to some confusion and having us wait on each other. 

All in all I would do it again, however like always, I want to try to do it with just me in command of the army.  It is one of things that partners in this situation causes hindrances to each other.  Like the old saying "Too many cooks spoil the broth."

Turning to the Dark Side

(Fitting given the Sci-Fi Theme)


I haven't talked much about my 40K collection, or much of anything for that matter in the past three months.  That damn real life again.  40K was not a game that interested me much when I was younger.  I am not much of a fan of the Genre when it comes to what we have in the Media.  It is something that really didn't appeal to me.  I do like the classical movies like the original Star Wars, Dune, and of course this. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8nPhsfYS5U


Recently what has driven me towards Sci-Fi is the Honor Harrington Series.  For those who don't know, it is basically like reading CF Forester interplanetary.  So that is my hook that opens up my mind to the Genre as of late.  Over the past few months I have been playing about half of a dozen games of 40K.  Space Marines are the army that I am currently playing with a Crimson Fist theme and play style.  After these games there are some issues that I have with the current edition of the game, however I would say that overall it is a system that I am liking more than Fantasy.  I won't belabor my disappointment with the 8th edition, since that has been expounded on in an earlier post. 

I espoused long ago that I would take my lessons of the past and limit my scope of what and how I do my purchases.  I do plan to keep that pledge with my space marines for the most part.  I have about 2/3 of a company that I am working on now.  I don't plan on getting anything new until all of this is up and running for Space Marines.  In addition to that, I am setting aside some time in my busy life right now to get some painting done.  Given how slow I am of a painter as well as the summer being as busy as it has ever been for me, it will certainly not happen overnight.  I will be posting my progress with this army.

Modeling Philosophy: Handling Doppelgangers in your army.

Over the past two months or so I have been very busy with other parts of my life and little for me to write anything down here.  Apologies for that, but I have not been resting on my laurels.  I have had a few games of 40K as well as find and buying up some 4th edition GW Fantasy Orcs.  In my recent forays into collecting these classic GW models, I have come across a few models that are multiples of each other.  That is rather normal given the ranges, however, my attempt is to avoid using the same model over and over again in your army.  It does tend to get redundant as well as boring painting the same damn guy.  In addition that it just is not what I want to collect in an army.  Of course I have a lot less of a problem if I can find no two alike guys for each regiment at least.  I can deal with a few of the same model in an army as opposed to a few of the same in each unit.  I can always say that there is "that guy" in each unit.  This comes to the concept of handling doppelgangers in your army.  I think that we do have a few trick depending on which kind of army that we are dealing with.

Army choice is something that I think can make a difference.  For instance any army that is either an undead army or fully armored army, as in Chaos Warriors, I believe that it should not that big of an issue.  I would still try to avoid redundancy when possible, but a skeleton is a skeleton.  They are by design uniform in appearance.  Zombies can be an issue, but can be overcome through creativity.   In the same idea, with uniform units like Elves, that are all kitted with the same uniform and helmet, I think that even in that situation it works.  Given that I am working on Space marines right now, I have to say thank god for power armor and helmets.

Painting may help out as well, but mainly for humanoids.  Basically changing the hair color is what makes the difference more or less.  This is something that should be used sparingly, however.  From my experience with my dwarves, even when you paint a face and beard a different color, they still seem redundant even with different bodies on them.  Thus the problem with flowing hair in my mind.  It makes the job harder to avoid doppelgangers, in my humble opinion.

Different manufacturers is a very good way in handling doppelgangers in my experience.  The hard part is finding a suitable manufacturer that is comparable to your collection.  With humans, I think that you can get away with a lot with the multitude of historical manufacturers out there, depending on what your tolerance is.  I have no problem with difference in height, however if they are supposed to be the same build, I expect them to be the same build.  I am not looking for freakishly shaped hands or very thin guys.  Basically I am not looking for Romans to look like these guys when the norm for every other manufacturer's Romans is as tall as the Dwarf's feather:

 

 

With all of this in mind I have come to a bit of a dilemma in some fashion.  The Orcs that I have been collecting have a good range, however, I seem to be having trouble finding a good variety on some units like the classic black orcs pictured here.  Some of these tricks will not work.  Painting is not an option, nor is their any other manufacturer's that I think will look comparable to these characters.(although I may be persuaded)  They don't have enough armor to hid behind like other models, so I guess that I need to be more creative with these characters, or do something like put them into regular units and find something else for Black Orcs if I must have Black Orcs.  Needless to say there is more for me to ponder with this army as I am collecting them.  Of course my knowledge on the orcs is rather scant during that time, so there may be more GW figs out there than what The Stuff of Legends has in their archive.  I believe that I have already found one big-un that is undocumented by these guys so hope springs eternal for the Black Orcs.  

New Games with Old friends

Well it has been a slow month for me so far with my miniature hobby.  However I was able to get a game in of 40K using the 6th edition last Sunday.  It is my first game and while interesting, we had a lot of distractions so it was not a great game to gauge whether it is an edition that I am fond of yet.  We were playing a 1K game and it took us over 4 hours to play.  One of the main distractions is that an old friend of mine dropped by the store that I have not seen in a few years. 

Honestly I was thinking of him as of late and wondering where had he been and if I should try to contact him.  It is kind of a chance encounter like what you read in the appendix of the LOTR with Gandalf and Thorin.  My fellow Roman antagonist for WAB told me last month that he was rather incognito due to real life issues that are occupying his time.  I know that he was not a fan of the current edition of WFB as I am, and had really not been active in any of the forums that he and I would frequent online.  As of late however he has been on TMP, so at least I know that he is still alive. 

My old friend and I of course struck up a conversation about 40K and WFB.  One of the topics of conversation was also the idea of trying to get together to play 6th edition once in a while, since we still had the capabilities to play the game.  Not to leave my opponent out in the cold, but he knew my old friend well and they conferred over an idea for a 40K apoc. game in the future. All in all it was a pleasant afternoon and needless to say I was glad to get out of the house for the time.  It is my hope that some good ole 6th edition game are on my horizon. 

SPQR on the move

Well a friend of mine and I decided to get a game in of WAB yesterday given that both of us are free due to the holiday season.  We had a Roman Civil war day when we played.  He brought his usual small century of heavily armoured veterans Legionaries as the bulk of his army whereas I have large blocks of regulars.  We are virtually about even as far as unit numbers goes concerning centuries.  We mostly use barbarian screens now a days for the rest of our point allotment, and I have a pair of scorpios that do some damage when they feel like it.  I did add a new trick to my game in that I brought Barbarian Light Calvary.  He also brought two war bands of barbarians. 

He usually does a good job routing my armies, however I was able to get more than a few shots in with my regulars and was able to end up with a minor loss this time according to my calculation.  You have no idea how much a +1 makes a difference in armour saves and hits until you play him a few times like we do.  On top of that, my light calvary did what I wanted them to which was to harass his skirmish line, and my scorpios were able to actually knock out some legionaries.  

All in all it was a good day and we both exclaimed how we missed playing each other and that we should start planning more games.  I did not take any pictures or took notes so I cannot really make a full battle report of note.  Next time I will promise to make some notes at the least. 

Alternative Systems: Hostile Realms (Piquet)

I wanted to do a review of this system for a while.  Hostile Realms is a fantasy version of the regular game made by the company called Piquet.  Their website is here for anyone who wants to see it for themselves.  This is a game that uses a card based system to determine the flow of the game, in that a deck of cards is used to determine who and what is eligible to go for that turn.  For anyone who has played BattleMasters, I think that you get the gist as to how it works.  Also there is a system of pips as well to control the times.  I would imagine that you roll dice to determine how much of a different unit is allowed to function.  I have not looked at the cards, nor at the book as a whole to make a better description. 

It does sound like an interesting game and it does remind me a lot of BattleMasters from 20 years ago.  However, my experience over the last 20 years since playing BattleMaster has altered my view of war gaming in general.  I have a problem when it comes to a deck of turn card are being used in a war game. 

1:  Integrity:  While I would never would or have done it in BattleMasters, I can see someone literally stack the deck against an opponent.  Be that as it may, I would not be surprised that some people may do this.  Call me cynical, but I believe that a dice roll is harder to control or cheat with as opposed to a deck of cards.  I am not sure if this is a communal deck that is used, which would be my estimate but that is even worse in my mind.

2:  Portability:  While a deck of turn cards may not be that heavy or cumbersome, it is another damn thing that I am already toting and prone to forget as well.  I have a hard enough time remembering my measuring tape, what makes anyone think that I will remember to keep a deck of cards handy. 

3:  Sensibility:  This is not Magic:The Gathering or any other card game.  Perhaps that I am just biased on this issue but I just don't want to include cards into my war gaming.

4:  Necessity:  I honestly think that I can find a better way to do things than with a deck of cards that determine which does what.  I do like a concept of activation rolls or a more inclusive use of dice rolls to determine morale, fatigue, and competence.  A deck of cards is just too out there for my taste. 

Despite all of this that still stands for the reason why I don't like this part of the game system, I did read through the reasoning that the author produced to explain what they are doing.  He did point out why they used a card system, and honestly I do understand some of his points that he has.  Primarily what he is trying to do is to add randomness in to a gaming system that is more realistic than what is out there.  It is one of those things where I think that there is just a better way to do things than add a deck of cards to the mix.

Honestly it is one of those issues where I just don't want to spend a total for $40 to find out if I am right or wrong.  While I reserve the right to put it back on the list if I do end up playing a few games and actually like it I am taking it off of my list of alternative games systems which stands as follows:

List of Fantasy Game Systems:
1: Reaper Warlord
2: Kings of War (Mantic)*
3: Fantasy Warriors (Miltron)*
4: Armies of Arcana
5: Mighty Armies (Rebel Miniatures)
6: Hostile Realms(Piquet Master Rules)
7: Songs of Blades and Heroes
8: Rally Around the King
9: 100 Kingdoms*
10: For the Masses (Majestic 12)
11: No Quarter
12: War Engine/Shockforce
13: Pride of Lions
14: Battle Systems 2 ed.

On another note I have just received Armies of Arcana and once I have my other reading backlog caught up it is next in line for me to review.  From what I have looked at as I was flipping through the book, it looks very interesting to me.  I know that I have been a "Negative Nancy" on the past few reviews that I have done.  Hopefully this will be different in my next review.