simombo

Of course the rules are abstractions. But they are a simulation none the less. It's always a balance between the consistency of the rules and 'realism'. Even if we are talking about a fantasy world, the rules of the game represents a 'statistical equilibrium' or normative standard against which all other rules and changes are constantly weighed. And at a first inspection, the focus action smells like an anomali! Not if you change it. I just found the rule to be strange in an well wrought game, where advantages are gained from using your skills to their full extent and knowing when to sacrifice movement for accurate arrows or fireballs, and where otherwise you have to pay 15 points for a magic weapon to gain a +1 MAV modifier! MAV modifiers are generally hard to come by in WL2 - most melee skills only take effect if you succeed on your initial, unmodified MAV attack - a change you've made to make the rules more elegant, I presume. My point is, that good games are about making tough choices (oh yes they are), and when using the focus action in melee, there is no sacrifice if you don't have anything to do with your second action anyway. If you made the rule purposefully to statistically strengthen the defence, to counter a statistical imbalance towards the attacker for example, I guess it makes sense. If not, I think you may be scr...wing (however slightly) with your finely tuned system. And while we're at it. Why do we need the inspire action (since heroes and monsters are already made more powerful i WL2)? Ehh I'll get back to actually playing the game now...

Finally got my hands on WL2. The focus action caught my eye. I can see why it's necessary and interesting option for RAV attacks (they can sacrifice movement ofr a better aim). But doesn't it warp melee combat in weird way? Miniatures already engaged in melee will be able to use this action, so it will happen quite often I reckon. A +1 modifier to MAV attacks for most of a troop makes a pretty big difference. Troops being engaged/charged by the enemy is thus at a big advantage in the following turns, as they can add the focus bonus, a chance the attacking troop will usually never have. Combined with the inspire action, this makes for some pretty insane counter attacks that in general would make yu favour a defensive position, no? I understand the notion of 'waiting for the best opening before a melee attack', but such skillfulness at timing is already be incorporated in the MAV of the miniatures I think. My point is, that the amount of time (and there is a time factor to the spendure of actions) you have to perform a melee attack really shouldn't affect the outcome of the attack, as it should with ranged attacks and spellcasting (rather striking fast and keeping the initiative is what's important). I guess it's the classic design problem of combining an action based system with the simultaneity of close combat. The problem is, that in theory the extra time you have to wait for an opening, your opponent would have too. Any experience with and thoughts on how the focus rule works?

The tool is awesome. Very nice work! The sweetest thing: the skills and spells available to you are printed and explained on the finished list. That's especially cool for new players who now have a clear reference of the skills and stats of their (demo) army.

I agree that having the rip off-rules on your main site is bad taste and sends a very wrong signal. Especially when it's a GW system. It's not because I think GW is an evil coorperation that wants to take over the world. I like the Warhammer settings and hell, I even eat at McDonalds once in a while. It's cool if people want to use the Mordheim system for their Warlord Games. No harm in that. But posting those rules on the official site instead of making your own is just plain uncool. Identity-wise. A lot of people play Warlord and other 'grassroot'-games because they are tired of lousy rules systems and way overpriced miniatures that otherwise dominates the market. That's why we are here: to support the smaller companies that still gives a damn about the rules and the voice of the community. I trust too that 'Reaper knows it's business', just like the Bible is always right. But this time you made a mistake. Mordheim isn't even that great a system, in fact it's rather fiddly and will certainly cause balance issues for Warlord games. Cudoes to the "hardcore reaper fans" who took the time to copy the contents from your competitors into new tables, but cmon, has there really been no better attempts by fans or designers to make a campaign system for the game? How about checking out what goes on at other game forums? I know there's some very interesting discussions about card driven campaigns in the Infinity forum, for example.

Scenarios. Cool!

Huh?

So when do you expect it will be available for sale in, say, Europe?

How about making a downloadable version? After all, we do live in The Age of The Internet. Living in Denmark it always takes forever for new stuff to finally arrive here. And then it takes another infinity to recieve it from your online store (who always only orders a few copies), and the street retailers haven't got the message yet. I'd gladly pay 15$ for a downloadable pdf (which I can cut up, clip together or insert into plastic pockets as I see fit), or even 20$ if it meant that I could get it sooner. Easy way to distribute the game and gather new players too, like: "yea it looks cool, but my game pusher doesn't carry this product, so I guess I'll just keep to playing the mindless ripoff games you can get anywhere (g.w.)" - "You don't have to, Reaper is on the tech beat and you can find all the rules and templates you need online, man, and it's practically free!". I know, I know, somebody could take advantage and copy the rules. But in my experience, if people like a game, they also want to support it and own the rules themselves. And a hardcopy can be copied as well. How about it, HUH?!

Will the beta datacards for the koborlas, sisters and blood gnomes be available until the expasion comes out? Knowing that they won't be thoroughly tested, it would still be nice to be able to play the factions, since a lot of people have the minis.

Allright, allright. I'll keep calm until I've actually played the new version (optional smiley for those inclined). Then of course, there will be no stopping my rant about what could be better, what doesn't work etc. Any further in depth rules discussions should probably take place in a new thread. The posts always seem to get longer and longer. One last question (for now!) for the playtesters: As I read it, the concept of troops is now superfluous, as the members of a troop has no connection with the miniature that leads them, neither through coherency or leadership. So instead of leader min-max troop capacity, an army total min-max capacity based on the number of leaders and leader types you include seems more in thread with this organisational freedom. I know it's pretty much the same thing, as individual leader capacities adds up to a total capacity. But it's the principle of it. Why keep the troop concept when it has little or no effect in the game?

I know it's way too late to discuss these things, but I can't help myself, and hell, discussing rules and game design is half the fun of gaming for me. And the flaws of the new edition will have to be pretty grave to keep from playing the game anyway. Also, I just wish for the game to be as good as possible, as I have and will put a lot of time any money into it. It's cool when a game is balanced and you have a system for working out exactly the right points cost for a miniature. But if all the games come down to to the last few miniatures, then either the players must all be of equal skill OR the system does not allow player tactics/experience to come to the fore. It's relatively easy to make a game balanced, but if the decisions of the players have little effect on the gameplay, players with a passion for not only the miniatures but also strategy and mechanics will quickly get bored. With Warlord, this can be probably be fixed with scenarios (official or homemade) with different goals and terms for the players though. Morale would and should still penetrate the action at skirmish level. Not because of realism alone, but because it adds dynamics that will keep the game from bogging down. A lot of people seem happy with just engaging and rolling dice to the bitter end. Personally I like to be able to make the enemy break ground, run away, regroup and come at me again. This makes fighting over an objective fun. Morale doesn't always work well on on an individual miniature or squad level in skirmish games however. DIS checks could be made when a certain percentage of the army has been eliminated (50, 60, 75% - like in other skirmish games, Mordheim, Infinity etc.), again perhaps depending on the scenario.

Is the beta rules accessible for mere mortals like myself now? I'd like to check them out. I really like the game, apart from a few things that I hope the 2nd edition will amend: - Rules for morale has previously been limited to the occasional DIS check from spells and fearsome opponents. I like the combat rules, but the fact that most games are fought to the last model is tedious and kind of silly. A simple rule that forces you to make a DIS check for your models when you loose a certain amount of models/damage tracks from a troop (25%/50%) would speed up the game and create a more dynamic gameplay and involve risk assesments when using beat up troops to take objectives and the like. Which leads to the next point... - Scenarios. Just a few standard, official ones that would change the way you have to play and create your army. The standard slug fest is ok, but without objectives and goals you might as well (sometimes) line up the data cards against each other and roll the dice. Being a skirmish game, scenarios really are necessary. - Troop coherency or not? I've heard a rumour that the new rules will dispense with this completely. Which is ok I guess, but why have leader troop capacity at all then? - Fluff. Not everybody needs it, but I really need to know what I'm fighting for (call me old fashioned). Has any of these areas been given any thought in the rules making process?

One man, so much power. Lupines get their own sublist? Nice!

I'm not sure I follow: why would it hurt Reaper if they shared their point calculator, if one exists? Wouldn't it be to their benefit to make it easier for players to create their own characters, or magic items, for non-official games? -Zug Trust me, one exists. I wrote it. It's over 1000 lines of PHP code. Nearly every SA point cost is calculated based on everything about the model. It is the main proprietary thing about RAGE, and will not be shared, sorry. Couldn't the point calculator be set up on the WL page, so that you could take an existing data card, add or remove a SA or a damage track and the mysterious calculator could work its magic and spit out a new points cost for the card? This could be set up, so that the underlying algorithms still remained a secret. This would enable me to make a data card for that lupine solitaire ninja Rackham made a model for (as an example of the limits of the data card finder - try entering 'solitaire' and 'large' base size), and use it with the ingenious WL rules. It would make the fans go wild.

The good thing about the old generic cards was that they were generic - customisable that is - and still adhered to the point economy of army building. Making your own cards from the bottom is easy, but finding out the point cost of the monster you created is more tricky. The designers of the data cards i RC must have some way of determining the point cost of these (though a lot may be found out from play testing), and to me it's really this underlying system that would be interesting to know. The generic cards provided this to some degree, but a new and updated version would be nice. Warlord is already a very user based game, with user fiction and an (somewhat) interactive process of creating the history of Taltos. The abandoning of the generic cards is not quite in this spirit.