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I'm working on painting up the Push of Pike starter for Warlord's Epic Pike and Shotte. While I'm invested in historicals, most of my gaming partners are solely fantasy skirmish gamers. Is there any sort of "faction breakdown" for the EP&S armies, that I could point them towards? Even if I end up bringing the New Model against Ottomans or the Swedes, it'll be better if my partners are somewhat aware of what the strengths of each faction are. Thanks!
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Jan 28, 2024 02:19
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alg posted:Farm fields, pig pen, hay stacks, standing stones, old church are some good ones Thank you, happily I found a designer who has done a bunch of scatter terrain including beehives and haystacks - my filament printer is on the Fritz so big buildings are out of the equation but hopefully should be sorted soon for walls, ramparts and fortifications and in the meantime I can flood the table with meaningless scatter…
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Jan 29, 2024 09:43
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Welp, after buying the models a while back, scrounging some model booze crates and painting through my backlog, I've at last finished off my Blackshirt mortar team for Bolt Action! I use an Italian Alpini force primarily, however I painted-up a Blackshirt section to be a disposable building-/tank-assault team (since alpini vets are expensive, dammit! And well, who cares if a few pro-fascist Blackshirts die?) but when I saw this mortar crew, I knew I had to buy it.   I'm not a good painter by any stretch, but I had fun making it. I mean, who doesn't love having some carousing bunch of yahoos as their indirect fire support? Drinking, smoking (bit hard to tell, but one has a pipe), along with plenty of whooping and hollering whenever they see an explosion off in the distance. And of course, in stark contrast, I had to give 'em a highly nervous, uptight spotter. No doubt relieved to be away from the rowdy crew, but possibly somewhat concerned that they might mess up their firing solution and accidentally blow him up, or a friendly unit. (At least, I would be...) (Also in case anyone finds the light brown rims odd, I colour-code the rims to make squads stick out more. Plain black for single unit crews, or a variety of other colours for arty+spotter combos and infantry, etc.)
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Jan 29, 2024 13:35
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Very nice indeed, Major Isoor - >20th century troops really do need some kind of markers to differentiate themselves however garish it might look, but with natural colours such as yours it's easy to see and not hard on the eye. Reading 'Empire of the Deep' I am understanding prior to the introduction of the Cog, naval warfare in and around England, Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia and France mostly consisted of offensive and counter-offensive longboats to land troops. I didn't realise how little of Viking incursion involved outright battle and how much was mostly hauling ships up and hiding them and going pillaging until being paid off, so I've found a nice 26 oar clinker-built viking ship to print off as scenery/objective: https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-small-viking-warship-with-26-oars-ca-950-ad-snekja-102813. The creator has a boat applicable for the Norman conquest too, and I reckon both would be nice touches to the deployment zone of a dark ages army. While thinking about boats and two recent Man-o-War episodes from Bedroom Battlefields (Chris Synder: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4BiGjkVgkD8EelQ1ONzUXg?si=159d4595f296495f) and (Cam: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6eaKgh8HH74HiZzSqHVtxV?si=c8d395d79c3d49fa) it did get me thinking about how Grand Fleets / Fighting Sail have just been a bit dull for me when they actually hit the tabletop. Without exception I get excited about building the fleets and thinking about the game, but when it comes to the grind of slowly degrading capabilities and damage accumulation it all falls a bit flat. I can kinda see two potential reasons, either the ships are too remote and impersonal for a real emotional investment in the outcome - or the actual game itself isn't that captivating? It's a lot less popular than skirmish or big battle games so there's less chance for good games to be developed and rise to the surface maybe? Clearly the affection for naval warfare is there in the fantasy and sci-fi realms with Battlefleet Gothic, Man-o-War, Armada. Maybe the dyed in wool historical naval game is already an anachronism with how reluctant navies were to commit and even moreso in what we would call a fair game in tabletop terms?
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Jan 29, 2024 14:33
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Reading up on Napoleon's campaigns and it got me wondering how are Historicals balanced? For example, are the French units faster?
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Jan 29, 2024 14:47
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War and Pieces posted:Reading up on Napoleon's campaigns and it got me wondering how are Historicals balanced? For example, are the French units faster? Additionally, many games have "points" systems that assign a value to a particular unit. Games like Bolt Action work just like 40K in that the game is played at an agreed-upon points value and you just buy whatever troops fit. Others, like Chain of Command, give each force a relative rating, and the differential between forces is used to give the "weaker" unit a little bit of extra support (over and above whatever comes along with the scenario). And finally, the scenario/campaign design is where you find a lot of the balance. One force might be very strong, but its objectives are more difficult to achieve, for instance. This is how you get asymmetric scenarios, which can be a ton of fun. I actually wrote an article for Goonhammer about things to consider when designing asymmetric scenarios, handy link: https://www.goonhammer.com/goonhammer-historicals-asymmetric-conflict-in-wargaming/
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Jan 29, 2024 16:23
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Southern Heel posted:Very nice indeed, Major Isoor - >20th century troops really do need some kind of markers to differentiate themselves however garish it might look, but with natural colours such as yours it's easy to see and not hard on the eye. Yeah, agreed. A friend of mine was initially dubious, but after seeing how easy it makes it at a glance, he's come around to the idea and is going to implement a similar system. Regarding your 'easy on the eye' comment though, yeah that's my aim - however, uh... I ran low on colours, so I actually have a purple- and an orange-rimmed mortar and howitzer team, respectively. So easy on the eye for most, while... horribly garish for others  (Perhaps I should've bought more paints, or mixed some! Ah well, they definitely stand out at least, haha)Also, regarding Bolt Action still - what's the largest scale game anyone here has played? My aim is to play a 4000pt (possibly a little over) with a friend in the near future, seeing as we've both accumulated many, many men and vehicles. Mostly shonky ones on my part, since I just love all the cute, defective Italian armoured vehicles! Anyway, I'm mostly wondering about how large-scale games go, really. I played a 2300pt game at the end of last game, which actually went pretty quickly compared to our earlier 1000pt games. So... hopefully it doesn't blow out the playtime too much, having four times the recommended point total! Major Isoor fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Jan 30, 2024 |
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Jan 30, 2024 00:41
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There's an entire vehicle based expansion called Tank War that lets you field platoons of armor instead of the normal restrictions. That'd eat up some points for sure.
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Jan 30, 2024 01:15
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Springfield Fatts posted:There's an entire vehicle based expansion called Tank War that lets you field platoons of armor instead of the normal restrictions. That'd eat up some points for sure. Hmm, yeah true actually. I've just taken a look and it seems like I've got enough L3 tankettes for an entire "armoured" platoon (three twin-MMG variants, two flamer variants, plus an AT variant equipped with a mounted AT-rifle), along with probably one and a half other maxed-out armoured platoons' worth of miscellaneous tanks, SPGs and armoured cars. This is gonna be a big game! I'll have to tally all my guys later, to make sure I don't need to increase the 4k point budget. I'll have to take a photo of all our guys assembled pre- and post-game (the survivors, anyway), since I reckon we'll both have an insane amount of troops and gear combined
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Jan 30, 2024 02:32
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Major Isoor posted:Yeah, agreed. A friend of mine was initially dubious, but after seeing how easy it makes it at a glance, he's come around to the idea and is going to implement a similar system. Regarding your 'easy on the eye' comment though, yeah that's my aim - however, uh... I ran low on colours, so I actually have a purple- and an orange-rimmed mortar and howitzer team, respectively. So easy on the eye for most, while... horribly garish for others My recommendation is to activate 3-4 units per dice pull to speed things up.
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Jan 30, 2024 17:06
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Maybe a dumb question but are there any good historical skirmish games that don't have extra cards and boards and such that need to be bought? Saga has boards and special dice, Sharp Practice has special cards, etc. I just want to paint up some dudes and have them fight, preferably with PDF rules I can buy online. I'm looking at maybe Clash of Spears or Clash of Katanas, especially since I think they have a dark age version coming out.
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Jan 30, 2024 20:20
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Lion Rampant (and it's spinoff Pikemans Lament, Rebels and Patriots, Men Who Would Be Kings and fantasy/scifi versions Dragon/Xenos Rampant) is a good place to look for doing 28mm skirmish when you just want a justification for having painted the models
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Jan 30, 2024 20:49
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StashAugustine posted:Lion Rampant (and it's spinoff Pikemans Lament, Rebels and Patriots, Men Who Would Be Kings and fantasy/scifi versions Dragon/Xenos Rampant) is a good place to look for doing 28mm skirmish when you just want a justification for having painted the models That's probably the direction I'll go. Dadi & Piombo (the people who make Impetus) also have skirmish rulesets that seem to fit the bill!
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Jan 30, 2024 20:56
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Count Thrashula posted:That's probably the direction I'll go. Dadi & Piombo (the people who make Impetus) also have skirmish rulesets that seem to fit the bill! I really enjoy Pikeman's Lament: I've got Lion-Rampant 2nd edition but I've not got it down on the table yet, I'm still waiting on a good sized order of Pendraken dark ages and WOTR figures to use. I think the major issue is just how long the stat-line ends up being rather than something quite as elegant as A Song of Blades and Heroes with two, you've got move order, move distance, shoot order, shoot distance + long distance, attack order, attack value, defence value, morale value plus the special rules.
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Jan 30, 2024 21:07
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Count Thrashula posted:Maybe a dumb question but are there any good historical skirmish games that don't have extra cards and boards and such that need to be bought? Saga has boards and special dice, Sharp Practice has special cards, etc. FWIW for SP I've just used playing cards keeping the face cards as command flags and assigning a number to a given leader.
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Jan 30, 2024 21:08
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The SP2 cards are a small one time cost for basically the only good black powder era skirmish game.
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Jan 30, 2024 21:15
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Count Thrashula posted:Maybe a dumb question but are there any good historical skirmish games that don't have extra cards and boards and such that need to be bought? Saga has boards and special dice, Sharp Practice has special cards, etc. All of the Nordic Weasel skirmish games just require you to buy a PDF of the rules and nothing else. Blood Eagle is also available in a PDF for specifically Dark Age skirmishes (with a little bit of optional fantasy).
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Jan 30, 2024 22:45
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I really enjoyed my games of Absolute Emperor - it is a really nice and robust wargaming ruleset by Bruce Boyd with Osprey Games set in the Napoleonic period. The main benefit from it is that units are very simple (elite/regular/conscript) and can be both disordered (for example, moving through rough terrain, being surprised by a flank attack) and damaged - which degrades them one 'level' of veterancy. Also, that commanders can lose "elan" points by being beaten in combat/firing, but also voluntarily spend it for rerolls. He's now written one for the SYW: 
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Jan 30, 2024 23:04
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Yeah for Sharp Practice you can easily just use a regular deck of cards. Each player needs one card of a colour specifically tied to each leader that can activate, and then 4-5 flag cards of the same colour. So you just go with one side having 2-10 of spades (and clubs if you have more than 9 activations) and then use the jacks, queens kings and aces as flag cards. Badabing, badaboom. That said, I've only played Lion Rampant once, but I found it a very light and simple beer & pretzel ruleset that might not have tons of depth compared to some games, but is perfectly servicable as way to move some cool historical minis around and roll some dice. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Jan 30, 2024 |
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Jan 30, 2024 23:33
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I really like Lion Rampant (the second edition is particularly nice, and has a lot more scenarios included), but I find that the flavour of the rules is particularly suited to a much more limited period than its marketed for. Particularly 11th to 13th century feudal skirmishes, which is the period Daniel Mersey was concentrating on when he wrote it.
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Jan 31, 2024 00:52
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Signal posted:I'm working on painting up the Push of Pike starter for Warlord's Epic Pike and Shotte. While I'm invested in historicals, most of my gaming partners are solely fantasy skirmish gamers. Is there any sort of "faction breakdown" for the EP&S armies, that I could point them towards? Even if I end up bringing the New Model against Ottomans or the Swedes, it'll be better if my partners are somewhat aware of what the strengths of each faction are. Thanks! Well, I think one of the major problems in the English Civil War is that both sides are essentially the same and many groups of people ended up fighting on both sides! If you really distilled down the differences, you might be able to argue that the royalists had better elite cavalry, And by the end, the parliament had a better organised infantry? I think this is a problem in lots of historical areas - where there is a need to stylised and differentiate the forces by exaggerating any minor differences they may have had.
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Feb 1, 2024 08:37
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Count Thrashula posted:Maybe a dumb question but are there any good historical skirmish games that don't have extra cards and boards and such that need to be bought? Saga has boards and special dice, Sharp Practice has special cards, etc. FWIW the Saga special dice are just obfuscated D6s and you can readily substitute the symbols, I think the game even offers a conversion method. I understand wanting to avoid a bunch of gubbins but for historicals at least you're really locking yourself out of some sick stuff.
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Feb 1, 2024 11:08
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This also made me think 'hey has someone made an stl of these?' and the answer is always of course they have.
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Feb 1, 2024 13:09
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rolling 3d printed dice must be the most unrewarding thing in the world
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Feb 1, 2024 13:27
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Gonna shill for Smol Miniatures again because I can't believe I missed their latest kickstarter. That's the guy that did the insanely broad 15mm Samurai range, and now he's back with 15mm Vikings/Saxons/Normans For $40!!... This is the core set, but then every stretch goat got met, so you also have almost all of the same units again for Saxons and for Normans and extra stuff like monks and peasants. quote:Includes: Seriously, the value is insane, so go check it out while you can still late pledge via MMF - https://www.myminifactory.com/campaigns/viking-warfare-smol-miniatures-2344
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Feb 1, 2024 18:30
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Southern Heel posted:Well, I think one of the major problems in the English Civil War is that both sides are essentially the same and many groups of people ended up fighting on both sides! Thanks for the response! I'm actually fairly familiar with the conflict in general, but I agree about the stylization: I don't think Lord Byron left Marston Moor with feelings of Royalist cavalry superiorty. My question was mostly about this specific game, although I guess general Warlord Pike & Shotte info also helps. This is what I put together to try and answer my own question, if it helps anyone else: 
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Feb 1, 2024 19:31
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Count Thrashula posted:Gonna shill for Smol Miniatures again because I can't believe I missed their latest kickstarter. That's the guy that did the insanely broad 15mm Samurai range, and now he's back with 15mm Vikings/Saxons/Normans I'd been thinking about getting this dude's samurai, but gently caress it, I'll do the vikings.
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Feb 1, 2024 23:45
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For you EU goons Victrix are having a warehouse moving sale.
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Feb 2, 2024 18:57
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My partners and I have recently gotten into Bolt Action and Flames of War, and I was wondering if there were any good resources on painting them up. I won't let myself become a real scale modeling sicko, but that doesn't mean I can't do it at a smaller scale.
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Feb 2, 2024 21:26
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poop chute posted:My partners and I have recently gotten into Bolt Action and Flames of War, and I was wondering if there were any good resources on painting them up. I won't let myself become a real scale modeling sicko, but that doesn't mean I can't do it at a smaller scale.
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Feb 2, 2024 22:50
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If anyone is in the market for printable 28mm Napoleonics, the stuff from Piano Miniatures is insanely detailed. I'm not sure my paintjob did this NCO justice, but these models rival any Perry stuff I've seen as far as detail and quality goes. And printing at 95% matched the Perry plastic exactly.  edit-- to not doublepost, here's Davout too (Davout tout?) 
Count Thrashula fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Feb 8, 2024 |
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Feb 8, 2024 07:11
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Count Thrashula posted:If anyone is in the market for printable 28mm Napoleonics, the stuff from Piano Miniatures is insanely detailed. I'm not sure my paintjob did this NCO justice, but these models rival any Perry stuff I've seen as far as detail and quality goes. And printing at 95% matched the Perry plastic exactly. Yeah the Piano stuff is super impressive, I picked up his first Austrian bundle and painted up a test stand and his sculpt quality is wild. Looks like my next historical project is the 28mm South Vietnamese army circa 1969 since my friends claimed all the good guy spots already. Rubicon seems to have some swanky new plastic kits for the Americans and North Vietnamese, I don't know that much about the period yet other than the good guys winning. Anyone make any good kits for the ARVN either in physical or STL form for 28mm? Comrade Merf fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Feb 10, 2024 |
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Feb 10, 2024 22:38
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The next episode of our play-through of the Totensonntag PSC for Chain of Command is up: https://www.goonhammer.com/goonhammer-historicals-playing-a-chain-of-command-campaign-part-7-a-renewed-assault/
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Feb 12, 2024 16:41
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Ilor posted:The next episode of our play-through of the Totensonntag PSC for Chain of Command is up: Great writeup! Every time I read one of these I really wanna buy into Chain of Command. Usually reading the rulebook cures me of it, but still
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Feb 12, 2024 18:12
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StashAugustine posted:Great writeup! Every time I read one of these I really wanna buy into Chain of Command. Usually reading the rulebook cures me of it, but still
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Feb 12, 2024 18:37
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Yeah it's almost like a second edition could easily clear up a lot of the the bad verbiage and the reams of errata and faq's the game has racked up over the years. Just don't ever mention this to TLF.
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Feb 12, 2024 19:00
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Springfield Fatts posted:Yeah it's almost like a second edition could easily clear up a lot of the the bad verbiage and the reams of errata and faq's the game has racked up over the years. Just don't ever mention this to TLF. Why are they so allergic to the idea?
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Feb 12, 2024 19:21
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I'm trying not to sound pejorative but it feels like it's written as guidelines for a reenactment rather than rules for a game, which is just absolutely not my style at all. Like I'm willing to put up with some of the asymmetric setups and dice rolls simulating the chaos of command, but I would like the rules to actually tell me how to play the game
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Feb 12, 2024 19:27
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Giving Soviet commissars a points cost but no actual rules text would probably be the best mechanical representation of them if it was intentional
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Feb 12, 2024 19:28
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Southern Heel posted:Why are they so allergic to the idea? In general, second editions just don't make as much money because less people are going to buy them. Given razor thin margins its just not a great idea most of the time for niche games. Rich has talked about it a lot on their podcast and in articles. I really want a Sharp Practice 3 but I can't see it ever happening.
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