Weekender XLBS: RambleFEST 2019
March 3, 2019 by dignity
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Still no Let’s Play of B&B , or Frostgrave , for that matter, shame.
One day maybe ?You never know,the guys might have 1 or 2 in the can waiting.
Happy Sunday!
Time for XLBS
As far as the discussion about rectifying the rules and making them your own.
I have always run with the attitude of, “Read the rules, understand the intent, and then keep what works for the game session you are about to play.” Play the rules, don’t let the rules play you.
Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday guys!
my list always has my most recently painted units or figs no matter what haha
Great show guys always fun to see the 4Ground Guys in Studio. Back in First Edition Bolt Action we used to have pages of house rules, everything from LMG’s costing less to Transports having a single crew member to fire a weapon. Most of the separate communities came up with their own rules that were basically the same as the one our group was using (or ours were the same as there’s depending on who came up with it first) and now almost all the communities “House Rules” are in the 2nd Edition Rulebook. Ben mentioned Darkstar. @oriskany and I… Read more »
Morning all, just wishing is wasn’t having to role play shopping with help of Zuma, a bumblebee and a dancing robot… and no am not high (unfortunately!)
you had my curiosity now you have my attention!
The joys of an (almost) 4 yr old! Zuma and the bee are plush toys, the robot is some god awful Xmas gift from my mother that has no volume control! Luckily I was allowed to stick on Fridays Belfast v Fife game (?) that distracted the beast a bit but cars still needed to be pushed about even then. Roll on him being “mature” enough for gaming… (he doesn’t loose well enough or a game based on chance… it will come)
I think every set of rules probably has something that doesn’t work exactly how I would want it to but for me the main part of any rules and there are multiple ways of achieving this is is to have a mechanics in place whether it be pips as per DBA etc or C&C rolls as per fire and fury or warmaster or with some of the TFL rules that have tea break card that automatically ends a turn and it doesn’t matter whether all the units have had a good in a particular turn of not but the main… Read more »
Happy Sunday one and all.
Following @dignity and @avernos un-boxing the WoE Skellies,i’m leaning towards a Harryhausen homage skeleton Warband to kick off Age of Magic when it drops.
have you seen the metal necromancer they have done, very persian looking and sowing dragon’s teeth 😀
No i haven’t,i’m off to look it up now,cheers @avernos .Does anyone know if the Necromancer is available on his own ? I’ll be throwing an email at Warlord soon,but if not,91 skellies will be getting divided up between me and my friends at my flgc.
Is there anything on the interwebs about a date for that Lone Wolf KS ? Or am i just shit at web searching ?
not yet, don’t worry when it lands I’ll be mentioning it, probably at length until the others throw things at me like they do when I say Rorke’s Drift *ducks under the table*
Cheers ( again ) @avernos .Tell the others to just re-set the Rorkes Drift clock,rather than resort to throwing things…
Great show, great debate topic too! If! One’s thing is more for cinematic, narrative creating game play, then Two Hour Wargames ‘Chain Reaction’ system is ideal for promoting this style of play. Definitely no ‘IGO UGO’ I agree with much of ‘Big Ben’s and Jerry’s comments and input.
That episode went all over the place but I like where it went and particularly where it ended. The system that I would love to see adjusted and adapted is Hail Caesar. Firstly I want a fantasy version. secondly, if that system (and KoW for that matter) have a failing it’s it shows unit degradation really badly. A unit gets into combat, takes a beating but continues to fight as if at full strength. Personally I’d love to see units bought in squads and as the unit gets beat up the squads are removed. It would also allow for unit… Read more »
I think there is a homebrew version for a fantasy version of HC out there but personally for me as HC is just a slightly updated version of Warmaster I would play that instead.
and warmaster had the base removal that @horus500 is after so there was degredation of the unit before it collapsed
I never understood why it was in Warmaster but not in HC. They are almost the same rulesets at different scales in many respects.
I’d also like to see the dice bag system from Bolt Action etc in a rank and flank game. It would really force players to prioritise charges and shooting. The only criticism I have of that system is that it encourages lots of small units to build up dice. Ideally a maximum number of dice limit, dependent on the size of the game could possibly fix that however.
what about one dice per commander in the bag, then you have to pick the commander to activate and then use the standard test to command the troops under their control?
Damn. I can’t find a flaw in that idea. I’d give the general 2 dice but otherwise that’s perfect. I might send that in to that Priestly kid you mentioned
PS @horus500 I think you’ll find we were focused and on point throughout the show, any randomness must have been on the side of the viewer 😉
I knew I was getting confused when Big Ben’s tangential ramblings started making sense to me. That man would be an ideal partner in a trivia quiz.
I think the degredation of units is beside the point with hc and bp etc. As they are mainly representing huuge units and they have given units a binary value. It’s either combat effective or not. Also, for me anyways, getting a wole army out, and spending a few mins per phase putting models away piecemeal is a nause,(i play nids in 40k lol). I think it’s the idea that units didn’t often fight from 100 blokes down to 10 unless there was no choice. After a few considerable casualties, guys would be bricking it. A few more and they… Read more »
Happy Sunday folks
Favourite games for mechanics – Bolt Action, Adeptus Titanicus and Necromunda. Purely as they keep you engaged throughout with the activations, but I do love my HH so I can cope with “I go, You go” as well 🙂
“marbles”
I think i lost mine just as Ben said that,an utter champion of a man he is ( must remember to simply say hello at Salute ).
Matchsticks from from springloaded artillery pieces is the way forward
light them first and that will sort out the plastic brigade from the proper metal miniatures 😀
If you wrap the heads in tin foil they explode as well
Great bit of chit chat. It certainly is a complex issue around house ruling and home brewing games. As someone who has played tabletop wargames for over 30 years now I am confident in changing stuff I don’t like or feel makes games one dimensional. It is perhaps an unfortunate consequence of broadening the hobby that more players have less experience and less confidence in taking matters into their own hands to improve the gaming experience. One wonders whether the surfeit of games on the market also plays a factor whereby people find a game unsatisfying and instead of looking… Read more »
that’s a really interesting point that I never even considered. That people would “jump ship” if the rules don’t do exactly what they’re after instead of trying to make up for whatever the shortfall is within the system. Thanks for that @warbossd
I quite appreciate Corvus Belli’s activation system. It’s still IGO UGO but both players are always involved. Even when it isn’t my turn, my troops can still react, taking shots of opportunity or identifying obscured models perhaps.
As far as modifying rules goes: as long as it’s fun, why not?
If you want fuzzy mats, why would you not start with Cigar Box Battle Mats. Using fur and going through that effort does not seem worth it given the final result.
cost, a cigar box mat is 4 times the cost, 5 or 6 times once you ship to the UK if customs catch it. So for a club or people wanting their own tailored mats its much cheaper. Also even Cigar’s long fleece mats don’t come close to these
My favourite games are 40K and Bolt Action. But without doubt 40K is the most frustrating to play, especially if you are going second. I tend to play a very fluff oriented army and my favourite is Elysian who used to be able to deploy from turn one. They have no access to real heavy choices and if a get to turn 3 I have done well. But with a good group of friendly players ignore some of the rules as written to get a good game in. When playing tournaments I tend to have a balance of fluff and… Read more »
Very fun and super interesting show, really enjoyed it. Since i have come back into table top gaming i find i am more fascinated with the mechanics and theory of gaming as much as i am with playing itself. I have been thinking about making my own game for a long time now and i feel that i am ready to do so. This episode of XLBS has been a real inspiration to that end and has given me a lot of ideas to chew on and work with going forward. Recently i have thought that rather than making a… Read more »
Some interesting topics, but sometimes during the first hour it just descended into a cacophony of noise! When two pairs of people are having separate discussions, or one is laughing at a private joke while others try to move the topic on, it can be really difficult to listen to. As to rules, it seems like many players forget that it’s a game – it’s supposed to be fun – the participants are called “players” not participants; the most important aspect for me, particularly with cinematic tabletop gaming, is that everyone enjoys playing. Play. Playing. House rules are fine for… Read more »
@OTT — my comment timed out while typing so I had to repost. Sorry for the dupe. If you want fuzzy mats, why would you not start with Cigar Box Battle Mats. Using fur and going through that effort does not seem worth it given the final result. There are those here who far more versed in rules than I so I cannot comment on the best or the worst and will only comment I things that I like: I like things that bring tension to the game. To me that is what is exciting. Not knowing what will happen… Read more »
Was out at my parents at Christmas – while I was up in the attic lifting down the Christmas decorations I found my old copy of Hero Quest (like many of a certain age my first introduction to tabletop gaming!). I pulled it down eagerly and had a look through it. Something I had totally forgotten was that quite a few of the magic or item cards got lost or destroyed over the years – and I found a bunch of custom cards that I had written and had printed out and stuck to card to replace them. Definitely my… Read more »
I really like the flexibility we’re seeing in a lot of games lately. Use what minis you like, bugger about with stats, lists and so on. I picked up WoE recently, and have the majority of the *Rampant books. It just feels a lot more relaxed than the more prescriptive rules. Just chuck down whatever minis you have painted and have a laugh together.
great weekender worthy of a pot of tea. @brennon thanks for the mention glad your gonna put those pieces to some use, much better than gathering dust with me. as for home grown rules I always wanted a Fimir Army (that’s showing my age) and had some movement trays which reflected the background namely just cotton wool fluff to represent the fog they produce. it was only when an enemy got within 12″ of the unit were the troops visible and revealed. all the locations written down and declared prior to the start of the game to a third party.… Read more »
Oh, @brennon that LotR book on your shelve. The green one. I have the exact same book. And man, I tell you, when a non-native English speaker (like myself) thinks he’s good on English, that books gives you a run for you money. Half the time I had to look up things in the dictionary XD
To be fair it was written by a professor of English and linguist par excellant. 😉