Weekender XLBS: Magic SUCKS In Wargaming
May 26, 2019 by dignity
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Happy Sunday Backstagers/COGs!
It’s the XLBS show…….
Time to settle in and enjoy the goodness.
I have been wanting to attend Historicon for some time now. Seeing that the OTT historical gamer, in-house guru @Avernos will be in attendance I told myself, “now is the time”, and began checking hotels and bed and breakfasts for a room at a reasonable rate. Holy Smokes! Yikes!!! After I recover from sticker shock, I’ll look into a new thrown out refrigerator cardboard box to stay in maybe. I thought rooms in the Chicago area were expensive during Adepticon! But I do hear great things about Historicon and I think the team from Blood and Plunder might be there… Read more »
Happy Sunday!!!
The C.O.G. Initiation Ceremony is light Drukhari cosplay? Seems simple enough, I’m in. 😉 😛
Like yesterday no one has claimed ‘First!’ so I’ll do it even though yet again I’m third.
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First!
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On esp/premonitions – I’m skeptical; I think what’s most likely happening in most cases is synapses misfiring while the brain is doing some sort of pattern recognition based on previous experiences. On Warren’s dream – has you been reading up on pregnancy/labour complications just before going to bed? It’s possible that something you’d read got lodged in your subconscious and that dream was your brain’s way of working it out, and similarly the unease you felt the next night was your subconscious picking up on signs your conscious mind was missing and the ‘feeling’ you were getting was just your… Read more »
One more thought on wizards – some consideration should probably be given for the scale* of the battle; your probably unlikely to see a master wizard in a minor skirmish, so there probably would be an upper limit on what casters could do (outside of it going out of control, power surges, etc). . . *by scale I’m referring to number of minis/units present, not size of minis. If you dropped from 28mm to 15mm and multibased for example, you’d still use the same rules/power as the increased power would be taken into account by each base killed/effected is representing… Read more »
That gif for this week is more than a little disturbing.
Okay @warzan, I get your point about magic. I disagree, but I get it. For inspiration, read The Misenchanted Sword series by Lawrence Watt-Evans. There’s a bit of tongue in cheek humor but there are schools of magic with rules, and things can go weirdly wrong or right in spectacular fashion. However, the best combat magic system I’ve ever seen was in the old Metagaming Concepts pocket game, Wizard. Long out of print, it’s actually back in the Steve Jackson Game, The Fantasy Trip which is either now on or about to be in Kickstarter to re-publish. Simple mechanics but… Read more »
Happy Sunday lads. I love Martin’s shed …… (in fact who is guarding it while he’s in Northern Ireland ….. hmmmmmmm …….hurridly organises plane tickets and a shiping container) … on with the show then
Just to expand on The Fantasy Trip magic system, there were just a couple of types of spells. Missile spells, which basically caused direct damage. Not terribly original but there was a “courtesy” rule so that especially powerful wizards couldn’t cast that type of spell on their first turn because they were so powerful, it was dishonorable. There were then creation, summoning, illusion and image spells and various types of defensive spells which had differing effects. A wizard could cause a thing to appear and you didn’t know if it was, for instance, a real monster brought to the battle,… Read more »
Happy Sunday Backstagers
@warzan I can hear you Warren, magic in wargaming is so dull. Your system looks like a good start, you guys should make a challenge out of it.
I’m on it @warzan
The magic thing was interesting but I reckon everyone will end up using it to try destroy other units without using fancy ideas to do it and eventually it would just go back to “I need 9+ to destroy your unit” The last thing you want is it to go back to early days of Warhammer where your army could be one person on a dragon.
I think you need to play more games of whatever your choice of rules are before trying to reinvent thrm
4 level 25 necromancers and nothing else, say goodbye to your army
Surely you mean ‘say goodbye to your army as they die, and then hello again as they undie’.
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no they only raised dead if necessary they would blast the opponent off the table with winds of death. If you’re having to use an army against your opponent you’re doing magic wrong. Which is why I don’t want to see it back again in a decent game
I liked Fantasy Warriors magic. Magic finger, might kill one person. A few moral and time shift spells. Move terrain piece which gave you the chance to drop a hill on someone and a Summon spell that could bring forth a big nasty monster but might attack the summoner for disturbing it
The first thing that came into my head when Warren started talking about magic was how much I hated its power level when I played Warhammer. It wasn’t a game of manoeuvre or troops, it was a game of list building and whose Wizard or superbuffed hero could do the most damage (or in the case of Dwarfs, shutting down the magic phase and using your rune buffed hero to eat units for fun).
victory goes to he who kills the first wizard. Under super saga here is my 8 point list. Warlord (free) 8 Wizards (8pts) and pray I get first turn
It would be a very affordable and characterful army, you just need one box of Frostgrave Wizards and you can use Big Davy as your Warlord!
I can see a limit of wizards on the table per army per side.
Happy Sunday!
Magic! The gathering of some thoughts… > There are different styles of the use of magic in different fictional worlds, each of which have a space. From lightening bolts and fireballs generated at will bouncing off the walls through to subtle environmental or psychological effects. The issues are, which fit the world being described and how much direct or indirect impact can magic have? > Saga AoM, given its title, is slightly disappointing and feels at the wrong end of the spectrum. This probably reflects the origins of original Saga with seers, priests etc. and the stripped back mechanics and… Read more »
If Magic in AoM was like your 2nd 3rd points I wouldn’t have bought it. But everyone has their own idea of how magic should be
wimp! 😉
I think magic is very easy to get wrong rules wise as it can destroy the game. These types of rules need the power gamers and rules lawyers let loose on them to test the shit out of them
Not gonna dispute that 🙂 But surely there is some innovation left in game design to come up with a magic system that feels like magic? Again not forcing anyone to use it, but magic in wargames hasn’t seen alot of innovation in the last number of years. AoM highlighted it yet again. And your point about rules lawyers I think is one of the root causes of the more play it safe attitude we see in a lot of games. AoM (and dont get me wrong it’s still my game of choice for fantasy battling at the skirmish level)… Read more »
I was flipping through AoM magic lists.To my mind there are somec powerful spells in relation to the rest game system and how it all interacts . Maybe they could have could come up with some better names and especially descriptions for them
I agree.Better names and descriptions would go a long way to improving the feel for magic in AoM.I do feel Warrens method is more suited to an RPG setting,not a fairly quick game like SAGA.
I personally like the idea of seers/priests extending more realistic forces etc in Saga with ‘low fantasy’ – I presume that’s what the Arthur setting provided. As soon as you offer a high fantasy world and forces like AoM I feel that needs a higher magic content.
There’s plenty of choice out there…
@lloyd that is a well-practised leaf whipping action you have there.
Love the idea of another hobby weekend. I am definitely interested and like even more the remote community option to take part even if you cannot attend.
I second that motion, would have loved to be at the D Day boot camp but he already had plans, this way I can hobby along even if work/ other priorities take precedence. Great idea @dignity ?
Still going to try like mad to be there though ?
Is that leaf whipping the initiation ceremony for the well known COG’s ?
Happy Sunday!
I agree magic needs a big shake up to make it work.
I’d completely forgotten about Ars Magica. About 25 years ago we found it so complicated we couldn’t get through a game. But I loved the ideas and reading the books. I like Warren’s idea.
Yeah Ars Magica was just too complicated to make it work properly
hence the name Arse Magic
I like picture of Marty on the Gif. Makes him look like a Thunderbirds villian
It sounds like a GM might be needed to rule on a more narrative magic system. How about a card drawing system where you draw card and make combinations of spell effects that can build to be more and more powerful. A more complicated version of the Battle Wizards card game.
MAGIC IN GAME – Just a thought use dice type for level of troops which could be applied to a Wizard – Level 1 D4 Level 2 D6 Level 3 D10 for example…. Now the number you need to roll over becomes easier or harder (and the number of dice you will need to use to increase the opportunity to pass the rolled number) so a low level Wizard can cast a 6+ spell with his/her D4 but will need more dice to pass (2D4 at a minimum for a chance to pass – 3D4 becomes easier etc)
Magic.
Age of magic and Fantasy saga are based of of historical wargames. This automatically means magic can’t have that much effect. Because the feel of the game wouldn’t be the same.
Saga isn’t a historic wargame, it’s a fantasy game in a historic setting, it’s already 50% or more magical
Why is Justin messing about with pew pew guns when he should be painting 10mm Dwarves?
For once I’m on your side with the ESP Stuff. We’ve all had “that feeling” when picking Lotto Numbers or something like that. I had someone explain to me about Premonition Dreams once. Some people think Dreams are like a “Threat Evaluation System” where the body just constantly runs through scenarios of what could or might happen. I know you’re a bit like me where you hear something bad has happened to someone and suddenly every combination of awful thing just runs through your head at once. We dream many times a night and remember almost none of them. Maybe… Read more »
Possibly the thing I missed most when 3rd Ed 40k rolled around was they ditched the card-based pyschic power decks that came in Dark Imperium that made drawing your powers incredibly tense (and if you weren’t hoping to draw Vortex – or Purple Sun Of Xereus in WFB – I call you liar liar pants on fire 😛 )
but there wasn’t any tension, you took a couple of level 3 users and you got the full spell deck
Are we forgetting/ignoring the possibilities of a digital magic system? Who doesn’t have a phone or tablet with them as they game? Imagine: > You create a wizard profile on the app, with a specific level, school(s) and background. These generate modifiers – but cost points. > the app can hold a multidimensional decision-tree, spell generating algorithm – along the lines of Warren’s tables – each step requiring a new dice role (for those who want to, otherwise the app could roll for you). > the spell outcome/impact can be generated and displayed. You want a push-your-luck aspect. A good… Read more »
Okay, so I really dig the idea of an army building Bootcamp with a digital ticket so folks who can’t make it can chip in as well. Not like I need any further excuse to build some units….
I’d be keen to do the Digital participation but living in Australia might be an issue especially with the time zones and shipping GW.
To follow up on what @lordofuzkulak and @elessar2590 posted while I was typing and eating my porridge… Premotions, dreams, deja vu, etc is a really interesting topic but there is a rational explanation for it. Our brains are hardwired to predict the future – I’m not saying to pick next week’s lottery numbers but subconsciously our brains use experience and a natural ability to take a large number of small clues and make a prediction of what is going to happen next. For example, you are walking through the forest and subconsciously you brain processes an unnatural movement of a… Read more »
I agree 100% Our Brains are running scenarios in our minds all the time and especially in our dreams. Maybe all the crazy teleportation and magic that happens in dreams is just “Prepare for Literally Everything” taken to the logical conclusion? Very close people who have died are constantly in our dreams for years after woulds and even years after leaving school we all occasionally get those kind of dreams. @robert you might be onto something with that last point. Maybe subconsciously we look for things in our environment like perhaps right before a pregnant woman goes into labor they… Read more »
I do like the lasgun but it is far too small. It should be massively oversized for a human and you need to make oversized hands and a massive extension to your head to cosplay Imperial Guard properly 🙂 After yesterday’s rendition of Poddington Peas by Gerry and Warren’s falsetto heavy metal screams, if you ever get bored of tiny fighting men, perhaps the music industry needs you both. I could see a collection of album releases called Warren and Gerry Sing… Think of the possibilities “Kid’s TV Theme Tunes”, “Hair Metal Classics”, “Girl Band Love Songs”. Spotify couldn’t handle… Read more »
their paints are amazing started with them over 30 years ago and they’re still excellent
Coat D’arms of course we’re the original GW paints
I have VVV transfers sitting in front of me at the minute
Great transfers. I have used them on my KoW Dwarfs and Mantic Enforcers. The only limit is your imagination.
To be honest they’ve been sitting in front of me all week as I gather the courage to stick them on 10mm shields
Happy Sunday ?
Totally up for a 40k hobby-do!!
That would be excellent as I am trying to get back into it via the Kill Team route.
Best in person, of course but depending on the date at least remotely (what a great idea!!! @dignity ).
I would love to hear more about the hobby weekend. Please keep us informed! This is the sort of boot camp styled weekend I can easily get into. The video option is a great idea too, though I would love to be in person. I wonder though if this would strain the workers who also make the write ups and video peeks for the weekend vlogs that have been made in the past. As to the satellite option, would it only be with the purchase of miniatures? A Like your Spring Cleaner, some of us might have minis that would… Read more »
Belfast international is closest (not by much) but only good if you want to hire a car. If not try to fly into Belfast city and catch the train (via a taxi). Plenty of accommodation in Coleraine. Premier Inn was best value last time I went. Hope that helps?