Talking a bit about CLASH of Spears ( well more than a bit )

[torros 23816xp 0]

I think there being done at the moment

[limburger 21707xp 0]

@chaingun I like my rulebooks thick, glossy and with lots of pictures.

The one thing I don’t like is fancy pants layouts that are hard to read … (like the Star Trek RPG by Modiphius).

You also need to keep in mind that not everyone is as familliar with wargames and this period, so the extra detail in rule explanations isn’t a bad thing. It is tough to get the balance perfect, but I’d rather have them not be too brief.

The one video I’ve seen so far was enough for me to get the idea of the core mechanics.

And as always … if you want more detail and reviews of a finished product then waiting for retail is the thing to do.

And just in case you’ve missed the other topics about this game :

Another CLASH of Spears video ( 15' ) and some sample armies

Let's play CLASH of Spears video…

[chaingunParticipant 1939xp 0]

@limburger good for you mate, I’m glad it all works for you. Like I said the amount of faff to describe basic functions as in the sample pages leaves me cold. like I said it’s a trend with most modern wargames rules and yes I also agree it is difficult to get the balance right.

For me it’s as I said, I’m happy to wait till Salute when all the hype has settled and see if it’s as I thought, hopefully I’m wrong. ? But as I said I wish the guys all the best and I hope all goes well ?

[avernosKeymaster 33947xp 0]

Not sure what faff youre talking about. Examples please.

[chaingunParticipant 1939xp 0]

@avernos like I’ve said, reading the sample pages on the Kickstarter says it all to me, far to much faff to explain rule mechanics. Its like the game has been written mainly for the tournament scene and so making sure their is no ambiguity leads to making sure their is a lot of text for that not to happen. What has happened to people designing a game with a narrative fun aspect first and then bolt in the other scene.

I know that I’m probably in a minority but it’s just how I feel our hobby has gone.

Like I said and I’ll say it again, I wish the guys all the best and I may take a look once all the hype has settled but wish the guys luck.

[torros 23816xp 0]

From what I’ve seen so far theres no more faff in these rules than there was in Fire and Fury or Tactica or Armati or any othes games from the late 80’s or early 90’s. A lot of rules from that  those could have done with a bit more faff to be honest

[avernosKeymaster 33947xp 0]

well if you like badly written rules I’m sure there are plenty out there for you

[chaingunParticipant 1939xp 0]

@avernos I don’t like badly written rules, but these are not for me.

[limburger 21707xp 0]

@chaingun it’s ok to agree to disagree 🙂

Although I would like to know what exactly you think is overkill in the text of CoS. The one readable page at the start of this topic didn’t read like it had ‘too much faff’

I also don’t get the ‘aimed at tournament scene’ vibe from this game at all, unlike the 9th Age kickstarter which was so dripping with hatred of anything casual or beginner friendly I positively wanted it to fail.

This one is ticking all the boxes (enthusiastic team, mechanics that get the job done without adding needless complexity, no egos).

[seldonParticipant 691xp 1]

Well, I do agree that the rules go into a considerable amount of detail to avoid ambiguity and the book does have nice pictures and illustrations, guilty as charged.

I personally don’t like it when I have to agree with friends how we are going to play this or that, it becomes problematic for club games.This is a question of personal taste, and we wrote the rules for the game we wanted to play.

I think that in recent times the opposite has happened, that many times we get more ambiguity. CLASH is indeed aimed at supporting competitve play, but because we think that this forces us to come up with robust mechanics. I don’t think that this detracts from narrative play. Alvaro likes competitive gaming while I prefer narrative games, as you can see from my AARs, yet I want a set of rules that is comprehensive and well detailed.

I don’t think that good quality books with pictures and illustrations are a problem nor a modern development. I have at least two copies of my warhammer fantasy battle 3ed edition which I love to open every now and then just to read fluff and look at pictures. And I have others, such as War and Conquest , or so many… The difference is that these days it is easier to do such a book than it was time ago, so rules authors take advantage of that. I think CLASH is very well priced for the quality of the book, that is a bit driven by our intention to get the book out there.

All in all I totally respect Chaingun’s view of, “I’ll try before I buy”. I usually don’t do that because I like reading rules, some I play some I shelf but it is always interesting for me to read them.

The instructional videos I mentioned will be aimed at players learning the rules, not as promotional videos and that is why they were not done for the campaign. In fact there was not going to be a “campaign” until the Victix alternative opened up.

It is a lot of work to get the game out there and the “hype” generated, which is critical for a new set of rules to take off, requires a lot of effort when you are an independent outfit. Without that work or “hype” you just get lost in a sea of new releases.

At the end of the day the most important aspect is if the rules are fun or not, and that depends on the quality of the game but also on personal taste and when it comes to that I totally understand. I hope that we will get enough people playing the game so that we can expand it going forward, and so far it looks like it will…

There are so many alternatives out there these days, one can simply go to WargameVault and you will find many sets of rules, lots of them less detailed, maybe oriented as a guide for narrative play.. we just developed the type of rules that we wanted to play and that we had not found in the market… We then put them through extensive playtesting to streamline them and balance them. The rules do have summary boxes over the book so with a quick first read of the book hopefully people will be able to play and then when they find unexpected situations they will go back to the more detailed rules and find the answers there…

But it is all good, there lots of different gamers, I actually feel that there are more games serving the type of games that Chaingun was looking for than the one that we were looking for so hopefully these options can accommodate all players.

I take no offense and respect the opinion…

I’ll confess.. if next year, I can simply go to my club and find players willing to do pick up games of CLASH, like they do these days with SAGA or Bolt Action.. trust me , I’ll be super happy… and that is the real hype we want to generate.. not about selling the book but about getting people playing…

Cheers,

Francisco

[seldonParticipant 691xp 1]

Yes like Linburger said, the fact that we want the rules to resist and support competitive play, does not mean we aim to produce “new releases with power creep” or “collectible ancient games” 🙂

Even if you were to ditch the point system, ignore the army lists, even take our point system and create other troop types.. I think you would find the rules are still fun… But other players want to simply build an army, go to the club, find a friend, roll a couple of dice to come up with a fun scenario and terrain and play… and that certainly is well supported ( that is tougher to support ).

I love narrative games.. I invite you guys to check my blog  http://www.thewargamespot.com, which you will see LONG predates CLASH, and you will see all my games are narrative games… In fact you will find in the rules things that are there only for narrative players… A competitive gamer will never put an elephant in the list, when you look at the points/benefits, you will rather take more peltasts or velites.. which is natural for the actions represented..

However , you might read Ben Kane’s enemy of Rome and read a fun part where the back of Hannibal’s column on the way to Italy gets ambushed by hostile Gallic tribes…  so there you go.. what a fun scenario.. I just ran that game last Suday…

An elephant from Hannibal’s column who had fallen behind needs to reach the column so elephant an escort try to break through the ambushing gauls…  I do use points a bit when I do those scenarios but because I want both players to be able to win.. but it is certainly a narrative scenario… and it was a ton of fun..

Those are my favorite games… so CLASH allows Alvaro to go and have fun playing a tournament of CLASH all wekend and allows me to spend the same two days running narrative scenarios taken from books or movies 🙂 …

I’m sure there are players for both options :)… I hope 🙂

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