[unofficial weekender] Summer is over!

[sundancer 42900xp 3]

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First time visitor to OTT? Then please introduce yourself in the New Member Thread and look around in the Project System. Then come back and read on…

https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/introduce-yourselves-new-member-thread/

https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/

Read all of this before you start as it will save you any trouble later.

First thing you must do is make your “pledge”. It can be anything gaming related, big or small, and you don’t even have to finish it. No, in here, happiness is the road. Have fun doing whatever it is, but it is not a race. Accompany your work with pictures or we might think you are do something sinister and just using us for cover.

You are also presented with a few questions. It is to get the conversation started. Try and keep your answers ‘conversational’, no text speak, and certainly no “basically”. This is how we all get to know each other better. While you are here feel free to tell us a story, show a picture, joke, tales of love or woe, or just add your own little bit. This is the whole point…in here it is just us.

If you have never taken part before we may bark and bite, but we also like a cuddle! It is all done in the best possible taste and it is character building. feel free to give as good as you get.

A few other things to note: NO RELIGION & NO POLITICS! Glasgow pub rules are in effect. If you need to make a better point then it is fine, but don’t take the piss. And always keep it civil.

Play plenty of music to go with your work. Loud and through proper speakers. Write us a playlist of things we might not have heard before.

Now, after all of that there is only one ‘real’ rule in here and it cannot be broken: NO DICKS! (Exceptions may be made for little fighting men with little plastic/resin/metal wieners)

And don’t forget the highlights of the weekend: The Weekender on Friday and XLBS on Sunday. And the little show that is the unofficial Hobby Hangout over at twitch.tv

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Questions:

• With days growing shorter: are you prepared for the days where you can’t prime outside?
• If you could change one thing on your main/favourite miniature wargame: What game would it be and what would you change?
• Do you stay hydrated well enough?

And now back to the show.

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

Pledge: finish the wizards!

Answers:

• Nope, will tackle that problem when it arrives…. and curse my past-me.
• It would be (obviously) Star Wars: Legion and I’d put a stop to the token/feature/keyword-creep that already had ruined X-Wing for me. Find other ways to balance a game then just piling up stuff over more stuff
• yeah… I guess.

MUSIC!

[zorg 18799xp 0]

Christ that was a quick week @sundancer ?

[sundancer 42900xp 1]

Week goes BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[limburger 21668xp 2]

Time flies when you’re having fun 😉

1) With days growing shorter: are you prepared for the days where you can’t prime outside?
I can’t prime outside even if the weather is good … so no change for me 🙁

2) If you could change one thing on your main/favourite miniature wargame: What game would it be and what would you change?
Rebuild 40k from the ground up and make it actually good ? 😉

you said ‘one thing’ … 😀

Definitely agree on the minimal keyword / token concept for all games.
Yes, it’s cute to have such ‘special’ rules but core troops should never have any and even elites and other specialist should at best have one.

3) Do you stay hydrated well enough?

yeah I think so

Music … we needs it

[ced1106Participant 6224xp 2]

If it’s under 20 miniatures, I usually don’t bother spray-priming. I brush-on colored airbrush primer, then follow with a wash.

I’ve also been fiddling with a drop of ink in a child’s craft paint flip-top, no mixing. Dip the brush into the ink and paint. More ink for flow, more paint for opacity. Maybe a drop of hobby paint for shade.

Rinse the brush frequently, even if not changing colors.

[demonsub 12746xp 2]

Happy Friday.

My pledge this weekend is to get my Pig-Iron Productions miniatures cleaned up and assembled, Indie of the Week costs me so much money, lol.

Ive also started work on some mdf terrain I got around a year ago. So far I’ve grey primed the 12 sheets of mdf.

 

With days growing shorter: are you prepared for the days where you can’t prime outside?

I prime outside in most weather without any ill effects. I use Halfords car primer and it does a good job.

If you could change one thing on your main/favourite miniature wargame: What game would it be and what would you change?

Probably my dice, they hate me.

Hmm, not sure. Maybe make Five Leagues less deadly? Of course that could just be down to me  playing badly.

Do you stay hydrated well enough?

Yes, I try to, mostly water and a few cups of tea.

[horati0nosebl0wer 19610xp 1]

Pledge: finish off a project

A time when I can’t prime outdoors is not a problem. An airbrush used with a vent fan is useful for that.

One thing to change about my favorite minis game?… I haven’t played in so long I can’t say anything for mechanics. Perhaps it would be that I actually do play. I’m rather split on just one to say is my overall top choice. I guess I played Malifaux the most in shops but have fond memories of others.

Am I staying hydrated? Eh, not as much as I should be. High amounts of caffeine has seen a decrease in body fluids.

[danlee 22433xp 1]

That week went fast. If did about 20 minutes hobby starting to base some 6mm wood elves. Still my pledge was only to “start” so technically I met it.

 

I guess this week’s pledge has to be to finish the basing.

 

1. With days growing shorter: are you prepared for the days where you can’t prime outside? – Yikes! You just made me realise I no longer have access to the garage space I used to use for undercoating in cold weather. I’ll have to come up with something.
2. If you could change one thing on your main/favourite miniature wargame: What game would it be and what would you change? – Intriguing question. I’m very much an “accept things as they are” guy so I don’t think about that sort of question a lot. Feels like a bit of a cheat but I’d pick Battle Fleet Gothic and have it resurrected. Loved that game.
3. Do you stay hydrated well enough? – Yep. Constantly supping all year round.

[fourtytwoParticipant 12847xp 0]

One can always prime outside.

I don’t mind new keywords in Star Wars Legion – I’ve just finished designing a new, very iconic sib-faction for Star Wars Legion and for that immersed myself very deep into the nitty gritty of the granular design spaces of that game, and I have come to love what keywords can bring to the game if utilized correctly. The most important question for me became this: Is a new keyword – so by extension a new mechanic – really neccessary, or can the same be achieved with an existing keyword or a combination of existing keywords. And then, IF a new keyword is neccessary, to keep it as simple as possible.

To be honest, most keywords are pretty simple, and to play a good game, it suffices for each player to know their armies keywords and how they work, and being able to precisely explain how they work to their opponent should the need arise.

Some examples for new keywords from the new subfaction I designed – sometimes with interactions between them and/or existing ones – which were required to accurately represent new units and the ideas behind them in the game. Some of the units took a week or more to get right and as simple as possible at the same time:

 

And here are three examples of new units and upgrades which could be achieved with the existing keywords:

[horati0nosebl0wer 19610xp 1]

@sundancer Curse your pastime? I don’t think Giftmas will allow that. Remember, its coming.

@limburger jump ship from Warhamster and go to One Page Rules? Hell I just saw a game from the guys that made Reign in Hell that might put Stargrave up on a run for its money

I think I might drop some cash on a new ruleset.

@blinky465 You might now have a game that you can put that 3D sci fi Patreon stuff to use

@danlee You can always get a vent fan with a filter and spray a rattle can at it. Good that you still can hobby

@fourtytwo I admire the making of game factions and carving space for gaming in the gaps. I don’t think the keyword concept will bode well in time. Magic the Gathering has done that to high holy hell and back making the game nowhere near backwards compatible or playable outside of the current set/expansion/meta. Hopefully the limiting of keywords works on your future.

Music… Shove it in your ear holes!

[fourtytwoParticipant 12847xp 1]

@fourtytwo I admire the making of game factions and carving space for gaming in the gaps. I don’t think the keyword concept will bode well in time. Magic the Gathering has done that to high holy hell and back making the game nowhere near backwards compatible or playable outside of the current set/expansion/meta. Hopefully the limiting of keywords works on your future.

There is a significant difference: In Magic, keywords and such have been introduced for the sake of themselfes, to be a new feature in and of themselves to expand the game and make new cards and card effects. In Star Wars Legion, keywords are used to represent stuff from the movies and shows within the context of the basic game mechanics. There haven’t been introduced that many new ones since the game dropped, and almost all new ones truly introduce a new feature into the game that was required for the new type of thing brought into the game from the setting.

I myself strongly critique a few new kewords in Legion which are not really needed AND just give you something basic and useful without you having to work for it, like this silly INDEPENDENT: X keyword, where your unit gains aim and/or dodge tokens for just standing there. THAT is dumb in my book, because it does add nothing new to the game and does not add to the game being dynamic (there already ARE ways to gain these tokens, but you have to do something for them, be it taking an action, creating a synergy, or creating a certain game state). It’s like gaming with support wheels – I don’t know about others, but I’d feel silly using many such units.

 

 

 

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

@danlee  see, I’m helping

One can always prime outside.

@fourtytwo I disagree. Too cold and too wet without any kind of shelter and you just can’t prime outside. While you can remedy “too cold” a bit by having the spray cans in warm water you’re shit out of luck when it rains on your model.  Priming 24/7 all year round is only possible when you have a dedicated work/hobby space with a ventilation of sorts.

The most important question for me became this: Is a new keyword – so by extension a new mechanic – really necessary

I agree and most of the time it feels (to me) that it really isn’t necessary. But that’s pure personal taste.

@horati0nosebl0wer Stop scaring me! XD

I’ve seen the videos on Space Station 0 and all I could think of was: “so Space Hulk but without the Imperium….”  maybe we’ve recycled to many ideas by now… or I am just a sad fuck who fails to see the “shiny new” in it.

Anyhow. It’s Saturday, I’m doing the laundry and still need to catch up with the weekender. Catch you lot later!

[limburger 21668xp 0]

@horati0nosebl0wer OnePageRules is technically its own thing … they also have their own backstory. Or at least that is the idea I think.
And I was thinking a more radical redesign than simply reducing the number of stats and sticking with the D6.

This kind of bleeds over into things I’d like to see in (any) miniatures game :
= an initiative system that feels right for the type of warfare the game wants to represent

= alternate activations, because there’s nothing worse than getting your entire army wiped out before you can react

= the ability to push your luck when activating a second unit , because in order to better represent certain aspects of warfare you may need to activate multiple units at once

= different dice sizes to better represent skill, troop quality, non-human creatures/aliens and other things

= a maximum on the number of dice you can roll (+/- 10 should be more than enough)

= standardized keywords across all factions.
I’d be tempted to argue that if you need more than a single A4 sized page of text (in a reasonable font size) then you’ve got too many …

= no faction exclusive actions in terms of actions a player can perform, unless there is a good reason that factions/unit can’t imitate it

= minimum number of 4 factions that have to exist
reason : you need a bit of variety and I think 4 is enough for that.

= a maximum number of factions that can exist
reason : it should be possible to update and refresh the models of the entire game in one iteration.
The sheer number of factions in 40k/AoS make this impossible, which is why GW couldn’t refresh the entire range even if they wanted to.
As a bonus you don’t have to invent weird stories to explain why a certain faction managed to invade the most secure location in the entire universe …

= 9 as the magic number for the unit types within a faction
This is in part based on me playing Team Fortress Classic for several years() as well as based on the idea that a combo of basic stats (speed, damage and defense) and values (low, medium, high) results in a 3 x 3 grid.
You can increase granularity but that tends to come at a cost of making it harder to visualize where the counter for a given unit is.
I’d also argue that no one unit should ever be good at all 3 core stats, because that tends to make the other units useless.
And of course no unit should be bad at all 3 as it would make the unit useless compared to everyone else …

oh .. and a final thought :
a new version of the rules should have a good reason to exist … marketing is not a good reason.

@danlee I agree. I’d rather play a game ‘as is’ instead of house ruling anything. It’s not like the designers didn’t make an effort to make it playable out of the box, right ?

[demonsub 12746xp 1]

@horati0nosebl0wer I picked it up yesterday and was reading the pdf last night. I thought “why not” since I won’t need anything extra terrain or miniatures wise. I’m excited to get playing.

@sundancer Maybe the only thing in common with Space Hulk is the exploration of a giant ship but that’s it.

There might be battle reports on the way.

 

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