Something a lot more orc...

[kev1964]

Really nice army and excellent basing,


kev

[Fenton]

Will we be able to have a look at the rules soon, or are they going to be for sale?

[Luddite]

Will we be able to have a look at the rules soon, or are they going to be for sale?

Hopefully they'll be published and for sale as soon as i can get things worked out.

I don't want to commit to a firm date yet, but 'as soon as possible'.

Fingers crossed.   

[Fenton]

Thanks for that

I am a sucker for big bases in games

[jchaos79]

Great army, and fantasic diorams in each unit. Congrat.

what is the name of your ruleset? can you talk a little bit about it?

[Luddite]

Well... I'm still working on the issues with getting the draft from the laptop to a published product.  However...

The rules are a 'fantasy' set provisionally called Warband (may well be followed by a historical version).  They use the basing you see above and are intended for use with, shall we say, figures from a popular 10mm supplier.

Design philosophies:

1.   Simple to play, difficult to master.
2.   The best player should win, not the best dice (an impossible dream!  Damn those 1's!)

They are intuitive to play, and run as you expect, and they're 'game' more than 'simulation'.  They're structured around a familiar turn sequence which mixes igougo with 'simultaneous' phases.  Nothing ground-breaking but satisfyingly 'familiar'!  They also have a single core resolution mechanic (dice pool vs target number) that means whatever you're trying to do, you'll know what you need to do it.  Of course, for each task there are tactical methods to stack the odds in favour of success.

As a player however, you're forced to make decisions throughout each turn, and so success or failure rests as much with you as with a lucky or unlucky dice roll.  In fact your decisions will be focused around which dice/action failures you need to bolster or reverse, or which successes you need to reinforce.  And you can never do everything you need to!

There aren't 'buckets of dice', but there is a steady drip of dice rolling throughout the turn.  Nothing is certain so you'll need to dice to move your troops, to resolve their combat actions and to resolve their reactions to combat.

Units are therefore classified in terms of quality and capacity by the number of dice they roll for each action.  'Special abilities' are added to these core competencies to allow you to build the various different troop types.

Trolls for example will have poor motivation, average fighting ability, good defence, and are bolstered by the 'fear, powerful, and regenerate' special abilities.  All these affect a unit's points value so the armies are very balanced.  In almost every play test game over the last year, the battles have lasted about 2 hours and have been contested right down to the final turn.  I've yet to see a game where one side completely trounced the other!  Also with the various troops having differing abilities, you need a well balanced and mixed force to be victorious. 

Armies are built using set points so you'll typically have a small elite force an average force or a large poor quality force.  You'll find in building your army, there's never enough points to include everything you need...hehe... 

By design, armies need to fight cohesively.  Units that get isolated from their friends or their commander won't last long, especially if they have low motivation.

And the commander is vital to your success.  He is able to intervene to inspire or rally your troops (by adding dice to their abilities).  This is the constant decision-making element that means that success is more to do with you than a stray bad dice roll!

Then of course there's magic: the one thing I'd say is keep your wizard out of melee!  They add a bit of unpredictability to the game with a suite of spells that allow them to give special abilities or extra dice to nearby units, or with more powerful spells to the whole army. 

I've been play testing them for about a year now and things are nice stable and give a good game.

Hopefully I can get these to market as soon as possible, but as I said – no date commitments at this stage.  Fingers crossed it will happen.

[Fenton]

Sounds good...Are you going to release these  through something like wargames vault or as a a hard copy?

[Luddite]

Details to be worked out but both hard copy and pdf are on the cards.

[fred.]

Sounds interesting - I shall await developments. 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Just let me know when you release the Halflings vs Gobbos supplement!

[nikharwood]

Sounds good to me, Luddite 

[Maenoferren]

Looking great

[kyussinchains]

looking great, love the basing and real 'horde' feel of the army, may have to steal some of your ideas for my own orcs (if I ever get around to them!) looking forwards to the dwarfs next!

[Fenton]

Any updates on the rules yet Mr Luddite?

[Luddite]

I'm working through the army lists at the moment.