Quote from: lentulus on 07 September 2016, 07:31:49 PM
House rules I take more as a body of "case law" on parts of the rules where we have had interpretation issues -- pretty often.

This can often be the case.

When I started playing Warmaster with my current group, they had some quite strange interpretations of some of the rules, which I think came from a quick read of them once, then playing the way they thought it was, rather than actually as written. This caused a few significant changes in game play - some of which the group never really got their heads around, as they had been playing the local way so long.

I've found this can happen with almost any game - but its often better to review these after the game, rather than trying to sort out the details in the middle of a game. I wonder if I come across as far too picky with some of the rules, but it seems that I'm able to read rules and understand them (often after a quick play though of a few key parts) unlike quite a few other people.

Quote from: Steve J on 07 September 2016, 05:56:06 AM
In terms of Bolt Action 2, I was reading the review in the latest issue of WS&S and was gobsmacked (to say the least) that in the 1st edition many players didn't take a Bren gun for the British . To my mind something is seriously wrong when that happens .

For some bizarre reason (and as much as I love Chain of Command), I keep coming back to Bolt Action for quick and dirty games where I have little time in which to squeeze a game in. I have slagged the game off (mainly due to firing ranges and the close combat mechanism which is appallingly poor).

However, I go for accurate forces based on real orbats rather than the power-gamers BA force which sadly is the norm among a lot of the BA gamers out there who are used to 40K lists.

Bolt Action In 28mm just looked and felt ridiculous. Played in 15mm it was good! There's bits I'd take issue with but I think you've covered the main point - aim to build something historical and it works out well. I'd also add ignore the scenarios - most of them end up very silly.

I think that's about the limit of my "tinkering" these days!

We play Warmaster regularly (usually once per week) and have slowly developed a few house
rules which we are all happy with.   Nothing drastic.

I took part in a Warmaster Tournie in GW HQ a few years ago and came across a well respected
player who insisted that we adopt a certain house rule mid-game (this made a substantial
difference to a combat at a crucial stage).   Being naive, I just went along with it.   Its only a game
but it does still annoy me - not the time to introduce a change in the rules !

On a more positive side, our gaming group did learn quite a bit at the tournie (meeting fellow
Warmaster nuts, finding useful tactics and coming across different interpretations of the rules that
made us question what we thought we knew).


Phil

Hullo,
I do tinker a little bit, but usually I try to use existing mechanisms in the rules rather than invent new ones. For example, in (ACW) Longstreet we felt that it was too easy for cavalry to charge infantry, so we just applied the existing "Dense target" modifier to mounted cavalry to make them more vulnerable to fire and motivate the player to dismount. In some cases I have had to do quite a bit of work to make the rules to our liking, especially in the case of Force on Force, which were so poorly written that we had to do quite a bit of re-intepretation. We may have changed the intent of the authors, but there was no way for us to tell
Cheers,
Aksu

Quote from: Glorfindel on 08 September 2016, 09:56:45 AM
I took part in a Warmaster Tournie in GW HQ a few years ago and came across a well respected
player who insisted that we adopt a certain house rule mid-game (this made a substantial
difference to a combat at a crucial stage).   Being naive, I just went along with it.   Its only a game
but it does still annoy me - not the time to introduce a change in the rules !

On a more positive side, our gaming group did learn quite a bit at the tournie (meeting fellow
Warmaster nuts, finding useful tactics and coming across different interpretations of the rules that
made us question what we thought we knew).


Phil

Oh dear, I hope that wasn't me!

It was interesting to see how others played and what armies they fielded. Also really nice to meet fellow Warmaster gamers and to put faces to names I'd seen regularly on WM forums.

As ever, I learned more from my defeats than my victories.

The tournies taught me many things, one of the main things being not to assume GW employees knew a damn thing about the rules they were supposed to be umpiring!     

Quote from: toxicpixie on 08 September 2016, 08:34:50 AM
Bolt Action In 28mm just looked and felt ridiculous. Played in 15mm it was good! There's bits I'd take issue with but I think you've covered the main point - aim to build something historical and it works out well. I'd also add ignore the scenarios - most of them end up very silly.

I think that's about the limit of my "tinkering" these days!

We played in 15mm too, looked a lot better and made more sense with ranges etc. And of course much cheaper, especially when you include vehicles.

Crikey yes, one 28mm vehicle is about the same as an entire 15mm army

Quote from: toxicpixie on 08 September 2016, 01:16:20 PM
Crikey yes, one 28mm vehicle is about the same as an entire 15mm army

Why you should go to 10mm or even 6mm. We have been using 6mm for Team Yankee, looks good and works better.

IanS

If we didn't have a lot of legacy 15mm, and the models weren't so nice, I'd have gone 10mm. Much of my last few years of gaming has been going to 10mm or 6mm, and now 2-3mm

Quote from: Glorfindel on 08 September 2016, 09:56:45 AM

I took part in a Warmaster Tournie in GW HQ a few years ago and came across a well respected
player who insisted that we adopt a certain house rule mid-game (this made a substantial
difference to a combat at a crucial stage).   Being naive, I just went along with it.   Its only a game
but it does still annoy me - not the time to introduce a change in the rules !
Phil

You should try playing with the Game's designer. 

One lunchtime, at the Evil Empire. (Space Hulk being the game in question.)
My marines were kicking gene-stealers' bottoms VERY, VERY hard.

Rule change...(mid throw)......Which did get incorporated in the final version
O.K......The game was in development stage....But I still felt a bit cheated when I lost. 

Cheers - Phil

Phil, in my experience it's the only way game designers win their own games

I've played a number of game designers at their own games and been amazed at how regularly they lose!

Quote from: Ithoriel on 08 September 2016, 03:37:13 PM
Phil, in my experience it's the only way game designers win their own games

I've played a number of game designers at their own games and been amazed at how regularly they lose!

In a lot of cases, they've gone through a dozen variations in the rules as they playtest; they can't always remember which rules got jettisoned at an earlier stage.

Quote from: fred. on 07 September 2016, 08:03:58 PM
This can often be the case.

When I started playing Warmaster with my current group, they had some quite strange interpretations of some of the rules, which I think came from a quick read of them once, then playing the way they thought it was, rather than actually as written. This caused a few significant changes in game play - some of which the group never really got their heads around, as they had been playing the local way so long.

I've found this can happen with almost any game - but its often better to review these after the game, rather than trying to sort out the details in the middle of a game. I wonder if I come across as far too picky with some of the rules, but it seems that I'm able to read rules and understand them (often after a quick play though of a few key parts) unlike quite a few other people.

In WMF shooting units are listed for combat as 3/1 (say).  However the shooting value is always 1.  So when the wrote historical they just stated in the rules this, and listed just the combat value.

We'd been playing Historical with the Fantasy rules.  Thus when we bought historical we didn't read the rules properly - even those of us who did, didn't because of that thing you miss one little change.  We didn't notice this one until my Romans came up against Celts with machine gun armed chariots, as they had a value of Combat of 4. 

>>Oh dear, I hope that wasn't me!

I'm sure it wasn't - but if so, all is forgiven !!   

>>The tournies taught me many things, one of the main things being not to assume
GW employees knew a damn thing about the rules they were supposed to be umpiring!

>>You should try playing with the Game's designer. 

My mate (who who was in the habit of winning every game against me), was not having
a good tournie but made up for it by breaking Rick.   To him, this was better than winning
the trophy !


You do come across some strange habits as well - one chappie with a fantastic High Elf army
had an odd way of throwing dice.   He would shake them up in his hands and then slam them
down on the table.   Its an oddity the first time it happens but starts to hack you off after a
while.   I lost focus on the game and just started thinking about the next 'slam'...   Again, I
should have said something but kept thinking "Its only a game".


>>It was interesting to see how others played and what armies they fielded. Also really nice to
meet fellow Warmaster gamers and to put faces to names I'd seen regularly on WM forums.

Totally agree.   There are great people and some amazing armies out there.   I don't know if
anyone plays the game any more but it would be great to set up a small competition and see
if people are interested.   Apologies for de-railing the thread !

Cheers,


Phil
is any scope for a new

All three all the time  

I'm a solo gamer with a short attention span, games are dipped into rather than completed in one session. 

DBA is one I hack to bits and I like DBn.  Movement PIPs drive me nuts, low dice rolls can mean the entire evening getting off the base lines if the entire armies are not moved 'en bloc'.  Recoil is another, units suffering a recoil a dozen or so times and still there.  Now I just move everything I want to move for each side in the movement phase and each element only recoils the number of figures on the base, so 2Ps gets 2 destroyed on the second.  As a result, games go faster and so far the gods of rules haven't made me suffer for it.

It suits me

It's fine so long as your opponent doesn't mind