Indie+Alternative Wargaming

[echo marten]

It used to be the Bolt Thing, a while ago when Bolts Were Cool.

I remember when they had Bioimmunity and BTS 9

They were 'okay' against bullets but disgustingly durable against anything that hit BTS.

I used to run them into my mate's Haqq and watch the viral rifles just melt off them like water off a duck's back

They just such a less cool unit now.

[next pilot]

Oh so it’s a joke rather than a known regret for the dev team

[compact leaf]

Indeeby

[compact leaf]

They what

[echo marten]

Yep! Bioimmunity + BTS 9. Though bioimmunity back then was different and just made them immune to most special ammos that targeted bts, not the current version.

So they'd treat viral as 'normal weapon vs bts'

[compact leaf]

Ahhh I see

[echo marten]

And then have BTS 9 to soak it

[compact leaf]

Still

Yeesh

[echo marten]

Being 'decent MI' meant there was still a lot that could bully them.

Their hacker was pretty good for being a merely 'okay' hacker (Still good for PanO due to 'a WIP that exists')

But other hackers found them really hard to actually hurt.

The current neoterra bolts are...they're okay but they're a lot less interesting.

Marksmanship + Warhorse + BS 13 is good but...I dunno, they don't have that 'I have a cool specific role' aspect they use to.

If that makes sense?

Then again the faction they're from doesn't exist any more so...I dunno. Wait for PanO to remember Oceania exists again. XD

My hot take is that Neoterra Capitaline Army deserved to exist more than Kestral Colonial Force or Svalarheima's Winter Force.

Auxilia were great. I miss them.

Hexas, Devas, Axuilia, Bolts were a great core for a subfaction.

...I made myself sad. Sorry for rambling.

[compact leaf]

Okay wait, what edition was this?

Also, tbh KCF is part Neoterra if you look at it sideways

But I get it

It was kinda weird to update them and just remove them too-

[echo marten]

N3, I think? When Bolts first came out. Maybe N2?

I really liked Auxilla as 'Hey, who wants a Fusilier with a Really Fun Friend' XD

[tepid steeple]

They couldve at least made the avas on reinforcement units not shit

Like you cant really do mrrf in vanilla cause moblots are ava 1 😔

[compact leaf]

Well
The only concept art of them appears to have been from 2013. Looks like in final N3 they were BTS 6

So I guess they got scaled down a bit

[echo marten]

Hmm...odd, I can find reference to BTS 9 in message boards

Maybe they got nerfed part way through the edition?

[compact leaf]

Looks that way-

[echo marten]

Oh well, I still do miss when they had Old Bioimmunity. New Bioimmunity...if I may be frank, I don't get it.

Like I get how it works mechanically

But I don't get how it links to the name/theming at this point.

I do think I know why they killed NCA, as much as I liked it.

They didn't want to steal the wind from O-12, as there was already 'Hey, a lot of these guys are just really militarized cops'

With NCA

[modern snow]

I mean with Cover they'd definitely get to an effective BTS9

[modern snow]

Let me run an all-exrah force CB

Pls

[tepid steeple]

newest bioimmunity doesn't exist anymore! although it sounds like they just brough back old bioimmunity as immunity (bts) while adding an arm counterpart

[hollow slate]

Game 2 of our digital Trench Crusade game, did not go well for the Heretic Legion player. He still has 6 units and turn 1 was extraordinarily lethal (two casualties each side, and at least one Down result) and he failed the morale roll again.

[hollow slate]

We talked about it and though he is still at 6 models next game (he lost one, and got a Chorister instead so he has the full spread of elites), next game he's going to add as many troopers as he can to make a morale test less likely

Unfortunately since I keep forcing early retreats neither of us have earned any Glory, so he can't even get the shrine to help buffer against morale tests

[sudden sundial]

I assume you're both taking the +1D to morale you get by having your Leader on the board into account?

[hollow slate]

Yep

He just has had terrible luck

And last night in particular, we were running late so we decided not to use the Shaken rule

[autumn sun]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1405364378/trench-crusade/posts/4392075 Book's gonna be late but more page count and art, so.

[hollow slate]

I'm a late adopter, but very excited.

[native portal]

A generic special operations soldier may be considered a specialist in relevant skills, using a d8 for skill in close-quarters marksmanship or negotiating book deals.

Ha

[tawny sandal]

There’s a few good zingers in there

The last sentence of the USMC 60mm mortar got a chuckle out of me

[twin mountain]

The flavor blurb is excellent, but there's nothing here about the mechanics at all

Would you be up for telling us more? 👀

[fresh hull]

Oh yeah, certainly. The nearly universal roll is 2d6 rolling high against a target nunber, starting at 7.

Gameplay is divided into 3 levels: personal, engagement, and operation.

In the personal level, players create and play as military commanders serving with some extant military or paramilitary force. The characters are defined by their background, their personal vendetta (known as 'The Razor') and weapon of choice, and their type of cybernetic augmentations. They work together managing their troops, navigating the emerging conflict and political situation, and so on. Gameplay is traditional albeit lightweight rpg.

On the Engagement level, players build their own platoons of 2-4 infantry and vehicle squads, and work together to defeat gm controlled opfor companies. Gameplay here is like a cooperative tabletop wargame

Operations are how GMs tie everything together as a combined narrative and gameplay unit, outlining specific strategic objectives and their Engagements and encounters in obstacle to the players.

Given this is a Lancer server, a quick and dirty way to describe it is 'Lancer but your mechs are an entire platoon'

And yes, there are mechs that you can use. Right at the start of gameplay

You can just pick them!

An even funner way of describing it is "what if Lancer: Battlegroup was on the ground"

[twin mountain]

Hmmm makes sense okay

[tawny sandal]

@native portal Would be interested to hear your thoughts on Down Range once you’ve had a chance to read through it fully

[forest charm]

what are these models from/for?

[tepid steeple]

Full Spectrum Dominance

[forest charm]

thanks!

[twin mountain]

https://blacksitestudio.com/en-ca/pages/whispers-of-the-deep soon

[modern snow]

soooooon

[forest charm]

anyone played or have any initial reactions to Untitled Pirate Game? Been looking into it and it seems neat, but I haven’t managed to sell my normal group on it yet.

https://scstew.itch.io/untitled-pirate-game

it reminds me very much of Mordheim albeit less clunky, which is a good sign

[modern snow]

reminds me very much of Forbidden Psalm, or at least it shares a lot of the same DNA (especially since it's based on xBorg)

[native portal]

Does it have any campaign mechanics

That was always the selling point of stuff like mordheim and frostgrave to me

[forest charm]

it does, though I haven’t looked into them much yet

[torpid garden]

Looks like it's basically the same snowball death-spiral that Mordheim has (rewards for doing well in the form of gold and XP, penalties for doing poorly in the form of permanent injury and death). So players that win will win more, and players that lose will lose more.

[native portal]

I still like em, even if they're not super balanced

The power differential in mordheim was never that wide anyway iirc

And campaigns tend towards shorter

[autumn sun]

https://www.wyrd-games.net/news/2025/5/28/waldos-weekly-a-new-starter-for-a-new-edition

[next pilot]

Huh didn’t expect them to be a starter pair

[tawdry cedar]

https://spectralidax.itch.io/iron-sleet-ttrpg

i think this counts as the way i found out about it was via a post i randomly saw , it looks neat

[forest charm]

big fan of the artstyle

very cute

[modern snow]

@twin mountain Whispers of the Deep is up for Preorder! https://blacksitestudio.com/pages/whispers-of-the-deep

[twin mountain]

!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AGsNkizMDk

[twin mountain]

coreyyyy i wanna see gameplayyy ;o;

anywheeere

[modern snow]

I'll bug them about when the gameplay video/stream goes up. they usually do one or the other

[modern snow]

Ben says they'll try to do both next week

prob on their weekly thursday streams, with a proper video to follow

[twin mountain]

excellent

[trail fulcrum]

Web warriors are so weidd

Like they just refuse to play MCP

And play this weird minigame of grabbing hold objectives scoring them and then denying opponents scoring

[trail fulcrum]

Nonsense knocking iron fist out by slamming him into a wall with gwen

Black Cat being the most annoying piece of shit in the word by stealing the objective and doing nothing else

[autumn sun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHlIa0f98c0

[sand sonnet]

As I understand it that’s part of why they were/are good competitively in it.

[compact leaf]

Got some more Obsidian Protocol in today, our friend's first game with it to be exact

RDL on RDL in a game of assassination (each player designates a mech and we get points based on how damaged they are at the end of the game, with the game ending immediately if a target is destroyed)

I won via flinging two cheap axemechs at my opponent's target and managing to get through the ridiculous armor of their shield

[deep mirage]

Is there not a Trench Crusade thread? I took some time to check but just making sure, I wanted to see if anyone had a good list for a starter to use for Heretics because i have a bunch of models made up for it but knowing what to pick is a bit tough for me without being able to like, PLAY it first.

[fallen rune]

It’s most been discussed here and a little in #strategy-club for whatever reason

That sounds mean, there was a TTS scene for it there for a little bit

[deep mirage]

I mean it sounds like it would be more tactical but i knew what you meant anyway lol.

[sudden sundial]

A general rule of thumb is objectives wins games, and more units makes scoring way easier.
Anecdotes from playing and facing Hairspray Lemurs:
One Anointed just need a decent heavy weapon to pay off, Machine Gun is top dog due to range and volume of attacks. Also, I am getting LOADS of use from my Anointed with a trench shield, great weapon, and assault shotgun. -3 to Injury is STRONG.
Don't over-equip your troopers, especially early in a campaign. If you make them into Legionnaires, improved Ranged is just a plain good upgrade.
Artillery Witch is a deterrent first as they don't have reliable means to gain +1D to attack (No height advantage for them).
Trench club is cheap and good enough for anyone when you got fifteen models on the board.
Don't be afraid to bring a musician, +1D to Dash is potent in a mobility game.
In the same vein, don't Puppet Master with your Heretic Priest as their first action. Especially if you don't have bonuses to the roll.

As for a list, this a list loosely based on what I started with sitting at 656 Ducats:
Heretic Priest with Reinforced Armor, Trench Club, Sacrificial Knife
Anointed with Machine Gun, Trench Club
Anointed with Assault Shotgun, Trench Shield, Great Sword/Axe
Legionnaire (Ranged) with Bolt-Action Rifle and Bayonet
Legionnaire (Ranged) with Grenade Launcher
Trooper with Bolt-Action Rifle and Bayonet
Trooper with Musical Instrument, Trench Club

I don't even have to see it played to know the War Wolf is powerful enough to be worth it.

[deep mirage]

Atm i'm just looking to play this as a pickup and play sort of thing not longform campaign, Is 656 ducats average for those kinda things?

[fallen rune]

Hairspray lemurs?

[sudden sundial]

Oh okay

[deep mirage]

Also yeah i really want to use a warwolf. (If it wasnt name obvious)

[sudden sundial]

If it's using the regular match you have a bunch more ducats and glory to use as you will

Most campaigns start at 700 ducats, but for one-off games the book suggests 900 ducats and 8 Glory

If you do pick my list and want to extend on it, polearms on the regular troopers make them more resilient against melee attackers. If you want to use the heavy weapon anointed in melee too give it a grenade so they can make a ranged attack on the turn, choristers are a gem in a melee focused force due to their aura of -1D to all actions.

Combat Helmets are plain good, since most explosive weapons pack shrapnel and grenades are frankly stupid cheap

[echo marten]

Gas Masks are kinda situational in contrast since most factions don't get gas weapons.

[sudden sundial]

Ye

New Antioch's Machine Armor units like Gas Masks as Gas Grenades ignore armor and setting the grenade's damage roll to -2D to injure in combination with the machine armor's perks to ignore Down results is STRONG

[distant monolith]

https://youtu.be/U1JUSW7IXJo?si=TH2crH827yK3fST-
https://youtu.be/BfK6LEdhZcY?si=dm02zyDvU0nWPV4n

hey

[tawny sandal]

Oh hey, you went with World War Nun, nice

Was wondering what pun you’d go with

[potent wyvern]

https://youtu.be/a-tuD6JsPH8?si=rLnx8ioX3W3R7Ny5

[spice hollow]

im just gonna note, kay got 285 downloads in 1 day cuz of this vid

probably more

so, thanks on Kay's behalf

[distant monolith]

yey

[spice hollow]

anyways im gonna convince kay to work on their psychopomp thingy

[distant monolith]

lmao, a guy was literally just 'let me pull out a bible to tell you how pure I am and how wrong trench crusade is'

bye

[weary cradle]

does anyone know any like, modular 3d programs for online miniature wargames that're good & also free

need it for playtesting a blackpowder fantasy urban warfare fireteam-lvl skirmish game

(and if i do find one, would anyone here be up for a quick playtest battle for said game)

[umbral prawn]

I've heard Vassal is good, but I don't think that's 3d

[weary cradle]

its topdown only from what i can tell yeag

[sudden halo]

you can do 3d in vassal

i don't think you should, as far as i know its not good

but i know it is possible

really hard to beat TTS for this purpose, though it is paid. I've seen someone make a 3d board in Foundry, but that's also paid for at least one player.

[weary cradle]

the only reason i rly need 3d is cuz the game uses over-the-shoulder los; could theoretically use vassal's top-down & then just have heights listed for each terrain

wait, how feasible could u do faux-isometric view on vassal

[tawny sandal]

Like, a 3/4 angle on the layout?

[weary cradle]

yeag

[tawny sandal]

In that case, maybe do like a wireframe type thing?

[native portal]

It's feasible but it's very ????? why

I love vassal but it's got better options

[weary cradle]

tryna find like free modular programs for playtesting a skirmish game ive cooked up, & los rules necessitate a 3d view

[native portal]

How variable are the unit heights really?

cos terrainwise it could just be labeled height 0, 1, 2 etc

so roll20 or vassal or tts could do it

[weary cradle]

i was considering just doing labels yeag

[hollow slate]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1240331874916765706/1380200803926540408/1807_INVASION_OF_EIRE.pdf?ex=684303aa&is=6841b22a&hm=3b5ec4b990668ed2f96f291d752dbde47f95b016ceb701e51cf8bb7ea83f5df8&

New Trench Crusade lore for Éire and man, Ireland just cannot catch a break, can it

Favorite part:

“As a young queen, Brigid rose to the throne in 1890, after her father was killed in the front lines by Artillery Witch Coven bombardment. By this time it seemed all hope was lost. In most maps drawn in Europa, Éire was shown as part of the Heretic domains, forever lost to the Shadow of Hell. Ignoring her advisors, Brigid married Domnall, a great general and strategist despite his low-born origin. Together they made a desperate plan to save the Kingdom.

As one of her first acts the Queen lifted the ancient ban on Fianna, the hunter-warriors of the wild - despite the irritation of her confessor due to the many pagan ways of the Fianna. With the additional troops secured, the Royal Court called the clans to send what remained of their strength to take on the Heretic main forces.

The Queen then wrote a letter to the Pope, asking for the Bishop of Rome to spare but a single warrior to aid the Irish as a symbolic token of his support. When the Supreme Pontiff granted the wish, Brigid then audaciously requested the services of the Paladin Anséis. To the astonishment of the Princes of the Church the promise was honoured, and the holy warrior was despatched to aid the beleaguered Irish. Undertaking his sacred quest in utmost secrecy, the Paladin stormed the Hellgate alone, taking only his weapons and the Banner of Staurogram to aid him in the surprise raid.”

[teal cloud]

In all possible worlds Ireland gets fucked

[echo marten]

Oh, they Mountbatten'd the heretic commander.

[compact leaf]

Huh..
Infinity has a new mission for the first time in a long while

It's got radial deployment zones..

[modern snow]

finally

[echo marten]

I'll admit, I'm a bit lukewarm on the Eire fluff. The focus on a famine and an invasion makes it feel very 'Hey what if we moved british crimes in Ireland to hell instead'

Especially with the talk of the Fianna.

As there was a Fianna in the 1800s.

...the Fenian Brotherhood were an Irish republican group against British rule.

[echo marten]

Okay so because I need to let this out or let it fester: Overall Eire fluff thoughts -

My thoughts is that it mostly reads like they did a find/replace 'England' with 'Hell'. The Fenian Brotherhood sprung out of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and it was the Acts of Union of 1800 that formally dissolved Irish Parliament as a thing, while Trench Crusade has the Fianna being a thing come out of this 1807 invasion where Ireland was conquered. Even the Hell Navy Commander's boat getting blown up feels like they taking the IRA blowing up Lord Mountbatten's (The First Sea Lord of England) boat and turning it into a 'Hell instead of British' plot.

In particular, the talk about famine and how many people died feels...really minimising a historical crime as the Great Hunger was one Actively Caused by the way English Rule controlled food.

Basicly: It's not fantastical enough to step away from historical parallels so it ends up feeling like someone writing 'Vampires did the Armenian Genocide' as a major plot point. Where it's close enough to reality to make it feel kinda crass but not so close to reality as to be handled respectfully.

[distant monolith]

Hmmmmmm yeah

It doesn' feel, great

It feels like a point should be made that English in this timeline still absolutely fucking abandoned people to their doom because their navy sucks ass

This feels too much on 'blaming everything on hell'

[tepid steeple]

Oh my goood gross wtf?????

[tepid steeple]

👀

[calm mantle]

this reads more like "not even the noble English could save them" in a more, English paternalism over Britain way to me.

[tepid steeple]

I think this is mirroring kinda contemporary fears abt stuff like the easter rising as well, except yknow by calling irish republicans fifth columnists

and textually making that accurate

[echo marten]

Minor thing - Easter rising was a century later. This was the time of the 1798 Irish rebellion. XD

[tepid steeple]

oh wild

[hollow slate]

I got the vibe that Ireland was absolutely abandoned by everyone except for the Duke of New Antioch

[velvet badge]

And the pope apparently given he was willing to hand over a paladin

[hollow slate]

After she specifically requested him; though I'm probably reading into it too much

My take is that the request was so shocking the pope went "Actually yeah, we have done you dirty"

[tawny sandal]

I played a very simple intro game of Down Range today, just two squads plus an MMG team going against each other in pretty dense-ish terrain. Didn’t interact much with the full systems, as I didn’t want to overwhelm the other person as they’re new to wargames generally (or overwhelm myself), it was mostly an occasional use of suppression, one use of a rocket launcher, and a bit of medics and dragging models.
Even that came out pretty interesting; as while it’s a quick to use system, the lethality and use of maneuvering in the kinda close quarters we set up made it really interesting.

I technically won the field since they said they were gonna call it and probably would pull back, but we both took about 45% casualties (1 KIA and 4 WIA but undetermined outcome on my side, 5 WIA on their, but we ruled that one of them definitely got captured by my guys considering how close they were to them at the end of the game)

Really interesting, would definitely want to play it again using more of the stuff in the system

For a free rulebook and about $25 in 3D printer costs, it was a lot of fun

Didn’t use any of the signaling and communications rules, nothing with UASs, indirect weapons, etc, so there’s still a lot I haven’t tried with the system yet, but I liked it pretty well so far

[compact leaf]

Woe is me
I just found out two of the people I've been to tournaments with have played on big YouTube channels XD

[tawny sandal]

Did ya get stomped?

[compact leaf]

I've only actually played against one of them, and killed their entire list with one guy :b

[tawny sandal]

Congrats I guess!

[compact leaf]

But that's my only benchmark, I think we're roughly equal in skill XD

It was a fun game!
Many big bets were had

[tawny sandal]

This sorta reminds me how I only much later realized that my formative experience playing wargames was against people who about 75% of them went and competed at adepticon at a relatively high level, somewhat skewing my perception of how good I was at the games and how they’re usually played lol

Turns out most people don’t do the whole “I’m trying out to see what is the best and most nasty list synergy possible” all the time!

I lost almost constantly but I did still have a good time

[tawny sandal]

What game was it?

[compact leaf]

Twas Infinity N5

[compact leaf]

Yeaaaah...
Especially with igyg games whoever has the more oppressive list and first turn usually just gets their win possibility way way up

[tawny sandal]

Oh, in my case it didn’t really matter lol

[compact leaf]

That's good!

[tawny sandal]

Since I was A) not able to spend a whole lot on new stuff and B) playing more vibes based than super competitive and C) not the world greatest tactician

[compact leaf]

Highly competitive people are also just a blast to play against XD

[tawny sandal]

(I wouldn’t say I am now either but I’m a little better)

But yeah even though my win/loss rate was horrific I still had fun

[compact leaf]

That's what counts

Infinity has the convenience of filtering out all the...
How do I say this...
People who are bad to play against?

[tawny sandal]

I always saw people playing infinity stuff at the store but I never ended up actually looking into it much

The most I did was looking at some of the models

[compact leaf]

I mean
I'd assume you know the gist;
It's a sci-fi skirmish game with rules built around a robust reaction system

[tawny sandal]

I actually don’t know that much about the rules

[compact leaf]

Well that's the summary haha

[tawny sandal]

But I have heard it has a lot of reaction stuff

[compact leaf]

Mhm mhm

All your guys put their activations into a pool instead of you activating each model once a turn

Is maybe the other notable thing

[tawny sandal]

Oh, can you activate a unit more than once then?

[compact leaf]

Mhm!

[tawny sandal]

Neat

[compact leaf]

Each individual activation does provoke a reaction in turn, though

[tawny sandal]

Does that mean the opposition gets to activate a unit or that they can do like a snapshot or whatever?

[compact leaf]

More or less
You can usually roll to move a couple inches, take a shot, try to defend from/via hacking, etc

And if you can't see someone, you can still sometimes react if the active model is close enough

It quickly becomes a puzzle game in a way

Lots of things have counters, those counters have counters

Every problem is one you're looking to find a solution for

And you're also trying to create as many problems as possible for your opponent

[tawny sandal]

That’s neat!

My current mild obsession is Down Range, and I really don’t need to get into another thing I may not end up playing with anyone regularly. but I have always heard people talking about Infinity being neat

And the description of it being kinda like a puzzle game is definitely intriguing

[compact leaf]

Down Range is one we haven't heard of before, would you be willing to give us a synopsis?

[sudden halo]

I wonder how much overlap we have in terms of people we've played. USA?

My local meta is pretty strong which also skewed my perception until I went to Adepticon this year. It felt like taking the training weights off

[tawny sandal]

I can do better, the rules are free

Let me go grab a link

Also, I ranted about it earlier in this channel or tabletop

https://downrangewargame.com

It’s a wargame written by a USMC captain (and former toy maker) for letting lower level officers or NCOs practice small unit tactics, which after receiving a lot of interest he was allowed to publish online

A lot of focus on emerging stuff in modern warfare like using drones, the combination of using small arms fire to “fix” enemies in position to hammer with artillery, the dangers inherent in using radio communication in a world of advancing electronic warfare tools, and overall intended to be a very smooth system to run with a lot of tactical depth and encouragement to think outside the box and use the rules as guidelines to do so

I’d warn there’s some formatting errors and some editing issues in the rules currently, but nothing that harms the overall clarity for the most part, and he seems to be looking to work on it further in response to military and civilian input

I’ve only started toying around with it, but it’s been neat so far

And the rules and model files for the lil hotdog soldier people he has created are free, which I hope will mean I might have an easier time getting people interested in it

[compact leaf]

We're in Canada, but right on the border so often have US people over (or did, until *
the thing happened)

You've maybe bumped into Helsbecter, the (probably) best USAriadna player in NA?

He's quite good, I've only played him once but apparently tieing against him is incredibly impressive

I'd love to hear about the adepticon trip though, I'd assume there's some pretty insanely varied skill levels over there haha

Our meta is.. a weird split right now
It's right next to a uni so on the off season we lose some folks.

Then the regulars are split between our competitive regulars and the casual regulars. The former sometimes travels together for tourneys, so their skill level is a fair bit higher

[tawny sandal]

Being in a college town has also gotta be a bit interesting in how that probably means you have a good bit of churn since you’d have people coming in or graduating each year I’d assume?

[compact leaf]

It all honestly depends if they're playing infinity or not
We have warmachine and Warhammers all over too, so it's pretty uncommon to get folks popping into infinity

[tawny sandal]

Yeah that makes sense

[sudden halo]

That's definitely true! Ive played in two Satellites this year, Attack on Atlanta and then Adepticon. I felt the overall level at AoA was a lot higher, every game was tough and I wound up taking ~30th with Shasvastii going 2-2-1. Several of the top US players flew in and Lobo wound up winning it.

At Adepticon there were a few really good players, but there were also a lot of more casual people that were there for the con. I took 6th with Bakunin, going 4-1. I did get pretty lucky, with 2 opponents playing Shas that I was able to read easily, and then one opponent who tragically failed 3 combat jump rolls in a row on turn 3. My only loss was really to slow play from that opponent more than anything else, he was super nice and it was like his second game of N5 but that was pretty frustrating to run into at a satellite.

[haughty bobcat]

Sort of brainstorming an idea I had. Should a sci-fi baseball game (in the style of bloodbowl) use measurement, tiles, or zones? I’m not sure which one I should go with.

[autumn sun]

It's baseball, the nerdiest sport known to man.

Use all three

[haughty bobcat]

I’m leaning more towards zones at the moment based off the normal positions (outfield, shortstop, etc) because I would like the process of setting up your defence to involve deciding where you put your best players and what areas you leave vacant.

[sand sonnet]

Have you looked at any of the baseball simulation tabletop games that are out there for inspiration?

[weary cradle]

depends on how much u want the distance between bases and the movement of the catchers to matter

[tawny sandal]

My eye is twitching as I try to not start screaming about baseball minutia

[weary cradle]

pictured: back-alley warlords playtest

[trail fulcrum]

Back alley warlords?

[weary cradle]

skirmish game ive been workin on

[trail fulcrum]

Ah

[twin mountain]

Ooooh

Make more games yes good

[trail fulcrum]

Still trying to shake the pokemon positional tacticsgame out of my head

Onto paper

Haha

[twin mountain]

Make sure to reference pp in the rules with a straight face

[potent wyvern]

Gotta track it with the pp die

[modern snow]

In Infinity N5 the save to survive a hit is called Possibility of Survival (PS) and I've become the master of asking my opponent "What's the Weapon's Piss?" with the most deadpan expression

best way to diffuse tilt lol

[twin mountain]

Hahahaha

[weary cradle]

will hopefully put out the rule-zine out in a few weeks time

[trail fulcrum]

I've already removed levels

[twin mountain]

Can skitty still fuck wailord

[trail fulcrum]

(I'm copypasting egg groups as a side mechanic)

[twin mountain]

Lol

[trail fulcrum]

It's a yes but xore thoigut is a hex game with ppkemon

Haahah

[trail fulcrum]

Semi seriously it's me getting more and more annoyed at

The pokemon rpgs

That just go, "lol game mechanics"

[twin mountain]

You should clearly make Pokemon but with fsd dice slots

[trail fulcrum]

Fsd?

I've already decided to tie evolution stages and number of pokemon to a badge adjacent level system

[twin mountain]

Full spectrum dominance haha

[trail fulcrum]

Ah

[sudden halo]

This looks pretty awesome. I should make sure my dad didn't already get it and grab it to play with him.

[trail fulcrum]

I'm at hexagon arena tacticsgame with player provided board sides like early underworlds

[sand cloak]

sips coffee

That is some high level work right there.

I would pay money for it

[trail fulcrum]

The hexagons form a approximation of a pokeball

Galaxy brain

Player provided boards exist because I want to justify limited water movement

3 movement types Fly, Walk, Swim, water board exists

Secret reveal boards

Ehhheheg

[trail fulcrum]

Trying to figure out what kind of dice to use though

[sudden sundial]

What does a die need to do?

[trail fulcrum]

Hit chance mostly

[tepid steeple]

D20 is the most ball shaped conventional dice

Or d12

[trail fulcrum]

Oooh d20 being a ball is a good call

Worry is frustration hahaha

[weary cradle]

now im reminded of the campaign miniatures ballgame idea i had

[trail fulcrum]

Oh?

[trail fulcrum]

I'm tempted to fall on the d6 pool again

[weary cradle]

just gave me a stray thought of like
instead of a direction die ala bloodbowl, 'where does the ball go' on misfires/failed dribbles is determined by just rolling a die on the map from its former possessor and wherever it lands is where the ball is

[trail fulcrum]

Haah

[weary cradle]

i kinda wanna work on it but i have a zine to finish lmao

[trail fulcrum]

But yeah my thought is d6 pools

[weary cradle]

count successes?

[trail fulcrum]

Yeah

The pile of dice gremlin

[weary cradle]

it is unfair how good dice pools just rly translate the Amount of things in a tactile way

[trail fulcrum]

Hahaha yeah

[trail fulcrum]

I'm thinking like Flamethrower is a line 5 attack for example

[weary cradle]

5 squares or 5 measurements

[twin mountain]

Magic 8 ball

[weary cradle]

thats just a ball d4

[twin mountain]

Exactly

https://www.wargamer.com/hardwar/faster-than-battletech @modern snow @maiden ermine

[trail fulcrum]

5 hexes this is a hex based tacticsgame

[weary cradle]

ah icic

[trail fulcrum]

Thinking number of dice set by attack and target number set by defences

Resistance reduces or adds success after the roll

So we have the regular/special split

Dot is just 1 die chance happening on a 4+

[autumn ingot]

Oh neat! did not know this channel was in here 🙂

[autumn ingot]

Going to drop this here. This crossed my feed a few days ago. Everything you need to play is on the website https://downrangewargame.com/

[trail fulcrum]

Pffft

[twin mountain]

Oooh this is neat

Oh dear okay so this is clearly a game that needs a gm

And it's igyg

[tawny sandal]

It is but it isn’t

It has an extremely emphasized reaction system, and while you can run it with a GM you don’t have to

It’s not meant to be a hyper balanced competitive game, it’s meant for you to work with your opponent to make and try a scenario

I wouldn’t just dismiss it out of hand because of those things

Especially since having actually played it, it runs pretty smoothly

[next pilot]

man, the horror characters pack for crisis protocol still isn't in stock

[tawny sandal]

What kind of horror characters?

[next pilot]

werewolf by night, frank, n'kantu the living mummy and dracula

[tawny sandal]

Funnily enough a miniature company I mostly know for doing very detailed ultramodern military models just made a Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green style expansion to their model line and bespoke ruleset

Frank?

The only horror Frank I can think of is from Hellraiser

Or wait, you mean Frankenstein

I forgot Crisis Protocol was marvel lol

[next pilot]

it sold out like immediatly last october and still hasn't come back into stock

[tawny sandal]

Oof

[tepid steeple]

Hate stocking issues 😭

[sand cloak]

By Sigmar's Beard...That poor woman's makeup.

[full bolt]

Oh wait that's Gecko

HAAAAAIIII @sleek trail

[sleek trail]

What?

Oh hi!

Yes i made this

[sleek trail]

Igyg is fine for certain instances! Its just boring when played straight

But its not hard bad design

(just really dull design)

Interactivity can make igyg shine

Allowing a level of planning based play that alternating activations can lose out on, collapsing into a more reactive playstyle

[twin mountain]

https://gamefound.com/en/projects/black-site-studios/we-played-god

https://youtu.be/d4GfYQJHoZw

[tawny sandal]

In the case of Down Range, where this conversation started, you’re really really supposed to make use of the reaction system to setup killzones and other kinds of bad movement options on the opposing force, it’s definitely a part of the way you’re meant to be thinking about your play

[tepid steeple]

Moon stoooone

[full bolt]

Oh I've been wondering about moonstone

A local store sells it but I've never seen it played

[tawny sandal]

What’s Moonstone?

[full bolt]

Skirmish game with like fairytale units

Humans too

Has a cool aesthetic

[twin mountain]

Moonstoone!!! @fast glade @steep fulcrum @violet sonnet

[twin mountain]

It's so so good

Rocketed to the top of my list of favorite wargames ever

And it's really not my usual aesthetic

It's just that good

[fast glade]

nice

[steep fulcrum]

Moon stones

[tepid steeple]

we had a really good time ^^

playing with my partner using club friend's models

[modern snow]

Adding to the trifecta

https://weplayedgod.com/

(not much going on yet but ancillary content will go here)

[autumn sun]

https://modiphius.net/en-us/blogs/news/what-is-hardwar

[tawny sandal]

Hardbots just feels bad to say, ngl

Just sounds off

[sand sonnet]

Anyone read the quickstart yet?

[orchid tulip]

Just downloaded the Quickstart. First two thoughts: the use of D12s as the primary dice is neat, love when games use not-D6, and 2nd thought was is 10mm double the scale of 6mm?

[tawny sandal]

Doing some googling it looks like 10mm can be somewhat inconsistent

Also apparently 6mm 1/300th is an official NATO wargaming scale, which I hadn’t known

[orchid tulip]

Hardwar uses 6mm - 1:285

[tawny sandal]

Yeah that’s the other notable 6mm scale

[orchid tulip]

But says you can use 10mm if you want but you should probably double the distances and increase the size of the battlefield

[tawny sandal]

(Also from the look of it they’re pretty indistinguishable)

[orchid tulip]

~5% difference at this scale is not big

[tawny sandal]

Also to answer your question it looks like 10mm at one point was often 1/200, but has drifted pretty considerably depending on who you go to these days. Seems to be pretty inconsistent

[native portal]

10mm is a cute scale, but 6mm I feel has more stuff available

I really love 3mm but I have no idea how people paint it

https://picoarmor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Painting-3mm-Miniatures.jpg

l'il guys

https://picoarmor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/UK-652-BAOR-Infantry-I.jpg

[tawny sandal]

6mm seems like the most reasonable level of being small but still legible at a tabletop level without placards

But also yes, hehe small

[native portal]

3mm is great for really selling engagement ranges but yeah, you start just physically losing models lmao

oh it's also good for ancients if you wanna sell 'this is a lot of dudes'

[tawny sandal]

Yeah there’s some benefits

[native portal]

http://theminiaturespage.com/news/pics/2015/feb/1172612855e.jpg

3mm marian romans

I play in 6mm because I like actually being able to identify units

[tawny sandal]

Also, I mentioned earlier but I was amused but unsurprised to learn that there is a NATO standard wargame scale (6mm 1/300)

Like, I’d never thought about what scale they would standardize on but it makes sense that they’d pick something

[tawny sandal]

But yeah once you get into the pico scales it gets hard to make out what kind of guys you’re looking at without attaching little labels

[native portal]

I still have a whole gallic 6mm army to paint, it's like 8 or 9 years old now

I did the romans, realized how much more the gauls were gonna suck, and just petered out

note for people who don't know

I fucking HATE painting

it is the least fun part of the wargaming process for me

[tawny sandal]

I go back and forth on it personally, sometimes I really enjoy getting in the flow of it, other times it’s a real drag to get going

It’s why I tend to do it in fits and spurts

Also I just have a hard time having space to do it because cat

[native portal]

yeah I've got kids running around now

[tawny sandal]

Also also I want my stuff to look good, so I tend to really focus on stuff and work very slowly, which combined with me not doing it that often means I have not a lot of stuff done

Kinda why I think getting into Down Range and the more representative hotdog-man miniatures the designer also published might be good for me, since it’d get me to just do some more representative painting since there isn’t much detail

And even the more detailed vehicles tend to be just solid colors or maybe some vague splashes to have some camo these days anyways irl

[native portal]

Shoutout to me trying to finish the backlog of 15mm WW2 and failing

they're pretty good, but there's just so fucking many of them

[tawny sandal]

Yeah I definitely get you

[weary cradle]

does anyone know any wargames where the terrain layout guidelines arent just ambiguous/rely on eyeballing ratios

[orchid tulip]

You mean like Necromunda 2018(17?)'s tiles?

[weary cradle]

not familiar

[orchid tulip]

Kinda pre-determined amount of tiles for game size and scenario. Only player input is where the tile gets placed and where the doors and barricades go

[weary cradle]

ahh ic, yea no i more mean like
guidelines on placing the terrain

how much should there be, expected terrain sizes, etc

stuff closer to 'fill a quarter of the board with terrain', its just that i find such rules hard to eyeball

[twin mountain]

For sure, drop fleet has extremely precise terrain rules

Also godtear my favorite has no terrain so it wins by default

Aristeia always has a fixed board too

[weary cradle]

dropfleet commander?

[twin mountain]

We have a role and everything, strategy club was obsessed with it for a while

https://youtu.be/yAOplKSJTXg

[weary cradle]

ic ic

ohh the scenario generator in the back

[sand sonnet]

I believe the current Steamroller packet for Warmachine lists a specific number of terrain feaures to place and has guidelines for roughly where they should go.

[trail fulcrum]

40k technically has gone past vibes based layouts with specific ones

[sudden halo]

Kill Team has hyper specific terrain layouts.

[compact leaf]

Obsidian protocol is like this as well

Though it's come out over here only recently, so you're waiting till July for terrain

Speaking of though!
The English rulebook is finally all done!
https://www.obsidianprotocol.com/?page_id=16938

[weary cradle]

neat
im lookin for rules than terrain pieces anyhow

[compact leaf]

How the terrain works is via scenarios
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YSYMzqgf1cqth5fd2DNdz6R9vcGRY__M

[potent wyvern]

Maleghast has set terrain rules for its scenarios as well

[twin mountain]

I've never played maleghast

what's it like? do people recommend it to me?

[weary cradle]

ime u can have a v good time w/ maleghast but u can v much feel tom working thru icon design frustrations in how it works, down to the near-hardcoded 'X faction fucks up Y faction v well' that mirrors triangle interactions in icon

that said i did love having a black mass whose whole schtick was choking the shit out of the board w/ shitty lil birds

(as a sidenote, 'u' was being used in a general way)

[supple shale]

Maleghast is easy to get into and imho a real solid take on « Chess for Freaks »

You love to see a skirmish game designed from the ground up for vtt

[weary cradle]

its a v odd creature cuz it takes more from grid-based tactics rpgs than typical skirmish games imo

tho ofc unsurprising

[twin mountain]

I do really enjoy godtear

wish it had less rolling

[fallen rune]

Say the line voice Kill Team!

[weary cradle]

man now i rly wanna see what wargame + no dice no masters tokenomics would look like

[weary cradle]

i think i remember killteam having numbers but not guidelines

[fallen rune]

Numbers?

[weary cradle]

curious what u mean exactly tho

how many pieces to place down, but its also been Awhile lol

[fallen rune]

Ah yeah it used to

It’s just got fixed layouts now

[weary cradle]

ahh ic

i already found something for my purposes, but i was more thinkin in terms of this than fixed layouts

(from marvel crisis protocol)

[twin mountain]

there was a skirmish game that arrived on crowdfunding recently

https://gamefound.com/en/projects/treasurekeepergames/regulus-high-fantasy-arena-sports

no dice in this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJemBEhupzo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4JjNsnbHw4

thinking about it, I think uh... what's that moba ish game

@queen epoch board game moba, 3v3, each player gets 3 coloured cores per turn

what's it called again

super fantasy brawl?

I think super fantasy brawl is also diceless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO1HTkwzEAw

[weary cradle]

theres apparently a couple card-based moba minis games

[potent wyvern]

I would not say thats the case at all

At least in its current version

Alot of the “x faction fucks up y” comes more from balance issues and general playstyle archetypes (grinders versus deadsouls is basically aggro vs control so you know how that usually goes) then like deliberately designed counters

[weary cradle]

well the general playstyle archetypes is what i meant but im more talking abt how hard they counter each other rather than the deliberateness

[potent wyvern]

Yeah thats fair

I think current grinders vs ds is a bit more even while still being in grinders favor

Steeple is fucked to

[weary cradle]

i remember being in a game w/ gargamox + grinders vs iirc two carcass teams & got waylaid

[potent wyvern]

Steeple got a whole lot of issue

[weary cradle]

steeple is so fucked but its so funny too

i just kept popping up birds everywhere

[potent wyvern]

Its pretty funny

[weary cradle]

i ran an all-flock mass once

it rly should not have endless

[potent wyvern]

I think endless is overall fine? It could be reverted back to its previous version where it was only on odd rounds

The real issue for flock spam was call flock

[weary cradle]

oh yea call flock was also fucked

[potent wyvern]

You kill one of them, and then the necro gets to immediately summon 3 more of them

Thats been reigned in some

But steeple core issue is that their feast or famine nature creates some wild matchups

Like grinders vs steeple is like a 9/1 matchup

Its pretty bad

[weary cradle]

is that slanted to the grinders or steelpe

[potent wyvern]

Grinders

Grinders has so much immediate automatic aoe dmg

Steeple has no response to that

They just die

[potent wyvern]

Anyway. Id think you would have a good time with it winged

It appeals to those chess nerds and people who have spent way too much time in xcom 2

[twin mountain]

appreciate the analysis, thanks

yeah I'm for sure a chess nerd

[potent wyvern]

It has, what i like to say, the JUICE

and its only getting better over time

[compact leaf]

Maleghast is lovely, I wanna try to get together a physical acrylic set

[potent wyvern]

Oh hell yeag

[compact leaf]

But it's kinda expensive to do

So I need to find other local folks who'd want to try it out first, probably -

[potent wyvern]

Tom is working on more scenarios, mercenary units, and campaign rules

[twin mountain]

june 2025 moonstone update!

new faerie for @stray breach @violet sonnet

buncha new faeries

[sand cloak]

So, this popped up in the Flying Circus discord.

https://www.brickskrieg.store

Yes, lego WW2 miniature game

Sadly they only have British and Germans.

Oh, and then there's Micro Brick Battle

Which is just armor on armor

[sudden sundial]

Friend held showcase games at a local thing

The trenches were crusaded

[potent wyvern]

https://malev-da-shinobi.itch.io/convictcombat

[twin mountain]

https://youtu.be/y-k9EOmKPvA

[modern snow]

AY YO MALEV SPOTTED

Malev's doing some really cool stuff, he's kinda made the Microgame his niche

I wish he'd expand more on his head-to-head variant of Demon Ship

[potent wyvern]

Yeah malev does cool shit

His npo rules for kill team are pretty interesting

[compact leaf]

We neglected to share this here earlier-
https://youtu.be/l-XiMpNhcgI?si=Uq2DEHhVH1kSI1Vt

Aristeia is coming back rebranded as Hexadome legends

[echo marten]

Hopefully it will do well. The concept is fun.

[stable pelican]

genuine question

is it ironic in a fucked up way if i (jewish transwoman) played bolt action as germans?

cause im thinking about trying bolt action yet unsure which faction to go for

either soviets or japan

but i do want to try every faction to see what i like

[echo marten]

I mean, I'm not either of those groups so I can't say but I don't think there's any moral judgement for playing the germans in a WW2 game unless a person is really weird about it. Bolt Action is a bit Wehraboo but not some morally transgressive game. XD

[stable pelican]

im asking it in a genuine joke question because im thinking about trying it out as a wargame than a historical interest

i like tabletop games and i must play them all /j

but in a nutshell i just think it would be funny in a fucked up ironic way rather than a serious question about if i should play it or not

theres also konflict 47 which caught my eye too

i love mechs

but i hate 40k tau

[trail fulcrum]

😦

But they're fineeee

[stable pelican]

they dont have cool melee mechs

all they do is shoot

[trail fulcrum]

Look we'll get one eventually

shakes fist at GW

[trail fulcrum]

Also we had one

Commander Fisto

[sudden sundial]

And Farsight, but I don't like named characters and refused to count him

[velvet badge]

Still leagues better than flames of war. I've got a buddy who used to be really into that game and has a section of his collection he does not display on his shelves for good reason

[echo marten]

Flames of War is real Wehraboo.

[velvet badge]

They did dice for every American and German military division. Even the militarized wing of the cringe political party. My friend has the full collection of American and German stuff because he bought a huge second hand lot. He appropriately calls the cringe division dice "the most fucked up thing he owns"

[native portal]

I think it's improved in the last edition

they're no longer needlessly Fearless Veteran 90% of the time

but all the major WW2 games just kinda play on stereotypes and pop history (and the indie ones play on pointless technical minutiae)

I suppose the more accurate you make it the weirder it gets, when the americans are rolling for how many of their troops are shitting themselves and the germans are rolling for how many panthers in your list broke down

and how many tigers are taking a nap

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DFhgdtoW0AEn4HN.jpg

💤

[velvet badge]

Also the meth withdrawal table

[echo marten]

I'll admit I've not checked out the latest edition but I remember in previous ones it was very...

'Here we have the Fearless Veteran Germans with Superior Vehicles that never shit out their entire transmission Vs the Asiatic Horde, who have special rules representing how they're all three stooging their way into battle and thus need twice the numbers of troops to fight Superior German Forces'

glowers at Hens and Chicks

[native portal]

To be fair only to hen and chicks, soviet tankers were notoriously bad IRL

[velvet badge]

Sprinkle in a hint of American exceptionalism and yeah that's about Right

[native portal]

but yes, V3 flames was just 100% that all the fucking time

[autumn sun]

And the double water usage for pasta with the Italians :v

[native portal]

Bolt Action has the dumb 'omg scary tigers' and 'flammable shermans' rules

both of which are just Not True

[echo marten]

...in retrospect, Flames of War has likely influenced my own game design where I spotted the pop history version of some groups and went 'no, I will not do that as their Faction Mechanics'. XD

[velvet badge]

Yeah I keep seeing the local bolt action community pop up but I have no interest in that game. Especially with the suspicious amount of German and Japanese players

[native portal]

I don't judge people for playing 'em but there's always the awkward dance

'are you....normal? about this?

[echo marten]

'Military Nut or Fascist' is always a fun game to play.

[native portal]

To be clear: 100% not both sides-ing the fucking nazis

but for example, one of my armies is the french goumiers

who aside from being interesting, have a pretty nasty history of war crimes

North african free french light infantry

who kinda literally fought like old mercenaries doing the whole plunder and SA shit

with france's knowing nod

lots of fucked up shit in WW2, sometimes from unexpected angles

not that I'm gonna conflate like, one unit of canadians with The Nazi Apparatus

[tawny sandal]

Cpt. Royer (designer of Down Range) has posted more model files up for download. Amusingly, one of them that he put up is a specifically Ukrainian Leopard that is the same as the normal one except that it is absolutely covered with ERA bricks on every possible surface

On the one hand that is a notable feature on Ukrainian armored vehicles, however it really feels like he went overboard as a joke

[autumn ingot]

That is honestly funny.

[compact leaf]

Hmm
Did a bit of warcrow, it's actually a pretty neat game

Haven't played with the updated rules yet though.. we'll see how that goes

[modern snow]

I'm pretty stoked for the new Scions vs Feudom battle box

[twin mountain]

it does look cool yeah. my favorite "I wanna play warcraft" tabletop game I think

[tepid steeple]

Im excited for feudom yeeee

Our infinity warcor is running an event in September but Im slightly doubtful feudom will be playable by then

At 250 points

[compact leaf]

Likely not, we assume the beyond box is what's going to be out by then

Usually the next two after it bump it up to ~250

Feudom and Dweghom(?) have been the two we've been looking forward to this whole time

I'm just patiently awaiting that big Griffin unit I know they have somewhere-

Of all things though, Hegemony might be the first to get a giant robot

[tepid steeple]

I did think if I could find someone to lend me their feudom and combine that miiiight do it

Just a bunch of duplicates

[compact leaf]

Mmm, true

[tepid steeple]

But yeah excited for pretty wizards and knights and stuff

Bill hook lady with the pigtails is soooo cute

And the griffon is gonna be great

[orchid tulip]

When you said bill hook I for some reason thought you meant this lady, but she doesn't have pigtails so I got confused

[tepid steeple]

Haha no yeah its the polearm

[orchid tulip]

The girl with the yellow halo

[modern snow]

I really wish CB encouraged a "Battle Box Scale" format

so you could just play what's in the box without hassle

[modern snow]

favorite sculpt of the bunch

[maiden abyss]

Feudom?

[tepid steeple]

Just realised I got so distracted talking about warcrow I forgot to mention I did a infinity tournament today! Ended up relatively small. Came 4th out of 13, went 2-1 :3

Really need to work on playing fast enough to actually finish games, hit me really hard in the game I lost

[sudden halo]

Congrats!

Playing fast is tough, but definitely rewarding. I win a ton more games that completely finish than ones where I run out of time.

[tepid steeple]

One thing that was fun was I gained an appreciation for d-charges in cc. Nahab went into a knight of holy sepulchre and then I was like oh wait shit viral vs bts 9 is pretty rough. Took all my charges but they worked much better even with -6

[sand sonnet]

Would you like advice for how to learn to play faster?

[tepid steeple]

Sure :)

[sand sonnet]

So I played Warmachine competitively, which was mostly played on a chess clock where if your chess clock goes off you lose.

There was another much reviled clock format called Timed Turns however which was played with a little kitchen timer.

You had ten minutes per turn (army game and all) and one five minute extension once a game. If your timer went off your turn was over even mid action.

To get good at chess clock play I played a ton of timed turns. It forces you to prioritize and act quickly.

For Infinity you might just be fine playing more chess clock games. But you could really push yourself with like a three minute turn clock.

[sudden halo]

I don't think a 3 minute turn would even be possible in infinity

My biggest tip is go in with a plan. Figure out what your lists answers to problems are and what your pieces that score points are. Take your time a little during deployment and before your first activation to look over your opponents stuff and decide where you need answers and where to attack.

Then tally up the rough number of order you'll need for "chores". I.e. "in group 1 I'll need roughly 2 orders to pull back my attackers and 1 to deploy a turret to be ready for my reacitve turn. In group 2 I should save 2 orders to go push the button if possible, but if not I should use those to shoot pitchers/deploy mines". Some of that can be done during list building but it's worth reexamining once everything's on the board.

Now you don't have to spend a lot of time thinking after the fact, you can just cruise through your activations, and only have to stop and think when things get way off the rails.

[tepid steeple]

Thanks for the advice 😋

I do think practice with a time pressure is a lot for sure. Get more comfortable in that environment more often than every couple months

Practice with list is huge too

And yeah like, a well made list with clear tools is also great for infinity. Identifying what the first obstacle is and the most efficient tool to deal with it

[sand sonnet]

I was just tossing a number out there, but divide your round timer by the number of turns you and your opponent take and that's the amount of time you should plan for.

[tawny sandal]

Yeah you tend to get faster once you have a good few games under your belt, and especially games where you’re using the same list

Just in a general wargaming sense

[sand sonnet]

Play more games with models you know and you'll play quick is true everywhere yeah.

[tawny sandal]

It also can help to just take time during your opponent’s setup and then during their turn/activations to consider your moves and not just space out

So that way you aren’t totally going “okay what do I do now” once it gets back to you

[sand sonnet]

I feel like that's less a problem with Infinity since you're watching for AROs.

But solid advice regardless to pay attention to your opponent and the game you are playing.

[tawny sandal]

Obviously when their turn is still ongoing they can do something to totally break your plan and then you need to scramble, but as the saying goes “No plan survives contact with the enemy”

[tepid steeple]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b887PMx3bpA

[modern snow]

man these look so COOOOOL

[full bolt]

Finally the faction I like the most is getting models

Although damn I love billhooks and those humans got billhooks and that is tempting

[orchid tulip]

Gief us the redcaps, Corvus!

[compact leaf]

Boop

It appears the Feudom are slightly French

Just a wee bit

Limited edition guy is Feudom(?)

[full bolt]

Yaldaboth rocks but like never had models

[compact leaf]

Right now all our locals bought into them with warcrow adventures, yeah-

[full bolt]

There ain't even a locals that has war crow that I know of here

[compact leaf]

Guh

[full bolt]

Maybe the folks that have some Infinity might start carrying it

[tepid steeple]

The guisarmers are so cool

Unit commander is amazing

Morgane is really cool too

[compact leaf]

That's what's happening near me

Also helps that the owner of the shop has actually been really loving to play warcrow himself

[orchid tulip]

The part of Scions that I want, the redcaps, are only in the Adventure expansions... which my LGS doesn't have

[compact leaf]

Aw :(

[orchid tulip]

Don't have the money for them either so not missing much atm

[weary cradle]

flippin thru striker again to help exorcise the game design demons
its a football/soccer miniatures game & its fascinating by how like, blunt its attempts to simulate football tactics r

[twin mountain]

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/subnautica-2-publisher-says-the-studios-previous-game-was-a-failure-a-strategy-game-thats-nothing-like-subnautica-and-peaked-at-under-1-000-steam-players/ this is really interesting because I remember bouncing off moonbreaker immediately and totally when I learned it was igyg

Like the actual game just wasn't there, incredible aesthetics be damned

[sudden halo]

Agreed. There were some kind of interesting ideas but it just played like Hearthstone with a movement component and that was never going to do it for me.

[sand sonnet]

It took the tabletop aesthetics of minis games but sure didn't learn any mechanical lessons from them.

[autumn sun]

You can't even accidentally tip a model over and have a part snap off, smh

[native portal]

Aren't they just publishing this because they're incredibly guilty of forcing out the old leadership and delaying the game to fuck the team out of pay?

[autumn sun]

I don't think Games Radar is responsible for that :v

[twin mountain]

the midjourney christmas movie thing was a huge twist

we were talking about it in vgd and it's pretty damning

[native portal]

The what

[twin mountain]

yeah it was basically hearthstone warhammer

yeah sorry uh. let me find it for you

[potent wyvern]

The what now

[twin mountain]

@native portal start here

and keep reading

@fallen rune and I lay it all out

[fallen rune]

Oh yeah this was crazy

[native portal]

Holy fuck ahahahaa

AI brain rot is a disease

God that's amazing

[sudden halo]

Lmao wow that's a lot

[sudden halo]

Really is an epidemic

[native portal]

I know I shouldn't but I love this like idk, intensely targeted white tech dude disease

[twin mountain]

you're so right

[twin mountain]

@maiden ermine @austere isle

[native portal]

'Quit to start a podcast and an AI movie thing'

[twin mountain]

that's kinda what it is

we end up psychoanalyzing him a bit at the end

and our theory is like. there's something about AI that triggers people who Want To Be Writers

but

y'know

don't want to write

[native portal]

With art too, 100%

'I don't want to do hard work but I do feel inherently deserving of a successful career in the arts'

[sudden halo]

"I just have such good ideas!"

I think the other key factor is the person is usually able to create in some medium or other. They've done it once in their realm

So they feel like they get a pass on learning another discipline/medium and can get the AI to do stuff for them instead of talking to people who are good at the things that they are not.

[twin mountain]

https://youtu.be/Xj0-98JH80Q

[tepid steeple]

My “never called anyone a slur publicly” t-shirt is raising a lot of questions-

[twin mountain]

The comments on this video are so

Everyone calling out malice

[fallen rune]

I never looked at the TTS community for bighammer but I didn’t love the vibe for KT TTS so maybe good riddance?

[twin mountain]

Absolutely good riddance yeah

The admin didn't think women should be allowed to vote

[fallen rune]

Oh yep that’s pretty rancid

[twin mountain]

Even the YouTube comments have people defending him for that

It's That community

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Xj0-98JH80Q&lc=UgyF-zqLhw1Y6NOJT794AaABAg&si=ymhXgFinNdJOyjxi comment link

[fallen rune]

Finally saw the video this is definitely good this one got taken down

The TTS community seemed to be one of the bigger hitler particle emitters in the community

[teal cloud]

Unfortunately, for every few people playing TTS because they have no one to play with nearby or lack the money for real game pieces, there is someone forced online because they were too much of a chud for local play.

[stable pelican]

ok

story time

i was in that server openly trans and won a raffle from the same admin and bought myself a chaos knight

its funny

[twin mountain]

That is very funny

[twin mountain]

This is insightful

[next pilot]

How was the server, haven’t heard much of it till now

[twin mountain]

server owner didn't think women should be allowed to vote

[next pilot]

oh I saw that part, I meant more in the day to day

how his influence affected things

[stable pelican]

i was openly trans but pretended to be right wing :/

like a 4chan user tgirl femcel

thats all about it

[next pilot]

That sucks

[autumn sun]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFhoO-Xy_PU

[sand cloak]

Might order these next time as an infantry proxy for BT

https://www.ghqmodels.com/collections/united-kingdom-modern-1-285-6mm-scale/products/modern-uk-individual-infantrymen

_>

The Ferret calls for me

https://www.ghqmodels.com/collections/united-kingdom-modern-1-285-6mm-scale/products/ferret-mk-ii

Smol brad

https://www.ghqmodels.com/products/m2a3-bradley?_pos=1&_sid=994d9b782&_ss=r

[next pilot]

Wait is Leviticus no longer around?

[autumn sun]

Nope

Lore-wise, dunno why.

[next pilot]

Have they shown off his new box yet?

[autumn sun]

Rusty Alyce is replacing Levi as the master for the amalgamation keyword so he's not getting a new box. She will, eventually.

[echo marten]

All that 'horsemen' nonsense iirc

[autumn sun]

Yeah. We won't know the exact details until 4e books drop.

Assuming they go into much detail, anyway. They might not!

There's still some masters who haven't had a POV story, like Anya.

[sand cloak]

So, a question to the Wargamers in the UK.

Anybody ever bought models from Brigade Models?

Got told about them as a potential proxy for BT.

[tawny sandal]

I have printed the fourth and final Bradley of my Bradley platoon, now I just need to print up the dudes to go in em

However I’m unsure if I should paint them in the current “standard” desert tan or if I should do them in a more woodland color

[next pilot]

When did they reveal that?

[sudden halo]

I have. Not any of their 6mm stuff but a lot of their spaceships. They make pretty good stuff but sometimes a lot of cleanup needed, especially if what you're getting has resin bits. Their metal is cleaner.

I'm in the US, rather than the UK so I couldn't say what shipping is like domestically but the international was reasonably priced, though it took a bit to arrive as expected.

[autumn sun]

A few months back. One of the news articles I think.

They put out a list of what units are being removed, and what they can count-as so people can still use their models. Levi's on that list.

[sand cloak]

Alrighty then. Thank you!

[sudden halo]

I will say the GHQ 6mms are the gold standard. They're really nice infantry models.

[compact leaf]

We have tried out Warcrow
It's got a real neat action economy

And you can totally activate one guy over and over and over but they get stressed out and that ends badly

A lot of risk and reward in play there, but you can occasionally Rambo as well

[echo marten]

Oh? I know Riposte does a thing where fatigue increases the cost for activation so activating the same guy over and over gets increasingly expensive.

[compact leaf]

My main takeaway is that it's hard to just 1-turn table a single unit unless it's a single model infantry or something

[compact leaf]

It's a bit similar, yeah.
It works with the morale mechanics in Warcrow. Every unit has a max stress they can have before they have to make a morale check (and you can never voluntarily go over the max)

So hero units tend to have a lot of morale, basic infantry though.. do not (there are ways to buff it)

[echo marten]

...actually that reminds me a little of how the Games Workshop lord of the rings game worked.

Where units could have Might or Fate (iirc) dice

And how a hero was defined more for might/fate letting them do cool things than about their stats being sky high.

[compact leaf]

Curious..

Warcrow units are more often defined by the text on their cards than the numbers

And occasionally their dice, if particularly outstanding or relevant to their purpose (see: spellcasters need to make rolls with their morale stat to cast spells)

[echo marten]

The game basicly used fate for 'durability things' and might for 'do active things'. Which mattered a lot for character.

The good guy hero with the highest might in the game was Boramir.

Who had, iirc, 5 might and Zero Fate

He can have like 5 full turns worth of actions...and he's gunna die at some point during them. XD

While the Hobbits in contrast had lots of fate but limited might

Making them disgustingly hard to kill as they keep slipping away

But they won't go fight monsters

[tepid steeple]

warcrow is so fun

i really like the mission defined round length stuff

and the stress economy is so interactive

[twin mountain]

How complete is the TTS mod?

I'd love to play it more

[compact leaf]

Speaking of warcrow..

We got giant robots now friends

[tawny sandal]

That person on stage seems so happy

[orchid tulip]

Warcrow: the new Warmachine?

[sudden halo]

I was leaning towards hegemony but they sealt the deal here

[compact leaf]

I'll shove all the other images I've found in here in a moment..
The warcrow minis are all incredibly awesome

There you go, CB enjoyers

I give you: stubby fliers

and a bunch of awesome warcrow stuff

[orchid tulip]

Do we know something about the Nomad Switchers Gruppa?

[tepid steeple]

HAQQISLAM BEST FLYER YESSSS

If our second flier is this cool its stonks AF

The warcrow stuff is amazing too. Really love the genevieve character and gothic lolita evil elf? 😍

Based on the concept art it seems the switchers are like

Inflatable muscle ladies

Cause theyre a skinny ver then they transformation wip

Ohhh and then the two models are the pre and post transform

[compact leaf]

They're in the game, they transform between an enhanced physical state and a "regular" human

Like
The profile is in the army builder, same for Triggermen

Not sure if the triggermen are going to stay the same, though?

[compact leaf]

Uh anyways

The profile, for those curious

[orchid tulip]

So they only showed some new sculpts?

[compact leaf]

Ye

At least for infinity

All those profiles are already there for your viewing pleasure :)

[orchid tulip]

Is the point of Switchers to stun the opponent and then transmutate and go in for a stab?

[tepid steeple]

I think for the most part the assessment of switchers is that the point is their gimmick is not worth dealing with :/

[orchid tulip]

So what you are saying is that the new sculpts will be excellent proxies for something else?

[tepid steeple]

They would be for sure

I think essentially the idea with switchers is like. In active turn if they can take a few orders getting to a place they get a very points efficient profile to do some stuff with

[compact leaf]

Switchers do have that one thunderbolt profile I think it's reasonably competitive

[tepid steeple]

But in reactive, or in very short bursts, they’re more unreliable

[orchid tulip]

Thunderbolt with +1b

[compact leaf]

They're not an apex piece but they're also order hungry

[tepid steeple]

But yeah I havent actually heard from anyone who’s gone to the trouble of fielding them so

[compact leaf]

They're really solid backup shooters, basically

[compact leaf]

You will now that models are coming :b

[tepid steeple]

Hehe yeah maybe

One of my locals has been painting up the tunguska

the triggermen looks pretty nice though. regenerating 2wound big shooty piece

and neat spin on this whole s3 hq troop for everyone thing

wonder if/when haqq will get one

The zeybek is so cooool oml

I think its kinda funny how theyre getting all this qk units lined up

Like if an action pack/next battle box is eventually in the cards

Scarface/Iguana and now zeybek

[echo marten]

Anything shown off for Aleph?

[compact leaf]

Nar, none

[modern snow]

If my eyes do not deceive me that's Hoopoe, the creator of Warcrow!

I met her at Adepticon when Warcrow launched and she was absolutely a ball of joyful energy IRL

[twin mountain]

that's so cool!

I think warcrow looks awesome but also like. hrnghrngh it still feels very... in progress

I tried to get the latest rules. you kinda can't.

the website has a may 1.0 rulebook

it also has a 1.5.1 patch pdf that says it updates... the august rulebook?

that doesn't exist?

and it has spanish bits in it

they didn't translate it all

[modern snow]

It's probably coming with the new 2p starter that launches in august

so they may have jumped the gun with an early upload

why have we not discussed the bunnygirl

instant favorite from the seminar

prob going into Ikari, Druze, and JSA

[compact leaf]

It is!

[modern snow]

Hoopoe is great

[compact leaf]

It hasn't appeared on any of our feeds ;-;
We don't know where it's coming from

[compact leaf]

This is one of our big gripes with the game, they did a big 1.5 FAQ and are yet to bake it back into the full rulebook with a proper update. But that's extremely recent so we're hoping they'll be on it soon!
They've been pretty good about that stuff so far.

[modern snow]

My warcor did a big drop if the infinity stuff, want me to gather it all here so you can post it elsewhere?

[compact leaf]

That'd be appreciated 💜

[modern snow]

https://tenor.com/view/i-got-you-homie-gif-22577019

(gimme a sec)

[compact leaf]

Ours all sorta.. died away in our local scene (see: family life is hard to maintain a hobby alongside, turns out)

[modern snow]

^this is what I have

[compact leaf]

Oo, cool

Thank you!

[compact leaf]

It's basically an early access game until all the factions have their first wave of stuff, I think.

But man it's already very compelling

[tepid steeple]

they're really churning these tags out damn

also classic cb making a new sectorial after cutting tons to get everyone down to 3

[echo marten]

Poor ALEPH. Somehow one of the most important factions in the setting, gets so little support ;-;

[compact leaf]

It's weird, yeah...
Dunno what the Infinity team is up to, probably taking a break once we get enough stuff to play 250 point warcrow, we're too excited for it XD

And get our E:OP stuff together...

Given that there's an actual local scene where I am

[tepid steeple]

I think aleph is likely to get a new sectorial down the line but not sure what timeline that's gonna be

And also hasn't stopped qk getting stuff haha

I'm getting moonstone for my birthday :3 and v excited for warcrow too

Though I am still very much into infinity haha

I wonder if evil steel phalanx will have ko dali and such

[tawny sandal]

Just for some input since I can’t make up my mind: Do y’all think I should print up the infantry dismounts of my Bradley platoon as having M4s or M7s? I’m split because of the idea of “future proofing” the guys to be equipped with what the US Army is still insisting will be the standard issue going forward, or go with stuff that is historically relevant and also the obvious fallback if the M7 continues to have issues. Also, in the models I’m using, there currently isn’t a standalone US Army grenade launcher model or an M7 equipped with one

Sorry if this is a silly question, I just can’t make up my mind and care more about historical/future relevance than just tabletop stats in this regard

[tepid steeple]

Both maybeee

[tawny sandal]

That’s more time and money thoooooough

[tepid steeple]

I think the m7 actually

[tawny sandal]

(I don’t have my own printer, I’m using the one at the local library)

[tepid steeple]

As I get the impression you have a preference for current/future and the worry is mainly that the m7 ends up outdated? As opposed to wanting to represent a specific (past) time period

[tawny sandal]

Well, I’m split on that too

[tepid steeple]

So from a current/near future perspective I think the m7 is cool

Haha fair

[tawny sandal]

Also: Daaaaa Brads

[tepid steeple]

Nice!

[tawny sandal]

And dude

His gun came out kinda mangled in the print, but I was able to just cut it off

While I am interested in more current stuff, and the ruleset I intend to use (Down Range) is generally focused on more modern stuff, it’d also work fine for stuff going back to like the late Cold War

[twin mountain]

if anyone here who's familiar with warcrow could take a look at the tts mod and see if it's like, playable? with 1.5.1 rules? I'd love that

cause I just don't know right now

[tawny sandal]

And so M4’s give a little more flexibility to a degree

[compact leaf]

I haven't tried the new rules yet, but everyone I know who has said it's vastly improved the smoothness of the game so..
It's definitely functional!

I'd be happy to run a teach once I get the hang of things myself-

[twin mountain]

To be clear I mean - is everything in the TTS mod kosher

Did they update anything that is now out of date in the mod

[compact leaf]

No changes to unit profiles or tokens or anything have been made to the game itself, so the TTS mod should be still complete in that regard..

We'll have to go check when we get on our computer again though

[supple shale]

Inshallah the XM7 will be cancelled tomorrow; manifesting this by recommending you go with M4s instead

[orchid tulip]

I like how the concept for the Haqq vehicle is a helicopter, but the sculpt goes Dune instead and becomes a thopter

[tepid steeple]

I guess the question is more if the tts was ever complete

[twin mountain]

Okay knowing the profiles haven't changed is good

So anything in there is legal

https://downloads.corvusbelli.com/warcrow/wargame/rules/warcrow-core-rules-en-v1.0.pdf ...

The pdf starts on page 299

[sudden halo]

In the physical book all the lore is in the front section and the rules are at the back.

A little lazy not doing the little bit of layout for the rules PDF.

Looks like the army builder app is coming soon? Which hopefully means the rules wiki is coming soon after. Infinity is so much easier to learn because of the rules wiki.

[compact leaf]

Mhm mhm

And the links within the army builder app to all the relevant rules

[twin mountain]

gotcha

I would love a single unified rulebook for 1.5.1

cross referencing stuff sucked

[compact leaf]

Yeye, we're hoping for one

Or at least the rulebook in the starter incorporating the changes

[twin mountain]

So what exactly are the current rules for doing magic

Do you add the spell alteration stuff to your tinge roll

If you don't alter your spells do you just never tinge

[tepid steeple]

I think an unopposed spell only has voluntary tinge exposure yeah

From alterations adding to the resulting tinge roll or once you can take 1 tinge to gain 1 success

But spell blocking also causes tinge

[compact leaf]

1. Roll WP to cast spells, dispel attempts from the target can block this. One success is enough to cast the spell and apply the effects.
2. Roll black dice from modifiers, hollow specials (the exclamation points) it's been changed to hollow shields, apparently. They give you a tinge each.
   And then at the end of every round all the tinge effects resolve.

At least that's how we were taught in our demo

And appears to follow what we've read so far in the rulebook.

[twin mountain]

right, so if you succeed the wp check with no alterations then no tinge

fair enough

[compact leaf]

Yeah basically, as far as we're aware

[twin mountain]

I found a reference card that said that winning a morale test reduces stress

but I don't see that in the rulebook

is that true?

Following this, you will have to
remove all the stress tokens exceeding
the MOR value.

ah okay

[compact leaf]

Gosh there are a lot of changes in the doc

[twin mountain]

There really are

Someone made reference cards on Reddit and they're genuinely more useful than the rulebook

And I wish they just. Spelled this out ^

Incredibly hard to piece this together

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j274uJ_YaGs

[tepid steeple]

The rulebook is not very good yeah. I used the physical one the other day and it was kinda nightmareish

[compact leaf]

We honestly haven't had any issues with it so far..
but that might be our standards being aligned with the one other wargame we play (Infinity)

[twin mountain]

okay, like. let's say you have a unit that has a morale value of 1, and it has 1 stress token but no activation token

can you activate it? what happens?

answer: holy fuck okay there is an answer but damn good luck finding it

[compact leaf]

I mean-
It never says the unit can't activate with a stress token on it (barring going over your morale value). You just activate it normally? Unless it's demoralized-

When you declare one of your units
activated, place an activation token on
its profile. If it’s already assigned one,
your unit gets stressed instead. (See
“Stress and morale”).
That's how we read this, at least.

[tawny sandal]

That does seem rather confusing (referring to what winged said)

[twin mountain]

can you move and attack.

[compact leaf]

yes!

it says that right after!

[twin mountain]

does this load for you guys?

[compact leaf]

ohhh
under the circumstances you mentioned that would apply, yeah-

[twin mountain]

on page 330. because apparently the full pdf is... 300 pages of lore and then 60 pages of rules

[twin mountain]

but don't worry. I suspect that part of the rulebook is just flat out wrong.

isn't that lovely?

okay, so here's the full bizarre rabbit hole

[compact leaf]

hhhngnggg

[compact leaf]

this
this is such a CB rulebook..

[twin mountain]

so yeah, as you noticed, you simply put an activation token on the unit if it doesn't have one. if it does, it gets stressed.