Once again thanks for all the feedback guys. We really appreciate it and it is helping us to make the rules much clearer and playable as I'm sure you'll see in the next version.
Keep up the good work!
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Hi there,
here are our impressions on the first two games Martin and I played. First game was a "little" test with roughly 400 points per side with Alexander Macedonian vs. Early German, the second was a full 800 points game with Imperial Romans vs Early Germans.
1. Army size: the armies are surprisingly big. Compared to DBM-armies you can play the whole standard table with an 800 point army.
2. Terrain: the shifting and pivoting of terrain pieces makes the less predictable. You even profit more from the terrain your opponent puts on table. Feels good.
3. Army set up: works fluently.
4. Complex manouver tests: feels good. Once triggered my warbands definitely had a mind of their own... The inclining rule gives you a limited flexibility. Good idea. Reading the rules feels a bit strange here: you read impact before movement and complex before simple manouvers. I would like it the other way round better. To have movement before combat and simple before complex manouvers.
5. Movement distances: MI is slower thean LI - cannot catch it. Martin was a bit upset when his roman auxiliaries could not catch my skirmishers, where shot into disuption, charged at by the light boys and sent back broken due to a disastrous cohesion test. Felt very strange - on the other hand: shit happens. And immidiately leads me to my next point.
6. Cohesion tests: the sheer number of tests is really getting on my nerves. Yes, they are not as complex as in 6th edition, but you have numbers of them. Slows the game down. And it proved nearly impossible to stop my C-troops from running away without an inspiring commander.
7. Generals: the main job of generals seems to be rallying troops. Therefor the more, the better. Sooner or later you need them. And in both games the army with the inspiring commander won, the one without lost. An inspiring commander appears a "must" for the game.
8. ebb and flow of battle: Martin, the inspiring commander of the drilled armies, calls the ebb and flows of a battle well presented in the game. Thorsten, the ordinary field commander of undrilled troops, saw no ebb and flow among his troops. He saw them almost never returning only.
The ebb and flow in combats felt good - we had every possible result: Lancers fleeing everything, Cavalry fleeing Cavalry, Warbands fleeing Legionaries occasionally), Legionaries fleeing Warbands (usually), Warbands fighting (and loosing to) Pikes, Auxiliaries fleeing Skirmishers, Skirmishers fleeing Auxiliaries, Warbands fighting off flank attacks by Light Horses and Warbands on a slope fighting off Cavalry. The "usual" combat outcome produced "reasonable" results.
9. Game duration: The game with 800 points per side lasted 6,5 hours. If we estimate roughly 2 hours for rules reading only playing some 8-9 rounds took a very long time.
10. General impression: Fluent game, satisfying results and lots of dicing. Too much dicing: either on combats and on cohesion tests. What we are missing are the "competitive die rolls" of DBM: two players sitting at opposite table edges, looking themselves in the eyes and throwing one dice each. We are missing the adrenalin of crucial combat situations.
The following questions arose while playing:
A. Movement: Troops made an impact move - target evaded. Does the impact move count as a "move" for this turn? Or can the unit do another move in the movement phase?
B. Shooting: 2 questions. Can you shoot at an element giving overlap in combat? And what happens if a general is declared to be fighting in a front rank. The target evaded. The unit with the attached general is shot at. Can the general be affected by shooting?
C. Melee: How is a unit conforming to two targets that are neither attached nor aligned? Does a unit split up to fight two targets?
And what happens if a unit is pushed back and meets friendly units? We had the situations that units were pushed in the back of a friendly unit (ouch!).
D. Quality re-rolls: Do quality re-rolls apply to cohesion tests (page 45 says yes, page 52 says no)? And to death rolls?
If the answer is "yes", well, A- and B-class troops are nearly unbeatable then...
here are our impressions on the first two games Martin and I played. First game was a "little" test with roughly 400 points per side with Alexander Macedonian vs. Early German, the second was a full 800 points game with Imperial Romans vs Early Germans.
1. Army size: the armies are surprisingly big. Compared to DBM-armies you can play the whole standard table with an 800 point army.
2. Terrain: the shifting and pivoting of terrain pieces makes the less predictable. You even profit more from the terrain your opponent puts on table. Feels good.
3. Army set up: works fluently.
4. Complex manouver tests: feels good. Once triggered my warbands definitely had a mind of their own... The inclining rule gives you a limited flexibility. Good idea. Reading the rules feels a bit strange here: you read impact before movement and complex before simple manouvers. I would like it the other way round better. To have movement before combat and simple before complex manouvers.
5. Movement distances: MI is slower thean LI - cannot catch it. Martin was a bit upset when his roman auxiliaries could not catch my skirmishers, where shot into disuption, charged at by the light boys and sent back broken due to a disastrous cohesion test. Felt very strange - on the other hand: shit happens. And immidiately leads me to my next point.
6. Cohesion tests: the sheer number of tests is really getting on my nerves. Yes, they are not as complex as in 6th edition, but you have numbers of them. Slows the game down. And it proved nearly impossible to stop my C-troops from running away without an inspiring commander.
7. Generals: the main job of generals seems to be rallying troops. Therefor the more, the better. Sooner or later you need them. And in both games the army with the inspiring commander won, the one without lost. An inspiring commander appears a "must" for the game.
8. ebb and flow of battle: Martin, the inspiring commander of the drilled armies, calls the ebb and flows of a battle well presented in the game. Thorsten, the ordinary field commander of undrilled troops, saw no ebb and flow among his troops. He saw them almost never returning only.
The ebb and flow in combats felt good - we had every possible result: Lancers fleeing everything, Cavalry fleeing Cavalry, Warbands fleeing Legionaries occasionally), Legionaries fleeing Warbands (usually), Warbands fighting (and loosing to) Pikes, Auxiliaries fleeing Skirmishers, Skirmishers fleeing Auxiliaries, Warbands fighting off flank attacks by Light Horses and Warbands on a slope fighting off Cavalry. The "usual" combat outcome produced "reasonable" results.
9. Game duration: The game with 800 points per side lasted 6,5 hours. If we estimate roughly 2 hours for rules reading only playing some 8-9 rounds took a very long time.
10. General impression: Fluent game, satisfying results and lots of dicing. Too much dicing: either on combats and on cohesion tests. What we are missing are the "competitive die rolls" of DBM: two players sitting at opposite table edges, looking themselves in the eyes and throwing one dice each. We are missing the adrenalin of crucial combat situations.
The following questions arose while playing:
A. Movement: Troops made an impact move - target evaded. Does the impact move count as a "move" for this turn? Or can the unit do another move in the movement phase?
B. Shooting: 2 questions. Can you shoot at an element giving overlap in combat? And what happens if a general is declared to be fighting in a front rank. The target evaded. The unit with the attached general is shot at. Can the general be affected by shooting?
C. Melee: How is a unit conforming to two targets that are neither attached nor aligned? Does a unit split up to fight two targets?
And what happens if a unit is pushed back and meets friendly units? We had the situations that units were pushed in the back of a friendly unit (ouch!).
D. Quality re-rolls: Do quality re-rolls apply to cohesion tests (page 45 says yes, page 52 says no)? And to death rolls?
If the answer is "yes", well, A- and B-class troops are nearly unbeatable then...
Thorsten,
Thanks for the consolidated feedback and for playing all the games. It sounds like you are getting far enough down the experience curve for things to really come together. Here's a few specific thoughts back.
Do you find much advantage to deploying second?
The following questions arose while playing:
Hope that helps and thanks again for all the great work.
Si
Thanks for the consolidated feedback and for playing all the games. It sounds like you are getting far enough down the experience curve for things to really come together. Here's a few specific thoughts back.
A good or bad thing in your view. We aimed to get a few more toys on the table but not too extreme. As long as the game doesn't take to long this seems good. Also looking top down around 12-16 BGs seems a good size for an army. 800pts gets this for most armies we have tried. We want it to feel like a proper army if possible.1. Army size: the armies are surprisingly big. Compared to DBM-armies you can play the whole standard table with an 800 point army.
Great. Generally getting a good thumbs up for the new terrain system.2. Terrain: the shifting and pivoting of terrain pieces makes the less predictable. You even profit more from the terrain your opponent puts on table. Feels good.
3. Army set up: works fluently.
Do you find much advantage to deploying second?
Interesting point. I am going to start a strand on this to get other views on it.4. Complex manouver tests: feels good. Once triggered my warbands definitely had a mind of their own... The inclining rule gives you a limited flexibility. Good idea. Reading the rules feels a bit strange here: you read impact before movement and complex before simple manouvers. I would like it the other way round better. To have movement before combat and simple before complex manouvers.
We were looking to the variable moves to fix that. I guess the issue becomes how likely we feel they should be to get caught from jav range. MF need to get a +1 to movement and the LF a -2 or +2 and -1 respectively. So I think they get caught 3 in 36 so 1 in 12 and can make this higher if you can get closer. We can calibrate that higher if we want. Do you feel this is too low? Or did I get my maths wrong (which is entirley possible).5. Movement distances: MI is slower thean LI - cannot catch it. Martin was a bit upset when his roman auxiliaries could not catch my skirmishers, where shot into disuption, charged at by the light boys and sent back broken due to a disastrous cohesion test. Felt very strange - on the other hand: shit happens. And immidiately leads me to my next point.
This is very important to us in calibrating the game. I shall start a new strand on this to get general views.6. Cohesion tests: the sheer number of tests is really getting on my nerves. Yes, they are not as complex as in 6th edition, but you have numbers of them. Slows the game down. And it proved nearly impossible to stop my C-troops from running away without an inspiring commander.
We have certainly sought to make generals a critical part fo the game to be used well. Get them in the wrong place and havoc...7. Generals: the main job of generals seems to be rallying troops. Therefor the more, the better. Sooner or later you need them. And in both games the army with the inspiring commander won, the one without lost. An inspiring commander appears a "must" for the game.
Sounds like generally good news. Was the never returning FC result due to the IC effect or just the dice?8. ebb and flow of battle: Martin, the inspiring commander of the drilled armies, calls the ebb and flows of a battle well presented in the game. Thorsten, the ordinary field commander of undrilled troops, saw no ebb and flow among his troops. He saw them almost never returning only.
The ebb and flow in combats felt good - we had every possible result: Lancers fleeing everything, Cavalry fleeing Cavalry, Warbands fleeing Legionaries occasionally), Legionaries fleeing Warbands (usually), Warbands fighting (and loosing to) Pikes, Auxiliaries fleeing Skirmishers, Skirmishers fleeing Auxiliaries, Warbands fighting off flank attacks by Light Horses and Warbands on a slope fighting off Cavalry. The "usual" combat outcome produced "reasonable" results.
A big area of interest for us. Clearly things speed up as people get familiar. We have tried to strip time out in vs2 to speed things along. See separate strand on this. We will come back to it a great deal I am sure. I took 5 hours to play my early DBM games - even without recording what I was doing to give a battle report.9. Game duration: The game with 800 points per side lasted 6,5 hours. If we estimate roughly 2 hours for rules reading only playing some 8-9 rounds took a very long time.
Thats an interesting one. Well think about that.10. General impression: Fluent game, satisfying results and lots of dicing. Too much dicing: either on combats and on cohesion tests. What we are missing are the "competitive die rolls" of DBM: two players sitting at opposite table edges, looking themselves in the eyes and throwing one dice each. We are missing the adrenalin of crucial combat situations.
The following questions arose while playing:
Its done its move now as has the evading unit. We need to make that more clear and will do so.A. Movement: Troops made an impact move - target evaded. Does the impact move count as a "move" for this turn? Or can the unit do another move in the movement phase?
No and no in vs 1. We are sorting out more details of generals in vs2.B. Shooting: 2 questions. Can you shoot at an element giving overlap in combat? And what happens if a general is declared to be fighting in a front rank. The target evaded. The unit with the attached general is shot at. Can the general be affected by shooting?
Conform to one at present and fight obliquely with the other. Something being resolved in vs 2.C. Melee: How is a unit conforming to two targets that are neither attached nor aligned? Does a unit split up to fight two targets?
Unit contacted is moved back to make room. If there is no room it gets DISRed. This principle of troops in the way get displaced and if you get in such a mess they can't move you get DISRed is one we apply in a few places. I need to check its in the words properly now.And what happens if a unit is pushed back and meets friendly units? We had the situations that units were pushed in the back of a friendly unit (ouch!).
This was a typo as we forgot to take re-rolls our of the death roll glossary. To be clear - re-rolls apply to cohesion tests but not to death rolls. As you say it would make A s godlike..and after all they bleed just like the rest they are just better at not getting hit....D. Quality re-rolls: Do quality re-rolls apply to cohesion tests (page 45 says yes, page 52 says no)? And to death rolls?
If the answer is "yes", well, A- and B-class troops are nearly unbeatable then...
Hope that helps and thanks again for all the great work.
Si
Moin Simon,
H?¤? You are talking to me about mathmatics? Oh dear. But I think the chances to catch LI should be better.
Not the FC was never returning - it was the C-class troops. My FC??s were hardly ever able to stop them. Not a question of dices (which were average), but of factors. You have to be extremely lucky to rally fleeing troops. Fortunately none of my generals was killed by his routing troops...
Ja, definitely! Thank you! We will have another game on sunday (Romans vs. Germans again). I will try an IC (a true Hermann (or Arminius - whatever you would like to call him)) and see if I can force my way into Italy then.
Thorsten
Makes flank attacks less likely. Good thing (if you prefer playing infantry armies like me).A good or bad thing in your view.
I played the Germans. I NEVER deployed second... But it felt like deployment at DBM - it feels very uncomfortable to deploy first.Do you find much advantage to deploying second?
We were looking to the variable moves to fix that. I guess the issue becomes how likely we feel they should be to get caught from jav range. MF need to get a +1 to movement and the LF a -2 or +2 and -1 respectively. So I think they get caught 3 in 36 so 1 in 12 and can make this higher if you can get closer. We can calibrate that higher if we want. Do you feel this is too low? Or did I get my maths wrong (which is entirley possible).
H?¤? You are talking to me about mathmatics? Oh dear. But I think the chances to catch LI should be better.
Was the never returning FC result due to the IC effect or just the dice?
Not the FC was never returning - it was the C-class troops. My FC??s were hardly ever able to stop them. Not a question of dices (which were average), but of factors. You have to be extremely lucky to rally fleeing troops. Fortunately none of my generals was killed by his routing troops...
Hope that helps and thanks again for all the great work.
Ja, definitely! Thank you! We will have another game on sunday (Romans vs. Germans again). I will try an IC (a true Hermann (or Arminius - whatever you would like to call him)) and see if I can force my way into Italy then.
Thorsten
Thanks Throsten and keep up the very helful input. Hope you make it to Rome this time!!Quote:
Hope that helps and thanks again for all the great work.
Ja, definitely! Thank you! We will have another game on sunday (Romans vs. Germans again). I will try an IC (a true Hermann (or Arminius - whatever you would like to call him)) and see if I can force my way into Italy then.
Thorsten
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rbodleyscott
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rbodleyscott
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