Specialist Arms Forum
Warmaster => Warmaster Revolution => Topic started by: Aldhick on December 14, 2016, 09:47:46 AM
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First thanx to Lex for creating this section.
This is the general thread for basic info and news about WMR project.
Warmaster Revolution is Czech WM community based project, however we have hope to turn it into international one. It aims to implement Warmaster Ancients rules into Warmaster Fantasy. Main motivation for this project is the fact (stated by Rick Priestly himself), that WMA is in fact second edition of Warmaster that was firstly released for historical environment. Unfortunately for us who love the Old World, the version for fantasy setting has never come to light. This fact motivated us to check WMA rules to see how would have the second Warmaster edition looked like.
Though Warmaster is very well working rules system, it is obvious, that WMA are simply advanced version especially regarding combat. Apart from introduction of skirmishers and light cavalry which was not planned for fantasy setting due to miniatures (also confirmed by Rick), it clears all the blind spots that occurred in WM. The main differences are in limitation of number of orders, number of combat rounds and introduction of new infantry support rules which make infantry (unlike in WM) adequate tactical force. For these changes, the supremacy of cavalry over infantry is gone and the course of events tends to go less random, not mentioning bunch of minor rules adjustments making situations clearer.
You can find more info about the project and pdf with the rules here: http://warmaster-cz.blogspot.cz/2016/11/warmaster-revolution-introduction.html
Current version is 0.4 (beta).
We are glad for any feedback or typo reports.
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Tried it with a friend a few weeks back. Kislev versus Bretonnia. I think we forgot about the rule on failed orders but apart from that I think we got it. It played smoothly, same feeling as WMA there. Will try to test it with something elite versus a horde to see if the limited combat rounds available pose a problem for the smaller army. I don't predict it (normally attacking is so decisive* any way) but it'll be nice to see it first hand in practice.
*Frankly, based on how powerful attacking is I think you could give all defenders strike first capability and still not break the power balance.
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In my opinion, that is the only rule I have a problem with. 2 rounds max is hard to grasp. I played a game for the fun of it the other day by myself, chaos vs. dwarf and my dwarf rangers actually won the first round of combat and pursued for 2 more rounds and then were beaten back by knights and pursued 3 more turns and ground down and killed for the cost of 2 stands of chaos knights.....very long and brutal scrap. Would have not happened if I did the 2 rounds maximum.
just seems like an odd thing to want to maximize in the first place to me. Strategically a unit would stop combat and regroup before losing a stand due to hits taken and that should be enough.
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Thanx for comments guys.
Aquahog - looking forward to see some reports :-)
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WMR has been updated to v. 0.4!
https://warmaster-cz.blogspot.cz/2016/12/warmaster-revolution-v-04-update.html (https://warmaster-cz.blogspot.cz/2016/12/warmaster-revolution-v-04-update.html)
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Awesome thanks!
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Thanks for doing this. This is really cool! Excited to read through all your hard work. Viva la (warmaster) Revolution!
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I'll help you guys to get the English right and proper. It is not my first language, but I have a knack for ignoring stupid spelling corrections, like armor instead of armour. Just pm me with an email address where I can send the results of my proof reading. And thanks again for doing this. The guys on my side wanted to play fantasy using DBA, which I find a bit scrawny and too formalised for the kind of battle I'd like to play.
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I'll certainly try to put a few together then Aldhick. Can't promise anything with the daughters keeping me busy, but I'll certainly try.
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In my opinion, that is the only rule I have a problem with. 2 rounds max is hard to grasp. I played a game for the fun of it the other day by myself, chaos vs. dwarf and my dwarf rangers actually won the first round of combat and pursued for 2 more rounds and then were beaten back by knights and pursued 3 more turns and ground down and killed for the cost of 2 stands of chaos knights.....very long and brutal scrap. Would have not happened if I did the 2 rounds maximum.
just seems like an odd thing to want to maximize in the first place to me. Strategically a unit would stop combat and regroup before losing a stand due to hits taken and that should be enough.
I like the limit personally. We've had games where one combat sweeps half the game. :)
The limit makes me think that there's more happening on the battlefield and capping it pauses the combat so other units can move and respond. I guess I think of it as setting each round to only take a certain amount of time.
You could certainly make an optional/house rule to run combat until it's done.
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Houseruling the house rules now are we? :)
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haha naturally ;D
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sorry if this analogy sounds funny. :)
I have come to the conclusion that warmaster combats, because of large "shock troops" such as cavalry, can become a little bit like getting one of the last matching sets of cards in RISK. Its late in the game, your opponents have all but 7 countries, you are down to 10 armies, but you have a set of cards to turn in.....you put them under the 35 armies spot on the board and conquer the whole world in one turn!!!!
BUT you demonstrated a skill in doing so, you mapped out a route that would allow you to continue on and on and on without getting pinned anywhere, you swept across the entire board in one swoop!
So I always think about that whenever my chaos knights attack. They get only 2 charges, so I need to maximize how to kill as many units as I can with those 2 charges, in the same manner as I planned on wiping out the whole world in RISK. however, I have come to the thought of Time. 2 rounds of combat could be assumed as 1 hour, just like each turn is thought of as 1 hour in the day.
I fell victim to growing up with that RISK maneuver that was part of warmaster that now I feel threatened as it might be taken away but I want to just come back and say, I understand now. It definitely changes the game, in a huge way, but actually makes sense to me now.
I wanted to say something as I don't think I am the only one with the limited engagement rule. Hopefully this helps others see it from another light.
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loving the support WMR is getting, myself I have always thought WMA to be a much better and more refined ruleset, but feel the balance is wrong when using fantasy lists with ancients rules far better to just proxy figures for an existing army list eg the scots of king david from medievals is a perfect orc n goblin list.
you can just add wizards and magic from fantasy 1/1000pts and voila!
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We have been playing lots of games using WMR past few months, mostly with TK, Skaven, Araby, Chaos, O&G, Bretonnia, Kislev and Empire and haven't had any serious problem with balance caused by combat system change so far.
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you say with "non major" issues. So what are the minor issues? For those of us not watching the games ;)
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you say with "non major" issues. So what are the minor issues? For those of us not watching the games ;)
We didn't have any issues apart from those in armylists, that are being subjects of other threads. Our community is not the only one having this expecience. You can chec Warmaster podcast page for commented feedback on several games. French community uses WMA with fantasy armies for years now and they are obviously happy with it.
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I wanted to say something as I don't think I am the only one with the limited engagement rule. Hopefully this helps others see it from another light.
No offense but what does this have to with WMR?
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Played a couple of games today using WMR. I liked the rules. Only thing I found difficult was keeping track of break with units down to 1 stand couting 0.5 towards the total. But I'm sure I will get used to that! So thanks very much for creating this 'upgrade'.
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Ruiza, it had to do with the 2 rounds maximum for combats. I was having a hard time with that and I have heard from a few others that also had a problem with it. I still don't like it but I at least understand the rule now and wanted to let anyone else know.
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Have now played WMR a few times and I am definitely a convert. My old version of the rules has now been recycled. So many thanks again to the Czech community for putting it into English! And I have found a way to easily keep track of the one-stand remaining = 0.5 to break. Very much like the two rounds of combat, pinned targets, and advances.
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Hi Ales,
I played my first proper Revolution Game tonight. And there are some thing I saw and wondered about:
excluding of optional rules. I guess your gaming group did the ruleset mostly for yourself, why are you not including the optimal rules inside the ruleset?
Leaving the table the WMA table makes a little more sense than the Fantasy one, you might consider using the text form WMA.
Where do I report spelling mistakes?
Ole
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Hi Ales,
I played my first proper Revolution Game tonight. And there are some thing I saw and wondered about:
excluding of optional rules. I guess your gaming group did the ruleset mostly for yourself, why are you not including the optimal rules inside the ruleset?
Leaving the table the WMA table makes a little more sense than the Fantasy one, you might consider using the text form WMA.
Where do I report spelling mistakes?
Ole
Ole, if I intended to do it only for our community, I'd have made it in Czech. Though I didn't have any idea whether other comminities would be interested, the idea was to make it as accesible to them as possible. That included not touching the sacred wording of the original rules where not necessary as well as not forcing people to use our house rules.
What table do you exactly mean?
I have already got two complete language and typo revisions (many thanx guys!) so I guess it's not needed any more (v. 1.0 comming soon :- ). Thanx though.
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Played another three games of WMR yesterday against the Warmaster podcast guys.
My conversion to this rule-set is confirmed. WMR has just enough of WMA stuff to overcome some of the irritating abstractions in vanilla WM, but it does not go too far towards WMA and all its game-slowing complexities. It has also simplified a lot of things that used to be unnecessarily cheesy, like forward fall-backs.
Overall, the game play felt much more balanced, I thought. Getting lucky with a couple of orders for your cavalry strike force is now not enough. If they live for two rounds, the opponent can absorb the blow by putting reinforcements into a counter-attack to turn the combat around.
My main learning point is that old-style deep attacks now need to be much more modest in their ambition and it takes a series of blows to defeat an opponent rather than one big knock-out punch with an uber-powerful cavalry brigade.
I also really liked the 0.5 towards break for units taken down to one stand. Much fairer and a real incentive to get stuck into the fight when, in the past, you might have looked for an easier target in order to kill a whole unit.
So, thanks again to the Czech community for setting this ball rolling and I am really looking forward to future games with WMR!
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What table do you exactly mean?
Units moving off table results are reading "The unit/character reappears at the table edge it left from." and should read "The unit/character reappears at the same point of the table edge it left from." both in result 3-4 and 5-6.
So nothing major.
Ole
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What table do you exactly mean?
Units moving off table results are reading "The unit/character reappears at the table edge it left from." and should read "The unit/character reappears at the same point of the table edge it left from." both in result 3-4 and 5-6.
So nothing major.
Ole
That's a good point, thanx!
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I have already got two complete language and typo revisions (many thanx guys!) so I guess it's not needed any more (v. 1.0 comming soon :- ). Thanx though.
Looking forward to this. Thanks for all your work. I'm going to start going back to my club this year (that's my new year's resolution) so will rope in a couple of people to play WMR.
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Hi folks,
we´ve played last monday with the Warmaster Revolution – Rulesetting and made our experiences so far.
Okay, where to start….
We´ve had a setting with 5.000 points of Imperial and Dwarf forces fighting each other. At the thirt round the first clash started. So, we used the Combat – rules of Warmaster Revolution….
To say it in short termes: We were frustrated about the facts, there were just two rounds the parties could battle each other.
It was also frustrating to keep on track with the point, who has still a advantage from the still existing combat of the „old round“ and who has how much points against whom, when he joins the still existing fight later on.
It was also not „nice“, to realize, the winning unit has no „punch“, when they advanced in a different unit later on. (Missing Attack - Bonus)
In General: Exposed groups of attackers get killed. They have nearly no chance, to make a „good point“.
Okay.
Surely, the Warmaster Revolution – Rules are more „accurate“, when you try to create rules / when you try to play battles with a „realistic outcome“.
But, THIS „Warmaster Revolution“ with these Combat Rules is an absolutly different game, than we had before. In fact, it has nearly nothing left from the old Warmaster-flair.
Of course, a unit is exhausted after two rounds of combat, and they are still exhausted, when they go on and advance in a new fight. But this is WARMASTER, a game about FANTASY and heroic fighters in a heroic fight.
I still remember the games, where a unit of Dragon-Ogres smashed a whole brigade of my opponent. I was lucky, my opponent was nearly crying. But, this was possible with the rulesetting of Warmaster. It´s impossible with these rules…
We use the rules, my son and me brought back from the Playtest-Weekend from Bergen op Zoom some years ago. They make Warmaster more enjoyable, but they don´t change the system in total.
So far – greetings from Frisia!
Heiko
(We still hope for another great Playtest -Weekend in Bergen op Zoom…...)
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We use the rules, my son and me brought back from the Playtest-Weekend from Bergen op Zoom some years ago. They make Warmaster more enjoyable, but they don´t change the system in total.
So far – greetings from Frisia!
Heiko
(We still hope for another great Playtest -Weekend in Bergen op Zoom…...)
Maybe not a PLAYTEST weekend, but a bunch of normal Warmaster games among friends later this year ?
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We use the rules, my son and me brought back from the Playtest-Weekend from Bergen op Zoom some years ago. They make Warmaster more enjoyable, but they don´t change the system in total.
So far – greetings from Frisia!
Heiko
(We still hope for another great Playtest -Weekend in Bergen op Zoom…...)
Maybe not a PLAYTEST weekend, but a bunch of normal Warmaster games among friends later this year ?
LOL so we really should become friends I guess!
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@Lex, depending on dates, I think you would get some British interest. The last weekend in Bergen-op-Zoom was excellent! Thank you again for organising it.
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*snip*
It was also frustrating to keep on track with the point, who has still a advantage from the still existing combat of the „old round“ and who has how much points against whom, when he joins the still existing fight later on.
It was also not „nice“, to realize, the winning unit has no „punch“, when they advanced in a different unit later on. (Missing Attack - Bonus)
In General: Exposed groups of attackers get killed. They have nearly no chance, to make a „good point“.
*snip 2*
I still remember the games, where a unit of Dragon-Ogres smashed a whole brigade of my opponent. I was lucky, my opponent was nearly crying. But, this was possible with the rulesetting of Warmaster. It´s impossible with these rules…
Snip 1 - I think that's the point. To make it so that an unsupported unit can't rampage across the table. They should get bogged down, they should get exhausted.
Snip 2 - Personally, that's the exact reason why the rules need to change. We've all had the ridiculous luck of the heavy cavalry smashing aside everything in it's path - but frankly, where's the skill in rolling a few lucky orders and then a few lucky attacks and saves?
Just my opinions on your observations. I have the opposite experience where I feel these changes are needed and better reflect a battle of the scale that Warmaster is supposed to convey.
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*snip*
It was also frustrating to keep on track with the point, who has still a advantage from the still existing combat of the „old round“ and who has how much points against whom, when he joins the still existing fight later on.
It was also not „nice“, to realize, the winning unit has no „punch“, when they advanced in a different unit later on. (Missing Attack - Bonus)
In General: Exposed groups of attackers get killed. They have nearly no chance, to make a „good point“.
*snip 2*
I still remember the games, where a unit of Dragon-Ogres smashed a whole brigade of my opponent. I was lucky, my opponent was nearly crying. But, this was possible with the rulesetting of Warmaster. It´s impossible with these rules…
Snip 1 - I think that's the point. To make it so that an unsupported unit can't rampage across the table. They should get bogged down, they should get exhausted.
Snip 2 - Personally, that's the exact reason why the rules need to change. We've all had the ridiculous luck of the heavy cavalry smashing aside everything in it's path - but frankly, where's the skill in rolling a few lucky orders and then a few lucky attacks and saves?
Just my opinions on your observations. I have the opposite experience where I feel these changes are needed and better reflect a battle of the scale that Warmaster is supposed to convey.
Hey Rowlybot (and others so far...)
Thanks for your response on my thoughts about WMR. We will do more games with the new rulesetting - we have to, if THIS is the future of Warmaster.... ;)
So many gamers stated their good experiences with the new setting - can they all be "wrong" ? Probably our first experiences were just "first experiences" and nothing we could work on. When someone plays since many years with the same rules, itś probably everytime a problem to accept a needfull change.
To be continued.....
Greetings from Frisia / North Germany - close to the Northern Sey....
Heiko
@ Lex : Can 't wait for a date for a meeting at Bergen op Zoom :)
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@Heiko, I support what Rowlybot says. I have enjoyed WM more since the arrival of WMR. More skill, less luck. More all-arms, less max heavy cavalry cheese. But not as detailed/complex as WMA. If WMA = sailing boats and WM = power boats, then WMR = fast rowing boats? Yes, making note of results when the combat pauses is hard, but I use scatter dice to show the direction of pursuit/retreat. I would say stick with it and perhaps reduce the size of the game at the start?
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@Heiko, I support what Rowlybot says. I have enjoyed WM more since the arrival of WMR. More skill, less luck. More all-arms, less max heavy cavalry cheese. But not as detailed/complex as WMA. If WMA = sailing boats and WM = power boats, then WMR = fast rowing boats? Yes, making note of results when the combat pauses is hard, but I use scatter dice to show the direction of pursuit/retreat. I would say stick with it and perhaps reduce the size of the game at the start?
@ empireaddict, that´s a good advice. We´ve had a 2.000 points game at the start with WMR. The next "short scenarios" we will do will have just 1200 points. I guess, it makes a difference and give us less chances to become frustrated..... 8)
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It has been a long time for this thread, but don't hate that I am bringing it back. Earlier in the thread I stated that I had my strong doubts on the 2 round maximum but have since played maybe 10 games with those rules. I have also made up my "Retreat", "Advance", and "Charge" markers (everything else is pursuing). I am now absolutely and utterly sold on the combat rules for this game.
Such a fun change to the strategy, the 1-2 punches of reinforcing an engaged unit, the absolute grind of the combat. Starting your turn with troops already in combat and wanting to get them help adds so much more stress and anxiety within the gameplay. It is honestly so much more fun to play, to me.
So again, thank you everyone that had a hand in updating these rules!
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Thanx CJ, glad to hear that. You took your part in it too :-)