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Let's talk Small-Team Skirmish Games

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17 Jun 2018 11:16 #275612 by GorillaGrody
Thanks for taking the time to read it!

Was the Action structure/economy clear? For each token spent, you get Short/Short or Short/Basic. Being a short action, the Dodge and Focus actions are meant to bolster Basic actions like Attack, rather than to replace them.

I'm a bit concerned about the token density, too. We played Rogue Stars at the start of this process, and the sheer volume of tokens and modifiers to that game inspired us to start this one. We worked out a couple of systems on the way to this one, in which "Prone" meant something (and allowed us to get some tokens off the table) but it all got a bit fuzzy. Here, we've got a couple of on/off switches which, by a factor of three tokens per figure x three different colors, represent degrees of Damage, Initiative, Activation, Morale, Suppression and Exhaustion.

Designing games is hard.

Also, I'm considering a rename: "The Tabletop Agonizer."

Thanks again for looking at it.

Sevej wrote: Somehow finished reading it during my hectic one week visit to my parent's house.

I like what you're trying to do. Small team units, with flexibility on activation. Wound/suppression degrades performance, which I always like.

My biggest concern is the number of counters on the table. I also dislike the randomness of getting dodge & focus. That's like wasting action when fails, and that's never a good thing. Of course, players will probably try doing this as their first action when they get more than one activation.

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26 Jun 2018 09:49 #276230 by GorillaGrody
I don't need to wonder if I've derailed a perfectly good conversation about small-team skirmish games with my own agenda, but I didn't want to clog up the forums with a new thread, so here's a link to the new version: www.patreon.com/tabletopagonizer

It's a Patreon, but there's no obligation to join: the core rules will always be free and open source. I'm still just looking for readers and playtesters.

From the boilerplate:

"We started The Tabletop Agonizer (free rules here) as painters and modellers of miniatures, and as long-time fans of small-team skirmish wargames. Many of the playtesters and creators of TTA are writers, too... Our primary mission is to develop an accessible, flexible, and tactically engaging ruleset, using any miniatures you have grown attached to over the years, all delimitable on a single, double-sided page of rules. While there are many at-a-glance systems that scale down from multi-unit army formations, TTA is one of the few designed with small-team skirmish in mind (maybe we’ll awkwardly scale it upwards some day). We gave ourselves a challenge; no plus/minus modifiers, no result charts, keep the figures variable and differentiated. As should be plain, we’re very influenced by SF, Fantasy, and the kind of stuff that happens in action movies. We’re less interested in modelling historical warfare."

Thanks to the folks here (Sevej and BaronDonut) who have given me feedback already. With that, I believe this forum should return back to its original intent; a discussion about toys we have to put on high shelves out of the reach of children. *shudders, reassesses life*

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28 Jun 2018 19:37 #276530 by Menat
I wanted to throw a couple other skirmish games out there that I didn't see mentioned on the thread that I think are worth checking out, although they are whole systems with existing miniature ranges and lore rather than open-ended rulesets like the Osprey stuff tend to be.

Dark Age--I've played a few games of this and own a few of the miniatures. The game uses a D20 system like Infinity but I find that the rules aren't quite as painfully detailed and can be picked up quickly. The range has seen a fairly expansive overhaul in the past few years and a lot of the newer sculpts are stunning. It's a post-apocalyptic setting. The designers are very dedicated to adjusting the game balance every year, so that could be a draw if you want a tighter balance in your mini games than many of the more casual rulesets.

Wrath of Kings is from the Rackham guys and the line has matured nicely since its early days. I haven't played it but I've heard good things.

Company of Iron--Privateer Press has finally gotten around releasing a solid skirmish ruleset this year, and as someone who has always enjoyed their miniatures (I know they aren't universally loved) I might finally pick some up now that they have lowered the cost of entry with this ruleset. If any of you have collections of PP minis sitting in a box I believe the rules are free to download.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Gary Sax, ChristopherMD, boothwah, GorillaGrody

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30 Jun 2018 13:29 - 30 Jun 2018 13:30 #276632 by GorillaGrody

Menat wrote:
Dark Age--I've played a few games of this and own a few of the miniatures. The game uses a D20 system like Infinity but I find that the rules aren't quite as painfully detailed and can be picked up quickly. The range has seen a fairly expansive overhaul in the past few years and a lot of the newer sculpts are stunning. It's a post-apocalyptic setting. The designers are very dedicated to adjusting the game balance every year, so that could be a draw if you want a tighter balance in your mini games than many of the more casual rulesets.


I've lingered over this in the store and sort of peeked at the rules online. The regular rules tweaking makes it sound like it's geared toward competitive tournament play. How is it as a casual game?

I also wonder what's going on with the miniatures in the line. They seem at once all over the place--lizardmen and rayguns and paladin armor!--and also uniformly greyish in color.
Last edit: 30 Jun 2018 13:30 by GorillaGrody.

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30 Jun 2018 17:11 #276635 by Menat
I've only played in the most casual of contexts and the rules just felt tight and fun, not dry or anything thing if that's a concern.

As for the miniature line, it reflects a mad max turned up to 11 sort of thing, I believe the setting is some sort of colony planet that was abandoned for millennia and things just devolved to an unbelievably messed up situation with humans, mutants and natives in a battle royale.

It's a very underrated game.
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30 Jun 2018 17:15 #276636 by Colorcrayons
I haven't followed dark age for awhile, but it's very old.

It's the first game to use the now popular round lipped bases that warmachine popularized, among other games.

No idea if the rules are even similar to what they were back in the beginning though, when the game was touted as an opportunity to play in a setting as imagined by the mind of artist Brom.

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30 Jun 2018 17:54 #276637 by Menat

Colorcrayons wrote: I haven't followed dark age for awhile, but it's very old.

It's the first game to use the now popular round lipped bases that warmachine popularized, among other games.

No idea if the rules are even similar to what they were back in the beginning though, when the game was touted as an opportunity to play in a setting as imagined by the mind of artist Brom.


Yeah the game has moved on a lot from its roots. The new miniatures are some of the best out there imo but the Brom artwork as inspiration has definitely faded I assume because they need to commission new art and they can't keep him on retainer forever.

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