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Rank: Moderator
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Location: Lower the Hutt, New Zealand
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Yo.
I'm playing with an idea and I thought that, since it concerned little plastic people (SWM), that I would share this infant idea wi' y'all and see if it floats, sinks, or if it just kinda sits in the 'whatever' pile. I hanker for huge, massive, wide, wide-scale SWM battles (even though I have neither the time nor the permission to play them) and my dream is to line up a 2000-point game wi' an opponent one day (oh, the days!), and the other day I was thinking of what it might be like to have a massive battle where people could come in with different numbers of characters and just kinda play and such... lemme explain in a bit more detail.
The big problem with masses and masses of pieces (I imagine) is that I have to move two pieces, you has to move two pieces, then John, Trev, Tarquin, Chesney and then back to me... until all our pieces have been moved once before we can start again. Sucking time. Plus, it works better it the 6 of us (or however many) have roughly the same ammount of pieces/point etc... it wouldn't be any good with me having 120 pieces at 2000 points, Trev has 7 characters at 200, Chesney his Nien Nunb Cannon of 25 pieces at 300 etc.
WHAT IF? What if the game wasn't dependant on you waiting for opponents to have their move? You move your pieces one at a time until you're done, then start again. If a piece of yours is being targeted by another, it can't move until that attack is finished, or if you are attacking another piece, the owner of that piece can't move it until you're done. Each piece would have a counter underneath it (one side red, one side blue) denoting whether it has activated or not (for Cunning/Oppurtunist) and the counters are reset at the end of each round.
You might have a massive army which takes some time to move each round, some other guys has a smaller army and could be wiped out quickly, but they will move faster evening it up a bit more. Plus you could join at any time because it wouldn't be size dependant... us 6 have started our game but Gwendolen, who came in late from the appointment with her chiropractor, sets up her 1000-point Ugnaught army in the Ruined Base map and starts charging towards Trev and Tarquin.
Oh, and the other thing is there is a limit: your squad can't have any more than a quarter as uniques.
NOW... I know its riddled with holes and might not even work in a practical sense... but, hey, I thought of it as my 2-year old woke me up in the middle of the night and I was trying to return to dreamworld (where I am a pirate).
Let's banter!
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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Are you suggesting one side goes first and activates all of its pieces, followed by the second side which then goes and activates all of their pieces? Seems like someone could just build a squad of all Cunning / Opportunist pieces and then hope they go first or second. Also, initiative breakers like Munn Tactics broker, Master Tactician, or even Recon would be worth its weight in gold, because going first on a key turn (depending on deployment) would pretty much determine the game.
Related Side Note:
As someone who has played lots of other war games in the past, I can't imagine playing SWMs at the mass battle scale using the Wizards skirmish rules or the available maps. It seems like it would be a slow, tedious, and thoroughly miserable affair after a few turns.
Honestly, with so many other great wargames rules systems out there like the West End Games star wars mini game , AT-43, Warhammer 40k or the like, it seems like the best bet is to use the rules from one of those systems and then just substitute in the normal pieces with corresponding SWM pieces.
Something like AT-43 would lend itself very well to Huge vehicle rules and lots of Clone, Imperial, or Battle Droid squads running around. The downside to that system is that Hero pieces don't play nearly as much of a roll in the games, but a few house rules could allow for something like Jedi generals (unique or otherwise) by giving them really good hand-to-hand stats and saying various force powers are represented by ranged attacks.
Warhammer 40k seems much more hero-focused, so incorporating hero-level Star Wars characters alongside units of troops and vehicles would be fairly easy, though I've never cared for the 40k game mechanics (but I haven't played since a few editions ago, so perhaps it's gotten a lot more balanced).
And the old West End Games Star Wars mini game I've never played, but I imagine it would be great as a rule set for Rebellion era stuff. I'm not sure if they give rules for any other eras, but even if they do not, house rules could be a simple fix.
Either way, it's not very expensive to get the rule book for the above games. And you've already got the Star Wars minis, and the miniatures are the truly cost expensive part of those above games.
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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A buddy and I have actually played multiple 1000-2000pt games. And I have to tell you that constant action will with all players making moves at the same time will drive you insane and you'll set the board on fire right before you burn the house down.
The best things to do are:
- bump up the activations to 3 or 4
- define rosters (set amout of huges, uniques, number of total pieces allowed, ect.)
- put short time limits on turns
- no reserves or reenforcements
Try that out
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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RogueThirteen wrote:
As someone who has played lots of other war games in the past, I can't imagine playing SWMs at the mass battle scale using the Wizards skirmish rules or the available maps. It seems like it would be a slow, tedious, and thoroughly miserable affair after a few turns.
It is. Without additional rules for mass play, the game breaks down at high point levels, primarily because it allows players to boost grunts to ridiculous levels. Vader, Dark Jedi becomes especially powerful when you take into account how many rolls you'll be doing.
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Rank: Moderator
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Point(s) taken.
No, I was actually meaning that both players play simultaneously.
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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Yeah a couple of commanders should be banned (Darth Vader, Dark Jedi) but I like the idea very much. I played a massive 1500 point game and hated it. It took ages with the two activations and my brother had all better minis than me so wiped off a lot of my stuff with splash damage. Granted we didn't fully understand the targeting rules.
I like the idea of moving similtaneously. That means a smaller squad could move, and then move again before a larger army even finished moving. It also means, if you see a small Cunning based strike team rushing your flank, you can start activating your minis on that flank to protect them. Likewise, if you see an opportunist squad, then leave your minis on that flank until you need to activate them. It also means if you run a small strike squad, you have to be careful about getting caught up in a shoot out with a large army that could overwhelm you.
Kezzamachine I think this is a brilliant idea. It needs some work, eg. banning a few minis, possibly limiting the amount of uniques, maybe letting each side use Mas Amedda so there is no abuse of using a hundred mouse droids to provide cover and block other minis in or something.
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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One other thing you might consider is activating phases (instead of 2) based on the characters. For example, phase 1 could be all support pieces (anything with attack damage 0). Phase 2 troopers (non-unique, not commanders). Phase 3 non-unique commanders. Phase 4 Huges. Phase 5 Uniques. Each player activates all his pieces in that particular phase on his turn. There is a strategy involved about how many of each you want in your squad to go at certain times and does speed up the game and make it a bit easier to track so many activations. Squad building restrictions are easy to follow this way - determine a minimum and maximum number of points or activations in each phase.
I agree that certain house rules about activations and commander effects need to be implemented as the squad value increases.
In any case, have fun with it and post any play results if you get a chance to do a big battle.
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Rank: Basilisk War Droid
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The largest game I've played was 500 points and it took way too long and got a bit confusing (although it was late and we were tired). I'll stick to 150-200 point games unless I find this new tile game I've been reading about is more funner.
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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cwh008 wrote:The largest game I've played was 500 points and it took way too long and got a bit confusing (although it was late and we were tired). I'll stick to 150-200 point games unless I find this new tile game I've been reading about is more funner. Tile Wars is fun and fast. No need for door control so more points can be spent on dealing damage.
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Rank: Advanced Bloo Milk Member
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We have played many many massive Games. Sometimes we put a time limit on each phase, sometimes 3 minutes. i LOVE THE HUGE GAMES!
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Rank: Muun Tactics Broker
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I use squad based activations. So each side activates two squads. Each squad must have a leader. If the leader is eliminated the squad can only fire at the nearest enemy unit or a unit that has fired at it. It also cannot advance towards enemy lines but can withdraw. Heavy weapons/mounted weapons are required to fire at huge figures. Named (as in they have their name on their card such as 'Han Solo') can act independantly of a squad however I limit how many named character in a given battled based on the size of the battle.
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wannabe mexican wrote:Tile Wars is fun and fast. No need for door control so more points can be spent on dealing damage. I highlight "need" in that sentance because I do love me some T3-M4 and his trusty flamethrower in my games of Tile Wars ;)
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TheStarkiller wrote:wannabe mexican wrote:Tile Wars is fun and fast. No need for door control so more points can be spent on dealing damage. I highlight "need" in that sentance because I do love me some T3-M4 and his trusty flamethrower in my games of Tile Wars ;) Auto damage and AoE weapons are awesome. I built a squad that involved lots of jedi auto damage and stuff. i lost though.
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