Mixing Races (not halfbreeds) in Wargames...

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:45 am

So, I don't like playing wargames, but I'm still interested in the rules, and seeing what's going on - 6E WH40k has many improvements and is quite interesting, although it also has several downsides (various "mysterious terrain" things which will really shit people up the wall, especially for tournaments, because "hahaha this objective is actually a bomb. Take damage and it's not an objective, fuck you". Or the "deploy all cramped up on short table edges and spend ages marching towards each other" possibility. Or "you get an extra Victory Point for dealing the first casualty - have a free point for getting first turn!" and similar. Oh, and even more of the "Deploy a million dudes like it's Epic 40k, but care about the placement and wargear and wound allocation of individual models like it's Anima" than before).

But anyway, that's just explaining why I'm asking this: I'm not making my own wargame, I don't even have a big old factory to produce minis and a far-reaching supply contract to control how they're sold in Europe.

But let's say you wanted to make a wargame, and give it more depth than "ORCS HATE HUMANS HATE ELFS HATE DWARFS HATE BUGBEARS". So your world has Humans, Lizardmen, Minotaurs and Giant Sentient Snails With Cyberware. And they're pretty much all mixed in together. So any "army" could potentially have a mixture of all of the above.

So what would you do to differentiate the different armies? Would you just use one big point-buy list and every player picks their own things from the massive pool? Or would they basically be different nations or corporations, with equipment and perhaps tactics (formations and unit-wide special rules that are separate from racial stats) differing?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:52 am

I'd say it really depends. I think differentiating by equipment and tactics would probably be best.

Duke Flauros · Post by **Duke Flauros** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:57 am

Koumei wrote:So, I don't like playing wargames, but I'm still interested in the rules, and seeing what's going on - 6E WH40k has many improvements and is quite interesting, although it also has several downsides (various "mysterious terrain" things which will really shit people up the wall, especially for tournaments, because "hahaha this objective is actually a bomb. Take damage and it's not an objective, fuck you". Or the "deploy all cramped up on short table edges and spend ages marching towards each other" possibility. Or "you get an extra Victory Point for dealing the first casualty - have a free point for getting first turn!" and similar. Oh, and even more of the "Deploy a million dudes like it's Epic 40k, but care about the placement and wargear and wound allocation of individual models like it's Anima" than before).

But anyway, that's just explaining why I'm asking this: I'm not making my own wargame, I don't even have a big old factory to produce minis and a far-reaching supply contract to control how they're sold in Europe.

But let's say you wanted to make a wargame, and give it more depth than "ORCS HATE HUMANS HATE ELFS HATE DWARFS HATE BUGBEARS". So your world has Humans, Lizardmen, Minotaurs and Giant Sentient Snails With Cyberware. And they're pretty much all mixed in together. So any "army" could potentially have a mixture of all of the above.

So what would you do to differentiate the different armies? Would you just use one big point-buy list and every player picks their own things from the massive pool? Or would they basically be different nations or corporations, with equipment and perhaps tactics (formations and unit-wide special rules that are separate from racial stats) differing?

Different border of some sort could work.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 3:34 am

Split it up like M:tG. General factions cooperate, but if you have the right setups monorace armies are also doable. opposing factions may also work but have less explicit synergy.

If I ever get back into 40k, I'll use the 6e rules to form my Pointy Ears Alliance

That means Orks and Eldar. They are both the pointy eared, highly psychic, inscrutible ancient races of the universe, engineered to safeguard it from Chaos and the Necrons and reclaiming what is rightfully theirs from the upstart races of the galaxy. Eldar brutality and Orkish kunning makes for a strong teamup.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:01 am

Actually, splitting it up like magic is a good idea, but more so than OgreBattle meant.

Take various powers, and let specific factions have a near monopoly on those powers, with the factions also being the primary home of specific creatures. So, yeah, you can occasionally find the odd black wyrm with haste, but typically wyrms are green, haste is red, and black uses zombies and self sacrifice powers.

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:17 am

There are a number of ways you could do it. How complicated do you want to make the accounting? And do you want the armies that people field to "make sense" within some kind of game world that you are imagining or do you not care?

You could allow each army to include main forces off of one list - and also some allies off of up to two lists. This is how 40K 2nd edition handled things - basically. If you were "Space Marines" your army could be 50% imperial guard or eldar or whatever the fuck you had as Allies.

You could allow each army to include two lists in each category. So you could be humans and orks with dark eldar and tyrannid wargear but space wolf and tau heavy support, something like that.

You could give units pre-requisites. So for every human elite you include, you need 3 human troop selections, or something; and you can have any combination of factions you want.

If you wanted to make the accounting complicated, you could pay some fixed cost for "technologies" or "alliances" or "cultures" or whatever, and then you buy models after you buy access to the category.

Getting back to my original question - if you just want a game where people play army men and different armies have different tactics, the best and purest way to do that is to let anyone buy whatever they want and set the unit characteristics such that different armies are different because they attempt to exploit different synergies. That is a super-hard guru level zen thing to achieve, though. So game designers generally "cheat" and put various restrictions on what combinations of stuff you can and cannot buy. This makes your life easier and it may also give better verisimilitude in representing some fictional world in which your army includes a bunch of lasgun-wielding CAVALRY because that's what you can levy, so you'd best make the best of it.

Hopefully that answer wasn't as unhelpful as it reads to me.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:49 am

Your armies can be "nations", or "races", or "corporations", or "kingdoms", or "religious groups", or "planets", or "empires", or whatever. That's backstory. The important part of the different armies is that they should look and play different. The "look" issue is frankly trivial to arrange. Even simply telling your players to paint the models differently and/or put different types of totems on sticks for standard bearers is evidently fine (just ask space marine players).

Having them play differently is only slightly more of a challenge. Each faction needs some special rules that interact with the game in some way. This can be as simple as "you're faction X, your squads get access to the following special rules...", or it can be second order like unique (or cost/availability adjusted) access to specific units, equipment, or upgrades that themselves have special rules.

Now making things balanced, that's a much more difficult path to walk.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:13 am

Well as I said, I'm not actually making a game - it's just something I was curious about, as I was thinking of how all the major wargames out there basically split everything racially (even the Tau Empire is "Tau, and a couple of slave races that you don't find elsewhere without fielding banned White Dwarf lists", likewise the mercenaries Dark Eldar use are unique to the DE, and so on) whereas if it were something like "Shadowrun: the War Game" you would seriously have the main factions being mega corporations consisting of "anybody who will work for money".

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:52 am

But, even then, Aztechnology would still have the best (or only) blood magic, and Renraku would have elite red-armor samurai squads, and Evo would deploy the best hacking, and so on.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:47 am

I thought Neonet or MCT would have the best hackers, but whatever.

What you could also do, although this probably wouldn't be enough by itself, is to modify whatever version of the force organization chart you're using: in 40k maybe Ares gets more or discounted Heavy Support because they manufacture a lot of big guns, and Aztechnology gets more troop choices because they have an entire national army with lots of conscripts to draw on.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 12:47 pm

Warlord CCG did all right. It had mostly racial factions (so the dwarf kingdom was mostly dwarves, but might have a few humans) and allowed you to have other factions' characters at a penalty. There was also a mercenary faction which you could recruit without penalty, which had some of all the others plus hideous monsters.

Warlord also centered around a single character you selected though (your warlord), so it was really more about complimenting that character.

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:59 pm

40K 6th edition has some weird ally rules.

Allies come in 3 grades -
"Battle Brothers" (hence grade-A) are just like more of your own guys except they can't share transports.
"Allies of Convenience" (hence grade-B) don't get your global bonuses of various kinds. I think this means you just don't take them.
"Desperate Allies" (hence grade-C) have a risk of losing turns if nearby each other, which seems to me to be clearly something you'd avoid.

So that makes sense, but the specific rules are weird.

Tau are grade-A allies with Eldar and Generic Space Marines (who can have chapter dogma, I think). People will wank off to getting Eldar - but a tactical squad can be guys with chainswords. Ten guys with chainswords and a commander means - you never ever get any Kroot. Not that you were getting Kroot anyway.

Imperial Guard can ally with everyone. They're grade C with Necrons and Dark Eldar, but at least grade B with everyone else.

The two types of Eldar are grade-A with eachother. Let the wanking commence! I can spend 2000 points and get like 8 guys, yeah!

Difference space marines have different ally restrictions:
Generic Space Marines: Can't ally with Chaos, Demons or Tyrannids. Grade-A allies with Black Templars, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Imperial Guard, Space Wolves and Tau(??). Grade-B allies with Craftworld Eldar, Grey Knights and Sisters of Battle. Grade-C allies with Dark Eldar, Necrons and Orks.
Except for the Tau that makes sense, actually. All the other space marine chapters (Black Templars, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves) are grade-B with Tau instead which makes more sense.
Blood Angels and Black Templars apparently extra-hate Orcs. Okay, whateve. Dark Angels extra-hate Dark Eldar. Likewise, whatev.
Black Templars are grade-C with Sisters of Battle? Why?
Space Wolves and Dark Angels are grade-B with eachother. I recall that from the fluff.

Grey Knights are not grade-A allies with ANYBODY. I'm assuming this is some kind of special-rule preserving hack, but it's still weird.

Anyway, obvious cheese:
You want to start with army lists that are already really good, and mix and match those.
Tau + Space Marines (Grade A). This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.

Black Templars / Blood Angels / Dark Angels / Space Wolves + Imperial Guard (Grade A). All these lists are weird with some stuff that's an awesome bargain and some stuff that's wank but is in roles you kinda need. So they benefit from allies more than the other armies. Also, 1 Leman Russ is what you really wanted.

Necrons + Tau (Grade B). Necrons are an above-average army list, and they choose from (at Grade B): Chaos, Grey Knights, Orcs or Tau. At points per lb. you can't beet a Tau contingent, especially when the rest of your army is slightly-overpriced Daleks.

Imperial Guard + Blood Angels (Grade A). I believe that you get a death company when you do this.

Dark Eldar + Eldar (Grade A). Everyone is going to do a poor job of this but it's really abusable if you just take the dark eldar TROOPS and have some craftworld Eldar give them non-bullshit Ld. Do not waste points on Starcanons and Warpfuckits, and you'll do pretty damn well.
Space Wolves + prob Imperial Guard (Grade A).

Chaos + Imperial Guard or Tau (Grade B). You're grade A with Chaos Demons, but why bother?

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:11 pm

How did D&D Miniatures work? Did they just have "good" and "evil" factions, or what?

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:33 pm

DrPraetor wrote: Dark Eldar + Eldar (Grade A). Everyone is going to do a poor job of this but it's really abusable if you just take the dark eldar TROOPS and have some craftworld Eldar give them non-bullshit Ld. Do not waste points on Starcanons and Warpfuckits, and you'll do pretty damn well.

Would the Avatar's fearless aura cancel out a Grotesque needed to take leadership tests, or does it only affect CWE

Being able to cast Doom in an army with multishot 4+ poison weapons also seems strong.

Other than a Farseer, is there really anything CWE brings that Dark Eldar lack?

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:37 pm

They're grade A allies, which by a plain reading of the rules means they benefit from all of each other's specials. So the Grotesque would gain the Fearless aura.

I was thinking Farseers plus detachable warlocks, yeah - with the Detachable warlocks joining DE standard squads and doing stuff for them.

I don't even remember what CWE actually get any more. I recall that Wraithlords were quite a bit better than the evil monsters that Dark Eldar actually got, for the cost. Some of the aspect warriors are a better deal than the various DE equivalents.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:52 pm

DrPraetor wrote: I was thinking Farseers plus detachable warlocks, yeah - with the Detachable warlocks joining DE standard squads and doing stuff for them.

They can only join shitty Guardian squads. Otherwise you'd see a lot more ws5 i6 aspect warriors lead by enhancing Warocks. Unless something changed? I haven't played in a while

I recall that Wraithlords were quite a bit better than the evil monsters that Dark Eldar actually got, for the cost.

t8 is dandy. Only two attacks though. They were useful to CWE as the only practical source of bs4 heavy weapons, but Dark Eldar can run around with lots of lances.

Some of the aspect warriors are a better deal than the various DE equivalents.

fire dragons are 16pts with meltaguns
Everyone else is overpriced. Spiders could be neat though.

I can see a Big Monster build
HQ- Avatar (t6 w4)
Elites- Grotesque, Grotesque, Grotesque (t5 w3 I think)
Troop- Wraithguard, Wraithguard, more Wraithguard maybe (t6 w1)
Fast Att- Beastmasters with the big beasts (t5 w4?)
Heavy Support- Wraithlords (t8 w3)

With the 'challenge' rule, you can smash anyone with a powerfist early.
I think this is the highest toughness army possible in 40k.

so transports are shared... how about Webway Portals?

Ektagliaresia · Post by **Ektagliaresia** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:12 pm

Any kind of cost to mixing armies (loss of special benefits, surcharges, etc) come with the assumption that the marginal utility is about equal. However, when you're trying to make everything in the game useable together, estimating what mixing armies is worth would get complex.

You can create what are essentially fluff restrictions by making some elements be restricted by what else you've fielded. These elements are no better than any others, but they stay special because that only show up in fewer forces.

*Komodo Lords can't be included in a force including non-lizardman because they don't like working with outsiders.

*Greka Ocean Eye, Minotaur Archer has a backstory about hating Snails and can't be use with them.

*Snail Cyber-Degenerates use their race's technology for decadent, morally questionable entertainments. They are outcasts from their own society, and cannot be inlcuded with any other Snails.

*Refractive Shell gear cannot be used by non-Snails.

I'm not sure race-specific tactic would be used; perhaps any unit can use another race's tactics as long as a leader of the correct race is in range.

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:39 pm

OgreBattle - not quite how it works, though.

You can have at-most 1HQ, 2 Troops, 1 HS, 1 Elite from your "allied" contingent.

Of course, that means tha things scale in weird ways depending on how many pts. you have. I think for entertainment purposes I will post a few allied contingents, and people can comment on how broken they are.

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:41 pm

hogarth wrote:How did D&D Miniatures work? Did they just have "good" and "evil" factions, or what?

Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil, and Chaotic Evil.

I used to follow the tournament meta even though I never participated, simply because I really liked the minis and followed the WotC features about minis and such. But that was several years ago that I stopped following em and I have forgotten most everything.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:18 am

erik wrote:
hogarth wrote:How did D&D Miniatures work? Did they just have "good" and "evil" factions, or what?
Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil, and Chaotic Evil.

I used to follow the tournament meta even though I never participated, simply because I really liked the minis and followed the WotC features about minis and such. But that was several years ago that I stopped following em and I have forgotten most everything.

This. There were the four factions. Some minis could be usable in multiple factions (undead were often usable for both evil alignments, for example). Some could be used by ALL. There were some oddballs - like a LE character might allow you to use specific CE characters of race X you couldn't otherwise. And if you were using animals (which were usable by any faction, usually), you had to have a commander specifically for them, or they would suck.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:06 am

Koumei wrote:Well as I said, I'm not actually making a game - it's just something I was curious about, as I was thinking of how all the major wargames out there basically split everything racially (even the Tau Empire is "Tau, and a couple of slave races that you don't find elsewhere without fielding banned White Dwarf lists", likewise the mercenaries Dark Eldar use are unique to the DE, and so on) whereas if it were something like "Shadowrun: the War Game" you would seriously have the main factions being mega corporations consisting of "anybody who will work for money".

When you're making a wargame, you have two primary ways of making units. You have the original Warhammer method, where you start with generic soldiers of various races and then layer templates (representing enhanced or reduced training for the most part) and gear onto them and then calculating point costs. On the flip side, you have the Warmachine method, which in addition to having balls in it also has each model have its own arbitrary stat line, ability set, and point cost. I think it's interesting to note that Warhammer itself has generally gone more towards the second option, with most units having only a few arbitrary equipment options at arbitrary point costs.

So for a Shadowrun Wargame, you could do it such that everyone could get basic troops that were humans, dwarves, orks, and so on and then give the different factions access to different upgrades. Or you could just have completely arbitrary Jaguar and Sun Warrior units for Aztechnololgy and completely arbitrary Firewatch and Knight Errant units for Ares. Most likely, you'd want to do something in between, where as the designer you had basic Dwarf (etc.) stat mods, so when you put up the Eagle Warrior (Elf) basic unit as opposed to the Eagle Warrior (Troll), you had a simple conversion to do.

-Username17

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:00 am

Koumei wrote:So what would you do to differentiate the different armies? Would you just use one big point-buy list and every player picks their own things from the massive pool? Or would they basically be different nations or corporations, with equipment and perhaps tactics (formations and unit-wide special rules that are separate from racial stats) differing?

I'd tend to use a Heroes of Might and Magic style system - wherein there are several "races" or nations with a specific unit tree but you - the commander - is free from sticking with one race and can pick troops up from various races.

The kicker is that some troops will work well together with others, and poorly with others.

Not gonna be balanced, but pretty fun.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:00 pm

did 6e add a rule for shooting pistols in close combat? It was a rumored one but I haven't seen the actual rules.

If so, blastpistols...

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:40 am

Not exactly, but any "character" (including squad Sergeants) can now assign the wounds inflicted by their weapons. So your plasma pistol Commissar can now take aim at the Chaos Champion instead of wasting it on the mooks.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Jul 12, 2012 5:28 am

Sybarites are the 'sgts' to Warrior squads

If you read the rules as 'Sybarite is an upgrade to a warrior' and 'dark lance is an upgrade to a warrior', an interpretation is "Sybarite can wield a dark lance", which means "You have a bs4 s8 ap2 sniper in your Troops choice"

There is some argument over this interpretation though.

Maaaan, these 6e rules make me really want to get a Dark Eldar force going, with some CWE allies for a Rogue Trader Pirate feel

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Mixing Races (not halfbreeds) in Wargames...

Mixing Races (not halfbreeds) in Wargames...

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