The Gaming Den

So, I've been someone that has difficulty finding a group to game with. I'm experimenting still, but generally looking. I was reminded of the fact that gaming stores in Dallas have regular meetups for games of various sorts. My girlfriend was suggesting the idea of looking into getting into wargaming; I play and she paints. We could save on cost by hitting up E-Bay or at least starting slow.

The question is this. Are wargames something I should get into for this purpose? What tournament or store-supported (Metroplex-specific) wargames are actually good?

Battletech is a fun beer-n-pretzels wargame that you can legally play for free- if you download the quickstart rules and grab a few tokens along some dice, you're good to go. If you find yourself really getting into it there are rules for everything from dinosaur-mounted infantry to submarines so it's pretty expandable. The tricky part is finding people who play it, but battletech is hardly unique in that regard.

I'd advise against it, as wargames generally have a poor money & time to fun ratio, unless you're really into the modelling and painting.

That said, if you really want to get into it, see if one of the regulars at the store would be willing to play a few games to teach you the system and spot you the minis to do so. Most of the people that play regularly have more than one army, so that shouldn't be a problem, especially if you coordinate in advance. That way, you'll also get to see if playing the game in that environment and with those people is entertaining enough for you to get into it.

Try to avoid wasting your time with the Official Game Demo guy, as those games are usually a totally different reality from what the game is actually like. E.g. Old Warmachine 1.0 Battle Box demos.

I remember Battletech, only a couple games, back when I was an undergrad. It was fun. But as I've discovered, I don't decide what the public plays, so I'm intentionally limiting my choices to those that have players I can readily find and meet. As stated, it's more of the fact that I get antsy if I don't have regular gaming, and something organized and supported in the local area would help alleviate that. M:tG is too short for an individual game, so it feels like it would be harder to socialize as much, and my girlfriend enjoys the idea of panting figures (and is skilled enough to be one of the master painters).

Of course, if this one Pathfinder group I found works out, I might actually be good, but backup plans are always good. I keep hearing how big Warhammer is; though I find the 40K setting more intriguing based on what I've heard from this board. I know of at least one place that supports weekly games of Warmachine, which I know jack about.

Warhammer 40k's setting is what 80s British frat boys thought would be funny put into a grim and gritty fantasy world, remade IN SPAAAAAACE, turned up to 12, and then taken semi-seriously for a couple decades. Major factions include battle nuns with 80s hair and literal cathedral-tanks, green mad-max football hooligan fungus men who live for battle, and WWI infantry who are thrown at problems by the million. Almost everything mentioned in the fluff is extremely metal, and anything that is not is written about just enough to establish it as a background for the rest of the setting to express its metalness on. In short, it is awesome.

The actual game is kinda shit, though. There's some major problems with the most basic parts of the rules, like "hey, if I win this die roll, all of my guys get to shoot all of your guys before you even start", and "hey, I'm playing daemonhunters and you're playing daemons, want to bet on the spread". There's also the codex update treadmill and power creep, which means that at roughly even levels of optimization and tactical skill, an army that has been recently updated will usually beat an army that hasn't had a codex in a few years. Finally, it is crazy expensive, because GW has a monopoly on the minis and enough fanboys to keep it that way, and you are likely to need to redesign your army after each new edition and codex update.

From what I can tell, Dallas seems to predominantly support the following: Warhammer 40K, Warhammer Fantasy, Warmachine Hordes, & Heroclix.

Maybe the small scale 40k variants, like combat patrol or whatever?

Worst part about 40k? All the armies are cool. By the time you break the bank building one, you want the next.

Do you have to meet a group in person?

Battletech has a lovely program called megamek that you can play the tabletop online with friends, and it takes care of the math. That and vent has made for some very fun nights for me a couple friends spread out over the country.

Honestly, I'd see if you could get a store to start up some battletech. The cost is cheap, it's a good game, with a great universe and decent miniatures if you go that way. As another plus, I can still use the Battletech stuff I bought almost 20 years ago today.

virgil wrote:From what I can tell, Dallas seems to predominantly support the following: Warhammer 40K, Warhammer Fantasy, Warmachine Hordes, & Heroclix.

In that case, I suggest you roll a d4 and hope it explodes, putting you out of your misery.

Of the first three, they are actually bad wargames. They're not much fun, they're poorly balanced, and most of the players are complete assholes. The latter might work, I'm not actually sure.

They aren't wargames dammit. They are miniatures games.

And yeah, they all have a poor fun-to-work ratio.

Oh, ordinarily I would agree on the work-to-fun ratio saying no. But as I stated originally, my girlfriend is a master artist and finds the idea of painting/modeling to be fun, and I'm personally willing to wait and do opportunity buys from E-Bay and Craigslist; so the lead time to having an army isn't a huge concern for me.

I've got to take issue with people saying battletech is a good game. It's not. It's cheap, but the vast majority of miniatures are terrible and the rules are stuck in an 80's time warp. Megamek makes it tolerable, as the worst of the record keeping is hidden from you, as well as the 100 odd dice rolls some turns can take. However the game is hideously imbalanced and suffers from the type of trap options D&D can only dream about. IMO it's best to think of it as an RPG with bots, because running it as a campaign with a GM is the only way I can stomach it.

Koumei wrote: Of the first three, they are actually bad wargames. They're not much fun, they're poorly balanced, and most of the players are complete assholes. The latter might work, I'm not actually sure.

I primarily play WFB, though I played a few games of 40K. While I find 40K a ok game, I really enjoy WHFB, so I am curious why do you think it is a bad wargame.

virgil wrote:Oh, ordinarily I would agree on the work-to-fun ratio saying no. But as I stated originally, my girlfriend is a master artist and finds the idea of painting/modeling to be fun, and I'm personally willing to wait and do opportunity buys from E-Bay and Craigslist; so the lead time to having an army isn't a huge concern for me.

Better idea: buy your girlfiend miniatures to paint and then you two just have sex every time she finishes one. Less expensive and more satisfying than any wargame you could possibly get into.

You know what's a fun game? Shadows Over Camelot. It's a cool little cooperative board game for 3-7 players about the knights of the round table fighting off the encroaching darkness of a dozen different problems in the twilight years of King Arthur's reign. And it comes with seven unpainted knight minis, plus some little catapults! Its replayability leaves something to be desired, though. After three or four games, it becomes clear that there is really only one winning strategy. It could use a bit more modularity and randomization in its setup.

Blasted wrote:However the game is hideously imbalanced and suffers from the type of trap options D&D can only dream about.

There are a few edge cases you can break depending on the rules you're using, and some minor issues with BV in terms of balancing sides, but it's not remotely 'hideously imbalanced.'

violence in the media wrote:Better idea: buy your girlfiend miniatures to paint and then you two just have sex every time she finishes one. Less expensive and more satisfying than any wargame you could possibly get into.

Pretty sure this is the best suggestion. As far as the miniatures, you could use them as a nice Chess set if you wanted.

If you've got someone who can paint miniatures, go into the miniature-painting business. Find whatever's just recently come out with new minis for Warhammer or 40k, buy a nice army you look up online for good combos, paint them, play once, get bored, make profit, buy next new army book, and continue the cycle.

Not a huge profit or anything, but should pay for the hobby and some travel to local conventions or whatever. Just watch you don't get caught on something they're just about to bring out a new book or edition for. Sometimes your army's about to come out again included with the core box of a new edition and that'll make it basically worthless.

Previn wrote:

Blasted wrote:However the game is hideously imbalanced and suffers from the type of trap options D&D can only dream about.

There are a few edge cases you can break depending on the rules you're using, and some minor issues with BV in terms of balancing sides, but it's not remotely 'hideously imbalanced.'

Of the four balancing options available (CBills, Weight, BV1 and BV2) only BV2 approaches balance. BV1 seems to work ~50% of the time. CBills and Weight (The only options available for over a decade) are off in lala land. BV2 works most of the time, as long as you only involve 'mechs. Vehicles? Infantry? fuggetaboutit. And then, if you're not playing just a 1off, someone modifies something and it's only slightly better than nothing. In a D&D CR type of way.

violence in the media wrote:

virgil wrote:Oh, ordinarily I would agree on the work-to-fun ratio saying no. But as I stated originally, my girlfriend is a master artist and finds the idea of painting/modeling to be fun, and I'm personally willing to wait and do opportunity buys from E-Bay and Craigslist; so the lead time to having an army isn't a huge concern for me.

Better idea: buy your girlfiend miniatures to paint and then you two just have sex every time she finishes one. Less expensive and more satisfying than any wargame you could possibly get into.

I'd rather be gaming than having sex. I know this is a controversial opinion, but a bad day gaming is still better and more satisfying than a good day of sex for me.

Blasted wrote:

Previn wrote:

Blasted wrote:However the game is hideously imbalanced and suffers from the type of trap options D&D can only dream about.

There are a few edge cases you can break depending on the rules you're using, and some minor issues with BV in terms of balancing sides, but it's not remotely 'hideously imbalanced.'

Of the four balancing options available (CBills, Weight, BV1 and BV2) only BV2 approaches balance. BV1 seems to work ~50% of the time. CBills and Weight (The only options available for over a decade) are off in lala land. BV2 works most of the time, as long as you only involve 'mechs. Vehicles? Infantry? fuggetaboutit. And then, if you're not playing just a 1off, someone modifies something and it's only slightly better than nothing. In a D&D CR type of way.

Ok, tonnage was clearly never a balancing factor unless you were brian dead. Every argument for tonnage balancing is, without exception, pants on head retarded. The CGR-1A1 Charger very clearly demonstrated this 20 real years ago. C-bills were also explicitly never meant to be a balancing factor. BV1 was supplanted by BV2, so you shouldn't be using BV1.

BV2 works well even with mixed forces unless your doing something way off like 50 infantry field guns against 3 or 4 mechs. Aerospace fighters are the most unbalanced vehicles due to dive bombing, but if both sides agree that the the air assets are engaged elsewhere with each other it works out fine (or if you bring a few fast aerospace fighters to drop the bombers). Tanks get reduced to zero movement to easy to have them be little more than area denial, and a few infernos or lbx rounds eat them like candy.

Modifying mechs also shouldn't be an issue. There are enough cannon mechs that just about any 'super awesome special snowflake' design you could come up with has a reasonably close if not basically exact example already out.

BV2 isn't perfect, it does have some issues, but not the ones you think it does, and again, it's nowhere near something like the CR system of D&D. It's actually a very useful indicator of if two sides are balanced in terms of units.

The point is not a lack of canon 'mechs, but in a campaign most 'mechs either get damaged and fixed, or modified to remove deficiencies or specifically to break bv2.
If one or more of your players aren't interested in using things which are BV2 efficient, then you may find it useful.
So yes, BV2 works if you don't run anything that breaks BV2. Grats.

Blasted wrote:The point is not a lack of canon 'mechs, but in a campaign most 'mechs either get damaged and fixed, or modified to remove deficiencies or specifically to break bv2.
If one or more of your players aren't interested in using things which are BV2 efficient, then you may find it useful.
So yes, BV2 works if you don't run anything that breaks BV2. Grats.

There is no modifications or ultimate mech you can build/design to 'break' BV2. You can make some very good mechs, but nothing remotely invincible or game breaking.

I'm starting to suspect you're either a pretty terrible tactician, have too small of a sample size to be making these statements, or are just parroting things you've heard before but don't actually understand.

There's no painting involved, but I like this one.

http://brikwars.com/

Yep.

If we're talking LEGO-based miniature wargames, I prefer Mobile Frame Zero.

http://mobileframezero.com/mfz/