Okay…we’ve gotten a few games in. Run into a few problems and spent time figuring out how to get around them. Some of these things have probably been said by others, but I just want to go on record with these in a hopefully clear form.

And really, it’s going to sound like elf-bashing, and that’s not my intent.

1) For elves, the generals don’t seem to have to make tough choices for their armies. Elven bowmen are great at shooting and still pretty good in combat. Make them a bit worse in melee to reflect the fact that, while they are masters with amazing natural ability and centuries to learn, they spend more time on their bows. Make their Me 5+.

2) For that matter, the Seaguard are under-costed. To get a regiment of seaguard costs far, far less than getting a regiment of bowmen and a regiment of spearmen. Now, I understand that you’re gambling your points on 1 Nerve test, but the reality is that the elves are so much better at shooting than their enemies that you’re unlikely to really suffer for that. Seaguard need to be more expensive.

3) Elven shooting really is too good. We won’t compare to undead, because undead are really not a useful shooting army – I get that. But dwarves are supposed to have amazing shooting — spectacular devices. As it stands, no elf should ever let a dwarf get better than a 6+ to hit them. At range, the elf will hit 100% as often. There’s no reason to let them get within 12″ and reduce that advantage to only 50% more. And with elves being able to move and shoot, while having a better move score and dwarves being limited to move or fire weapons, the dwarves are unable to close the distance effectively without getting shot to pieces. The dwarf general has to make hard decisions — the elf general doesn’t. (Our elf player tonight said that he developed his deployment 3 weeks ago when he thought of the list, and didn’t have to change his deployment at all, and trounced a dwarven force.)

EXAMPLE: Bow Elves and Ironwatch Gunners start 24″ apart. Elves go first, and shoot dwarves. Dwarves advance 8″ to 16″ apart – no shot. Elves back up 3″ to 19″ and shoot dwarves. Dwarves advance 8″ to 11″ apart. Elves back up 2″ to 13″ apart, where they’re pinned against the table edge and shoot the dwarves. Dwarves advance 1″ to be 12″ apart and can’t shoot. Elves shoot dwarves for the fourth unanswered time. If we reverse it to the best case, the dwarves still receive 3 unanswered shots. The dwarves don’t have enough of a numbers advantage to offset that, and they don’t have a large enough melee edge to justify that much damage. Headstrong is great, but not *that* great.

4) Dwarves have no way to recover damage. This has felt like a pretty big thing in games. The turn limit may help limit the overall effectiveness of healing, but healing has come up pretty big for us — even on Elf Mage Queen’s. (Elf Mage Queen’s rock, btw…but they feel appropriately costed.)

WEIRD IDEA: Let dwarves transfer damage to other units. Share the load. You could limit it to units of similar composition/size within a very short range, and/or limit it to unit’s that have less damage that the transferring unit. This could represent their sense of community, or even commanders evening out units as losses mounted. They’d have a better chance of getting through withering fire, but would arrive generally weaker. This would require a lot of testing to see how it plays out though.

5) Anything bad that can happen to dwarves goes doubly so for poor undead. They rely on the healing quite a bit to make it across the field, and that’s maybe not a bad thing, but there in a straight up battle, undead can be kept completely from getting to melee. “Play scenarios” is not a good answer to this fundamental problem. Undead need to be able to get into a fight for sure in a 6-turn game. Whether this is through the alternate Shambling mechanism I already suggested (Shambling limits the additional move granted on Charge and At the Double moves to ‘n’ inches), or a magic spell or leader ability to push them forward. They are a melee army — they need to be able to reliabily cross the table and start a fight.

WEIRD IDEA: Undead ability “OH MY GOD! WHERE’D THAT COME FROM!” If you set up within 6″ of your back table edge, during deployment, the undead player can choose to place a unit of similar or smaller size right behind yours or in the nearest open space that will accomodate his unit. This reflects the famous movie scene where you think you’ve gotten away from the shambling horde of zombies, then turn a corner and they’re right there.

6) Please, please, please give us human stats. Basic human troops will go a long way towards helping figure out how to possibly fix problems.

7) Back to the dwarves. If their handguns are so advanced, and they use such elaborate winding mechanisms on their crossbows, let them move and fire. They’re already worse shots than elves — and I have to assume they are on par with humans. Human bowmen would therefore be able to put the same sort of unreturned fire on dwarves as elves do, but with lesser effect.

And the Seaguard again. Make them pay for their versatility with worse stats. Let elven bowmen be Me 5+, Ra 4+. Let elven spearmen be Me 4+, Ra -. Let Seaguard be Me 5+, Ra 5+. The reduced score wouldn’t be because they are less skilled, but because the integrated line just doesn’t let them mass fire as effectively as true bowmen. Either they’re having to spend time keeping track of their spears which reduces their effectiveness, or some elves are using bows, and others using spears, meaning that fewer elves are actually shooting each turn.

9) Dwarven artillery feels weak. For 75 points, I’d rather have the elven bolt thrower than any of the dwarven pieces. The dragon breath is cool, but in most instances you’re paying for a great attack that you’ll get to use, at most, 3 times in the game. And if you’re getting someone in close, you’re giving up your chance to melee the target to use the shot. Either reduce the cost of most of their stuff, or trade the “Elite within 6 inches of a Warsmith” for “gets +1 to hit within 6″ of a Warsmith”. That’d go a long way to making up for their bad Ra.

10) Revenants don’t feel important enough. I feel like I should be more scared of them than I am. As an undead general, I’d rather field skeletons so I can use the ratdog. Maybe make the revenants better in melee so they are more significant on the field.

The plus side is that there are balance issues, but the overall rules themselves feel pretty solid. The game is fun. It plays well. My group is enjoying it, and the fact that we can play a game, find a problem list, work out an answer-list, then try it out within our regular 6-hour session, and still have a couple hours left to chat about things is huge. It’s fast, simple and we’re all looking forward to more games.

But we do want to see the balance worked out.

P.S. Oh, yeah. Make artillery sit on a 3-base by 3-base block. It’s a great size and all of the pieces seem to fit so far. It makes it easy to figure out firing arcs.

Other more “rulesy’ things that had come up:

A) Determining what blocks line of sight needs to be clearer. The description of “if the commander can ‘see’…” is just too vague. We need to define what see means. Is this true, model’s eye view? If so, can you just see part of a unit, or do you need an unobstructed line to the target so can draw a line from your base to their base? Do hills have any effect? If not, artillery can have severely reduced lines of fire, meaning they may be over-pointed.

B) Determining charge arcs is pretty good, but maybe refine it for speed and remove argument potential. Depending on whether you want to favor the attack or defense, if the commander sits along a line between charge arcs, either default to the least-favorable, default to the most favorable or make it attacker’s choice. That way there’s never an argument about whether or not “most” of your commander is in the flank or not.

C) Side and flank attacks are powerful, but it can become just too many dice. I’d propose re-rolling all misses when flanking, and re-rolling all misses and failed wounds when attacking from the rear. That, or give 2 auto-wounds to flank and 4 to rear charges or some such. (Or, even though the game doesn’t have this rule yet, give a situational penalty to their Nerve for that round of combat. If they survive and eliminate the threat, they’ve pulled off a good manuever.) Our elf player groaned when he had to start counting dice for his flank charge he made with his Seaguard Horde. I take groaning at something so beneficial as being a bad thing.

D) Is there a typo on the Dwarven Berserker’s attacks column? They don’t seem to scale like other units at all.

E) I don’t mind the bounceback, but some folks object. I’d like to see a game where you deform your enemy’s line. Maybe, if you do any damage, drive them back 1D3 inches, and any units behind them have to move to keep spacing. Give the defender something to do. Any unit driven into the table edge Routs.

1) Per quanto riguarda gli Elfi, il generale non ha da fare grandissime scelte nella creazione dell'armata. Gli Arcieri sono eccellenti nel tiro, e comunque discreti in corpo a corpo. Peggioreare sensibilmente il loro rendimento in combattimento sarebbe un discreto bilanciamento, porterei il loro valore di Me a 5+.

2) La Sea Guard è sottoprezzata. Acquistare un reggimento di Sea Guard costa molto meno di prendere un reggimento di Arcieri ed uno di Picchieri; dovrebbe quindi esser più costosa

3) Il tiro degli Elfi è troppo forte. Facendo il paragone con i Nani (impossibile farlo con i Non Morti) si nota come sia facile per l'Elfo, anche grazie alla possibilità di muovere e tirare, tenersi ad una distanza tale da permettere ai tiratori Nani di colpirlo con un risultato inferiore al 6+. Questo significa che il generale Nano dovrà prendere ardue decisione, mentre il generale Elfo no.

ES: Arcieri Elfi ed Archibugieri Nani partono a 24'' di distanza. Iniziano gli Elfi, tirando ai Nani.
I Nani avanzano e non tirano.
Gli Elfi arretrano e tirano.
I Nani avanzano nuovamente senza poter tirare.
Gli Elfi arretrano un'ultima volta, raggiungendo il bordo del tavolo, e tirando nuovamente sui Nani.
Questo significa che i Nani, nella peggiore delle ipotesi, subiscono 3 fasi di tiro, ed i costi delle loro unità non permettono di avere abbastanza unità per sostenere questa mole di tiro.

4) I Nani non hanno modo di recuperare ferite, e questa opzione è molto importante. Certo, il limite ai turni riduce il potere di questa opzione, che comunque rimane una potente arma.
Idea per ovviare al problema : permettere alle unità di Nani di trasferire i segnalini danno ad altre unità, limitando magari la possibilità ad unità simili tra loro (sia numericamente sia tipologicamente), e passando segnalini solo ad unità che ne hanno meno. Questa regola rappresenterebbe lo spirito di sacrificio e comunità dei nani, che "fanno quadrato" tra loro!

5) Qualunque cosa spiacevole possa capitare ai Nani, potrebbe verificarsi raddoppiata nei confronti dei poveri Non Morti. Quest'armata infatti si basa principalmente sulle cure (resurrezioni), ma un giocatore con un minimo di abilità potrebbe negare per un'intera partita di entrare in corpo a corpo contro i Non Morti.
Bisogna fare in modo che i Non Morti abbiano sempre la possibilità di entrare in combattimento in partite standard da 6 turni, cambiando il meccanismo dello Shambling (ad esempio limitando i movimenti addizionati offerti da carica e marcia) oppure fornendo un incantesimo od un'abilità per permettere alle unità di muoversi. I Non Morti sono un armata da corpo a corpo, bisogna pertanto permetter loro di arrivarci!

6) Per favore forniteci le statistiche degli umani, questo per avere un plausibile termine di paragone e capire come risolvere alcuni problemi

7) Se gli archibugi dei Nani sono talmente eccellenti ed elaborati, permettete loro di muovere e tirare!

Tornando sulla Sea Guard, Fate pagare la loro versatilità con un peggioramento delle statistiche. Arcieri a Me 5+, Ra 4+. Picchieri con Me 4+ Ra - . Sea Guard con Me 5+ Ra 5+. A quel punto, il costo inferiore non sarebbe rappresentativo di un minore addestramento, ma di una minore possibilità di tiro, riducendo la fase di tiro elfica per quel turno (ndr : scusate, ma non ho ben capito questa spiegazione!).

9) L'artiglieria dei Nani sembra debole. Per 75 punti, preferirei la Balista degli Elfi rispetto a qualunque modello di artiglieria dei Nani. La Dragon Breath è carina ma, nella maggior parte dei casi, il potente attacco verrà utilizzato solo 3 volte in una partita, e spesso dovrete bersagliare l'unità più prossima per evitare che arrivi in corpo a corpo.

10) I Revenant non sembrano avere l'importanza che meritano. Da generale Non Morto, preferirei schierare Scheletri, soprattutto per sfruttare la regola del mastino. Magari andrebbe migliorata l'incisività dei Revenant nel combattimento.

Da quest'analisi risulta che ci sono alcuni problemi di bilanciamento, ma le regole nel complesso sono solide. Il gioco è divertente e si gioca bene. Vogliamo vedere come sarà una volta reso bilanciato.

Altri punti di analisi :

A) Determinare la linea di vista non è sempre immediato, e talvolta la dicitura, "if the commander can see..." risulta troppo vaga. Serve definire cosa si intende con il verbo "see". Bisogna guardare dagli occhi di una miniatura? Oppure bisogna avere spazio per collegare due basette? Le colline inficiano la linea di vista? Se così fosse, le macchine da guerra, che si troverebbero con linee di vista di molto ridotte, risulterebbero sovrapprezzate.

B) La determinazione dell'arco di carica è abbastanza ben fatta....(il resto non mi è chiaro)

C) Gli attacchi da fianchi e retro son davvero potenti, ma richiedono troppi dadi! Proporrei di ritirare tutti i tiri per colpire falliti quando si attacca dal fianco, e concedere il reroll sia per tiri per colpire sia per tiri per ferire falliti, se si attacca dal retro. Oppure fornire 2 ferite automatiche per l'attacco dal fianco, e 4 ferite automatiche dal retro.

D) (anche questa non è chiarissima...)

E) Mi piacerebbe vedere un gioco in cui si scompagini realmente la liena di combattimento nemica. Ad esempio, se si infliggono danni ad un'unità in corpo a corpo, far arretrare quell'unità di D3'' all'indietro, e fare arretrare le altre unità dietro ad essa per fare spazio. (questa è una wishata che avrei evitato!)

ho provato a montare l'ironclad con l'arma a due mani e ti assicuro che rende assai ^^

Does anyone know if the rulebook will be coming out in hard/soft back format with the history of all the current races, images, photos of units/game, etc at any point?

Or are we waiting to see what happens and the feedback once the new battlesets are shipped out before Mantic commit to a larger, fully illustrated, colour book?

Parsing some of Ronnie's statements, I would be led to believe that some sort of hard copy -- whether hard cover or soft cover -- will eventually come out. The format remains to be seen, but I imagine there'll be some fluff at the minimum. When you figure the rules will take up a dozen pages, army lists 1 page each, that leaves a lot of room for some background material....
...Ronnie said also, "And our core rules are always going to be free." That sounds like a commitment to let people get their foot in the door, but keeps open the possibility of a printed rulebook that will be sold.

Dimenticavo, per chi non le avesse ricevuti (non sono sicuro siano stati tradotti in italiano) ecco dove reperire gli Army Lists per Elfi, Non Morti e Nani, aggiornati dalla beta alla 2010 version : http://www.manticgames.com/Hobby/Gaming.html

Link al download diretto del pdf : http://www.manticgames.com/SiteData/Root/File/KoW%202010%20Armies.pdf