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 insaniak wrote:

Except that removing those models should then have an impact on how the unit performs.

How much does the back rank impact a unit's performance tho?

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

Except that removing those models should then have an impact on how the unit performs.

How much does the back rank impact a unit's performance tho?

Not so much about performance, but rather from a visual reference. A unit that has the same number of models as it had during deployment is hard to sell as a unit that has sustained so much battle damage that it is very close to being removed.

Also, it isn't just about the back rank, but rather the unit as a whole. As it takes battle damage it should both occupy and fight at a reduced capacity as it is having it's numbers reduced. Being able to take up the same space while close to being removed is also a bit hard to sell.

This all said, these points oddly don't seem to apply to smaller scale (10mm and below). For 28mm and above ir seems quite important.

Still, I backed the game as I like to add rules to my collection.

Johanxp wrote:
It seems an interesting project and I will probably back it. But I think a miniature agnostic wargames will never truly succeed.

I think you might be surprised how many hit games there are out there that are model agnostic. Maybe not GW-tier successful, but honestly companies like GW are really in a vacuum chamber of their own making.

Lots of minis-agnostic games have long histories of ongoing sales and win awards. Examples include most games from Ganesha games (of Song of Blades and Heroes fame), Mike Hutchinson's previous game Gaslands, the majority of games from Osprey Publishing, etc. Many of those games have outlived lots of competitors with dedicated miniatures lines.

Johanxp wrote:
But I think a miniature agnostic wargames will never truly succeed.

Yeah, Frostgrave is a total failure...

Now, sure, is there as much total revenue and market penetration for Frostgrave, A Song of Blades... games, and others? No. But given that many of them have had multiple years in print, and many supplements, it's hard to say that they didn't "truly succeed."

this now depends on what you mean by model agnostic

as in "there are no dedicated models to buy" is different than "the rules are without dedicated models"

Frostgrave has a model line, same as a lot of other model agnostic games, just not from the same company that publish the rules

If I published a game that thousands of people worldwide enjoyed for years and years like Frostgrave, Gaslands, Relic Blades... I'd definitely count that as true success.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
If I published a game that thousands of people worldwide enjoyed for years and years like Frostgrave, Gaslands, Relic Blades... I'd definitely count that as true success.

Yep, but in this capitalistic world, it's only the amount of money you make of your sales that defines it.

Just selling rules will never put you on GW's scale, that's for sure, but these kind of games are indeed played a lot. Usually in groups of friends and such.


Still don't get why it's named "Hobgoblin", it doesn't seem to be related to the game's background as well. Well I guess it doesn't matter. From what I read, it's more a KoW "rival" than anything else. Could be fun to play with 10/15mm models.

Sarouan wrote:
Yep, but in this capitalistic world, it's only the amount of money you make of your sales that defines it.

There's a difference between commercial success and popularity. If a game is popular enough to be widely played, that's still a success for the game, even if it's not successful as a commercial money spinner.

 Valander wrote:

Johanxp wrote:
But I think a miniature agnostic wargames will never truly succeed.

Yeah, Frostgrave is a total failure...

Now, sure, is there as much total revenue and market penetration for Frostgrave, A Song of Blades... games, and others? No. But given that many of them have had multiple years in print, and many supplements, it's hard to say that they didn't "truly succeed."

I was thinking about rank'n'file/mass battle games not skirmish. Even my BELOVED Oathmark, that has a dedicated miniatures line, is miniature agnostic and is still struggling to reach the success and diffusion it deserves.

But hey, I wish great success for every game of course.

Ah, so what you mean is it has a harder time catching on because it doesn't have an full pool of official models one could easily draw an army from? Yea that's a struggle with army games, only KoW made out like bandits as they had a perfectly timed release of army lists for GW models to hijack orphaned WHFB players.

My group is thinking of playing the OnePageRules fantasy system. I have pitched KoW, and we are all former Warhammer fantasy players. We are all looking at this system and still undecided. I have picked up Oathmark, but honestly it's been sitting on the shelf for a while. I may have to reread it too.

With 3D printing becoming more prevelant, I see a future in the miniature agnostic range games as compared to 20 years ago when if you wanted to play a different game you were still buying GW, reaper or one of the main manufacturers models anyway because that was really the only thing available.

AegisGrimm wrote:It definitely sounds interesting, although the digital-only reward level seems expensive.

I have been looking for an approachable Rank n' Flank game to introduce to my son, who at 8 is just getting old enough for miniatures games. At the moment I have settled on Kings of War, but this might actually be a bit easier because in Hobgoblin there isn't the bewildering range of unit stats for me to try to get him to deal with. The set values for ranged and melee combat, with just a sort of "Universal Resolution Chart" would be much easier for him to tackle.

I agree. If there was a PDF version for $20 or less, I'd be tempted, but I've had such a good time with the updated KoW (which was also cheaper) that I just don't see an appeal to another rank and flank. Also, I am generally not a huge fan of cards in wargames.

As for gaming with your kid, I highly recommend anything from One Page Rules. My son started playing Grimdark Future when he was 10 and he enjoys it alot. All the major OPR rules share the same mechanics and are really easy to play. That said, it won't be long before your son is able to pay KoW. It's a very easy game as well.

kenofyork wrote: It always baffles me that "speed of play" is so important in modern games.
2-4 hours makes a good game. Same time as a LOTR movie. Tik-Tok and youtube shorts are not the limit of my attention span.

As someone who has both a modest attention span for crunch and has hosted a weekday night gaming club for years, speed of play is extremely important. If a game plays in 2-3 hours we can get it done on a Monday night and still have a bit of time to shoot the breeze, etc and get a good night's sleep. If it takes 3-4 hours or more, we're looking at a game that just doesn't fit our lives anymore.

I'm not against big event games, but most of us are late 40's and have families, so regularly giving over an entire weekend afternoon to a game just isn't going to be feasible.

lord_blackfang wrote:The Esoteric Order of Gamers just did an interview with the author, it explains some things.

Magic is definitely super involved, there's 10 schools of 3 spells each and Mike says his view of magic is that it should break the rules, as a representation of magic doing the impossible, so the effects are a lot more esoteric than ranged attacks with a fancy name.

I do think this will appeal to alot of players, but personally, I like for Magic in Rank and Flank games to be relatively modest and streamlined.

Johanxp wrote:It seems an interesting project and I will probably back it. But I think a miniature agnostic wargames will never truly succeed.

Others have addressed aspects of this already, but it's a matter of defining success for a wargame. For a big game from a big company, with lots of employees, dedicated miniatures and lots of expansions game success is determined by a huge number of people playing it to the point of ubiquity. For a miniatures agnostic game written by one person, success might simply selling enough copies for a reprint and getting enough of a reputation to sell expansions an continue to write new games. Andrea Sigliofi (Song of Blades and Heroes), Joe Mcolough (Frostgrave, Rangers of Shadowdeep.etc) , etc are examples of authors who manage to make a living writing miniature-agnostic games.

The bar might be even lower for the many folks who write games as a sideline to writing other things or other careers entirely. For them it might simply be enough uptake to support a small community and make writing more games worthwhile.

All this to say, there has always been a very robust community of game writers whose games are played quite a bit, but never achieve the success of massive acceptance or even a full-time career in the industry.


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 insaniak wrote:

Except that removing those models should then have an impact on how the unit performs. It seems to be becoming more the norm for rank and flank games to have the unit simply count as a homogeneous mass until it takes enough damage to be removed completely, which removes the need to have the models there in the first place is just not an abstract that interests me. I want the unit to be actually impacted by the damage it takes, and I want the models to count for more than just an arbitrary footprint.

I don't agree, but this is an argument I certainly understand and have sympathy for. Unit degradation can be seen a realistic and it does sort of help justify the effort in painting ranks of individually based 28mm miniatures.

However, I tend to think that not having degradation in combat in a streamlined rank and flank game like KoW could be argued to be fairly realistic. In KoW things are abstracted such that after a couple turns of fierce fighting, one unit is generally so broken that it is quite shaken or quits the field. There aren't usually enough actions between battle being joined and an outcome reached for more granular degradation to be of much use.

However, I do concede that the example above breaks down a bit in some situations such as particularly large units that may be able to hold on longer and when units take ranged damage and yet are permitted by the rules to still charge into combat at full strength. Such is the price of abstraction, but it's one I'm willing to pay.

 Theophony wrote:
My group is thinking of playing the OnePageRules fantasy system. I have pitched KoW, and we are all former Warhammer fantasy players. We are all looking at this system and still undecided. I have picked up Oathmark, but honestly it's been sitting on the shelf for a while. I may have to reread it too.

The main issue I've had with OPR is that its lack of strategic options translates into a fairly monotone tactical experience. It's a fine experience, but every game is the same experience. Doesn't really matter which faction or units you pick, it kinda always plays the same.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Theophony wrote:
My group is thinking of playing the OnePageRules fantasy system. I have pitched KoW, and we are all former Warhammer fantasy players. We are all looking at this system and still undecided. I have picked up Oathmark, but honestly it's been sitting on the shelf for a while. I may have to reread it too.

The main issue I've had with OPR is that its lack of strategic options translates into a fairly monotone tactical experience. It's a fine experience, but every game is the same experience. Doesn't really matter which faction or units you pick, it kinda always plays the same.

That seems to be the biggest problem with many army games. Rich customization does not scale well.

 Eilif wrote:

AegisGrimm wrote:It definitely sounds interesting, although the digital-only reward level seems expensive.

I have been looking for an approachable Rank n' Flank game to introduce to my son, who at 8 is just getting old enough for miniatures games. At the moment I have settled on Kings of War, but this might actually be a bit easier because in Hobgoblin there isn't the bewildering range of unit stats for me to try to get him to deal with. The set values for ranged and melee combat, with just a sort of "Universal Resolution Chart" would be much easier for him to tackle.

I agree. If there was a PDF version for $20 or less, I'd be tempted, but I've had such a good time with the updated KoW (which was also cheaper) that I just don't see an appeal to another rank and flank. Also, I am generally not a huge fan of cards in wargames.

As for gaming with your kid, I highly recommend anything from One Page Rules. My son started playing Grimdark Future when he was 10 and he enjoys it alot. All the major OPR rules share the same mechanics and are really easy to play. That said, it won't be long before your son is able to pay KoW. It's a very easy game as well.

Oh, we definitely play One Page Rules stuff. I've got him cutting his teeth on wargaming using the Warstuff ruleset that OPR used to have, and will probably soon move to Grimdark Skirmish and Age of Fantasy Skirmish. He's crazy about Lego, so I'm using it as a gateway drug. Plus, the ability to change entire figures/weapon loadouts between (or even during!!) games is something I never really realized the potential in.

Someday the goal is to get him to play Kings of War with three completely-minifigure/brickbuilt armies I have been collecting over the years, but for right now, I was thinking of using the Hobgoblin demo rules (with some homebrew add-on rules for terrain and some extra keywords) as a way to play some intro Rank n' Flank games with him. He's got ADD on top of being a typical 8 year old, so quick and dirty rulesets/game sessions are the best (another point in favor of OPR).

I don;t know if I'll be backing Hobgoblin during the campaign, but if there are ways to get the ruleset when it comes out, I'll be heavily interested.

 Scottywan82 wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Theophony wrote:
My group is thinking of playing the OnePageRules fantasy system. I have pitched KoW, and we are all former Warhammer fantasy players. We are all looking at this system and still undecided. I have picked up Oathmark, but honestly it's been sitting on the shelf for a while. I may have to reread it too.

The main issue I've had with OPR is that its lack of strategic options translates into a fairly monotone tactical experience. It's a fine experience, but every game is the same experience. Doesn't really matter which faction or units you pick, it kinda always plays the same.

That seems to be the biggest problem with many army games. Rich customization does not scale well.

Sameness of the core game can be a recurring shortcoming in most streamlined games. However, I find this ameliorated by creative scenario building. I don't expect any streamlined game to be interesting if sticking with the whatever set of 4-8 stock scenarios are included in the rules.

That said, I have found OPR do be a different-enough experience based on units taken. A recent experiment with an IG armored company was an interesting change of pace.

 Scottywan82 wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Theophony wrote:
My group is thinking of playing the OnePageRules fantasy system. I have pitched KoW, and we are all former Warhammer fantasy players. We are all looking at this system and still undecided. I have picked up Oathmark, but honestly it's been sitting on the shelf for a while. I may have to reread it too.

The main issue I've had with OPR is that its lack of strategic options translates into a fairly monotone tactical experience. It's a fine experience, but every game is the same experience. Doesn't really matter which faction or units you pick, it kinda always plays the same.

That seems to be the biggest problem with many army games. Rich customization does not scale well.

What a lot of those games miss, I'd argue, is good command friction. If unit activation is not guaranteed, you have a more varied experience.

Once you get past a warband level game, a wargame should be as much about trying to get your force to do stuff as it is about fighting the other side. That could be a Warmaster-like "roll against a leader's command value" method, or maybe having a limited amount of orders generated per turn, and actions cost a varying amount of orders.

 Theophony wrote:
My group is thinking of playing the OnePageRules fantasy system. I have pitched KoW, and we are all former Warhammer fantasy players. We are all looking at this system and still undecided. I have picked up Oathmark, but honestly it's been sitting on the shelf for a while. I may have to reread it too.

OPR's Age of Fantasy Regiments is a good system, fast and dynamic. Me and my regular opponent have stopped playing Oathmark, because in truly big battles it becomes really awkward to play, and we've found monster-everything-else balance to be horrendous, literally "don't bring a dragon to the game if you want to have any friends". That being said, OPR's ruleset is not without its issues. Magic is incredibly dull, for example.

It’s not rank and flank but if anyone is looking for new mini agnostic games I’d recommend Warlords of Erehwon from Warlord Games, fantastic system (uses order dice, like Bolt Action) and adding home brew ideas / units is baked into the system.

 SgtBANZAI wrote:

 Theophony wrote:
My group is thinking of playing the OnePageRules fantasy system. I have pitched KoW, and we are all former Warhammer fantasy players. We are all looking at this system and still undecided. I have picked up Oathmark, but honestly it's been sitting on the shelf for a while. I may have to reread it too.

OPR's Age of Fantasy Regiments is a good system, fast and dynamic. Me and my regular opponent have stopped playing Oathmark, because in truly big battles it becomes really awkward to play, and we've found monster-everything-else balance to be horrendous, literally "don't bring a dragon to the game if you want to have any friends". That being said, OPR's ruleset is not without its issues. Magic is incredibly dull, for example.

From what I understand Hobgoblin has a bit deeper of a magic system than something like OPR or Kings of War. Evidently there are multiple schools of magic, each with something like 3 spells? So when you pay to upgrade a unit to include a wizard, you give them one of the schools. There is a mana-gathering subsystem in the game, which is used to fuel spells.

I have found that in the OPR games, Spells/Psychic power are fine, just backward mechanically. They suddenly become a bit more fun if you make your casting roll first, and then apply that score to any of the army's available spells, rather than "choose a spell from the list and try to hit it's target number or you fail". It stops having mages from times where they cast absolutely no spells for entire games, even though you paid for them as units.

To be fair, OPR also prices spellcasting absurdly cheap at 20 points per level. Bring 5 of them and you'll get something off.

the most interesting command system for R&F at the moment is with Lasalle 2nd Edi, which is more or less a resource management system of activations and interruptions
but not sure if you could port this over well into fantasy without loosing to much of the "unique" units (and also has the battalion level abstraction of units, so no degradation or model removal)

 AegisGrimm wrote:

From what I understand Hobgoblin has a bit deeper of a magic system than something like OPR or Kings of War. Evidently there are multiple schools of magic, each with something like 3 spells? So when you pay to upgrade a unit to include a wizard, you give them one of the schools. There is a mana-gathering subsystem in the game, which is used to fuel spells.

I have found that in the OPR games, Spells/Psychic power are fine, just backward mechanically. They suddenly become a bit more fun if you make your casting roll first, and then apply that score to any of the army's available spells, rather than "choose a spell from the list and try to hit it's target number or you fail". It stops having mages from times where they cast absolutely no spells for entire games, even though you paid for them as units.

For me the problem lies not in how they are cast, but their exact mechanics. All of the AOFR's spells are way too similar and mechanically trivial, even for such a simple game. They don't really offer you any "magical", like allowing to do some things out of order (except move actions, but that's just a commander's ability) or severely modifying unit's performance, at the very least, I've yet to encounter such a spell list. Usually it's "deal some damage", "deal damage to tough units", "deal a lot of damage to weak units", "buff your troops +1 to hit/to defend", "buff your troops +2" to move". It's incredibly uninspiring, and overall magic system seems to be the most half-baked part of the rules. There are surely ways to make it more interesting without comprimising the OPR's idea of having simple rules.

With that being said, I somewhat disagree that AOFR's factions are all identical. I'm primarily playing Orcs against multiple variations of the Undead, and I notice that our units are often vastly different, and our emergant strategies seem to value different things and pressure different points. You can argue that you will always use cheap chaff to deter enemy aggression and position your heavy hitting monsters to gain perfect flank strike, but that's typical for literally any mass-battle geometry-based game, regardless of it's direct subgenre. From my experience, Swordpoint (historical set of rules) plays very similar in terms of how you want to position your troops, and games like Impetus have even fewer distinguishing characteristics between different types of normal humans, yet armies there seem to be somewhat different. The only real way to make them truly unique would be adding a multitude of faction-specific rules and mechanics that force you to chase different things when playing, a la Conquest, but after hearing from a player of this game how many overarching buffs, incredibly non-obvious but powerful play sequences and listbuilding gotchas this game has I'm not sure I'd like that.

Hobgoblin how to plays

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8W4eLbki4kgmjQAvCIHNVgJquNlsd1y5

Shooting before moving is quite strange for me but interesting

Impressive for an indie ruleset! 900+ backers raising over 58K, with just under 70 hours left.

Man this looks awesome!!! There's such a void for formation-based fantasy battles still.

Obviously, without a miniatures line, this could never become the main ruleset for most players. But it is amazing to have as an option for those still orphaned by WHFB.

I can take a guess that people orphaned by WHFB have either found new home already or are patiently waiting for the Old World to release. I know that personal experience is limited a priori, however from talking to several WHFB players who have yet to switch to another wargame I've come under impression they want the exact same same, once again. Otherwise they would've already switched and tried at least some of the miniature agnostic rulesets.

The fact that lack of official miniature line plays against miniature agnostic rulesets in some ways is understandable, but for some people (like me) it's usually a strong win. Truth be told, I do not trust any company with handling their world's background and making factions and models I 100% like.

I don't know if there's actual void. Wherever your preference sits on the spectrum between old school complication and modern streamlining you can easily choose between the 9th Age, Kings of War and A Song of Ice and Fire, and those are just a few titles that I know are very popular.

Also Oathmark, Warhammer Armies Project, Conquest and AOFR.