"Chipco's Fantasy Rules 3rd Edition" Topic

Just wondering if anyone is still playing this set of rules, or is it dead in the water??
I know there was an outrage at the original price, but that has since dropped… was it too little too late, or has this game survived?

I recently bought a copy, but that's for games at home with my daughter.

I've bought a copy in the past and sort of forgot about it until recently. I got it out and read it through… it looks to be a very solid game, able to represent a myriad of troops on the battlefield (more than HOTT)…

Just wondering if people are still playing it or if I should stick with HOTT? (I also very much enjoy Mighty Armies – and will continue to play it)

Ben.

I was a big fan of FR2! but the whole FR3! debacle killed it for me.

It is a kinda supercharged DBA/HoTT so if they do it for you then why now

Its a solid game but found it to be overly complicated for my tastes. It certainly gives you a lot of options. The PDF was pricey.

I would suggest Armies of Arcanna by Thane's Games. Hopefully Splintered Light will make "Pride of Lions" publicly available soon. Its a fantastic ruleset and I have moved to using it exclusively for fantasy big army battles.

Thanks, CloudCaptain.

David and I enjoyed several hundred games of FR! over a period of several years. It is, as Boromir says, a very solid game, very enjoyable.

The impetus behind my writing PRIDE OF LIONS was, first, to have something to play with using Splintered Light's leonines, but second, because I had gamed the Battle of Five Armies with FR! and discovered its limitations for massive games with multiple players. With PofL I can use the same figures, same basing, and fill the board with a 1000+ minis commanded by 7+ players, and resolve the battle of 3 to 4 hours rather than the 7 to 8 hours FR! was taking.

FR!3 is still very solid. Not much different than FR!2. Just more customizable. As said above, the rules were killed off when the authors decided to sell the PDF for $30. USD That was a huge mistake IMHO but it was their game to do as they wished. I eventually bought it for their "Year of the Monkey" sale.

I never played FR!3.

We played a lot of FR!2 in tournaments at Southern Front for about 5 years running. Played a lot at home. There are some broken army lists that are too easy to win. The magic system is cool but overpowering. We started playing with level 1 casters and allowed them to cast the very powerful spells if they had the mana to cast them.

The game still has the geometry problems that HoTT and other DBx games have but for the most part, it gives a much better game.

John

John, that was David's and my experience as well: magic was very powerful, and the Morale Clock, while quite a neat concept, meant that "sniping" at easy targets to "win" a turn by killing or disrupting just one more unit than the opponent was the best strategy. It was somewhat rare that our two main battle lines actually clashed in a way that settled the outcome.

PofL makes magic a good bit less overpowering, and emphasizes the clash of opposing lines.

Nevertheless, there is a wealth of good ideas in FR!, and it is a very flexible system, very conducive to house rules and adjustments.

It was somewhat rare that our two main battle lines actually clashed in a way that settled the outcome.

We had the same experience. When you fought with low magic, the game was /very/ fun. When you fought with high magic, it felt like a duel between 2 magic users and there were a bunch of targets running around the battle field. I fielded a mountain dwarf army one year and got mopped up quick. They were too slow and the magic caused too much damage well before the dwarves could come to grips.

I fielded a medieval army another year and did just as poorly. Rank and file armies were no match to the gimmicky armies such as the holy/unholy army.

How does PofL handle matchups? Is it still geometric or do you just have to make contact? I have never felt that there was a lot of value added by requiring a "perfect" contact (corner to corner/edge to edge).

John

As other posters have said, the pricing of FR!3 a few years back effectively killed a solid game with a growing fanbase. I still play FR!2 occasionally, but it's getting harder to find opponents.

The impetus behind my writing PRIDE OF LIONS…

So, where is PoL at?

PoL is mostly done. We are trying to "fancy" it up. I can, however, send anyone interested an in progress copy for reading and playtesting. Just email me at splinteredlightminis[at]earthlink[dot]net .

I do also like FR!3 and agree with most of what has already been mentioned here.

I'd love to David, but would be unfair at the moment as I don't have enough time to give you decent feedback. I may have to settle for buying one later :-)

I am committed to having PRIDE OF LIONS out by Historicon.

Thanks for the replies guys. :)

Pride of Lions sounds very interesting for doing really large battles and has been officially added to my radar. Thanks for mentioning it Doc! :)

The biggest problem I've had with FR!3 is that noone seems to be playing it, so I won't have any opponent's if I started to play (which means painting and basing multiple armies before getting a game in) I don't think this would be a problem with HOTT (or Mighty Armies when it is released)

I'm not quite sure what to do now…

Cheers,
Ben.

Ben, our PofL armies are based identically to FR! -- 40mm squares -- with three such bases combining to equal one 40mm by 120mm unit. So an FR! army can become the nucleus of a PofL army.

However, PofL is playable with any uniform frontage, and one could adapt a MIGHTY ARMIES force, likewise, as the core of a PofL army.

I think MA is an excellent game, and of course it is playable in both a much smaller space and a shorter time than PofL. So it just makes sense to have compatible basing, so you can use whichever rules suit the circumstances.

Sent you an email about POL.

I am an OLD FR player. Started with 1st edition, then 1.5 and on to 2nd. I introduced it in the Cincy area and we had around 15+ players at its peak. The 3rd edition debacle did kill almost all interest in the rules for several years. I am a pretty big fan of Chipco's rules. But man they really made a bad decision about FR3. By the time they reevaluated things FR was pretty much dead. Sad.

We played low magic games after several lopsided victories where magic dominated. Can you say Undead army crumbling to dust after my couple of magic users were whacked. We tended to create our own armies. I recently found my index cards of about 20 different armies. Balance could be a problem in the game. But, we still had a good time. I started to get concerned (having started with 1st) when I kept seeing the magic part of the game expanding by leaps and bounds.

Sadly, I think that FR's time has pretty much passed. Nobody I know has touched it since 3rd came out.

I am quite curious by POL.

Thanks,

John

Thanks doc!

I've spoken to my gaming buddies and since they already have some Mighty Armies armies based up between them and even though I would want to continue playing MA, they weren't too keen on learning another ruleset just yet… but if we can use our already based MA armies as a basis for of PofL army… bonus!

I have a few Mighty Armies armies lined up (almost finished the Goblin Bat Clan – great figures!!) so that makes PofL even more attractive… does it have a build your own unit system??

Would I need to base 2x(50mmx25mm) bases to make one part of a 3 part unit (if that makes sense)?

I really enjoy Mighty Armies and would like to keep it for the smaller "skirmishes" whereas PofL sounds to be Mass Combat on a large scale – therefore leaving room for both of them in my gaming schedule.

I must say doc, you certainly have me intrigued by Pride of Lions… if I wasn't playtesting a couple of other games (namely SWW and Mighty Armies Fantasy) and doing some other graphics work (as well as my day job) I would request a copy to playtest, but I wouldn't get enough time to do it right now sorry… but PofL sounds like it will be a definite purchase when it is released.

Cheers,
Ben. :)

Hi Ben,

I've already torn through the PofL rules. I must say they are fairly innovative and pretty intuitive. I won't give any reviews as it wouldn't be accurate since I am reading a rather raw copy.

As for the game, units are 3 FR! bases or at least same frontage bases. Units can lose bases in combat and it can diminish combat effectiveness.

MA bases should work fine with the same measurement scale. The recommended armies are somewhere around 8-12 units. So you will need something like 24-36 bases per army. You could play smaller engagements of course which is probably what I will do for my play test games…perhaps 5 units per side.

John

Half a dozen folks have e-mailed David in the past 24 hours, and he has sent them the basic rules and our world background. I have sent them two more files, a guide to unit strengths (guidelines for making your own) and a scenario I want to do at next summer's cons.

Cloud Captain is working with me to set up a discussion group site devoted to PRIDE, and as soon as that is ready I'll post the news.

I have written a LOT of material, and it is, inevitably, in different places and differing versions and differing stages of completion. I have a week free at the end of this month and intend to devote it to pulling everything together. Happily the basic rules are the closest to finished.

I appreciate everyone's interest!

I played in a PoL game at Siege of Augusta last January and enjoyed it, it was a good mass battle game. Magic had an influence without overwhelming the game, liked the system for spellcasting.

I too am an old FR player ho dropped it when the 3rd edition came out.

Thanks John (fancy seeing you here) :)

Thanks for the brief rundown. It all sounds great (really happy about the guidelines for making your own armies too – even though alot of the figs would undoubtably be SL minis)

Cheers,
Ben.

Thanks John (fancy seeing you here)

You too Ben!

This game might be pretty good for LotR games and bigger battles and the like. It could be a reason to get some of those Copplestone 10mm fantasy miniatures that look so nice. :)

Oh so many miniatures. So little time…

Ain't it the truth!

:-)