"Mantic Thoughts?" Topic

I have a pile of GW stuff. However, I have given up on trying to play GW, including both recent editions of WHF and 40K.

I was thinking of something less complicated that would easily use the same figs, and the Mantic rules by Allessio Cavatore come to mind. I've read the fantasy set and they seem to have potential for real fun without a migraine. I have Empire and Chaos Dwarf figs, so the Kingdoms of Men and Abyssal Dwarfs are obvious choices.

For 40K, I have Necrons and Imperial Guard, and some Space Marines / Chaos Space Marines.

I've put this in "Old School Wargaming" b/c the set of rules remind me of what I have in my old Featherstone and Grant books – I've been gaming 31 years – eek!

I wasn't able to cross post this into Warhammer Fantasy, can't figure out why, couldn't find the option even though I made it into the 40K forum and checked to make sure it was spelled "Warhammer" and not something like "GW Warhammer". Puzzing…

Anyway,

IF YOU HAVE PLAYED both sets of rules (40K & Warpath, or Warhammer Fantasy & Kings of War), please let me know what you think of the comparison.

Overall, it strikes me as GW Lite – most of the taste and 1/3 the suffering.

Thanks in advance for posting ON TOPIC and not turning this post into a flame war over Games Workshop! ;)

I cannot compare/contrast the two rules, but I can recommend Warpath, we have played many games and enjoyed them immensely. We have played with dwarf, orc and human, but not yet rat. They are free and work fine with GW figures.

Phil

Well, if you liked parts of Warhammer Fantasy I'd heartily suggest Armies of Arcana. Simple, fun and fast playing game with a Warhammer flavor. you can also design your own stuff. Otherwise, I'd say Chaos Wars by Partha.

Thanks,

John

Played Warpath and 40k. Warpath is a nice 40k-lite ruleset. One of my gaming buddies and I are the only two folks in our club with 40k armies, so we use warpath to get our figs on the table for a battle that isn't going to take 2+ hours to complete.

I did an AAR/review here:
link
At the end of the AAR, I give a review with my thoughts, comparisons to 40k and uses for Warpath.

Look, I can't comment on WP.
KoW however, I can. Think of it this way – it's played with a chess clock, which means each player's turn is self contained. During said turn the champion of each unit declares an order for that unit (stand/charge/move/shoot). Units with ranged attacks roll to see if they hit, what hits is re-rolled vs the enemy unit's defense value. In this phase Magic also takes place – being basically either a healing, a speed improvement or an offensive spell. Combat then takes place – your unit having the impetus of the charge roll their attacks, trying to roll higher than their own Melee score, and successful rolls are rolled again trying to beat the enemy's defense value to score hits on that unit.
They then fall back an inch to recoup their strength and prepare for the inevitable counterattack which will take place in the opponent turn – if he so desires!.
Hits are accrued by units (no models are removed from a unit – ever!) and added to a 2d6 roll to try meet Nerve value following combat – ie at the end of each player's turn under most circumstances.
All except Undead have two nerve values. When the first is achieved the unit is considered Wavering – ie its choice of actions the following turn are limited.
If the second of the two nerve values is reached with the 2d6 roll plus accrued hits, the unit is removed altogether.
The game is very fast, but also extremely tactical. Basically it's been stripped down to the bare elements that make a great game, without layers and layers of extras.

The best idea you'll get of the game I think you'll find here
YouTube link

It's not everyone's cup of tea, I've a game of Warpath coming soon. But KoW I swear by. There are special rules for each race but they make perfect sense for that race and are easy to remember.
Also note the final hardback full colour rules are due out next month after three years of testing, balancing and experimentation. Nothing more to buy, all basic and advanced – campaign, sieges etc… – rules in one tome with eight army lists
Full colour, of course!

If you like, there's an Ancients report here link
And a fantasy report here link

Further, I have a blog about my own endeavour to build a Mantic Army for Kings of War link

My two cents of the proverbial
Steven

"The game is very fast, but also extremely tactical. Basically it's been stripped down to the bare elements that make a great game, without layers and layers of extras."

Just this.
KoW is actually our fantasy mass battle game of choice. probably will be the same with warpath. we will buy for sure the KoW rules in June.
Paolo

checked out the free download, the only thing that confused me was that you "don't measure your charge distance". Does that mean you can't pre-measure, or that charges have no movement distance limitation, ie I can charge 72 inches if I otherwise adhere to the charge rules.

So I went and took a 2nd look at KoW based on positive comments above and on the other KoW thread. There are some really interesting ideas in there. Overall it looks good, but the deal breaker is the melee. I just don't like the one sided melee fights.

Warhammer 3-7(version's I've played) suffers a form of this. In that the charged unit gets hit and take losses before it can fight back. WHFB 8th addresses this issue, to a degree, which I think it's a HUGE improvement.

Now in 8th, the side with the highest Int score swings first, but any losses are replaced from back ranks and units can fight back with full attacks. Of course that assumes you have men left in the back. So after 5 years I am back in the WHFB hobby. Time to dust off my Empire Army.

Just my 2 pence.

Cheers, Xin

They melee fights aren't one sided (to use Ben Kenobi logic).

If you consider one player's round of fighting as their 'licks' in the fight it's less jarring. Since they're stuck within easy charge range of teh unit they just smacked, they will almost always become the smackee. Same fight just spread over two player's turns.

Not familiar with 8th but you're saying if I knock out equivalent of two of your front ranks on a first strike you can still fight back? That's certainly a change if that's the case. Whole point of striking first in WH used to be to prevent the other guy from having any licks back at ya.

yes WH8 fixed some of the broken stuff. Then they broke new stuff. Plus you still need to be an experienced lawyer to even get thru the rules.

WHF sucks, and that's why it's not part of this post. If you want to spend 5 hours playing a 2 hour game, and three of those hours looking up special rules and trying to figure out how to play them, have at it. I'm thru with it, hence this post.

Grandviewroad – "don't measure your charge distance" refers to no pre-measure.

We are keen fans of KoW as well. In fact, as well as a few Mantic Armies growing around the office, we have also made Ancients army lists and switched to KoW from WaB.

Gets the thumbs up from us!

Hybrid – it actually relates to charges complicated by intervening units / terrain. You measure to make certain you are within double your march distance, and if you are, you can charge, and then you can automatically "make the distance" around an intervening obstacle. I got that cleared up at the Mantic Forum.

Hey! I've been Spranged! ;)
How's it going Matt? Long time no hear.

We don't feel any need to build specific Mantic armies, altho I can see myself using their figs in the future. I'm actually thinking of keeping the GW fluff and figs, and just using their rules. I'm looking forward to the published set of full rules that will include sieges, etc. All the basics for a fantasy battle!

Played a first game of KoW last night. I like the movement rules, the available move options require a bit of fore though but remain simple to apply. Fighting only on the active player's turn took a little getting used to, but did not get in the way of enjoying the game. Over all, for a first game, it played smoothly with only brief pauses to check the rule book.

My big issue with the game is the "bucket" of dice required to resolve a combat. I don't mind all the dice rolls which WFB 5-7 used – but once the total exceeds 15-20 dice the process becomes tedious. Flank/rear charges double and triple the number of dice rolled, I had one occasion to roll 40 dice and my opponent 50 dice. WFB 8 has the same issue – too much time spent rolling & counting dice, not enough time spent playing the game.

this may sound insane, but for Flames of War I already divide dice into groups by color. So all the red dice = ten dice. All the White Dice = twnety dice. The blue dice = 5 dice.

If you pick them up and roll them like that, it's just as fast and not a problem. I do haev one friend who insists on counting every dice every time. He also scatters them around too much. I think this can be avoided successfullly.

One nice thing is that KoW seems to have increments of 5 for everything. So the above system should work well for that.

Warpath delivered on all counts. As a disaffected 40k player who still loves the miniatures and background — but who no longer has the desire to play games that take longer than an hour or so — I will definitely be using Warpath again to get my 40k figs back on the table.

Ordinary – thanks for the batrep – it's pretty much what I figured. We feel the same, lots of amazing figures but the actual rules are hellacious. I agree that it won't have me checking and re-checking my codex. But it also won't have me checking and recheckign the rules. Maybe I can invest the energy into campaigns and other stuff!

Glad it worked out for you.
We agree with you also regarding the fluff. We like the grimdark universe, army lists, etc. I personally don't even hate the 40k rules, I'd just like something faster and less complicated by special rules. We were remarking that once we've got a few games under our belt, we could play an absolutely ridiculous Apocalypse (4-6000 points per side) game in just a few hours!

I'm really looking forward to a published rules which will have all 8 army lists (next year maybe…). That should provide more than enough unit stats to cover most every 40k unit (some with minor tweaking).

Instead of rolling a bucket of dice, just use only 5 dice and multiply the results by 2, 3, 4, 5…

about close combat:
yes the unit charged don't fight back. but unlike any WH games, the combat is a lot longer and attrition is the norm. Is very difficult that a fresh Regiment (20 men) or Horde (40 men) can be destroyed cause a charge received. More, in this game you have 2 possible close combat results: the charged unit can be routed (remove the unit) or disordered (can't counter-charge next turn). If both the results are not possible, the charged unit moves back 1" AND have to counter-charge in the next turn the same opponent original unit. Often a close combat last 2-3 turns if there isn't any side or rear charge.
about the "one man play":
yes, in this game the active player roll all the dice, the opponent never roll. this one is exactly the same of GW games BUT a lot faster. Infact the results in game term are the same but you don't have the boring questions like how much is your thoughness, please roll your save…here all is faster and straigher, I never check the rules after the first game and my codex is 2 side long and easy to remember.
about the number of dice:
yes in this game you can roll 10 dice but the norm will be 20-30 for every close combat. yes is little boring. using colored dice in step of 10 is a good idea and we use also this method. About side (double dice) and rear (triple dice) bonus, 90% of the time is clear that the charged unit is destroyed so we removed it without any roll…
about pre-measurements:
yes in the game always you can premeasure distances, also the charge. And this one make the game totally different (a lot better)!
about time and chess-clock:
the game last 6 turns + 1 (dice). Is very important use the chess clock. Every player has one hour (for deploy also). The time is perfectly calculated and often in the last turns you will see players skip activations to save time…
about KoW rules:
KoW is a finished ruleset actually, ready to be pubblished next June and is not that one free on the Mantic site. There are some little different rules in every chapter and in the army lists (result of a lot of playtest). It is made to last not less than 5 years. Inside it you will find all the army lists you need (8), fluff, maps, campaign and siege rules. 56 pages full color at 5£…not 50£

link

Warpath will be ready in the next 1-2 years not less in my opinion. Is ready now but need playtest and a lot more army lists.

Paolo

EDIT: remember that both the Mantic games don't need any model removal. So you can play using the number of models you prefer and the scale you prefer. We play often using 10mm warmaster armies using cm instead of inch (same table more points or same points small "travel" table) and the game play very well.

"Grandviewroad – "don't measure your charge distance" refers to no pre-measure."

@ Hybrid

Turns out that you do measure your charge distance but only the initial distance. After that you can maneuver around things to make you charge and not measure. WHF8 actually does this, and it is a nice mechanic to simplify charges.

Just thought that needed clarifying.

We're looking forward to playtesting it in about a week.

Have layed some KOW with my son. He never quite got the full drift of WH but picked up KOW quite quickly and we enjoyed it.

As noted, since individual figures are not removed you can really do your own thing basing wise.

@ Grandviewroad

Thanks for clarifying Grandviewroad. I forget that the no pre-measuring rule we play with is a house rule. Implemented because one of our players absolutely hates pre-measuring and the rest of us didn't mind one way or the other.

Which is another strength of KoW in my opinion. It is very easy to modify to your groups own taste.

well, there's disadvantages to both, and they're both open to abuse. Some people if they can pre-measure have to measure 20 times to move a unit. Others take just as long when they can't measure.

Overall, the game community seems to be strongly heading to allowing pre-measuring b/c overall, it is faster.

Neither is more "realistic". I'd only play along with your friend's bias if he also didn't premeasure or know in advance how far his troops could move, his command distances, or anything else. ;) So if you play TSATF that might work equal.

Anyway, yeah, KoW can be modified pretty easily, altho I don't intend to unless it is absolutely essential.

I hooked up with a few of the group tonight and we played a game of KoW. Do you know that we have been playing the charge rules wrong all this time! Not only have we not been pre-measuring (for reasons explained above), but we have also taken terrain and obstacles into account when charging. So thanks for pointing that out Grandviewroad.

So might also consider "Star Grunt" from GZG, the rules are freely avaliable:

link

Great set of fun rules.