"Song of Bolter and Chainsword Playtest" Topic

After playing around with some stat conversions from WH40K to Ganesha Games' "Song of" engine, I finally got a playtest on the table and blogged.

link

And the obligatory battle photo: the Tau running from the battle.

The original blog, with conversion ideas, is here: link

Great battle report! I've been interested in using FL with my 40k minis and will be following along to see where this goes.

Interesting comment about the size limits of SoD&S. Does Flying Lead have the same limitation?

Yes. 61-65 jumps up in scale and LBDS jumps up further.

The problem, if you want to call it that, is the group order mechanism. There is a point of diminishing return when it comes to force sizes. The probabilities just get too high that one of the figures will fail, stopping you from using the remaining figures in your force.

As a tau player, I find the stereotype that we always run away offensive.

I'll have you know none of my Fire Warrior teams have ever broken! There's usually not enough left to take a morale check with the way I roll armor saves!

In all honesty this game was an aberration. The Marines made every – and I mean every – armor save. The Tau made only one out of three.

Interesting.

In all fairness, I think Marines should be scary. Far scarier than 40k makes them, in fact. The "Movie Marines" writeup some years ago was something of a joke on GWs part, but it did better reflect the fluffy longevity of known Marines. 40k as written doesn't support centuries-old veterans and thousand-year-old Chapter Commanders, yet there they are in the stories.

In the "Song of" system, even one point difference in Quality can make a huge difference. I know a few people have considered remapping the system to d12s to provide a more subtle scale, and perhaps the many troop types of 40k could benefit from that modification.