"New project seeks play testers, artists and feedback (LoM)" Topic

Howdy all,

I have wrote many small games for family and friends but nothing beyond my own gaming group, and feel its about time I changed that.

So, I will be rolling out one of my efforts – 'Leaders of Men', a 15mm fantasy wargame that emphasises strategy and tactics over rolling lots of dice.

Although its 'fantasy', it is steeped in real world concepts, the fantasy side really refers to my storyline and associated world. The game could easily serve as an Ancients through to Medieval ruleset with a little tweaking.

I am looking for play-testers to try the game, as well as artists and illustrators to do the eye candy. I am also open to advice and guidance from my peers who have done this type of thing before.

This is not a major effort and doesn't have any big money behind it, it is very much a one man operation with a couple of hundred £ of my own money invested.

Anyone interested in helping out in any way, can find all the details on my blog,

marchingincolour.blogspot.co.uk

I'll also keep checking and updating this thread here as the 'official TMP contact'

Thanks!
Chris

I have wrote many small games

If you plan to sell these rules commercially, it would be as well to ensure that the grammar is correct!

First thought I had as well.

I'd be interested in trying the rules. Unfortunately I don't have any 15mm figures. Not sure on the number needed but I might have enough 28mm to give it a go.

What makes it "a 15mm game" ? Surely any game can be played with a range of different scale figures ?

From your website : "The original LoM has a chart 140 places long, with 7 different coloumns for working out damage to the exact point. "

Now I know you are stating that as an example of where the rules need streamlining, but to me that says they need a re-write from the beginning, not just streamlining.

Ok, guys, appreciate the feedback but its not exactly what I was hoping for. I will address it now, but hoping that future feedback will focus more on the idea and concept.

Grammar – this is a relaxed forum post, not a polished piece of work. I am paying for art so its likely I will also pay for it to be proof read and adjusted as necessary.
Don't worry too much about that part.

15mm game – as I tried to explain, 10mm is similar to 6mm, its hard to tell what is what from across the battle field. This game relies a lot on matching and using the correct troop type. Upping the scale simply helps identify troop types a little easier. Aside from that, yeah, most scales would work.

140places long – this comes from the numbers being too high, rather than wrong, and many places scoring the same. For example having 4 stats that go to 20 each, would allow for a total of 80. Halving that is easy enough. Also if 21, 22, 23, 24…..28 all score 5pts, then writing 21-28 = 5 eliminates even more places.

Thanks to everyone so far for the help and advice. I am busy working away on taking the original print and writing it onto OpenOffice, its taking a little longer than I thought, mainly due to the margin scrawl that has faded a little and looks like spider writing in parts. Hope to have something solid in the next day or two!

Semi unrelated to the game itself, but I'd consider looking at LibreOffice as well as OpenOffice. I find LibreOffice is better for big docs while OpenOffice is nicer for some PDF export stuff. LO.org was a fork of OO.org so it had some extra development before Apache took over OO.org recently.

Thanks Thunderman, I will check it out.

*New Update*

I have completed copying and updated the old LoM rules into a new set, this first set is simply a bullet point collection of the rules as I worked through them.

It doesn't read well, lacks a lot of substance, but gives a general feel to the rules as they stand. With a little effort you can try a game.

Full details on how to get this draft and help out are on my blog, link below.

link

I am also now looking for an artist to do the first piece of work for the game. Details in the same post.

Thanks
Chris

New Update

Looking at deployment, initiative, and opening moves.

link

There is even a 'What would you do?' question at the end.

Thanks
Chris

140places long – this comes from the numbers being too high, rather than wrong, and many places scoring the same. For example having 4 stats that go to 20 each, would allow for a total of 80. Halving that is easy enough. Also if 21, 22, 23, 24…..28 all score 5pts, then writing 21-28 = 5 eliminates even more places.

I have no idea what you are talking about here. I hope the rules are written more clearly !

This is primarily for @Marhsal Mark

Its not so much to do with LoM, the numbers and stats are completely made up for ease of explanation.

If you have 4 stats, for example Shooting is one stat, Melee power another, and 2 others. If these have scores between 1 and 20, when you add them all together you get a number between 4 and 80.

To reduce this you say 'all stats are now 1-10', and this reduces the possible total to 4-40.

If this combined number is responsible for determining another number, such as 'damage inflicted', and more damage is inflicted the higher the number, then it a chart could read like this -

31 – 3pts of damage
32 – 3pts of damage
33 – 3pts of damage
34 – 3pts of damage
35 – 4pts of damage

This small, staggered increase is due to the maths used to work the damage. In this case its simply the original number divided by 10. So,

31/10 = 3.1 = 3
32/10 = 3.2 = 3
33/10 = 3.3 = 3

To avoid using a chart that is 4-40 places long, and which many numbers score the same, the same result can be written as

30-34 = 3
35-40 = 4

In this fashion a list numbered 1-140 can be condensed down to a small table, making it easier and quicker to read, without losing any change in the maths behind it.

Hope that helped!

I am writing a set of rules too and I understand you want feedback. According to what I just read in your blog, the game is targeted for new, intermediate or advanced players?

Part 4 – A quick look at combat, how damage is calculated, the effect on Morale and the hidden danger routing units present.

link

Thanks
Chris

Hi Times of War,

That's a really good question.

The mechanics I am using are simple enough to understand, but I am designing the game to favour skill over dice rolls. Perhaps a better word for 'skill' should be 'knowledge'.

If you have good grasp of what's going on, and understand the roles of Infantry/Cavalry, and their specific types, you will have a clear advantage over someone who doesn't, and the person lacking in the knowledge has little to no chance of being saved by lucky dice rolls!

So, I would probably say intermediate to advanced. Players of similar skill levels would have a great game, a player without much historical knowledge would suffer against someone who knew what they were doing.

Chris

If you want more feedback I'd recommend posting a link to the rules instead of having to email you to get them. That's enough of a barrier to entry to stop people from giving them a cursory glance.

From the Part 3 blog post it looks like you have to place Order Tokens beside each unit? From playing other "choose an order and put it face down" games I think this might be an overwhelming number of tokens. Heck I find some players have to recheck their 3 flight maneuvers in Wings of War before they are comfortable being done.

In terms of "knowledge > dice", do you worry that the real summary would be "memorizing charts > dice"? From what I can tell just having to figure out combat odds before an attack would really bog the game down. I know you might want players to memorize the table so that experienced players know offhand how a combat will go…but I don't know if that would happen in practice? It seems like new players would just consult the combat table before doing anything.

Then again I might not be the target audience, because I think limited use of dice is not the end of the world. I'd much rather roll some dice to represent the random, unforeseen aspects of combat instead of having a set amount of damage being done every single time thanks to a monolithic chart.

Anyway it seems like an interesting idea in theory…just hard to tell on the implementation with only some semi-unclear examples and no rules access.

Hi Thunderman, excellent feedback, thank you.

Rules – email/posting. This is simply to keep track of how many people are involved in the project, who has the rules, what edition people are reading from etc. As well as to ensure I don't get swamped with emails, and I have the time to properly respond to people on a personal level rather than a generic 'thx'

Placing Order Tokens – yes, one for each unit. Games at the moment are around 8-12 units, and there are only two types of token. This placing system ties in with what LoM is about – rewarding careful planning. This is the first step. At its simplest its a question of 'Do I want my units to stand still, walk, or run forward', something that most players already have some idea on. But by placing tokens, and committing to the action, it rewards those players who think ahead and know precisely what they want, rather than 'I think I want them to go over there, not really sure why though'.

Knowledge – It's not so much memorizing tables, or odds. Units do set X damage against X unit type, and its along the lines of what you would expect (Heavy Infantry beat Light for example). It becomes a case of knowing that when you get your Medium Infantry into that combat, they will do 4pts of damage. Ideally then you want them to connect with a unit that does 3pts, regardless of that units type. Or to ensure you win, you send the Medium against something they soft/hard counter.

The random element comes from the player general, in the form of the Command Points. In this way you know what your units will do – inflict damage. They wont trip over each others toes,or hit invisible walls because you rolled all '1's, but you cant be sure of your opponents response.

While its true that there are concerns people spend more time memorizing damage, it tends to work the opposite to how you would think. Rather than 'how much damage will I inflict', it becomes 'how much damage can I take'. Units measure the damage they inflict based on their own CV (Combat Value), which decreases as they take damage.

In this respect, and this is especially true with cavalry, people begin to look at the game as 'How many solid charges can I get in at max damage, before the damage the opponent inflicts reduces the effectiveness of my cavalry'. The answer tends to be 2 solid charges, before Cavalry are best used to harass enemy units off the field/mow down routers.

If you care to send me an email to 'Project_Vehemence@yahoo.co.uk' I will send you the current 1.4 draft rules, and the new movement diagrams I have just finished.

Thanks again for the feedback

From looking at your posts about this game, I personally would say that a wargame needs a reasonably significant random element, and your game lacks this. After all, a real general would never be able to predict the precise outcome of a combat. Some of it should be down to chance. And although the better player should win on average, you want to know that if things go well on the day you have a chance of winning against a better player. I want to play a wargame, not chess.

Thanks again for the feedback Marshal Mark.

You're right, a general cannot predict the precise outcome of a real battle, but he can be assured that people will fight and people will die. In a pure dice game it is possible to inflict zero damage on the enemy with a spiral of bad luck. What LoM does is attempt to minimise this by saying when X and X clash, then both sides will suffer a minimum effect.

This isn't far off from using averages and looking at bell curves for most other games. LoM simply takes the middle ground.

The damage can also be altered in one of two ways, the first from timing and good execution, having your troops charge into battle, hitting the enemy of the flank etc. But the major difference comes in the form of the Command Points.

There does exist a very important random element that I haven't mentioned and it comes in the form of Morale/Rout checks. This is based on the units stat as in typical games, but is purely die roll. One of the very few aspects that is truly random – a player in LoM knows his troops will fight, what they are capable of, but cannot guarantee to know the effect losing combat will have on the men.

There are also plenty of opportunities within the game to 'bluff' your opponent to gain an advantage in the Command Points. In that sense a crafty player can play against a sound General.

Thanks for taking the time to read the articles and respond. I hope you will be as equally constructive when I post new ones.

Chris

Quick update looking at the coming 'fantasy' aspect of LoM.

link

Thanks
Chris

Hi all,

Thanks for the feedback so far.
Pleased to announce a new update – LoM Part 6 'Plans and Paintings' on my blog now.

In this article I explain how LoM tries to reward the player who thinks ahead, and I showcase the first commissioned piece of artwork for LoM!

link

Thanks
Chris