"Has anyone played 5 core" Topic

Was after some opinions on this system.
I usually play with FUBAR as I do not have the attention span for ready tomes of rules.
Is it suitable for beginners?

I'm the author so I have ;-)

There's been quite a few AAR's posted on here so I'm sure someone will pipe in.

If it's any help though, my 7 year old had zero problems with it after a few turns.

Kozak,

I've played quite a few games.

If you follow these two links, they'll take you to six 5 Men in Normandy (skirmish) batreps, and 18 5Core Company Command batreps. I think they're great, no problem for beginners as the mechanisms are straight forward and intuitive. Activation is built on not allowing you to do everything you want, but you always get to do something and you (the player, not cards) choose what that is.

link

link

The rulebooks are pretty large, but don't be put off as the rules themselves are only a few pages. The rest is some pretty useful (from my standpoint at least) battle, mission, force, terrain, and even war generators, as well as campaign bits and bobs.

I will say that I'm pretty much a 'historicals' guy, so I can't comment too much on Sci-Fi specifics, but I'd be happy to answer any mechanisms/gameplay aspect questions you have.

V/R,
Jack

I've played the 5 men in normandy too and plays great. I've bought the company level one too but haven't had a chance to try them yet.

I've been following Just Jack's campaign and he's certainly enjoying them

I'd say that FiveCore is very beginner friendly, like Just jack says there isn't a tome of rules and they are easy to grasp.
Just like in FUBAR you normaly don't get to activate everything, so you have some choices to make, but unlike FUBAR, you can't end up in a situation where you spend several turns doing nothing due to unlucky activation rolls.

The mechanics is easy to get the hang of and as soon as you roll a dice for any sort of resolution, you can instantly tell from the dice what happened. No tables or flowcharts to figure out if you hit/wounded or killed for example.

It also features a comprehesive set of tools for generating opponents, missions, background for the conflict etc.

My favorite part is the Campaign system, together with the tools mentioned above, you can create a great narrative streching over several battles, it just helps to make the games that more involving than one-off games.

I love how easy yet flexible the system is, I have played quite a few games in both modern and sci-fi settings, FiveCore have become my go-to for just about all my games.

I have a few AARs from FiveCore, as well as the Sci-fi supplement FiveParsecs:

lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.se/search/label/AAR

If there's any questions, just ask :)

I have played 5Core skirmish with my 10 year old nephew, and he had picked it up in a few turns and we were happily fighting away.

link

But, just because the mechanics are streamlined and subtle, it is still a solid set of tactical rules. Fire and movement work, running in front of an unsupressed enemy machine gun is a bad idea, etc.

The Campaign systems are awesome and you can graft as many ro as few of the rules on as you like.

Love them – the combat rules are simple yet offer good tacticial decisions. I introduced these to my wife and she enjoyed the role-playing aspects of rolling up her crew (which you don't have to do but definitely got her engaged in the game). Then in our first game her unsanctioned alien character deployed her autonomous turret (random gear from character creation) and pinned down the main enemy force for most of the game. Needless to say she wants to play again.

It's also the game I'll be using with my 11 year old to play Star Wars battles and Lego Ghostbusters battles with.

So yeah, they're good for beginners and for 40-something grognards, too. :)

Lego Ghostbusters wargaming ?

Perfect!

Thanks Guys a wealth of knowledge as always.
A little tired of painting huge forces and never playing.
Really looking forward to painting up a two small forces and never playing.

Look at it this way: in the time you can not play a large army, you could have like 3 armies you never play :-)

Just tried the rules (yesterday evening) and I was hooked… they are great. I did five games in a row, including a night action that was really fun. They play very fast but games are full of actions and tactical decisions. They include scenarios, campaign rules, solo play… the only thing they lack is a reference sheet but now I see that you can get it separately. Another thing is that there are not flamethrowers, Are there rules for flamethrowers in some supplement? I will for sure get the supplements too, by the way.

We used flamethrowers in our last game. Deadly.

I am a big fan of Ganesha games, have both enjoyed and suffered through many editions of THW games, loved FUBAR and iTen… But 5-core has topped them all in my house.
For cinematic flavoured small firefights (my chosen style of game), with a core system you can easily keep in your head, these are the best rules I have played in the last 5 years. I say played, because I buy a lot of rules, read them , then get bogged down getting them to the table for various reasons. Not the case with 5-core. The 2nd edition is a superb product all around, and probably has everything you need to get started.

You know, you guys make my heart melt a little bit :-)

Deserter – were you the one posting about flamethrowers on the yahoo list? If so, check your email :-)
Otherwise, let me know and I can post the rules here for that weapon.

The night rules were actually a fan addition but I thought it worked fantastically.

Here are two AARs. I am not taking credit for the blog other than having been in these games. Credit goes to Jaye Wiley of Wiley Games.

link

Greg

Weasel why not just post anyway?
I may be able to use them in a game I'm not going to play.

Sure thing :-)

The path of flame is 12" long, 1" wide.

Step 1:
Roll 2 Kill dice against any fool in the path (including hidden figures but use common sense about who can be hit).
Anyone not hit will retreat 1D6".

Step 2:
Roll 4 Shock dice and apply the results to the nearest enemies within 12", even if they weren't in the path.

Step 3:
Any and all enemies with line of sight and still capable of firing will shoot at the flamethrower trooper.

Roll an ammo die along with hte attack. If it's a 1 or 6, you only have 1 more shot.

In 2nd edition, flame troopers are -1 to movement rate.
1st edition and Five Men does not use move penalties though you could use them anyways.

thank you, I was that one on the yahoogroup… yesterday I did two games with my son, 14 years old.. he learned the rules in 5 minutes and won both games !