"Tomorrow's War question." Topic

(Sorry if this is the wrong spot)
Hello, I just picked up a copy of Tomorrow's War when I attended NJCON. I got it for fifteen usd and figured it would be a good start to my return to table top games. I played quite a bit of Adeptus Titanicus, Battle Tech and 40k years ago. I must be either pretty dumb or there must be more to it as I spent the better part of the day looking through the book and did not see anything to laying out a unit to do battle with, aside from the xenomorphs. Am I to assume that I grab twenty-five to thirty minis, call it a team and play without any sort of guidance?
Like I said, maybe I'm ignorant to the way games are laid out these days. If anyone knows how to make a team, unit, etc or where it is located, I would appreciate it a great deal.
Alternately, if anyone knows of a decent system for relative newbies, I am all ears, well, eyes.

Tomorrow's War does NOT have an army list or points system; it's designed for scenario play (often highly asymmetrical scenarios) and so it eschews any attempt at a build-and-bash system . If you'd like a system that does have a built in set of army lists and points costs I've heard good things about Gruntz.

-Will

Try the Tomorrow's War Forum. I'm guessing you'll find a lot of help/resources there as well…

link

BTW a lot of excellent ScFi rules are devoid of army lists or points. They all assume you'll work up your own forces and stats.

Guys be nice.

Here's what you do:

Grab 15 figures, break them out in to 3 teams of 5, one heavy weapon in each.
Do the same for the other side.
Have a game with those, just to get the hang of the rules.

Once you feel more comfortable with how the rules work, then you can begin fiddling with making your own scenarios and whatnot.
It's more of a DIY atmosphere really.

Most people end up writing their own platoon organizations, depending on the setting you play in.

If that's your question, dumb-ness doesn't come into it.

I got mired down in the actual play, so *I* are dumb.

Did you try any of the scenarios? The few times I played, someone else understanding the rules for me, the 'asymmetrical' nature seemed well balanced by objectives.

By the way, all, my real problem seemed to be infinite regression of interrupts.

Doug

Thank you for the feedback. Like I said, it has been a while and well, the other games kind of gave you a heads up.

I came to TW after about a decade of not playing any games and I found the jump away from 'I go, you go' a bit mind twister, though I was quite used to the concept of 'interrupts' from MTG. Its definitely worth playing a number of games to get the feel.

I actually found the lack of force lists the least difficult thing – though I found the relatively high proportion of squad support weapons a bit of pain as my forces were mainly predicated on that old 40K standard of 10-man squad with 2 heavy weapons! If your really stuck for inspiration just borrow some modern or WWII ORBAT / TOEs and just sci-fi their weapons.

Gnubrid – I think you sent a contact e-mail to me yesterday, if so you should have a response in your inbox by now. Let me know if you haven't received it yet!

All the best,

Shawn.

The layout of the book is deplorable. The eye candy and fluff is great. Try the forums and keep struggling with the rules. Once you have them down it really is a fun game.

Make fun yet "realistic" type forces. I lean more towards rebel/insurgent types. So very loose formations. While a more organized force might adhere to modern OOB…

Regular fireteams work pretty well at 4-6 models with ~2 support weapons (modern US/Commonwealth organization). Irregulars tend to run more bodies, but still ~2 support weapons.

I have one recommended change in how to resolve reactions, but doing it my way requires a way to mark which units have reacted. Once you run through and declare which units are acting and reacting, roll dice like normal. Then resolve all the reacting units that beat the acting unit, nearest to farthest. Move and resolve the acting unit. Finally, resolve the reacting units that didn't beat the acting unit, closest to farthest. I recommend a small piece of wood or plasticard with a string of small dirt-puffs on it to show which units have reacted. The active unit gets one dirt-puff marker for each unit it interacts with to show how many dice to remove. And big round dirt-puffs make for good "suppressed" or "pinned" markers.

Gnubird, others here have covered much of what I am going to just echo but let me at least add my two bits. First off I love TW. I agree the rule book itself is a jumbled mess. I was able to get around that because I have and played Force on Force and Ambush Alley quite a bit, which is the same thing as TW only without all the Science Fiction elements. I hope one day that Shawn and the gang will do a second edition that has a more user friendly layout. In some waysthe look and layout of TW reminds me of the original Rouge Trader. RT was gobsmacked full of fluff and cool ideas and among all that the core rules were also scattered.

Play the first scenario in TW, although be warned the Marines attempting to rescue the pilot have a real bad time of it and rarely win. Same goes for the scenario that introduces the tank rules. A buddy and me played that one at least three times in one evening and each time the American tanks obliterated the DPRG tanks. It is near impossible to hit a tech level 3 tank with essentially a cloaking device with only tech level 1 or even tech level 2 sensors. Still we had a good time. BTW I played the DPRG.

All that said I think TW is the best hard science fiction game to come down the pike. If you are used to 40K you will have some adjusting in terms of game play. While I have run large games of TW it is best at a platoon level of play or smaller.

Be adventurous and try designing some balanced scenarios that focus on objectives with varying victory conditions. Sometimes the smaller outnumbered or less sophisticated force is only seeking to delay the other side or inflict a certain amount of damage.

You will also find after you get the hang of the rule of 4 and how the mechanics of the initiative side and non-initiative side operate and why setting up units in overwatch is good tactical doctrine. I also love the way you can customize tanks and units to reflect a particular tactical doctrine in the near and far future. Is it better to go with conventional AT guns or does it make sense to use laser cannons or fusion guns?

Oh btw I tend to organize my units as such; if they are a regular force which will most likely have D8 troop quality and morale a fire team tends to be either 4 or 5 figure with one having a SAW of some type. You can also have fun with the design of such units depending on tech level assigned and type of SAW. Not all squad assault weapons are created equal after all. You also can have fun with tech level and body armor and…well you can get carried away. Stick with the basics and used the organization lists that are in the scenario and in the appendix in the back of the book to give you ideas.

As someone else stated the online forums are a gold mine of ideas, clarifications, and resources.

If you haven't done so Gnubrid, I ABSOLUTELY recommend trying to get a game or two under someone who knows the rules. This can be either TW or Force on Force. Once you've played a game or two, the whole concept comes together.

On the flip side, regarding your question of other rules, Weasel has a few sets on Wargames Vault that may fill your need. Start out with Five Core and proceed from there…

@Kallman
The way to make the first, pilot rescue, scenario more difficult is to make the table 50% bigger than it should be (it was unintentional).

Also agree with the assessment of the first armour scenario.

Wow!, Thank you all. The game seems a a bit of an undertaking but, I am looking forward to getting those few games in.

@shawn, yes, I received your email. I think I was just looking at it from the wrong perspective. As others have said: I just need to get his feet wet.

Gnubird once you get your feet wet you will soon be diving into deep pools. For me Tomorrow's War hits all the right notes for what I was looking for in a Science Fiction setting for a wargame. TW can be tailored to whatever your flavor of future war floats your boat. I have had multiple successful games both as a player and as a game master running TW at conventions. Your games can be small firefights or large platoon battles. I once ran a game at a convention that finished in three hours with one side fielding a full 4 squad platoon of infantry,support weapons, a platoon of 5 tanks, 4 APCs, and one IFV. The other side was a robotic army that was about a platoon in strength, three walker AFVs, a flying gunship and a giant bug like walker that was bristling with guns. Believe it or not the humans won that battle but just barely.

The React system, TW uses adds a bit to the rules but allows things like.

Squad tries to run across street, they may make it, may not, might lose a person but keep going, or just after being shot at run back to cover.

One of the reasons I like the system.

Also I found playing with the reaction system was much easier than reading about it.