"Arcane Warfare Project news" Topic

The Arcane Warfare Project is about rules for Ancient and Medieval field battles.
The main game is AWE (Arcane Warfare Excel).
In fact since its inception the main drive of the AWP was to produce a game where players decisions, i.e. skill, would be significantly more important than luck. I foresaw that switching some mechanics and simplifying odds would ultimately allow for a fair intellectual experience, as opposed to gambling. The many experiments and the relatively few publications stemming from those prove that our objective has not been fulfilled: if you allow combat to be decided by dice rolls luck will be the prevailing factor, not skill.
Looking back, our main achievement had been the option for having combat decided simply by the difference of opponent scores (AWr 2.0, 2005).
About three years ago my interest in wargaming began fading fast, as all I could see was dice throwing, some passing for simulation. I completely gave up involved dice wargames and convinced myself that would be the end of it.
But it didn't stop in my mind and a diceless wargame first came as an idea by the end of August 2015: I set an experience and it failed.
Would a diceless wargame be possible? It had been done in boardgames by using anonymous wooden blocks, but that did not look a true wargame because you couldnīt even tell if you were attacking infantry or riders. A bit like the classical Stratego where all you see are the pieces back's.
Finally this Summer I saw that a diceless true Ancients wargame could be possible, maybe even allowing for a great game, using miniatures and their bases as meaningful play elements. A true battle driven by players decisions, without dice, cards or equivalent.
Currently I work alone as the structure built around AWE 5th ed collapsed. But maybe I still can publish the first game using this system before the end of the year. It will be AWE 10, the five unit jump symbolizing the huge evolution towards a game without dice.
The combat will be again based on the difference of opponent scores, but that's the only similarity with the former AWE versions, even most bases will not be compatible with the AWP standard. No technical compromises whatsoever in our projects (what is technically best is implemented regardless of cost). And rebasing a large part of my minis will be painful.
If you are not satisfied with dice rolling or if you find the concept interesting, you could help by making some good noise at our small newsgroup (currently about half a dozen messages per year!).
I will do this alone if I have to, but if there is any real interest that would be useful.
AWE 10 will be a miniatures wargame without dice or rulers.

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Excellent news.

After all the hard work you'd put into AWE and ABC I'd
wondered what had happened.

Time to move you up my Yahoo groups list again.

I J!
Welcome back.

I'm going to buy and read the new edition of AWE.
I'll stay tuned for updates.
I may wipe away the dust off my Romans, or perhaps this will serve as a justification to try playing this period of history in 28mm.
Only now I realize that I have to buy more miniatures ;-)

Cheers.
Jorge

Hi J.Faria

Long time no see, in had in fact given up minis wargaming altogether.
The learning curve for AWE 10 is very steep because it is a whole new World (only much better – insert smiley here).
Maybe we could arrange for a meeting in Porto or nearby, for rules presentation, but please prepare for a big shock!
Also bases must be adapted, sorry for the little inconvenience.
Looking forward for unbiased feedback.
Greetings to the Brigada Tripeira mob!

One more note: this is a unit based game, therefore abstract, even more abstract that the former AWE versions. Not suitable for 28mm in my opinion.
The detail on 28mm figures asks for rules that tell apart differences in equipment, which large unit based games cannot reasonably support.
The current rules revision includes suggestions for 28mm gaming, but maybe those should be removed: the level of abstraction seems right for up to 20mm, maximum 1/72 or true 'old' 25mm.