"If I dislike how SBH treats mass warbands, will I like Ares?" Topic

Hello,

SBH is Song of Blades and Heroes. It was too long for the thread title and I had to abbreviate. Sorry.

I hate fiddly games.

I do not like the activation mechanic in Song of.. too much, because it does not work right for low quality mass warbands (they simply cant do anything but wait for their dead in most cases)

Now I came across Ares again – the game looks solid from the free rules. But will mass warbands work better in Ares?

Does Ares work well at about 6 minis in the elite warband, about 15 in the mass warband?

Do the point costs actually reflect usefulnes or lack thereof of a given charachter?

Can one use everything as single figures too?

Is Ares universal enough to also work well with, say, science fantasy? (especially Warzone?)

Lots of questions – can anyone help me?

Thanks!

I'd say Yes to all the above. The game's pretty versatile and can handle the number of figs you're talking about without real trouble – your low-quality stuff is quite dangerous en masse in that game, although lone uber-models can still be very hard to drag down (as it should be). MJ12's known for point systems that actually reflect combat effectiveness accurately, and Ares is no exception to that.

Posting to MJ12's forums should get you some help/feedback as well, especially on conversion stats – I don't recall seeing anyone tackle Warzone, but maybe somebody's done the work for you already.

Hard to tell what the issue with SBH is without knowing how many figures you're trying to use and what Q level you want to use. I would say that 6 is a good number for a warband but you could still get 15 poor Q poor C troops and a couple of leaders.
The game is designed for small bands and works best with leaders & heroes. It stands to reason that it will be less effective for poor quality hordes. Group actions will improve yor chances if you take a leader.

I agree with BWS about ARES.

I also agree theat poor Q troops are pretty hard to use in SBH, but there are ways around that. Then again, I like that fact they are hard to use.

Thanks for all the input!

I find that, using the current points system, mass warbands are nearly doomed in SBH. There might be some stuff around that could change that, but I never was a fan of systems that force you to build forces in a certain way to work out.

Anyway, just out of interest, could you tell us the basics of how to use those low Quality troops in SBH?

As in real life, low quality troops are hard to use. Unless you have a leader. The leader in SBH is able to raise quality and morale by one. They can also attempt group moves activating 2-5 troops with a single die roll. These rules are found in the basic game. Also in the basic book you can find the special attribute Gregarious this gives figures +1 to their quality roll when attempting to move as groups.

Also ensure you have the latest edition of SBH if you have the first edition you might have the old points system, the newer points system has cheaper low quality creatures.

Hope this helps.
…………………Doug

All that Doug said -- gregarious plus leader makes poor troops 2 Quality better -- and also try to have a standard for them to rally upon. That can save a warband from its first big panic.

Also with the low quality guys you will have a numerical advantage. Use this to "gang up" on your opponents single figures. You opponents figures get -1 for every adjacent model above the first in hand to hand combat. Used effectively lots of small guys with leaders can give your opponent nightmares.

You cannot gang up if you cant activate, that is the crucial problem.

I detest it if a rules system forces me to use a special ability like "Gregarious" just to make stuff better. The rule is fitting for ratlings and little else.

"As in real life" is a poor argument when talking about point systems balance. And I feel that it is the point system that should see to costing troops in such a way that I am not forced to use a leader.

I have the new rules and I know how the game works.

Initially I really liked SBH, but that somehow has worn off, as the the limits of the system become more visible. Maybe I want to return to something more traditional.

I bought Ares and will have a read through that – hope its not too complicated.

ARES is a great system. I also like SBH. We have used ARES for Star Wars, Warzone and LOTR amongst other things. You can go to my ARES variant yahoo group and check out the FILES for the variants. The group is pretty dormant. We do have the coauthor as part of it though.

link

Thanks,

John

" is a poor argument when talking about point systems balance"
"as the the limits of the system become more visible"

Well one of the limits of the SBH system is that poor quality creatures are hard to activate. That is a balance mechanism for that game, sometimes you are unable to activate all the creatures you have in your war-band.

If you don't like how the game works in that respect I understand, it is frustrating not being able to have all your figures do what you want when you want it.

I also have Ares, and it should fit your style of play much better then SBH. I like SBH because you don't know from one turn to another what will happen unlike chess type games. In real life people are unpredictable and do not act like a chess piece.

If you like being able to have complete control over your figures I would also stay away from the Two Hour War-game Rules. In that system you also do not get complete control over your gaming figures.

The only disadvantages with ARES is that with smaller creatures it will be hard to hit and damage. Also almost all figures in ARES have multiple wounds so there is a bit of a paperwork aspect. Combat is a little wonky as there is some math involved to determine how many wounds are inflicted.

Other then that ARES is much more detailed you have an attack close and ranged, defense, movement, morale, magic save, stats and lots of great special abilities. There is also a great warband building application you should be able to find without too much trouble.

Good luck and post some battle reports on the MJXII forums, and tell your thoughts on the game.

………….Doug

Thank you for not getting into the argument that could be read into my post above. Re-reading it, I was far too agressive. My apologies and I bow to your gentlemanlines. Chapeau.

I have nothing against the activation mechanic in SBH per se, it is that I dont think it works in a balanced way for warbands entirely consisting of low-Quality characters. Having to use superior numbers instead but not being able to move results in being destroyed piece meal.

"Combat is a little wonky as there is some math involved to determine how many wounds are inflicted."

I noticed that and thought giving everyone 1 LP only might help. Or smallish dice. Have to test…

On mj12games group there is a "quick play" option that gives one wound to most critters. It is in Files, Ares, Ares LotR, aresfastplay.pdf.

andy

Great. Thanks!

Are you referring to a yahoo group?

What is it called?

Here's the other yahoo group.

link

I'm the gent who came up with the idea for a reduced wound variant. It simply made more sense to me and was far easier to play. The kind and wonderful co-author Kevin Smith generously came up with army lists to support the reduced wound or fast play variant (as it has been called).

Great set!

Thanks,

John

John, I don't remember if I ever asked you:

I think I saw some of the GW LotR rules as special rules for Ares LotR. I was wondering if that was just to stay familiar, or if Ares felt like it was missing something.

I'm asking about the Special Abilities in the Design Criteria doc by Kevin.

What do you think? I have Ares, but haven't actually played. If I did, I'd use the fast play variant. (I guess it isn't really a variant, in that regular Ares allows 1-hit figures. Just different assumptions.) But I don't know if I'd feel it needed the extra rules.

andy

Hey Andy. Kevin actually began taking ARES in a completely new direction. It was becoming a mass battle set of rules. We playtested it quite a bit before he decided he wanted to do something different. I would have to take another look to see the doc you are asking about.

Thanks,

John

…yes…

Ares is quite simply the best game I've come across.
we love it, we play it, we use it for absolutely everything.
We use it for Fantasy, pirates, Old West, Star Wars, WWII, ACW, and more.

We venture out and try many other things, but in the end we always come back to Ares. Spectacular system there.

Can't recomend it highly enough.

Andy…

"I think I saw some of the GW LotR rules as special rules for Ares LotR. I was wondering if that was just to stay familiar, or if Ares felt like it was missing something. I'm asking about the Special Abilities in the Design Criteria doc by Kevin."

It's been a while since I've looked at that document, but I believe I originally put it together to try to better duplicate the feel of the GW game. It didn't have anything to do with anything that was wrong, or that was missing, with respect to ARES. ARES doesn't have anything that resembles some of the special abilities, or the Fate, Might, or Will, so I simply was trying to duplicate those.

Kevin

Thanks. I keep meaning to try it, but just stat up the figures, not use anything to make it like GW's game.

I don't mind GW's LotR game, but the damage roll seemed clunky to me, and I always prefer design systems to "these figures have these stats".

andy

At GenCon, we ran a two sessions of a Song of Blades and Heroes intro game. We had trouble getting the Rat Ogres to move, so on the SBH Yahoo group I suggested a 'taskmaster' ability for those cool skaven figs with whips. Andrea (the SBH designer) helped us set the cost for the ability. We made the rule as follows: Limit one fig with 'Taskmaster' per warband, 4 pts cost for the 'TaskMaster' ability, he can use one action to give a single figure within long distance a +1 bonus to quality checks for the turn. This bonus cannot be cumulative with a leader's bonus. I envisioned having a figure who would get other figures with lower quality to get moving. I agree that the system breaks down at a certain point, but can be tweaked.

I've posted pictures from our GenCon SBH games here:
link

We also ran a modern Zombie game using the Ares rules, with zombie spawning based on noise (a great idea from Two Hour Wargames rules) and, like all games we like to run, adding dirty trick cards.

Pictures of the GenCon Ares Zombie game are posted here:
link