Friday, July 28, 2017

Fallout Wasteland Warfare - Development Blog #2

Got this in my mail on Wednesday

FALLOUT WASTELAND WARFARE
Development Blog #2


In this latest Fallout: Wasteland Warfare development blog, we're talking about how the Fallout SPECIAL stats are integrated into the miniatures game and revealing Piper Wright who will be part of one of the many sets of extra characters to add to your forces. Piper's known for attracting trouble and you can be sure that isn't going to change!



REMEMBER, YOU ARE S.P.E.C.I.A.L!

During Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, players will attempt activities such as shooting, lock-picking and melee. The result is determined by the roll of the d20 Skill dice plus usually one or more Effect dice based on the weapons, gear and/or abilities. (We'll be talking about the Effect dice next time, and will look at the various skills used to interact with the wasteland soon too.)

Every model has a set of skills which are represented by icons found next to each of the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats on their unit card. For a skill roll to succeed, the result rolled on the Skill dice must be equal to or lower than the value of the stat which the relevant icon is next to (after adding or subtracting any modifiers). If a model does not have a specific skill icon of their unit card, it can not make a skill roll of that type,

A Brotherhood Field Scribe does not have a Heavy Weapons skill icon which means they can not make a skill roll to use Heavy Weapons.

A handful of bonuses and penalties can adjust the value of the skill that the player needs to roll equal to or less than.

Typically modifiers would be for cover, using a ranged weapon in melee, acting in reaction to another, as a result of using luck - in practice most skill rolls will not use modifiers.

The adjusted skill value can not go lower than 1 so a model with a relevant skill always has a chance.

A Brotherhood of Steel Paladin receives a +1 bonus due to a long scope added to their rifle, but also a -2 penalty because the target is in cover; therefore, a total -1 penalty is applied to their rifle skill of 6. This means the Paladin's adjusted rifle skill value is 5, so they need to roll 5 or lower on the Skill dice to be successful.

Also, not every unit uses the same stat for the same skills. This allows us to create even more variety amongst units and bring out the unique traits of characters and factions.

Piper doesn't have the toughest physique but she is agile and that allows her to last in combat - a tough but not agile Super Mutant could last by taking the damage whilst Piper's Agility allows her to survive. As a result, Piper uses her Agility stat for her Health; whereas, more physically tough units use their Endurance stat for their health. Whilst Piper's Agility serves her well for combat, her low Endurance means she is more susceptible to things like poison effects than the units whose Endurance is higher than hers.

Field Scribes use their Intelligence when searching, whilst the Institute's Gen 1 Synths use their Perception - both are good at searching but Field Scribes are more intelligent and Gen 1 Synths have better perception which is important for other purposes.

As a result, the units in Fallout: Wasteland Warfare have stats that better represent them on the tabletop, and this avoids situations where for example only units with high Endurance can take more wounds or only units with high Perception can be good at searching

Why d20 for the Skill dice?

We chose this carefully so the S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats can be meaningful in gameplay. The world of Fallout has such massive variety that the steps in capability need to be subtle, whilst remaining relevant. We need to create a situation where lots of variety can exist without some units being so far superior to others that normal units become ineffective or even redundant. A person with a gun is still a threat even if untrained, and even power armour will eventually succumb to enough minor threats.

The S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats primarily range from 1 to 10. If a d10 was used for skills with these stats, a skill of 1 would be almost useless at 10% whilst a 10 would be too powerful at 100%. It would result in most units ending up with stats in a narrower middle range in order to make them fun to play and not be over-/under-powered and this would lose the unique differences that make them so cool.

The d20 in Fallout: Wasteland Warfare allows us to have the range of 1-10 numbers but the number of available faces means we can have several 1s - so that a stat of 1 actually has a 25% chance of success - as well as some X results (which always fail) -so a 10 will always have a maximum 85% chance. This system makes the full range of stat numbers useful, whilst each additional point in the stat still gives more chance of success.

Next week we'll talk about the Effect dice that are used in conjunction with the Skill dice, how one simple roll gives you the result of each action and what extra abilities are unlocked for heroic units that allow them to really shine on the battlefield. We'll also be starting to unveil more minis in the build up to the launch of the pre-order later in August!

Enjoy your gaming!
Chris, Modiphius


We'll be posting this blog here next: http://www.modiphius.com/development-blog.html

Monday, July 17, 2017

Fallout Skirmish - First Reveal


I got this in my email on Friday...man this is a very cool approach to movement, and I'm happy to see that SPECIAL will be included in the cards.

FALLOUT WASTELAND WARFARE

Development Blog #1

Today, we're starting the first of a series of reveals for the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare rules as we progress through the final stages of development; plus, there's a preview of the awesome sole survivor, Nora, who's going to be in the two-player starter set.


We're creating different 'unit' cards for the sole survivors - one is the basic, fresh out
of the Vault survivor in the starter set, the other has learned the dangers of the wasteland and picked up some more skills and experience which will come with the Sole Survivor expansion set which includes Nate, Codsworth and a version of Dogmeat with goggles! There will be more versions in later releases). Unit cards won't be tied to the male or female miniatures so you'll be able to choose who you want to field in your crew.

Movement & Range

Measurement of movement and ranges is one of the mechanics that we have taken a contemporary approach towards. I remember using my school ruler for early home grown battles with 28mm fantasy battles made up of Citadel and Ral Patha minis scavenged from bring and buy stalls at local cons. Discovering the rusting old tape measure in the garage was a major moment! More recently we've seen a host of movement sticks and manoeuvre templates on tabletops.

Each Fallout unit card includes the S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats for its unit giving us loads of great options for gameplay; however, we wanted to reduce the amount of numbers on the cards to simplify the information, so James hit on the concept of coloured ranges. The coloured ranges are used for all distances in Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, and the two-player starter set comes with a number of coloured range sticks of specific sizes.

Measuring movement distances is simple as each unit card shows two colours - one for standard movement, and one for charging. For example, your Super Mutant unit card shows yellow for their standard movement which can be used for any movement; however, the unit card shows green for their charge which is longer than yellow. Each model gets two actions so you could move a Super Mutant in this unit yellow and then yellow again, or you could move them yellow, and if it's now within green distance of an enemy, charge with your second action. The sticks show the maximum distance so you can move up to any point along that range stick, and it's easy to use them to move around objects using marked increments on the sticks.

Measuring weapon ranges is equally simple too. Attacks are all shown on small cards such as the combat shotgun or plasma rifle. Each weapon has a short range and a long range, and a coloured bar for each shows which stick is used. To measure a shot, you just grab the sticks shown, place them end-to-end, and you can immediately see the ranges. For example, your combat shotgun shows red for short range and blue for long - place the two end-to-end (red then blue) and you can see what falls within your combat shotgun's blast. The effect dice rolled for each range are shown underneath the coloured range bands. So, for the combat shotgun, if your target is within the red stick (short range), you roll the effect dice shown under the red bar; if your target is within the blue stick (long range) then you roll the effect dice shown under the blue bar.

The game will come with super chunky die cut range sticks and we'll also be producing Vault-Tec approved coloured acrylic upgrade sets. Symbols on the cards and sticks assist those with colour blindness identify the correct sticks.

As well as movement and weapon ranges, colours are used for all other measurements in the game too such as awareness, command, blast damage, distances during set-up, determining falling damage, etc. This simple system speeds up gameplay and keeps the most important numbers on the unit cards clear and easy to read.

We're currently 3d printing and mastering the first wave of sets. Once these are signed off by Bethesda we'll be painting a set up and showing them and some demo games off with full video battle reports.

Hopefully you have enjoyed this first peek into the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare rules. Keep an eye on the blog for regular updates and sneak peeks as we run up to the October release.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Modiphius Silvershield

Excellent!

Modiphius has been putting out some cool settings and games, but when I saw the Fallout Skirmish Game, I decided to join their team.

Have you SEEN the minis?

Check this out!






Massively Popular Video Game Being Developed Into First Tabletop Game with Fallout: Wasteland Warfare Tabletop Miniatures Game

LONDON, ENGLAND (April 26, 2017): Modiphius Entertainment, publisher of the Star Trek Adventures, Achtung! Cthulhu, Mutant Chronicles, Conan, Infinity and John Carter of Mars roleplaying games, is thrilled to announce today that Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, the first tabletop miniatures game based on the Fallout universe, is currently in development and is set to release November 2017.

In Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, players will build their own crew from a wide range of factions, allies and iconic characters from the Fallout series, and play in apocalyptic games of 3 - 30 high quality 32mm scale resin miniatures through a huge variety of iconic scenery and settlement buildings, from the Red Rocket to Sanctuary Hills, Nuka- Cola vending machines and wrecked vehicles. Settlements will include buildings, defenses and resources that impact the crew’s army list and abilities in the wasteland.

Fallout: Wasteland Warfare will include an entire narrative campaign arc as well as unique random missions with narrative-style objectives, and Crew Caps recovered in missions can be used to improve the crew’s perks, weapons, gear, and upgrades for the next encounter. In either Player vs. Player, or Tournament mode, players will try to survive the tabletop wasteland.

The game will also come with a customizable solo-play AI deck to control enemies that play to their strengths and replicate a faction’s tactics while attempting a narrative mission or perfecting settlement-building strategy. Players can also team up with a friend to defend a larger settlement or explore narrative missions in cooperative games against AI forces or the post-apocalyptic dangers of the wasteland.

Organized Play packs will be available at launch to retail stores, organizers and gaming groups. Fallout: Wasteland Warfare will be available for pre-order in the summer.


Monday, July 10, 2017

Gamercon 2017

Well Gamercon 2017 is in the books.

Thanks to the Adventurer's League for coming out, there was a great turnout and instead of two tables they ended up running three table for most of the convention.

A LOT of Dungeon Crawl Classics was played, the 0-level funnel Hole in the Sky claimed 12 villagers and the rest ran to join the other failed rescuers. The Groot Pumpkin killed so many.

I FINALLY got to play Edge of the Empire. Thanks to Connor for coming out and running the game for us.

Thanks to Corby for coming down Saturday evening to run Edge as well.

Special thanks to the 501st for coming down, wish you could have stayed for more festivities as well!

My kids took 3rd and 4th in the Golden Goblin challenge. Congrats to them! Grats to Ian on Dominating Machi Koro.

Let's try to build GamerCon 2018 into Kingdom Con's little sibling! Can we do it? Hell yes!


Wednesday, July 5, 2017

GAMERCON!!! TAKE COVER!!!

Here's the List of Role-playing Games in the LIch's Tomb.

Thursday Lich’s Tomb
Antechamber
11:00AM-3:00PM - Savage Rifts (Character creation)
11:00AM-3:00PM - The Dark Eye
5:00PM-9:00PM - FATE (freeform)
5:00PM-9:00PM - Savage Rifts (freeform)
5:00PM-9:00PM - DCC RPG - Hole in the Sky


The Tomb (Adventurer’s League)
10:30-1:30PM: The Black Road
10:30-1:30PM: In Dire Need
2:00-5:00PM: Uninvited Guests
2:00-5:00PM: A Dish Best Served Cold
6:00-10:00PM: Beneath the Fetid Chelimber
6:00-10:00PM: Forgotten Traditions


Friday Lich’s Tomb
Antechamber
11:00AM-3:00PM - FATE: Interface Zero
11:00AM-3:00PM - Edge of the Empire
11:00AM-3:00PM - TORG
5:00PM-9:00PM - AD&D
5:00PM-9:00PM - DCC RPG - Frozen in Time


The Tomb (Adventurer’s League)
10:30-1:30PM: Chelimber's Descent
10:30-1:30PM: The Sword of Selfaril
2:00-5:00PM: Giant Diplomacy
2:00-5:00PM: Writhing in the Dark
6:00-10:00PM: Bad Business in Parnast
6:00-10:00PM: Jarl Rising


Saturday Lich’s Tomb
Antechamber
11:00AM-3:00PM - Stormbringer
11:00AM-3:00PM - MCC RPG  (Beacon of the Gods)
5:00PM-9:00PM - Edge of the Empire
5:00PM-9:00PM - Savage Rifts (Overwatch Crossover Crisis)
6:00PM-10:00PM - Headspace


The Tomb (Adventurer’s League)
10:30-1:30PM: The Black Road
10:30-1:30PM: The Black Heart of Vengence
2:00-5:00PM: Uninvited Guests
2:00-5:00PM: The Redemption of Kelvan
6:00-10:00PM:Parnast Under Siege
6:00-10:00PM: The Hartkiller's Horn

Sunday Lich’s Tomb
Antechamber
10:00AM-1:45PM - Paranoia (FATE of the Complex)
10:00AM-1:45PM -DCC RPG Kid Friendly (The Frostfang Expedition)
1:00PM-6:00PM - Serenity
2:15PM-6:00PM - Outbreak Undead
2:15PM-6:00PM - FATE (freeform)


The Tomb (Adventurer’s League)
10:30-1:30PM: Outlaws of the Iron Route
10:30-1:30PM: Reeducation, Part I
2:00-5:00PM: Redemption
2:00-5:00PM: Oubliette of Fort Iron