Dreadball Unboxed

So my copy of Dreadball turned up on Monday. I have to admit I wasn't expecting this. I did get in on the Dreadball Kickstarter, but only at the last minute and missed out on the December release pledges. Consequently, I wasn't expecting it to show up until January, making its arrival something of a pre-Christmas treat.

I don't want to go into the rules right now. For a start, I have only played one demo game. Plus they have already been available in digital form since November and much of the details were all over the Internet before that. Not to mention the designer's copious blog posts going into detail not just about the rules but also almost every design decision that went into creating them. Frankly, I don't feel I have a lot to add to that.

On the other hand, I do have some comments about the actual package.

Previous Mantic board games, Dwarf King's hold and Project Pandora, although decent enough games, were somewhat lacking in quality. Strong box and component art clashed with cheap and rather rough looking cardboard pieces, while the rules manuals were functional rather than striking. This criticism was pretty much accepted by Mantic at their open day back in September and they have taken serious steps to address it here.

Dreadball comes in a large squarish box made from thick card cardboard. Opening it up reveals the rule book, a general leaflet about Dreadball and its forth coming releases and a second leaflet to store your Mantic points, something that has been a long time coming. Mine also came with a rather nice art print of the box cover, though I suspect this won't be a standard feature. The rule book is a similarly high quality product, full colour and perfect bound on glossy paper. It has the look of a book that Mantic could sell separately in a pinch.

Hiding under the rules is the board. Mantic have offered two custom boards, but I stuck with the one in the box and have to say I'm happy. Mantic have maintained the high quality component art of their previous board games, but have mounted it on thick paper wrapped card, for a feel that is far closer to a traditional board game. There is a touch of sagging around the fold in the centre, and the print quality is not as strong as the rule book, but it is still of decent quality.

I speculated a little while back as to whether Dreadball would follow the packaging conventions of a board game or a wargame. I was surprised to find Mantic went with board game. Under the board is a moulded plastic tray with separate spaces for counters and dice, roster sheets and miniatures. I wouldn't have expected this from Games Workshop, so Mantic have done a very nice job here. The cards and roster sheets maintain the high production standards of the box, board and manual.

I think Mantic have been quite canny here. Although to my mind, Dreadball is essentially a wargame, it has been packaged such that it wouldn't look out of place alongside board games. It could sit comfortably in a shop that focuses on board games, or in Smiths or Waterstones, both of which have been expanding their board games selection recently. Dreadball could easily be Mantic's "gateway drug" for new players.

In their own sections of the tray were four bags of models. The largest was the official models included in the base set, in addition to those I also had the Forge Father team, that I had added to my pledge, another bag containing two samples each of Forge Fathers and Veer-myn and  a final bag of MVPs and limited editions. Unfortunately, it was the models that let the package down slightly.

The Human and Marauder Teams included in the box

The models are all resin-plastic (or restic or sprueless plastic or however Mantic is marketing it this week). Generally I have had a pretty good experience with this stuff. It doesn't hold detail quite as well as Games Workshop's Finecast or, for that matter, conventional resin, but it does a good job and has none of the problems of the other materials; no bubbles, air holes or nasty bits of sprue, and little flash or mould lines. It's also a lot more durable. It has shown a marked tendency to warp, but if you put it in some hot water it will soften enough to be bent back in to position.

 MVPs

The problem with the models is that they come in multiple pieces, usually with separate heads often arms and in some cases legs. Unfortunately, the box comes with no instructions on how to assemble them or even explaining that you need super glue and that conventional polystyrene cement won't work. On the plus side the pieces go together well and only minimal clean up was needed.

 Forge Father Team

The rest of the game is packaged like a board game, but having miniatures that need a considerable amount of assembly and prep works against that. It doesn't help that page 7 of the rule book actively encourages you to learn the rules by playing a game and muddling through. This isn't really practical when you have 20+ models to prep and assemble. Without this issue I could see Dreadball being opened Christmas morning and game being played by mid afternoon or at least Boxing day. Perhaps Mantic should have included some counters to represent the players so at least you could get in a game straight away.

It's a shame, because the models look very nice and I certainly have plenty of them, but, unfortunately, they work against the style of the rest of the package. So, high quality components, well packaged, addressing many of the faults with previous Mantic releases, but, sadly, not quite perfect.

The Battle of Wurtbad

The market town of Wurtbad in the Northern Empire was to receive a rude awakening when the warning bells tolled. Grown fat from the town's annual beer festival, it was all too tempting a prospect for the hastily assembled alliance of Chaos Worshippers now approaching the town.

Magraf Adolphus Von Rachoff had been dreading this. Ever since the river Wurt had burst its banks leading to flooding and the collapse of part of the town wall, Wurtbad had been all too vulnerable. Unfortunately, the town Burgers, always with an eye on short term profit, had refused the funds to make necessary repairs. They would live to regret it when their coffers were carried off by beastmen, assuming they lived of course.

There was no time for recriminations, Adolphus had to focus on the town's defence. He rallied the town guard under Captain Borgen and set about equipping a hastily arranged militia with what weapons could be found, mostly pikes and crossbows but a handful of serviceable arquebus were included. The towns ageing cannon was pressed into service and a group of Bergjaeger woodsmen offered their services and their archery skills. Most fortunately of all, the Wizard Johannes Breckner, in town for the festival, mounted his horse and agreed to offer what magic he could.

With the defenders prepared, Adolphus deployed a number to defend the town, but kept the bulk of his forces on a hill just outside the town borders in the hope of distracting the chaos worshippers attention from the town itself.

We decided that I would nominally be in command of the Fetid Alliance, while MLB would command the Defenders of Wurtbad. I say nominally because the intent was not play a strictly competitive game. For a start, I would be in command of MLBs warband. But also, we wanted to play an interesting game that would develop the narrative of our ongoing campaign. Who won or lost was secondary.

We decided that in addition to the standard victory points table, if Chaos won the champions would take 10 victory points each. This is standard for a winning side in most of the scenarios outlined in Realms of Chaos: the Lost and the Damned.

Deployment - click on any picture for a better view

The cacophonous sound of a beastmen horn signalled the Chaos advance. The warbands advanced on the left flank accompanied by the diseased flagellants and there foul altar. On the Chaos right flank, Balios the Corpulent lead his Zombies towards the hill occupied by the Magraf.

At a signal from Adolphus, the Empire missile troops opened fire. Flaggelents and Zombies fell, but the warbands were unharmed and the advanced continued largely unimpeded.

Missile attacks from the arquebus and crossbows did almost no damage. Some Zombies fell to cannon fire, but not enough to have any serious effect.

As Rolf Hurtziger's warband approached the town, the brave men of the town militia, lead by Captain Borgen advanced to meet them, halberds at the ready. Sensing blood, the Chaos worshippers quickened their pace before launching into an ill organised charge.

Rolf's warband advances on the Hellblitzen while Owesteen's warband turns their attention to the Bergjaeger

As the battle lines met, Rolf declared a challenge, accepted willingly by Captain Borgen. The two champions were evenly matched, axe and sword clashed. There was a break in the fighting and then both men collapsed.

Enraged at the loss of their leader, Rolf's followers attacked with renewed and maniacal vigour. The militia were forced back, gave ground and then turned and fled back to the town with the vile Chaos worshippers in hot pursuit.

Captain Borgen and Rolf Hurtziger were both level 5 heroes with almost identical profiles. Rolf's mark of Nurgle gave him +1 toughness, but there was nothing else in it. With nearly identical profiles, they struck simultaneously and both went down. On the other hand, humans with halberds clearly weren't a match for a Dragon Ogre, beastmen and Orcs with spears. The halberdiers failed their break test, but in 3rd edition that didn't mean instant death, just running away with the warband following and hacking at them further. The pursuit would keep the warband occupied for most of the game.

In the centre, the warband of the Dark Elf Owesteen clashed with the Bergjaeger . Owesteen had expected easy prey, but the woodsmen put up a stern resistance.

But it was on the right flank that the battle was to be decided. Balios Plague Zombies charged uphill to meet the Magraf's pikemen. Despite the hideous appearance of their opponents, the pikemen held out. Balios and the Magraf clashed, ineffectually at first, but then the Magraf slipped past the foul Champion's defences and delivered a killing blow with the sacred Warhammer. Balios fell and his remaining Zombies driven into the ground and crushed. The triumphant defenders reformed and turned to face the rest of the Chaos raiders, only to see Rolf's warband advancing into the town.

 An uphill struggle for Balios and the Zombies

Both the Magraf and Balios were level 15 heroes and about as evenly matched as Rolf and Captain Borgen. One round of combat saw both champions completely miss each other. The second round wasn't much better, but luckily for the Magraf he managed to get in two hits and made excellent use of the hammers might strike (1 strength 10 hit per game) and enchanted strike (2 wounds) to bring Balios down.

It was at this point, with both armies right flank collapsing, it became clear that we were not going to get a clear cut outcome to the game. Neither one of us was particularly keen to see our carefully nurtured warbands have to battle to the death and with the speed at which 3rd edition combat is resolved we could have been there all day in any case.

We decided that if at least half the chaos units made into the town before the end of the game, they would be able to make off with enough plunder to claim a draw and get five victory points per champion. This felt like the most narratively satisfying outcome. Quite apart from anything else, a good part of the fun of Realms of Chaos comes  from rolling on the chaos reward table and you can't do that without a few victory points.

The lesson we took from all this was to always make sure that you iron out your victory conditions properly before you start playing the game and remember to consider the possibility of a draw.

With Magraf Adolphus and his pikemen and crossbows bearing down on him, Owesteen, having lost the rest of his warband, finally managed to finish off the scouts and turned to face the rapidly advancing pikemen. Reasoning that it was better to charge and take the initiative, that be skewered by crossbow bolts and blown to pieces by cannon fire, charged the Magraf.

Back in the centre, the diseased flagellants had finally crossed the river and engaged the aqruebus. Enhanced by the power of the Chaos altar, the deranged fanatics were more than a match for the men of Wurtbad, but, although forced to give ground, the defenders stubbornly refused to flee.

 Owesteen battles the Magraf while the Diseased Flagellants finish of the Hakbutschutzen

Despite a valiant struggle, Owesteen the Dark Elf fell to the Margraf's hammer. But by now, Rolf's warband and the diseased Flagellants had made their way into Wurtbad.

With two units having made it into the town, this was the point at which we stopped the game and declared it a draw. Both champions were able to claim five victory points, but with both having been "killed" during the fighting they didn't get any extra points for having survived the battle. Fortunately, for Owesteen the five victory points were just enough, with the points accumulated from a previous battle, to tip him over the edge and give him a roll on the Chaos Reward table. This turned out to be the chaos attribute feathers. Rolf, however, didn't earn enough for another roll. Luckily for both warbands, they no-one suffered any permanent injuries.

Overall it had been an interesting game. Using the warbands as complete units had been more straight forward than expected and the rules scaled comfortably well to 1000 points. Having said that, the combats dragged out for turns and Missile fire was also almost entirely ineffective. I suspect playing at the 'official' standard 3000 points would have taken ages.

That said, as the warbands grow it would be worth bringing them back together for another large scale battle, possibly bringing in an allied warband worshipping another God.

Although some of the followers of Chaos had made it into the town, they were quickly driven out by the Magraf's troops. The town had been saved, but, secretly, the Magraf hoped the town burgers had been scared enough not to neglect its defences in future.

Miniature Games vs Board Games

So what is the difference between a board game and a table top wargame? Apart from the obvious that is. Actually, that bears some examination, because there are some games that have boards that feel very much like tabletop mini games. Bloodbowl and Dreadball are obvious examples, then there's Space Hulk, Warhammer Quest, Mantic's Dwarf King's hold and Project Pandora and of course Dust Tactics. Does Dreadfleet's battle mat count as a board? And Anima Tactics, intended as a TMG its appendix includes rules for using a board, so is it a board game when you use the board and a TMG at other times?

Going the other way, I have always thought of as medieval-themed tile game Carcassone a board game, but do its brightly coloured tiles qualify as a board?

I have to say at this point I don't spend a large a lot of time pondering this issue. I'm not one of those pedantic types who defines myself as a wargamer or a boardgamer and insists that never the twain shall meet. The question only interests me because it says something about the way we use language and the way we think about games.

With that in mind, I have got what I think is a slightly better definition. To my mind a board game is an essentially self-contained product in a way that a wargame is not. Obviously this requires a little more explanation as there is no shortage of expansions for board games. Frankly, the back catalogue of some board game expansions is enough to keep some companies afloat by themselves cough#Munchkin#cough.

What I mean, is that the intent of a board game is that a single person can buy a copy, and the optional expansions if they so choose, and have a self-contained product that can be played with a group. There is no intent for each player to bring their own copy. In contrast, in a TMG each player is expected to collect their own army/warband/gang/crew/team of models. Of course some players like to collect multiple armies so that players with no army of their own can still join in, but the clear intent is that each player brings their own models.

The funny thing about this definition is that Blood Bowl and Dreadball would be considered TMGs while Space Hulk, Dwarf King's Hold and Dreadfleet would be board games.

I have been reasonably happy with my home made definition for a while now, but this past weekend something happened that gave me a different perspective.

Last Saturday was Warfare Reading, Reading's premiere, and indeed only, Wargames event. Unusually for me my target wasn't new miniatures, but board games, specifically the Zombie apocalypse themed Last Night on Earth and Zombicide. Both games involve the killing of Zombies, but approach this theme quite differently. Last night on Earth is strongly atmospheric and tactical, while Zombicide focuses on straightforward cartoony action.

Most boardgames, particularly the more expensive ones, are packaged so that the game components can be easily be stored in the box. Usually this is some kind of plastic tray molded to hold the cards and counters specific to the game. Small World from Days of Wonder has one of the most elaborate. In addition to the specially molded tray, it also includes a separate removable tray specifically for the large collection of counters the game requires.

Not all games go quite this far, the aforementioned Carcasonne simply has a cardboard insert. Nevertheless, there is sense that the game and the box are part of a single self contained product.

Last night on Earth follows this pattern exactly.

When you open up Zombicide you get something quite different.

The two large boxes contain the plastic trays of miniatures.

There is a seperate plastic holder for the cards, dice and experience markers, but the cards bulge over the top. This is fine when they are still sealed in plastic, but they start to spread out when put in loosely.

The miniatures and board sections fit quite snuggly, but there is also a single sheet of card counters which sits on top. Unfortunately, once the counters are punched out there is nowhere for them to go.

As I rummaged around for a plastic sandwich bag to store the counters I remembered that I had had to do the same thing with my copies of Blood Bowl, Space Hulk and Warhammer Quest. Although Games Workshop have produced a number of games that are arguably board games they have never followed the board game convention of including a means of storing the components. Mantic have followed the same pattern with Dwarf King's Hold and Project Pandora. When companies focused on TMG games produce board games they tend to treat the boxes the same way as boxes of miniatures, as a mechanism of transporting the miniatures without them falling all over the floor.

This leads me to wonder if Zombicide was produced with more of a TMG sensibility than a board game sensibility. It also leads me to wonder how Dreadball will be packaged when it is ready.

But what is really strange about all this is that, until now, packaging never entered my head when considering the definition of a game and yet I come away from this feeling as though Last Night on Earth is a board game and Zombicide is a table top miniature game.

The Battle of Wurtbad - the Defenders of Wurtbad

After our brief interlude into other things, it's back to the fate of the town of Wurtbad. Having worked out an army list for our Nurgle alliance it was time to sort one out for the valiant, or foolhardy, defenders of the town.

We were already planning to use MLB's Empire army, made from a mix of Perry Miniatures War of the Roses plastics and some Games Workshop models. The army is still in its early stages, so we were pretty sure we would have to take almost all of it, but we still had to consider army lists.

Games Workshop actually published two different Empire army lists during the reign of Warhammer 3rd edition. The first was one of the lists included in the Warhammer Armies book. The units are mostly given mad cod-german names, but much of it is still pretty recognisable. We have mountetriad Knights, Halberdies, Hand gunners and even Flaggelents. But some of the more distinctive Empire elements such as detachments and Steam Tanks were still some way off.

The second list was released in White Dwarf 147 [check] and is a very different beast. It was timed to coincide with the release of a large number of new models from the Perry brothers and, in retrospect, is fairly obviously a trial run for Warhammer 4th edition which was then only six months away. It includes almost all of the elements associated with the modern Empire army and a few that were common but have since fallen by the wayside, such as Kislev horse archers. It also features a few 4th edition specific features, such as the elimination of cool, intelligence and willpower in favour of simply having leadership handle everything.

It also has a few features all of its own. Units are bought in blocks of five or ten, with command groups and champions included automatically if the unit could have them at all. Additional troops also had to be added in blocks. This particular decision proved so unpopular that White Dwarf published points for individual models a couple of months later and the idea was dropped from all fourth edition armies.

In the end we decided to go with earlier army list. Partly this was because MLB's army included a large unit of pikemen and there are no pikemen in the later army list. We could have used them as spearmen, but it seemed a shame to compromise. Secondly, the cheapest independent character in the army was an Elector Count, which felt too high ranking to take part in what was effectively a minor skirmish.

The final reason was that part of the appeal of this was the opportunity to play a larger scale game of Warhammer 3rd edition. And that wasn't very compatible with using an army list that was effectively a preview of fourth edition.

In the end we had to use almost all of MLB's Perry models. We also added a cannon and a recently acquired mounted Wizard he had picked up from the bring and buy stand at a convention. A more recent Empire character was drafted in to lead the army. With Balios set at Level 15 it seemed appropriate to match him with an equivalent hero of the Empire. And we kitted him out with a magic hammer to give him a little more punch.

 

The Defenders of Wurtbad

Adolphus Von Rachhoff – Margraf (Level 15 Hero) (80)

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Int	Cl	WP
4	5	4	4	4	3	5	3	9+2	7	8+1	8+1

Magic Hammer (Mighty Strike (1 Strength 10 hit per game) (5), Enchanted Strike (2 wounds)) (10), Pistol (2), Heavy Armour (3)

Total 100 points

Johannes Breckner – Schwarzmantel (Level 10 Wizard) (85)

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Int	Cl	WP
4	4	3	4	3	2	4	1	8+1	9+2	8+1	9+2

Hand Weapon, Horse (3)

Total 88 points

Captain Borgern – Graf (Level 5 Hero) (30)

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Int	Cl	WP
4	4	4	4	3	1	4	2	7	7	7	7

Halberd (2), Light Armour (2)

Total 34 points

10 Armbrutschutzen (10 x 10)

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Int	Cl	WP
4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	7	7	7

Crossbow and Hand Weapon

Total 100 points

20 Helblitzen (9 x 20)

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Int	Cl	WP
4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	7	7	7

Halberds and Light Armour, Standard (9) and Musician (9)

Total 198 points

 

10 Hakbutschutzen (8 x 10)

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Int	Cl	WP
4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	7	7	7

Hand Weapons and Arquebus

Total 80 points

 

20 Ersatzsolder (5 x 20)

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Int	Cl	WP
4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	7	7	7

Pikes (2), Light Armour (2), Standard Bearer (9), Musician (9)

Total 198 points

 

10 Bergjaeger (13 x 10)

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Int	Cl	WP
4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	7	7	7

Long Bow and Hand Weapon. Scouts

Total 130 points

 

Reiks Canone Batrerien – 1 Cannon (60)

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Int	Cl	WP
4	3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	7	7	7

3 crew

Total 60 points

Grand Total 988 points

A true original?

Poor old Jake Thornton, no sooner does he announce plans to self-publish a new skirmish game then the first comment, the very first comment, assumes he will be ripping off Games Workshop. I can't say I blame him for writing a blog post on the subject. Since Dreadball a vocal part of the wargaming community seem to have decided that he is simply copies existing games.

That said, me writing a whole blog post on the subject probably doesn't help. So, before I go any further, I should say that I think his skirmish game Eternal Battles sounds very interesting. The plan is for a modular structure with the basic rules covered in one volume and multiple add on modules to cover different periods. I will be watching with interest.

I still want to talk about the "rip off" accusation though because it illustrates something quite interesting about the attitude of some gamers.

It's odd that Dreadball attracted such criticism, actually. There have been dozens of mass battle, dungeon crawl, space ship exploration and skirmish games released without anyone batting an eyelid. Maybe it's because Blood Bowl feels like one of Games Workshop's few truly original ideas. I say truly original, but even then it's a splice of two existing concepts, Warhammer Fantasy and American Football. Nevertheless, it does seem to be associated with Games Workshop more firmly than any other game concept ad has a lot of loyal fans.

Still, the attitude to Dreadball suggests that its critics believe there is only one legitimate route to design a game. That is to start with a totally original concept and then right rules to simulate it. That is certainly the route taken by some games; Malifaux and War Machine spring to mind. But this isn't the only route.

Take a look at historical gaming. There are games for all different periods and conflicts and the most popular periods are supported by multiple rules sets. Fields of Glory, Hail Caesar, Clash of Empires, War and Conquest, as well as others, all cover the ancient to medieval period, but all do so in a different way. Some rules focus in on a very particular period, such as Beneath the Lilly Banner, Killer Katanas or Saga, while others cover a much broader period, such as Pike and Shotte. When Warlord released Bolt Action recently Alessio Cavatore and Rick Priestly didn't receive any criticism for writing rules based on a period that has already been covered by other games. Not to say there wasn't any criticism, but not for that. Possibly this is because in historical gaming everything is based on actual history so no-one can be accused of ripping anyone else off based on this.

But historical gaming also illustrates a different approach to designing a game, namely looking at an existing period or concept and trying to simulate it with a different set of rules. As far as I can see, with Bolt Action the designers had a unique selling point based on the rules, the order dice, and built the game from there.

Why is this not an appropriate approach to take to Fantasy and Sci-Fi gaming. If a designer has a new way of simulating fantasy skirmish or mass battle or even sport why not build a game around it? Surely not every game has to be completely unique?

Now lets take a look at the current state of Blood Bowl. It is still formally available, but has been tucked away in the Specialist games area of the Games Workshop website, with no formal support and no new models for years. Many of the existing models haven't been updated since the mid 1990s. The game is effectively retired. So what is a designer with a good idea for a sports-based game supposed to do? Forget about it because Games Workshop have a game vaguely similar they hardly support? Whatever else you might say about Mantic they certainly have big plans for Dreadball with three supplements and twelve teams planned and no shortage of additional material.

So from the perspective of gamers Dreadball looks like good news. It's an interesting rules set and the game looks well supported. Should the whole concept have been dropped simply because it is vaguely similar to a game Games Workshop have all but abandoned? I think not.

I'm already signed up to Dreadball, I put money into the Kickstarter and will be keeping an eye on Eternal Battle and I hope that no good games are strangled at birth because tehy are judged insufficiently original.

The numbers game

With Mantic's open day last weekend and my recent foray into Realms of Chaos I have had both Warhammer and Kings of War on the mind. One of the more distinctive features of KOW is the way in which it treats units. In Warhammer the basic element is the model and units are made of groups of them, while in Kings of War the basic element is the unit, it has its own stat line and is moved and removed as one element.

When playing a KOW style game, you tend to assume that the unit does not necessarily represent the number of individuals on the table. There might be twenty models, but your would tend to assume that that represents several hundred or even thousand individuals. The exact number is less important than the unit's abaility to project power on the field. For that reason the unit is removed all at once. The fate of individuals doesn't matter, when the unit is removed it is assumed that the unit is no longer able to fight effectively either because everyone is dead or has run off.

You wouldn't necessarily think this in Warhammer. When each model has its own stat line, it feels like an individual. But this doesn't actually make sense in practice. For a start, the units in Warhammer behave like much larger bodies. There may twenty men (or Orcs or Elves) on the table, but they move and fight like formations of several hundred. They stay in formation, can't manuevere easily and don't break formation except in route.

Looking at things on a larger scale, Warhammer-style games use maybe 100 to 200 models. Real historical armies run to thousands or even tens of thousands. Even the largest Warhammer battle represents only a skirmish in historical terms. And yet the conceit of the Warhammer game is that battles involve Emperor's, Kings and Warlords.

Both styles of game involve an abstraction. In KOW style games you assume that each unit represents more individuals than seen on the table. In Warhammer style games the abstraction happens almost in reverse. You assume that units and individuals behave like much larger formations than they actually represent. Either way, the effect is to simulate a massive battle with a much smaller number of models.

This division of model versus unit is common in historical wargaming. Warlord's Black Powder, Hail Caesar and Pike and Shotte all use the unit as the base element. Field of Glory and its successors as well as DBA and DBM use a similar system, of multiple models on a single base, even if they are not necessarily called units. In the other side, Clash of Empires follows a similar system to Warhammer, with units of individual models.

While the unit versus individual concept cuts across fantasy and historical gaming, in one area historical games usually fall on one side and fantasy on the other and that's in the handling of characters. In the Black Powder family, Clash of Empires, Field of Glory characters are essentially order givers. They enhance the fighting ability or units and/or are required to allow them to activate, but they don't fight units directly.

In contrast Warhammer treats characters as particularly capable individuals able to join and leave units and fight on the same level as other individuals. Kings of War goes even further. Characters are units in their own right and a single hero can fight on even terms with a unit of 20 or more models. This makes sense, while in the real world no individual, no matter how capable can fight more than two or three at a time successfully, in a fantasy world mighty heroes really can take on entire armies and win.

So many games use abstraction to deal with numbers, but the exact way it's managed varies from game to game and genre to genre.

A Jolly holiday with Mantic

Bit of a digression from my previous post here, because I spent most of the last weekend in Nottingham and most of Saturday at the headquarters of Mantic games. It being the occasion of Mantic's open day. I had managed to acquire a ticket as a free bonus for having pledged some money to their Kings of War Kickstarter and so I and MLB decided to make a weekend of it.

Mantic Undead on display

Suffice it to say, Mantic's HQ is not quite on the same scale as that of another significant Nottingham-based miniature company and doesn't have any massive bronze statues outside either. It consists of a handful of semi-ventilated offices and a warehouse out back. But Mantic attempted to do as much with the space as possible. The front end of the warehouse had been cleared to provide space for Warpath and Kings of War gaming tables and a decently sized retail stand. Much of this space was dedicated to testing out Warpath 2.0 and showing off the new Enforcer models (which look more like they've escaped from Iron Man 2.5 than Space Marines). There was also space for a large scale Undead vs Dwarfs Kings of War game in which Mantic's models were supplemented with Reaper Werewolves and an Undead Elephant/Mammoth of uncertain origin. The Warehouse surroundings, if anything, added to the atmosphere as gamers shared space with still to be assembled miniature boxes and paper inlays.

Off to the side of the warehouse, Golem painting studios offered painting tutorials for Undead and Enforcers. Getting on on these required an additional £20 fee, but came bundled with a box of models. MLB spent some time learning how to paint flat surfaces and certainly got his, by which I mean my, money's worth as he was in there for two and a half hours.

Upstairs, in a short corridor of offices, sculptor Bob Naismith spent half the day holding court and showing off the early versions of the impressively huge Abyssal Golems. The major attraction of the day was opposite in the "Jake room" in which Jake Thornton's board games Dwarf King's Hold and Project Pandora played a supporting role to the four demo games of Dread Ball.

 Mantic Abyssal Golem - work in progress by Bob Naismaith

Following a highly successful Kickstarter campaign, Dread Ball is looking like Mantic's breakout hit and the demo games stayed busy throughout the day. The demo version reduced the number of players on each team and started the action two-thirds of the way through the game in order to keep things simple and maximise turnover. The game itself plays very swiftly; it is perfectly possible to score in a turn with a reasonable degree of luck. But, the fact that models are not reset after scoring, with the ball returning to the centre, means that you have to keep an eye on the position of your whole team. While there is an element of risk management, if you lose or fail to pick up the ball your turn, or rush, is over, the game is much more about resource management than Blood Bowl. You have fewer action tokens than players, which means not every player will act each rush, but you can play more than one action token on a player if you wish. This allows for faster scoring, but can leave other players out of position. With better quality game pieces than I have seen from Mantic and some very well sculpted players I could see this game becoming a major hit.

At the end of the corridor Mantic head honcho Ronnie Renton and Jake Thornton spent most of the day in seminars with whoever showed up. These took the form of surprisingly candid Q&A sessions with a fair bit of discussion of future plans.

Dread Ball was, unsurprisingly, a prominent feature. Mantic clearly have big plans, with four supplements outlined and, thanks to Kickstarter, largely funded. The intent is for the first three to introduce new teams, before the fourth "Dread Ball" extreme introduces the illegal "street" version of the game. This sounds genuinely fascinating as the teams will not have fixed rosters, but instead be recruited game to game by shadowy "backers". These backers can potentially hire any kind of player, but will get significant bonuses to certain types depending on their background, so an alien ambassador will get cheap aliens, a mad scientist cheap mutants and genetic modification. Overal, it sounds like the intent is to create a much broader game than Blood Bowl and Mantic may have the resources and enthusiasm to really run with the content.

Kings of War and Warpath also got their share of attention. Warpath has gone a bit quiet of late, but Ronnie let slip his intent to produce cheap plastic vehicle and plane kits (he thought £12 was about right for a hard plastic tank) and that he wants it to be quick and easy to play with large numbers of models. On the Kings of War front, he made it clear that there are three principal poles in the Mantica world, Good, Evil and Nature. The latter would be represented by druids and elementals. We have already seen the archetypal good army in the planned human Paladins, Battle Sisters and Angels. The plan is also to produce an army of demons which will be more Satanic and Diabolic rather than Chaotic. Though what this will entail remains to be seen. Having covered the main fantasy archetypes (plus Abyssal Dwarves which appear to be a case of trolling Games Workshop for a laugh), Mantic now appear to be moving on to some distinctive and interesting creations of their own.

So not a big day, but an enjoyable one and one plentiful access to the movers and shakers and a refreshing willingness to actually provide us with information.