Monday 5 September 2011

Modern Skirmishes


They got me
So I've been away for a while. Pretty much the whole of July and August actually. Very busy with work. However, I'm now back and gaming and blogging again.

In fact, just recently I picked up a copy of Force on Force by Ambush Alley games. Very impressed so far. I've heard some rumours about 6th edition 40k and how it may work, and if the new innovations work anything as well as Force on Force looks like it does, I'll be very impressed.

It also set me thinking in a new way about narrative gaming. Force on Force simulates modern-era engagements in two ways - symetric warfare (roughly equally matched regular-vs-regular force games), and asymmetric warfare (regular forces verses "insurgents").
beware genestealer insurgents
In 40k we mostly play out symetric battles - even when facing "horde" armies (such as orks and nids) both player's forces are finite, balanced and regarded as capable troops - even if the points values reflect a difference in quality.

Force on Force provides mechanisms for playing grossly unbalanced games whilst still keeping them fun and challenging for both sides. For a long time I've been weary of 40k's points-value-oriented play finding that it stifles innovation and the sort of narrative games I want to play. However, my (so far limited) experience of Force on Force has got me thinking about how one might simulate assymmetric warfare in a 40k environment outside of the tradition points value structure.

orky kill team ftw
The 4th edition version of Kill Team is probably the closest GW designers have come to doing this themselves (the version in the 4th edition rulebook, not the castrated version in Battle Missions), but it really only focussed on very small units, and made more logical sense for some races than others. I'm proposing to come up with a scenario that allows for assymetric warfare in the 41st millenium on a slightly larger scale.

Watch this space!