An interesting thread to read, I must say. Yes, it tends to wander all over the road (and into the pastures beside the road, and sometimes over an occasional confused cow), but points of interest.

Gimp's opening salvo (sorry, Gimp old bean, couldn't resist the allusion to artillery) may have been long, and controversial, but was thus a rather good way to open the discussion. Certainly beats "so, whadda we talk about?"

I did not know that FFG rushed the final production. Hm. I've worked in the industry; such things are hardly unusual. And while I agree that it would be ducky to have the game book industry adhere to production standards of other industries, I also know this industry works on a shoestring budget for really tight margins, which might explain why there are so few editors for so many products, etc. And, yes, I would dearly love to see more comprehensive editing, fewer typos, and better pre-publishing problem identification and resolution. (Although said limited staff would tend to explain why a major revision of Dark Heresy, for sake of rules update and continuity, is nowhere on the horizon…)

As for nomenclarture, my objection to referring to the Allied artillery (honestly, why didn't they just say "American artillery?") as a "Long Tom" seems a bit flaccid. No insult to the 155mm rifle, but a 22cm howitzer deserves a name of its own. Perhaps an acronym; 'BFH' (Bloody Fat Howitzer), or some such?

Yes, I also forsee a second/revised edition coming. I haven't seen wargames that don't need major errata and revisions since the late 70s. Ah, Avalon Hill and SPI, I miss you. (Yes, I'm keenly aware of the irony there. SPI could've profited from swift release of game errata.)

Gimp said:

As I said earlier a fixed lowered movement for spending any time in difficult terrain is not unique to this game. Flames of War does it, for example, and that is a game which means to take the real WW2 as its inspiration. It is a simple but fairly effective way of dealing with it (unlike GW's irritating "roll distance traveled randomly" method).

As far as leaders leading from the front is concerned, the more I have thought about this the less it bothers me. As far as I can tell, this is a platoon/company level game. It's not like we are talking about colonels leading from the front line, more like Lieutenants or Captains (or even NCOs). Those kind of roles need to be very close to the front, especially if we are talking WW2, where at platoon scale you are really relying on orders sent by voice, hand signals or messenger.

"A unit never obscures other miniatures in its own unit."

Unless "obscures" is a rule term (which it may be) the that is written means it is talking about other units looking in at the unit (ie, it is indeed referring to how it deals with interactions with other units). Obscuring is the act of hiding the object of the sentence, not the act of hiding other things from the object of the sentence. Object B if it gets in the way of Object C looking at Object B, not if it gets in the way of Object B looking at Object C (though it also obscures Object C from Object B at the same time). If it was only referring to models not obscuring LoS for other models in its units it would have to be written something like "Models never obscure enemy models for other models in its unit".

Though truthfully, looking at it, unless it is clarified somewhere (or it is a specific game term… which i suspect from the rest of the content of this thread that it is), the strict wording of that sentence would mean that models actually do interfere with the LoS of models within its own unit (but not from others looking outside in).

As far as "Long Tom" goes: It is not just a name for the American 155 gun. I has also been used for at least 2 other artillery pieces (and possibly more), one from the American Civil War, and another from the Boer War (used by the Boers) built by the French.

borithan said:

Totally true.  I think Gimp had commented earlier that this game comes across more like a B action movie than it does like a historical simulation.  And that, of course, was the goal all along.  It's based on the Dust comic books, not on real life.

Derp… realised that my explanation of the "obscure" matter is even less intelligible than intended, as I seem to have deleted half a sentence… It wasn't that clear in the first place.

felkor said:

felkor said:

Absolutely true. Paolo himself told me at Gencon when Tactics was released that he wanted the game to play like the first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

If someone wants a simulation, they should be playing Command Decision or some other WW2 simulation were people spend more time complaining about each others paint schemes and improper radio antenna placements than playing instead of Dust.

 I would think we'd all want to be as far away from real war as possible 

Id like to see the first 15 minutes of Saving private Ryan, BB-gun directors cut … rated PG-6 ;)

Hatamoto said:

Me too, that would be hilarious!

paradiddlebob said:

Already had enough of that nonsense. I want to play a game, not experiment with any PTSD (fortunately, I have none).

Peacekeeper_b said:

I don't mind the idea of DUST going for a comic book style of cinematics, as I've dealt with other games that have done that quite well.

Those other games, however, could still maintain a logical consistency that Warfare is seriously lacking.  Even Hollywood can get the basic action ideas close to correct.  One of my favortie games, as a simulationist, is very comic book oriented for style, but is also one of the best tactical simulations I've played.

I don't need a perfect recreation of real combat for a game, but a game about combat should be able to look and act like combat to some degree, and a lot of Warfare gives us an epic level of failure on that.

As I noted at the beginning of my post, I'm happy for those who find Warfare to be a warm cuddly game they can be thrilled with for years.

I'm happy for those who feel they're willing to wait and give FFG several additional re-writes on the rules to actually get things right.

Unfortunately, Warfare is far too messed up for me to be willing to run house rule patches until FFG figures out where they've screwed up and does another re-write that actually fixes things. 

I paid for a game that I really wanted to like, and got garbage.  As they say, 'One man's trash is another man's treasure,' so I know there are those who will disagree with that statement, and that's fine.  Their disagreements do not change my opinion.  FFG has lost a serious amount of trust from me with this fiasco.

I'll be finishing off on this topic, so people can continue to complain about everything I brought up without worry about long posts from me in response.  I don't worry about a game rehashing PTSD, but Uncle broke me rather well, and right now it's gotten to where it hurts too much to type, so I'll be less active on the forums (and there can be much rejoicing from those who don't like my opinions).

Have fun with Warfare for those that like it, and best of luck for those who found some level of agreement with the issues I've brought up.

Gimp said:

Now before you go -  what's that, Gimp, as I happen to agree in principle with you?

Sami K said:

Warzone.  It's out of print, and had another company put out a version that was rather lame as a licensed property.  The original kept a comic book feel while still being very good for tactics.  It had some issues that were easy to fix, and by the later expansions where playtest started really slipping you had to decide whether to allow new units, but the core rules were solid.  The 2nd edition tried to fix things and work more as a straight tactical game, did it well, but lost a lot of the flavor of the original.  The licensed property was very popular with some people, but I was underwhelmed.  It came across as trying to do things differently just to be different, while not doing them very well.

There are other companies putting out fan made suplements specifically using DUST models that are far better simulations, which is where I'm headed for tabletop gaming with my DUST figures when I want more than Tactics gives me.

If Warfare somehow gets pulled out of the mire it bogged itself into, I may look at it again, but there are plenty of really good games out there I already play, or am interested in buying, that paying for Warfare when it doesn't work isn't worth it.

 Having played a few games, I have to say that I do agree with Gimp's OP for the most part. My main issues are the imbalance between factions. 

Cover plays a large role in the game and the Allies faction has a huge advantage over the Axis faction in negating cover, having access to several units with weapons that allow you to ignore it.  The Axis have 2, I think? The Axis have nothing to match Phaser weapons.  In return the Axis have 2 units that ignore suppression.  The Zombies lose most cover benefits and the gorillas are weaker versions on the Allies rocket equipped troops who don't trigger reactions on the move and have better CC weapons.  Snipers in general are broken. 

The Axis have Laser weapons, which I'm underwhelmed by. I have a 1/3 chance to get another hit and a range shorter than the basic weapon of my opponent which btw puts them in reaction range. 

My opinion is that the game hs too many issues to be fun. It's already beginning to die at my lgs and we are switching back to tactics.  I'm going to hold on to my stuff for a while to see If FFG is interested in making much needed changes. If not, I'll have a large collection of premium models for sale in the next year. 

Id be very interested in knowing what these fan-made supplements are, and for wich systems they are used … I have a lot of Dust figures as well, and ive had a feeling the official rules arent up to par. Id be happy if you could tell me more about these alternative rules.

Warzone btw, always loved the potential that system had … We started playing 1st edition when target games released it in sweden, and had it not been for the awful looking miniatures i think it might have given 40k a run for its money. Even though i mainly played 40k after this, i always thought back on Warzone and how much cooler it actually was, the amount of strategy and detailed rules it had.