Warpath 2.0 Stand-in Feedback

[darkPrince010]

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the Mantic forum page has evaporated. Until it's back on, feel free to use this thread for replying to issues found in playtesting.

Please keep in mind that this does not have the convenient sub-divisions for the various rules sections, so if your question refers to a specific section (Vehicles and Characters, Alternating Activation, Army Lists, Nerve and Casualty Removal, and General, if I recall right), PLEASE be sure to note this at the top of your post.

Additionally, posting problems and possible solutions in matt's reply format is very preferred, especially so issues and proposed solutions can be easily copy-pasted once the Mantic forums are back up.

Until then, let's hear what you'd like to see changed, fixed, or explained, and how playing Warpath 2.0 has gone so far!

[darkPrince010]

Nerve and Casualty Removal

I'll post what I've gotten from playtesting Hellebore's solution.

ISSUE: Nerve removal favors multiple smaller units forcing repeated Nerve checks on larger units.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Replace current Nerve system with the following:
"If an enemy unit has taken any casualties by the end of the activation phase, they must roll 1d6. If the unit was already Suppressed, then if they roll a 6+ the unit is now Destroyed. If the unit was not Suppressed, then if they roll a 6+ the unit is now Suppressed. [Inspiring only applies for a roll to see if the unit is Destroyed] If the unit took casualties during this activation phase equal to or greater than their Nerve value [Now a single value, typically 1 for Teams, 3 for Sections, and 5 for Platoons for 9/11 Ne units. becomes 0/2/4 for Ne 8/10 units and 2/4/6 for Ne 10/12 units], then the unit suffers Onslaught and gets a +3 to the Ne roll."
PLAYTESTED? Yes. Results are below in spoiler

(First 1-4 games were using the original Warpath 2.0 rules, Hellebore's original system (Test nerve with given conditions if Casualties >= Ne and Onslaught if taken half casualties), and Forest's 75% casualties before test for Ne, 50% for Onslaught and 50% for Ne, 25% for Onslaught. I can post these results if anyone wants, but only Hellebore's system prevented MSU spam from dominating. Also, because I was sleep-addled all of these games were played to the utter destruction of one side or the other. All of these games (1-8) pitted 10-50pt unupgraded Corp Marine Teams vs 2-250pt unupgraded Corp Marine Platoons)

Fifth Game, using darkPrince's variation of Hellebore's Ne system (Cause Onslaught if deal 2/4/6 damage from single Roll 1d6 for Ne, and always roll Ne if damaged: 6+ for Supp, 6+ for Destroyed if already Supp, Onslaught=+3. Rolled Ne at end after all shots had been tallied):
End: 8 Teams (4 at full, 3 at 4, 1 at 3) vs 0 Platoons (Win by 400 pts. Clear victory).
Notes: Went on for much longer (~6-8 turns) than other games. Dropping # needed for Onslaught to 1 for Teams (Maybe 1/3/5 for T/S/P) would help in mulching them faster.

Sixth Game, using darkPrince's variation of Hellebore system (1/3/5 for Onslaught for T/S/P):
End: 7 Teams (1 at full,1 at 4, 4 at 3, 1 at 2) vs 0 Platoons (Win by 350 pts. Clear Victory).
Notes: Much better balanced. Platoon was able to reliably Suppress enemy, while Team suppression of platoons was much less infrequent. If not for 2-3 turns of a Suppressed 14-man Platoon, may have actually been a Platoon victory.

Unit Activation

I also tried several games using a -2 penalty to "Extra" activations (Activations after the enemy player has activated or attempted to activate all their units).

ISSUE: No penalty for "Extra" unit activation encourages MSU and can incredibly help a player who manages to get many more units than their opponent and further increase play disparity (Also discourages attempting to activate a Suppressed unit during regular turn as "Extra" suppressed units activate on a 4+)
PROPOSED SOLUTION: Add the following: "After all other players have activated all of their units, the remaining player may activate their remaining units, ignoring the * penalties and continuing to test for activation until all of his units have a 'Done' marker. However, each of these "Extra" activations take a -2 penalty to the die roll in addition to penalties from Suppressed or bonuses from being within 12" of an activated unit." [This encourages attempting to activate a Suppressed unit as a players first activated unit on a turn, as the chance is a 50-50 as opposed to the 1 in 6 if they wait until their Extra activations. This heavily boosts the benefits and duration of Suppression, increasing the viability of larger units vs smaller units.]
PLAYTESTED? Yes. See spoiler below:

Seventh and eighth games continued to play until one unit was completely destroyed. These also used 10 Teams vs 2 Platoons

Seventh Game, using darkPrince's variation of Hellebore system (1/3/5) with -2 penalty for "Extra" activations:
End: 9 Teams (3 at Full, 4 at 3, and 2 at 2) vs 0 Platoons (Win by 450 pts. Clear Victory).
Notes: Felt like a much fairer game. Suppressed units stayed suppressed for the MSU, rendering them ineffective while the platoons were very difficult to destroy. One was only wiped out by being suppressed and then being hit and getting another 6 rolled for Destroyed. Otherwise again it could easily have been a Platoon victory.

Eighth game, same conditions as Seventh:
End: 1 Platoon (1 at 5) vs 0 Teams (Win by 250 pts. Clear Victory).
Notes: This felt perfectly balanced the entire time. The Platoons were able to focus on Suppressing the Teams to slow their firepower, while the Teams had to rely on attempting to suppress the Platoons through sheer firepower. It eventually boiled down to ~10 members of a platoon vs 5-6 single member survivors of Teams, taking about 6-8 turns extra to resolve due to poor rolls. The addition of the -2 to "Extra" activations meant that if the Teams player did not activate any Suppressed units as his first or second unit before he was forced to start rolling for Extras, they had a slim chance of reentering play for that turn. Additionally, this lent a large advantage to the Platoon player if they could get Initiative, as this meant all of the Team player rolls would be "Extra" activations and so Suppressed units usually stayed suppressed.

Finally got my wits about me the next morning and ran further tests of 3 games each: 2 Platoons vs 10 Teams, 10 Teams vs 4 Sections (125 pts ea), and 4 Sections vs 2 Platoons. These games played to normal length: 5/6 turns.

Game 1: 2 Platoons vs 10 Sections, darkPrince variation of Hellebore Ne System (1/2/3 for T/S/P), normal turn length:
End (5 turns): 2 Platoons (1 at 15, 1 at 14) vs 9 Teams (6 at full, 2 at 3(1 Supp))(Win by 50 pts. Draw).
Notes: Teams had several poor rolls for extra activation and platoons rolled poorly for their suppressed units.

Game 2:Same conditions as Game 1:
End: 9 Teams (7 at full, 2 at 2 (Both supp) vs 1 Platoon (1 at 12 (Supp)). Win by 200 pts, clear victory.
Notes: Lucky rolls quickly eliminated one platoon and poor rolls kept the remaining platoon useless.

Game 3: Same as Game 1:
End: 2 Platoons (1 at 13, 1 at 9) vs 10 Teams (6 at full, 1 at 2, 3 at 1 (All Supp)). 0Pts, Draw
Notes: Seemed very balanced, and more units to fire on Suppressed Teams would have wiped them must faster.

Game 4: 2 Platoons (250 pts ea) vs 4 Sections (125 pts Ea):
End: 2 Platoons (1 at 15, 1 at 13) vs 3 Sections (2 at Full, 1 at 5) (Win by 125 pts. Clear Victory)
Notes: Both unit types were unable to reliably force Onslaught checks on the other, and the destroyed section was only such through attrition. No models were Suppressed during the game, although failed activation did have a large effect.

Game 5: Same conditions as Game 4:
End (6 turns): 2 Platoons (1 at 17, 1 at 12) vs 3 Sections (1 at full, 1 at 3 (Supp), 1 at 2). Win by 125 pts. Clear victory.
Notes: Sections had atrocious luck in causing damage, and the Platoons had a pair of 4+ damage per activations (One was 6) that cleaned out the damaged Sections. Suppressed did occur to the Onslaught section and to a Platoon, and Platoon player had atrocious luck gambling on activating the Suppressed unit first.

Game 6: Same conditions as Game 4:
End (6 turns): 2 Platoons (1 at 15, 1 at 8) vs 3 Sections(2 at full, 1 at 4). Win by 125 pts. Clear victory.
Notes:Section player had some poor rolls for activation and Platoon player had some very good high-damage volleys. Overall felt much more dynamic in who had the advantage.

Game 7: 4 Sections (125 pts ea) vs 10 Teams (50 pts ea):
End: 3 Sections (1 at full, 1 at 9, 1 at 4) vs 7 Teams (3 at full, 1 at 4 (Supp), 1 at 3, 1 at 2, 1 at 1). Win by 25 pts. Draw.
Notes: Very back-and-forth. Lots of suppressed Teams, but was somewhat common to have a suppressed Section or two.

Game 8: Same conditions as Game 7:
End: 4 Sections (1 at 9, 1 at 8, 1 at 6 (Supp), 1 at 3 (Supp)) vs vs 10 Teams (4 at full, 3 at 4 (2 Supp), 1 at 2 (Supp), 2 at 1 (1 Supp)). 0 pts, Draw.
Notes: Lots of back-and-forth Suppression, and felt very balanced.

Game 9: Same conditions as Game 7:
End: 4 Sections (1 at 9, 2 at 7 (1 Supp), 1 at 4 (Supp)) vs 9 Teams (7 at full, 1 at 4 (Supp), 1 at 2). Win by 50 pts. Draw)
Notes: LOTS of suppressed results both ways. A few Teams were close to being destroyed, and with better rolls on both sides it probably would have been ~3 dead teams vs 1 dead Section.

I think this system could be kept with Vehicles if they adopt the rule mentioned on the forum (Unsure of author of idea. Sorry. Will cite when found) for having vehicles (and Ord?) operate as independent squads (With each component a "model"), and for Heroes/current WP2.0 vehicles I think Tough needs to be bumped, as Tough (2) means under this new Ne system that you'd never be rolling for Destroyed (as 2 would be automatic) and you have a 50-50 chance of Suppressed. Not suggesting this in matt's format as it's not an issue with current WP2.0 rules, but if they do shift to a system like Hellebore or mine, I'd suggest all WP2.0 vehicles (Not "squad" vehicles) and heroes get a universal bump of +1 or +2 to their current Tough. This has not been playtested, but I'll give it a shot if this Ne system seems like it has a good chance of being adopted (Since it'd be silly to change if WP2.0 doesn't use the new Ne system and didn't need the change).

Any feedback on either of these solutions, or their combination?

EDIT: Just ran some games with tanks using both old Tough system as well as Forum's multiple-"component" system. Both operated at about the same level of balance, with slightly tougher tank with the component section but not unfairly so (Was still nearly destroyed all three times I played. Spoilered results below). I would suggest the Component system for use, as it meshes well with the darkPrince/Hellebore Ne system (Did not try with WP2.0 Ne system, but given that only once was I able to get 3 "casualties" in a single phase and would have claimed the Onslaught bonus under the WP2.0 rules, I highly doubt WP2.0's system with the Components would allow much beyond far more chances for Immobilization. The Component system with the dP/Hb Ne system also allows for more of these Immobilization chances, but also adds game granularity with weapon removal and a slight bump in tank survivability).

Also ran test with Commanders vs Teams/Sections/Platoons. Tac Grid is a hell of an initial hit, but if the unit survives that hit (Some Sections, and especially a Platoon. Teams only if they're very, very lucky) then usually the commander is little more than a nuisance (A bit more of a hassle with Teams, but imo not unfairly so with his ability to Suppress easier with their Ne 1). Imo, the commanders actually don't need a Ne boost with this, since if they survive the shots with 1 damage, there's a 50-50 chance they'll be suppressed (Better than trying to get a 9+ on 2d6 on 1 roll with WP2.0).

Vehicles and Characters

ISSUE: Tough (n) on tanks does not adequately represent their toughness and does not allow for sufficient chance to Immobilize/Suppress
POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Replace Tough (n) on tanks with the following: "Each Armor unit counts as having 5 "Components," represented by tokens or noted on scratch paper. 1 Component represents the "Core", and 1 token represents each of the vehicles weapons (Count weapons with differing arcs, like [R] and [L] as separate weapons with their own tokens), with any leftover as "empty" Components. If your vehicle has more than 4 separate weapons, note which weapon(s) are not represented by Components (And thus are only lost when the Armor unit is Destroyed). When a vehicle is damaged, remove Components in this order, removing 1 Component per damage suffered m(If there are multiple eligible Components to be removed, the controlling player may determine which are removed):
1) Any token that is not Core or corresponding to a Weapon
2) Any non-Core Component corresponding to a weapon
3) The Core Component
If a Component corresponding to a weapon is removed, the vehicle may no longer fire that weapon. If the Core Component is removed, the unit counts as Destroyed, roll 1d6 just as you would for a Destroyed Ne result to see if you leave or remove the wreckage. When an Armor unit is damaged, roll Ne as you would for an Infantry unit, counting the number of removed Components instead of Casualties to determine if Onslaught applies. In addition, if the vehicle is damaged roll 1d6: on a 1-3, the unit is Immobilized and may only make Halt! movement actions for the rest of the game."

[It's clunky, but works from what I've seen and could probably be streamlined and made more understandable. Plus, this allows for better Ne changes as a single damage to a 9/11 Ne vehicle, counting as Ne 1 under the dP/Hb Ne system, can easily suppress it. Higher Ne values would make it much harder to suppress and make it much more dangerous and versatile. Suggest that this should be playtested for the larger tanks for each of the races.]
PLAYTESTED? Yes. See spoilered results below:

Game 1: 2 Sections of Heavy Weapon Teams with Light Laser Cannons (135 pts ea) vs 1 Pulverizer with Close Assault Gun and Light Laser Cannon (260 pts), using darkPrince version of Helebore rule and Tough (2), Ne 1 for tank and Ne 3 for Sections.
End: 1 Tank (At 1 hp, Immobilized) vs 1 Section (at 2). Win by 135 pts. Clear victory.
Notes: Tank was easily immobilized.

Game 2:Same as Game 1, but using Forum suggestions of 5-man "Component" Team to represent wounds on tank. 1 is leader, 1 is CAG, 1 is LLC, 2 are filler. Still using dP/Hb Ne system with tank having Ne of 1.
End: 1 tank (1 component Left (Leader)) vs 1 Section (Full). Win by 135 pts. Clear victory
Notes: Managed to suppress tank with very good volley of fire. Earlier immobilization would have kept main gun out of better range.

Game 3: Same as Game 2:
End: 2 Sections (2 at 2) vs 1 Tank (at 1 component (Leader)). 0 pts. Draw.
Notes: Immobilized tank in midfield had ineffective main cannon, and was shot to pieces by sections despite terrible section activations.

Game 4: Same as Game 2:
End: 1 Tank (at 3 components (Leader, CAG, LLC)) vs 0 Sections. Win by 270 pts. Clear victory.
Notes: Hit with cannon against both teams basically ended the game. However, tank was suppressed and with more fire could have been destroyed.

Game 5: 5 Commanders (50 pts ea) vs 5 Teams (50 pts ea)
End: 4 Teams (2 at full, 1 at 4 (Sup), 1 at 2) vs 3 Commanders. Win by 50 pts. Clear Victory.
Notes: Did not use Stealth rule, but Tactical Grid was devastatingly effective.

Game 5: 5 commanders vs 2 Sections
End: 2 Sections (2 at 6) vs 1 Commander (at 1hp). Win by 200 pts. Clear victory.
Notes: When unit survives initial volley of fire from Grid, survival almost guaranteed. Suspect using Stealth would balance out fight to be much closer.

Game 6: 5 commanders vs 1 Platoon:
End: 1 Platoon (at 8) vs 2 Commanders (1 at full, 1 at 1hp (Supp))
Notes: Again, after survival from Tac Grid, was able to overwhelm enemy with volume of fire. Suspect commander death from volume of fire would occur with Platoon despite stealth.

[scarletsquig]

Can you playtest using just Hellebore's system alone?

I don't understand what your personal variant of Hellebore's rule stated here actually means:

(Cause Onslaught if deal 2/4/6 damage from single Roll 1d6 for Ne, and always roll Ne if damaged: 6+ for Supp, 6+ for Destroyed if already Supp, Onslaught=+3. Rolled Ne at end after all shots had been tallied)

.. only that it looks extremely confusing, and I don't understand the intent or meaning behind anything other than the onslaught part at the beginning. Are you proposing to remove all of the nerve values in the game, and just roll nerve with a single d6 instead?

To clarify is, your sixth game *just* Hellebore's system + your 1/3/5 Onslaught amendment, or is it all the other stuff I posted in that quote as well?

[darkPrince010]

I did do a playtest of just Hellebore's system (My second game I playtested. I didn't post the info above). Hellebore's system was that a unit only took a Ne test if they suffered casualties that turn equal to their Ne stat by the end of the phase (He had Ne 2 for Teams, Ne 4 for Sections, and Ne 6 for Platoons. This was a playtest value subject to change). The Ne test under Hb's system was a d6 roll: If they were suppressed already and rolled a 6+, they were destroyed, and if they weren't Suppressed and rolled a 6+, they were Suppressed. Onslaught (Same conditions as regular WP2.0 rules) gave +3 to this roll.

I changed it so anytime the unit took any damage they took a Ne test at the end of the activation phase regardless of the amount of damage taken. If the # of casualties by the end of the phase was equal or greater than the unit's Ne stat, they suffered the Onslaught bonus to their Ne roll. This increased the chances for a unit to have to take a test (And possibly become suppressed), yielding power to MSU, but the typically low Ne for MSU-typical units meant that they were suppressed even easier, and usually could be destroyed even by other teams with only a few wounds. In a nutshell, Teams got weaker and Platoons stayed about the same, but the bonus for MSU both in terms of activation and objective control, forcing splitting of enemy fire, etc, balances it out imo.

My original Ne values for my system were Hb's 2/4/6, but in testing that seemed very hard to reach, especially for smaller units, so I tried dropping it by 1 across the board and found that this was much better. Teams have a decent chance at Onslaught with Sections with a bit of luck, but need basically perfect rolls to do so with Platoons (Balanced out by more rolls forced by more Teams ended up about an equal frequency of Suppression), and Sections can Onslaught on Platoons with a bit of luck. Each size of squad can also put Onslaught on an equal-sized or smaller squad with decent reliability, so you're not limited to "Oh crap, they have a bunch of Teams. I guess my Sections and Platoons are the only ones who will be effective here and my Teams can go twiddle their thumbs on an objective" situation I had to some extent with the 2/4/6 Ne stats for units that had 9/11 Ne in the original WP2.0 rules. The nice thing with this system is the Ne values can be easily tweaked to represent tougher/weaker units without resorting to the KoW style Ne system.

[darkPrince010]

Official Mantic Forums are back up! If they go down again in the future, I'll bump this thread so it can be used in lieu of the official forum if playtesting is still occurring.

[scarletsquig]

Oh, you see, that's not the system we're all discussing in the forum thread.. Hellebore's new suggestion is this:

ISSUE: Large expensive units can be instantly destroyed on a failed nerve test and nerve fulfills a rather confused role.

PROPOSED SOLUTION: Change nerve back to 1 value. If a unit has more than 50% of its starting strength left when it takes a nerve test, failure only causes suppression. If a unit has equal to or less than 50% of its starting strength left when it takes a nerve test, failure causes destruction.

PROPOSED SOLUTION PLAYTESTED?: No

Hellebore

That's what we're all supporting currently and interested to see the results of via playtesting.

Have another read through the thread over there, I think you might have missed that one amidst all the new discussion. I think it's a great idea.

[darkPrince010]

Ick. I'll mention that on the Mantic forums, but in my playtests the %-based results for unit casualties seemed to work terribly. Teams had great survivability since anything that would force that severe of a test usually wiped the squad from casualties anyways, while Platoons were a huge handicap since they could be suppressed from volume-of-fire from MSU Teams, and then Destroyed before they even hit 25% casualties again due to the high volume of MSU fire.

[scarletsquig]

It might be necessary to combine Hellebore's new suggestion with a "One Nerve check per activation" addition then?

I'd be up for a game via vassal to playtest this if you can let me know what I should do to set it up (never used it before!). I'm good at doing screen-recording, so we could post a video screencast of the games to the Mantic site.

Or maybe three games - one with the basic rules, one with hellebore's un-modified suggestion, and one with "one nerve check per activation" added? That way all three could be recorded for direct comparison by anyone who watches the video?

[darkPrince010]

Sure! Unfortunately, I have work until 5pm Pacific time (Another 7 hours from now), but if you're still up for it by then, I'd be happy to host and run the game (you can get the Vassal game engine at http://www.vassalengine.org/ and the warhammer 40K module at http://vassal40k.wordpress.com/).

I'd suggest we run the 3-game version if possible, but one with the basic rules, one with Hellebore's version with 1 check/activation phase (Since without it MSU will still be devastating from what I saw in my playtests), and if you'd be willing to give it a shot I'd suggest we try my alternative version of Hellebore's system so you can see how it runs.

Does this sound ok?

[scarletsquig]

^ That sounds good to me! I've downloaded and installed both vassal and the 40k mod.

Unfortunately, I'll definitely be asleep in 7 hours time, so maybe some games at the weekend would work best for both of us? There will probably be a lot more ideas running around by that point, anyway. We've got until August the 3rd to get all the beta-testing done, so there is some time. I think a bunch of screen-recordings of a game taking place would go a long way towards both highlighting the flaws with the current system and showing how well the various ideas do or don't work in practice. I like your playtesting format of 10 teams vs. 2 platoons, that's the best way to try and really break the system with MSU spam.

As long as you can write out your preferred version clearly (non-abridged with bullet points) so I can fully understand it, I'm happy to give it (or any other variants of it you think of) a spin. Like Matt said over on the mantic forum, I'm having trouble understanding it since you've described it all using a single sentence and lots of abbreviations.

One other thing I would suggest - that we give this a try using Marauders, since under the current rules, the Corporation Platoon army is forced to spend 100 points on 4 energy fists, which might skew the results a bit since their platoons are more expensive and less effective at a shoot-out than they should be. The Marauders have entirely "shooty" options for their platoons which will be better for direct comparisons in a shoot-out style game.

PM me either here or on the mantic forums once you've got a spare few hours that aren't the evening for you and I'll be available to play.

[darkPrince010]

Alright. Will-do, and weekends will work great for me too.