Vassal40K - any good?

[MetalCraze]

Has anyone played this tabletop-to-PC adaptation?
Is it any good?

Because if it is we can have Codex sessions.

 

[Destroid]

Unforutnately, 40k isn't a very good tabletop game and vassal isn't a very good engine to simulate tabletop games.

 

[Ulminati]

What destroid says. 99% of the charm of tabletop 40k is watching the pwetty miniatures. The actual rules are pretty shit.

Vassal has no rules enforcement either. You'd be better off grabbing a bunch of pictures of spehss mahreenz, making a bunch of tokens out of them and running the entire thing in maptools (rptools.net)

 

[Mangoose]

Actually Destroid did mention a 40k MapTools available, or maybe it was just one server hosting it. But yeah Vassal is just for simulating tabletop miniatures and instruments, doesn't actually enforce any rules itself.

 

[Destroid]

I believe vassal was made to emulate hex based games with discrete movement. Maptools is much better at doing tasks for miniatures games like LOS.

 

[Ulminati]

Speaking of maptools mini games, it should be quite doable to run Warmachine/Hordes in maptools. We'd have to sit down and RTFM (someone probably released a PDF somewhere). But unlike w40k each side only has 5-10 units in a standard game. If a brave soul wrote a framework and set up a default cloneable token for warcasters, warjacks and troops it could be pretty neat.

There's a dude at http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=9749 who claimed to have written a warmachine framework about half a year ago. I'll look into it this weekend. If it's obtainable and decent I'd be up for smashing your virtual steam robots with ym virtual steam robots.

Someone else made a framework ages ago as well that looks pretty promising. Screenshot & dl link here: http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10663

[edit]

Further searching revealed they actually have a wargaming subboard. Someone did 40k for maptools as well

http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=18747

 

[Destroid]

Infinity is the best tabletop game I've played, I offered to teach it to people here over maptools a while ago but no-one was interested.

That said, I haven't played Warmachine.

 

[Ulminati]

That said, I haven't played Warmachine.

I played a few demo games at my FLGS ages ago. It was quite nice.

You have a leader called a Warcaster. You also have a number of big steam robots called Warjacks. A few setups also have normal troops, but as far as I understood those weren't common.

Most games revolve around killing the opposing warcaster(s). Every turn the warcaster generates a resource called Focus, which he can either use to power his own abilities or allocate to Warjacks in his zone of control. (extending a number of inches out from his figure. Think Tyranid synapse creatures and you're halfway there).

Warjacks have a number of different kinds of abilities and attacks they can use, many of which consume one or more focus units, forcing you to choose which units to favour from turn to turn as your focus economy allows. Units have a damage matrix consisting of 6 columns. Damage done to a unit is allocated into the columns by a d6 roll and once columns fill up, various parts of your warjack are destroyed, reducing its abilities.

Many of the concepts are similar to what you'd see in W40K, but the system involves less units with higher complexity on each unit compared to 40Ks large squads of identical, 1hp units.

The company released a compatible rules system (which I found even more compelling) called hordes. It uses most of the same rules (and armies from the two systems can fight each other with no conversions done). The main difference is that instead of warcasters and steam robots it has warlocks and fuckhueg monsters. (I paticularly liked the dragonspawned monstrosities of the Legion of Everblight). The interesting part was that the Focus resource is turned on its head for Hordes-armies. A warmachine army has a warcaster generating and allocating focus, and warjacks who run out become inert. A hordes army has monsters generating a resource called Fury as they are pushed to perform specific actions. A warlock can leech fury off of his crweatuers in his zone of control to power his spells, but there is an upper limit to how much fury a warlock can leech each turn. If monsters have un-leeched fury left on them you have to make a control check (modified by the amount of fury on the monster) to see fi the monster goes beserk and attacks friendly and enemy units alike.

 

[MetalCraze]

So there's no good WH40K tabletop fan port? D:

Guess I'm stuck with Final Liberation then

 

[Mangoose]

Infinity is the best tabletop game I've played, I offered to teach it to people here over maptools a while ago but no-one was interested.

That said, I haven't played Warmachine.

I dunno, it didn't seem that interesting to play without miniatures. While the rules are interesting, the thing is that there are convenient turn based squad level video games I have yet to finish (e.g. Silent Storm) instead of mucking about in Maptools with shitty 2D icons. On the other hand, company-level turn based combat a la 40k is not so easy to find as a complete video game.

That said, I think I'd rather play Infinity on the tabletop than 40k - unfortunately, nobody plays anything but 40k here.

 

[MetalCraze]

I'd play virtual tabletop, Mang

As long as it's complex enough tactically and stat-wise - and at the same time isn't quantum physics.

 

[Destroid]

So there's no good WH40K tabletop fan port? D:

Guess I'm stuck with Final Liberation then

There is probably a 40k module for both vassal and maptool, we are just saying there are better wargames out there.

 

[Ulminati]

So there's no good WH40K tabletop fan port? D:

Guess I'm stuck with Final Liberation then

Like I posted, there are maptools servers running where you can play w40k.

BUT

There is no rules enforcement. You have some pictures you can move around, a virtual ruler for measuring LOS/Distances and a virtual dieroller that you tell how many d6'es you're rolling. You and your opponent will both have to read the rules, build your army list on a piece of paper etc.

If anyone made a system that would let you play 40k (or any board/miniature game for that matter) without buying the rulebook, GW would land on them like a sack of bricks. Case in point - alien assault implemented the space hulk rules and was brutally and mercilessly shut down until they did a full rebranding/rework.

If you're up for reading the rules and keeping track of everything yourself like a tabletop gamer would, then there are several options out there. But maptools has a better UI than Vassal imo, so you would be better served there.

also

I'd be up for playing if a bunch of codex BROs decided to do some virtual tabletop gaming. But if you haven't played the miniatures version of 40k before (and I gt the impression you haven't) I should warn you that it's not terribly deep or tactical. There are way better systems, such as warmachine and infinity, out there.

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

http://vassal40k.wordpress.com/
http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Warmachine

I didn't play 40k for a year at least, would need to read up first and I'd suck anyway. As for Warmahordes, never played it, I read rulebooks and that's it. If anyone wants to play and there is absolutely no one else willing to I guess I could try.

 

[Destroid]

Well, how about we make an IRC channel or something?

 

[MetalCraze]

As I've said I will play other virtual tabletops too. I kinda like WH40K cuz of the setting

 

[Mangoose]

But if you haven't played the miniatures version of 40k before (and I gt the impression you haven't) I should warn you that it's not terribly deep or tactical

Nor is it quick to play ... bumbling around in the rulebook for a half dozen minutes at a time.

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

Nor is it quick to play ... bumbling around in the rulebook for a half dozen minutes at a time.

Not really, when I still played I only kept rulebook around because sometimes I had to prove I'm right to some people who don't know rules and are convinced otherwise. Though I guess if you don't play very often you'll have to look up units stats or some fairly obscure rules like dunno.. when happens perils of warp or exact code of conduct for piling in in assaults.
However it does take a lot of time because of vassal and it's ui. I wouldn't bother starting game if you don't have spare 2 hours, chances are you won't finish it. Moving stuff can be tedious, you can either opt to move stuff with mouse but then you'll waste tons of time measuring things (well unless opponent won't be bitching about millimetre or two or you're going in a straight line without any obstacles in way which won't happen nearly often enough) or you can move stuff with arrows BUT while it usually is fast to do and no measuring is needed it isn't very precise and sometimes you'll have hard time to fit your models exactly where you want them which in turn takes you back to option A, difference is that you just wasted good 5 minutes trying to fit that trooper between 2 buildings/tanks/whatever.
If you can, playing with real minis on real table is definitely best option (if a bit pricy, they sure ask a lot for lumps of plastic, well you can always wait (10+ years) for cheap 3d printers...).

Ps. Is anyone stupid kind enough to give Warmahordes demo games, you know to introduce me new players to the game?