[Froggy the Great]

Is this not so freekin' cool?

With some conversion and such, I think I have my primary Warlord army, as soon as I'm financially or demoey solvent.

Now:  Are there going to be Warlord stats for these?  

Please?  If not, is the points formula for Warlord going to be released, like it was for CAV?  I'm probably going to be making stats for these bad boys anyway, and it would be so much cooler if they actually conformed to the right formula.

"'That's right,' said Sam, 'I asks.  And if that's not enough, I begs.'"  -The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien

[ladystorm]

yes, yes it is freakin' cool.

actually ordered some of them myself this morning and wish listed the rest.

cbs :O

[Froggy the Great]

No, really, can we please have stats for these guys, or the means to make stats for them ourselves?

[Steven Page]

I love these guys! I am using the A-Archer for the Archer captain, the  ones with six swords for dervishes, the hero as the undead melee hero, and the one with the robes and sycles as my warlord. The rest of the army are regular Reaper skellies.

Real stats for these guys would rock. It wouls be one more thing to set off Warlord from everyone elses games. And the Arachnos were bad news in DHA

[Froggy the Great]

Actually, I can see this sort of conversation happening for pretty much any non-standard Reaper mini.  Rather than putting the burdan on Reaper to stat out everything, if the points formula were released, us fans can just stat out what we like.

Of course, only official stat cards would be useable in official play, or per the guy running the event, but for friendly play, self-statted units would be really cool.

I haven't seen any problems with the fact that the points formulas were released for CAV, so long as the guy running the events is on the ball.  In fact, it's been a major selling point for CAV in my demos, and a fairly major turnoff about warlord when I talk about it, that the points formula isn't/won't be released.

[Leech]

And in my own demos Frosch, it's the other way around.....

Still, it'd be nice to have them.... just to see what equations we're talking about... besides the CAV Maths Puppy needs a new pair of shoes, and Warlord Math Puppy works just as well :o)

[vyeto]

If I can throw in my .02 here, I'm going to side with Frosch and please bear with a bit of explanation.

Reaper has a phenomenally wide miniatures range, which is good.  Given the diverse iconography and imagery apparant on almost each and every figure, the Adon universe is going to be quite deep and expansive.  This is also good.

What I'm worried about is that Reaper will get so busy making stats for every single miniature in their range that they will have to focus more on "Hmm, what kind of bonus should we give to an Arachno assassin holding 2 scimitars over an arachno assassin holding a scimitar and a Cinqueda" than on the things that make games playable...like history, fluff, fiction, and art.  

In my Humble opinion, that is a shortcoming of CAV that is slowly, slowly, being addressed.   Not to make a tired comparisson, but battletech had a LOT of fluff and background.  Most of it was terrible, granted, but at least you could play a good mech game and laugh at the fumbling exploits of the Davion family while pounding your opponent.  In CAV, there's opponent pounding and...thats about it.

I hope that Warlord will not fall into the same trap, and it doesn't have to.  I think the way to help this along is to  release the character-building rules in the final version.

This way, Reaper can provide "core" stats for generic troops like "Orc" or "Viking Warrior" then allow purchase upgrades for weapons, armor, and the like.  This will allow the creative brains at Reaper to work on the color of the Adon fantaverse rather than have to bury their heads in dice-math all day.  

If anyone is worried about tournament balance, well, there are ways to address this.  WYSIWYG for one, making sure that models are equipped as they are described.  For another, make players present a detailed stat card for homebrewed creatures.  If anyone is REALLY that worried about game balance, don't even USE the upcoming rules for individual races and figures.  Play with the generic core troops.  

Anyway, just my opinion.

[Jeneki]

History, fluff, fiction, and art make a game more "playable"?  Please explain.  In my experience, as a game gains background it slowly becomes less playable, as players choices are limited to certain backgrounds and new special rules to fit the fluff are introduced.  For example, 40k.

Not that having fluff is bad.  As long as it doesn't take over the rules fulff is good.  I'm a rules first, fluff second type of guy.  I can adapt my own fluff if I need more, but an unplayable system is stull unplayable.

[Froggy the Great]

The more history, fluff, and fiction there is, the more there is that will grab at the imagination of someone who isn't totally converted by the models.  That's how I took what he said.

[Steven Page]

Amen, Jeneki. The strongest message I derived from playtesting WARLORD is that if the rules are tight, even playing with the generic lists can be a blast.WARLORD passes that test. "Razig's Revenge", in CW#12. adds color and variety, without overwhelming the basic vehicle.

Background can make a gameworld seem more "real" and give each combat some "context". But the rules must work, in and of themselves, with or without "fluff".

[vyeto]

Just for the record, I'm an RPG kind of guy first and a "wargamer" second, so to me the fluff and fiction is very important.   I agree that a solid ruleset is necessary (vital, even), but IMO if you're not going to have good fluff then you might as well play chess.

[Aqua-Orc]

i like the creation idea. But on the Fluff vs rules part. Id say any good RPG gamer can a build a suitable background world and history for just about anything.I hardly ever used a fixed settings if i have i rebuild it. The Chars try to use there Imagination and be creative so i say a GM should do same.

[Froggy the Great]

Understood.  In a wargame though, the stats are very important.

Matt, if you're reading this, what is the verdict?

[lionmane]

I haven't played Warlord yet, but to weigh in on the stats/rules vs. background thing, I much prefer skirmish-type games as opposed to the vast army-type games because they typically have more character or RPG elements to them. For example, in Mordheim your main heroes have individual names and can gain new skills and such as you play. In Warhammer, it's mostly legions of whatever . And in Mordheim , even a generic henchman has a chance to become an individual hero ( the "That Lad's Got Talent " rule). Games need to have rules, but the background is what probably attracted most of us to these types of games. True, some folks will simply play the warband/army that is the strongest, but I think a lot of us will play an army/warband because we think that group is cool( undead pirates, elves, etc.). Guess I should go ahead and download the Warlord rules and check 'em out.