Combat - mini's/map?

By Ghaundan, in Black Crusade

Hi,

me and a few friends decided to pick up this game. Three of us already play warhammer 40k (2 recently started with 1 vet) and one of us has been playing DH and RT with some other folk in a nearby city. He's going to be GM (at least to begin with, due to his experience) so I'm sure he has some good ideas, but I figured I'd ask you guys as well! Any good ideas on how to do more complex combat? Considering line of sight, maybe blocking melee's from reaching people in the back etc etc.

What do you guys do? Miniatures? One of us playes CSM so he could probably supply those, heretics...well it could be a fun project actually!

Or just pen/paper and map it out? Any ideas are welcome! I do have a 50" i could use as a screen, but I somewhat doubt there's any program I could use to illustrate it?

Or just pen/paper and map it out? Any ideas are welcome! I do have a 50" i could use as a screen, but I somewhat doubt there's any program I could use to illustrate it?

At its most basic: Photoshop. Draw a map, put a grid on top of it, draw tokens for the characters as seperate layers and push them around.

However, I'm fairly sure there are programs specifically for this sort of thing.

Oops. It's a matter of personal styles. You must look which goes better with your style of gaming.

Many times I use nothing at all. Only descriptions. That's quicker and is more open to imagination.

But sometimes using a map (even a quick and dirty one) can help making strategy more interesting, You can prepare printed maps, or draw them in the moment (as you would have to on unexpected combat situations).

If you play WH, you should own minis, which can be cool. You don't need to use them strictly. Using a CSM as an ork is fine to me.

If you use the computer, there's this great program: maptool , designed to play RPGs online or locally. You even have Dark Heresy Framework, which has a lot of DH/RT/DW rules automated and can save you a lot of time.

Good luck.

Well, I wasn't thinking about using this for every battle and such. But basically the ones the GM might want to make a bit more complex regarding blast radius, line of sight, special actions and so forth.

Models, we luckily have one that plays CSM so we do have some there. Of course we'd have to argue about who gets the lord and what not. I play orks so they can easily be xeno's, and a smurf (ultramarine)....might be worth a shot! Maybe not map out an entire battle area (100'ish meters if it's across a large room) but mostly where PC's and NPC's will be facing off in bloody melee.

I'll defineatly have a look at that map tool! Sounds perfect, thanks alot.

I'm always surprised by how many GMs say they run combat purely narative, with no visual aids. It seems to me that it would be much more complicated that way, but that system has enough advocates that it must work...

Being a TT gamer, I pretty much always use minis. For indoor combats, I play on a wet-erase board with a grid of 1" squares printed on it; for outdoor battles I bust out the 3-D terrain and measure distances with a tape measure. I love the visual element! Originally, I used the recommended 1" = 1 meter scale, but that made it too easy for combat to spill off of the table, so I switched to 1/2" = 1 meter. For really big fights, I would consider going with 1 cm = 1 meter.

And converting character figures out of GW's multipart kits is a lot of fun. Here are a few NPCs (an Inquisitor and members of his retinue) from my Dark Heresy campaign:

IMAG0254.jpg

We'll have another look at the mini's then! Any suggestions? I suppose inquisitor/IG are the most relevant, maybe imperial fantasy as well. Might need smaller magnets for the weapons though...

Basically we want to use it to keep track of the battlefield, if not we'll have to try to keep track of/eyeball how far/spreading/cover etc. Most of the layout will be done in a narrative manner I think. I'll have to talk to the rest of the guys!

By the way, are the witch hunter and IG hq's still in metal? Thinking mostly about any conversions we might do which is alot easier or even avoidable if there are good plastic sprues with different loadouts.

So yeah, basically as simple as possible to visualise the layout of the battle. That grid underlay sounds like a great idea!

I've not used minis in a long time - they often just end up getting in the way and slowing the game down into a table-top tactics wargame.

I picked up a large 2nd hand white-board for really complicated stuff (like starship combat) as mini's tended to drag things out too much. Though if you're after some good looking metal mini's, the 28mm Anima Tactics ones are real artworks

In our group we use normally MapTool. We have two laptops and an LCD screen flat on the table. The player's laptop is connected to the LCD screen so that all players can see what is going on. Just search in Internet for MapTool and you'll get a lot of information, including tutorial videos on how to start. Importing a tactical map you find in Internet (there are lots of fan sites) and setting up which areas block line of sight is very quick).

The advantage of this system is that you have myriad of tactical maps in the Internet, so you don't need to prepare a lot in this respect. There are even some knowledgeable people that have created something called a "framework", some kind of helping program to make running games for your specific game easier... Still, I would make it simple and only use basic MapTool to start with... A bigger advantage is that you can have a lot of campaign info in your computer and setting up is very quick once you have done it a couple times (you don't need to carry around all your books, as PDF copies sold relatively cheap by FFG and other companies will do). In my group it takes us around 5 minutes to set everything up, and I use overland travel maps, a calendar with hidden information markers on future events of the campaign, weather information, etc... All of these things are easier to run with this configuration, because I can prepare these things at home and easily have all the information at my disposal when needed.

The disadvantage is that you have to learn to use MapTool; it is very easy, though, and it would also give you the possibility of running games through Internet... The main disadvantage is of course the need of at least one computer/laptop (better two) and an LCD screen or projector (although now they are reasonably priced), and the place to store all this equipment. There are also people who don't like using computers for their RPG games, so make sure you don't alienate a player with this configuration.

Finally, some games are not so easy to play using MapTool. For example, I think Deatwatch is more interesting with miniatures and that's what I'm going to use when I run the introductory adventure to my players soon, and Warhammer Fantasy (the latest edition from FFG) is better to play with fuzzier tactical maps, i.e. using just the components provided in the box by FFG.

Good luck with your game

Ghaundan said:

We'll have another look at the mini's then! Any suggestions? I suppose inquisitor/IG are the most relevant, maybe imperial fantasy as well.

All of the Imperial Guard plastic sets (both the Cadian and Catachan versions of Guardsmen, Command Squads, and Heavy Weapon Squads) have useful bits for creating characters/NPCs, and the Bretonnian Footmen from the fantasy range are a great 'base' for non-militaty 40K-types. Empire Flagellants and the Empire Wizard are also worth a look. The new Darl Eldar Wytches are great for bodyglove-clad assassin-types, but they are a bit on the tall side... GW used to make small frames of weapons (both pistol and basic) for Necromunda , but if they still sell those, I can't find 'em on their website. Might be worth checking eBay. Speaking of eBay/ Necromunda , sometimes cheap lots of old Necromunda figs come up for auction- these are great for WH40KRP characters.

Ghaundan said:

Might need smaller magnets for the weapons though...

A friend of mine uses small Rare Earth magnets to swap out the weapons on his Tau Battlesuits, but I can't see using them on anything smaller than that- I mostly just go with the old "That guy's lasgun is really an autogun" bit and call it good...

Ghaundan said:

By the way, are the witch hunter and IG hq's still in metal? Thinking mostly about any conversions we might do which is alot easier or even avoidable if there are good plastic sprues with different loadouts.

GW's metal range are in the process of converting over to resin; I haven't picked up any of those yet, so I don't know how easy/difficult they are to convert.

Ghaundan said:

Basically we want to use it to keep track of the battlefield, if not we'll have to try to keep track of/eyeball how far/spreading/cover etc. Most of the layout will be done in a narrative manner I think. I'll have to talk to the rest of the guys! So yeah, basically as simple as possible to visualise the layout of the battle. That grid underlay sounds like a great idea!

Since you said that three of your players also play the TT game, I was thinking that you probably already had some 3D terrain. Grids are definitely simpler to work with, but trust me: for the big scenario-capping combats, using 3D terrain really ramps up the feeling of epic-ness!

cogollo said:

" ...For example, I think Deatwatch is more interesting with miniatures and that's what I'm going to use when I run the introductory adventure to my players soon, and Warhammer Fantasy (the latest edition from FFG) is better to play with fuzzier tactical maps, i.e. using just the components provided in the box by FFG."

Speaking of DW , here's a tip for representing Hordes: cut out a cardboard template (about the size of a CD) for each Horde, and place a number of minis on it representing the "10s" value of it's magintude, taking them away as the Magnitude declines. Much easier than trying to use big handfulls of minis to represent a massive enemy force...

Considering I play orcs I already have 40'ish boyz painted up, with about 10 nobz and what not I might have enough to avoid that. Hopefully we won't meet THAT many opponents just yet.

As for terrain, we do have some. A few ruins, I have an administratum and honoured imperium (eagle and statue) and another guy has a manufactorum. We'll keep that in consideration if we have any climatic battles that need to be played out.

I have 1 resin model that I haven't started yet, Painboy. It's kind of like plastic so conversions shouldn't be a problem really.

Our club uses minis generally 40k ones as we've been playing a fab intro game to the Deathwatch System, and the GM uses tact-tiles which sadly are out of production.

I use a roll of laminating paper as a dry wipe as it comes with inch squares on its backing paper (the bit you peel off and throw away) just cut into the sizes you require, generally I cut them to A4 (folio) size tiles.

You could try SARN-FU

That's:

Squashed - on top of each other or tight conditions 0M

Adjacent - what it says on the tin - melee range 0-5M

Reach - pistol range/ long melee range 5-15M

Near - not melee but some ranged weapons 15-100M

Far 100-500M

'Unreachable' 500+ (but some weapons/missiles/etc could reach)

So its abstract in that you're in one 'zone' relative to an enemy but not finicky about being .6453 cm off your target

Abstract is how we've always played it. We are lucky enough to have a couple of overhead projectors hooked up to a PC with one of those LCD/tablet combinations, so we can draw maps on the fly and show players roughly where everything is in relation. However these are never to scale.

The glory of abstraction is that snipers only really care about what range bracket they are in, melee fighters only want to know how many turns of movement it'll take to get them into melee, and psykers and social characters just need to know how many targets are in range of their abilities. While the above can be achieved through grids and scale maps, its rather long winded and slows the game down. Another useful feature is that as the GM you can fudge details to make the game more interesting or a major plot point more cinematic (such as a gantry being slightly shorter than it previously seemed to allow a major villain to escape quicker).

I recently ran a game where my DH group were clearing a Chaos cell from a multi-story house. My original plan was to draw out each level on a wet-erase board, re-drawing them as the party moves from one level to another. Then it occured to me that, given the party's playing style, they would almost certainly split up and occupy different levels, so using one map at a time wasn't really viable. So, I took a roll of brown wrapping paper and- well in advance of the game- drew out each floor in figure-scale with a Sharpie, side-by-side. At the start of the game I laid this long map out on the table and used pieces of paper to cover the unexplored floors, revealing them only when a PC entered them. That worked out really well; I'll definitely be using that system in the future.