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  4. How many kits would a full Death Fields team have?

How many kits would a full Death Fields team have?

  • William Ings

    With Death Fields still in its early stages we don't know what a full team will look like. So far Les Grognards are in the lead with a modest but strong two kits (doing in two what the leading competitor does in three) but if I'm not mistaken I've read chatter of a army builder and maybe cavalry going into the concept pool.

    So we can assume that each range will have at least 4 kits.

    - Troops

    - Command and Heavy Support

    - An Army Builder

    - Cavalry

    Now, I'm sure I'm not alone in the desire for a few more kits on top of that. (greedy, I know)

    - Heavy Infntry (elite Grenadier types, armed and armoured to be in the thick of the fight.)

    - Veteran / Special Weapons Squad (separate torso and legs like the HQ&HS kit, mirrored hands for current one handed weapons, and some more special weapons like rocket launchers and heavy famethrowers)

    And that concludes my report on what I think would round out the infantry selection (other threads talk about new teams and tanks) in the Death Fields range.

    What do you guys think?

  • JTam

    I would certainly like to see cavalry.  

    Heroically scaled 28mm horse cavalry, motorbike cavalry, or hoverbike cavalry would have a great deal of appeal to a large segment of the hobby.  Even for those not building a Death Fields army the kit would be worth it for most for the mount and plastic rider legs and arms.  

  • E

    army builder is unlikely.

  • BVD

    I have no idea why you assume there is an army builder since 24 to 30 a box is actually more than enough normally for most sci-fi games outside of  WH40k, was there an announcement I missed?

    At this point since there is no rule set I would say build to your favorite Sci-Fi rules or buy the sets you want, general rule of thumb though is this and you double it if you’re buying for both sides of the table (which I actually have for some games):

    3 to 10 man squad skirmish/RPGs (Stargrave, Firefight, etc. this is pretty much what most of the Sci-Fi rule for 28mm is meant for): 1 infantry box at most normally (maybe second with lighter or heavier equipped troops and a command if you want to be artsy, but it’s likely you only need one to get the fun started).

    Platoon level games (Boltaction*, Stargrunt II, etc.): 1 to 2 infantry boxes and a support weapons box at least to start (you may want vehicles as well and maybe a fast attack option later on or more infantry and support weapons for bigger games).  

    Epic battle level games (WH40k. Is there even etc.?): 3 or more boxes of infantry, one to two support weapon boxes, one or more vehicles, maybe a fast attack unite like cavalry  (this isn’t really a “to start” just the normally what I see people do, ie you could and probably should play that monster with less points to start).

    *Yes people use Boltaction for Sci-Fi and no I don’t mean Gates of Antares, I mean Boltaction.

     

  • William Ings

    I'm most likely not remembering the army builder part properly (Grognard / Old Guard)

    I personally am more of a collector then a gamer. So Army Builders are a welcome edition regardless of game systems to me.

  • Berggeit


    @Brian Van De Walker 

    Using bolt action for sci-fi? Wouldn't have thought of that but you did give me an idea there. I think I am going to Crossfire instead. Planned to use it for the World Ablaze miniatures anyways

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ninetynineprojects1/
    Blog: https://ninety-nine-projects.blogspot.com/

  • BVD

    @William Ings 

    Well as someone who is also more of a collector/model builder, the popular game system used aspect does tend to control what gets made. 

    While a number of people did ask for an AB for Death Fields on one of the surveys, in general for sci-fi you want to focus on the multipart side of things and from what I can tell for most of the sci-fi rulesets out there a box of 30 multipart figures is AB enough for all practical purposes at least.

  • Yronimos Whateley

    I don't game in Death Fields per se and don't have anything to do with 40K, so for my purposes a main army box (or occasionally two, as in the case of the Cannon Fodder set), a heavy weapons/command box, an accessory sprue, and maybe an occaional light vehicle kit is fine by me.

    I don't think every faction needs all of the above - if's OK by me if some factions never see e.g. a command/heavy weapons set, for example.  I wouldn't mind seeing  the lizard-men get an accessory sprue of additional weapons types (fantasy and sci-fi alike), but I don't think they necessarily need a fully-fleshed-out suite of vehicles, heavy weapons, command, etc., unless Wargames Atlantic are really inspired to do something like that.

    Nor do I think any of the above needs to be specific to any particular faction - for example, if a box of generic power armor or a set of motor bikes is produced for general-purpose use, which can be customized to different factions, that's fine with me.

    General-purpose accessory sprues that could be used to convert historical figures into factions with different styles of sci-fi weapons or non-weapon gear are fine with me - I think the first accessory sprue includes some Cannon-Fodder style rifles, some Germanic gasmask/helmet combinations, and some odd laser-rifles - it doesn't fit in with any specific set, and that's OK with me.  I wouldn't mind seeing more stuff like that:  alien heads that could be added to any Death Fields faction to reinforce them with aliens, for example.

    Really, I think the Grognard command/heavy boxed set supplies some great heavy weapons that can be used by any faction, with a little creative modeling for the gun crews - it's not necessarily a Grognard-only set (though the figures certainly make better Grognards than anything else!)

    If some factions seem to sell better than others and get a little more love than others in the form of extra accessories, special weapons sets, vehicles, or whatever, that's fine by me.

    I'd hope that any Death Fields rules are flexible enough to allow for gamers to source their own accessories and armies and figure types, and plug them in with appropriate plug-in rules.  Found some great figures that would make a cool psychic team to the Grognards or a lizard-wizard to the lizard men?  Or, did you find a collossal spider to add to the giant spider faction?  (Reaper makes a great collossal spider!)  Maybe someone has an idea for converting some fantasy giants to support the sci-fi British or Raumjager.  There should ideally be allowances in a hypothetical Death Fields rules for plugging these sorts of specialist figures, even if WA doesn't produce specific models for them - let gamers use some creativity in sourcing and adding their own models and conversions, with Wargames Atlantic kits and bits to make things easier wherever some opportunity strikes (an accessory sprue to ease conversion of fantasy ogres or giants for sci-fi games would be nice, for example.)

    And I don't easily think of a Death Fields rules set as a complete, exclusive universe of its own, but rather a toolkit for building sci-fi stories of our own:  a crew of sci-fi marines battling giant spiders on an unexplored colony world "bug hunt", or zombies vs. apocalypse survivors, or little green men vs. a rocket-ship crew, would be as much a Death Fields game as a formal Grognards vs. Bulldogs fantasy sport grudge match.  Some of these teams lend themselves better to a formalized "complete" team than others, and that's OK!

    Give me one or more interesting kits, and a flexible enough rules set to support my imagination and whatever additional models I can source on my own, and I'm happy.

    In short, I don't think there needs to be a formal definition for a "complete" team, and we're better off without each faction having a built-in checklist of unit types to check off the list - let gamers sort out what "complete" means for themselves, and supply great model kits and bits as demand or inspiration strikes Wargames Atlantic. 

     

    But, that's just me - it's likely a Your-Mileage-May-Vary situation.  I'm definitely a different sort of sci-fi gamer from the customers who are e.g. shopping for an alternative source of 40K models, who may need a complete selection of faction niches filled!

  • IW

    One way to decide how many kits are needed is to think of the Death Fields background and what the rules/organisation will be, remember the background is super powerful aliens have kidnapped warriors to fight for their entertainment.

    I would suggest a team is complete once they have the equivalent of the HQ and support weapons, the troops and one special(whether that is cavalry, bikers or tin bots) kit.

    In this way, WA could after designing a generic special kit, find that they only need an HQ and troop kit to introduce any a new Team to the background.

    This does not stop WA from releasing multiple special unit kits for any particular faction, but background wise this purely means the faction has access to a wider variety of teams in their "Death Fields Universe"

  • Steven StGeorges

    @JTam  

    +1

    Raumjagers could have something like some kind of Jump or Fly packs since they were paratroopers a long time ago... OR could have access to something like that

    Fast attack vehicle sounds good to me... 

    Grognards should have good old Cavalry -using horses (casual, cyborg, mutated or a mix), alien mounts or hoverbikes- to honour all those valiant cuirassiers and lanciers that died during the numerous sabre charges throughout the 1870 Franco-Prussian War at Morsbronn, Froeschwiller, Reichshoffen and Sedan yelling :"Pour l'Empereur, Pour l'Empire! Vive la France!" 

    The same for Space Brits ... with monstrous bulldogs à la Charge of the Light Brigade. (Albion, oh perfidious Albion). 

    Cannon Fooders could be on bike or casual horses, but I am not sure they have enough sponsors to maintain cavalry units.

  • JTam

    @Steven StGeorges 

    Lots of good ideas.

    The Land Speeder Scout transport variant is one of the coolest things GW has ever done.  Serious Little Bird vibes.

     

    I picture Bulldog cavalry being of the young Winston Churchill with a broom handle Mauser and sticking people with bamboo lances variety.

    https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/the-cows-foot-pistol-that-saved-the-world/

     

  • Steven StGeorges

    @JTam  

    Indeed the Storm variant is my favourite model amongst the range.. and according to blogs and dedicated websites like dakkadakka, can be easily converted for SM, IG or whatever.

    Still thinking about the Einherjars' cavalry... could be something related to Níðhöggr, the typical norse dragon.

    0 likes
  • JTam

    @Steven StGeorges 

    I don't think the Einherjars would be much into cavalry.  Vikings were more "dragoons" if you will.  

    But if they did.....  8 legged horses?  Faster you know.

  • Steven StGeorges

    @JTam  

    Indeed a Pony version of Sleipnir could be a good idea... 

  • M

    honestly, i would hope that the game focuses on slightly smaller forces. platoon sized forces which the minimum sized force for can be built using a single box, and a large army would use two boxes if a pure infantry force.. but which can have some of the fireteams replaced with heavy weapons teams, cavalry, and other diverse options for greater capabilities and fun.

    most of the current boxes have 24 figures. a bare bones force could thus be one HQ unit of 4 figures, and four fireteams of 5 troopers. that is, a command section and two squads.

    (the cannonfodder have 30 figures.. but i'd imagine that cannonfodder would be low cost alternatives to the normal fireteams, with an HQ unit being made up of figures from one of the other factions. and the heavy weapon teams could be subbed 1 for 1 for the fire teams.)

  • JTam

    @Mithril2098  

    I think you just described making a Bolt Action force.  To my mind this is a good thing.

  • SS

    @Mithril2098  

    I'm interested to know what people think about unit composition. Should we be building a more true to life army with mixed weapons in generalist units (multiple rifles with a support weapon for example), or would people prefer more homogenous units with defined roles? 
    Also, what people's thoughts about officers and other specialists? Should they be distributed across the army providing aura-style abilities, joined to units to provide them with specific buffs, or a single super-unit of multiple models that are especially good in some way? Should they have distinct mechanics for lieutenants, chaplains, captains, medics, etc, or would people prefer they represent gradations of improvement on a single command mechanic. (eg, activation tests with negative modifiers for taking damage or suppressing fire, buffed by the officers?)

  • William Ings

    @Stephen Sutton I've been using an old Imperial Guard codex for reference and translating it into One Page Rules for future play.

  • SS

    @William Ings I definitely see how DF lends itself to making not-Imperial Guard armies, but I was thinking more along the lines of how a potential DF game might handle force composition. I think an interesting question would be, how much do we make war like a sport? From this follows other questions, the answers to which might inform the design of a game; like: are we collecting "an army", or a squad (to use some football terminology) from which we pick a team before each game. A drafting mechanic could make for an interesting difference from similar wargames, but how would people feel about it? It might not go down well with most players if they don't use all of their models in every game, but makes a lot of sense if someone is running a league where the results of matches have some lasting effect, like accruing experience points, or suffering injuries and trauma. 

  • William Ings

    @Stephen Sutton to me most of the Death Fields lore we get is written in a 4th wall form. Where WGA collects references from earths history, suits them up for the game. We, the team managers buying teams, facing other teams or alien hazards, and returning fallen soldiers to the field after every game.

    So the words on the back of Les Grognards Command And Support box say, "When the rules of the games allow, they are able to field heavy support weapons..." to me implies that not all games will be the same scale (from skirmishes to wars).

    I get a Truman Show vibe, with a heavy coat of Star Ship Troopers, and some Running Man highlights. It sounds fun.

    Imperial Guard of yesteryear really where just historicly inspired Sci-fi troops. So as long as any gaming company followes that aesthetic there will be some overlap. It's a fun trope, and I'm glad to see a fresh spin on it.

    End of incoherent ramblings.

  • SS

    @William Ings I would definitely hope for differing rules for different scales. I'm thinking that an elegant system would be to have a skirmish level game requiring one box of infantry, a platoon level game requiring 1-2 boxes of infantry and some kind of support formation like the Grognards heavy weapon teams, and large scale conflicts where anything goes. Mantic already have something like this with their Deadzone/Firefight/Warpath systems, but these are geared towards more of a traditional wargame crowd, whereas I'm imagining something a little more abstract for DF. 

     

    I saw a great video on youtube about dungeon terrain which abstracts ranges for combat encounters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i73Pe1LJrB0
    Recently I'm becoming a big fan of abstracting movement and ranges. (I particularly like the cube system used in Deadzone) I'm thinking that a DF "pitch" could be a good way to abstract movement in such a way that moving models becomes less about positioning them precisely to take advantage of cover, like in some of the established miniatures games, and more an excercise in out-manouvering your opponent as you develop your "play" to capture a flag, or reach an endzone, or similar. 

  • William Ings

    @Stephen Sutton abstracted movement and shooting sounds good for keeping games thematic. But some of people are turned off by having to buying pre-made battle mats or having to dedicate fields to specific games to use specifically sized grids.

    Scalability baked into the core game would be nice, rather than breaking it up into multiple systems. Onepagerules does a good job of it, their skirmish and army games only have some slight differences.

    I like the idea of games being more campaign orenated. I got my hands on Star Grave and Silver Bayonets recently, both (by the same author) have cool campaign mechanics and solo/co-op rules,of which I'm a fan. Seeing such mechanics scaleable from 1-2 kit size up to 10+ would be interesting. With more of a Running Man or Predators feel fighting more alian foes.

    On a unrelated note, I think dedicated female kits for each core team could fill the roll of the veteran box I suggest in my OP. Like the weapon options from the female Cannon Fodder kit.

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