It shows off some of the other characters as well as some equipment. You can see that the Helmet, Swords, and Oblivion symbols on the dice are used to add special effects to the attack. Also it looks like there aren’t going to be Fallout style range rulers, the bows stats say
Short Range: 10 inches
Long Range: 20 inches
I also noticed that the stat cards are slightly different, Size was changed to Height.
We also get our first look at a non-hero card.
While most of the terrain seems fairly generic, that game mat has some pretty Skyrim specific details (ie, the urns on the table, just to the left of the trees in the middle) printed on it. Maybe a glimpse at the ES:CTA equivalent of the red rocket game mat for Fallout?
Good point, i didn’t look too closely at the map but you are right. The ruins definitely looks like its from Battlesystems, and they are the ones who made the Red Rocket set.
While most of the terrain seems fairly generic, that game mat has some pretty Skyrim specific details (ie, the urns on the table, just to the left of the trees in the middle) printed on it. Maybe a glimpse at the ES:CTA equivalent of the red rocket game mat for Fallout?
I actually asked Aled about the table setup specifically. He said that the terrain was Battlesystems generic fantasy line, but the mat is a Modiphius product specifically for ES (and the final version will be double-sided - I think he did tell me what it was going to be, but I can’t recall now…).
He also said that, for the moment, there are no plans for a ES set like the Red Rocket one.
Other tidbits from Essen (all trying to recall from a demo on Thursday, so possibly a little incorrect):
The d20 die, though similar to Fallout, has a slightly different distribution of numbers and symbols. There is one each of crit success / auto fail, and crit success / auto fail + potion. The potion symbol is a stand in for the Action Point “cog” in Fallout. He didn’t go into detail about it, but I suspect - given the way the system works - it is actually a way to regain stamina (possibly and/or health/magicka). The numbers are also weighted lower, so there are duplicate 2/3/4/5/6 results rather than the duplicate 6/7/8 results from Fallout. This is intentional to make “standard human” numbers much lower than in Fallout and give “design space” for monsters and things with bigger numbers, without having to go past ratings of 9 so much. E.g. it seemed like “average human” stats were 3-4 and hero characters 4-6.
Although models still have two actions per turn, they can no longer take the same action twice. To achieve a similar but lesser effect, models spend stamina as part of an action to improve it (e.g. you can increase a move by +3 inches, or add yellow and/or green dice to an attack - both if you spend 2 stamina). This also applies to reactions, so no more attack once then spend second action to prepare, and attack in reaction to opponents attack.
Speaking of reactions, they now occur before the action they’re reacting to rather than after, making them somewhat more effective.
As noted above, no more range rulers - everything is in inches, and most/all human models have a speed of 6 inches. From memory (I could be wrong about the first part), heavy armour reduced both your base speed, and the extra distance from spending stamina, by 1 inch each. Movement is also now front to front like most other wargames, rather than front to back like Fallout. Aled mentioned the wargames team didn’t like the front to back movement because it felt foreign to veteran wargamers and it made large base models hard to balance.
The dice are sort of ranked, with yellow being the weakest and used by both offensive and defensive items. Red is a more powerful die used by offensive items, and black by powerful defensive items. The green die is an accuracy one, largely just making your attacks more likely to succeed (it has a helmet symbol on one face).
Attacks are now opposed, with one side rolling for their attack, the other for their defense. If the attacker succeeds, they deal damage, if the defender succeeds, they reduce the damage. It seems all weapons and armour add at least one yellow die.
The symbols are largely like the Fallout ones, though they tend to have some meaning. I.e. helmet triggers weaker offensive and defensive effects, swords triggers more offensive effects, and oblivion triggers more defensive effects. Aled did note this was more guideline than hard and fast rule though.
Units / non-hero characters can’t equip items (though they can carry them). They instead have “built in” equipment - printed on their (smaller) unit card. Although hero characters are not just the named characters - e.g. the unnamed Imperial Warmage was a hero character.
All in all, it seemed like a more streamlined Fallout experience, despite the use of standard tape measures for movement (which does feel a little like a retrograde step - personally I like the range rulers) and opposed attack/defence. The game felt like it played very smoothly and was a bit less “fiddly” than Fallout, without losing too much in terms of fidelity.
It sounds like it’s got a lot of potential, I’m excited to see how it all turns out. I agree that it’s a shame about switching to tape measure distances though, the visual simplicity of coloured range rulers had helped me convince a few people to try tabletop gaming for the first time. Though if the rest of the rules are more refined then that might help retain new comers
Yeah, despite the use of tape measures rather than coloured rulers, I’d say the game felt more newbie friendly. Certainly, there was much less preparing and reactions, and less tokens and fiddly bits in general.
Actually, that reminds me of another change - the on fire condition (and presumably any condition) can be removed by taking an action now, rather than randomly rolling. Aled said it was to give the player more control, and it still comes at a cost (losing one of your two actions). I think it’s a nice change, and a good example of the streamlining.
While I’m sad to see the range rulers (and the front to back movement) go, I can understand the reasons given and honestly it didn’t make a huge difference to the game.
I mean, you can always colour in your tape measure if it would help
The mat is a prototype and the final version should be a little lighter and less bluey-green. The other side will be a section of Skyrim wilderness, with some trees, rock outcrops and a crossroad.
As a wargamer, I think that the change to base movement makes a lot of sense, but I am going to miss the range rulers. I felt that they were a distinctive feature that was a major improvement over the regular tape measure. I am also not convinced by the attack/defence rolling taking place at the same time. That looks a bit odd to me. I think that the Fallout system for resolving attack damage and then having an armour value works very well, so I don’t understand why a similar system appears to have been rejected for this game.
I hear you, but in this case I think it actually streamlines the rules a fair bit. It’s one of the things that I thought made the game seem more newbie friendly. No different/separate dice, defense rolls work just the same as attack rolls. Also, because there is no “armour reduction”, the rolls can be made independently and simultaneously, so overall it speeds up the process of resolving an attack.
Plus, I think due to the nature of differing weapon materials and enchantments, using the dice with the symbols on them allow defensive “effects” to be triggered, something that isn’t possible with the Fallout method.
I can actually see myself wanting to retrofit something like this into Fallout, after I get used to it in CTA I think going back to the Fallout mechanism will feel very cumbersome.
Doing attack and defence at the same time sort of makes sense I’d say, given the weapons used. If one person is swinging a sword at another, the other person can do a lot more to stop it than they can if they’re standing out in the open being shot at from a distance. Just my opinion though
Also note that although there is no “armour reduction”, there is a “Piercing” trait that some weapons have (or can activate with the right symbol), which negates a number of success symbols on the defence dice equal to the rating of the ability.
(At least I think that I’m remembering it correctly).
So the game keeps a very similar effect while removing an entire set of symbols and the rules that interact with them (plus, it can be resolved simultaneously, rather than sequentially). I thought it was another one of those nice simplifying touches.
I like the sound of the stamina system as a general resource to buff your actions. It’s a great tie-in with Skyrim, and reminds me of what a lot of people like about the Conan/Batman game that Monolith produces. It’s a really great mechanic that could potentially really make this game different from Wasteland Warfare, which is a good thing in my opinion.
For those of you that are kind of new to miniatures wargaming and are concerned about the lack of template sticks…I’d say don’t worry about it until you actually try it. I’d say tape measures are one of those things that my board-gamer friends tend to over-estimate as a pain point in wargaming. It’s way less fussy than what a lot of folks tend to imagine when they think of playing a game with them.
Personally, I find the movement templates in games like X-Wing and Armada the most frustrating, because they require you to move other things out of the way so you can place the templates down.
With tape measures it’s nice and easy. Just hold it above the table in the air and estimate, and everything is fine. There is no math, no calculating, and no need to get down to the table and try to be ultra-precise.
Also the range rulers from fallout are marked in inches so you could still use them, it would just take a min or two to look up how many inches each color represents
Just a little clarification - the attack/armour rolls aren’t opposed as such. Attacks are rolled against the relevant skill, so a fixed value. You usually roll the damage dice at the same time, as they may trigger effects that modify the skill roll - potentially turning a miss into a hit if you get lucky. If the attack succeeds the target then rolls their armour check to try and negate damage.
To be clear, therefore, the armour roll still occurs as a step and it has not been removed?
Regarding tape measures, I have no problem using one, as I have played wargames of one sort or another since 1990. I am just sad because the range rulers are distinctive, immersive, and I really liked the colour range system of Fallout Wasteland warfare. I definitely see the opportunity to use the range rulers for Call to Arms though, so all is definitely not lost .
