Vanguard is a lovely game, it’s clearly in it’s first edition though. There are a few kinks that need ironing out, the kind that are practically impossible to see till a lot of people have played a lot of games.
What do you think need to be tweaked or rethought?
My first is the way cover works, it’s mechanically the same, but it’s not intuitive and gets forgotten about.
Also; the more rules are the same as KoW, the easier it will be to learn the game.
Warband morale does not seem to work like intended. It happens almost always to everyone, which is a problem because fallback checks can decide the game. Dice get to decide the winner, which is not a good feeling if you played well.
The cavalry rule might be a bit too good. It certainly makes some models very powerful.
I’m also not sold on the power mechanic. It works, but it also brings in a roll that dictates what you can do in a turn. Can be mitigated though. It also makes the fatigue (which I really like) less impactful.
Mostly I just loathe special dice that can only be used in one game.
Finally, now that Mantic has moved away from the rules with mini’s release style and the rules are available online for free: having the lists in a book or two like in KoW would be much nicer.
You seem to not like some of the core rules that differentiate Vanguard from other skirmish games, which is a shame.
I assume for cover you mean gaining a dice if not in cover, rather than having a penalty if it is in cover? I like this as it is but that’s because I was exposed to the mechanic first in deadzone, where it really was rare to not be in cover. That has meant when I am laying out terrain I like to lay out a lot, to try and make it true that models not having cover is actually rare in vanguard, too.
Stuff I’d like to see in a v2 are minor things, like making Ra and Me stats on the cards have the same order as the Ra and Me dice on the cards and go into some more examples in the terrain section to show how the foundational rules can be applied to a lot of common terrain choices (scatter terrain like crates, doorways and windows all come to mind).
Two big things I would like are better rules for fighting on multi level;s such as castle battlements and clarification/simplification of how to determine if a move to engage is a charge or not.
Care to elaborate? I would actually like to start a discussion.
What makes Vanguard special in your opinion?
Interesting point on the cover, still not a fan, but it is a preference rather than a problem.
Power I can live with, but command point systems do feel a bit gamey to me. Would mind less if power dice were d4s or something (even a simple d6 conversion chart). I usually just don’t play games with unique dice, but I like Mantic.
If power sets Vanguard from other skirmish games then it’s definitely a good design choice.
Warband morale is the thing I really don’t like.
Games get decided by models on objectives falling back (for example). I think it takes too much out of players’ hands in the last turns (when players are trying to get let last bit that decides the game), when a game “really gets interesting”.
Interesting conversation. I don’t think my wishlist includes any major overhauls, just a bit of smoothing things out. A bit more rules templating and streamlining play to be faster.
I’d be interested to know what people’s ranked preferences for what the rules should support are out of a) one off games, b) competitive unlinked game events and c) campaigns? ( d) other?)
and go into some more examples in the terrain section to show how the foundational rules can be applied to a lot of common terrain choices (scatter terrain like crates, doorways and windows all come to mind).