VBAM's December 2015 Update

[mwaschak]

Hello everyone,

The holidays quickly approach us and it seemed like a good idea to touch base again.

Tyrel is putting the final touches on With a Purpose and has passed along the near finished copy to the playtesters. As many of you will recall, it is the first expansion book for second edition and is the long awaited mission and objective system for VBAM. It opens up a world of custom scenarios and objectives I believe will benefit the system greatly.

I sent out the physical playtest packs for War Fleet just this week to the playtesters who passed their address. This is the fleet level starship block game we have been working on for awhile. Initially the design packs will focus on the Boltian and Kuissians conflicts but I plan to fully support the many settings out there. We will also be including a system for creating your own blocks and stickers. Since it was designed with campaigns in mind, it serves a duel purpose of a stand alone game and resolving campaign battles. The second edition campaign abilities, like Stealth or Scout, get used appropriately in fleet level combat just like they do in the CSCR. I should have some pictures in the blog in the near future but I think you will be pleased with the final result.

Full Thrust Edition is coming along nicely. That will likely be the next public playtest. If you are interested in jumping in a play by email campaign or helping out please just send us an email.

All the best,
Jay

[mwaschak]

Details on our upcoming starship block game and the current playtest progress:

http://www.vbamgames.com/musings-on-war-fleet/

[Emiricol]

Hey that looks fascinating!

[mwaschak]

Hey that looks fascinating!

Thanks! We had a lot of fun making this one. I think it will be easily expandable, and work nicely with campaigns and stand alone gamers. I am collecting information from the first blind playtest now so I will keep you posted!

-Jay

[murtalianconfederacy]

Damn, it looks interesting, but for the wargamer who's already a bit low on space, those blocks look altogether too big. Most of the reason I gave up on Iron Stars was the space requirements for the tent-ships. Can those blocks be 2-D, or do they need to be 3-D?

[Tyrel Lohr]

I think you could probably get around it by making a series of counters for each unit type and swapping those out when the unit changes configuration. I believe that is the main purpose of the blocks: to have each side be a different configuration, and allow you to change the units without digging through a pile of chits to find the right config in the middle of a game. But counters should work all the same. Or you could even have a counter and then just have some other marker to indicate the current configuration, then have a cheat sheet that told you what stats the unit has in that mode.

Jay can chime in and let me know if I'm wrong with that, though!

[mwaschak]

I actually do have 2d models for these that used the orientation of the counter to track configuration. It worked great in a PBEM setting, but fell apart when I started playtesting live. The blocks allow for me to have 6 different configurations, including various states of damage.

Of course there is no reason I can't just release the 2d counters at some point since the game would functionally be the same. If you want to PM me I will send you those and you can take a look.

Thanks,
Jay

[PaulB]

Another perhaps unrealistic alternative is some sort of rotatable base?

I'm wondering if any company out there manufacturers an equivalent of plastic click-bases from the Wizkids games, where data and artwork could be placed into the counter and it could be tracked that way?

Alternatively I'm wondering about some old video game-style code wheel, two pieces of cardboard affixed together with the top one having artwork and windows and the bottom having the information. the downside being of course that producing those would be a monumental pain unless the company they were ordered from could do it.

Like this idea but a LOT simpler. Two layer with like one window or whatnot.



Making the pieces by hand though would be pretty impractical though unless there was a way to get the cards punched and then have the players make them on their end.

Though thinking about it a bit more, I'm sure the simplest non-block solution is just a printed-out box pattern that one assembles themselves.

[murtalianconfederacy]

Sure, PM them to me--I'll see if I can chime in with any suggestions for those of us in a similar position to me, and hopefully I might have another game to play...

[wminsing]

I remember the very early playtests of this, the system has a lot of promise!

-Will