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Wars of Alier: Fall of the Archmages Print and Play version -play testers wanted-

Hi, Im John Bullinger. For over 3 years I have been working on, changing, and developing a game called Wars of Alier. The newest version is ready for play testing. If you want to help please go to https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/wars-of-alier:-fall-of-the-archmages

Any and all suggestions, questions and comments are welcomed. Thank you!

Comments

The idea seems sound, and I

The idea seems sound, and I suspect you have a fairly detailed backstory to go with the game. However, this still needs a lot of work if you want to publish, free or otherwise.

First off, the rules:
They're nice and simple, which is good for a light game, but some parts of the wording in the rulebook can be further improved for maximum clarity. You never know what kinds of people are going to read your rulebook, and people get things wrong all the time.

In the first section, you have

Card types:
Units: units are small tokens rather then cards. They make up the army you control by moving and attacking with them. Most units have no restrictions on the max number you may have. Champions are a unit type that can cast spells and lead your army into battle. You may only have 1 champion type unit in your army
Info Cards: etc.
Spell Cards: etc.
Land Cards: etc.

Instead, it would be better to write

Components:
Unit tokens*: Unit tokens represent your units on the battlefield. etc.
Info Cards: Info cards show the CST, ATK, DEF, MVE stats of the units, and should be placed face up at all times for easy reference. etc.
Spell Cards: Spell cards show the possible spells you can cast. etc.
Land tiles**: These are placed on the battlefield. etc.

*If it's a token, just call it a token.
**The word "tiles" tells the players that you're supposed to lay them on the battlefield

Also, change the word "counter attack" to defend, since if you succeed at counter attacking, nothing happens (rather than both units dying)

The artwork:
The artwork is detailed, and I can tell it is a labor of love, but really consider varying the body shapes and stances of the units. It's a little difficult to tell at a glance what each unit is. Also, the tokens should either be made square and smaller, so they take less space, or you should align the bottoms, and use them with binder clips as stand up figures. The best choice is obviously sculpted figures, but that doesn't make for easy print and play.

Also, if you want people to play test for you, you need to make things easier to print and play:
Merge the unit, spell and info pdf files into one file, and add a few sentences like "print everything in this file out, and cut along the black lines. The cards are all one sided, so print only on 1 side."
The rulebook also needs some photos or diagrams of what the game looks like when it is set up.

Good luck, and don't give up!

Good start

The simplicity of the rules is good, and I think people would be able to pick up and play the game easily. I like the quality of the artwork, though agree with andymakespasta that some variety in poses would make the units easier to differentiate at a glance.

Specific items to clarify in the rules:
- It is unclear whether you can use 1 Interrupt in addition to 1 Spell on the same turn.
- It is unclear what the "Allied" ability on the Champions does.
- It is unclear whether the Rage ability would allow a counter-counter-attack, since it is a "normal attack" which could be countered by the original attacker. If a counter-counter-attack was not intended, maybe reword the ability as "Rage: This unit does not receive any dice penalty when counter-attacking."
- It is unclear which land would be placed in the middle, since there are only 4 lands in the p-n-p pack.

Overall, I'm unsure how many opportunities there would be for strategy. The most important choice appears to be in army selection, and from then on the strategic choices seem minimal and the dice are the major determinants. In this regard it is not dissimilar to Warhammer and most other tabletop wargames.

How much have you played with the alternate victory conditions? I'd encourage pursuing these in your playtesting to find which one is best. Annihilation, by its nature, creates a one-dimensional game with limited strategic opportunities. So one of the other victory conditions may create a better game.

Another possibility which you may want to explore is increasing the land count so that it is 1-2-3-2-1 in an offset grid pattern, thus forcing players to choose between splitting or concentrating their forces. This may enhance the opportunities for strategic play, especially if the victory condition involved something other than annihilation.

All the best with your game.

Regards,
kos

Thank You!

First of all, thank you guys so much for the advice. Ill begin working on the changes right away.

Kos, the idea of increasing the land count is a good one. If I'm getting it right, you would have 2 lands in each "section" (making a total of four sections you control.) and divide the section in to two parts. I'm loving it.

This is a very recent remake of 2 of my older games. (and will need alot of help) The art work will probably stay the same. I could add names to them however?

Thanks again for the help! :D

Minis

For the tokens/minis I am thinking about using micro cards with stands. Kind of a cheap mini. I am trying to keep costs down for the final product because I want a table top war game for people who want to get into table top war games, but are too broke to do it.

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