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[Sean Mirrsen]

I use Photoshop for my Astroid game. Nice and easy to use, each unit is a separate layer and units are grouped by teams. I can attest to the fact that it's fun, but unless the game has an underlying grid/level system (I think all of the abovementioned games have one, but Astroid doesn't, I had to make one) it's going to be rather difficult to play.

It's not going to work too well for playing Battletech though.. the maps are large, and the movement phase is per-unit, not per-side. One full turn might take up a whole week, if not more when players have too many timezones between them.

[Aqizzar]

Emperor damn you all for bringing up play-by-forum table tops.

I'VE BEEN PLANNING THIS FOR MONTHS

But I have no idea how to approach such a thing.  Namely, 40K in particular heavily relies on inches and model placement, which would turn into a logistical nightmare keeping maps together and models in the places the players want them.  The best solution I could think of was rewriting half the shooting, movement, and coherency rules to adapt 40K to a hex based system, with hexes representing a four inch diameter area capable of holding ten models, and fudging vehicle sizes and so on and so forth.

Then I thought it'd be better to at least experiment with a logistically simpler game, like Necromunda or BrikWars, to get a feel for refereeing and adapting.  Then I thought it'd be even better more awesome to just make up my own "table top" war game, specifically designed with play-by-forum concessions in mind.

And I've been stopped cold there, with too many other things occupying my time.  But hey, if anyone's interested, I'd be happy to discuss any of the above concepts further.

[Sean Mirrsen]

You can use the Astroid setting if you like. I need to improve the concept for aiming and firing (and probably remake the thing into hexes), but it's a perfectly good and relatively simple system that's fallen into disuse (in RL I mean).

[puke]

They are fun. And whatever original threads on them are ancient.

I saw some WH40K and WM kits on sale (5 whole dollars off!), and I know some local people that play both. I thought it would be fun to try.

I hear WM is better if you want a hardcore game, and WH40K is better if you want a hardcore hobby, yes? WM seems a lot cheaper too.

Whatever happened to MechWarrior? I remember that was huge at one point.

I havent played any tabletop wargames in a few years, but i used to be pretty regular at it.  here is my take:

Warhammer Fantasy: expensive but mature and well written rule set.  lots of minis on the board.

Warhammer 40K: still lots of minis on the board, but not nearly as many as in Fantasy.  rules change drastacally at every edition and game balance swings like a pendilum as each codex is released.  fun for a few years and GREAT fluff and character.  eventually, even the hardcore get disinfranchised with it.  also, not a very good wargame from a tactical perspective.

Speaking of GamesWorkshop games, theres a handfull of lesser-supported lesser-played games in their "Specialist Games" (check their website) section that dont get rules updates as often (or at all anymore) so arent as subject to drastic balance changes.  they're generally written more for fun gameplay than selling fuck-tons of miniatures, so theyre not the mainline flagship games.  you'll still find handfulls of dedicated players for games like Necromunda and Battlefleet Gothic and the like, even though theyre no longer the "big hits".

Battetech ("classic", as its called now): one of the grand-daddys of mech combat.  silly sometimes, yes, but also a very mature rule set.  lots of book keeping to play, and some of the newer releases have dumbed down the tactics by introducing high range and damage weapons, but its still pretty hardcore.

Heavy Gear: great potential, never caught on.  fun to play, but good luck finding players.

Dirtside II and Stargrunt II:  company level armor sim, and squad level infantry sim respectively.  AWESOME rules, simple and fast to play while still being very detailed.  also, good luck finding players.  I think the rules are a free download from Ground Zero Games now.

Warmachine:  all the kids are playing it, the minitures look cool, the fluf is well written, and the rules are good.  dont need to go broke on massive armies either.  probalby what i'd get into if i was to start playing these kinds of games again.

for Space games, theres the Battletech answer of "Aerotech" the Warhammer answer of "Battlefleet Gothic" the very well written and acclaimed "Full Thrust" (okay, i have a bit of a GZG chubby, i admit it), the grand daddy of them all, "Starfleet Battles" and tons of others.  There was a great Tale-Spin (remember the cartoon?) style game called "Crimson Skies" or something like that... these kinds of games all have their own merrits and differences and deserve a topic to themselves.

I've seen some very sweet looking pre-painted miniatures for a sci-fi humans vs aliens kind of wargame thats made by a french company.  cant remember the name of it, something like ST2 or RC2 or something like that.  maybe the company name was something like Revolution ?  dont know much about it.

There have been tons of WWII games over the ages.  Flames of War seems to be the current darling, though I know nothing about it.

this is just kind of the tip of the iceburg.  the big question is "what can you find players for" which you have to answer by dropping by your local game store, talking to your friends about what they want to play, or checking for local players over the interwebs..

have fun with your new moneypit! i mean timesink! i mean, HOBBY!

[puke]

I use Photoshop for my Astroid game. Nice and easy to use, each unit is a separate layer and units are grouped by teams. I can attest to the fact that it's fun, but unless the game has an underlying grid/level system (I think all of the abovementioned games have one, but Astroid doesn't, I had to make one) it's going to be rather difficult to play.

It's not going to work too well for playing Battletech though.. the maps are large, and the movement phase is per-unit, not per-side. One full turn might take up a whole week, if not more when players have too many timezones between them.

over the years there have been tons of battletech sims for doing just this.  i mean, dating back to play by post on a WWIV BBS and a 1200 baud modem.  im sure some of them have been updated, would just take some googling and maybe a copy of DOSBOX.

You could just fix a webcam over your gametable if you wanted to play with minis, and upload images after every turn.  since battletech is traditionally hex-based though, you could just play on standard maps and call out hex numbers and facings in your forum posts.

but really, you should take this kind of thing off the forums and use dedicated software for it.  For RPGs, OpenRPG is one of the big daddies. 

edit:  for wargames, i had found some links that seemed worthwhile but after further investigation proved to be useless.  im sure there are some virtual tabletop programs available that are designed with wargames in mind, though.

edit the second:  this looks like a vaguely usefull starting point though: http://www.rpgvirtualtabletop.com/vts.html

[Sean Mirrsen]

There's dedicated software for Battletech games, called MegaMek. Works like a charm, but unusable for forums unless you plan to stick to duels.