Exilian
Off-topic and Chatter: The Jolly Boar Inn => Tabletop Games - The Game Room => Topic started by: Othko97 on July 30, 2014, 08:29:09 PM
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I am interested in getting into Tabletop games, however I lack several things:
- The funds necessary for figurines, boards, etc.
- People willing to actually play games (other than SotK)
- The knowledge of a good starting point
Obviously when I go to university there will be more opportunity, but that is still a year away.
Help me please?
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Well you can play wargames with paper squares representing models. Actually more useful for moving about. You could also play some sort skirmish wargame which would require few figures.
Are you sure there isn't a wargaming or rpg club near you? Are you also sure you want to get into the shady world of tabletop games?
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:o I have the same problem! (Except maybe Death Nade, but we all know how lazy he is!)
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OK, first things first.
1. Tabletop gaming is huge. It includes boardgames, wargames, pen and paper RPGs, the lot.
2. This means price is massively variable. You can do a pen and paper RPG with only paper and download a rulebook from the web (there are many, many free RPGs out there, of variable quality). ON the other hand having a full size WH40K army is ludicrously pricey.
If you really have no money, look at games you can play just with paper; if you have little but not zero, skirmish games are (as Penty rightly says) an excellent shout. Ebay-ing a bunch of old GW plastics will find you enough stuff to play some games of Mordheim pretty cheaply, which is honestly one of the best tabletop games in existence (and the rules are free!).
I think basically it depends what appeals to you, though. Do you want to control single characters, or vast armies? Are games with pretty abstract mechanics good, or do you need lots of plot-drivers and randomisation? Once you've thought through that it'd be easier to suggest good games to look at :)
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ON the other hand having a full size WH40K army is ludicrously pricey.
Actually, having a full size WH Fantasy army is ludicrously pricey.
40k is not as pricey due to games being played at lower point costs (except the Orks and Astra militarum which require tons of models). And splitting the starter set can get you half way there in no time if you're interested in Chaos space marines or the Dark Angels. I was also considering that, but I'll have to wait to see how my semester ends up, before I spend the little cash I have left.
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Both are now prohibitively costly at UK prices tbh, I wouldn't be able to consider starting a whole new army on my current budget and I'm not exactly horribly cash strapped.
In any case, I'd still play Mordheim by preference these days I think.
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I think basically it depends what appeals to you, though. Do you want to control single characters, or vast armies? Are games with pretty abstract mechanics good, or do you need lots of plot-drivers and randomisation? Once you've thought through that it'd be easier to suggest good games to look at :)
I think this is the key point, what kind of tabletop game are you thinking of? Munchkin (http://www.worldofmunchkin.com/cardgame/) is a card game which is fun, fairly cheap and easy to play. It plays on ideas in pen and paper RPGs and puts them in a quick card game.
Munchkin captures the essence of the dungeon experience . . . with none of that stupid roleplaying stuff.
Board games like Settlers of Catan (http://www.catan.com/) are fun too, but also need a few players... Although having said that I can't actually think of any single player board games :) . If you are more into strategic war gaming rather than strategic road building, then I would recommend Warriors and Traders (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/107861/warriors-traders), but be warned that it is incredibly complicated.
If you can find a group of people who want to play it, and someone with a good imagination to DM it, Pathfinder and/or D&D are great fun.
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If you really have no money, look at games you can play just with paper; if you have little but not zero, skirmish games are (as Penty rightly says) an excellent shout. Ebay-ing a bunch of old GW plastics will find you enough stuff to play some games of Mordheim pretty cheaply, which is honestly one of the best tabletop games in existence (and the rules are free!).
Rules are free? Only if you captain the jolly roger. Unless something changed it's £12 I think, maybe £20 under their new pricing scheme?
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You always used to be able to download the Mordheim rules as a set of 3 pdfs from the Specialist Games website; that site is now gone, but I'm pretty sure that since they gave the rules out for free once they now can't charge for them even if they wanted to (and they've stopped supporting the game anyway). WHFB rulebooks are about that price, but Mordheim rules are free as long as you can track them down.
Here's a link to a google drive with all the PDFs in:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B18J5DU-6cP_aEg2dHIxbGpaMlk
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Yes, Mordheim used to be free.
Now it's no longer supported and the downloads are gone from their website.
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Yes, Mordheim used to be free.
Now it's no longer supported and the downloads are gone from their website.
Thought so. :) Yay, I'm not going mad(der?)!
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Fair enough then... I have a physical copy that came with the starter box. I was thinking I only bought it a couple of years ago but it was actually more like 6-7....Damn I be gettin old. There are torrents for it as well which I did use to find the old magazine that came with it which contains extra rules, factions etc. Might still have them on a HDD somewhere actually.
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You always used to be able to download the Mordheim rules as a set of 3 pdfs from the Specialist Games website; that site is now gone, but I'm pretty sure that since they gave the rules out for free once they now can't charge for them even if they wanted to (and they've stopped supporting the game anyway). WHFB rulebooks are about that price, but Mordheim rules are free as long as you can track them down.
Here's a link to a google drive with all the PDFs in:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B18J5DU-6cP_aEg2dHIxbGpaMlk
That's...that's not how that works.
They own the rights which include the distribution rights. If they choose to give them away for free that's their call but it doesn't grant everyone and their dog the right to share the files freely. I picked up Fallout and Fallout 2 when GOG.com were giving them away for free. That doesn't mean that I'm allowed to give the game to whoever I want - it's not mine to give away.
It's extremely unlikely that sharing the files will get anyone in trouble but it's most definitely not legal, at least in the UK.
If you downloaded the rules from anywhere but an authorised GW source you're taking part in copyright infringement. Whether anyone is going to lose any sleep about it is an entirely separate matter.
The only exception to this would be works in the public domain, except that none of the SGs will be in the public domain until some time in the 2100s, assuming average life expectancy of the authors and no drastic changes to the law as it stands today.
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Fair enough - though in legal practice I'm sure you could never realistically bring such a case to court, distributors could theoretically get a cease & desist I guess but GW's lawyers are usually busy enough chasing down people who are actually re-casting their models or providing torrents of current rulebooks.
Noted on the legal clarification, though.
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Necro!
Anyway I was talking to my uncle over xmas and he plays this http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/101865/saga. Apparently it's an easy to get into skirmish style game set in the Dark Ages. It sort of fits in this thread, and I can't be arsed to make a new one.
EDIT: Apaprently some nice German dude made LotR and GoT boards for it so....Yay if you want to get Saga and are also interested in those....And then want to build an army, possibly two, fun can commence and so forth.
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That looks really cool, I may have to pick it up sometime.
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I've been wanting to but I wouldn't have anyone to play against. The factions are pretty nice if sort of....gamey (i.e. there is a heavy inf faction (Saxons), a cav faction (Normans), light inf (Wales) etc) I think it plays like a Dark Age Warmachine: Tactics from what I can tell.
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Ooh, it has Byzantines in. Horribly, horribly tempting.
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Yeah that's one of the expansions, along with Rus I believe and maybe someone else, I can't remember.
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Well from what I can tell, you're looking for a cheap dark age game to start with, I think I've got just the thing.
http://valhalla.eaststreetgames.com/MyHome/
It's called Valhalla, the rules are free and they're loose enough to be adapted to any setting without any major gunplay. (Seriously, I've been thinking of porting it over to Lord of the Rings.) I haven't had the chance to play a solid game yet, but the mechanics look really smooth and I can find nothing but good review from people that have actually played. You can start out with squares of paper/card with names writen on them to signify warriors. One of the cool features of this game is you write your roster online and the website works out the equipment and class impact on your stats, all you do is print off your roster and you're ready to go! It seems to lend itself to solo play fairly well too.
Hope this has proven helpful, and the best of luck to you!
-Jeff :orc:
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Thanks, I'll look into it!
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Well, thanks to SotK and Lady Grey pushing various family members I have finally got into Tabletop Gaming!
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Cool, what are you playing?
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Pathfinder. For one it's cheaper than skirmish games :P
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That's the DnD like one right? What's the system like?
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Yeah, it's very much like DnD. The system seems to be logical and works well. It's also thankfully not too confusing, as can be an issue in other systems I've seen.
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*cough* Shadowrun *cough* :P
Good stuff :)