Siege of Ankarr 2-Player Starter Set | Ravaged Star Playtest Battle Report Ep 5

[@MrRedx55]

29:18 this is why you guys work so well together, Dave always compulsively asks questions, and Matthew always compulsively answers them

[@MrRedx55]

31:28 😂😂😂😂

[@fabienherry6690]

@@MrRedx55 26:30 Spending minute explaining the purpose of sand bad and the difference between cover and concealment ^^

[@christianmannsbart4074]

As a small game developer I loved the rules discussion. Thats how playtesting should be done. Also top video production. Wow!

[@Killologist]

Thank you for the shout out. Spreadsheet dude is Lower Class Hero. He gives amazing feedback, very calculated individual.

[@athionveretta6204]

I said this the last time I saw you both play each other in a video, but you guys are by far my favorite pair to watch at miniwargaming. The chemistry from your guys friendship makes for such entertaining content. Hope to see more Matt vs Dave in the future!

[@TylerProvick]

27:55 I really like Infinity's way of handling cover - if you are touching it you are getting it, otherwise not. It's easy enough, with your current movement system, for players to intentionally put themselves in cover and say - if 50% or more of the unit is touching cover they have cover. That said, I don't mind games which have you look from the model's perspective to have cover. Every system has their pros and cons, but looking from the mini's POV and having the actual shape of the cover matter is important to my enjoyment of the game.

[@Firedrake18]

Loving these reports . I like the new camera work. Im happy as long as we get the close up on the models, those are the money shots. Still pushing for the person that goes last at the end if the turn must go second at the start of the next turn. I think it balances it out for your opponent. They msy be guaranteed to activate but still dont know which unit.

[@mazzacanemedia]

is that giant MWG dice logo in the back a light or is that post prod insert meant to hide a camera?

[@arbhall7572]

Im using blank bases I painted numbers on and color coded outer rings for proxies. Two games with a buddy of mine so far, we only took 2 units each, so more of a skirmish match. But we are both fully in love with the token activation/ initiative system.

[@justinn5357]

"I haven't had that lived experience" that was gold xd. You haven't hid from a hail of bullet fire behind some sandbags!? :P

[@BrookfieldRocks]

DAVE!!! My precious blood-boy DAVE, why aren't you in more BatReps? I've always loved your energy and hope you show up on every MWG vid I click on

[@TridentTrueHobbies]

Matthew whispering sorry as he nuked the room. Tremendous.

[@cp1cupcake]

I think the reason you don't test a game with averages is that it is a ton of number crunching and who wants to do that. Ie, the Mindshackler shoots at the mechs and it had a 25% chance (or whatever the number actually is) of killing one. Now the damage from the mechs have to reduced by 25% to show the chance that one of them is dead. And it gets crazier from there.

[@arbhall7572]

My take away from this battle and the MindShackler in particular is the rules for it need to be way simpler or way more complicated to work properly. In order for its value to be properly appreciated, we need to boil it down to very simply. Every turn it is activated, it neutralizes an opponents unit, automatically. No rolls of any kind, that unit will not move, or it will not shoot on its next activation. Reduce the range on all its weaponry to at the very most 9" total and keep its movement very limited. The alternative is a bunch of rolls, perhaps a new stat and just layers of complicated rules. Which I dont mind. Personally I feel like a psionic/magic threat like this justifies an addition to the stat line of every model/ formation to properly make it work. Which is a lot. Or the Gorkog players get a minimum of value out of their special thing at a very minimum of complication for ease of use. Id also advocate we only allow one of these per army/ player and its range be limited to 15" at the very most and im advising it only be this range when used with boost.

[@NickWebb-lc6ry]

Have all the long winded rules discussions you want, keeping the rules simple is making my stoner brain very excited to play without forgetting 30 things a turn!!! Behind the scenes of the rules being tuned is awesome, keep the content coming! Work on the mechanic for the Gorkog to come back into battle, not sure if I want to not kill them, A delay as a reward for wiping them out would be nice. Even if they are endless I still want a reward for wiping a squad. BTW go back to make the Scout unit 6 health :P

[@themilkbaron8290]

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being inspired by 40k (which these factions clearly are) but y’all should also branch out and invent your own archetypes! Endless swarms of space bugs and power-armored dwarves are cool, but there’s a lot you could do in space.

[@Mrpokemon718]

Fun fact, the Imari were actually developed as a concept for Ravaged Star before GW made their current iteration of Votan. But I agree, more factions with their own takes would be cool to see.

[@MrRedx55]

Also once this game has come out and such, can we get some banter bat reps where you get all the old content producers to come in and learn the game, jay, Dan, tau jay, it would be so cool to see them again and they would have a reason to come in

[@Grimbago]

I was designing my own wargame with d10s a while ago and came to the exactly same conclusions as Matt: averages do not average. And not only that: I work in gamedev and talk to game designers daily (and design some small things myself, I am a narrative designer) and this is absolutely correct: numbers themselves and averages absolutely cannot predict what will happen in the REAL game. So, Matt, from my point of view you're absolutely right!

[@trajanfidelis]

Thanks for the video guys!

[@leesweeney8879]

I do not like dropping the wounds just to make a box work. Making the boxes equal after models were picked I think may lead to cascading errors when folks are using more just a box. Just be careful. I think the 3 Times to Activate the Mechs were really the main issue.

[@jercharron7380]

Seen the other RS video and this one. Have to say the Giant bright green dice MWG logo against a muted darker backdrop really jumps out at you. Draws the eye too much in my opinion. Was ok in the other lighter grey Necron room as it wasnt as much of a shift. Sorry for the rant. The video itself awesome very excited i backed at such a decent level.

[@John.J.J1985]

Same, draws the eye a lot. Otherwise great video, excisted to try it. Hoping to late back soon.

[@stephencowie696]

Averages only work for systems that dont have spikes... When a spike happens determines game outcomes as you said... for balancing its about number of matchups... not dice rolls.. like the change from 6hp to 5hp... killing that model is only 25ish % even with the reduction in its life... but it makes a massive difference to the outcome of the match... that unit will get to double shoot with 2 models say 10% of the time (taking drawing that unit to get in range etc, then commander before opponent gets the snipe) with a 25% chance its second or both shots is only 1 model.. this change allows for good game spikes... which will change the average of overall game wins.

[@stephencowie696]

it also changes the tactics... the gun line may now want to target that backline to rid themselves of the threat...which is harder rolls... do i take the easier kills or cleanout that damn commander

[@stephencowie696]

For those that dont know what i mean by spike - for a dice roll to have a statistical average the amount of dice rolled must generally be 10xnumber of sides of the dice - to accurately have an average game system battlestar would have you rolling 100 dice each attack... and the result would be meaningless... there would literally be zero drama

[@steelmanf339]

Love how the new Anti-armor rule works. made a great improvement there.

[@KKZVlug]

Im loving these updates and keeping an eye on development. Would you ever sell the minis individually?

[@christiancartmale1150]

They've said before that this is the eventual goal. To be able to buy these in a store.

[@leesweeney8879]

GW does it to sell models. For the Burst on the This is Not a Test, Jams fix it I think.

[@leesweeney8879]

The Cover on the sandbag wall is tough, but Heavy seems correct there. It will stop attacks, if you were on the Wall, then you would ignore it.

[@thechadnerd8562]

I’ll get in on this when there’s an imperium loyalist space marine equivalent faction.

[@StephenBrown-h4x]

Sandbags would stop smaller caliber bullets, pretty much anything under .50 caliber. Dry wall can be punched through with your fist so I'd call "light" walls line of sight blocking. A brick wall would be the same as a sandbag barricade

[@SereneCube]

The imari detachment shows only 1 scout mech in the box, but he's playing with 2? Are there going to be 2 scout mechs now?

[@lucrichard9449]

I don’t know if this would be lore accurate, but would the box be balanceable by giving the Gorkog one of the Immari infantry units? Say they are mindshackled, maybe a scenario mechanic to liberate them.

[@ChinNinja118]

After the 20 min back and forth about dice averages it all boiled down to "so i shot and 3 died"

[@leesweeney8879]

Wave~! Horde Rules are great. I think I would like more of the can not shoot until at 8" on many of the GorKog. But willing to try Endless. As they feel like they are burrowing to me, something like: While outside of 10" all Ranged Attacks are 2 Worse to Hit and 4 Worse to Damage. This shows them just under the surface coming towards you, if planned correctly you will get one good firing chance at them as they pop out all the way and Charge. Feels more thematic than trying to Deplete the Unit without killing it off. The other way for this set, is to have a new Named for the Bugs that gives Ranged Protection of some sort. Instead of generic Hordermaster.

[@RaMa-im4so]

For the little critters, they don't have ranged so they should be better in close combat

[@leesweeney8879]

Do not put the counter aside when the Boosted Unit Token is Pulled, stick it under the Boost Token, much less likely the forget to add back to bag.

[@CorvusABray]

Hitting on 5+ is not ideal, +1 to hit is a lot. A pip of AP is definitely a better option. Walkers to 5 wounds is a good call.

[@kimsebimse6603]

i got a message saying MWG has uploaded : what are tyranids ? maelstrom of lore ep1 . but i cant find it on your videos ? and when clicking on the message it says the video is private ??

[@SuperHalberd]

I think that light and heavy cover as terms should only effect how easy it is to hurt the enemy. Concealment should be a separate term which defines how well you can see the target. So for example, the bridge does do much to conceal the unit but iron does stop bullets. Don’t mix cover and concealment as concepts as that simplifies things too much.

[@CarlWalmsley-j1z]

Am I the only one who thinks that the 'Endless' rule for the Gorkog makes no narrative sense? What is happening in the battle that a sergeant would be telling his squad to open fire - but not hit too well or they might accidentally kill all of the enemy in the squad...Why is that a bad idea, sarge? Because more will then show up: if we just leave stragglers, we need to leave them alone for the rest of the battle. Matthew and Dave acknowledge this dynamic in their chat. It really pulls me out of the game. The rule is not creating immersion - quite the opposite, as it's reminding me that I am a gamer and need to play the rules rather than 'the game' (if that makes sense). I've placed a substantial pledge for this game - the models the look amazing and I like all of the other rules. I'm very keen! This one rule just seems like a mis-step to me. Just my opinion, of course. At the very least, the new full-strength unit should not arrive so close to the action. Perhaps there needs to be more restrictions on where they appear?

[@TylerProvick]

10:00 "If they are textured and you can tell, you deserve to know what you are pulling" No man, that ain't it. Trust is good, control is better. If someone were to rock up to a SWL game with textured order tokens they'd not be allowed to use them.

[@arbhall7572]

What if? For the MindShackler. To keep things simple. When the Gorkog player has all his tokens, hasnt played any at all. Draws his Mindshackler, but wants to mentally dominate with it. So, choses not to move, or attack. Instead, they place their token for it, as if they had played, then waited until they drew a boost token to utilize the Mind shacklers domination ability. They place their boost token next to an opponent unit that has already been activated, then waits again until they draw another boost token. In most scenarios, this will represent ALL their tokens, an appropriate representation of the efforts and energies being put into the endevor. Then takes control of the unit an utilizes it as if it were their own until all the tokens are returned to the bag. Further domination of the unit only requires the Mindshackler again, not move or attack, merely placing their activation token on the table and waiting to utilize a boost token. The dominated unit will regain control of unit by boosting the unit, then activating it as normal. To keep it this simple. I suggest the range of the ability be the focus of testing. Otherwise I suggest the Mindshackler be limited too to be way simpler or way more complicated to work properly. In order for its value to be properly appreciated, we need to boil it down to very simply. Every turn it is activated, it neutralizes an opponents unit, automatically. No rolls of any kind, that unit will not move, or it will not shoot on its next activation. Reduce the range on all its weaponry to at the very most 9" total and keep its movement very limited. The alternative is a bunch of rolls, perhaps a new stat and just layers of complicated rules. Which I dont mind. Personally I feel like a psionic/magic threat like this justifies an addition to the stat line of every model/ formation to properly make it work. Which is a lot. Or the Gorkog players get a minimum of value out of their special thing at a very minimum of complication for ease of use. Id also advocate we only allow one of these per army/ player and its range be limited to 15" at the very most and im advising it only be this range when used with boost.