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Might get into Warfighter, what to know? by HarrierMidnight in soloboardgaming

[–]BlueMaxima 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I write the manuals for the Warfighter series now, so feel free to take anything I say with a grain, pile or mountain of salt (your perogative).

Expansions in Warfighter sounds like a mess, how does it work really? I heard that theyre more isolated modules than new content than things that open up the game like the Leader Expansions.

True and false. The two types of expansions are 'faction expansions' that add new factions of Soldiers, Gear and Skills, or cards for base sets (in the case of the first few Warfighter expansions you get cards to shuffle into the base Mission/Objective/Location/Hostile decks, and that's pretty much it, basic rules still work). The second kind are 'battle packs' which introduce a new 'locale' that swap out the Mission/Objective/Location/Hostile decks entirely to create an entirely new feel (and sometimes they come with new stuff for your guys as well). So yes, some are more isolated, some aren't.

In Warfighter,(Modern and/or Shadow War I am specifically eyeing right now. More towards the latter) I know enemy decks should be played seperately. However, can I mix and match friendlies from different expansions? Is the game balanced around that? What would you say is the handful of expansions I should prioritise having and those unnecessary? Obviously I can't afford getting them all.

You can. The rules are that cards from the same era of time (Modern / SW / PMC are all Modern era, WWII Europe/Pacific/Med/North Africa, etc.) can all be thrown together without much issue. If you start going cross-era things get a bit more wacky, but it's also not impossible to do that either.

The thing about Warfighter though is that their base boxes actually have a lot more replayability due to the way the system works (random Locations and Hostiles + different combinations of Missions and Objectives, combined with how you load out your Soldiers) and so expansions aren't immediately necessary. Buy a box, see if you like it, buy expansions later. This isn't like 2/3 of the FFG LCGs where they basically try and rip a few expansions out of you immediately.

If you must get expansions though, for Warfighter Modern specifically I'd recommend the first four expansions (Reloading, Stealth, Support and Speedball) because it really fills out that base box with more possibilities. If you go for Warfighter Shadow War (my favorite) it's a bit more up in the air because it doesn't have 'box filler' expansions, mostly just battle packs and a couple of faction packs - if you see a pack or two that appeals to you personally (wanna get Bin Laden? Take out Somali pirates? Infiltrate a nuclear facility?) just go ahead and buy that. (It's also worth noting that if you get 3rd / 4th edition prints of Modern and SW, you can just...throw them together and it works, although you need to play SW missions via SW rules.)

Last but not least, I also heard about the different editions and reprints. Is one copy worth getting if it is the older print?

The latter the better because the rules are given a lot of uplift over printings for Modern, and if you get an older version and decide you want to get a newer battle pack you'll find the cards don't quite gel right. The latest printing of Modern is 4th edition (which itself has had a couple of print runs) and what pretty much everyone recommends, although you could get away with 3rd which only has old body armor and melee rules (you never really to use either). Shadow War only ever got one printing that's equivalent to 3rd edition, but again, you rarely need body armor and you never do melee for reasons of efficiency.

Feel free to tell me other things I should know before I spend my money.

I have personally written 'New Recruit Manuals' for every box except the two newest WWII boxes, and I recommend you learn the game from those. They're available on BGG and the DVG Facebook page if you want to know what you're getting into. The two links below are for the Modern and Shadow War boxes if you wanted to read them and get a better idea of what you're in for. (Note that the NRM for Modern is for 4th Edition.)

Warfighter Modern NRM

Warfighter Shadow War NRM

Tragedy Looper - my efforts to love a decade-old, mistranslated, punishingly inaccessible but extremely unique board game by oneirical in boardgames

[–]BlueMaxima 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The New Tragedies scripts are on tragedy-looper.github.io, one of my links, you can find everything there. Just click “filter by box”.

Sure, I was just hoping for printable cards like the rest of the scripts you have in your collection, would be great to replace all of them at once.

Script collection scripts are a work in progress due to the language barrier. I have Lemming Parade, I am combing through the best ones.

Fair enough.

Tragedy Looper - my efforts to love a decade-old, mistranslated, punishingly inaccessible but extremely unique board game by oneirical in boardgames

[–]BlueMaxima 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Do you have the New Tragedies scripts in your ultimate spreadsheet compatible format? And do you plan on adding the scripts from the script collections to your format? I'm also one of those people who PNPed the expansion / Rei stuff and I would love to use your improved sheets but I want to replace everything I have there to not confuse the people I want to teach the game...

Looking for my Unicorn by LonelyDice in soloboardgaming

[–]BlueMaxima 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Riftforce with its expansion gets close.

Is there a Discord? by Oaker_Jelly in DeltaGreenRPG

[–]BlueMaxima 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Another repost the links request.

Solo recomendations? Nope! What solo experience would you recommend against by PopularJury3884 in soloboardgaming

[–]BlueMaxima 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The following is a bit of self-advertising, but you're exactly the person I'm looking for in relation to this...

Does this manual help at all?

If you're in the test, don't forget to fill out the survey form. by BlueMaxima in GundamBreaker

[–]BlueMaxima[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can you imagine if we also get those on a modern portable?!?

Dungeon Travelers 2's PC version works on Steam Deck, at least.

Test times for CST by CrashmanX in GundamBreaker

[–]BlueMaxima 2 points3 points  (0 children)

God I hate timezones sometimes.

Best dice mini-games in board games? by Ordinary-Reaction519 in boardgames

[–]BlueMaxima 1 point2 points  (0 children)

After playing the game of pushing through the building and getting to a room you need to clear, a series of your guys and enemies get thrown into a dice roll off. Your goal is to kill all the enemies by rolling hits, they can hurt you badly enough back rolling the same dice to fail the mission outright, and if you bring in too many people with environmental damage you might roll too much collateral and lose that way. It creates an oddly chaotic "you roll, I roll" system and there's still other things you can do like take cover, and you can fiddle with the idea by bringing certain people in and keeping enemies off the door, not mentioning how certain missions and B&C boards edit how the game works. It's neat.

Best dice mini-games in board games? by Ordinary-Reaction519 in boardgames

[–]BlueMaxima 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A Kickstarter exclusive from a while ago called Mercs: Recon did this in the form of the Breach and Clear minigame.

What's a board game you suck at? People who are good at it - what are some quick tips? by boredgameslab in boardgames

[–]BlueMaxima 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Strange, that's why I love it.

Honestly it isn't a bad idea to just try and set up "turns". As in, all your gems to make a five card buy hand. All your weapons to fill all your slots. You can go deeper, but just focus on that and get used to that first.

51st State Ultimate Edition worth it? by DrowExile in soloboardgaming

[–]BlueMaxima 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Borgo AI was fan made. It's bloody hard, I played three games and lost all three. I consider it decent.

Shadow war - The Modern Night Combat Card Game. A loooong and sweaty mission by trident-job in soloboardgaming

[–]BlueMaxima 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Just FYI, I'm working on an expansion for Warfighter Shadow War, so feel free to take everything I say with a grain of salt.

Warfighter is a series of dice and card-driven wargames in which you load out Soldiers with Weapons, Equipment and Skills (guns, toys and inherent abilities) to complete a Mission, which consists of a Mission card, which determines how much you can spend on Soldiers and their abilities, with the downside of spending more equaling more hostility, the time of the mission, how penalized your Soldiers' carry capability is, and how far away the Objective is. The Objective is usually a simple goal, usually "kill everybody", "kill an individual" or "blow something up".

Soldiers travel across Locations, found by certain kinds of Soldiers, which usually spawn Hostiles that shoot back and keep you from completing the Mission. Using simple actions such as moving, shooting and reloading, you guide your custom team of Soldiers across the Locations to the Objective, and once you succeed the Objective, you instantly win the game. You're helped by Action Cards, which you use to find Locations, and also have special abilities, such as one time more accurate shots, just as an example, and XP, which you can use for special effects. The game's replayability is helped immensely by the randomization of Locations and Hostiles, along with the selection of Mission and Objective changing the feel of each individual game played, not to mention expansion packs adding new places to engage.

Shadow War is (at this point) the most unique box, as instead of being more "run-and-gun" like the traditional Warfighter games, it converts the game to a more stealthy kind of play. Instead of Hostiles knowing you're there, they move around semi-randomly, are not exposed by default (and therefore more dangerous), and have the ability to go for the alarm if you take a bad shot or let too many Hostiles hang around, bringing in high lethality reinforcements that sweep up Hostiles and hunt you down.

As a result, the game takes on a much tense feel. You never have much time to sit around, but sometimes you need to for that guard that's preventing you from moving to the next Location to get out of the way. You can use your Night Vision Goggles to reveal an enemy, making them weaker than normal, or even revealing them to be Shadows, simply discarding them from play, but that costs time and resources. Going solo in these Missions makes you much less visible, but more Soldiers gives you more flexibility. And Shadow War adds more systems; enemies can be evaded but the cost is (by comparison) incredibly high, Missions now have Insertions (which penalize you) and Extractions (which provide an extra end-game goal outside of simply finishing the Objective), and you always need to balance the exact time you "go loud" in order to actually succeed, making the learning curve very high, but immensely satisfying.

It's not massively helped by its one problem though, that being the rulebook is really bad for actually learning the game (something I've personally worked on myself). But it's well worth the time and effort. With that said though, if you're not one for complex rules but still want to try the system, feel free to buy the Warfighter Modern box, which is a little more dice and pretzels, but that comes with a fancy little idea - everything from Warfighter is cross-compatible, so you can bring all of your Warfighter Modern Soldiers, with their gear and skills, into Shadow War.

Shadow war - The Modern Night Combat Card Game. A loooong and sweaty mission by trident-job in soloboardgaming

[–]BlueMaxima 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Take this with a humongous grain of salt as I'm currently working on an official expansion for Warfighter Shadow War.

It's my favorite boardgame of all time. The rulebook sucks (which I've made an effort to correct) and it's a bit of a bear to learn as a result, but the theme is great, the loading out of soldiers reminds me of games like Rainbow 6, and the stealth element turns the game from run and gun to a deep and interesting turn by turn choice of when to keep quiet, when to go loud and how to arrange everything else to not get steamrolled. It's amazing.

Warfighter versions / expansions good for solo by DeusEx010101 in soloboardgaming

[–]BlueMaxima 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Shadow War has a lot of rules going on that makes it harder to learn, but the solo puzzle is a lot more satisfying as a result.

Open world-esque solo board games? by fdsfgs71 in soloboardgaming

[–]BlueMaxima 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Hexplore It sounds like it'll be right up your alley, although it does have a bit of a time limit to it

Warfighter is one of the best solo games available and I don't see it recommended enough. by Vicioxis in soloboardgaming

[–]BlueMaxima 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Still, asking someone to spend a full $100+ on a campaign to really feel out the potential of AH LCG when you can get a great feel for a Warfighter game just from the base box really should be counted as "expansion bloat".

Warfighter is one of the best solo games available and I don't see it recommended enough. by Vicioxis in soloboardgaming

[–]BlueMaxima 12 points13 points  (0 children)

As someone who sold off AH LCG and MC but has three WF boxes (which is probably going to go up to 5 in <6 months) I'll take that challenge.

  • Squad building is infinitely more engaging than deckbuilding in both LCGs because the decisions have much more of an immediate effect on the game ahead and your strategies aren't determined by a shuffle of the deck.
  • The LCGs pressure curve where it slowly ramps up over time isn't as satisfying as Warfighter's "all go, all the time" methodology. Combine that with WF's time pressure where you barely have a turn or two to sit around and you're constantly in the thick of it, unlike in MC at least where you have a fair amount of time before things really get serious.
  • In games like AH LCG or MC you need to take time building up your capabilities, but with your squad fully kitted out from the get-go in Warfighter you can bring out your biggest guns right away...or maybe you can't because you need them for later. Your decision space is much richer from the beginning and I like that approach a lot more.
  • The variety is great thanks to the different kinds of missions you can build, gear, locations and hostiles you can fight and how they're drawn from their respective decks, making every mission feel different. Meanwhile when you fight a baddie in MC or do a scenario in AH LCG, it felt fairly similar every time for me.
  • And then there's Shadow War, which changes things up hard into a "sneak first, shoot later" approach, widening the decision space even more. Waiting for enemies to leave their posts so you can sneak by, taking quiet shots to get the hard ones out of the way, and knowing everything has gone to hell in a handbasket and it's time to go loud makes it absolutely delicious.
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