Teensy Wars

Home of discussion on only the Teesy Tiniest of Wargames

[teensywars]

BEHOLD! The legendary Warhammer 40 Proof mead!

[teensywars]

The Adeptus Astartes come properly equipped to cleanse another world of Chaos filth.

[prokopetz]

In incomplete recommendation list for folks who saw that last reblog and became physically distressed that "Fuck Doll Murder Bitches" isn't a real game they can play:

Daisy Chainsaw by Charlotte Laskowski

Doll.Bod by @ribstongrowback

Dungeon Bitches by @cavegirlpoems

GIRL FRAME by @anxiousmimicrpgs

Songbirds by Snow

(Feel free to add on; I'm more about games about awful little creatures, which has enough overlap with the "Fuck Doll Murder Bitches" design space that I'm broadly aware of it, but it's not my main thing!)

[technofeudalism]

god forbid 5000 year old girls do anything

[flamei7]

[postpoeticparadox]

holy shit bronze age pro sheep bone gamer girl

[roach-works]

this is hilarious but also im gonna cry like this teenage gamer died and they buried her with her high score. no one took back the pot or divided it up because no one would play against her again. her family and friends buried her with her wins. im crying

[phoen1xr0se]

and she made it to tumblr. Her win lives forever, this absolute diva, sheep bone gamer girl I wish I was friends with 🥹 🙌

[teensywars]

Me: Can someone sell me on Primaris Marine doctrine?

"Sure! They get +1 on rolls to..."

Me: Not their rules. Their combat doctrine in the fluff. How are Primaris supposed to win wars and not just win 40k games.

*Crickets*

[teensywars]

Full rant time. We have years of Epic 40k games that show how Space Marines usually fight in larger battles. Various versions of epic boil down games on a regular 40k-scale to what's called a "firefight." Think of it as the Epic-scale equivalent to 40k melee combat.

Space Marine Classic are a highly mobile, responsive force focused on infantry units, that are excellent in a firefight and amazing at getting to firefights. Thanks to Land Raiders and especially Rhinos, every codex-following Space Marine can rapidly reposition to hit an enemy weakness as soon as it reveals itself. Their strategy revolves around cheap, functional transports made from technology that was already old 10,000 years ago. A junior Techpriest can keep a Rhino running with hand tools and an iron-age industrial base, assuming the auto-repair protocols aren't doing the work for you.

But if they're out of range, the traditional Space Marine squad support weapons have a lot more range than you see on the tabletop. Heavy Bolters, Lascannons, and Rocket Launchers can lay down suppressive fire well beyond the length of a 40k tabletop. They aren't going to be as deadly firing at tiny specs on the horizon, but they contribute.

Now let's compare the Primaris. Primaris are extremely specialized for firefight range. Most of the long-range squad weapons are gone. Lascannons and Rocket Launchers are replaced with more Melta and Plasma. If a Primaris wants to destroy a tank, they're going to have to get into close range, and tanks are faster than infantry.

So, let's compare transports to see if they're simply better at getting to close range. The Rhinos are gone, but they have the faster, tougher, anti-grav-ier Impulsors. First problem, an Impulsor has half the transport capacity of a Rhino. Second problem, they're expensive. "Typically, these vehicles are saved for the delivery of the killing blow by Vanguard forces". That's not fluff you write for a ubiquitous battlefield taxis.

Third problem, and this is speculation, is logistics. Grav-plating and shield domes can't be easy to fix. Can they even be repaired with available materials, or do replacements need to be shipped in from Mars? If the fluff declares that Belisarius Cawl was so genius that you can fix his grav-plate designs with bobby pins and duct tape, I withdraw this complaint.

So, Primaris Marines can't fight at ranges outside of a 40k game. They don't have the tools to reliably get to where they're needed, which Classic Marines have. Their logistics are complicated and easy to disrupt. In short, they're less able to contribute to a war than old Codex Compliant Marines.

But they're models look cool, so we're all supposed to be excited about them.

[teensywars]

Me: Can someone sell me on Primaris Marine doctrine?

"Sure! They get +1 on rolls to..."

Me: Not their rules. Their combat doctrine in the fluff. How are Primaris supposed to win wars and not just win 40k games.

*Crickets*

[teensywars]

Legions Imperialis Strategy: Mechanicum Taghmata

Legions Imperialis is a game where thousands of superhuman Space Marines can take the field lead by a demigod. Where "chaff infantry" is the peak of human potential, each wielding a lasgun than hits as hard as a plasma rifle does in 40k. It's a game where Knights, Titans, and air support figure into almost every game.

Now wanna see what the faction of elite units looks like?

Advantages

A Taghmata is when the Mechanicum declares holy war, and all the disparate sects contribute their finest creations, each a manifestation of their philosphy. This means that a Taghmata list is going to be packed with sci-fi bullshit on a level that no other faction can dream of.

You have super-soldiers in power armor with bolters? Our power armor infantry has jetpacks and lightning guns with four times the firepower! Want chaff infantry? We can throw endless waves of disposable zombies with guns at objectives! You're hiding in cover? The mortars on our siege walkers can launch a miniature sun at you, annihilating your troops and the building they're standing in!

A Taghmata doesn't go to war just to win, but to prove their superiority.

Disadvantages

I'm going to give Games Workshop credit for creating a weakness that perfectly matches the fluff in a way I haven't seen before.

A Taghmata makes no damn sense as a force for winning wars.

Mechanicum sects treat a Taghmata as a pageant - a chance to show off their power to the other participants of the Taghmata. This works fine when fighting primitives with flintlocks and spears, but a Taghmata is not designed for handling a near-peer opponent. Their formations are full of anti-synergies and annoying gaps. Even worse, a Taghmata lacks the tools to deal with an enemy fighting a modern war.

The core Taghmata units have no options for air superiority. An opponent with planes can bomb you freely while they land drop troops on objectives. Similarly, the Taghmata lack options for dealing with a well-placed Titan. Your heavy hitters lack either the speed or range way to deliver their firepower before being reduced to ashes.

You can plug these holes using Knights and Titans, or you can bring allies who have an actual air force. Either way, it's another moving part added to an already inefficient army list.

Conclusions

A Mechanicum Taghmata is a puzzle. Your units are powerful enough to win almost every fight, but you lack the tools to win the battle. If you study the rules, find ways to make disparate parts work together, they can be a powerful force, but it won't be easy. If that challenge appeals to you, a Mechanicum Taghmata list may be for you.

[teensywars]

Now that Legions Imperialis has two more factions, I should add posts for "Why Play Mechanicum" and "Why Play Dark Mechanicum".

[200-word-rpgs]

200 Word RPGs 2024

Each November, some people try to write a novel. Others would prefer to do as little writing as possible. For those who wish to challenge their ability to not write, we offer this alternative: producing a complete, playable roleplaying game in two hundred words or fewer.

This is the submission thread for the 2024 event, running from November 1st, 2024 through November 30th, 2024. Submission guidelines can be found in this blog's pinned post, here.

[teensywars]

Snarky Servants

One player is the GM. He controls "The Sir," who is some manner of upper-class twit, and the rest of the world, which is the kind of place where being an upper-class twit affords you considerable privilege.

The other players play his Servants.

Character Creation

Pick your servant's Profession, then choose whether they're Competent or Incompetent. Professions may not be repeated within a group.

The Profession of "personal valet" is entirely overpowered, and every group should have one.

The Rules

When a Servant attempts an action, determine if it is related to his Profession. A Competent Servant will always succeed at these actions. An Incompetent Servant will always fail at these actions, no matter how trivial, but may decide the manner in which they fail.

For other actions, roll a six-sided die. A Competent Servant succeeds on a 5 or 6. An Incompetent Servant succeeds on a 3 or better.

The Scenario

A game of Snarky Servants begins with The Sir deciding on something he wants. The Servants may have strong opinions on whether he is correct. The scenario ends when The Sir has his prize or loses interest.

The winner is the Servant who gave the best pithy one-liner.

(This game may be archived, unless giving permission is counting against my word count. In that scenario, I'd rather see the world burn.)

[prokopetz]

Did you see that Magic: the Gathering now has a game state in which you need to prove that there are an infinite number of twin primes to win? I can explain it more if you are interested.

(With reference to this post here.)

By all means, please tell us about the Magic: the Gathering combo which requires proving the twin prime conjecture in order to win.

[3-slugcat-pilots-7-ornithopters]

Okay so this is taken from the Three Card Blind discord server from an acquaintance of mine, Quag.

It’s Alice’s turn and she controls Zimone and has a Fling, an Awaken the Woods, and a fragmentize in hand. She controls 2 Forests (green mana), a Plains (white mana), a mountain (red mana), as well as two lands that are here because they can be sacrificed.

Both Alice and Bob have infinite mana colorless mana made via an artifact that can untap itself for more mana.

Bob has 10 life and controls a Wasteland and two Forests. He has a Nourishing Shoal in hand. He also controls a Battle of Wits and has 250 cards in his library.

To win before Bob does next turn, Alice needs to create a large creature token with Zimone by casting Awaken the Woods, and at end step Fling the token. However, Bob with his infinite mana can cast an arbitrarily large Nourishing Shoal, gaining 10^100 life for example. Alice will try to Fragmentize the Monolith that Bob controls. In response he will generate the mana to cast the giant Shoal and he has to pick a number.

Then, Alice can cast Awaken the Woods to make her land count a prime number that is bigger than 10^100 so that at end of turn, she can Fling the Primo token at Bob’s face. However, once the trigger goes on the stack to make the token, Bob can Wasteland any of Alice’s non basic lands to make her total land count a composite number, making no token.

But, Alice has a trick! She can sacrifice one of her own Havenwood Battle grounds to make her number of lands 2 less in combination with a wasteland. This would allow her to still have a prime number if she chose the larger of a pair of twin primes as her target land count.

The question is this: Can Alice always make a number of lands bigger than any other number so that if Bob destroys one of her lands, she can sacrifice another, remaining at a prime number, and making the token to Fling for the win?

(So: are there infinite twin primes?)

[3-slugcat-pilots-7-ornithopters]

The game state, courtesy of Quag also.

[teensywars]

I feel so bad for Magic judges right now. The Twin Primes Hypothesis has been unsolved since 1849.

[askrobouteguilliman40k]

[farsight-the-char]

And lets not forget the Tiger Shark AX-1-0, which is the Manta's Heavy Rail Cannons* on a cheaper/more mobile platform.

The Tau mass manufacture Manta and Tiger Sharks, the Imperium can't mass produce Titans.

....

*Cannons designed for Void combat mounted on Tau Naval Assets.

[askrobouteguilliman40k]

I remember in the Rogue Trader omnibus it took a Hammerhead two shots to kill a titan, one to strip the shield, one to reduce the head tomso much scrap metal.

And the naval canons, similar story, one shot strips a void shield, the second shot causes massive structural damage.

[teensywars]

Anima Tactics: The High Powered Anime Skirmish Game That Wasn't

Once again, someone is trying to bring back Anima, the Spanish anime-inspired fantasy RPG IP.

... And that has me thinking about Anima Tactics, the tabletop skirmish spinoff game.

Anima Tactics sounded so great on paper. A skirmish game between anime demigods! Mechanics inspired by Final Fantasy! Some of the most gorgeous metal miniatures ever cast! Aesthetics like watching a pro wrestling match between Vtubers!

Anima Tactics, on the actual table, was boring as heck, and I keep coming back to it to try to figure out why.

My current theory is that Anima, as a setting, is based on spectacle. Screen filling anime powers! Incredible artwork! Impossible scale! Skirmish games have a lot of trouble expressing that in mechanics. When there's only a handful of miniatures on the table and a few pieces of terrain, "power" can only be expressed by how characters interact with the terrain or interact with each other.

In Anima, the figures barely interacted with the terrain at all. The game used the typical 6" moves, with basic terrain rules that didn't have that much effect on gameplay. I charitably think of it as the characters being too powerful to care about terrain, but it wasn't great design either way.

The characters don't do a much better job of interacting with each other. They can attack for various amounts of damage and there are Final Fantasy-style status effects, but none of it feels particularly substantial. For the most part, powerful attacks are the same as weak ones, but with bigger numbers. Without something extra to give narrative impact to the big hits, it felt like you were watching Vtuber wannabes take turns bopping each other over the head with sticks.

In short, Anima Tactics was a dull game, and the only value I've gotten out of it has been thinking about how to do better. It is odd that so few skirmish games have even tried at making super-powerful characters feel powerful, outside of the flavor text.

[teensywars]

One Perfect Mechanic: Eatin' Dirt in The Great Rail Wars

In most wargames, damage is done the same way. Get hit, check to see if you've taken enough damage, and that causes most units to die.

Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars was a squad-based miniatures wargame that did things a little differently.

The default effect of damage in The Great Rail Wars is "Eatin' Dirt". (A crit still wounds and ALSO leaves a multi-wound character Eatin' Dirt.) A figure who is Eatin' Dirt is plinked onto his back, until he makes a vigor check to recover. Eatin' Dirt has the following effects:

A character in the dirt can only crawl and try to recover.

That character counts as prone, so he's harder to shoot.

That character is VERY vulnerable to melee attacks, with the next hit being an instant kill.

This simple rule added so much depth and flavor to the game. Firefights tended to end with one side pinned down, but melee ended with casualties. You could tell the losing side in a fight immediately, even if no one was dead yet. Every once in a while, a squad would grit their teeth, recover from a bad fight, and come back to win the game.

But the biggest impact is how this rule works with hero units. Heroes can take a lot of damage, but taking any damage still results in Eatin' Dirt. If they didn't have a way to get back up immediately, they could be executed by a melee attack. The best way to prevent a quick, embarrassing death is to have a friendly unit nearby guarding them until they get up.

You could be the toughest damned undead gunfighter in the game, but if you needed to still fight smart. Otherwise, one lucky shot to the leg and next action you could be beaten to death by a man with a shovel.

Savage Worlds, an RPG using The Great Rail Wars' mechanics, expanded on this system with the Shaken status, which doesn't include the melee vulnerability or being prone. It works for a generic RPG, but it doesn't have the immediate impact on the game the way that Eatin' Dirt did.

[teensywars]

Game Design Concept: Dead, Damaged, Wounded, and Inconvenienced

I'm going to be writing a few posts about rules systems I love, and they'll be much easier to read if I can define a few terms I'll be using first.

In games with combat, your people, tanks, giant monsters, and eldritch monstrosities tend to get hurt. Handling this requires designing a system for taking damage to decide what happens to your poor unit.

The simplest way to resolve damage is death. The unit is removed from the board entirely, and no longer contributes to the game. It worked for chess 1500 years ago, and it works today.

If you want more granularity, either because your game is zoomed in to focus on individual characters or because you want your units to feel tougher, combat can damage the unit instead. This is when a unit gets closer to death, without necessarily being taken off the board yet. The most common way to do this is a unit has a pool of hit points that they lose as they take damage. If their hit points reach zero, they're dead.

This still leaves your game with a binary "dead or not dead" state, so many games also implement wounds. As a unit takes damage, their ability to fight degrades. For example, you could use a table showing the unit's abilities at different levels of wounds. Another common way to do it is by randomly deciding consequences of damage through a critical hit system.

Finally, there is a level of damage below wounds that gets used mostly in skirmish games and games with extreme scale differences between units. Units are inconvenienced when an attack temporarily degrades their abilities, usually until the end of the turn. Almost always, this degrades their defensive capabilities, so inconvenienced units can be damaged and killed more easily by concentrating multiple attacks. Sometimes, this also comes with a penalty to their other capabilities, as well, like being unable to swing a sword or run while being knocked down.

Are we all on the same page now?

[teensywars]

Legions Imperialis Strategy: Titans

You ever want to go straight to slaughtering your enemies without anyone of that boring "maneuvering" or "strategy" getting in the way?

Boy, do I have an ally faction for you.

Advantages

Titans pack the most firepower in the game, and it's not even close.

They throw more dice, they have more armor penetration, and they do it from longer range than anyone else. Point the shooty end at something you don't like, and enjoy watching its last moments.

On top of that, Void Shields protect Titans completely from light AT fire, and rapidly regenerate from anything larger. Taking out a Titan will require concentrated heavy firepower.

Disadvantages

This is going to sound weird, given that we're discussing what are technically the toughest units in the game.

Titans are fragile.

Titans can be destroyed quickly by large quantities of heavy anti-tank fire, and every army in Legions Imperialis will be bringing exactly that. A titan may be tough in absolute terms, but it's also 10-30% of your entire army in a single model. It's not as tough as the dozen platoons of infantry you could have gotten instead.

This entire post also assumes that Titans will be given an exception to the rule that units cannot split their fire. If they cannot target multiple units (like in Epic Armageddon), their usefulness drops very quickly. Having the firepower to destroy an entire army is useless if you can only target one formation a turn.

Conclusions

In a very literal way, Titans define the battlefields they fight on. A single combatant that powerful ends up being treated as an objective rather than a unit. If you feel comfortable building a game plan around guarding the giant gunboat, then a Titan can dominate whatever part of the table you place it on. If you're looking for a more flexible gameplan, you're best looking elsewhere.

[teensywars]

Legions Imperialis Strategy: Imperial Knights

Imperial Knights are one of the two Ally-only factions, and probably the faction that's gone through the most changes between editions.

So, you may not be able to bring a lot of stompy mecha to the table, but they provide something no other faction has.

Advantages

Thanks to their Ion Shields and pinning class, Knights are legitimately hard to kill.

In a game where overpowered weapons are plentiful and armor is a "nice to have," there is very little that's hard to kill in Legions Imperialis. The toughest units take a little extra effort to kill, but still die to massed tanks. Knights are the exception.

First, Ion Shields mean that Knights get a pretty solid pseudo-invulnerability save against shooting from the front. Normally, this is a hint to charge into close combat, but Knights have the second-highest pinning class in the game. If they don't want to be in close combat, they can walk away.

Their only real weakness is getting surrounded, but Knights are reasonably fast as well. If you're playing smart, you're not going to complain about your opponent overextending his line to try and trap an oversized flanking unit.

Plus, Knights are just about the cheapest unit in terms of Dollars-to-Points.

Disadvantages

Knights are tough and fast, but they don't bring a lot of firepower for their points.

A stock Knight Paladin can shoot as well as two Leman Russes glued together... at the cost of 4 Leman Russes. It can outfight 10 Space Marine Terminators... at the cost of 80 Terminators.

Also, Knights' weakness to being flanked means they can't stay still long enough to hold objectives. Knights are not part of your front line.

Conclusions

There's two ways to think of Knights, depending on your style. You can think of them as a fast attack / response unit that can provide support across a large area of the battlefield while being too tough to bother stopping, or you can think of them as overpriced, undergunned Swiss army knives that can't earn back their points.

I'm personally in the first camp. A few knights in your second line provide a reliable answer to many different strategies, so your main faction can focus on what they do best.

If you're in the second group and are looking for an ally who can provide serious firepower, we still have one faction left to cover. I think you'll like 'em.

[teensywars]

Legions Imperialis Strategy: Why Play Solar Auxilia

Screw the superhuman space angels! Sci fi warfare is all about boots on the ground, logistics, and guns that go "pew pew!"

Advantages

You have more troops than anyone else, more tanks than anyone else, more armor than anyone else, and they're all pretty good! In a pitched battle where everyone lines up to shoot at each other, you will win!

And if the enemy isn't being so nice as to give you one, that's what the artillery is for! We can just bring the battle to anyone impolite enough to hide from us!

Disadvantages

You're the second slowest faction in the Horus Heresy (I'm expecting the Mechanicum to be even worse.) and by far the least agile. You don't get those fancy double-move flanking maneuvers and charges into melee that the Space Marines and Imperial Knights get. Instead, you get a limited number of officers who are able to give those orders, and everyone else gets to move once and shoot once.

After setup, the vast majority of your army is going to act extremely predictably.

Remember that glorious pitched battle that you want? The one that shows off all of your Mathhammer advantages? You're not getting that if your opponent is paying even a little bit of attention.

Instead, every Space Marine player is going to introduce you to what "defeat in detail" means, and it means hurting.

Conclusion

There are three types of players drawn to Solar Auxilia. The first consists of players who've done the math and know that Solar Auxilia armies are more efficient point-wise than any other faction. These players are going to lose a lot of games.

The second are players who realize that a reputation for being slow and predictable means they can come up with tactics that no one will see coming. I'm in this category, and I'm looking forward to pulling off big, sweeping Leman Russ maneuvers.

The third are the players who are sick of all the damn Space Marines and want to knock them down a few pegs.

All are valid reasons to play the Auxilia.