Star Wars minis game... playtesters wanted!

[Strombole]

I have been trying to iron out the rules for a star wars game I have been playing for some time that I call Star Wars tabletop battle game (or Star Wars TBG). The rules are a mish mash of modified rules from several game systems and I am looking for people to playtest them to help me make the game better. I have played many games myself and the rules do seem to work fairly well, but the more people that play them, the better chance of finding an odd situation or a rule that either needs to be cleaned up or just plain doesn't work.

I would love for anyone that has a collection of star wars minis (or even someone who would use other minis as proxy) to playtest a game and let me know what they think. Whether its something they would like to play and if I should continue making profiles for more models or whether its something I should just play myself at home if there is no outside interest in this game.

The rulebook and a profile book for the Empire era can be viewed and downloaded from the site in my signature. The site is still under construction and I will try to make a brief video this weekend giving a quick rundown of the rules and a sample turn or two as well.

Thanks, and may the Swartz be with you!

[thatrandomguy]

An interesting take on the SWM game. I skimmed through the books and found it quite interesting, nice job. One of the main things is the royal guard. I spam guard, take wounds on the emperor, them transfer them to the guard. This becomes a deathstar because i shoot the emperor, and the shots that hit him have little chance of wounding ( high DEF). If they do, i take it on the low DEF model for 12pts. I think it would be more fair to have the guard take hits before wounding. The difference in stats provides an unfair advantage (or at least in my mind) for spamming guard. As i said, i only skimmed it right now, so i dont know if there is a rule that works this out to be fairer.

[Strombole]

Thanks for the thoughtful response. Even in the game I finished today we found a few little things from the rules that we wanted to change, such as bonuses to the roll for who wins the fight if you outnumber the opponent. As it stands now, characters like Vader, Luke, Mace Windu and a couple other high ranking Jedi/Sith are near unbeatable in a fight against anyone but other equally high ranking Jedi/Sith. They should be very hard to beat and almost impossible for some nameless jabroni guy, but it shouldn't be impossible for 4 guys to beat one, and it is very difficult now for rank and filers to ever beat Vaders 3 attacks with his CC value of 7! It sort of works as its not impossible, but very very improbable right now. Which is maybe how it should be, I need more test games to decide that. But even a few troopers can kill a jedi if they swarm him or her and the game should reflect that as well.Vehicles are going to be reworked to allow them to shoot one weapon at a full move and all weapons at half speed instead of everything at half and none at full. I have already added in a sentence in the errata section of the website about targetting more than one model when they are in base contact (as they form kind of mini units), which is something I really wanted for clone wars era games especially... this was inspired by delta squad of the republic commandos which really should be able to fight and die together. A lot of the rules I really like and really seem to work well such as the lightsaber parry... deflecting blaster shots back at the enemy is soo fun and really fits with the star wars universe I think. I want to rework the amount of force points available to many Jedi/Sith as well as Vader and Luke both ran out of force in the last game I played and that didn't seem right to me.

In regards to the guard spam you mention.... very good point. I never really thought of making the rules a little more spam proof. I figured that because Sidious cost soo much to begin with and because the guard were pretty expensive at 12 points each for models with no guns, I though it would work itself out in the numbers game, but I can certainly see how annoying it would be to ever kill the emperor if he had a ton of royal guard around him. I really like your idea of how the hits should be allocated to the guard instead of wounds and it makes a lot more sense logically. I think I will change that in the next revision. Plus I have 3 AT_STs, an AT-AT, tie walkers, and a tie fighter for my empire so there always seems to be a few hundred points of big stuff on the table in my games and never really thought about others not really playing with any big vehicles... which is a major oversight on my part. If I take a couple AT-STs, Sidious, Vader and a bunch of Royal Guard it would be soo many points that the rebels would have to outnumber you even with the Falcon and a bunch of x-wings. I never thought of someone taking Sidious and just a bunch of guard with a few other cheap characters and stormtroopers, etc. I should have thought of it but I didn't. Since I started all this to play games with my models, the bias just sort of formed that way. I wanted it to be the point of the Guard to protect Sidious and wanted it to be a good combo (same with grievous and his bodyguard droids) but I obviously don't want any unkillable models or units on the table. I will definitely look for ways to balance that out. I am getting some good data so far and I think I will be ready to do up a 2nd edition of the rules soon and the profiles will be adjusted when I split the rebels and empire profile book in two, with a "Rebel alliance" book and a "Galactic Empire" book.

Once I do that and the 2nd edition of the rules nail down the ruleset a little better and add a couple universal special rules, I will adjust a couple profiles and split the first profile book in two, I can start on the next profile books. The books I have planned are "Grand Army of the Republic", "Confederacy of Independent Systems", "Scum and Villainy" (which will contain 3 different armies, "Mandalorians", "Jabba's crime syndicate", and "Bounty Hunter's Guild"). This will be considerable work.... If I ever get it all done, I will look at doing books for "the old Republic" and the "Sith"... but that probably won't be for a while... it's a lot of work for one guy. I know I will name down a bunch of profiles for myself to play Clone Wars games, but it will be hard for me to do profiles for every conceivable model people might have... plus I do conversions. I just finished an Anakin on BARC speeder conversion. It will be an option in the book although there is no model for it. Plus I repaint models I don't really want. I don't need a chiss trooper but repaint his skin and clothes and he makes a perfect Imperial officer. Or aliens can be easliy repainted into rebel commandos, etc.

And then there's all the Jedi! I own Yoda, Mace on foot and on swoop bike, Anakin on foot and on speeder, and Obi-Wan foot and on Boga, and various other unnamed Jedi models, but do I make profiles for every council member or just for the few main guys I own and then make generic Jedi Knight and Jedi Master profiles with some customization options?

Its soo much to think about... It's why I started with the Empire era... easier when there's just one or two Jedi and one or two Sith.

Thank you very much for your feedback, I really really apprecitae it. It would be easy to just write out profiles on paper for home use for myself. Even knowing that one person has actually tried out my rules and used my profiles makes it feel at least a little bit worth all the work I have put into this. It's a lot harder than just reading something and saying "Matt Ward sucks!"

I won't ever jump to criticize rules and profile writers again.... Mind you, they have teams and get payed to sit there all day and do it, I have to squeeze it into the daily grind. Thanks again for checking it out and for pointing out the imbalance issue. It is much appreciated. I am going to put an errata up on the website later tonight in regards to the transferring to royal guard happening on the hits instead of on the wounds as you suggest... very good call!