Rule of Carnage Review - The Doomed - Interesting, but flawed.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ย. 2024
- The Doomed is a recent release by Osprey Games. Its a game of post apocalyptic horror hunting, and while it has several interesting ideas within it, the game is fundamentally problematically flawed. This is my review of it.
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I appreciate the review but I think it's a bit too harsh.
I'm glad to see you acknowledging that this game is campaign forward and that you see that as a strength. I agree, we need more of this.
Testing for movement can be annoying, but every unit can move for free at least once per activation. If a unit can draw line of sight to their leader they get +1 to the roll and nimble characters can reroll failed tests. And then you have to consider how much movement is allowed on a successful test, it's not as if it's only your standard GW 6". You can leap onto rooftops, over fences run 24" across an open field.
And kitbashing is encouraged not mandatory. Every faction has at least one 40k equivalent, so for the most part, if you're a 40k player you've probably got all you need to play this in your collection already.
I love the variety of horrors and scenarios.
I find it quite playable myself.
I'm really glad you found it quite playable, and I'm honestly happy that there are people getting something out of the game, but I was going to some effort to be as generous to the game as I possibly could in relation to my personal experience of it.
The game is rather specific in stating that there really shouldn't ever be a 24" open field, although without any actual diagrams, or even photographs, of a full tabletop and only a written description that tables should be up to 3' across and split into a 3 by 3 grid, I can see how it would be possible to have a very differing experience of that part of the game. I was playing on a 2' square table split into a 3 by 3 grid as the rules suggested, so 8" was an absolute maximum distance, and since the game suggests multiple low walls and the measureless movement makes turning a 3" corner a two action activity, I found movement to be far slower and more stilted than if I'd had a standard 6" move. Again though, more clarity in the layout of tabletops would probably have assisted with this. I personally very much dislike the "miss a turn" sort of mechanic on a failed second move roll. Several times I found combatants to essentially waste turns failing to walk around a corner. Worse was when a failed second move roll meant that attempting to move with a third action would simply leave a crewmember exposed so passing the third action became the smartest option. I just found looking at a crewmember who had to walk around a corner before being able to take a shot and thinking "that's far from certain" because of the walking around a corner on even ground in daylight part of the plan and finding it both frustrating and to be taking me out of the story. Maybe if I could move 24" for a single move as recompense that would change things, but I took the suggested layout rules as making that impossible. I acknowledge that you can build some crews to lessen the issue, but not remove it, but when trying to experiment with different crews it became a punishing problem.
I'm aware that kitbashing isn't a requirement, my point is that the game's avowed intention is to encourage kitbashing, and my question is whether its successful in that intention. My position is that the proliferation of Horrors actually discourages engaging with building rather than encouraging it, as an attempt to engage with the game on its stated intentions rather than simply the issues I personally found with playing it.
Still, glad you're getting something out of it. I hope that people will enjoy it, I want people to like games, I simply think that the game has issues and would rather that people be aware of those issues before engaging with it. If they don't have a problem with those parts, that's great, but I'd rather they be aware of them first.
I played The Doomed last week and had a blast! I must say that I don't recognise the AI problem you allude to here and (in more detail) in the previous video. The game's default assumption is that all terrain is scaleable, so I don't immediately see how a horror could get 'stuck' rather than continue to close on its intended victim. And if the players have decided that a particular bit of terrain can't be climbed, surely the AI allows for the horror to make its way round towards the closest enemy? I think you'd need a peculiarly narrow interpretation of "move towards" to not allow the beast to use two or three moves to get round a corner! Does the writer really need to say "move towards the nearest enemy by whatever route is viable"? I think the readership can be trusted a bit more than that.
For me, the game owes an obvious debt (or has evolved similarly) to Song of Blades and Heroes, which I'd rank as *the* best skirmish game of all time for its playability, risk/reward mechanics and very short 'time to table'. The Doomed is simpler in some ways (Quality rather than Quality and Combat, fewer traits) and slightly more complex in others (e.g. a maximum of two melee attacks and one shooting attack, rather than just one attack), but it seems to balance out and give a similarly fast and exciting game. Our first game reminded me of our games of Song of Blades/Mutants and Death Ray Guns, to which we usually add a table of wandering monsters with a similar 'AI' set-up. And all of that's good. One caveat, I suppose, is that The Doomed doesn't have Song of Blades' marvellous push-your-luck activation mechanism. As an aside, another game with which The Doomed shares some DNA (through accident or design) is Rogue Planet, which also has measureless movement - well worth a look if you don't know it!
You make a good point about the need to refer to the book. I imagine the shock table will prove easy to memorise, but the horror and nexus tables do require frequent references. In our game, though, I thought the effect was well worth the effort. And I'm not sure that those tables are any more taxing than the conditions and effects you'd often get in a well-designed scenario.
I don't follow you on the horror/kitbashing aspect. First, there's no need to roll on the table if you don't have miniatures for all the horrors. I'd imagine that most players would start with horrors and minions that they have figures for - but I suspect that most fantasy/sf gamers have plenty of suitable beasts to choose from: umber hulks, kryomeks, tyranids, trolls, elementals, dreadnoughts, terminators, minotaurs, demons, ogres, dragons, wyverns - whatever! And then, if they like it, they might move into kitbashing specific horrors. Second, kitbashing and painting up 50 or 60 figures for a campaign (or sequence of campaigns) doesn't seem unlike what one might do for a big RPG session or a mid-sized skirmish game (Saga or Rampant, for example), let along a massed-battle game. The effort/reward ratio seems pretty stable here. And third, won't many players who fancy a game or two roll up a horror or two, kitbash and paint them, and then play the games at the end of the week?
I'll confess to being warmly disposed to The Doomed as a result of very good experiences running the same designer's Into the Odd, which is terrific. But our first game was tense, engaging and satirising. It left me eager to play some more - and indeed to get on with some kitbashing!
Well, the game allows for climbing over terrain that could "Reasonably" be scaled, with no detail on what that should mean. As such it actually doesn't default one way or the other. I certainly have walls in my collection that don't seem scalable, and even more so, walls that are agreed to be blocking for gameplay purposes. The issue with a "shortest route" to someone in a game with measureless movement is that it can be extremely counter-intuitive and without an guidance create friction. If I'm very close to the monster but on the other side of a wall such that it will take the monster three straight-line moves to get to me while you're much further away but will take only two straight line moves of great distance to get to, which do we go with? If the "shortest route" is fewest moves to get to someone, with measureless movement that can mean multiple miniatures are viable targets at once, how do we choose between them? Arguably, this can be house ruled and agreed on, but the point is, that this is a premium product, a £25 book about horror hunting. The way the horrors act and react is literally the central mechanic of the game, it really should be locked down rather than expecting players to pay for a hardback book and then figure it out for themselves.
I can certainly see a connection to Rogue Planet along with a lot of the Inq28 movement, less so the "Song of" series of games for me, but I'm sure there are a lot of references going on generally.
The issue with the idea of using whatever you have the shelf and then moving on to kitbashing is that one of the primary design goals of the game is the kitbash attitude, so it seems odd, and surely a miss based on their own design goals, for that not to be a first touch experience. An introductory game of Saga generally requires a player to get together 30-40 figures who are their force that they know they'll use. 41 horrors with around four or five minions each on average is closer to 200 figures that are essentially NPCs and many might never even get used during play, which I think is quite a different thing. On the last point, the question is, I think, about the guidance the designer offers. Are players meant to know which horror is coming ahead of time? Are they meant to roll them up at the start of a session? I think that the reference to the author's RPG background is interesting because RPGs are a conversation with a GM who collaborates with the writer to present an experience to the players that they in turn collaborate with to create a narrative. A minis game is a much more direct conversation between player and designer, I find it rather odd that The Doomed doesn't recommend an umpire actually, there seems a lot that needs the kind of interpretation that an umpire could provide which is a lot harder between players in direct conflict. I think its why the social contract rule here is so upsetting to me, this game needs a very clear and robust social contract to work and the book really doesn't offer one.
On climbing, there's this on page 6: "Unless specified otherwise, terrain is assumed to be climbable by the resourceful combatants". That's a clear default, I think. From it, our assumption in play was that horrors would ooze, skitter or float over pretty much anything. And if you use that default, then the problem is unlikely to arise - the horror will move towards an opponent on the other side of a structure and, with good rolls, will get itself into contact with it at the end of its turn.
As to "which do we go with", our assumption in play was that the activating player would handle any fiddly decisions.
For me, the kinship with Song of Blades lies in the Quality stat and the maximum of three activations. In your most recent and interesting discussion, you touched on the Ganesha family briefly. I'd put a virtual hand up there and say that the "roll to move" mechanisms in Song of Blades is a brilliant mechanism because it gives you significant decisions to make with every activation, balancing clear rewards (doing more stuff but also ambush bonuses, which are a big deal) against clear risks (your turn ending). But that's an aside!
The book's quite clear (p. 50) that your choice of horror can be based on what you miniatures you have or a random result from the tables. And I think you can see 'source miniatures' peeking through the descriptions. A balrog or fire elemental does the job as a Burning Brute; Exterminators could be virtually any sci-fi baddies; the Forsaken are zombies; the Oozing Bull could be a minotaur or D&D-style gorgon; the Rot Herald could be a fungus-man or Nurgle-thing; and so on. Essentially, the horrors are demons, and most fantasy miniature gamers will have a fair few, I'd have thought.
I'd also note that many gamers will have plenty of suitable minions: cultists, aliens, sci-fi soldiers, beasts, ghouls, beastmen, and so on.
And many of the horrors and minions are interchangeable. Saturday's Devourer could be Sunday's Mantevora, and Monday's Scavengers could be Tuesday's Twisted Spawn. I don't see that that sort of reskinning is any different from Hobgoblin's approach of 're-stat your units between games' (which is great).
Actually, there's another commonality with Hobgoblin, I think: the chance to repurpose miniatures that have been gathering dust. I'm looking forward to getting this guy (hobgoblinry.blogspot.com/2021/01/scratch-built-brain-collector.html) back on the table in The Doomed, and I've been eyeing up things like the elementals from Descent (perfect Living Blizzards or Burning Brutes), which have been languishing in storage for a while. Also, my son's many scratch-built monsters (www.youtube.com/@therustmonster4125/videos) will come into play again (we've been using them in Hobgoblin).Our Devourer in our first game was one of his.
That said, the brief, evocative descriptions (*so* much better than reams of the dreaded 'lore'!) are great sparks for kitbashing, and I intend to put lots of new monsters together. It's not like there won't be ample opportunities to reuse them in RPGs, Mutants and Death Ray Guns or Rogue Planet.
But I suppose my main point is just that we've found the game frustration free, lots of fun and a great spur for kitbashing, painting and getting things back on the table.
@@JC-vg9zw On climbing, firstly, what happens if players specify that various pieces of terrain aren't climbable? Or if the piece of terrain is part of a building with a roof? Is the assumption to be that the horror can pass through the roof? Secondly, take a more specific instance such as the Doom Horror "The Overlord" who will not move to touch an enemy due to Evasive? Now, he can't cross the terrain since doing so would move him into touching an enemy, but he has to do so because that's the requirement of his AI. At that point he's stuck. It's a fair assumption that the activating player should handle such decision, but the rules don't tell you that, and that leads to significant implications as to whether the activating player should then decide in their own best interests or not.
It's great that you've taken the way the book offers the Horrors as permissive in the way that you have, but the game offers a D66 table, and in my experience its a rare gamer who sees a D66 table and doesn't want to roll on it. If the intention is to choose Horrors, tell people to choose their Horrors and give guidance on how to do so. There is also a suggestion to play multiple games in a session, I would say that at that point, the default is to choose Horrors without planning and so roll the D66. One thing that we've actually learned from Hobgoblin is that many gamers don't have minis collections as extensive as we might have assumed, people tend to have what they need for their force and little else, so I don't think that relying on people having a range of monsters is actually that useful. I think that's actually exacerbated by the fact that the book doesn't offer many pictures and suggestions of the minis that should make up the minions in the game. The difference, I think, with Hobgoblin is that players come to the game with their armies, in The Doomed, the game comes to them with its Horrors, it puts a different narrative implications on the miniatures.
Ultimately, as I said in the review, I do want the channel to be one of positivity, and I think The Doomed is something that people should take a look at and try to make work for themselves, and I'm honestly happy that its worked for you. I do, however, think that it would be remiss in a review not to address its flaws, and they are significant. There are points where it doesn't quite hang together, to a degree that people expecting a finished and complete premium product, which is not unreasonable given the nature of the product and its price point, will struggle with the game and be disappointed by it. I think that as a set of ideas and inspirations it is an important and worthwhile book, which I did say in the review, just that as a complete and out-of-the-box playable game, it has significant issues.
@RuleofCarnage I don't see the problem with the Overlord: his priority is to attack enemies, which he can do from range, so if he can't see one, he moves until he can. He doesn't like melee and won't move into it; if he's engaged, he tries to break off (which needs a QL roll); and if he succeeds, his priority will once more be to attack (by shooting). So if he's climbing over a wall, he shoots from the top or - if the angles don't allow - he pops down close to the enemy but not in contact and then blasts away from point blank range if he has enough actions.
With the roof, why wouldn't the horror just cross it (to a window or door if the enemy's inside)? And if a wall's unsaleable, the horror would take the shortest route round it (which could, of course, change the proximity of enemies and lead to opportunistic hunting ...).
I'm reminded a bit of the terrific book on writing, Clear and Simple as the Truth. Its chief concept is that writers should address their readers as equals (in the 'classic style' that the book recommends) and assume a bit of common sense and good will (without the need for academic or legalese hedging). I think that's how The Doomed operates - it's not a 'watertight' ruleset like Kings of War, but it doesn't need to be.
As to the permissive take on horrors - well, the permission's given clearly in the book: "Players can agree which to use or roll a pair of dice ..." (p.47, "Choose Your Battle"). The D66 is presented as an option only. I agree that many players would prefer to use it, but rolling a scenario and then saying, "Oh - maybe not that one: we don't have a river/stockade/giant" is standard practice in any game with randomised set-ups.
That's an interesting point on the extensiveness of miniature collections - but an indication in the opposite direction is the sheer ubiquity of laments about the "lead pile" on miniatures forums! To that, I'd add the frequency and success of all those miniature Kickstarters, and the popularity of miniatures-heavy boardgames (Zombicide, Massive Darkness, Descent, etc. - all of which would be great sources of horrors and minions ). But perhaps there's a division between skirmish and RPG gamers on the one hand and mass-battle gamers (especially those who concentrate on just one game) on the other. The former are perhaps much more likely to have random monsters to hand - and are possibly more likely to be the target audience for a skirmish game from a well-known RPG writer.
Another way of looking at it would be "What do you need to play The Doomed"? My answer would be, "A couple of warbands (five to eight humans, cyborgs, mutants or aliens), a few imposing monsters (demons, robots, beasts) and a couple of warbands of smaller monsters (some with guns and some with melee or natural weapons - gnolls, ghouls, orcs, undead, whatever)". That's maybe around 30 miniatures all in, and would allow you to play the great majority of horror/conflict combinations.
I have completely the opposite take to you on this point: "I think that's actually exacerbated by the fact that the book doesn't offer many pictures and suggestions of the minis that should make up the minions in the game". For me, that's a *huge* strength of The Doomed: it leaves so much to the players' imaginations. The evocative scraps of flavour text are wonderful precisely because they're so unrestrictive. In most cases, for example, there's nothing to say that a horror should be huge (those with titles like Colossus or Behemoth would be the exceptions). Something human-sized like a mind flayer, vampire or gorgon would do perfectly well for many of them. And it's precisely the lack of pictures and suggestions that prompts a rummage in the darker recesses of the miniature cabinet for things that have been lurking forgotten and unused.
Actually, I think lack of sufficient terrain is a more likely hurdle to play than lack of appropriate miniatures. As with Rogue Planet, you do need a very dense table to make things work, and there's always a risk of inadvertently leaving 'diagonal corridors' that weren't immediately obvious when the terrain was placed.
On a completely different note (just while I remember it and in case it's not too late!): the one rule that strike me as odd in Hobgoblin is the need for a 6" minimum for Devastating Charge. I can imagine others have addressed this in feedback, but in case they haven't, I'd recommend dropping the minimum measurement. We've had a couple of situations in which heavy cavalry have done nothing but advance at full pelt towards the enemy. In that situation, it seems odd to penalise them if they got closer than 6" in their previous turn: you'd have thought they'd maintain momentum! Kings of War has the very similar Thunderous Charge rule, which has no minimum, and it works just fine. It seems counterintuitive for a unit of cavalry to think about backing off to allow the 6" charge in its next turn!
@JC-vg9zw The issue with The Overlord is that he actually doesn't move until he can see an enemy, he moves directly towards an enemy, but cannot move until he touches them, so if he's unable to see them until he touches them then the rules state that he's stuck. The idea of a wall that a Horror could reasonably balance on top off feels a little unlikely, he's either going to be on one side of it, unable to see or shoot, or the other, engaged, he can't move away from one or into the other, according to the rules as written.
The thing with the idea of communicating as an equal and a peer is, if an equal was asked a simple question, they'd give a direct answer, they wouldn't sit there silent and force you to figure it out for yourself. They'd also be unlikely to ask you to pay them for the privilege of playing with them. I think its a bit of a straw man to suggest that its a choice between arcane legalese or rules with gaps that players have to fill in. In the above example, the problem with the Overlord is created not by a lack of rules, but by the addition of them, the game could be made less legalese, less long, and less contradictory by its simple removal. I also question the slightly pejorative idea that you figure out how to fill in a designer's gaps or you lack "common sense" (particularly when its the common sense of what a nine foot tall ghost monster on a futuristic planet would or wouldn't do). I believe that games rules are, at their best, a place where people can come together because the rules interpose themselves between them and create a safe space where differences of opinion aren't necessary because the rules answer opinions. If I move my leader into the point where, rules as written, the Overlord can't attack me due to its evade rule and then you decide because of "common sense" that it can, that's a breakdown of the magic circle to me. Particularly because its so unneeded.
I understand that the game allows you to not roll, the point is that there's a point of breaking with the immersion and systems of the game that is problematic. Yes, we can roll, realize that we don't have the mini and decide to choose or re-roll or whatever, but that breaks the magic of rolling. A roll is a special thing in a game, an agreement to be bound by chance, and throwing that away isn't a minor thing. Certainly there are other games with randomized set-ups, six or so, which can generally be re-created with the same set of terrain usually, that's a long way from what's occurring here I think, and many designers consider what pieces would be outside of a normal collection or set-up and how to help players in dealing with that.
Having spent some time attending both boardgame and minis conventions, the crossover of players between the two is extremely small, the popularity of something like Zombicide, has surprisingly little impact on this part of the hobby. People's lead mountain, again, tends to be of armies and projects that they intended to play, to assume that because a gamer has a lot of minis that they therefore have a wide breadth of mini types doesn't tend to apply. I'd also say that the core audience of anything that comes out from Osprey is the Osprey core audience. In either case, the game suggests that the premium experience is one of kitbashing and creating horrors, heroes and minions, so even if something can be found that "will do", that's not an ideal serviced by the game. The game claims to want you not to use a small handful of miniatures, but to engage with kitbashing and making them, it has a whole section on that being the appropriate attitude. In terms of what you actually need, you don't need any minis, the game doesn't require them for LoS rules or any other practical consideration, you could play just as easily with a set of bases and markers, at which point doing so would be missing the point is the question, and to what conclusion the game guides you.
In relation to the lack of pictures, there's leaving things to the imagination and then there's not giving anything to go on, there are no pictures of minions in the book, there are no pictures of a complete table in the book for that matter. I think that speaks to the terrain issue you mentioned, this is a game where terrain is incredibly important, but its type and layout is only ever spoken of in text. A single full table picture showing one possible layout, a visual image of the relationship between minions, horrors, heroes and terrain would have gone a massive way to explaining the intent of the shape of the game.
I say again, I understand that there will be people who enjoy The Doomed, I mention in the review that I'm sure it will have a market. I'm not saying its impossible to get anything out of it, the review is clear that there is something to be gotten from the book. What I'm saying is that its not a complete, out of the box product in the way that maybe other games in the Osprey hardback series are, I'm saying that if people expect that, they should beware and that there are people, possibly a lot of people that this game won't be for.
Devastating Charge has gone through a few incarnations actually as the movement system itself has evolved. The difference with Kings of War is that they have a dedicated engagement move which Hobgoblin doesn't have, so it has to based on distance moved, and for it to evoke something like a thunderous cavalry charge it then needs to be a distance that is tough for infantry to manage, so 6" is where it comes out. It does make it a little bit situational and hard to pull off, but I don't think its totally illogical to imagine cavalry holding off on starting their charge until the right moment or even retreating to reposition for a charge of the right impact.
On your first criticism, about being turned off by all the kitbashing. I had a 180 reaction-- to me, it called out that I could use any miniature I wanted, and even kitbash if I wanted to. And discounting the number of Horrors? I can't disagree with your point about rules light vs. needing the rules at the table for each Horror, but I don't think that's much of a criticism, it feels a bit pedantic to me. What I saw was an amazing amount of wackiness that hearkened back to things like the mutation charts of Rogue Trader.
Its not that I don't like Kitbashing, I love Kitbashing, everything I put on the table I've knocked about somehow, its the fact that I can kitbash a mini, and then be told I'm not allowed to use it today once I get to the table. The thing about the rules is, the main rules are very thin with the intention of not needing to refer back to the book at the cost of game depth, which is fine if I don't need to refer back to the book, which I do because of the horror rules. I'm trying to judge the game on its avowed intentions which are to free me from the rules, and then they tether me right back to them.
@@RuleofCarnage "Its not that I don't like Kitbashing, I love Kitbashing, everything I put on the table I've knocked about somehow, its the fact that I can kitbash a mini, and then be told I'm not allowed to use it today once I get to the table." That's not what I'm disagreeing with. Around 6-7:00 you criticize the the amount of kitbashing alongside the number of Horrors, and how using your own figures then turns you off the idea of kitbashing? I'm paraphrasing, but I'm just pointing out that I had a very different reaction upon reading that.
"I'm trying to judge the game on its avowed intentions which are to free me from the rules, and then they tether me right back to them." Like I said, I don't disagree on that point, I just feel it's a very minor niggle to look up the stats of a monster of the week. Presumably I'm not required to memorize my opponent's roster that we have to print out every game and have at the table, why not print out the Horror's stats similarly, and then be free from the rules?
@@andycowell608 Well, part of the issue is that they're not stats, they're complex behavior tables along with paragraphs of text of what happens when you remove the objectives, they're essentially a block of rules on how to run that particular game which change entirely from game to game, and then need to be combined with another block of rules for the conflict. Its really no coincidence that the game comes with two attached bookmark ribbons, its because they know you'll need to be constantly flicking between the two parts of the book that make up a given scenario.
Its cool that you had a different reaction to the swathe of Horrors in the game, and I'm not saying that the book isn't for anyone, as I said, I want to like the book, and I'm here to celebrate the parts of it that are interesting. I would have just far rather seen each horror given a real life and story and encouragement to engage with them as individual threats. I'm aware that many gamers won't start a game until they feel that they have everything they might need to play it, I've spoken to many people put off games like Ragnarok for that very reason, and if that's you then the sheer number of horrors in the game are going to be an issue. For me, where the game is about hunting the horrors, I want to make them all individuals, make and build them all, and the sheer number of them just makes that too much of a daunting experience and leads to disengagement. I fear that for many players that will lead to this being a book of inspirations to hobby projects rather than actually played games. Which is cool if that's what you're looking for or the purpose of the book for you, but if its not then I think that's worth speaking to.
This is actually the game that got me into wargaming to begin with while it was still in development. Most of the times I have played it with more than two players. Sure, it's quite rough around the edges, and I have houseruled a few things over time, but I actually like the miniature perma-death. Yes it's sad when your beloved named mini dies. That's the point. Every roll on the shock- or casualty table is extremely tense because of the emotional investment. When someone dies I re-paint or change some part of the mini to signify that it's a new character. I still vividly remember how many of my dear little mutants died, even though I played those games years ago.
I remember being rather more excited by this when I came across it in development also, but I think that might have been because at that early stage I was more willing to make allowances for some things being off.
When playing the campaign with more than two players, how did you balance the final asymmetrical scenarios? Did you have issues with the Doom advancing when not all players were present? Or did you just play with three players during the development when multiplayer was supported and before it was removed for the final release?
I think the issue I have with the permanent death is that the rest of the rules mean that I actually don't have an emotional investment. What I mean is, the rules encourage me to change up what a given mini is or what it represents, what its carrying, what its abilities are, and a given mini doesn't have actual advancement and progress, and those are the things that make me invest emotionally in a given trooper. If Ragnar the ranger with his custom power claw who bravely held off the devourer while his leader escaped is lost, that hurts. If the mini that was Ragnar last week, Vorthos the week before that and Keith this week is lost, I don't have a personal emotional investment in whatisname, I just have a personal time investment in making the mini, and losing that isn't emotionally painful so much as annoying. The game detaches the rules from the mini during the good times, which undermines my emotional investment, then reattaches them during the bad times leaving me with just feel bads. In fact, if I have chosen to keep Ragnar across multiple games, I can still use Ragnar after his "death" result, because the result doesn't pertain to him, it pertains to a lump of metal and plastic which I'm now forced to bin and buy a new one while Ragnar is totally untouched. The game doesn't "kill" Ragnar, because it never creates or advances Ragnar, it just stops me from using a mini I made to represent Ragnar for a session. Again, this is a change from the development version that I don't understand, there, advances were only permitted for a unit that has fought at least one game while in the final release even that level of slight continuity and advancement was removed.
Viewing the game as "innovative but isnt quite there yet" i think is a great thing. Better to be interesting and miss than just a rehash
Yeah, I think its worth looking at and may become an artifact for game designers of a future generation, but as a functionally currently playable game, its not that.
I personally find your review overly harsh, but respect your opinion. I do play Doomed and quite enjoy it. I agree modelling every Horror would be OTT, but I just use various Warhammer Fantasy monsters lying around and it's fine.
Did you try forbidden psalm - an other Tabletop I intend to play this year.
I've taken a look at Forbidden Psalm, it looks fine, but I haven't gotten close to getting it to the tabletop so can't really comment. It seems popular though and the mechanics are standard enough that I can't imagine there's much in it to break.
For the Doomed, I totally agree you could just play with whatever is laying around, my point is that as something designed to encourage kitbashing I think the excess of options have led to it failing in that intended goal. In my opinion, a smaller number of more fleshed out monsters would actually encourage more kitbashing. I believe that a project that no-one expects to complete puts people off from starting it and so the large number of monsters is counter to the goals of the book.
Thanks for the review! I quite liked the Doomed as someone who’s not a big wargamer - it was perfectly suited to a bit of solo fun.
Can’t believe the stick you’re getting in the comments here for sharing your thoughts, so I just wanted to say thanks for the video.
Some of your criticisms absolutely land home with me, like the bit about Horrors having insufficient weight in campaign terms and the Unbound AI being quite frankly dumb in many cases. Some don’t - I *love* the meausureless movement and I resolved the “corners” problem using the game’s “be generous in judging short movements” rule.
But it’s very good to hear a cogent and well-explained critical review.
Thanks for saying so, I do understand people's response though, no-one likes to be told they're "wrong" to like what they like and I think we're driven to believe that differing opinions are opposition.
I really like the idea of measureless movement, I've seen a number of independent games around using it and I think it might be a concept whose time is coming, I'm mostly just disappointed that the first mainstream implementation of it that I've seen requires vagueness at certain points. I've seen some that don't need that and I worry that what can be a very elegant and tight rule will now be seen as something inherently tied to looseness. Particularly, I don't like being generous with measurements when playing something co-op or solo because once you start letting yourself off against the game its easy to let things slide and its hard to know when you're playing in the spirit and just plain giving yourself an easy ride.
Still, glad you had fun with the game, thanks for watching the channel.
academic and harsh review. At least you recommended reading it. It's not a game I expected to pick up and like, I was buying it for its ideas, but I m loving it trying not to bias it as a new thing, I've certainly picked up popular games I've not been engaged with. now I've not kit bashed it, but I have scale bashed 15mm warbands vs same or larger 28mm horrors. I'm not sure if you take out the kit bash the review would me more positive..I'll review soon my self trying to get to a climax of warband or horror , some vagaries in the system but with out beening pedantic about the wording or spiritual goal it's great book. Not different from most ospreys that's could do with a spit and polish in places.
Honestly, this review is a lot more generous that it would have been were it just about my personal feelings and experience of the game. I really tried to go out of my way to give as much benefit of the doubt as I possibly could, but I felt a need to be clear and express my personal experience. I don't think that requesting clear and usable rules from a professionally published premium price product is pedantry, but everyone has their own degree of what they're willing to put up with from things and I can see that if you have a different threshold for that you might therefore get more out of the game.
I was excited to see what flaws you found in his game, as I bought it and want to try play it soon, but I found the review rather unclear.
You say the AI breaks down, but you don't explain how or why, you merely describe the effect the AI breaking down has on play. Reading the book the AI seems intuitive to me, and other folks who I know have played it don't mention it as being a problem, so it makes me consider the possibility you might have done something wrong rather than it being a mistake in the rules.
That feeling that the fault might lie with you and not the game gets reinforced when you claim the book doesn't tell you when the game ends if you play co-op. Because it does. In clear terms. Underneath the header 'Ending the game'. Which you can find by looking at the table of contents at the start of the book.
It honestly made the review a little difficult to take seriously when you make such strong claims without arguing for them, and when making such careless mistakes.
Of course, you don't have to like the game. Your opinion itself isn't wrong or right. But that would be easier to swallow if you didn't formulate those opinions as if they are facts.
In relation to saying that I claimed the book doesn't tell you how to end the game if you play co-op, I assume you're referring to the part around 15:40, where I say that the book doesn't tell you how you *win* the game if playing co-op, which it doesn't. It tells you when the game *ends*, which I didn't say otherwise, rather I said it doesn't tell you how you *win*, which it doesn't. As I said you could assume, and probably should assume, that you win when the game ends if you're still alive, but it doesn't state that. More importantly, It doesn't state if a wiped out crew should feel that they won if the Horror is finally taken out by the other crew, simply that the game ends, which really isn't clear. In actuality there is a possible oddness in the end game conditions in that the game doesn't happen to mention that you should end a co-op game if both player crews are entirely wiped out, again, most people would conclude that they lost and end the game, but it does mean that the ending conditions are incomplete.
In relation to the AI, the simplest issue is what happens when a crewmember who is the closest to the Horror can't actually be reached by the horror, this can be due to being in a building, behind an unclimbable wall or certain special rules. At which point since they have no pathfinding abilities they can be forced to either sit unable to react next to the wall or blip back and forth over the building. As I said in the video, people can take alternative pathfinding solutions, or avoid taking conscious advantage of the problem, but the point is that in a game specifically about hunting deadly horrors, I think they should feel like legitimate independent threats. A more regular problem is that the AI is just a little too easy to kite if you're willing to do so, it moves entirely predictably, with very specific limits such that when playing I found it relatively simple to essentially either neuter it or lead it into extremely one sided ambushes. Since the game suggests a large amount of obstacles, pulling the Horror back and forth through slowing terrain became a real issue for a good deal of the Horrors and often a bit of a rinse and repeat solution. This is to some degree exacerbated by the combination of measureless movement, rangeless shooting and three actions per turn, meaning that many horrors between two high walls with crew outside of them and an obstacle in the middle were effectively done with.
In truth, as I mentioned, I found the review quite difficult, mostly because I didn't want to pull the game apart in a detailed examination of its specific rules failings, which felt out of the spirit of the game and frankly rather mean. I was trying rather to give an overview of my experience of the game and where I found it to have issues. I'm sorry if that came across as an attempt to present my opinion as fact, but it was done to try and not focus in too much on the details of various problems in what I thought would be an unnecessary tear down.
Still, I really hope you enjoy the game, I think there are some very interesting ideas in there, and with some patching and the right will I'm sure its possible to get something out of it. I just want people who aren't willing to make those allowances aware that without some leeway, there are points where the game shows cracks.
Good review, but just a point on campaigns, every single pint-sized campaign for Chain of Command are two player campaigns. Also, not measuring movement has been around since Arty Conliffe's Crossfire in the 1990s and variable (diced for movement) is in every single Too Fat Lardies rules and has been since the early 2000s.
Thanks. I get that narrative, linking game campaigns are two player as standard, but I think its very unusual to have free-form progressive campaigns of this nature as two player only. These aren't a series of linking games telling the story of an ongoing war between two armies, they're entirely free-form, and the only reason for them being two player only is that the concluding scenarios only work for two players, which I think is a very odd and poor choice. The whole campaign has been limited in scope by a single game at the end of it.
I'm aware of Crossfire, but my point isn't that measureless movement is a totally new and unique concept, but that its a very niche and unusual one that is possibly starting to find its voice. Crossfire is a great game, but I think something like The Doomed is shooting at being more mainstream and approachable.
I totally get that diced for movement exists, the issue with it in The Doomed is that with straight line only movement, what should be relatively simple moves become entirely dependent on dice rolls. There's not a sense that you're pushing the limits and achieving something impressive by shooting for those roles, but far more often that you're failing at something that should be relatively straightforward. Worse is the fact that with infinite ranges, quite often failing a second move roll left a third action that was wasted since the risk of even a short move to the wrong side of cover became pointless, additionally due to the pre-move adjustment move.
Thank you so much Glenn for the honesty and candor of this challenging review. I think there may be an over hesitancy in the indy-gaming community to voice criticism of other creators darlings, but I firmly believe that the exercise is of value, and need not be seen as an attack. I agree with most of your points regarding The Doomed, including its value as an example of some things not to do. Some of my favorite rulebooks to read are for games I consider functionally unplayable 😅
Good of you to say. As I mentioned, I really struggled with making a review that could be seen as negative because I do want to be positive about the hobby, and I do think the book is worth reading. Its just that if people are expecting it to be a finished, functional product as soon as they open the book, I think it needs to be clear that they're going to be disappointed. It's certainly a game I think worth pondering, and I'd love to see almost any of the concepts picked up and done with a little more mechanical consideration given.
Agreed, one should never be afraid to give criticism whether that is praise or regret. I am not a fan of the "walking on eggshells" approach to criticism i.e... god forbid you say Y game is lacking in X.
As an aside you see this sometimes with board game youtubers where you get a sense that many board game youtubers never really want to say "I don't like the game" because they are afraid pissing off the publisher and losing access to the newest shiniest KS game.
Cringe take 15 minutes in. I took that rule in the spiirt of humor it was meant to be taken. But to go beyond that, games are great ways to expand the imagination, in some instances even develop the moral imagination. If, again with humor, the ruleset can encourage a person in that direction good on it.
Personally, I didn't find the overall voice of the game to be welcoming and humorous, so if the intention there was one of friendliness, it absolutely didn't come across. As I said, that sort of rule is intrinsic to setting the mode of a given game, setting, rather than following. I think that games absolutely can support, develop and expand the imagination, but you support, develop and expand by giving support, guidance and assistance to players, not by throwing them into a pit and disapproving when they fail to climb out of it.
Thanks for the review.
Your complaints are incoherent and your conclusions are spurious. Your desire to be edgy and negative about the game coloured everything in this review. Your review was a waste of my time and yours.
My conclusion is that people should read the book and its a set of interesting concepts, which I suppose you could see as spurious, but that seems a little harsh on it. I have no desire to be negative about The Doomed, I followed its development and remain excited about its potential. Still, everyone's entitled to their opinion. Maybe if you could explain which of the points specifically you disagree with, I could more easily understand your point of view?
In terms of you considering it interesting and exciting, do you think you'd feel that way if it was released as a blog post and not a published book?
Honestly, not as much, no. I've read several indy games put out as PDFs with things like measureless movement and I think they're really interesting, if this was one of those, I'd just consider it one of the less interesting as the less accomplished of them. That this represents a movement of those ideas towards the mainstream from one of the biggest publishers in this field, I think significantly increases the interest.
@@RuleofCarnage Could you please name them so we can look them up?
@@tmsdnmrk Absolutely, provided you can track them down I'd try and check out Mud Gore, Let the Galaxy Burn and Virtua: Digital War. I've requested the chance to post links directly, but not sure where that will go.
Ya, I really love the idea behind this game. I love just making my own monsters and other units for the game.
It almost feels basic and like it may be missing something, but I'm not a huge wargamer before this game. I've never played warhammer or anything like that, so it could be a lack of experience on my part.
I love painting and kitbashing tho. That's been my focus so far, and I've had huge success so far. Or a feel like I have. The kitbashing is the thing that made me buy it. So I can express my imagination. I have like 6-7 of the horrors already started. I have 1 fully finished, I have 2 almost finished. I deff don't expect to be finished for a long long time. And that's something I like. 1 book is keeping me entertained for so long. It's so good for my Adhd.
That's great that its driving the hobby for you, I'd just have liked to see more encouragement to actually play with them a bit more.
@RuleofCarnage Ya, they need to have a purpose. I'm going to wait till I have everything done to start playing, I think. See how it goes. Maybe add on my own stuff if needed.
@@ReadySetPainter Well, I hope you get to a point where you're happy to have a few games of it sooner rather than later, and I hope you get more out of it than I did.
@RuleofCarnage Ya I might Try some solo stuff. Thanks for the replys!
First rule of a review, start with positives. Here, even the positives at the very back are covered with brown and yellow negativity sauce. I do like the podcast and your rationalization of various games and mechanics, but this review did not make any sense. Sounded like having a personal grudge or something. You got really carried away with such strong statements and wording of those. Did it stole your ideas? :D
For example about movement, taking the test. Yes - it simulates perfectly how a competent fighter under fire moves around compared to a rookie who is stressed and freezes up. Unpredictable movement is always exciting. Also taking corners around building is the most stressful and time consuming thing in tactical movement. But sure, it could have had some simplification to it, but good god -- it never is smooth in combat :D
The other negatives are also made out of thin air. Kitbashing, really? Play with chess pieces. As a rules light game it cannot have unique monsters because it makes rules more complex? This is where the complexity is focused, totally justified. You yourself wanted to add more complexity for the campaign rules. What if it is a perfect amount to be easily playable?
I think that starting with the positives would be rather disingenuous of my overall position on the game, and I honestly tried to take the game on its own basis. I guess if I have an issue with the game its that I was looking forward to it and was excited about it being good. I followed it through development, I appreciated its potential and the game that's come out at the end just doesn't work.
I absolutely disagree that unpredictable movement is always exciting, when it means that bad dice can just result in nothing interesting happening. Movement is fundamental to how players engage with a game, denying players that tool based on random chance simply forces players not to engage with the game and not engaging is, I think, always a bad thing. The problem is that moving around corners isn't stressful, its irritating, to the point where its quicker to move unnaturally in opposite directions than to hug walls offering cover, which is very unlike what would happen in combat. When combatants can move an infinite distance it means that moving around the sides of a building is often better done by running far past it to gain an angle on the other side. The issue is that the randomness doesn't follow with the pressures of combat, there's no connection between it and being under fire, sometimes it happens just walking around in the back field.
The issue with Kitbashing is not that I consider it important, its that the game considers it important. I'm taking it by its own values. I'm not attacking it for my personal issues with its weak list building, poor scenarios or lack of tactical bite, but by its own in that it tells us that its about Kitbashing and then utterly fails to support that claim. The issue with the monsters is not that they're unique and complex but that its complexity that requires constant referencing for very little in return. Complexity in core rules that get engaged with repeatedly are worth the value and allow players to engage and internalize them. Complexity in rules that a player is intended to engage with maybe once remains simply complexity, separate and difficult. Its like the difference between asking someone to learn a single language entirely and use it repeatedly or giving them just a few words, but from constantly different languages, both are complex, but one becomes part of your natural thoughts and way of interacting with the world and the other is just a constant headache.
If you want more concrete and specific problems, the fact that there are set-up tables that refer to previous games with no alternatives for a first playthrough so its possible for the game to literally break before your first set up would be one. That its possible to win the game on your second activation and yet be trapped, particularly having lost, playing for hours after that would be another. Worse, if you play the first scenario twice only the winner of the first playthrough will ever win again since they now have a skill that makes all other deployment rules for the entire rest of the campaign meaningless. That the co-op mode has no win conditions and that the set-up conditions are incomplete. That the enemy AI breaks down when it encounters line of sight blocking terrain. There are plenty of extremely concrete problems with the game, I thought that attacking it on a front that the game seems to be asking you not to worry about would be being unfair to it, and I wanted to give it a chance. I tried to like the game, but it wouldn't allow me to.
@@RuleofCarnage I just ordered the book, so I still have not tried it. If that is your experience, I will wait and see how is mine. But just based on read, I don't see it yet how it could not work. I also consider it rules light game, which means I am OK to fill some of the gaps by myself.
Regarding random chance of doing stuff, I really like when wargame gives "battle friction" and when it is not a perfect information game. Like Hail Caesar or Black Powder have random chance of movement (related to the quality of commander) -- which is pretty similar to this game on a skirmish level. I am hoping your Hobgoblin have some unpredictability as well. If not, it's ok, I have always room for another fantasy rule system :)
Why I am hopeful and positive is perhaps because I take this game as a minimal take on a wargame. Similarly how he has done Into the Odds RPG before. So, it will be particularly loose experience I can play with very casual friend or with kid. I understand it may not be a gamer's game.
I also like the design emphasize the author has taken to make it minimal. Minimal tracking, minimal stats, etc. There are so many hyped indie war games which many have double digit HP counting, or skill lists like playing D&D or something (planet28).
@@Jux925 The issue isn't that there is uncertainty in the actions in the game, the issue is that there is uncertainty without mitigation that forces disengagement. For example, there are missions where the first thing to be done is to destroy certain objectives with attacks, each unit gets three actions, two of which can be attacks, which means that if you are next to the objective with no enemies around, if you miss with your two attacks, your third action is simply useless. You can't take a defensive stance just in case, you can't spend an action to gain mitigation against one of your attacks failing, that third action is simply wasted, its a moment of disengagement. Similarly with movement, if your plan is to move to a safe point, move into combat and then attack, if the second move is failed, that third action is wasted, there's no point moving into combat just to be hit and there's no point moving back to where you came from. The random nature of every second action you try to take repeatedly forces disengagement from the third action, which I think is a negative.
The problem with the design choices against measurement and tracking is that they haven't been taken as guidelines, to avoid tracking unless it makes the game easier and better to play, or avoid measurement except where it opens up the design space. They've been taken and stuck to as absolutes, even where asking for a bit of tracking or including minimal measurement would make the experience smoother or more interesting.
I've honestly tried to approach the game as a casual narrative experience, a rules light, loose game, but that's why I included the fact that you have to constantly flick back to the monster behavior and the scenario requirements. A casual, rules loose game should be one where you can learn or read a set of simple conditions and then play the game. A game that forces you to refer to the rulebook two or three times every turn I think has failed at an attempt to be rules loose.
Its good that you do like the game, I don't want people to have bad experiences. But in the video I stated my problems with a sense of the more ephemeral elements not gelling for me, and you objected that they were too vague and ephemeral and asked for some concrete issues, which I gave, and you've said that you're willing to fill in those flaws and gaps, so it really feels as though there is no problem with the game that you're not willing to overlook. Which is great, but I don't see that as an option for a review. There is no game that can't be fixed if you're willing to overlook its flaws, that's the nature of overlooking flaws, if I found the game to be problematic, which I did, I think I should lay that out in a review, anything else would be dishonest. I was clear about what I found problematic and why, and so people are free to conclude that if those specific aspects aren't a problem for them that the interesting elements, which I still referred to and praised, make it a game worth playing for them.
Ultimately, I hope that you don't have a problem with the game, and if you don't, I can respect that you like it and wish to play it. I did have a problem, multiple problems, which soured the game to the point of unplayability for me, I don't understand why you can't offer that viewpoint the same right to exist.
Very good review!
One of the very few Osprey books I've purchased that I kind of regret. I can appreciate the 'rules-lite' system, but when combined with the crazy 'kitbashing'- it's just doesn't work for me.
I feel like this game's mechanics would be just fine for grabbing some miniatures off the shelf and doing a few games on a slow Saturday with a friend, but the amount of work it seems to encourage just isn't worth it for a game that's mechanically only a few steps above moving around action figures and making shooting noises.
I'll say it like this: It actually feels more like someone's art project with a notional rules system attached to it to justify someone pushing their crafting hobby out as a "game".
I agree, there's a very odd disjunct between the implied level of hobby and the provided amount of tabletop depth. I don't have a problem with rule light systems, but when you have so few rules, there's really no reason for any of them to clash or be unclear, which is an issue here.
@@RuleofCarnage Yep.
And dude, I get it- developing a skirmish game is a LOT harder than you think. There's so many things that make sense when you write it out, but people pick up on stuff quickly and you suddenly realize your whole game is screwed up.
Overall, absolutely none of the horrors tickly my fancy enough that I'm willing to spend the time and effort assembling something that suits the profile, just to play a 20-minute game with it by shooting the three SPECIAL SPOTS and then shooting the monster.
@@elijahherstal776 The thing is, I totally get suddenly realizing that some edge case combination of obscure abilities causes things to get all janky, that happens to lots of games. But the co-op mode having no deployment or win condition rules isn't a weird edge case problem, its the basic elements of one of the core play modes.
With the horrors, I totally agree, for me to want to convert up a whole big monster for a single one shot play session, it has to be really cool and inspiring. I just don't get why there isn't a rule for them to come back, to develop a personality, maybe to grow and change through the campaign. Why are 36 horrors more exciting than 6? Does anyone need or care about that many? I'd rather a few really cool interesting options than a book's worth of options that I glaze over halfway through. For a game that seems to want to be about emergent, organic play, to hand over a monster of the week is such a forced and unnatural choice.
Well, this video isn’t even interesting but it is flawed so the Doomed has that. The Doomed is actually a breath of fresh air in a stuffy hobby full of boring wargames and podcasts.
Well, everyone's entitled to their opinion. Maybe if you could explain which of the points specifically you disagree with, I could more easily understand your point of view?
Thanks for the effort but this whole video's tone was set in the preamble.
SJW wargaming.
I'm sorry, can you explain how you think anything in the review even touches on anything to do with social justice?
How is it SJW? people just throw around terms now and they have no idea what they mean 😂