Eden Studios' Fields of Blood... is it good?

[Psion]

Cry Havoc does not have miniature rules to support large battles. This is a damning flaw of that product.

No, it isn't.

Why would you WANT miniature support for armies that big. I would say a daming flaw would be if a system TRIED to shove support in for armies that big using minis.

 

[Creeping Death]

*snip* There wasn't really a lot of room in the book as it stands, but I may flesh those notes up and either give them to Eden to put online, or add them to the 2nd Edition of the book.

*snip*

Statements like that from the main author just tell me to basically not buy the book until the 2nd edition of the book come out. Sounds like a great book tho.

 

[Tzeentch]

Well, since D&D doesn't address this for normal PCs, I don't know why you would expect FoB to. HERO and Ars Magica have rules for fatigue and combat.

-- Because all battle systems require abstraction and special rules to handle situations at that level. Basic D&D also lacks much in the way of "morale" rules, but any serious mass-combat system will have new rules for handling unit morale and reformation. Having some way of realistically (or semi-realistically) handling issues that come up in real life (based on historical writings, rather then the ludicrous notion of fighters moving around in rigid Warhammer Fantasy blocks and fighting from sunup to sundown without rest or even water) seems like an good point to cover. The Miniatures Handbook has some serious eye-rollers when it comes to handling morale and command, I'm hoping Fields of Blood has some better info and systems.

 

[mattcolville]

Statements like that from the main author just tell me to basically not buy the book until the 2nd edition of the book come out. Sounds like a great book tho.

You do what you got to do. I wouldn't hold my breath for a second edition, as far as I know there are no plans for one.

 

[mattcolville]

FoB:BoW is designed to present a solid enough framework to hang almost any additional detail you could want onto. And if I ever wrote any sentence that clumsy in a paid assignment, I'd never roll dice in this town again.

That's one thing up with which I will not put.

 

[johnsemlak]

Review of FoB, here:
http://www.enworld.org/reviews/inde...tive&reviewer=JoeGKushner&product=eden_fields

 

[d4]

Why would you WANT miniature support for armies that big. I would say a daming flaw would be if a system TRIED to shove support in for armies that big using minis.

traditionally in wargames at that scale, each figure on the board will represent an entire unit. you're right -- once you get up to armies in the hundreds, thousands, or more, it's pointless to try to show every individual soldier. but it is eminently possible (and often quite fun) to do miniature battles with armies of that size.

however, these types of wargames will have rules that are very different from 1:1 scale wargames, so i can see why a book that had already devoted plenty of space to that scale probably wouldn't have rules for larger scales.

 

[NewJeffCT]

OK, I read through the book a bit more last night and it seems to be pretty good. I had originally said it was like Warhammer d20, as Warhammer is also turn-based game based on units that can include powerful characters or monsters. Actually, a better comparison would be something like the PC strategy game Medieval Total War (one of the few PC games I know, so don't ask me if it's like Game A or Game B)

I still will have to give it a more thorough reading, but I do like some of the ideas in the book and how they went out integrating d20 and mass combat, and the awarding of values to units seems to be pretty fair. I'll have to read more thoroughly how they integrate weapon size into combat (i.e., historically, a unit with long weapons like pikes is designed primarily to fight cavalry, while a unit with regular weapons like swords is designed to fight units with long weapons so the cavalry can take out the opponent's sword & archer units)

 

[Arnwyn]

No, it isn't.

Why would you WANT miniature support for armies that big. I would say a daming flaw would be if a system TRIED to shove support in for armies that big using minis.

Absolutely, Psion - I totally agree.

Miniatures for large armies? Inappropriate. Any system that relies on a large number of miniatures is most certainly flawed (within a D&D game, of course).

 

[Silveras]

You do what you got to do. I wouldn't hold my breath for a second edition, as far as I know there are no plans for one.

I think "second edition" might have been a poor choice of words. I can see the value of a companion volume exploring more options. Perhaps some more cultural settings, along the lines of the Decadent society JoeGKushner was suggesting; and more realm spells, as I was suggesting. Such a volume could expand on some areas, like offering ways to make the Guilds more active players in the political scene of Fields of Blood, and offering simplified record-keeping for NPC realms.

The reason I say that a companion volume might be a better view is because I do not see any major flaws in the systems presented. Other books in this vein have shown "cracks in the foundation" when used to describe an active world. Fields of Blood does not have that problem, making it a solid foundation on which to build. I am far more comfortable adding house rules to extend a solid framework than to fix a flawed one.