Entropy City: Making a Wargame

For a long time the mini’s were all just painted to a point of “this will do for now” because obviously that wasn’t be the most important thing at the time but as the game is beginning to reach a point of testing bigger parts I am starting to customer each mini to make them clearer and more disctionct from eachother.

The first part of this was giving the rims different colours to help them look like they belong together, the first group is becoming the official representation for Hades, the Cruiser bike gang and the next stop will be slowly customising them with the proper weapon types, I’m not a scuptor but these are not supposed to be a product, just a proper representationj as things develop to help people with emmersion.

The rims for Hades have been done with a Khorne red just because I felt it fits with their logo.

The second group has been given a bright fluoro green, this might be because I hate myself a little fluoro green is a horrible colour to paint and I cannot stress this enough lol

The Komodo are a Sportsbike gang, and although not all of these models are strictly sportsbikes theyre close enough to look distinctive, this group I’ve also been trying to give them all brighter looking colours though I dont like all of the themes they work for now. I think I like the shirtless guy.

All of this painting has been completed with Speedpaint 1.0 and the limited colour range, I do intend to invest in round 2 but I cant afford to do that right now as my own actual bike is in the shop being worked on.

The other thing Ive been working on over the past couple of days is a series of tokens to help make things easier as well, Im not the greatest of artists and this is all makeshift but for playtesting I think they work well.

These following images are being placed into a webtool to create a proper 25mm token. Below we have the following in this order

Bleeding, Burning, Overwatch, Stopped, Max Stress, Stunned, Complex Action

So after 11 months of work where do things stand?

Thats a very good question, to some extent I never imagined getting this far this quickly, my original goal was to have tha basics of a game by now and I’ve well and truly exceeded that long ago but the deeper I get the more i begin to realise that I have left to do. 90% of the hobby i do is Entropy City focused at this point because as much as i love gaming if i so t work on this how will i ever get it done?

I have a 32 page document that is my current living ruleset, currently in its beta v0.28.4 and will be v0.28.5 by the end of the day, I started labelling every version as people were finding it hard to tell which was the version they had..

I have a tonne of terrain, plenty of which still needs to be primed let alone painted, I have enough bikes for 3 teams maybe 4 (would need to check on that.) I have developed a card to be used to keep track of individual bike stats, this was always a plan but these are very much for play testing, not intended as an actual prototype for the product. I feel that i could start testing the actual faction rules now the only real delay has been me not having transport of my own at this stage.

In an extremely nerve racking decision I submitted Entropy City to be considered for playtesting at PAX Australia, theres obviously no guarantees that it will be accepted but if it is then clearly its a big deal for me. Id also like to build an actual proper table if I can as well but then how I would get it there would be an unknown at this time but I need goals and something to work towards.

Truth be told I’ver been asked this question directly during playtesting a couple of times and my answer had been that it would be treated like everything else but as the game develops honestly, Im thinking that people have a point and I’m now very seriously considering adding a critical fail but before we get there I should probably provide some context fopr those coming across this for the first time.

The basic dice mechanic from my game essentially works like blackjack/21 you roll 2d10 to begin with and add the result together, the 1 is either a 1 or an 11, you will have a target number to reach for a success and your aim is to get as close to 21 as you can without going over. If you don’t roll high enough you have the option to add a further d10 into the test but theres obviously risks involved because if you do go over 21 your rider will crash out of the game. This is the core basics of how the dice  mechanics work and in this context if you do roll snake eyes at this stage in theory you either have 2, 12 or 22 (you would obviously never choose 22).

So obviously the question in the past is whether snake eyes is an automatic failure and it hadnt been as at the time I always wanted someone to feel like they had a chance, that if they push their luck too far they have no-one to blame but themselves. My thought was that snake eyes always becomes 2 without the option any longer, meaning it makes it harder but at the same time if you bust its not an auto fail and its still only your fault for pushing your luck too far.

So thats the thought behind this new rule I have just finished adding (which will obviously need to be tested.

Snake Eyes:

• During any test should your initial 2d10 roll result in double one’s that result is 2, this is the only occasion where you would not have the option to make one of them 11. Your rider instantly gains 1 stress to represent a moment of panic, you may then choose to push your luck as normal
  but for every dice you add to your test your rider takes an additional 1 stress.

  Thoughts: So where as normally a 1 could be either a 1 or an 11 in this case they’re forced to both be 1’s. Adding that extra stress means it becomes a minimum of 3 (maybe more if you already have stress prior to this). If you chose to push your luck then each dice added adds an extra 1 to that stress. I personally don’t like an auto fail which is why I’m trying to find something else that feels similar but without ever really being able to blame the dice for the risks the player took.

Honestly I’ve never written a battle report before but given that during every episode of the XLBS that OnTableTop do Gerry eventually makes a sly remark about how more people should write them I am giving into this imaginary peer pressure, potentially embarrassing myself and I am trying to write a battle report. Is this an exercise in writing Entropy? If so its appropriate, welcome to Entropy City’s first Battle report.

Firstly for those that are not aware Entropy City is a miniatures game I started developing in June last year, a game I’d been planning to develop for at least 9 years prior to that, Entropy City is a motorcycle gang wargame where the criminal element have gained control over the city, currently in its 2nd phase of testing we begin with 5 bikes per side, teams that are completely even, this game is taking place on the streets, most test games are remaining on city streets at this stage but future testing will push the game into other environments on the city limits.

We started the game by each player rolling for deployment and team 2 wins out with a 8 vs 4, our second role was a 9 vs a 1 and team 2 chose to go first, the very first move that team 2 makes is to set up their shotgun rider in front of the overpass, taking a stop action and choosing to put them into overwatch in the hope that someone takes the chance for the shortcut to pay off. Team 1 sends their knuckleduster rider out to the left trying to set up an attack in turn 2 if someone can get close to her within turn 1 then she will attack back if possible. From here the next movement is from the rider with the lead pipe from team 2 who comes along on the same side but isn’t close enough for an attack, team 1 is back and this time it’s their shotgun rider who comes around on the left side, they choose not to stop however and take the risk with an shot at speed 2 and the rider holding the lead pipe is within range. Sadly with only a 16 he wasn’t able to hit the rider however with the experimental rule the shot is close enough to give the rider stress 2. Up next is the knuckle duster rider from team two who stops just infront of his shot gun wheeling friend and then team 1 brings their hammer rider around on the right hand side of the board to try and set something up in turn 2. The chain riders from both teams and a hammer rider joining her on that side keeping everything generally safe team two and team 1 joining her and we finish with the hammer rider on that side of the field to end turn 1. The very last movement of turn 1 however is where team one decides to take a risk, hoping that the partial cover from a car will give them enough luck to pull off a risky move down the centre hoping to steal the first activation in turn 2 to smack their opponent up the side of the head with their lead pipe. Needing a 17 to hit and succeeding on a 21 he gets a lethal shot and the 20 from the lead pipe biker isn’t enough to save it, take risk of pushing their luck one more time and crash out of the game with a final score of 26 to end turn 1 with one rider down.

Turn 2 begins with team 1 scoring first turn with 6 vs 4, the first activation brings team 1’s shot gun rider around the corner to take a shot at the opposing rider’s gun hoping to take it out before it causes any further damage but he misses, needing an 18 and not getting enough to make any impact. From here I starting keeping track of the game at the end of the road instead of every activation, at the end of turn 2 team two had lost another rider and it was their hammer however they had also managed to take out one of their opponents rider as well leaving the current forces at 4 vs 3 in team 2’s favour, that wasn’t all however as team 1’s chain rider was stunned and at risk of crashing out at the very start of turn 3 if things didn’t go well.

The very first activation of turn 3 brought things to a more even keel as the stunned rider shook off their condition and then hit one of their opposing riders from behind for a surprise attack, this pushed the opposing rider to max stress and they failed their dodge to crash out of the game. During turn 3 team 2’s shotgun rider had reloaded his weapon the overpass in the centre of the board was a danger zone at this point with 1 bike from each team having been taking out underneath it, the right hand side of the board was in a similar situation by the end of turn 3 with 3 bikes littering the road and as we moved into turn 3 one rider on team 1 was going to be facing off against two from the opposing team and team 2 had the first activation, one rider had just focused to reduce their stress and brought their knuckleduster rider around to join their friend but team 1’s shotgun rider came from behind attempting to hit their opposing shotgun rider with the butt of their gun (as he was out of ammo) however the attack failed meaning it only stress the rider and was not enough to take them out, from there the shotgun from team 2 came to a stop, focused their shot and pulled the trigger. The final roll from team 2 was a 19 giving them a lethal shot if successful, team 1 rolling a 16 was not going to be enough so they pushed one last time and busted taking themselves out of the game. The battle that had started with 10 bikes ended with only 2, two friends riding off into the streets together having defended their territory from the invading rival gang.

Once the attacks had started they really didn’t stop in this game but from the very moment their rider was taken out early on it felt like team 1 was on the backfoot and was taking a few risks, they almost turned it around a couple of times but ultimately the dice never really was enough to take control of the game leaving team 2 with the victory.

And that’s the game, its fast paced back and forth action with your most almost always on the move, stopping isn’t something you do often as it leaves you vulnerable if someone can get to you while its happening. A fun game at home inbetween other things it went well but theres a lot more testing to get done, phase 3 will be giving the forces their skills and then getting them to balance but we’re not quite ready for that yet.

I’ve been a roleplayer at heart ever since my early teens, in the early days of the internet I enjoyed experimenting with trying to make DnD work online, I ventured into the wrestling e-fed scene and a lot of different things, there was even a time when I had hosted my own roleplaying forum with a number of games running at the same time.

But this is the first time I’ve genuinel;y tried to focus that ‘writing’ into something that I could look at as a complete work and something I could share and might actually become a “real” thing. So my city of Redemption Falls is actually a rework of an older universe I had running back in the day, a universe Im fleshing out now with things more appropriate for the setting and of course with intended depth from lessons I’ve learned over the years.

So with that in mind I’m playing with layouts for map creation, this is not in any way intended to be a final product even really a first draft but its an experiment and something to build on.

• Redemption Falls, the actual name of the city itself, Entropy City might have sounded like a cool city name when I was 19 but I”m a 40 year old man now, Entropy City is the name of the game and likely an insult outsiders use to describe it.
• Vultures Cradle, I’ve always been proud of this name, its the place of birth for one of my oldest characters that is being reworked to be a character within the game, exploring his younger years before he cleaned himself up.
• Island Hills, now this was part of today’s experiment and I like it, this sounds like a name cooked up by a committee trying way too hard to make this area of the city sound rich 😛  This is actuially based on a study of rich area names and average income within them.
• Cliffs Edge, sometimes names of areas within a city or even city themselves are based on some pretty obvious things, so yeah guess what this area borders on.
• The Docks, kinda generic, needs to be updated but then again maybe generic is okay.
• Marina’s Edge, kinda just an experiment I thought it sounded fun, kinda the newer docks that got finished just before ‘the fall’, but I dont want two “edge” names.

So yeah its all about the experiment and the building, I ahve a lot of pictures on my head and as time passes I want to have this fleshed out and then begin layout where everyone is based. I can confirm that the main base of Hades is Vultures Cradle.

Although I’ve been working on this document since June last year and briefly discussed on on an episode of the XLBS this is the first time I am sharing it outside of a very small circle of friends & podcast supports.

From the very start of this project getting worked on I’ve been trying to keep my ‘rules document’ in a readable format, its been through 4 different variations on that format since June. I’ve tried to keep it looking at much like a rulebook as I can to make it right now but there will always be changes as the developement continues.

Its worth noting that a very large part of this document is still yet to be tested, at the time of writing I am in the middle of phase 2 of playtesting which introduced gunplay, wounds and a larger full sized 4×4 table. The next phase would begin to test the actual differences in the factions. Once that feels right I would finally begin to impliment individual stats etc etc.

I still hope this will ultimately become a product but theres a lot of work that needs to happen before I can get to that point and my hope remains high, honestly I’m proud of what has been achieved so far, despite essentially being a nobody I feel like I ahgve something here, its just a matter of getting it right.

So I printed my test cards out at work today, and was disappointed to find that they just didn’t come out looking very clear, I guess that hjust shows my inexperiance with graphic design, most of my experiance has always been with web banners and so forth (unprofessionally) so the fact they wouldnt print as intended hadnt even occured to me but I instantly realised what was wrong.

So it was back to the drawing board and so I simplified my simple design even further and stopped trying to be clever and just stuck with standard text for now, I can make things  look pretty later.

I also changed it to a landscape card design, just because it helped the layout a little, this is about clear easy to follow text, not a final product so I forced myself to keep it simple

Edit: It’s probably worth noting that the painting on these miniatures are quick cheap and nasty its not supposed to be impressing you.

Testing moved into its second phase a couple of weeks ago, this began with a couple of important things.

• The game moved from 3×3 to 4×4.
• Model count went from 3 to 5 each.
• Guns have been introduced.
• Wounds have begun to be implimented.

I had made the decision to move to a 4 foot by 4 foot table some time ago but while I was purely testing the core mechanics it made more sense to help the action come faster because there wasn’t enough in place for full on strategy quite yet. As for the miniatures count well until this point I really wasn’t sure how many models the table was going to be able to handle until things just became too messy and hard to keep up with, I was very happy to see that if anything I could have easily gone 2 more a side which is good as it allows for more room for strategy as the game testing goes through its phases.

The downside I found this time however was keeping track of things, Id realised when leaving home that I didnt have enough counters to keep track of both stress and wounds (without dice literally being everywhere) so I made what I thought was the clever decision to have everyone on 1 wound and one model each side with 2..  Problem was this made the weapons all feel the same because most bikes only had 1 wound anyway.

I’ve kind’ve always likes unit cards in games I know not everyone does but for me it was always a nice touch, and whilst I had played around with ideas I certainly didnt have anything I could just go with at the time but after tossing up a couple of ideas I decided ‘screw it’ and I created some temporary cards purely for testing only. Theyre certainly not pretty but I didnt think they were ugly, they will serve their purpose which is all I needed for now.

It’s worth noting that this is currently labelled as “Team A”.

So basically the larger numbers are to keep track of the speed the bike is moving, you have a picture of the mini to prevent dodgy business, the weapons are the same mix for each team.
Check boxes for wounds and stress, I’ve purposely made these the right size for card sleeves so that whiteboard markers can be used.

Like I said this isnt pretty or supposed to look like a product yet but I felt it works for the purpose. Its a prototype afterall.