Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Frank Gilson]

Wesnoth is a good game, basically...and a tremendous effort by a group of volunteers...especially as it runs on almost anything.

Yet, it does run into game design 'issues'...which we may call out as flaws?

1) It uses leveling up for your units.
This is at face great. Your units aren't just faceless masses, but can now improve through use. They cost more gold to maintain at higher levels. All fine. So what's the problem? Oh my when one of your leveled up guys dies that sucks...you can't get them back. This leads to lots of saving/resaving/reloading and overly cautious play to preserve special units, especially across different campaign levels.

2) Your leader must remain on the keep tower in order to summon more units.
How am I supposed to fight with and level up my leader if I have to keep it in one place? Sure, presumably I can 'learn' what the 'ideal' army size is and also try to direct or permit some enemy near my keep...but that's far from ideal, especially concerning beginning players.

3) There's no mechanism to resurrect dead leaders/heroes, and in fact campaign defeat conditions often include their loss.
We learned during Warcraft III development that this sucks sucks sucks. People want to play with their named/powerful/key units...and they will lose them. Losing the game or never having use of that hero again is terrible and frustrating. Some 'resurrection' method needs to be in the game design.

[Ewan McNay]

Boy are we off-topic here . And in a rare display of lawfulness, I'll hence refrain from continuing the discussion... seriously, we should probably take this to -

- wait, there *is* no place, now. On the YahooGroup, it'd have been in the realm of general chat, but there's no such forum here. Well, in that case ...

...well, just to note that the features Frank sees as flaws are good things to me: there's a reward for skill (in e.g. levelling units, maniulating the battle-line, retiring wounded troops, and so on) and a penalty (you lose) to make it have a point . Probably a 'ymmv' case, though.

[Ambrose Coddington]

[machiavelli]

As mentioned before, prime with a plastic specific primer.

1. Krylon Fusion
2. Rustoleum (same as Krylon, sorry don't know the name of the product)

Have also heard that watered down white glue/PVA helps paint cling and is flexible to avoid chipping.

Scott's Minwax technique would also help with chipping. If you don't want the darkening effect, just get the clear and coat the figure after you have finished painting. The water based one will also really cut down on the fumes in your house. The clear can also be mixed with you own dark colors to get the the 'dip' effect with your own desired shade using inks or paints.

I am curious as to what brands are the larger HO scale plastic figures mentioned? Using plastics would certainly ease the price of entry to the NASAMW.

A sore subject to be sure but there are many more folks that have 15mm figures and they are looking for other rules systems to play in. Plastics may be the best way someone with a limited budget could participate in 25mm tournaments. The price of most 'modern' 25/28mm figures really makes the barrier to entry in this scale prohibitive to a good amount of our potential gaming population.

[wargame692000]

Another method that works resonably well on the 1/72 plastics in un-diluted PVA. Simply brush it on thickly as a varnish. It dries clear and hard.
It also works well on weapons of lead minis too.
Paul

[Ambrose Coddington]

Heh.
The major drawback to using any non water based paint system is the fumes. For painting plastics it really is the best way though. Trust me I have tried all the techniques mentioned above. Testors remains the best in my opinion.

As for the PVA idea... As a base coat I think it is really terrible. It tends to muddle the details really badly. (OK not so badly but I hate ANY detail loss)

The only thing I haven’t done is use PVA as a gloss coat. Sounds interesting. I wonder if it is comparable to a simple varnish coat? Or a lacquer based gloss coat? (They make ones that remain flexible)

Another note:
Don't be afraid to mix your mediums. Acrylics will stick to lacquers. Lacquers will stick (Though not as well and wind up very fragile) to acrylics.