War | Maker

question

#1

Magandang Araw!

Newbie here from the Philippines. Planning to start a war with my friends.

Could you guys share your opinion or ideas about the War | Maker game?

Thanks…


#2

This is long but I really like War Maker:

If you are a Warhammer player in general, https://onepagerules.com/ is typically the preferred method of tabletop war gaming at the moment (or so I have heard) and Runehammer did a lot of their art.

With that said, I personally like War | Maker because it is more fluid and you create more of a skirmish type environment played over several battles to tell a story. It is more about making the purpose of the war make sense while having a fluid tabletop experience.

You take a sheet of paper and create 3 scenarios two enemies fight to achieve. If you decide that team 1 can win if they achieve scenario 1 objective and said team achieves said objective, then that’s it. War over. If team one does not achieve that objective, the war continues to the next scenario. You are limited only by your own creativity when it comes to designing your own War. The game includes several scenario examples and paper miniatures for you to play.

I prefer the mechanics of War Maker to 40k. You aren’t dealing with STATS you see in something like warhammer. You also don’t have to track wounds.

Instead you build out your skirmish team with TAGS which are abilities that impact your D6 rolls. This makes it less of a ‘you roll to hit – you roll to damage – your opponent rolls to block – remove opponent miniatures’ to more of a ‘you roll to hit – remove enemies you hit.’ Occasionally a TAG will impact your roll to hit result with a possible re-roll but this never feels like a drag on the action; it is still super fast and clean.

3 tiers of units; troops (6 models per), elites (single model), and heroes (single model). The difference in the units is the number of D6 they roll to attack, the number of hits it takes to kill them, and the number of tags they can have assigned. Each unit has 3 reinforcements – they can come back into the battle up to 3 times over the course of the entire war scenario. This means in the first scenario, if you use one of your troops to come back 3 times and they die each time, you can’t use them any more in future scenarios. This adds an element of resource management I find really cool.

I personally have an army of humans made up of the Starks from my CMON – A song of ice and fire starter box and an army of undead from my Zombiecide Black Plague box. The undead consist of all troop units but have a special TAG – for every enemy they kill they add a new zombie to their ranks. To balance this out, the zombie troops do not have reinforcements; they are a one and done unit type.

I also occasionally use the necromancer from the box who can ‘Summon more zombies’ (roll a D6 and create a troop within pencil range of that many new zombies). He also has other TAGS taken direct from the book but given a name change to be more thematic to the dark magic vibe.

It basically means you can take miniatures from anything you already own and slap together an army without having to go off the deep end with new miniature purchases. You can also tweak the TAGS into new ideas or keep the existing TAGS but rename them.

It takes very little time to set-up and when you play, it feels more dynamic. If you want to split your troop of 6 into 2 groups of 3, you can do it. If you want 2 troops of the same type to combine into a massive group of 12, go for it. When you hit a gray area at the table, don’t rule dive. Come up with a solution that feels right and run with it!

The game isn’t about the rules per say; it is about the flow of the actual War and the story you are crafting as you play it.

It is hard to give a review without giving away too much of the mechanics while also giving an honest opinion of why I like it more than traditional War games. It isn’t intended for competitive head-band try-hard rule-lawyers; it is more of a shorts and flipflops with a ‘I totally just chopped off your leader’s head and put it on a stick’ vibe. In place of a ruler where you calculate inches… You use a pencil. Like a literal pencil. I hope that helps you in your decision process :slight_smile:


#3

I haven’t really done any tabletop war games so I was kinda intimidated by all the rules, I would definitely give this a try.
Also, I dig the ASOIAF might as well recreate the Battle of Winterfell.

Thank you! :smiley:


#4

Yep – all ICRPG related products, to me, are the best when it comes to the rules. B knows how to get rid of excessive words and pair it down to just what matters. Again – this is a bit gray sometimes but when my son and I play tested the system, gray became organic based on what felt right. We pretty quickly started making up our own TAGS but started with the print and play stuff which has pre-defined troops already worked into them.

It is for sure more fun with miniatures over paper print outs but it is super cool that it comes with paper printable stuff. You can be up and playing pretty quick. The song of ice and fire miniatures are awesome and while the game is cool, it also has a lot of rules. I liked being able to take 6 winterfell archers and 6 soldiers for troops, 1 of each horse model as a hero, and Greatjon Umber as my elite. Then all the zombie walkers, runners, and the fat guys in 6 troops each as the spreading undead horde.

I would suggest buying it, printing and creating your paper miniatures with their war band information, and running a few solo games against yourself just to get a feel for it. It sounds silly but was actually pretty exciting… The war on the table can shift quick. Also keep it small when you get started – like 3 units to a side. With the reinforcement rule, that’s 9 possible units per side in a single fight.