Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

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helling3r
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Joined: April 11th, 2019, 7:16 pm

Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

Post by helling3r »

Hello everybody,
my son and i had the idea to make another attempt at an wesnoth board game version, and just a few minutes ago, i uploaded the result to github.
The result is already playtested alot and i think it catches the spirit quite well.

=> https://github.com/hbeni/wesnothBoardGame

(don't be afraid of the german file names - there is an english readme as well as an english version of the players board)

I was quite aware of the other attempts ([1], [2], [3],[4]),
so whats different here?

We stripped it down to the main aspects, which are (in our eyes) rock-scissor-paper fights and terrain playing a huge role. Its really simplified so it is fun and fast to play. So there is currently no experience system, but also no heavy calculations, not much unit types, not all terrain types.
This allows the player to grab the system quickly, whilst it is still relatively similar to the main game.
The available unit types already give a diverse tactical depth and the terrain types also allow for interesting combats to envolve.

All that is needed to play is a ten sided dice (online/app does fine, but i prefer a cheap physical dice), the material printed out and some paper-clips.
For our first edition, we glued the terrain tiles and units to different cardboard types and this actually works quite well.

There are just three things to track:
- The units health is tracked on the unit cards using paper clips (in the color of the player; kings are marked additionally with another color; we choosed yellow).
- The gold is tracked via a small marker (in players color, we borrowed some thread beads from my daughter)
- Village ownership is also marked with a small thread bead in the players color

Our next plans are to make some predefined maps that will be glued to foldable cardboard, so its much faster to setup and more fair balanced.



It would be nice to hear your opinions. :)

Here a picture our most recent battle:
Image
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fire-emblem
Posts: 23
Joined: April 16th, 2020, 5:59 am

niceeeeeeeeee

Post by fire-emblem »

simplicity > complexity

digital > paper

would be cool if someone or some team made a physical game where ppl play it physically like tag, or hop-scotch, etc.

but change it up, wesnoth would be so boring to play physically in it's current version/game design
helling3r
Posts: 33
Joined: April 11th, 2019, 7:16 pm

Re: Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

Post by helling3r »

Just to note, i found a bug recently with the nahe attacks. Swings and damage was swapped and of course meant the way the original game concept did it. The source material was updated recently.

Meanwhile i also made some predefined maps in A3 paper size, for two and four players.
Further playtesting did not resolve to the need for adjustments so far, so i now get really confident that the rules and units already are stable.
One of my greater concerns is/was the mage, because he had really great attacking power. It turns out to be a crucial element to seize fortified positions, but he also dies more easily than in the computer game. Supporting him is really crucial.
He turned out not to be overpowered however, because massing them leads to loosing easily against a bunch of cheap fighters. I‘m glad i could rule out this concern by testing.
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helling3r
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Re: Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

Post by helling3r »

I did some cosmetic updates; mainly i added a polished german manual.
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xer
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Re: Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

Post by xer »

I didn't have anyone to play with me, so I tried it out against myself:
IMG_20200613_013737.jpg
I like it. It feels like Wesnoth, but isn't too complicated. My biggest problem with it is how annoying it is to look up the stats. I have that problem with the digital version too, but at least there I have the computer to calculate everything for me. I think I'd like to have a deck with reference cards for all the different units, if it's well designed it could make a big difference. I might try something if I find the time+motivation.
helling3r
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Joined: April 11th, 2019, 7:16 pm

Re: Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

Post by helling3r »

Cool!

Our experience when playing was, that the stats got relatively fast into memory since there are not so much units.
It is alot more easy if you don’t play alone because you can quickly ask your ally (so in theory both just need to know half the stats).

Did you print out the players card we made? (Spielertafel in the git repo)?
Do you feel we can improve something there?


Thanks for playing and sharing!
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xer
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Re: Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

Post by xer »

Yea, that's true. If I played someone else I wouldn't have to constantly refer to the Spielertafel to check if I remembered correctly.

I think the biggest improvement would be to put all the movement stats together. I'm thinking something along the lines of this:
image5082-4.png
(btw I'm German as well, just talking English to be polite to everyone else here. If you want to talk in German somewhere else, that's certainly an option)
turboturman
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Joined: April 6th, 2023, 1:27 pm

Re: Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

Post by turboturman »

Playing against yourself sounds interesting. Maybe I should try it since I can't find someone to play with.
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Atreides
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Re: Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

Post by Atreides »

Where did you get the figurines from? The villages I could use my Monopoly houses for. Hmm actually I could use my scale knights for this. Don't have any ghouls or elves or dwarves though.

Did you mean one of those new 3-D printers I've heard of? Hehe, I am still using a 1989 IBM Laser Printer (yes it still has toner, don't ask me how) and I have a newer colour (oh fancy) HP one which is out of ink after printing a dozen pages it seems. Darn thing is cheaper than the replacement ink. Oh wait, was free gift from my sister.
woross
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Re: Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

Post by woross »

I really like the use of paper clips.
xer
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Joined: June 13th, 2020, 12:10 am

Re: Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

Post by xer »

Atreides wrote: April 6th, 2023, 5:57 pm Where did you get the figurines from? The villages I could use my Monopoly houses for. Hmm actually I could use my scale knights for this. Don't have any ghouls or elves or dwarves though.
They're from the War of the Ring board game by Ares Games. Fantastic asymmetric strategy game if you have a lot of time and someone to play it with. And of course perfect for this, great coincidence that all the major factions of Wesnoth just happen to be in Middle Earth as well.

The minis come in blue and horrible neon orange though, and painting them is no easy feat (my current progress: 168/204)
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Atreides
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Re: Wenoth board game released (yet again!)

Post by Atreides »

xer wrote: August 24th, 2023, 2:35 am
Atreides wrote: April 6th, 2023, 5:57 pm Where did you get the figurines from? The villages I could use my Monopoly houses for. Hmm actually I could use my scale knights for this. Don't have any ghouls or elves or dwarves though.
They're from the War of the Ring board game by Ares Games. Fantastic asymmetric strategy game if you have a lot of time and someone to play it with. And of course perfect for this, great coincidence that all the major factions of Wesnoth just happen to be in Middle Earth as well.

The minis come in blue and horrible neon orange though, and painting them is no easy feat (my current progress: 168/204)
Sounds neat, big Tolkien fan here.

As for painting, I know that, as a youngster I built scale plastic models of planes, tanks & ships but painting them, well I passed. They did usually come in reasonable plastics such as grey or green! Can't imagine why they chose to make those minis from such odd colours. One brand of model makers (Matchbox) even went so far as to make the plastic parts in 2 carefully chosen colours so as to look like camouflage so that painting was optional.

I can speculate that blue and orange were to represent the two sides of the war in middle earth. And... it still makes no sense. : ) Black vs White (to use Tolkiens symbolism) yes but wow.
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