After a long hiatus partly due to a pretty severe scooter accident - me being on the scooter - I'm back to the blog with plenty to talk about. Optio makes progress and now incorporates campaign rules which are currently being playtested.
I play Optio about once a week with my playtester chum Peter. It's a mutual back scratch: he plays Optio at my place on Friday afternoon (I knock off work at 1.30pm) and I play Memoir 44 at his place on Saturday evening. It's worked out well so far. I'll do a post on how the campaign rules work and then follow up with several posts on the campaign we're running. Spoiler: it's in classical Greece.
Here's a Rome vs Carthage battle report in the meantime. Carthage (Peter) got a battlefield with good terrain in the preliminary operational game but I was able to pull a fast one on him and win the battle. Enjoy!
Battle report here.
Sorry to hear about your accident, glad your back and posting but hope you're back to 100% soon. I read the battle report at the link and the rules certainly seem to be producing a convincing battle.
ReplyDeleteAny chance of a copy of the rules to try out?
Great to see you back active again Justin and Optio back in gear. Hope to see you on the SoA forum again at some point.
ReplyDeleteWelcome back!
ReplyDeleteThanks guys! (I wasn't actually expecting comments so quickly after posting). Anthony - I'll be back on the forum. It's just about getting my energy back: the accident knocked me for 6, and I feel a bit embarrassed for being AWOL for so long.
ReplyDeleteI see Battle Day is imminent. Ilipa is one of my favourite battles as I'm great admirer of Scipio, the only other general besides Wellington who could defeat a military genius who outnumbered him to boot.
Rob: the rules are pretty much good to go. I'll post you a pdf: email me at justinswanton@gmail.com. Just one thing - you will need players aids as well. I'll do a post on what exactly those are and send you pdfs of artwork. Basically, Optio is entirely magnetised now. You need magnetic sheeting (the stuff you use for fridge magnets) and thin steel sheets e.g. from coffee tins. You can do it with just cardboard but the magnets work really well.
Alternatively for those interested I have a VASSAL module for Optio (well nearly...needs a bit of updating). Anyone want to play online?
Jonathan: ta for the greeting!
BTW I already posted Optio's first campaign game on TMP. You can see it here:
ReplyDeletehttp://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=577505
Indeed, welcome back Justin!
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave. :-)
ReplyDeleteJustin, having read three of your battle reports (and I note you have moved from 2D printed units to 3D figures), I find your system quite intriguing.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with your comments about battlefield terrain choosing in other game systems, especially those of the DBx variety. So I am impressed by your mechanism to create terrain with a pre-game campaign style jostle for position. Very cleverly carried out but simplicity in its mechanism. Your fantastic graphics adds to the quality of the pre-battle game.
Your battle reports (with those really useful photos with graphics) make for interesting reading and a tantalising glimpse into your game mechanics. Is anyone play -testing in Britain and our they doing any participation games at shows? If so it would be good to go along and get a better sense of the game mechanics.
It looks fun, and fast, and you and Peter seem to be enjoying your Greek and Punic wars battles.
I hope to learn more, and hear more about the progress of your game system and its availability.
Carl, dropping in via SoA Forum posts.
Hi Carl, Ta for the positive feedback. 🙂 Thus far I have a couple of chaps in the UK willing to try out Optio on their own but nothing more organized than that yet. I sent them the ruleset, player aids and the army-specific ref sheets they need depending on the armies they have. Players use armies from the army lists they already have. Optio doesn't require its own army lists. I also have a VASSAL module for those willing to play online.
DeleteI'll be posting the second campaign battle in a day or two. This was a really quick game - over in less than an hour.
Anything else you want to know feel free to ask.