Don't know if this floats anyones boat, but I saw this in the latest NZ DBMM newsletter which is complied by a gaming friend of mine.

DBF Announcement
WRG is excited to announce the development of a new rule set for fighting the great battles of fantasy literature and film, with the working title of 'De Bella Fantasia'.
Based primarily on DBA v3.0, along with elements of HoTT and including reflections on nearly ten years of play testing of v3.0, these rules add an expanded list of elements that include Heroes, Mages, Clerics, Beasts, Behemoths, Warbows, and Great Flyers. This rule set covers fantasy troop types alongside most of DBA 3's historical types. Magic is featured through the casting of spells and rituals.
Armies are built through a points system and games usually feature around 36 stands of figures per side, with each army split into 2-3 commands, reminiscent of Big Battle DBA, though smaller and much larger battles are certainly possible.
Included are a large number of army lists, two different campaign systems, and many diagrams interwoven with the text, which demonstrate and explain game play.
Designed to appeal both to the new player looking for an excellent, playable fantasy tabletop game and the seasoned DBA player looking to expand his game play into the realms of fantasy, DBF features an easily learned, and quick playing game, with surprising tactical depth.
The DBF development team is looking for groups of people to play test this great new game. To apply to become a play tester, please contact one of the following authors via email:
Joe Collins (mythicheroesandlegends@gmail.com)
Tom Thomas (DBFThomasThomas@gmail.com)
Paul Murgatroyd (pmmurgatroyd@aol.com)
Or post on the Fanaticus website: fanaticus.board.net or via the DBA or DBA/HOTT Facebook pages.
Play testing groups will be limited, so serious inquiries only, please.
Joe, Paul, & Tom


 

WRG's Latin was bad enough in Barker's day. I see it appears to have deteriorated yet further.

Meow !!

QuoteWRG's Latin was bad enough in Barker's day. I see it appears to have deteriorated yet further.

Gone to the dogs you could say Kitty? 

It seems to me like a very 'odd' rules launch, as WRG has the 'Hordes of the Things' (HoTT) set of rules, which are widely regarded as probably the best smaller scale fantasy set of rules in the entire hobby.
They have been around for decades now, virtually unaltered, as the original mechanism work so very well.

Reading the launch info above - I'm not sure what is really being added to the basic HoTT format?
I suspect that it will be the addition of the more (& IMHO unnecessary) over complication of additional troop types/classifications for the basic unit types - as introduced in the recent DBA relaunch - added to the core HoTT unit types and mechanisms.

HoTT's great attraction was its simplicity, that allowed a player the scope to interpret troop types into a deliberately very limited set of unit definitions. For example: a Behemoth unit could be a troop of trolls or equally an elephant or a Swiss pike kiel or even a battering ram. It was all about how the unit performed rather than any real specifics about what it was. The recent DBA changes have seen an attempt to drift towards the older WRG unit classifications - so the length of a spear suddenly mattered (as to whether it was a short or long spear or a pike). Add that overcomplexity to HoTT and you'll ruin a very straight forward and 'beautifully' balanced set of mechanism.

To me, this is a classic case of "if it aint broke, don't fix it!" and echoes some of the recent changes to DBA where the rules have been 'shanghaied' by a small group of players who seem intent on over complicating something that broadly worked really very well.

Hopefully this wont be the end of the thriving HoTT 'scene' across the UK?
Mark
PS: apologies - the above reads as a 'rant' but mucking about with a much loved wargaming 'institution' such as HoTT is a 'dangerous' thing!!!

QuoteWRG's Latin was bad enough in Barker's day. I see it appears to have deteriorated yet further.

Its English was equally incongruous.


I was going to mention Hordes of the things, but big Insect got there first.

So I'll leave you with a through on the DB* systems in general.
There have been many custom versions of DBA for different element count and historic era.
These have provided god examples of ways to break the game.

Very briefly: 

Add an excessive number of troop types.
This disrupts the elegant "rock, paper, scissors" match ups of DBA, leading to odd or random outcomes, depending on your play style.

Play with too many elements.
This dilutes the importance of any particular clash, smoothing the outlying results.
It generally favours the force with the better "quality" (ie biggest combat factor) elements.

Is this really a 'WRG' launch - where's Phil Barker's imprimatur?

And the fanaticus.board.net link doesn't work for me.

I always thought HoTT was Fantasy DBA, so can't see the need to 'replace' it. Never could get past the Barkerese of the rules, which is a shame as they seem to offer so much .

I just thought that the news might be of interest to some gamers so cut and pasted the article, but the link in the original post does not work either 

A few minutes of searching located the correct one: https://fanaticus.boards.net/forum

Thanks Pierre - it is very helpful

It seems that some players have a need to alter or adjust just about every set of rules they play with, regardless of the impact it has on other established players.
I see that it is primarily a request for a play-testing group - so it will be interesting to see what comes out of it all.

Cheers
Mark

HOTT v2.0 is >twenty years old (2.1 is just a very minor rule update, some new army lists and a bit of a re-org). Blitzkrieg Commander has gone through 4 versions in the same time frame.

Thanks to Pierre for bringing this to our attention.

I'm not against upgrades of rules (despite sounding like I am).

It just seems odd to bring out a Fantasy DBA set of rules that is so close to HoTT in its basic concept. This might however reflect a distinct difference of opinion between those advocating change to HoTT and those resistant to it.
I'm aware that there has been a long-standing schism between the DBA 'revisionists' who want to evolve DBA to accommodate more troop types and the 'purists' who say that it is over complicating things unnecessarily. But I wasnt aware that this had seeped over into HoTT (or maybe it hasn't and these are the same sub-group of disaffected DBA players).

I think that there was previously a Fantasy variant/supplement of the larger scale WRG (DBM) rules - for fighting much larger battles, and that makes sense. But what is being proposed currently almost looks like a blatant 'attack' on HoTT.

I'm certainly not where to deny anybody else's choices.

I spent an hour looking at that DB* forum.
I left thinking "Once we had a viable six page ruleset. Where did it all go wrong".

Now I'm a minimalist at heart.
I prefer Elvis at Sun studios heading a three piece band to his Vegas residency with a big band.
And I take a similar view of rules

I do wonder whether all "simple" ancients rules are destined to undergo the doom of a thousand well intentioned amendments.

I enjoyed Basic Impetus, but now Impetus is a 5 volume behemoth.

I enjoyed original DBA for a while, but was horrified by the cunning geometric tricks, and suggestions for extra trop types on the forum.

I never played To The Strongest, but admired the vision of straightforward troop classifications and combat resolutio as fast as a game of snap.
Then the amendments began: Extra deep, super deep and ultra deep phalanx. Massed lights, combined lights.....


I enjoy the elegance of a light system.
The "Community" always seems dominated by the "Let's make this more complex" brigade.


No condemnation implied here.
More an observation of the direction crowds will move a project.
And the challenges this poses to rules author's original vision.

QuoteThe "Community" always seems dominated by the "Let's make this more complex" brigade.

No condemnation implied here.
More an observation of the direction crowds will move a project.
And the challenges this poses to rules author's original vision.

I think to a fair degree this is the nature of internet discussions - if you think something should be added to a ruleset you will be happy to post about this and expound on it as an idea.

If you think that the rules are fine as they are, you may not even bother finding the forums for discussion, and there is only so many times you can be bothered to post 'its fine as it is'

With wargames rules (and some board games) there seems to always be something else that could be added, that will make the rules 'better' - typically to further model a specific situation. What is very hard is to objectively asses that idea, to determine if it really is adding something that the game needs, or is it simply adding complexity.

QuoteI think to a fair degree this is the nature of internet discussions - if you think something should be added to a ruleset you will be happy to post about this and expound on it as an idea.

If you think that the rules are fine as they are, you may not even bother finding the forums for discussion, and there is only so many times you can be bothered to post 'its fine as it is'

With wargames rules (and some board games) there seems to always be something else that could be added, that will make the rules 'better' - typically to further model a specific situation. What is very hard is to objectively asses that idea, to determine if it really is adding something that the game needs, or is it simply adding complexity.

Very true.
It's also very easy to bolt on a new mechanic, increasing the entropy of the rules.
It's much more difficult, and energy intensive, to streamline rules into a more elegant form.

Wargames; obeying the second law of thermodynamics.