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Playtest Philosophy

Playtests are a crucial step in game development.  They are perhaps the most vital.  The purpose of a playtest is simple – it is to find design and play-ability flaws prior to the game being released.  Playtesting isn’t necessarily going to reveal every challenge, though with enough foresight and thoroughness, playtests will uncover most issues before the game is released.

Ages of Conflict began as a home creation to allow us to play battles the way we wanted to play them.  We didn’t have plans to release the rules and so we weren’t concerned with playtesting other than fixing problems as we encountered them.

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Creating Stands for 6 mm Miniatures

6 mm miniatures are mounted on stands for battle.  You can buy quality MDF (medium density fiberboard) stands online from a variety of manufacturers or you can make your own with plastic card, a bit of glue, and hobby knife.

What You’ll Need

  • Plastic Card: You can use small plastic signs for this, though I buy large (8’ x 4’) sheets of 2 mm thick plastic from a local sign shop. The cost per base is much less and gives you a lot of plastic to work with.
  • Spray on Adhesive: You’ll need some spray on adhesive available at hobby and hardware stores.
  • Hobby Knife: A hobby knife is used to cut through the plastic.
  • Ruler: You’ll need a ruler to help stay on track as you cut.
  • Cutting Mat: You may want to use a cutting mat if you need to take care of the surface under the plastic card.
  • Template: You can create your own following the steps below or download some templates we’ve created.  40x40mm, 40x20mm,and 60x30mm.

Steps

  1. Create a template of the stands. I use Microsoft Word to create mine, though any word processing program capable of creating tables should work.  An art program such as GIMP should work also.  Create the cells to match the size of the stand required.  For example, to create 40 mm x 40 mm stands, each cell should be 40 mm x 40 mm.  Create enough rows and columns to fill the entire paper expanding the margins if necessary.  No use wasting paper.

When complete you should have a sheet of paper with rows resembling the below.
  1. Spray an area of the plastic to match the paper size and then carefully place your template on the plastic. Spray on adhesive can be messy, so you may want to wear gloves.  Also make sure to do this in an area where you don’t mind a stray bit of glue.  Flatten the paper out to remove wrinkles.  You don’t need to allow the adhesive additional time to dry – start cutting immediately.

  1. Use a ruler to cut along the printed table lines. I use multiple passes for each line cutting a bit deeper each time.  You don’t need to cut all the way through the plastic; two cuts are usually sufficient.  Make sure to use a sharp blade and be careful.

  1. Next you will need to snap apart each line and column. If you’ve made two good cuts then the plastic should snap easily and cleanly.

 

  1. Done! You now have good inexpensive stands on which to mount your conquering army.

 

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Ages of Conflict Design Goals

Prior to writing a single rule for Ages of Conflict, we decided on how we wanted the game to play.  We wanted to offer a game with consistent purposeful rules, and so it was important that every rule we designed and tested would adhere to our design goals.  If a rule did not fulfill our goals then we either removed it or modified it.

Ages of Conflict is designed with the following goals:

Quick Play

We wanted quick play.  Quick play keeps players engaged in the game rather than having to fill 20 minutes of downtime while their opponent moves all of their units or otherwise decides on what to do.  To help achieve this goal we implemented alternating actions and kept table lookups to a minimum.  Alternating actions results in players being constantly engaged having to activate a unit every minute or two.

Minimized table lookups keeps focus where it should be – on the game table, rather than in a book.

Based on Reality

We wanted the game’s results to simulate historical combat, at least as much as a game allows.  We studied ancient battles to understand how armies and units behaved to ensure the rules model historical combat as we know it.  An element of command and control was implemented as soldiers did not always behave as expected or desired.

Morale is Important

Most battles were lost when discipline broke down resulting in one side fleeing the field.  Ages of Conflict rewards you for putting your units in the best position possible.  Breaking your opponent’s army is the goal rather than slowly grinding them down.

No Overpowered Heroes

We didn’t want heroes capable of taking over a game.  Doing so removes tactics and rewards min/maxing.  Any hero charging into combat on their own should expect to lose.

Flexible

We wanted Ages of Conflict to be flexible.  It was important to not limit the genre or scale of the game.  Our goal was to construct a core set of rules that would work with ancients, fantasy, American Civil War, Napoleonics, World War II, and sci-fi.  We also wanted rules that we would scale to allow battles as high as the brigade level down to individual companies, squads, and platoons.

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Why play 6mm

Miniature wargames are available in a wide variety of scales with all of them having their own benefits. Here are just a few of the reasons 6mm games have advantages over the others.

Larger Battles

6 mm gives you the feel of epic battles rather than large skirmishes or raiding parties.  Your units look deeper and you can field many more miniatures on a decent sized game table.  Armies don’t look like large raiding parties or skirmishes.  Rather they give the impression of a true battle.

Affordability

The scale is much more affordable.  A complete 6mm historical or fantasy army can be purchased for less than $100.  Although addiction to 6mm may drive that cost up.

Diversified Terrain

If you like terrain, then 6mm is the scale for you.  Rather than placing only one or two buildings, your battlefield can easily hold a small (And affordable.) village assuming you have the table space.

Less Painting More Playing

6mm does not give you the same painting options as 28mm.  The size of the miniatures does not permit the same level of detail and painting miniatures that small to a good standard isn’t easy.  However, if you are more concerned with playing than painting, then 6mm is perfect.  All your miniatures require is a basecoat, maybe a highlight or two, and a wash/dip, and you are done.  This does not mean you cannot paint at a high quality with 6mm as you certainly can, particularly with larger more monstrous figures, such as giants and dragons.

Quick Set-Up and Easy Transportability

6mm is quick and easy to setup, particularly if you are not using casualty removal.  6mm armies require much less storage space.  You can often fit an entire army in a 12″ x 12″ container.  This also makes transporting 6 mm easy.

 The Scale of Weapon Capabilities

The ground scale is much more realistic.  You do not have to resort to artificial (And often ridiculously.) short ranges for weapons.

Playing Surface Diversity

The space required to play can be much smaller – as little as 2′ x 2′ if using smaller armies.  Larger tables permit more terrain and more maneuvering.

More Engines of War

You can field many more vehicles than you can with larger scales.  Rather than one or two tanks or chariots, you can field dozens.

Wide Assortment of Army Options

All the popular genres are available in 6mm – ancient to medieval, fantasy to historical, Napoleonic, the American Civil War, World War II, and sci fi.