Dogs of War (Online) - The hexagons strike back

[Falconeer]

http://www.dogsofwar-online.com/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/219700/


This is a gem, and it is free to play. Straight from the board game Confrontation of the now defunct French game company Rackham, here comes what you could call multiplayer Blackguards but you would be wrong. Whereas that is taken from Das Schwarze Auge (an RPG) this is taken from a miniature game so the rules are pretty much 1:1 from the boardgame, and it has that Warhammer tabeltop feeling with Army Values and lots of visible dice rolls with a million of line of sight, distance, and movement modifiers that are so familiar to the Blood Bowl people (this is, in fact, done by Cyanide, but it doesn't even look like the same company based on what I've seen so far). It also feels like what Banner Saga Factions should/could have been but failed to be.

Army composition is part of the fun since you don't have to have even numbers. As expected you can field as many units as you want, since the only limit that matters is the Army Value you will field, and units have a different AV based on their class/role/size/power and even levels and talents. You have to pick between three factions with strenghts, weaknesses, and different units, and your mercenary company gains money and experience through the matches so there's an element of persistence and managing that -again- summons the best elements of Blood Bowl. There's only three "race" as of now, but at least nine should be the final count. This is only open beta after all.

The game is focused on PvP, there is no PvE except for training missions (EDIT: But it looks like you can actually use PvE to train your characters and get them levels... weird), and while there doesn't seem to be any Tournament tools yet, there's a ladder where you can track your progress. When you set up a PvP match you can pick the Army Value limit you want to use, so supposedly you can always get a fair match.

There is a real cash store where you can buy cosmetic stuff or whole premade companies, sets of "miniatures", and even preleveled characters with XP or coin bonuses which is annoying but usual for free to play games. As long as there's an AV that is correctly represented, and different AV brackets to play with, this shouldn't translate to Pay2Win.

It seems worth more than a look.

[Ghambit]

I didnt play King's Bounty because I loathed the art style.  This one seems a tad better; I'll give it a shot.

[Ingmar]

Will definitely be giving this a look.

[Ghambit]

Preliminary thoughts:  this is very good, especially if you're a skirmish minis gamer. 

[Hoax]

Is it?

250AP is not shit in Confrontation. With most armies I'm pretty sure you get 250AP with under 5 minis pretty easily. I'm not really sure what you are even supposed to do when you start out. Grind something? Cash shop something? Why do mini's seem to level up?

It seems functional, hell probably less buggy than BloodBowl but I'm not really sure where the fun is.

[Falconeer]

Grind? It's a boardgame and as such you are supposed to play against other people, not "the computer". You don't grind, you play against other people (because it is supposed to be fun) and in the process you get the tools to customize and bolster your armies. In fact, you get the more coins to buy additional minis by playing against other people. Training vs. the AI yields very little coins and sadly the same is true if you play vs. friends as opposed to use the matchmaker to get a random opponent. Even at 250 AP though you are not going to be eaten alive by people with overdeveloped armies when you start since you will only meet players in your same AP bracket. I guess the system is made to create different tiers of complexity (and lenghth of games), and to make sure noobs won't be overwhelmed by having to deal too many units.

Being beta I'd agree with you that it lacks meta-features that can spice up the duels, as the generic "ranking" isn't enough. It needs tournaments and Leagues. Otherwise it's never gonna be that engaging to play mute random strangers with unimaginative nicknames when you could be playing with a friend on the coffee table while enjoying snacks and sodas.

[Ingmar]

Tinkered with it a bit, seems to be right up my alley. I'd like some kind of league structure or something, I think.

[Ghambit]

Skirmish is the operative word here.  That's as far as the game goes, but it does it well.