Oathmark - General Discussion

[54th Grumblies]

@Ish continuing chat from game night thread. I cut some 125x100 cardboard trays and dropped six stands of Goths/Franks/Saxons/Britons on them and it looks like below, so I could bring up to 10 units of "spear", 1 archer, and however many units 36 cavalry figs can make (they are on 25mm/fig frontage so no markers needed there). I'll prob buy the book (it looks better than KoW Historical) since I'm not spending money on minis much these days.

[Ish]

13 minutes ago, spencercf said:

I could bring up to 10 units of "spear", 1 archer, and however many units 36 cavalry figs can make[.]

Well, as I said previously, Oathmark does put a hard cap of four units of any given type in an army. So, you’ve got an over abundance of Spearmen… Although given that four units of twenty-strong Human Spearmen comes out to 1,520 Points, it’s unlikely you’ll see much more than that on the field anyway. (Maybe one day we can do a massive Battle of Unnumbered Tears epic and you’ll get to use all 3,800 points of them!) 

Cavalry are meant to be on 25 x 50 mm bases in units of up to ten; Human Cavalry are 45 points per, Human Heavy Cavalry are 50 points per… You’ll have to decide for yourself which they should be. But it looks like you could field up to four units of them pretty easily.

Looks like you can also easily field a good number of Champions, Captains, Princes, and probably a King. I’d want to add a Wizard or two to the army, but I gotta assume you’ve got a few D&D figs kicking around the basement/attic somewhere… or you can grab a Reaper Miniatures blister pack for a tenner.

You might also want to add some more fantastical critters to your collect, like Ogres, Trolls, or whatever… But YMMV.

[54th Grumblies]

8 minutes ago, Ish said:

Well, as I said previously, Oathmark does put a hard cap of four units of any given type in an army. So, you’ve got an over abundance of Spearmen… Although given that four units of twenty-strong Human Spearmen comes out to 1,520 Points, it’s unlikely you’ll see much more than that on the field anyway. (Maybe one day we can do a massive Battle of Unnumbered Tears epic and you’ll get to use all 3,800 points of them!) 

Cavalry are meant to be on 25 x 50 mm bases in units of up to ten; Human Cavalry are 45 points per, Human Heavy Cavalry are 50 points per… You’ll have to decide for yourself which they should be. But it looks like you could field up to four units of them pretty easily.

Looks like you can also easily field a good number of Champions, Captains, Princes, and probably a King. I’d want to add a Wizard or two to the army, but I gotta assume you’ve got a few D&D figs kicking around the basement/attic somewhere… or you can grab a Reaper Miniatures blister pack for a tenner.

You might also want to add some more fantastical critters to your collect, like Ogres, Trolls, or whatever… But YMMV.

Yeah I painted a human Dragon Rampant army years ago and still have the wizards.

I ordered the rulebook - unfortunately I have zero availability until September...

[Ish]

My beardy boys have finally made it home! A couple of bent spears and bows, a few shields have fallen off, and other such minor nuisances… But other than that, they were well packaged and unscathed.

 

[Tao Tsê-Mung]

15 hours ago, Ish said:

My beardy boys have finally made it home! A couple of bent spears and bows, a few shields have fallen off, and other such minor nuisances… But other than that, they were well packaged and unscathed.

 

Sweet! Congratz!

Let’s play Thursday, 1000pts?

[Ish]

15 minutes ago, Tao Tsê-Mung said:

Sweet! Congratz!

Let’s play Thursday, 1000pts?

Works for me.

[Tao Tsê-Mung]

Oh, could you print out that dragon-bones village of huts map tile as well? These other tiles look great and I want to paint them all to match.

thanks!

[offroadfury]

Hey dudes been super busy! Glad to see some more armies are joining the ranks! Can’t wait to see them across the table. I’ll be a bit more free later in the month for some gaming.

 

has anyone added any of the new units from the other books to their armies? Like the chariots and vets?

[Ish]

I’m definitely planning to use Legendary Heroes (from Oathbreakers) and Legendary Units (from Battlesworn) for my Dwarven kingdom; I’m not too keen on chariots or the various animated stone units… Just don’t see how they’d fit in with the rest of my forces.

On the other hand, they all seem like really fun modeling projects, so no doubt I’ll add them eventually.

[Damunky]

@Ish hey sorry I fell off the face of the earth life has been a bit crazy. I'm still interested in trying oathmark sometime.  It was a little hard to follow up on this thread so any info would be nice. I still don't have the rulebook but would be willing to check it out.

[Ish]

No worries, it’s been a weird year and a half for everyone. 

[Damunky]

Where can I get my hands om the rules to brush up on it a bit?

[Ish]

Amazon has the core rulebook on sale right now, 20% for Prime members with free delivery. But I’ve also seen it on the shelf at Guardian Games (it was over in the RPG section, for whatever reason) if you prefer to buy local.

[Ish]

At long last, I finally got to play a game of Oathmark. I lost, due to a combination of a poorly made decision to push forward too fast, a failure to properly estimate how wide a gap in the terrain was, and some really bad luck during crucial dice rolls… But, hey, that’s what this hobby is all about!

@Tao Tsê-Mung’s unsavory band of goblins, ogres, and skeletons has struck against my noble dwarven kingdom. We will be revenged! 

 

[Damunky]

Was the game fun is what I need to know. I have a copy of the book and im thinking about ordering the other books but i wanted to at least try the game before  buying it.

[Ish]

I had a great time!

I lost, but it was due a combination of my making mistakes, Tao capitalizing on those mistakes, and a couple key die rolls that broke in his favor. At no point did I really feel like either one of us had some sort of inherent superior advantage over the other due to having a better army list, better units, or whatever. I maneuvered poorly and Tao took advantage of that… But even still, during every turn but the last I felt like I was still “in the fight” and could have clawed my way out of the hole I’d dug myself into, if only a couple of combats and/or morale checks had gone my way.

Overall, the rules are very elegant. They’re simple, yet have a lot of nuances that are subtle rather than fiddly. The use of ten-sided dice opens up a lot of design space that other wargames’ use of D6’s lack. Likewise, making the target numbers vary instead of just adding more and more and more dice to a roll keeps things very fast moving in play.

Combat between a full block of 20 Dwarf Spearmen against 19 Goblin Soldiers led by a Goblin Hero involved both of us quickly calculating our target number and then I rolled four dice whilst Tao rolled three dice of one color and a fourth die of a different color, with us each having an option to re-rolling one die due to a special rule.  In something like WHFB or KoW, we’d both have been rolling buckets of dice to hit, picking out the misses, then making another roll to wound, picking out the failures, and then rolling to save.

There is a wee bit of learning curve, of course. In our, we had to stop a couple of times to look up exactly how Special Ability X interacted with Special Ability Y, how to handle a specific maneuver when in rough terrain, and that sort of thing. But that’s a normal part of learning any game and a pdf copy of the rulebook (and a hard copy quick reference sheet) made finding that information pretty easy.  No doubt, with more games under our belts, this will happen less and less.

Compared to other mass combat games (e.g., WHFB, KoW, T9A), I’d say Oathmark is a hell of a lot easier to play, but without losing any of the strategic and tactical depth of those games. 

[Damunky]

I requested a channel on the discord because it will be easier for me to keep track of whats going on there then on the forums here. Im thinkin about doing a mixed elf undead and orcs kingdom

 

[Tao Tsê-Mung]

Yeah, agree with @Ish the game was such a blast!

The simplicity of the combat system allows you to spend your turn considering the choices available for maneuvering and activation order - and what your opponent may due - not trying to crunch a zillion stats to find the “correctly optimized” choice. The mvp models of my last game with @offroadfury were largely ineffective against these heavily armored dwarves. 

Units generally behave the way you expect their roles to - with the dice and alternating activation providing the exciting twists & turns. At several points the game could have quickly swung around and put me on the back foot.

Can’t wait to play again!

[Ish]

Combat and Shooting are both resolved using more or less the same system. In mêlée, each player calculates their Target Number (the number they must meet or exceed to score hits) by subtracting their Fight stat from their opponent’s Defence stat, with various modifications (attacking into a flank or rear is a –1 bonus, charging into a unit behind a defensive wall is a +1 penalty, etc.). Shooting has you calculate the Target Number by subtracting their Shoot stat from their opponent’s Defence stat, with various modifications.

It might not seem like much on paper, but it means that a difference of a single pip of Fight/Shoot/Defense has a big impact. 

Almost all Dwarf units have a Defence stat of 10 or 11; whereas the typical infantry soldier will usually only have Fight stat of 1 or 2… and most archery units have a Shoot stat of 1 or 2.

This makes Dwarven infantrymen really damn hard to hurt in a straightforward fight and shooting is unlikely to do much against them either. Tao was knocking down one or two dwarves with every attack.

Units that take any casualties have to take a Morale test; rolling two dice and trying to roll over the value of the unit’s Activation stat. Various modifiers apply.

Dwarves have Activation 4 on every unit (except the Dwarven Militia, who as “untrained” troops have a mere 5). Which means that they’re going to pass most straight Morale checks.

Tao made sure that he did everything he could to stack the odds in his favor. He’d shoot at my units and knock off a guy or two, then he’d engage in mêlée with one of his units and knock off a guy or two, then he’d hit me with a second unit attacking into a flank and knock off another guy or two. This slow grinding ensured that he was imposing more penalties to my Morale checks than I had bonuses… and eventually the dice rolls went against me and my lads hoofed it.

One game is hardly a scientific sample size, but it did reinforce the impression I got from the books: you don’t defeat dwarves by killing them, you gotta break them in the Morale test.

 

[offroadfury]

That’s how I felt about the game, ranks for bonus are super important and chipping away one rank can mean a lost or won combat. 
broke combats cost me my orcs as well. Those stubborn goblins lol

[Tao Tsê-Mung]

@offroadfury Funny thing is last game the goblins actually disordered themselves and totally wiffed on the offense twice this time.

But my mage was on fire with successful casting! Totally opposite our game!

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Tao Tsê-Mung

[Damunky]

I would like to give the game a try sometime soon. Ill need to print out some movement trays but I can start that this weekend. when would someone be about to play a smaller game with me for learning? I am also willing to meet up at other game locations besides ordo

[Tao Tsê-Mung]

I’d be happy to play a quick 500pt learning game with you next Thursday or even this Sunday at Ordo.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Tao Tsê-Mung

[Tao Tsê-Mung]

12 minutes ago, Damunky said:

I would like to give the game a try sometime soon. Ill need to print out some movement trays but I can start that this weekend. when would someone be about to play a smaller game with me for learning? I am also willing to meet up at other game locations besides ordo

I have extra movement trays we can use as well so that doesn’t really need to hold us back if you have minis already.

[Ish]

As a general rule, weekends are pretty much not doable for me. I’m usually available both Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I usually only come on one night in any given week.

If you dig around in the early pages of this thread, you’ll find a Thingiverse link to the movement trays I’ve used myself.