Orbital Battle Command - Third Live Test Game

Had game club meet on the weekend and I was lucky to have one of my most experienced games buddies trialling the game with me.

I think the overall impression was good, and the battle was nice and quick despite learning new rules.  I lost 0:10... for what it was worth.

I pulled out several units from either side (Chaos Mix vs Tyranids) without much consideration of points.

We weren't playing specifically tactically, but my opponent quickly latched on to the concept of the Strategic Deck offering more options, both for extra card draws and for performing additional tasks. The combat resolution was also simple enough.  That it could be picked up so quickly is good proof of the concept.

He pointed out a number of 'issues' in the overall game play. These are ideas I'd also had but I'd kind of hit a wall in terms of thinking out solutions for this project and needed to take a step back from it.  Fortunately he was able to highlight them from an objective viewpoint and we workshopped them for a while.  Incredibly helpful.

- Transport are clunky, forming impenetrable roadblocks   (solution)->  reduce HP

- Transport and Vehicles shouldn't be able to sit on objectives so hard (or at all)  ->  can contest but not take objectives

- Only Infantry can take objectives. All ground units can contest objectives

- The armies rushed to the middle and sat there bashing away at each other with low tactical manoeuvring  ->  adding pushback movement when units takes damage

- Cover needs to provide a bit more... something  ->  reduces pushback

- Hold Action needs to be more worthwhile  -> remove all pins or 1 pin and add atk cards

- Draws modified to < 1 card by modifiers cannot draw from Strategic Deck [not sure about this, it can be unfair in hindsight, have left it out of rewrite but happy to discuss further]

So I have a few aspects in the rules to tweak which should elevate the game to a more tactical offering.

Do the rules serve their intended purpose? Yes.   ...but they could still do with a little refinement.

Until next time...