Horde/Firefight Mode Scenarios or Rules

[Scott]

If you've played "Gears of War" of "Halo ODST" you're probably familiar with Horde/Firefight Mode in First Person Shooters. For everyone else, this a gameplay mode where you and your friends (playing together online) fight increasingly larger and tougher waves of AI opponents on the same map. It's a lot of fun and you get to learn a map's intricacies through repeated play on it.

I was wondering if anyone had done this with Heroscape? (Yeah, I searched) I think it could be fun if done correctly. What would be the right balance and the right number of waves? How would you give it the multi-player feel? I think it should accommodate three players versus a fourth player that runs the enemies, but that's a lot of order markers between the bad guy's turns, so how would you handle that?

I think something like 300 points a piece for the "heroes" would be good (maybe limiting each to one general). No healing between waves and no resurrections - this is a game of survival! But glyph "drops" between waves would be cool. So with 900 points of good guys, how many enemy waves should there be and what should be in them?

Would you make one themed scenario with specific baddies or would you go with rules that can handle any mix? Is there a map that would be good for this or what would you recommend if building a map just for it?

One rules idea I have is that all good guy units can take one move (no special abilities) between waves in order to reposition them or grab glyphs from the "drop".

[killergoat72]

dude I had this very same idea and never posted it...

oh well and I think you should use zombies for this!

[Scott]

Originally Posted by killergoat72

oh well and I think you should use zombies for this!

Well that's a start, but I only have two sets. I was looking for more mixed threats like you have in those video games.

[killergoat72]

deathwalkers are definitley good substitutes for ODST's hunters

[White Noise]

For order marker balance, you could just have the enemy player use more than one set of order markers (essentially they'd play as multiple players at once).

For some enemies:
Dividers (if you have multiples).
The Marro Hive and some Stingers, Drones, and Drudge.
Anything with a bonding hero (orcs come to mind).
Wolves, Khosumet, and a Dumutef Guard or two.
A dragon (as a boss character at the end).
Feral Troll(s).
Deathreavers and Deathstalkers (with maybe DW7k thrown in there for fun ).
Samurai and Gurei-Oni.

[cereal crusher]

Make a scenario for each general.

If the bad guy is Vydar, Wave 1 is this.... Wave 2 is this....... etc....

Maybe Utgar could have multiple scenarios, undead, marro, orc. You get the idea, then the good guys pick out of the remaining generals.

[Chardar]

You could have the enemy just not use order markers. He would just take a turn with a unit of his choice after a hero takes a turn. That would certainly keep the heroes on their toes!

[Killometer]

I'd recommend that you check out ArchKyrie11's Nazi Zombies rules and NecroBlade's Left 4 Dead rules. They seem like good, tested systems that you may be able to base a variant rules-set around, or play them as they are.

[Scott]

All good ideas/links, thank all! Keep it coming if you come up with anything else.

I think the no-OMs option for the bad guy is the way to go, thanks Chardar. Along with that, I think the bad guy doesn't roll initiative and takes a turn after each good guy turn.

[killergoat72]

I love ODST's firefight mode so I was thinking I could Build a heroscape map of crater (a halo ODST map)

ITS already hexagon shaped.

[Scott]

I haven't played as much Firefight mode as Horde mode on Gears of War 2, so I don't remember that map. When I get home (traveling now) I might have to check it out. Please post pics or VS files if you 'scape it!

The feel of the Horde maps is lots of places to take cover and hole up against your enemies. I think I'd like something like that, maybe with some limited height that is as much a risk to stay on as an advantage. I think maybe each wave needs one or two fliers in it as well.

Only downside is that there are so few futuristic heroes. This scenario will need to have fantasy types as well, maybe even some Marvel!

[NecroBlade]

Yeah, because this idea totally originated with Halo/Gears.