(Deutsche Version) Since I have been playing tabletops for quite a while now, I want to post an introduction today because I think that tabletops are the best and most intresting kind of parlour games. Tabletops do exist in many different worlds, I will focus on the fantasy setting. Technologically, a fantasy setting is like in the Middle Ages when gunpowder was just developed. There are many different races like dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, dragons and many more. Additionally, magic exists as for example a wizard being capable of shooting fire balls.
A tabletop consists of figures which are placed on a table or gaming plate. Well-known producers of tabletop miniatures are for example Kings of War von Mantic Games, Warhammer von Games Workshop, Dwarf Wars von West Wind Productions or Hail Caesar von Warlord Games. Personally, I use the miniatures from Mantic Games because they are quite cheap and have sime interesting units like archangels or brock riders which are not sold by other manufacturers.
The basic principle of a tabletop is two armies (or more) fight against each other, similar to the video games of the series Total War.
Painting and constructing
If you want to start with a tabletop, you have to have an army. Usually there are starter sets, i.e. from Mantic Games, consisting of one or two armies, dice and a rule book. This set then delivers single plastic pieces which have to be painted and constructed. This already offers one point of conflict: Construct first or paint first? Personally, I think that painting first is better, if the figures are already constructed, you cannot paint all places as good as prior to constructing. If you pain first, I would suggest to painting above all places with glue again after construction to have a better look. Another important argument for painting first is that otherwise you can already play with the constructed figures. Painting will be shifted to later and maybe never done, this is responsible for whole armies being unpainted what looks miserably. If you paint first, you can only play with the figures when everything is done, so you have the motivation to paint them.
For construction, I use the well known Revell Contacta glue, you can purchase this cheaply in nearly every toy store. I also use colours from Revell, at first I used the Email colours, they are really strong (except for white) but are rather thick and not easy to handle because they cannot be thinned with water. I later switched to the Revell Aqua colours, they are really easy to handle and can be thinned with water so you can also use different painting techniques like washing by thinning the paint with lots of water. Additionally, the Aqua colours should dry faster (4 hours vs. 1 hour).
If the army is constructed, you can start to play. Therefore you need another player with an army or you simply purchase two armies and let them fight against each other. You can use nearly everything as a gaming field, starting at the carpet or a table to a green felt mat or special gaming mats and even modular terrain as I already described it in this blog. For the beginning, a table is sufficient with some objects like a piece of paper as a swamp, a book as a hill, the only limitation here is your mind.
Rules
I now want to address the rules of these games, especially the rules for kings of war which you can download here on the bottom of the page. Basically, the game is round based, one player after the other. Every player has three parts during his turn.
Movement
At first, movements are executed, every unit has a movement value in inches which describes how far a unit may move. There are special rules for attacking enemies which are explained in the rule books.
Shooting phase
After the movement, ranged attacks are executed, all units which are not in melee may shoot. There are usual ranged infantry units but also artillery and magic attacks, all of them are handled in this round. Let's for example face dwarven crossbowmen (Ironwatch) from Kings of War. They have a ranged ability (Ra) of 5+ and 10 attacks. This means that you have to throw 10 dice and every result of 5 or higher counts as one hit. Next, the damage is calculated. Therefore, every die that hit the enemy is thrown again. If the dwarves for example shoot on orc warriors (Greatax) which have a defense value (De) of 4+, you have to throw now 4 or higher to inflict a point of damage. Afterwards a nerve test is performed, this will be explained below.
Melee phase
After the ranged phase, the melee phase starts. All melees are initiated in the movement phase by bringing your units in contact with the enemy. The melee phase is similar to the shooting phase, except for that the melee value instead of the ranged value is used. Here, also hits and then damage is calculated and afterwards a nerve test has to be performed.
Nerve test
After the shooting and melee phase, a nerve test has to be executed. The nerve test determines whether a unit can still fight or is damaged too heavily, the moral has broken down or the unit has been wiped out completely. Therefore, two dice are thrown and all the damage from the unit has to be added. Every unit has a nerve value, consisting of two numbers. If the sum out of dice and damage is as big as the first number, the unit has lost its moral, can only do some basic movements like going backwards or turn and cannot shoot in the next round. A round later, this effect is gone again. If the sum is as high as the second number, this means that the unit is wiped out. Either all soldiers are dead or they fled and will never return again - this unit will not fight again and has to be removed from the battlefield.
These are the main principles for playing a tabletop. Of course I just showed some simple aspects of tabletops, if you really want to play a tabletop, you should look into the rule book. The different games have different rule sets, personally, I prefer the rules from Kings of War because they are quite simple and still allow a lot of tactical depth, so the game does not only consist of checking special rules and reading in the rule book all the time.
There are other settings where you can find tabletops like e.g. science fiction tabletops which have quite similar rules, and also historical variants, completely without magic. There also exist tabletops in other scales like a space ship fight or a sea fight with ships. I really like Kings of War from Mantic Games best, the scale, 28 mm, is a good compromise between size of units and the size of the details. It also is the most common scale for tabletop miniatures. I hope that I was able to arouse interest for tabletops so more people can discover this amazingly interesting sort of parlour games.
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