Game Garnering

So what exactly can we learn from RTS games? I bring this up, because I play them, I play them a whole lot. So how can I take what I've learned from them, and apply them here?

Well, the only thing they have in common, is war, and sadly, that's about it. Whereas they focus more on base construction, and economy, we only focus on fighting. However, we can learn a few things, like terrain ideas, and unique conversions for our models.

The maps are fantastic, so go ahead and steal a few of them! the buildings are all cool too, if you play lotr, lotr bfme II is a fantastic game if you need some ideas for things like orc pits, or uruk hai buildings.

My favorite thing I ever garnered from a game, was from shogun II total war (I know it's not even out yet) but in their siege matches, the units all fall back to the castle, instead of off the battlefield, creating a flowing battle. I adopted that for one of my favorite articles, this one

Next up, we have special characters! For example, Tychus Findlay, basically a big guy, perhaps a slight higher toughness or strength than most characters, but his real power lies in his minigun, which he'll gladly use to destroy just about anything (I smell an assault cannon). and you can do that with just about any character.

Finally, the last thing we can take away, are scenarios. In every single campaign for any RTS there are unique scenarios, that would be interesting to adapt to a tabletop game. For example: in Star Craft II there is a mission where you have to go out and gather resources, before being swallowed by lava. We can recreate this, buy making it objectives, and whenever we roll a 3+ the next turn the surrounding area floods with lava, and it's not based on holding the objective last, but for every turn that you have units near an objective, you get a point at the end of your opponents turn. So if its your turn, you move units out, your opponent then takes his turn, when he's done, if you still have units there, you get a point.

so there we go, adapting video games to table top, just some ideas, now get out there and make some stuff up too!