I'm going to need an analogy for my relationship with SPQR from Warlord Games.
Sometimes in football (soccer for The Cousins) your team signs a new player, usually a striker. Great things are expected from them. The crowd are initially very enthusiastic about the new signing. He looks the part. Then after a few matches it seems something isn't right. The striker is not delivering, not putting the effort in, is lazy or just doesn't care. The crowd's initial enthusiasm turns to bewilderment and then to exasperation, and sometimes to downright hostility.
That was me with SPQR. My thoughts on this were posted up after they were first published and the disillusionment was at it's height here https://twtrb.blogspot.com/2019/08/spqr-warlord-do-it-again.html
Originally much touted by Warlord as a great new Ancient "Warband" scale game (30-50 ish figs a side). This was pitched right into Two Fat Lardie territory and looked like it could deliver. Beautiful book, excellent artwork. First glance showed a character progression system, campaigns, the works. What could go wrong?
Then the elephant in the room - the rules were shite (sorry, that is my considered view). They were not bad - they simply didn't work. After a couple of games it became clear these were unplayable. They lacked any integration between the individuals and units, there was no tactical thought, there.... ok look these were bloody awful and the list of things that didn't work in the rules will take longer to explain than I would care to waste. Probably the worse set of rules I've ever seen chucked at the public. Playtesting??? there are a list of playtesters and frankly they should hang their head in shame. I suspect these are Warlord staff who messed about but didn't actually point out the problems because they were in house and didn't want to rock the boat, or were playing a different game. In addition to the crap rules there were some almost unbeatable combinations - Gauls with a certain combination of large units and heroes would destroy everything they contacted without fail. The only solution was something like an equally stupid \ gimmick build of massed archers who if they won the initiative would just annihilate anything they can see. Neither of these made for good games. SPQR was so bad I think I said they were insulting to the customers and not fit for sale. I got permabanned from the Warlord SPQR Facebook group for saying something along those lines.
So now Warlord have reluctantly recognised there were issues, and have produced a "revised" version. This was originally going to be available free to the poor suckers (like me!) who had bought the original. They changed this so it was available for free with a purchase of a box set from their Ancients line. I bit.
OK I have to admit I bit reluctantly. Warlord are getting a rep for just chucking out stuff that looks good but really is riddled with errors and typos. I'm not sure if this is a quality control issue or something deeper and related to the way they manage their projects and development. Either way it is getting to be a regular thing - Cruel Seas was an example, and SPQR was probably the worse case, but Victory at Sea also seems to have some big issues around a lack of proofreading, particularly in the "Fleet Lists" section - the rules do seem much more "nailed down" to be fair.
Anyway back to SPQR (Revised). What has changed? Actually not a lot, but that which has changed will impact on the game in a big way and for the better. Gone is the mind numbingly stupid "everyone fights in melee" to be replaced with only those in contact fight. This neatly fixes the issues previously with Heroes being able to fight at the point of a wedge and never take any risks until everyone else was dead. It also makes smaller units more viable. This is a good start. Gone are most of the bonuses that made large units unstoppable (or at least I think they are). Gone too is the "Parry" system, which allowed units or individuals to parry a number of attacks each turn, now replaced with a much easier to manage reroll system - though again you get to force rerolls irrespective of the direction of attack, so stabbing someone in the back still has no benefits, even when he is already busy fighting someone to his front. I'm not sure if this works or not, or rather if it is much of an improvement. I quite liked the mechanic that allowed a "pool" of shield parries and maybe just a tweak here may have been better?? Then again that was hard to keep track of, but this is very simple - big shields reroll all failed armour saves, little ones reroll 1s. Also the weapon "reach" idea has been reworked to make short spears a bit more useful and the whole idea of "reach" seems more coherent. Mostly.
There has also been some tweaks to the points system, but as usual with Warlord some errors (?) have crept through. Just how many of these there are is open to debate - did Warlord actually intend for some equipment to be cheaper to buy for one faction than others? It's possible, but Occam's Razor points to a visit by Mr Cock Up.
So are they any good? Will the crowd like them? Back to my football analogy. Sometimes a Manager sees a player is struggling for motivation and kicks them off to Boston United on loan, where much to everyone's surprise they rediscover their motivation and return with a surer touch and become the seasons top scorer, receiving the plaudits and well deserved adoration from the home fans. Will this happen with SPQR (R)? Not sure. It will take some games to decide this, but I must admit I think there may be a spark of interest returning. Maybe they could be the new Marco Van Basten - who knows??
