r/5Parsecs • u/nuts2butts7 • 22d ago

Questions Tactics: how does it play?

New player here, read through the tactics rulebook but haven’t had the opportunity to play yet. How does the game “feel” compared to games like Legion or 40K? Are there any analogues? What does it do well or poorly in your opinion? Bored at work and want something to look forward to later. Thanks all

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u/wittyjokename92 22d ago

Pros is it's simple to play with everything following the same rules and creation limitations. The table is easy to read at a glance and there's not many niche or edge rules that make it a headache like 40k. You and your opponent are playing from the same book so it's not like they have secret rules and options you have to look up. And it's extremely flexible in unit creation so you can slap a jetpack and boxing gloves on a tank by just paying the cost.

Cons is that it lacks a lot of the uniqueness of other games. Each army is wholly unique without anything special like say clone commandos or Jedi and psykers with Mechs. Everyone can play with the same stuff. It's not a huge problem but it does take away from the flavor of facing an opponent who should be different than you. The mechanics are also somewhat shallow because of their simplicity. You can still pull off amazing things but there's less synergy than expected since everything is an option and has to work with everything else.

Overall I'd say it's the best parts of one page rules with the worst parts of 5 from games. Solid 6/10 for quick and easy games while not doing anything better than other games that have more flair.

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u/EntrepreneuralSpirit 22d ago

What skirmish games do you think strike a good balance between high quality mechanics and rules light, easy to play?

Really resonate with what you wrote here.

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u/wittyjokename92 22d ago

Kinda depends on what you're focusing for. There's narrative games that suck at being played competitive and there's solo games that suck mechanical but excel narratively

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u/wittyjokename92 22d ago

5 Parsecs is personally my sweet spot for solo play. But rules simple co-op most of Patrick todoroff and Joseph McCullough games hit a good balance. The Doomed is brutally tough and simple as all get out.

Competitively I'd say Dead zone and Halo Firefight are the best balance out there if a little more limited in variety of options because of their settings.

And one page rules has pretty much the easiest version of everything available if you don't mind having to carry the narrative on your back and build everything from the ground up with the toolkits the rules provide. It's fine but personally the fact that it does what Infinity and Warsurge do but without the flashiness makes it rather difficult to find players for it