Even Easier to Learn: Introducing Demo Mode

Today we’re releasing Demo Mode! A new option when building army lists in Army Forge, our free list building app, to simplify the unit rules to make the game easier to learn and teach. Demo Mode is especially useful for short demos like you might try out at a convention or in a game store. We hope this new mode will be a boon when teaching the game to new players or for new players learning the game together for the first time.

*You Can Activate Demo Mode when Creating a New Army in Army Forge.*

Why Demo Mode?

We’re proud that One Page Rules is one of the easiest to play and easiest to learn war games out there! With rules that literally fit on one page, when we teach the game at conventions new players are often playing on their own within 5 minutes or us starting our demos.

But as we’ve traveled around teaching the game at conventions across the globe, as well as hearing from the experiences of our many OPR Rangers, we’ve learned to build demo lists that focus on the basics of the game, leaving things like unique army rules and the complicated spells for later.

While these rules are fun and important parts of the game, when playing for the first time or when you only have a few minutes to get in a quick demo of the game, they can distract form the core concepts and are best saved for when someone can sit down and get familiar with an army when making their own lists.

*The Saurian Starhost Chameleons Show Many of the Changes when Used in Demo Mode.*

So What Does Demo Mode Change?

When you turn on Demo Mode when building an army list, all non-core rules are removed from the army, such as their unique special rules, their army-wide abilities, rarer abilities, and any ability that doesn’t appear in the core rules of the game.

These rules are not simply ignored: to make it easier to build balanced demo forces, unit prices are also recalculated as if they never had these non-core abilities in the first place. This makes sure that you aren’t paying for abilities that are no longer there.

This means that every rule you’re playing with will be available in the core rules.

*Tehaxi Flexes Their Magical Might in this Illustration by Ricardo Costa.*

What about Psychic Abilities & Magic?

In addition to removing non-core rules, Demo Mode also simplifies each army’s spell list. Caster is one of the more complicated parts of our games, but powerful supernatural abilities are a core part of the fantasy of the games. We know that a lot of players enjoy their wizards and psychic warriors, so we didn’t want to simply remove them from play.

So instead we removed all non-damage spells from the spell lists when running with demo mode, and we also removed any non-core special rules from the remaining damage spells so that you can still get a feel for casting units when running Demo Mode.

Running Demo Mode

Demo Mode is purpose designed for introductory games and quick demos like the ones that our OPR Rangers might run at a convention, game day, or game store. It works best when played with two balanced small forces. We also recommend against playing Demo Mode lists against normal lists.

Demo Mode is free and out now, so jump into Army Forge and check it out!