Atomic Tank - Rules Review

Small scale miniature gaming has, in my opinion, had a renaissance recently. 

Historical gamers may, and likely should, scoff at such a comment as smaller scales have been a staple for decades, and my own journey into the hobby began over a decade ago with 15mm miniatures. Battletech has gone from strength to strength with new plastic releases in 6mm. There have been dedicated players for Epic in its various iterations and Warmaster. I would go so far as to say that Warmaster Revolution's success was somewhat instrumental in bringing more attention to scales smaller than 15mm.

Regardless, the term "epic" has become a label for these less-than-15mm miniatures; Warlord Games started their "Epic Battles" range of not-quite-15mm miniatures in 2020. Games Workshop waded into the fray with Legiones Imperialis - aka, "Copyrightable Epic Space Marine" - with "epic-scale" 8mm miniatures in 2023 (I also wouldn't put it past them to be considering some kind of Warmaster re-release, either with the Old World setting or the new Age of Sigmar setting). Wargames Atlantic has Sengoku Jidai Japanese, Hundred Years War English and French, and Fantasy under their Grand Battle Scale line of 10mm miniatures. And Mantic Games just released Epic Warpath in 10mm. 

Hydra Miniatures has been the latest company to "epicify" their miniatures with the release of Atomic Tank. And did so with a straight-to-retail release, which could be considered a novelty in the current atmosphere of crowdfunded projects. 

I have dabbled a bit with one of Hyrdra Miniatures other ruleset, Retro Raygun, in the far distant past of 2017, but never bought into it myself. Atomic Tank caught my interest thanks to 1) my interest in smaller scales and 2) the Golden Age of Science Fiction aesthetic of the miniatures which I find to be somewhat unique in the current market.

As the release of the Robot Wars starter boxset coincided with Hydra Miniature's holiday sale, I decided to pick up a copy and review the miniatures and rules. 

The Boxset

The Robot Wars starter boxset came in a wonderfully sturdy box that I will just have to keep; it's too nice to throw out and will make for a good storage box for the few tokens that the rules require.

Inside the box you'll find two smaller boxes containing starter armies for the Galacteers and Robot Legion as well as a high quality, 40 page softcover rulebook. I imagine that a second edition will be necessary at some point to consolidate rules and lists for future factions. 

The starter armies also include the extra bits that the game requires; command and hero tokens, tiny Order d6s, and regular d6s. The boxset even goes so far as to include different dice colors for the two sides. 

The Miniatures

Both armies consist of metal and 3d-printed resin miniatures. The larger vehicles are made from resin, while the infantry and some model parts are metal. The resin seems strong with the smallest bit of give.

The models are fairly detailed for 10mm - as detailed as the streamlined aesthetics of Golden Age scifi can be - but did require some work to remove the flash from the metal infantry. The infantry also only come in two poses. The most posable of the miniatures are the multipart Doombots (top right in the picture above). 

The Rules

Let's start with what a force for Atomic Tank looks like. Units cost a point each andan average force will be 7-10 points. Currently there aren't any limits on what units can be included in a force; while a mix of units will likely prove most effective, there's nothing stopping you from playing a fully armored engagement between Galacteer tanks and Legion robots. A read-through of the rules also makes it seem like playing with larger forces won't bog the game down, though I'm sure there's a breaking point. 

Atomic Tank is played in turns across four phases: Order, Initiative, Activation, and Assessment.

In the Orders Phase, players place markers behind units to note how many potential Orders it may have. This can be affected by the loss of stands in a unit.

In the Initiative Phase, players roll a d6, with the higher roll choosing who activates first. The roll can be affected by unit rules or other conditions.

In the Activation Phase, players alternate activating one of their units. Units roll as many d6s as their Order stat, and every roll of 4+ gives the unit an Action to spend; either Move, Attack, or Special (which depends on the scenario). This means a unit like the Galacteers' Regular Infantry could, with four potential Orders and a 12" movement, move a total of 48" in a single turn! Or a rampaging unit of Doombots could attack four times in a turn!

What keeps the game from being too lethal is the "Raygun Rolloff combat mechanic", essentially an roll of opposed dice pools between a unit's Shoot or Assault stat and the enemy's Defense stat. Rolls of the same amount cancel each other out, and the side with the remaining highest die wins. There are three potential results; either the Attacker Wins with an Unopposed Six, the Attacker Wins with Anything but an Unopposed Six, and the Defender Wins. Winning with an Unopposed Six is the best option, as this removes a stand from the enemy unit and all the attached tokens (Command, Hero, and Orders). Winning without an Unopposed Six removes one each of the previously mentioned tokens, and the Defender Winning simply cancels the attack.

Units attack either via Shooting (with all units either firing 24" direct or 18" indirect) or by Assault (by closing to base-to-base contact).

There are some utility units that provide additional benefits. Units with the Command property can give out a limited number of extra Orders each turn to other units within their command range of 18". Heroic units can boost the Shooting, Assault, or Defense pool of friendly units within 6"

There are also some quick rules covering the affect that terrain has on movement and combat. It's noticeable that the game currently lacks the rules for units to enter buildings (slated for a future release), but buildings can be climbed at the players' agreement.

Finally, once both sides have activated all their units, the Assessment Phase checks whether scenario conditions have been met.

The rulebook includes six scenarios that cover your basic wargaming needs, played on a 4'x4' table: Annihilation, Command Control, Factory Destruction, Technology Grab, Breakthrough, and Raid. My only concern in these scenarios is Command Control, which focuses on eliminating enemy units with the Command property. The starter armies only come with one unit each with this property (the Galacteers' Mobile HQ and the Robot Legion's Brainbot), so a lucky activation could see this scenario end unsatisfactorily fast. It's also the case that, thanks to there being no restrictions in force building, you don't have to bring any units with the Command property in the first place! I would suggest adding units with the Heroic property to the elimination objective, as this at least puts the tally at three units on each side needing to be destroyed to win. Future army building guidelines may need to require the inclusion of units with the Command and Heroic properties (at least 1 for every 5 points, for example). 

I'll also note how the two forces play. The Galacteers lack special rules in the current roster, but all of their infantry is equipped with jetpacks and can quickly zip around the battlefield if need be, while their armored vehicles are solid if simple. The Robot Legion are slower but have more special rules (like their infantry being able to pass through each other and the larger robots getting free assault actions when making base-to-base contact with enemy units) and focus more on attacking enemy units in close combat.

The (Retro)Future

So what's in store for Atomic Tank? Matt Beauchamp, the owner of Hydra Miniatures, has hinted at the Imperials, Valkeeri, and Zenithians eventually being shrunk down to join the Galacteers and Robot Legion depending on how well the game sells.

But that's not all. The rulebook notes that the Galacteers and Robot Legion will see more units join the fight. The Galacteers will enlist the aid of Jet Jeeps, Tank Destroyers, Mobile Artillery, Science Corps Infantry, and Pathfinder Infantry. And the factory worlds of the Robot Legion will produce Destroyerbots, Minibots, Shredderbots, and Raptorbots. 

These armies should paint up rather quickly and I hope to demo the game locally. The hardest part will be sourcing appropriately scaled terrain, although Hydra Miniatures has plans for terrain files for 3d printing.

From what I can tell, these rules should make for some fast playing games with a decent amount of friction and some methods to ease it. Expect some Atomic Tank action soon! 

Glory: 1861 - Rules Review

While reading the latest issue of Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy, I came across a review of a newly released set of rules for the American Civil War; Glory: 1861, written by Jon Sutherland and published by Caliver Books. 

Now, normally I'd gloss over something like that, as ACW rulesets are pretty ubiquitous in the wargaming scene, and I've already got Fire & Fury and Pickett's Charge as my go-to rulesets for my 10mm collection.

What caught my eye, however, was the subtitle for the rules: "Raising and Leading a Regiment to Glory."

Now that was interesting. From my experience, most ACW rules either focus on skirmishes or start with the regiment as the main tactical element and go up from there. Glory: 1861, however, uses companies as the tactical element, and does not feature any cavalry or artillery in the main rules.

Well, mostly. We'll get to that. 

So, that was my curiosity piqued. However, beyond the somewhat brief overview in WS&S, I couldn't find much chatter about the rules. No review, no forums, no Facebook groups, as far as I can tell (if there are any that you know of, let me know). So I decided to grab a copy for myself and review them. 

The rules start with an overview of the aim of the game; that is, commanding a regiment. It also has a brief historical section leading up to the war and the war's first year. There's a full Order-of-Battle for the First Battle of Bull Run, which is offered as a selection of regiments that players can use to base their regiment on. 

This section also lays out with what a typical regiment in the game looks like, and what other items you'll need to play - a handful of d10s and a half-dozen d6s, preferably three each of two different colors. There's also basing standards and the introduction of the "Regiment Card" which acts as your regiment's character sheet.

Players use Glory Points to make purchases for their regiments, and players start with 50 points to purchase their starting troops. 

Since a standard starting company of Inexperienced troops costs 4 points, and you'll need to spend 3 point to purchase your command figures (the regimental officers, the second and third officer, the two regimental banners, and a drummer). That leaves 7 points to spend on improving your regiment and its officers, and other bonuses. 

Each of your officers will gain a random trait, and your companies will also randomly roll for the quality of their troop and commanding officer. 

You can also spend points on bonuses. These can improve the stats of your officers, give additional training to your regiment, or purchases bonus cards that are randomly drawn at the start of each game. 

A small aside: Getting a least two of these cards (you get two cards per point spent) is worth it at your regiment's start. The cards are provided as copy-able sheets in the back of the book, and their affects range from simply improving your priority (more on that in a bit) to allowing additional moves in a turn to having off-table artillery support or a unit of dismounted cavalry showing up.  

A fun aspect is determining how long your regiment has signed up to serve. If your regiment's term is only three months, you'll have to test each of your companies to see if they disband after six games (as the game assumes your troops will see an average of two engagements per month). On a roll, you troops may stay with the regiment, or you'll see an influx of green troops. 

Games start with both sides rolling to determine their objectives and what their opponent's side of the table will look like. There are charts for both defenders and attackers, and if the scenario is more akin to a meeting engagement then both sides can roll on the attackers table. 

A game turn is taken in phases. Players roll a d6 and three Glory Dice, adding together the d6's result and any 6's on the Glory Dice. This determine their Priority level, which determines how many activations a regiment gets in a turn, and in what phases. A higher Priority gets you more activations in a turn, and if both sides are activating in the same phase, you roll off using your regimental officer's initiative plus a d6.

Companies have a variety of actions they can take during a turn, from firing to loading to moving into formations like line or skirmish. These actions may take multiple phases, so a company might spend the entire turn firing or freeloading, or quickly moving across the table. 

Combat is split between ranged fire and hand-to-hand fighting. 

Firing is done with d10s, one per firing base. The number of hits are cross-referenced against a chart that determines how many hits are kills and how many cause Terror, which will affect a units morale. 

Hand-to-hand fighting uses d6s instead, comparing the two sides' results against each other. 

Morale checks occur in certain circumstances, such as when a company comes under fire for the first time in a game, or a unit's Terror level is equal to or greater than the number of bases in the unit. A d10 is rolled with relevant bonuses or penalties. The results can range from a unit carrying on as normal, or routing and fleeing backwards (but not being removed from the table). 

As for my conclusion, well, I'm planning to put together two regiments with Old Glory's Blue Moon range of 18mm minis, as I already had some of these when I was trying to figure out what scale I wanted to play in (and ultimately ended up going with 10mm). With two minis to a base, it shouldn't be too difficult to paint up. 

The regimental commander and A, B, and C companies of my planned Union regiment

These are a clever set of rules that I don't believe has much competition in terms of other rulesets. I'm not sure how viable it would be for pick-up games, and it might be a little boring (and ahistorical) if you had the same two regiments going up against each other. I could see this being a fantastic game for clubs to play with a campaign, with each club member controlling a regiment and playing games, potentially with some club members also taking the roles of brigade and division commanders (maybe we'll see this in a future supplement alongside cavalry and artillery rules).

Check this rules out if you're an American Civil War enthusiast, or a wargamer who appreciates the application of role-playing elements to wargames. Hopefully we'll see a PDF of the rules which will make them more widely available. 

I'd like to get a chance to contact the author of the rules, as I'm looking for PDF copies of the Regiment Card and QRS. I've also got a couple questions about missing modifiers in the Morale section. 

If you've got any questions or thought of something I didn't cover, please leave a comment!

Addendum: Having now actually had a chance to play a game with the rules, I must note that there are more holes present than I am comfortable with. Multiple sections seem to be missing or forgotten. This is a shame, as it does affect my interest in the rules. Personally, I'm going to try and write out my own modified version that will hopefully fill in those holes, and tweak some of the various aspects of the rules that I wasn't satisfied with. 

Mythic Americas - Rules Review

Unfortunately, the overall clusterfeth of the pandemic mixed with the holiday season meant that Warlord Games has had some trouble getting their shipments out.

I thought I would just wait, but the opportunity presented itself for me to pick up the limited edition collector's set and, well...

Yeah. So I thought I'd do a little overview of the system. (I'm still waiting on part of that order from Warlord. I want my Jaguar Warriors!)

To start, at it's very core, Mythic Americas is Warlords of Erehwon, and you can find a very good review of the system by DakkaDakka user auticus here. The bones of the system are the same: D10's, low rolls are better, randomly drawn order dice, etc.

Mythic Americas thoughtfully put together a single page that summarizes the differences between itself and Erehwon:

The Way

After creating a warband, you are randomly assigned one of two Alignments: The Everchanging or the Everliving. Since this is done right before the game, you never know exactly what resources your warband will have. Your Alignment will determine which Blessings (a set of six, single use abilities) your warband receives, which Devotions (secondary objectives) you can get, and potentially which Magic your wizards can take.

That's another difference - unlike Erehwon, magic in Mythic Americas is faction specific. An Inca High Priest and a Tribal Nations Medicine Man will have radically different spells.

There's a very nice set of cards that have all these rules on them, which makes selecting Devotions and keeping track of spells and Blessings simple.

So, to play a game, you make your warband, find out which Alignment you are, choose the Balance of the Way (the primary scenario) and randomly select a hidden Devotion of the Way (secondary objective), and your off! Games last for six turns or until one side breaks, with a 50% chance of continuing on for an additional turn.

The primary scenarios are pretty interesting. No straight up brawls here. "Build Altars for the Gods" has players building objective points and destroying the opponents. "Rainy Season" sees both players struggling over a series of bridges to push onto the enemy side of the table. In "The Great Hunt", warbands compete to run down randomly spawned spirit animals. During "Pillage the Village" both warbands need to raid five buildings while preventing the opposing player from doing the same. With "Liberators and Captors", the warbands will need to transport captured enemies across the field while trying to free those under the opposing warbands control. And in "Fog of War", only half the warband is deployed, as reinforcements pour into the fight from all sides.

The secondary objectives add some spice to the primary scenarios. For example, the Everliving have "Endocannibalism Ritual in Honor of Gaia" which will score a victory point if a ritual can be enacted at the site of a friendly unit's destruction. The Everchanging have the reverse, "Cannibalism for the Devourer King" where the ritual must take place using a destroyed enemy unit. More Devotions include, "Divide and Conquer!", "Through Enemy Lines", "A Worthy Sacrifice", and "Trophy Hunters".

I think my only complaint about the book is the imagery. There's some repeat usage of models and some black and grey renders of units that haven't been made yet. There's also a few images that are blown up to a degree that their quality takes a hit, or could have been replaced by better pictures. I think these could have been worked on a little more, or replaced with artwork.

To close this out, here's a quick look at the four factions included in the rules:

The Tribal Nations are described as "a hit-and-run, finesse army." You have a number of lightly armored, fast troops that can ignore terrain restrictions (and even have magic to move certain terrain features around). Wolves and giant eagles act as fast flankers, while hardier monsters like Sasquatches and the terrifying Wendigo can strike from the woods and cause havoc.

The Aztecs are "designed around a core of many, lower quality undead warriors that, when enhanced by magic, can stand toe-to-to with tougher enemies." Their living warriors are elite but fragile. The faction is supplemented by a number of decent spellcasters, including the formidable Quetzalcoatl, as well as the corpse-throwing, undead monstrosity of the Ayar.

The Incas "represent a balanced, elite force that excel in magic and other ranged attacks." Many of their units have the Shieldwall ability, giving them a slow, grinding playstyle. This is helped by ayllus (a bola-like weapon) throwing warriors, Condor Riders, and the snake-like Maras that works well as a harassing monster. The Incas also have access to the only spellcaster that can cast two spells per turn.

The Maya are an "elite, well trained force with warbands that usually muster fewer models. They rely on psychology rather than brute strength" to win fights, and many of their units have the "Cause Fear" and "Vicious" special rules. Apart from the regular units of infantry, the Maya can count on units of Werejaguars and swarms of Alux (small, totem statues that cause pins instead of wounds). They're backed up by the bat monster Camazotz, which can use its speed, flight, and Baleful Glare to strike fear into the heart of enemy warbands. Unlike other warbands, the Maya rely solely on their Alignment to determine their magic.

In the book, each of these army lists are accompanied by a well-researched (as evidenced by the reference section in the back) overview of the historical peoples that the factions are based on.

All in all, I'm very excited to start playing Mythic Americas, and I've begun work on my Aztec warband. And I'll be picking up a Maya warband when they're released later this year!

I'm also interested to see more units and factions added into this game.

When the original pre-orders for Mythic Americas went up, I decided to pick up the small starter set and some additional units to try out the game.

Redcoats & Tomahawks - Rules Review

Last week, I reviewed Muskets & Tomahawks II, the new edition of Studio Tomahawks black powder skirmish rules. 

This week, I'll provide an overview of the first of the supplemental booklets that focus on specific periods: Redcoats & Tomahawks. 

First, the physical aspects. R&T is a full-color, 43 page softcover booklet. While I understand that, at half the size, it wouldn't make sense to make this a hardcover product, I'm a little confused as to why the covers feel so much flimsier than their Saga counterparts, or even the first edition of M&T which was also softcover. I can see this booklet getting pretty beat up over time.

R&T starts with a small overview of what the supplement contains, and also provides a few extra rules or rules changes specific to the period, like boats and a random event table.

Next are three, two-page summaries of the conflicts the supplement covers: the French & Indian War, the American War of Independence, and the War of 1812, which is new (and also concurrent to the Napoleonic Wars, which is planned as the next supplement).

The majority of the supplement holds the forces of these three conflicts: the British, the French, the American, and the Indian tribes. New to the rules are icons that mark which units in a force are allowed in a particular conflict. For example, a British force can only field Provincial Cavalry or Germans during the American War of Independence. Territorial changes can also affect the makeup of a force; Canadians can be fielded with the French during the French & Indian War and the American War of Independence (which actually seems to be a printing error) but they move over to the British force during the War of 1812.

There is a major change to the way points values are calculated that I am not a fan of at all. A lot of upgrades have been moved from "x points per model" to "x points per unit." This change has made it so that these upgrades are best applied when units have been taken at their maximum size. For example, in the first version, a unit of French Line Infantry (8-12) models could take the Elite trait a 2 points per model. In the second version, a unit of French Line Infantry can only take the Elite trait during the AWI period, and it's 13 points for the whole unit. Some upgrades, like the "Valley Forge" upgrade, doubles the points cost of a unit of Continental Infantry, before purchasing any additional figures. I would have much preferred the original version of upgrades, and cannot see the advantage of adding a price per unit instead of price per figure.

The scenarios have also been changed from the original version. Instead of an each side having an objective randomly rolled depending on their force makeup (a force of mostly Regulars, for example, had different objectives than a force of Indians), players will need to determine if they're the attacker or defender in a scenario, and if they're playing in "Inhabited" or "Savage" territory (a rather questionable distinction, in my mind). The force makeup still affects what the objective of a scenario will be. I'm also a little iffy on this change, since it means that there's always one side on the defensive, while previously there was a chance that both sides might be attacking or defending.

The last section of the book is the random events table.

Overall, I'm a little on the fence about this supplement. It highlights the oddity of keeping the original title for the new rules, when "Muskets & Tomahawks" was meant to highlight the first editions focus on the French & Indian War. I think it may be a bit jarring to use that title to cover a massive range of conflicts over various continents and all the way up to the mid 19th century, or even beyond. I'm also not a fan of the changes to the way the forces work, or the way scenario objectives are determined.

However, I won't be able to give a concrete answer to how these changes affect the game until I've had a chance to play. Maybe it will all turn out for the better.

Muskets & Tomahawks II - Rules Review

For a relatively long time, Tomahawk Studio's (the company behind the successful Saga rule and supplements) set of rules for the French & Indian War, Muskets & Tomahawks, were out of print. They were a great set of rules that captured the sense of le petite guerre in North American during the mid to late 18th century.

With card activations and plenty of period flavor, they were a favorite set of rules to play FIW games with and the question of a reprint could be found pretty frequently online.

In late 2019, it was announced that a new version of the rules was going to be "Nickstarted" (basically a crowdfunding pre-order service through North Star Military Figures) and was going to be expanded beyond the original French & Indian War and American War of Independence focus. The pre-order went up at the very end of January 2020, and was a rousing success.

Three months later, backers have the books in hand. And that includes me!

To start, the main rules are wonderfully produced, full color, 80-page hardcover book. The rules are nicely laid out, but there's a few full or double page images that feel like padding to make the book a little big larger.

While there's no index, the contents pages are detailed enough that navigating the rules during play shouldn't be that much of a problem.

For the most part, the basics of the rules haven't changed. Players use cards to activate certain troop types (Regulars, Militia, Indians, etc), move, spot, shoot, and fight in hand-to-hand combat much like they did in the first edition. However, there have been some very important fundamental changes to these basics.

For example, instead of a single card being drawn from the deck, each player has a hand of three cards, made up of cards from both sides, or the neutral Clock cards that determine the end of the turn. A player can choose to play a card from their own side, or play a card that activates an opponent's troops. In compensation, a player that does so gains a Command Point, one of the new features of this edition. Command Points can be spent on a few special actions, like putting a unit on Vigilance (18th century Overwatch) or putting a card in your hand in reserve for latter, effectively giving you a four card hand.

Another big change is the move from d6s to d10s, which gives a wider variance in unit stat lines and table results like Morale and Random Events. It's important to note that the values of the die go from 0-9, not 1-10!

There's a section for additional rules like Hidden Movement and Weather that don't fit in elsewhere, and so have been collected. These are generic rules that may be modified in the various period specific supplements that will be released later.

Since the forces have moved to the supplements, it's a very small section of the main rules. Introduced, however, are the idea of Format Variables, which are values that change depending on the size of the game being played.

Scenarios have also been cut down to just three, as the bulk will come from the supplements. There's Morning Meeting, Ambush, and Breakthrough.

Side Plots have been renamed as Intrigues, which act as secondary objectives that must be completed to win a scenario. To offset this, any Commander taking an Intrigue also receives a free, randomly determined Gift that can be used once during the game.

The book is rounded off by a comprehensive reference sheet and a page of tokens.

While I haven't had a chance to play the rules yet, I do like what I see. There are no drastic departures from the first version of the game that old players will have to adjust for, and the additions, like the expanded hand of cards and command points, makes the game more interactive for both sides. Players will have to look at the battlefield and ask if it's worth allowing the enemy to make a move first, if it means getting the resources to make a crushing blow later in the turn - if the clock cards don't end it first!

My only real concern is that expanding the rules away from the original FIW and AWI periods to cover Napoleonics or the American Civil War, will either make flatten the flavor of the original periods, or make playing the expanded periods feel strange.

Keep an eye on the blog, as I expect to play more M&T II in the future.

I'll also be reviewing the first supplement, Redcoats & Tomahawks, soon. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.

SAGA: Book of Battles - Rules Review

When the second edition of SAGA was released, I was generally happy with the product.  It seemed like a much needed update to a game that had gotten a little bloated with rules and factions. I also liked the new structure, with a generic core rulebook and additional books for each age. As a Dark Ages player, this worked for me, and I'm still definitely interested in the rumored Fantasy and Samurai supplements.

However, one problem I had with the new edition was the lack of scenarios. The core rulebook only has a single scenarios - "Clash of Warlords" - which is an updated version of a scenario from the core book of the first version. While it was fairly easy to use scenarios from the previous edition, I was still disappointed.

That changed with the recent release of the new Book of Battles supplement.

The Book of Battles offers a set of different styles of scenarios for each of the various SAGA ages. It has not one, nor two, but five chapters, each devoted to a different game types: Skirmishes, Battles, Legends, Mass Battles, and (of course) Sagas. 

The Skirmishes chapter only has a single scenario - "Battle of Heroes" - but it can be modified in a variety of ways. There's a chart in the chapter with 6 categories. Players roll a d6 to determine Scenery, Deployment, Game Length, Special Rules, and Victory Conditions. 

There's a lot of little differences to each of the aspects of the scenario, which means a lot of replayability. 

The Battles chapter has ten scenarios with fixed set-ups, deployments, special rules, and victory conditions, but introduce new rules into the game like objective markers, entering/leaving the table, and baggage. Some of these scenarios are pretty flavorful. For example, in the "A Tale of Challenges" scenario, players will choose between 2-4 Challenges from a list. If the challenge is completed by the end of the game, the player scores a number of points. But if the challenge is failed, they lose those points. You may have lost most of your warband, but with enough completed challenges, the tale of your victory will live on!

Legends only has four scenarios, but they're larger, narrative driven affairs that are both somewhat unbalanced and far more complex than the previous two sections. They also introduced more special rules, such as buildings (and the various interactions units can have with them), obstacles, livestock, event tokens, and civilians. There are some good standards scenarios here; in "Catch Them All!" players will need to wrangle livestock while fighting off their opponents, and in "Urban Uprising" the warbands will need to navigate dense city streets while also dealing with random event tokens.

Mass Battles covers, obviously, larger battles on a 6'x4' table (as opposed to the normal 4'x3' SAGA uses) with multiple players. The three scenarios cover the necessities - one for team battles, another for a winner-takes-all hack-n'-slash mess, and the final scenario uses a deck of standard playing cards that players can use to secretly choose their alliance. 

Finally, the Sagas chapter has no scenarios, but instead allows players to modify their Warlord with various "domains" that give different skills and abilities that can affect either the Warlord or the units in the Warband during the game. These are bought using experience points that are earned during battles. So while it's not quite the intricate system that Age of the Wolf had in the first version, it does allow players to string their various scenarios together into a cohesive campaign. 

After looking through the Book of Battles, I can see why this book was separated from the main rulebook. It kept the main rules lean and easy to navigate, allowed this book to be expansive and detailed in its content, and let both books be affordable for players. I definitely recommend SAGA players of any era to pick up the Book of Battles at the earliest possibility. 

As an aside, I'd like to note some interesting details in the book - namely, the pictures of the miniatures. While there's no Samurai era pictures, there are a number that indicate some interesting hints about the others Ages we may expect to see. There are, of course, the already available Dark Ages, Arthurian, and Crusades eras on display. And it's pretty easy to spot the Fantasy images, with dwarfs, barbarians, and monsters. There's also a very obvious not-Jaime and not-Tyrion Lannister. What was new - at least to me - were images of late medieval miniatures (with all the fleur-de-lis, I'm guessing it's the 100 Year War) and hoplites with an elephant in the background, perhaps indicating an Age of Greece supplement. 

Whatever the case may be, I'm interested to see what SAGA has to offer in the future.

Fistful of Lead: Reloaded - Kickstarter Review

April has been pretty good to me so far. Not only have I received my copy of the Open Combat rules, but I also found my reward for the Fistful of Lead: Reloaded Kickstarter in my mailbox a couple days later. 

I've considered dabbling in Western games in the past, and even played Wild West Exodus for a little while. But WWX leaned too heavily in the sci-fi realm - I wanted something more like the old spaghetti westerns, John Wayne's movies, or the newer, grittier western movies we've been seeing in recent years. I looked around and found games like Gutshot or Dead Man's Hand, but the Kickstarter based relaunch of Fistful of Lead got my attention. So I took a gamble and put myself down for a physical copy pledge. 

The author, Jaye Wiley, made an interesting choice and had the rules printed out in the form of a comic book. I'm a little worried about the long term survivability of the rules because of this. But, in the worst-case scenario of the book falling apart, I'm sure I'll be able to scan the book and keep it as a PDF. 

I'll be honest - the rulebook is not pretty. Last week, I talked about Open Combat's rulebook as coffee-table quality. Fistful of Lead's book is not that. It's black and white throughout, and has some problems where some of the italics in the text are choppy. The book is, however, is cheap, economical, and provides players with exactly what it says on the tin. 

The rules take up about a quarter of the pages. Everything is pretty straight forward - there's no real difference in gang members, so everyone shoots the same, moves the same, and fights the same. 

The game has an interesting activation mechanic in the form of a deck of cards. Each player is dealt a number of cards equal to the amount of models they have on the table. One player acts as the "Caller" and calls out the symbols, starting with Kings and ending with Deuces. A player throws down a card if they have it, and can use that card to activate a model, once per turn, and can take two actions. If two or more players have the same card, then they use the suit to determine who goes first; Spades, then Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs last. Some cards have special qualities. A model activated with the Queen of Hearts, for example, can heal one Wound. Any model activated with a Deuce can fire twice per action. And Aces can count as any card - but are beaten in priority by the "real" version of the card, if played at the same time.

The game says it should be scenario-based, and provides some basic scenarios, along with others to be used in the campaign rules. There are plenty of classics covered, from train robberies to cattle rustling. My favorite was the Bar Room Brawl, where players can only use their fists - no guns allowed - and takes place all in once building. Things can get a little crowded in games with more than two players!

Gang Building is also pretty simple. A starting gang gets 15 Build Points. Each gang member costs 1 BP, and can be given a weapon, which costs either 1 or 2 BP. Additionally, two members of a new gang can be given up to two positive and negative Traits (for a total of 4). A positive Trait costs a point, while a negative Trait gives back an additional Build Point for use elsewhere. To keep players from min-maxing negative and positive Traits, they're assigned randomly by drawing a card from the deck.

As I said earlier, the game comes with rules for campaign, so you can take your gang across the wild west, improving or losing members along the way. Eventually you'll stock up enough Renown Points to call for a Showdown scenario - a straight up fight to the death at noon.

Along with the rulebook, I also received some other physical rewards from the Kickstarter. Two quick reference sheets will help cut down on the amount of times that I'll have to check the rulebook, and I'll probably get them laminated pretty quick. The kickstarter also provided a free pair of d10s for backers, as well as a nifty MDF badge. A stretch goal gave each backer some free MDF tokens, and I ordered some more, just in case. And the themed poker deck is pretty cool, especially since the cards that have special affects in the game have the text printed on them as a useful reminder.

I'm excited to try out the game, and have already put in an order with Knuckleduster Miniatures for a couple gangs to paint up and play with.

Open Combat - Kickstarter Review

It's said that good things come to those who wait. I've gotten a little proof of that truism with the arrival of my copy of the Open Combat rules for miniature skirmish games. 

This updated release of the previous version, authored by Carl Brown, originally funded through Kickstarter at the end of March, 2015,. The physical copies of the rulebook were planned to be released mid-summer in the same year. Unfortunately, a series of unfortunate events, including the bankruptcy of the printers that Second Thunder had originally chosen, meant that delay followed delay. Now, a year after the Kickstarter originally ended, the books have finally gone out to backers.

This was fine by me, as one of Open Combat's biggest strengths is its relative openness when it comes to miniature use. Games that I played in the meantime, like Saga and Frostgrave, all provide miniatures that can be used in Open Combat, as it's a set of rules for low-fantasy and pre-gunpowder historical games. 

As for the physical product, it's a very high quality book, and would look fantastic out on the coffee table. A matte cover with varnished images catches the eyes, and the colored glossy pages throughout the book look fantastic. It's not a very long rulebook, but that's fine; the rules don't need to be excruciatingly detailed, and there's no background or world to build up. 

The majority of the book is taken up by the rules, which are relatively straightforward. Open Combat is a skirmish game in which players will create small forces of 3-12 miniatures and play on a 24"x24" playing area. And when I say "create," I'm serious. Players fill out the profiles of their miniatures from the ground up, from their characteristics to their equipment and skills.

A profile is made up of the following characteristics:

• Speed
• Attack
• Defense
• Fortitude
• Mind

Increasing these costs a point of Renown, and new warbands usually start with 150 Renown to work with. So a model with 4 Speed, 3 Attack, 4 Defense, 4 Fortitude, 2 Mind, and equipped with a Spear and a Shield will cost 19 Renown. These characteristics can be decreased over the course of a game, and will negatively affect a model accordingly. So a model with 0 Speed will be unable to move, while a model with 0 Mind will have its Attack and Defense values cut in half. And any model that hits 0 Fortitude is killed. 

It should be noted that, while the rules can be used for fantasy games, there is no obvious magic system. The rules suggest that "magic" simply be skinned over certain skills and weapons. Future supplements will address this hole that may bother some potential players. But the rules should work for those players looking to play in worlds akin to those found in the Song of Ice and Fire books, or other series that deal with fantasy worlds with little to no magic.

Another large chunk of the rules are dedicated to the campaign system, which was added thanks to the success of the Kickstarter. These allow players to create and retain warbands over the course of a number of games, with rules that can help even the playing field between two warbands of greatly unequal Renown (the resource spent to create miniature's profiles). I'm looking forward to trying these out with my Dark Ages miniatures. 

For those of you who might be worried that trying to build your own profiles might be difficult, Open Combat provides plenty of examples that players can work with. The campaign sections has mercenary profiles for hired hands, and an additional "Sample Profiles" gives even more examples, including such staples in Fantasy as dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, and trolls. It even demonstrates how certain abilities can be treated like magic to create profiles for vampires and wizards. 

Additionally, Carl has talked about additional supplements, both digital and print, that will expand on both certain historical periods and more fantasy elements. 

As for now, I'm certainly excited to dive in and give these rules a try. Expect an after-action report on the blog soon.

Lord and Lands - Rules Review

As recent activity on this blog can attest, I've been pretty busying with painting miniatures for and playing games of Kings of War. It's a creative and hobby outlet for a desire I've had for a long time - to play mass fantasy battle games. 

Skirmish and Warband sized games are all well and good, but I've always wanted to fight the epic battles described in fantasy novels, with lines of infantry and cavalry of various fantastic races clashing alongside big monsters. 

Almost a decade ago, I dabbled in Warhammer Fantasy Battles, back when 8th Edition was first released. But even then, Games Workshop's prices and rules weren't very attractive, and so my brief dalliance quickly came to an end. 

Seven years passed before I would try a mass fantasy battle ruleset again, and that was the previous version of Kings of War, in the form of the Battle of the Sta Lat Hills battle report I posted last year. Here, I thought, was a ruleset I could get behind. Fast playing, easy to pick up with apparently plenty of tactics, no individual model removal - everything I could want.

Or so I thought. But after a dozen or so games of the newest version of Kings of War, I seem to be stagnating. It may be because I chose a faction that isn't very fantasy-esque, and so loses in an arms race against the other factions that can field bigger and better units. It may be that I chose to use Games Workshop models for the majority of the army. In my defense, however, they were on sale! But for some reason, I find myself becoming less and less enthusiastic about playing Kings of War, and I'm not about to drop another $200-$300 for a new full sized army. I began to look for potential alternative, like Pendraken's new game, Warband.

And then, about a month ago, I listened to Episode 164 of the Meeples & Miniatures podcast and was introduced to the Lord & Lands ruleset, produced by Craig Armstrong. 

After listening to the episode, I decided to buy the PDF of the Fantasy and Historical versions of the rules directly from Craig for a little less than $12. By the way, if you haven't figured out by now, this is a review of the Fantasy rules.

So, what's in the PDF?

The 60 or so pages are split evenly between the rules and the background for the world of Mikronos, from which Lord and Lands borrows its factions and models. All of these are available from Microworld Games.

I decided to make a physical "gamer's edition" copy of the rules for myself by cutting out the background. Not that you should skip over the fluff, however - Craig has done a great job of fleshing out Mikronos, with histories and conflicts ranging over the various continents.

The factions currently available in the official army list document are:

• The Army of Rexunus - standard medieval fantasy humans
• Wildland Alliance -  were-elephants, rhino-men, and simians
• Dwarves
• Orcs & Goblins
• Woodlands - wood elves and their allies
• Undead
• Beastkin - the more savage and evil opposite of the Wildland Alliance
• Vikings - with giants!
• Dread Elves - evil elves
• Lizardmen
• The Firmament Army - molemen and stonemen
• The Dark Alliance - evil humans
• Hobgoblins
• Demons

Fourteen factions to start is a pretty nice, and there's even a points calculation system if you want to try adding in your own races. In addition, the Fantasy and Historical versions are compatible, so if you've ever wanted to see what might happen if Rome was invaded by Orcs instead of Goths, here's your chance. 

So, apart from the factions, what else makes this game intriguing?

First is the use of commands pips (player initiative points). Each player rolls a number of dice depending on the size of their army, adding in one additional die for their General. This determines both initiative for the turn, and how many actions each player can take. 

PIPs can be spent for a number of actions - moving, increasing movement distances, improving combat abilities, casting spells, etc. Since unit activations alternate between players, one has to know when to spend PIPs and when to conserve them for later. You may decide to move your troops all over the table, only to realize that, with no PIPs left, the enemy has the ability to outfight you in every battle.

I find that these kinds of mechanics - those that generate "friction" when commanding troops - are important for mass battle games. In Kings of War, units do exactly want you want them to do, with no chance of messing up or potentially being left behind. 

Another interesting mechanic is the "dips combat system." There's no dice rolling for combat in Lord and Lands! Well, there is if you want it, but what's the fun in that? Instead, players "dip" their hands into a bag full of tokens. You want to have equal amounts of two different colors - one to indicate success, and the other failure. Tokens are replaced after each player's "dip" so there's no chance of diminishing chances. If you want to, the same mechanics can be recreated by rolling dice and counting each result of a 4+ as a success. 

As for potential problems, there are formatting and spelling errors. There are frequent enough that a rewrite might be necessary, but the game is playable from the current rules.

Additionally, a readthrough reveals some odd sections here and there. For example, units can move in groups of up to four bases, but the rules don't cover how units can enter and exit these groups. I assume that units can move out of groups freely, and can join together by having the sides of their bases touch at some point during their movement.

The army lists are a little messy as well, but on a whim I decided to go through them and do a little cleaning for my own usage. 

I'm hoping to get a test game done soon, with some notecard cutouts. In the mean time, why not visit the resource page, or check out Craig's Youtube channel to watch some demonstrations of the game's mechanics.

Airborne Commander - Kickstarter Review

Back in March, I found a Kickstarter for a solitaire card game called "Airborne Commander." Interested by both the theme of the game, and the idea of a solo deck-building game, I jumped in on the project and pledged for copy of the game. 

After a couple (understandable) delays, I was happy to find my copy of the game in my mailbox. 

The box contains a small rule booklet and two decks - the Allied deck containing the paratrooper units the player controls, and the Mission deck containing the Axis units, terrain, and objectives that the paratroopers will have to face over the course of the game.

The Mission deck is even numbered for introductory games, so new players will have some chance to remember whats coming up in following games. Possible cards include infantry units, machine guns, mortars, road blocks, pill boxes, armored vehicles, and historical objectives. 

The Allied deck is made up of units from the 101st Airborne Division (the same that was featured in the "Band of Brothers" book and series). You've got paratroopers, bazookas, commanders, anti-tank guns, jeeps, planes, and more.

Did I mention how awesome the art on these cards are?

So, how does the game play? Well, the above picture shows the base set-up for a game. Four cards are drawn from the Mission deck and laid out in a row, creating the Battlefield. Below the Mission deck is the Disorganized deck and the Player deck. Five cards are drawn from the Player deck to be used in this turn. On the other side of the playing area is the Allied deck and the Drop Zone, where new units can be recruited.

Play continues in turns until 4 Static Defenses cards are on the table, if the Disorganized deck has been emptied into the Player deck, or if either the Mission or the Allied deck has been depleted. 

To begin the game, I played an Officer card into the Support area (behind the Player Battlefield area), which allowed me to either discard a Disorganized and draw a new card, or use to gain 2 Recruitment points. I decided to go with the former. 

I then drew another Paratrooper card, who had the Support ability to suppress a single enemy unit. Any enemy unit that isn't suppressed or engaged at the end of the turn adds a Disorganized card to the player's discard pile, so I chose to suppress the mortar unit.

Finally, I had my other Paratrooper engage the infantry unit. Neither unit was capable of destroying each other (their attack value needs to exceed the other cards defense value). It should be noted that destroyed Allied cards are removed from the game rather than being sent to the discard pile. So pick and choose your fights!

With no cards destroyed on either side, the Mission cards went into the Mission discard pile - except for the Static Defense card, which stays on the table - and the Allied cards went into the Allied discard pile, which will get reshuffled into the Allied deck when the Allied deck runs out. The remaining Allied card in my hand (which should have been placed in the Support Area earlier) allowed me two spend two recruitment points twice. Unfortunately, I was only able to recruit a single BAR-equipped Paratrooper.

With that, the second turn began. The Battlefield was filled back up. Since there were three cards in the Drop Zone, I had to discard one, and then drew two more cards to fill it back up to four. I then drew four new cards. Note that I should I drawn five, as Disorganized cards are discarded at the end of the turn, something I did not realize until a couple turns in. I think this hurt me in the long run, as Disorganized cards only take up space in the player's hand.

The game continued for several more turns, during which time I did manage to destroy a few Axis units, but also took a couple more Disorganized cards. The game ended when I drew another Static Defense and realized between the Allied cards I had drawn and the Mission cards on the Battlefield, there was no way I was going to destroy any of them. And as having four Static Defense cards on the table at the beginning of the turn ends the game, I called it then. It's only now, as I write this, I realized I should have played the turn through, if only to score more VP's. My total for the game was -2.5 Victory points, which got me a Campaign Ribbon, the lowest score level. Ouch!

Despite my poor first performance, I found myself wanting to play more. My second game ended with all ten Disorganized cards in my player deck, and I scored 0 total points for a Victory Medal.

It's definitely a challenging game. You have to balance using cards in the Battlefield and Support areas. If you use the cards to buy more powerful Allied cards, you'll have more resources later, but also more Disorganized cards clogging up your deck. Or you can decide to fight it out on the Battlefield, but you'll be losing Allied cards each turn, and a bad round of draws from the Mission deck can force you into a fight you can't win.

I'm definitely going to have to play a few more games to get a hang of the rules, but my initial hope - a great solo game that doesn't take up a lot of space, but has plenty of replay value - seems to have been fulfilled. If you're looking for a challenging solitaire card game, I definitely recommend Airborne Commander.

Strange Aeons - Kickstarter Review

Back in October of last year, I put money into a Kickstarter for the Second Edition of Strange Aeons, a set of rules for Lovecraftian skirmish games. A year later, the Kickstarter has finally been completed, and I received my pledge.

Since I didn't have a lot of money to spend a year ago, I went in with a basic pledge - enough to get m the rulebook in both physicial and digital format, the starter set, and a token set. I also received some Kickstarter-only bonuses.

The rulebook is spiral bound, which is extremely useful when reading or playing, as the book will sit flat. It's filled with both fantastic art of Lovecraftian horrors and pictures of the miniatures that the Kickstarter helped to produce.

I can't say much to the quality of the rules themselves, although the previous edition always received high praise. Hopefully I'll get a game in soon enough.

The starter set comes with four Threshold agents (the protagonists of the game, who stand in the way of the cultists and monsters), and I received an additional miniature as a Kickstarter bonus - an Exorcist.  

The resin used for the miniatures is of high quality, with plenty of detail and little flash that only required a short cleaning time to clear away. There are some places where detail gets a little mushed, and I've found a couple holes, but for the most part these are great sculpts.  

Opposing the Threshold agents are the servants of all the insane deities of the cosmos, and the vast majority of them are cultists. The starter set comes with five - a leader, and two each of a knife and gun wielding variety. Additionally, I received a midget cultist and a Maniac.

These sculpts were even better than the Threshold agents, and I can't wait to get them painted up.

It should be noted that UMW have decided to cast the miniatures in two different colored resin - blue for the Threshold, and green for the Lurkers. It helps distinguish the two sides if you don't feel like painting the miniatures.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Lovecraftian game if there weren't any horrors included, so the starter set also includes a Formless Thing and a Fishman. 

When the rest of the miniatures are released, I'll probably be picking up some Innsmouth-themed minis to go along with the Fishman.

Finally, the starter set also comes with four objective markers (three crates and a chest). Kickstarter backers also received a couple extra bonuses - a tombstone with the name "Pickman" on it to be used as a grave marker for certain kinds of Lurkers, and some pumpkins. 

I'm glad that I've finally gotten my pledge after the wait, and now I'm watching UMW's store page for more of the kickstarter miniatures to be released. Hopefully I'll be able to get a game in with Carl, another Lovecraft fan.