Jovian Wars - Hard Sci Fi Spaceships - Kickstarter Funded!

The ships in the basic pledge.

Long time readers of Fire Broadside knows that I've been a fan of Dream Pod 9 in general and Jovian Chronicles in particular since nineties when the first (proper) edition of the roleplaying game was released. After getting the core book I managed to snag the Ships of the Fleet line of books that I read and re-read several times as the ship designs not only looked great, but were well thought out from a scientific standpoint as well. I highly recommend them to anyone with an interest in spaceships, regardless of your thoughts on Jovian Chronicles.

Later as I discovered more of the miniatures line I was sad to see that none of the ships from those books had ever been made into models. Sure, the rules for them were perhaps a little over the top, and certainly took away from the earlier mecha centric position of the core book and supplements, but they just looked so cool! Since then I've slowly grown my collection of books (still missing, Spacer's Guide, Nomads, Mars and Mercury sourcebooks - drop me a line if you want to get rid of yours!) as well as added to my collection of ships and exo armours and I can now field pretty much anything from the core book and mechanical catalouges.

Still.... those newer designs from Ships of the Fleet kept haunting me so when I heard from Robert Dubois (head of DP9) that they had been 3D designing them and were preparing a kickstarter I was overjoyed! And now it's here and almost at 200% funding as I write this!

Not only has Tony Baltera, who also rendered the new fleet scale exos, created some great looking models from the design in the books but DP9 has actually scaled them up as well. The old models are 1/5000 scale while the new ones are 1/4000 - about 25% increase in size! Not only does this make them more imposing on the table, but it allows for more detailing and extra touches like having the habitats on the Valiant being posable. Just look at this picture and you'll see the difference:

Quite an upgrade I'd say! You can see the new bases that are used for Jovian Wars as well. Also, the Poseidon has been beefed up slightly to give it more of that battleship look. While I like the old design just fine the new one certainly feels more battleship-y.

As I mentioned above the funding right now is just shy of 200% meaning we've unlocked all the actual combat ships from the books as well as a large amount of extra pieces like habitation modules and cargo containers you can use to customize the models. Up next are fleet tenders and transports which might not sound all that exciting but they're always good to for scenarios and just look at that Gagarin fleet tender - it's huge!

Another four ships unlocked.

Now, about the new game itself; Jovian Wars takes the setting from the default cold-war-going-hot of the 2210s to full blown solar war, which makes for a great excuse to beef up your fleets a bit so more ships and exos are on the table! Hehe!

The rules have been designed by David McLeod who made the well received new ruleset for Heavy Gear Blitz and is quicker and a bit more abstracted than Lightning Strike while still retaining a lot of the flavour and details that makes the setting unique. This is primarily through the use of exos and fighters but also the way you take damage and keeping track of the general state of the ship in some detail. For example, while there are hitpoints they are almost secondary to a ships systems and how well they are performing - a ship without working point defence is a sitting duck for close assaulting exo armours!

The rules are still in beta phase, undergoing playtesting, but I really like what I've read. Of course, I really like Lighting Strike and the tactical rules in the rpg as well so with Jovian Wars I'll have three different games where I can use the same miniatures. I guess depending in what kind of mood I'm in and how much detail I want.

The latest unlocks including the small CEGA anti-exo Hydra defense boat!

Still, new smooth rules are cool and all but in the end it's all about the ship models. And I know there will be a number of people who aren't interested in the Jovian setting at all and simply want the gorgeous models for some other gam - and that's perfectly fine! I mean, there aren't all that many hard sci fi spaceship designs out there and with The Expanse growing more and more popular (remind me later to talk about how close that setting is to Jovian Chronicles!) I think there's a growing market for ships that are not Star Trek, Star Wars or just your general boat in space kind of deal like virtually all other spaceship battle games out there!

Not unlocked yet, but should be soon. Did I mention that the Gagarin is yuuuuuge?!!

There is a lot more to see on the actual kickstarter page, like all the extra parts added in stretchgoals and all the exos and fighters that are available too if you want a good starter fleet to get going quickly. There's another 12 days to go and I feel confidend we'll see all the CEGA and Jovian stuff unlocked at the very least, and I've heard Tony has been rendering some Venusian ships as well....

During the coming couple of weeks I'll be posting more about Jovian Chronicles, like a session report or two from our ongoing campaign, some talk about the expanse, pictures of my painted exo armours and, if all goes according to plan, a Jovian Wars battle report!

So head on over to the kickstarter and check it out and I'll be back soon with more space goodness!

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A Look at Awaken and Designer Interview

Trying to fight off  a Colossus.

Now and then I get an email about kickstarter projects and creators who are interested in talking to me about writing about the project or making a preview or some such. Most of the time I politely turn these requests down as I tend to only write about kickstarters that I'm actively backing myself. However, I had to make an exception for the last email I received.

It was from one of the guys behind a project called Awaken (already funded) which turned out to be a dark fantasy roleplaying game developed by a team in Croatia and based on Slavic and Mediterranean folklore. This immediately caught my eye as I'm always looking for stuff outside the bog standard Anglic/Nordic based fantasy rpgs we're so used to. Also, when is the last time you heard of an rpg from Croatia?! This deserved further investigation.

I talked further with Zoltan Lečei, a Games Collective member and co-creator of the game, and sat down to read through the campaign and the quick start rules that are available and I am really impressed! The system used is heavily influenced by the original rules of White Wolf's World of Darkness roleplaying games although switched to a D6 base and modernized a bit. The basics are not groundbreaking as such but there are some really neat things going on like the Picture rule that gives you bonus dice, or lets you succeed automatically if you describe what you're doing really well and it makes sense in the fiction. This is something I've seen before and I imagine a lot of groups has it as an unspoken house rule, but it's always nice when a game explicitly rewards active player participation!

The other very cool thing is how combat works. You gather up your pool of dice from your Attributes and Skills and then decide how many you want to use for offence and how many for defence. All participants in the combat do the same thing and then everything takes place at once! Yes, you of course do it in sequence to avoid utter chaos, but there is no iniatiative roll and by a simple system of cancelling dice on a 1-to-1 basis (offence vs defence) you can quickly suss out what happened and who killed who. While I have yet to try it out in practice it seems really simple yet dynamic as it allows a player fluidly decide how to use the abilities of his characters depending on circumstances.

The setting is far from the tired tropes of D&D and seem fresh yet slightly familiar at the same time. I guess the idea of playing as a special group of people with powers no mere mortals possess is not uncommon in rpgs, but combining it with a completely different folklore than what most of us are used to combines to create something new. Oh, and the art! Did I tell you about the art? Because if I didn't I really should have because it's gorgeous! I'll sprinkle some in this article, but please head over to the kickstarter page for more.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. I conducted a short Q&A with Zoltan through email, just to get a better feel for the game, and I thought I'd share it with you here:


Fire Broadside: Zoltan, the game looks beautiful, with an interesting setting and some clever use of dice pools. How did the idea for Awaken come about?

Zoltan: We've created the game full of local, Slavic and Mediterranean folklore because we ourselves (and I'm talking foremost about the co-creators, Marko and me) are fascinated by those elements, even to the point of having a hard rock band with local ethno and folk elements! That's why we thought it was only natural to create a game inspired by our surroundings and present it to the world. 

Regarding the system; as you can probably notice, Mark Rein-Hagen's point distribution system was a huge influence on us. We consider it easy and inspired method of creating the diverse characters without bowing to the strict and rigid rules.

While we were playing in our gaming groups, we would often use the system in various settings, just for it's flexibility. And after we started working on the game, we decided to create a similar system that could be versatile enough to allow people to focus on the game, story and role playing, without rule mongering. To reinforce that, we've decided to include one of the "more common house rules" (to quote one reddit user) as a part of the system itself, a possibility of rewarding the player with extra dice and bonuses for his creativity during the actual play - we call it "the picture rule" 

And to speed up the in game conflicts and combat, we've decided to test out the potential of throwing the dice in the same time and simply "reading" the course of the situation from the results (when I put it that way it looks like we're fortunetellers :D ) after subtracting the negated dice from the equation. 

FB: Sounds good! Before we go further, I need to ask about the art direction! The game looks stunning with great art from a number of artists. This is one thing I love about European role playing games, or simply European games in general - they're often beautiful looking in way that many American games simply... aren't. Often (not always!) in rpg's from the US it's much more function over form where art feels like an afterthought with pictures haphazardly inserted into the book whereas in Europe graphical design is just as important as the background or the rules. The art for Awaken has a kind of otherwordly, slightly dreamy feel to it that I think goes great with the setting. How much of the art is influenced by the setting and how much is the setting influenced by the art?

Z: Hey, thanks for the kind words! Our lead artist, Kristina, is the main reason for that slightly dreamy feel you describe. She is really good when it comes to transferring the atmosphere of a certain event or giving a breath of life to characters. I really don't know what to answer regarding the influences. We just clicked somehow; whenever we imagine something and describe what we would want, she always gets it in the first try! Either we're really good in describing or she is telepathic. But it's probably that she's just a great artist :D
But to be honest, some of her works which weren't specifically designed for the game really inspired us for parts of the setting, so I could probably say that you can find the both situations here.

FB: The game system is, as you say, strongly influenced by WoD but it seems to me like that there is more to it. The Vasalli, with their different orders and gifts, almost feel like WoD characters in their own right.

Z: Well, you could say that we share the similarities with the WoD system and world building. Maybe the elegance of it influenced us more than we know. I understand that orders and gifts could look like something out of WoD books, but it somehow came naturally. Since we didn't want to limit players with various character classes, we decided to at least give the option of belonging to some organization. And gifts are just the alternative to standard magic.

FB: You've mentioned Call of Cthulhu as an inspiration for the parts of the game connected to your character's willpower and sanity. There's not really much about it in the quick start rules, so would you care to tell us a little bit about it here?

Z: Yes, the quick start edition wasn't dealing with sanity much, we wanted the adventure in it to be a little more epic and less horror kind of a story. The sanity of a character is reflected in „Virtues“ part of a character sheet (Luck, Courage and Will) and in „Corruption“ part. It's a neat mechanic which could be used for various situations; from sanity shattering situations and horror stories to the drawbacks of too much power.

FB: This might be connected to the question above - the use of gifts can have severe drawbacks to the character and there's the risk of corruption. Spontaneously this makes me think of games like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Dragon Age where magic is inherantly dangerous to use. Or perhaps Werewolf where you run the risk of succumbing to the beast inside you. How does this come out in play?

Z: Yeah, it connects nicely. The Vasalli, as we imagined them, are the regular humans intensified; all the best what could be found in people and all the worst could potentially be found in one Vasall. Vasalli are stronger, tougher and smarter than average human. But they are also more susceptible to their desires and instinct. We imagined them as volatile characters which could be prime paragons of virtues that could turn into power corrupted beasts if they allow themselves too much. And that's the main reason behind the „corruption“ mechanics – as we know, power corrupts so we wanted to balance out the potentially great power which lies in Gifts with something equaly dangerous.

FB: The setting is arguably the most unique part of Awaken I think. It's just so refreshing to have a European fantasy setting that is not (semi) anglo-saxon or nordic in its makeup. Off the top of my head the only other setting with similar elements that I can think of is The Witcher. However, whereas The Witcher feels very down to earth (well, all being relative) and gritty, Awaken comes off as much more heroic, or perhaps extravagant. The art of course helps with this, but the rules and setting as well evoke much more of a dark high fantasy world that make me think of Elric of Melnibone. I'm not entirely sure where this rambling question is going, but I'd love to hear more about how the setting came about and what kind of "power level" (to use a very mundane turn of phrase) you envision for the characters.

Z: Ah, yes, the great Witcher series! Well, our setting was designed to be slightly more epic as you noticed. But we really didn't envision it to be too epic or high fantasy. Yes, there are various creatures in the woods and the darkness, but they aren't magical beasts; at least they aren't considered as such in the world of Awaken. On the other side, we have giant Colossi which were a pretty big deal once, and now are dying out. Then, you have the Vasalli of course. With all their gifts and plethora of abilities, they are somewhat epic, but still not in the high fantasy kind of way. We actually had some questions about the „power level“ of Awaken, and we feel that it could be played in different ways, all depending on the Narrator and players. But we prefer to play it (and the setting was mainly created that way) as a toned down fantasy; the wonders of the world and setting reflected mostly in the bizarre situations and character abilities.

FB: Moving back to the system for a bit. While it will be, for the most part, familiar to veteran roleplayers there are a couple of things that immediately stuck out to me. One was the Picture system, where if you describe something well enough the narrator gives you bonus dice, or even lets you succeed automatically! This is something I'm familiar with from Torchbearer/Mouse Guard and I think it's awesome! It's probably one of those things that many players kind of do anyway when they play, but having it in the rules make it much more of a tool for the players and generate better stories. You mentioned it growing from a house rule of yours, would you care to expand on that?

Z: It's just like you said! It's commonly used house rule, but we really did want to draw attention to the existence of it and emphasize that it's a good thing for developing role playing in the groups and sessions. And since we feel the game is pretty accessible to new players and game masters we wanted to incorporate it so people could get acquainted with that options even if that is their first encounter with tabletop gaming.

FB: The other really neat mechanic is how combat works. That everyone acts at once was interesting but what really got my whiskers twitching is that you generate your entire combat pool and then divide it between defence and offence. Something I haven't come across before. It's such a simple idea but through it mechanics that are often separate in other games are boiled down into one decision which I imagine will help both with speeding the game up and making it a lot more cinematic - depending on how many dice you use on what you can see exactly how your character is fighting. How did you come up with this combat system?

Z: Marko who is lead designer of mechanics was toying with various options. He really wanted to speed things up and to avoid the usual downtime during long combats. During one of mechanic testings, it just came to him that people could avoid all that and that we could emphasise the creativity and give freedom to narrators and players during the combat. Also; it's designed as a reflection of a real life combat; it's messy and dirty, there are no chess moves while fighting. Something goes wrong, something goes right, but nobody waits for the other to punch. Everything happens in the same time. That's why the rolling in the same time is used for the game. And the decision to split the pool between offense and defense is also natural; when in a fist fight, people usually know if they want to fight defensively or all out; so the split pools would mean various stances, openings, aggression, caution etc.

FB: Finally, to round off, what kind of future do you have in mind for Awaken? Lots of splatbooks covering the different factions, pre-written adventures and campaigns, sourcebooks for interesting places, monster manuals? What can we expect to see?

Z: There are some ideas what to do after the campaign, but we have to see the reactions after the product is finally released. Of course, the world is big, and there are some things we didn't put in the core rule book. And there are different perspectives on things happening in the setting of Awaken, so there is a lot of room for additional material, and there are a lot of ideas, but for now we want to put the core book out there and see where it leads us.

FB: It's great to hear about some of your thoughts on the design process. Thanks for joining me here at Fire Broadside, Zoltan!

Z: My pleasure!


So there you have it! As I said the game is already funded, but naturally more backers means more product lined up. Right now it's only three days left, so if you're the least intrigued about what you've read head on over and give it a further look!

Although I am not able to back the project at this time, I'm hoping to be able to have a look at it when the game is released to make proper review!

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Periorbis - the Asteroid Mining Board Game

Alright, so you're anxiously waiting for Planetary Resources to go public so you can by stock and you're wondering when Deep Space Industries are going to jump on the social media bandwagon so you can get more of an asteroid mining fix. Yepp, been there done that. Doing that!

So of course, even though I wanted to avoid posting about Kickstarters for a bit, I simply can't resist telling you about Periorbis - a bonafide asteroid mining board game, by Gareth Newton-Williams! Originally it was actually called Asteroid Miner but had to change it as there was already a game with that name. A bit of a pity as I think a more straightforward name than Periorbis (although I actually like the name!) might attract a wider audience. Anyway...

Game content. Lots of stuff and very nice looking too!

It's an economic game where each player is head of a fledgling asteroid mining company and need to hire crew, prospect asteroids, negotiate contracts and then actually go to the big space rocks to bring home the bacon, or ore in this case. The different crew you hire are good at different things so while some might be better at actual mining, others are better off staying at the base researching better propulsion methods or overseeing the contract negotiations. It's a bit of a mix of worker placement, pick-up and deliver and economic engine building. When reading about it my first thought was "hmm, so kind of like Power Grid... in SPACE!" which is aweseme in pretty much every way possible!

Game board.

With that said it's certainly not a bleak clone or PG wannabe, but very much its own game. For those looking for that particular stand-out mechanic I'd say it's all about the asteroids and their different orbits. Above you have a picture of the Periorbis game board and as you can see the main element is the band of asteroids circling... the planet (as it's obviously not Earth). The orbits are separated by three distance (or delta-V if we want to be correct, and we do) bands and separated into 12 sectors. Each sector represent one turn of the game and you start at 1. The asteroids in the closest band in a sector represent the ones that are easiest to get to and are available with the starting technology. To get further out you need to research better propulsion. If you compare sector 1 and sector 2 you can see that things have switched around a bit - the teal asteroid that was further out is now closer in and the red one is nowhere to be seen at all! This really is a great way both to represent simplified yet relevant orbital mechanics AND to make a dynamic arena of fluctuating resources. I was impressed by what a simple solution Gareth used to create this both thematic and interesting mechanic.

The crew cards. Great hard sci-fi art and you can see the skill values at the bottom of the card.

I mentioned crew earlier and while you start with a few basic office drones you really want to try and nab some of the more skilled workers that are out there looking for job. This nicely ties into player order and the overall economics as they need to be payed each turn and the more skilled they are the more money they want. There's also the player board (below) where you house your workers (on the numberd spaces) and then send them to work in the different rooms like R&D and contract negotiation. That is, if you're not rocketing them around the solar system to a small lifeless boulder devoid of air and other pleasentries. Speaking of rockets, you use your crew as pilots to fly other crew (miners) around and then there are ore haulers that dock to the station where you're located and need to be filled up with ore in different configurations. Here's where the contract negotiations come in as you want a skilled negotiatior to get you a good deal and then be able to deliver the actual ore in as an effective way as possible. Yeah, you'll probably have to upgrade the cargo capacity of your mining ships so you can bring more or (and miners!) back. Lots to think about!

Player board.

I won't try and explain the entire game (I'll leave that to Rahdo, below), but I want to impress on you, my dear reader, that I think this is an impressive game not only because of the really great theme and evocative art but because of the actual mechanics! I come across kickstarters all the time that has great concepts and look beautiful but when you actually check under the hood it just seems to be a mess of cables and gears. Not so with Periorbis - this to me looks like a tight and very interesting economic game where competition is fierce and the scores great. If I came across this with the old euro setting of merchants in italy or farmers in medieval Germany I would STILL be all over it!

There's still a day and a half left to back, shipping to the US and within EU are included in the very reasonable price of £44/$66 for a copy of the game. Of course, it's also already funded but I'm sure some extra unlocked stretch goals wouldn't hurt!

I'll put Rahdo's runthrough and final thoughts here for your conveniance. Check out the run through if you want to know more of the actual mechanics, and the final thoughts if you just want to know what he thinks of the game.

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Kickstarter Roundup - When it Rains it Pours!

Although I've backed a number kickstarters I'm not the kind of guy to scour it for new projects and only check out stuff I come across during my usual journeys across the net. So the reason that I feel the need to make an entire post (a roundup even!) about kickstarter projects is simply because I've come across several really interesting looking ones that are all active right now. I'll simply list them in order of time left to pledge..

FAITH: The Sci-fi RPG - 20 HOURS to go (yes, hurry!), 115% funded, $69 sweetspot. So this is a narrative/story-now focused roleplaying game that you play entirely with cards! You don't even need a pen and paper for the character sheets as you can do all of that with the tokens provided. If you think this sounds like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd ed. (but "even worse"?) then you need to think again. It seems to me like this is a much more focused experience with the kind of collaborative storytelling that you see in FATE or any number of recent indie titles. While there are cards for things like gear and NPCs the ones you use to drive the game forward are more like a poker deck (in fact, you can use a regular poker deck if you want) where you play cards to raise the skill you're using. The setting is sci-fi but of the softer variety. Humans are all but extinct and there is an ongoing cold war between two alien races. Also, the art is beautiful! The setting sounds interesting enough, but is secondary for me though as I'm more interested in the system that seems fairly innovative. Apparently hacking is a big thing which is a plus in my book. Yeah... if it sounds like I don't know all the ins and outs of it that's because I literally discovered it an hour ago. Check out some of the preview videos and then decide for yourself. Only 21 hours left as I write this!

Above and Below - Storytelling Board Game - 14 days to go, 345% funded, $50 sweetspot. Next up we have the latest board game from designer Ryan Laukat - the man behind City of Iron, Eight Minute Empires, Empires of the Void and The Ancient World. So far I have only played Eight Minute Empires: Legends, which is a nice and quick 4X filler but I really would like to get my hands on City of Iron as it seems really cool. Anyway, Above and Below is a game of two parts where each player is trying to build the best village. Above ground you construct buildings and recruit more villagers (basically workers that you can place) and below ground you can go adventuring, which means the game suddenly turns into a choose-your-own-adventure style game like Agents of Smersh or Arabian Knights. It might sound odd, but it seems to go together really nice, and the resource management aspects of the Above game I think are meaty enough to keep a gamer like myself busy while still approachable enough to make my wife want to try it. And speaking of approachable - look at that art! All of Ryan's games look good but this is, in my opinion, his most beautiful and evocative yet. I guess you could argue it gets a little samey with most of the art simply being different style buildings but there's something about those brick houses and that cloudy sky that just gets me every time I look at it! Very Nausicaa/Laputa feel to it that's simply awesome!

MYTH: Journeyman - 18 days to go, 338% funded, $120 sweetspot. Yeah, so this is the only project in this list that has mountains of plastic. I've grown weary of most of the miniature games or miniature heavy board game kickstarters, but I will make an exception now and again. I didn't go for the original MYTH kickstarter back in 2012; I looked at one of the early playthrough videos and it simply didn't look fun at all. Of course, much later as I read about it more indepth I thought it sounded awesome and when I actually got to play it had lots of fun! Yes, the original rulebook wasn't very good (but evocative) and there's been a lot of drama on BGG and other places. However, it is a really cool dungeon crawler that is very different from all Descent clones out there and I think it might become a corner stone in my game collection. So even though I've still to get the base game I'm looking at this new expansion kickstarter and thinking that I really shouldn't miss it! It comes with the new Journeyman cards for all the heroes which will allow you to level them up to become stronger - either as light or dark heroes. There's also new monsters, new items and new quests. In fact a large part of the quest system has been reworked so that you can, if you want, play MYTH with much more structure with pre-determined quests etc. While this is good to have the whole free form thing is what attracted me to the game in the first place! As I'm typing this the $120 level is a good deal, but not a super deal but it hasn't even been two days and I imagine this might get a little crazy toward the end, just like MYTH and MERCS: Recon did. Megacon has also done a lot to try and fix many of the "bugs" in the original game, with a completely new rulebook and new hero, item and quest cards as well as a new set of trap cards with new rules for traps. If you liked the idea of MYTH but thought there were too many bugs, give it another look now.

Far Space Foundry - 22 days to go, 56% funded, $39 sweetspot. This is the only game in the list which isn't funded yet, but don't let that stop you! As is often the case when I discover new board games, I found Far Space Foundry through its excellent art deco art style and I as I read more about it I was happy to see that it seemed to be a really cool game as well. It's a game about resource management, logistics and efficiency where you collect your resources during the first half of the game which you then use to turn into different products in the second half of the game which will net you points. The main mechanic is the roundel on Space Foundry Alpha that is mining the resources where you need to dock your shuttle to bring the resources to your warehouse. You use pilots to dock to the roundel and depending on where you dock you get different special abilities. After a set number of turns you take the resources you've managed to collect in your freighters and go Space Foundry Beta which has a different roundel and this time you need to bring the resources onboard to build stuff like mechs and space suits that the empire has use for. At the end you get points for the stuff you produce and actually fit into your freighters. No points for stuff produced but left behind! So it's kind of worker placement-ish, but with great emphasis on logistics and how to most efficiently get what you need while not wasting resources that won't fit in your freighter, or have a freighter with leftover space in its hold. There's just something about these kinds of games that fascinate me (I'm dying to get to play Panamax for example) and as it happens the theme and art also really appeal to me. For a measly $39 I definitely think it's worth checking out!

Blades in the Dark - 29 days to go, 799% funded, $20 sweetspot. I'll end the list as it began - with a roleplaying game. I came across this in my G+ feed and became immediately intrigued! The core concept of the game is that you play as a band of scoundrels at the very bottom of the criminal strata and you're trying to work yourself to the top. The default setting is industrial fantasy, so there are ghosts and magic and demons but instead of your typical medieval fantasy it's set during the industrial revolution. Computer games like Dishonoured or Sunless Sea/Fallen London are good examples of industrial fantasy I'd say, which shouldn't be confused with steampunk. However, the game is meant to be very hackable and there are alternative settings included as stretch goals - one as a more traditional dark fantasy setting and one French colonial/Heart of Darkness type setting and I'm sure there will be more coming (a cyperpunk setting has been hinted at as well). The game is also meant to be playable with very little preparation and the focus is on scores or heists but with all the planning (that can take aaaaages if you have players in your group that are anything like mine) handled very quickly to immediately get to the action. Players can later use flashback sequences to the actual planning if they want to expand on how to to something during the actual score. The system is hinged around the concept of desperate, risky and controlled actions which can all lead to different outcomes that are a lot more interesting than the binary pass/fail. It looks like a lot of fun, and when it's this cheap it's hard to pass up!

And those are the projects I'm looking at right now! I won't be backing all of them as I simply don't have the budget for it, unfortunately. But I really think they all seem like great games and certainly deserve to be produced and played. The ones I don't back now will definitely find their way into my collection when they hit retail. 

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Heavy Gear Blitz - War for Terra Nova

Hello there! As I mentioned in my Future - 2015 post I jumped on the Heavy Gear Blitz - War for Terra Nova - Miniatures Starter Set kickstarter in November and I thought I might talk a little bit more about it.

Although my first contact with Dream Pod 9 was when I saw and fell in love with the cover of the first edition of the Jovian Chronicles rpg, I soon also discovered their Heavy Gear line of games as well. I hadn't seen Armored Trooper VOTOMS at that time, but I had seen Robotech/Macross and Gundam so although I thought Heavy Gear looked cool (and bought a bunch of the rpg books - the setting is awesome!) JC was what I was really aiming for - both the roleplaying game and the miniature game, Lightning Strike.


Still as time went on it became more and more clear that Heavy Gear was the DP9 flagship and although there was for a long time murmurs of a rebooted Jovian Chronicles/Lightning Strike (colloquially known as Lightning Strike Blitz), that would either unify the the scale of the ships and EXOs or get rid of the ships altogether, it never materialized and a couple of years ago the Lightning Strike line of miniatures was officially retired. The molds do come out of storage once every six months so real enthusiasts can still get the minis, but it doesn't seem like we'll have a new edition in the foreseeable future. Still, I recommend checking out the original Lightning Strik for some very cool space combat. Delta Vector has a nice introduction to the game.

When I realized that JC was in stasis back in 2009 I decided to go ahead and get myself an army for Heavy Gear instead. I painted most of it but as I didn't have anyone to play against it kind of stalled and even though I was planning to get a Southern force as well, so I could actually play the game, something else always popped up to throw my money at instead. It has also been a matter of correctly scaled terrain and not wanting to take up valuable storage space with terrain for only a single game. This has now changed since I've decided to invest in Dropzone Commander which uses the same 10mm scale. And if I ever decide to get into Robotech RPG Tactics after all the 10mm terrain will work for that as well, even though it's actually 6mm. You might remember me giving up the Robotech kickstarter in favour of Deadzone a couple of years ago, but now that the game is out and I read peoples thoughts on it I kind of wish I had done it the other way around. Oh, well...

My recon squad and some infantry. Considered rebasing the infantry for the new system, but I don't think I'll bother.

Anyway, fast forward to 2014 and Heavy Gear is getting a great big overhaul and preparations are made for a kickstarter to produce a proper two player starter box with plastic minis. I mostly like what I see of the rules changes and even though I'm used to working with metal minis, having plastic gears will make assembly, magnetizing and converting a lot easier (and cheaper!) so good stuff there to! I hesitated for a while but in the end I felt the deal was simply to good to pass up for an old gear enthusiast like myself. Not only will I get a substantial reinforcement to my existing Northern army (tripling my current gear stable), but I will also get that Southern army I've been clamoring for (including a King Cobra!) plus starter forces for CEF and Caprice!

Having two main armies in the North and South and then two smaller forces to able to lend to friends and allow myself to try something different is something I'm really looking forward to as it means I will finally be able to properly play the game! The rules, that have gone through small-ish revisions over the past decade, is now up for an almost complete reboot. While I liked the old rules in theory I could definitely see how they would seem off-putting to some players, probably several in my group included. However it seems like the new edition is not only aiming for making a smoother game for the same old crowd, but also making sure it's modern and flexible enough to actually attract new players. Although this is me mostly speculating, I think that DP9 has got most of their income from pretty much the same small group of people for the past ten years or so. Having a loyal and invested fan base is great, but it can also lead to shortsightedness and vicious feedback loops. The kickstarter has certainly helped the company get the name Heavy Gear out there and the great rush of new players who are confounded by many of the quirks in the rules that are leftovers from the old rpg days. Getting fresh eyes and fresh feedback I think is a great thing and the beta rulebook (that can be downloaded for free here), which is already quite different from the old Blitz rules, is going through additional revisions based on this new feedback and a new living rulebook should be made available within the next few weeks.

I've read through the Beta rulebook and I liked what I saw. While things have changed most of them seem to be for the better and I'm optimistic about the gameplay. There are of course more changes on the way as head designer Dave McLeod has stated that the release of the Living Rulebook Beta will be pretty much a complete re-write. While I do think the game needed a revision to bring it up modern gaming standards I really hope what make Heavy Gear unique - margins of success, combined arms, electronic warfare and a high-ish level of detail - remain in the game. I really don't think I need to worry, but it's still a balance act that need to be performed, keeping the unique gameplay while making the rules smoother. You can follow Dave's designer diaries over at the DP9 site.

Bottom line, I'm happy to see the game evolving and look forward to getting my hands on the miniatures later on. While DP9 has November as the stated shipping date, miniature and board game kickstarters are always (in my experience) delayed so I'm not really expecting to get my stuff this year, although... there's a first time for everything. Hehe! By then I'll have my Dropzone Commander battle board from Games & Gears ready, hopefully with additional cheap N scale terrain for extra detailing. Although the badlands is the classic setting for a Heavy Gear showdown, I'll make due with an old dilapidated cityscape until I actually decide to make an extra table.

For those of you who find this intriguing and curse yourself for missing the kickstarter in November, fear not! You can still get in on it by way of the pledge manager. You can get the basic core box for $80 CAD but I highly recommend going for the $115 CAD level which also gives you all the stretch goals, meaning the miniature count suddenly jumps from 16 to 51 and includes a bunch of extra conversion parts. While there are certainly kickstarters out there where you get more minis for your buck, but seeing as these are multi part poseable plastics I'm satisfied. Also, for about the same price as three Infinity starters I get 51 minis instead of 15. The next stretch goal is the Northern Kodiak (see left) in plastic at $160k CAD which I dearly hope gets unlocked as it's one of my favourite Heavy Gear models.

Well, those are some of my thoughts on the matter. I'm really happy to finally have pulled the trigger and invested in that second army I've thought about for so long. That it comes with a bunch of extra minis is of course a great bonus! Now I just need some tanks and striders...

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MERCS: Recon

I wasn't going to fall for any more Kickstarters - or at least, I'd only go for cheap ones - but MERCS: Recon simply looks waaaay too cool to pass up on!

It's a cooperative board game by Megacon Games who created the original Mercs skirmish game and ran the very successfull kickstarter for Myth last year (which is hitting the streets next month). I did give Myth a skip, partly because the uninspiring gameplay videos but also because I felt that I had three dungeon crawlers already (Descent 2.0, Gears of War and Claustrophobia). Of course Myth is entirely coop which might have been interesting since I sold my copy of Gears of War but still... ce'st la vie. Myth does look like a very cool game though!

Anyway, I'm definitely a much bigger sci-fi than fantasy fan anyway so the MERCS: Recon kickstarter immediately drew my interest. I had of course seen the Mercs skirmish game before and had even considered investing in it, but never really felt the need for it since Infinity fills that particular niche so well. However, the miniatures are generally good (going from decent to excellent) and the hard sci-fi setting Megacon has created seems pretty neat!

As I started reading about it I realized that it's basically Syndicate the board game! I'll let that sink in for a bit before moving on. And let's have a look at that nice reboot trailer as well:



I used to play loads of the original Syndicate back in the day, and I spent quite some time with the severely underrated reboot by Starbreeze as well. Also having grown up reading William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy and exploring the world of Cyberpunk 2020 I'm certainly not a stranger to corporate warfare.

In MERCS: Recon you play as a team of up to five mercs (or always five, I'm not sure) whose mission is to infiltrate the office complex of a rival Megacorp in search for the very important Mcguffin! It might be that you need to hack and wipe some servers, assassinate a particular scientist or perhaps a good old fashioned locate and extract. Each merc in the team has different abilities and armament with a leader, demolitions, breacher, incinerator and gunner (these roles probably vary between different merc factions).

This is the player board with the all the stats for your particular merc.

As you move into the office there will be a number of different coloured "agents" in the area (essentially three different kinds of blips, a la Space Hulk). These move around the board according to card draws and if one or more enters line of sight to a merc you draw a card to see what kind of opposing force (OPFOR) it actually is and how it reacts to the mercs. Of course, you will run into tougher resistance as the Security Level goes up. Regular employees will generally cower or try to run to the nearest elevator or stairwell while security forces will try to fight back. Security forces come in four different varieties, becoming gradually better armed and equipped as you go.

OPFOR!

When it's your turn to act with your merc you do so by way of command points, similar to Space Hulk, but with a lot more detail. You start the game with six points available, but you only get four back at the end of the turn, unless you take a special Initiative action which can't be combined with running or attacking. Connected to your command points is the Priority Track which works both as initiative, showing which merc acts first, but also as attack priority for the OPFOR models! So the more command points you spend during your turn the higher you will go on the priority track, meaning that the enemy will target you over the other mercs. Things like killing employees or using "excessive force" (attacking more than once in a round) raise your Priority further. Depending on your actions the Security Level is affected as well and even though you might be able to sneak around a little at first, it won't be long until OPFOR reinforcements start to arrive. This is a pretty clever little system that I haven't seen in board games before.

The movement and event cards used for agent movement and OPFOR reveal.

It also allows you neat combined actions where two mercs get to act simultaneously, one shooting and one moving for example or Duck & Cover where one merc can raise his Priority one step to allow another to lower hers. It gives a sense of a well oiled strike team working together, kind of like the move together card from Gears of War but more varied. There is also a combined action called Breach & Clear that the merc will have to use when they get to their objective (primary or secondary). This is basically a little mini-game within the game and a separate small board is used where OPFOR models are positioned behind overturned desks etc and the mercs storm through the door, guns blazing! It sounds really cool but I'm not yet convinced about the gameplay aspects of it. You mainly seem to do dice manipulation via the different abilities of the mercs to try and outdamage the opponents while attempting not to destroy the objective in the process. Need some gameplay vids of this in action to see how it really plays out.

The terrain tiles look ok, but could do with a bit detailing.

Oh, which reminds me of the collateral damage you are likely to inflict as you move through the area. There are three different attack dice: heavy, light and collateral damage dice. The CD dice have the lowest damage potential but hits every model in the target area as well as the area itself! If enough damage is done you place a special collateral damage disc on the area that changes the layout of the game and provides different modifiers. Oh, and you can ziptie and interrogate employees who might give you information as to the whereabouts of your objective. Oh, and now and then you will actually have to reload your weapon. Oh, and you can of course use overwatch, but be carful as you might fire at an employee by mistake (raising your priority and maybe security!). Oh, and as you get injured you loose command points and when incapacitated you need help to get up by your team mates. Oh, and OPFOR models act in different ways depending on if they are wounded or not. Oh, and there are more things, but it's late and I need to go to bed! :D

The factions in the two base game boxes.

All in all this seems like a pretty cool game! First and foremost I'm a sucker for the theme, but reading through the rules I get all kinds of good vibes as it really feels like something between the minimalistic tactical exercise of Space Hulk and the complex, rpg-esque sprawl of Earth Reborn. Two games that I love dearly, but that I can also feel are very far toward their respective ends of the spectrum. To have something in the middle would make for a nice trinity. Plus, full coop is a nice change!

I'm currently at the $120 Agent level, which gives you two different versions of the base game (featuring different mercs, OPFOR models, terrain tiles and missions) as well as every stretch goal. But I might find myself raising it to the $200 OPFOR level as that also includes the new second edition rulebook for the Mercs skirmish game plus all the cards needed to play it (as well as a totally separate dice game set in the same world). We're currently at 58 miniatures, but that seems to be rising to about 75 by the end of the week as another merc faction is added to the mix. Of course, it's not all about the number of miniatures. In fact, I think I would be happy with just one version of the base game, but at that level no stretch goals are included. Aww...

So... yeah... just thought I'd let you know. Because it seems pretty cool. :)

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Deadzone - The Game For You!

 The recently revealed Rebel Terraton Brawler!

Well... the Robotech kickstarter didn't pan out as I had hoped. Or rather, in the end it DID include loads of minis and the rules seemed decent enough, but I simply felt that I wouldn't have the time to get into another miniature game at yet another scale. And being the only guy in my group investing in it to boot! The huge amount of stuff included also, paradoxically, made me wary - I'm not big on large wargames and painting that amount of large miniatures would have taken ages!

Now... Deadzone on the other hand, I'm behind 100%. I'm going to try and explain why in this post and see if I can't make you realize that it's the game for you too!

First off, Deadzone is produced by Mantic Games and is a part of their expanding Warpath universe. If you are now thinking "Eurgh... Mantic" I understand you completely. They made their name by making cheaper almost IP-infringing models that could be used by people who didn't want to shell out the crazy money GW want for their models. I've bought some of their models in the past; the ghouls and zombies are great looking and makes for excellent conversion fodder. My eyebrows also went up when they released their Corporation troopers and Enforcers for Warpath.

As far as I was concerned Mantic made decent looking knock-offs and had some kind of phone-in version of a rules pamphlet for their Kings of War and Warpath "games". But then... as I started looking deeper into Deadzone I realized that they are actually trying to carve out their own little niche of IP and more original stuff has started appearing. While I would have been a lot happier if the Marauders were simply Marauders (instead of Orx) Asterians were Asterians (instead of Xeldar) and the Forge Fathers were Forge Fathers (instead of Sxuats) the fluff Mantic is writing for them makes me ok for me. And no they are not actually called that... except for the Orx.

The Marauders!

Sure the Asterians are a dying race and blah, blah, blah, but the cool upside is that they only send one actual Asterians to fight - and she controls a bunch of mechanical drones! Pretty cool! The Forge Fathers are good artisans and blah, blah, blah, but the cool upside is that they use their superior technology as a way of controlling the lesser races - providing enough tech for them to get by, but not actually releasing any of their trade secrets (also, not all of them have beards). Marauders are big and strong and like to fight, but that's about where the similarities end - they were once on the payroll of the Corporation as shocktroops, until they one day realized that they could take care of themselves, revolted and became mercenaries for hire. They are not the mindless goons of the GW settings but rather a lot more like the Krogans of Mass Effect.

All I need is a Phantom and a Mech and I've got my own Cerberus army!

Speaking of Mass Effect - the Enforces that could easily have become a facsimile of the Space Marines have a lot more in common with the sinister Cerberus organisation from the video game. Even down to the units they can field and the paintjob Mantic has given them! They are the true stormtroopers of the Warpath universe, unquestionably obeying the will of the corporation. In response to the oppressive dictatorship in the Co-Prosperity Sphere humans and all kinds of aliens have formed motley crew of rebels. This seems to be the most popular faction thus far and I can see why, as the models look pretty cool - having a kind of Firefly plus Babylon 5-vibe to them.

Finally there's the Plague. Again something Mantic could easily have made into their version of the Tyranids

instead became something a lot more akin to the Necromorphs in Deadspace. An alien(?) virus that transforms its first victim to a huge behemoth who then proceeds to create second generation monstrosities who in turn create third (and final) generation plague, who still retain some humanity. There are also the plague zombies - the victims who weren't killed by the virus but didn't turn either. While the third generation models are a bit so-so (as far as I'm concerned) the first and second gens are great looking! And the plauge teraton that has just been unlocked looks like it could be spectacular looking!

Plague reinforcements...

Wow... didn't mean to write so much about the fluff. What about the game? The game, dude!!?

If I know my dear readers I have feeling that many of you used to play GW games (and some of you probably still do) and while you have slowly been more and more turned off WHFB and 40k you still have a special place in your heart for the GOOD games, like Necromunda, Mordheim, Blood Bowl, Epic and Battlefleet Gothic. Am I right, or am I right?

After Epic Space Marine, Necromunda is by far my most played GW game. When that was released pretty much all other miniature gaming activity ceased as we just played it to death (I guess we managed some games of Blood Bowl as well)! Most of the people in my group painted multiple gangs and we had several campaigns going with loads of off-table chatter between games. Basically, it was pretty much all I had wished for in miniatures game.

There are great deals on some Antenociti terrain as part of the Kickstarter as well!

So why don't we simply dust off our old 'Munda minis? Well, the system that worked well for us then feels a bit dated and clunky when looked at today. And getting everyone fired up about getting their old minis out from the attic has proved tricky. Not to mention that it takes up a lot of room and the paper terrain (that I love personally) have turned one or two buddies off the game.

Enter Deadzone. This is Mantic's attempt to fill the void left by Necromunda and Deadzone. However it actually is something new, rather than simply carbon copying an old ruleset and peddling it to people stuck in the nostalgic late nineties. Just like Dreadball proved to be a solid game in itself, and a very different beast to how Blood Bowl plays, Deadzone is aiming for a particular gap, but is bringing new ideas and ways to play with it.

The way I see it, Deadzone is not filling the skirmish game gap. There are loads of those around these days and many of them are truly great game (Infinity, woot!). The gap being filled is instead of the campaign game - something that has been missing since 'Munda/Mordheim were murdered slowly. Sure there are games like Judge Dredd that are trying to fill that niche, but I think the setting is a bit too specific and Mongoose don't have the clout to really make it into a "mainstream" game. Mantic on the other hand have an excellent opportunity to create a large fanbase with the kickstarter and thanks to the success of Dreadball I think miniature games are starting to take them seriously as a miniature games company, rather than simply a miniatures company.

Another gap that Deadzone is filling is one of accessability. While I love Infinity and would recommend it to anyone, it is a game with a bit of a threshold when you start out. The naming conventions are confusing, there are loads of different skills and pieces of equipment and even the tactical depth can be intimidating! Even my friend Anders, who once asked "Why play anything other than Infinity?", grew disinterested of the game when I pressed on a bit too quickly and he had a hard time keeping up in the "arms and rules race". I hear Malifaux is similiarly tricky to get into at first, and so is Heavy Gear.

Rebel scum...

Deadzone on the other hand is fairly straight forward with the dicepool and versus rolls. Another HUGE thing is that you play it on a 60x60cm gridded mat and don't need a measuring tape! While I was initially sceptical about this, as I found Dust Tactics too abstract and boardgamey, the way it works in practice pretty much combines the best of both worlds and it plays quickly while still retaining the importance of terrain and positioning. Of course, you can expand on this and play on four mats put together, or six mats - some of the recently revealed stuff (like a mortar!) are specifically aimed for larger games. But the core game is played on a small board, crammed with terrain and you are normally done within the hour. This is accessibility.

The terrain is another big draw, and it's actually the reason I had a look at Deadzone in the first place. I wanted to see if the terrain would be suitable for Infinity. Well, it's suitable for pretty much anything considering it's modular and you can build what the hell you want with it! Is it the best looking terrain available? No. There's a lot of beautiful stuff out there and more is being produced everyday in the form of MDF stuff. On the other hand, it's not bad looking by any stretch of the word - it's solid looking hardish sci-fi terrain that could be used to create any kind of battlefield. I would love to get an Infinity table crammed with Warmill stuff, but I'm more than happy to use the Deadzone tiles instead. Cheaper and more flexible.

This is what we're aiming for, or actually with a little bit more terrain.

Alright, I'll try and round off this post now. Getting a bit long...

I've been blathering on about Deadzone, the different factions, the rules and the filling of gaps, but what really convinced me was when I got to try the Alpha rules and got the same kind of feeling that I used to get when playing Necromunda fifteen years ago! Tight, scenario based skirmish battles in a cramped environment. Little stories and vignettes being told as you played and knowing that your guys were getting better the more after a battle. The ease of getting into when there are only a handfull of models needed to play and rules that can be explained in 10 minutes.

It's pretty cool stuff. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty cool stuff. And right about now on the final stretch the Kickstarter is starting to explode. Yesterday it jumped more than $32,000 and it's already passed that amount today, with more than half the day left! I wouldn't be surprised to see the meter tick past $800,000 by tonight and that's still before the 48 hour email goes out. Dreadball pulled in $133,000 on its last day and I don't see any reason why Deadzone would be any different. Will it break the million mark? With 53 hours to go I'd bet on it...

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Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter

While I've mentioned Kickstarter projects in the past this is the first time I write an entire post dedicated to one. I've been wary of backing any and have, as more and more projects sprang up, felt a bit of a "Kickstarter fatigue". There have simply been sooo many launched during the past year! That is not to say there has been a lot of awesome stuff coming out of this new kind of venture; things like Sedition Wars, Mutant Chronicles and Zombicide certainly looks impressive! Still, besides helping fund FATE Core and Mutant: År Noll (a Swedish postapoc rpg) I've stayed away from the whole thing.

Then the Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter launched and I simply couldn't help myself. It's kind of weird since I've never actually seen the whole series, in fact I only saw a couple of episodes when I was a kid, as well as the Macross movie as a teenager. Still those Veritechs (together with Robotech Defenders - different thing, same name) cemented my love for giant mecha and I think it's that love that made me pull the trigger more than anything else. While I've got a fledgling Northern Guard force for Heavy Gear and there are games like Battletech still around, the idea of a quick playing, less niche, miniature game that focus on classic anime mecha appeals to me enormously!

I had seen some previews of the models before and they looked good! Among others, the classic Veritech Valkyrie in all three forms, the Tomahawk, the Zaentradi walkers and most recently... the MAC II Monster! So I hurried and got one of the early bird pledges saving me a little bit of cash, thinking I could always change my pledge later. The $140 level is where you get access to free unlocks, but so far I'm not quite sure it's worth it. Then again, give it a few weeks for more stretch goals to be achieved and it might be a different matter entirely. We'll see...

Of course, I'm a gamer at heart and although I love myself some great looking models I'm very curious about the actual gameplay. Luckily Ninja Division put together a quick video about the basics of the game and I think it looks fairly interesting:



Now these are of course only the rule fundamentals, and a work in progress at that, but the basic dice mechanics appeals to me. I like that each unit has a defence stat, something that is missing in most miniature games, and the fact that a single roll of the dice is enough to determine the outcome of an attack unless your opponent spend command points to dodge etc.

I have some concerns about the game bogging down when you play larger battles as there seems to be a decent level of detail, but that might be counteracted by the limitations on command points. If you don't have enough points to spend you simply don't get to try and dodge or use your anti-missile systems. However this also means that even smaller games will likely prove interesting as there are a quite a few special attacks and things like flanking and massed fire are in.

The command point system in general seems like an interesting mechanic. Robotech features an otherwise conventional I-go-you-go system with alternating activations but the command points, that seems similar to the command points of Space Hulk, allow you to use special kind of attacks and maneuvers as well as protecting your troops in the opponents turn. Perhaps similar to the special orders of Dust Warfare but available all the time. Hmm...

Well, those are my initial thoughts on Robotech RPG Tactics. It's been very successfull so far and was funded in less than three hours. As of this writing there are another 27 days to go and the funding is at $311,561 (meaning less than $15,000 to go for the MAC II!) which should mean a number of more stretch goals being unlocked.

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