Wargame Design: High Noon: Plastic Men, Steel Resolve

At my local grocery store, they have a small section to sell toys to the little sprogs.  It is 4 lonely feet mixed in with the sugary cereals.  A perfect place to ambush an unsuspecting parent!  In this forsaken section of toys, they had a bag of plastic cowboys and Indians.  It had been a long time since I had seen a bag of these toys.  I managed to resist buying them for several visits, but eventually my willpower cracked and in a moment of weakness I bought them.

As many of my long time readers will know, I love using toys for my wargames.  Of course, my first though was to use them for some Wild West themed game like Legends of the Old West, Dead Man's Hand, Fistful of Lead, or Dracula's America.  I had been toying with the idea of a Weird Wild West game myself for a long time.  I never actually got it down on paper, and eventually that game morphed into Turf War instead.  However, here I was with a nice set of multi-colored cowboys and Indians with no game to call home.

When I showed my family what madness I had wrought, my daughter was quick to solve the problem.  She asked if I was going to make another dexterity game with them!  Genius!  

I had first been introduced to the ideas and mechanics with the Z-man game Flick'em UP!  At first I had been skeptical.  However, after playing several games with players of all skill level and ages I was won over by the concept.  I had successfully used dexterity combat mechanics to make games before.  You can see the successful results in Total CARnage and Green Army Men: Plastic Men, Steel Resolve .  At that point, I decided that this rule set was going to join the Plastic Men, Steel Resolve family of games.  

So, the big question was how to make it a unique experience.  It was clear it would still use the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) mechanics of my other dexterity games.  I still wanted the flick and flip mechanics too.  Finally, I also had dice "coin shifting" for different weapons lethality.  These were all features of Green Army Men: Plastic Men, Steel Resolve as well.  

Most of the flavor came from a few sources:  

1. Unique weaponry- The Wild West was well known for a few key weapon systems; the revolver and the lever action rifle.  Of course, those were not the only weapons.  The question was how to make them unique.  This was done by adding special rules not present in Green Army Men: Plastic Men, Steel Resolve   

         

2. Scenario Design- The flavor of the Wild West needs custom scenarios like stage coach robberies, jail breaks, showdowns at high noon, etc.  

3. Horses and Wagons- Riding horses and wagons was a key part of the Wild West.  Without horses, you loose the flavor of the period.  Therefore, there are rules for mounted models too! 

From Chick's Discount Saddlery

With those key elements identified, it was time to put the new rules together.  Thankfully, I was able to build off of an existing framework.  However, a revolver in the this Wild West game ended up working very differently than a pistol in Green Army Men: Plastic Men, Steel Resolve .  In addition, this new game had twice as many scenarios to play than its predecessors.  High Noon: Plastic Men, Steel Resolve was born.  

You can find this game (along with my other works) at my Wargames Vault page here: https://www.wargamevault.com/browse/pub/11064/Blood-and-Spectacles-Publishing

Here is a quick start of a Battle Report to get a feel for game play: 

Black and Blue Bart and his gang of outlaws were trying to scout out a watering hole.  They came across a band of Native Americans.  The Indian war party recognized the outlaw, and decided to try and hunt him and his posse of outlaws down for the bounty.  

Forces

Black and Blue Bart and his Boys

1 Two Pistols

1 Pistol

2 Lever action rifles

Indian War Party

Knife and Shield

Spear

Spear and Shield

Shotgun

Long Rifle

Forces were selected by dividing the toys up by color.  Then reaching into the bag and pulling out random figures and using what they were armed with.  Simple.  

Set-up

The board was set-up on a 4x3 table with a desert mat.  We then placed four pieces of random stuff I had within arms reach.  Terrain is 1 for 1 in this game so What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG).  If you have Wild West themed terrain that is great, but it is not needed.  

Mission

We looked at the three pages of scenarios and we decided to do a basic Rootin' Tootin' shoot-out.

Turn 1

The coin flip let's the Cowboys go first.  Bart moves up with his two pistols and shoots ineffectively.  He is countered by the knife wielding indian going up the center as a distraction.  An outlaw rifleman runs forward and fires at a spear men, but misses.    

A second spear men moves up and a well aimed throw puts the Outlaw out of the game.  First blood to the War Party.  

However, the second rifle armed Outlaw stands still and fires across the board.  Since he stood still, he can take two shots with a lever action rifle.  His second shot finds its mark despite the distance!  The Indian spear man goes down and is out of the game.  

  

The Long rifle and Shotgun Native Americans move up the flank, while a pistol armed outlaw tries to cover the center of the board.  

That ends Turn 1 with both sides using alternating activation to move and shoot, shoot and move, or to simply shoot.  Not moving let's some weapons fire more often.  

So, that should give you a general feel for the game play.  Now you can decide if it is a game for you.  You can find this game (along with my other works) at my Wargames Vault page here: 

https://www.wargamevault.com/browse/pub/11064/Blood-and-Spectacles-Publishing  

       

  

Battle Report: Total CARnage- Slaying Song Tonight!

As you may recall, for Thanksgiving my family had a lot of fun playing Total Carnage!  The Christmas Season appears to be no exception.  As soon as I walked int he door, the youngsters were asking to play the "Car Game" again.  I was obliging and we pulled out the cars and blocks and got set-up to play again. 

We used some of the same car names as last time.  Above you can see Barbie Basher scoot past the wreckage of Speedline and sneak up on Black Shadow. 

This game was a Kill'em All scenario.  The top three cars are Barbie Basher, Titan, and Money maker.  The bottom three are Black Shadow, 9-1-1, and Speedline.  We had a smaller table to play on so we only used three cars per player instead of five.

We also played a few Capture the Macguffin scenarios using the top hatted Little People as the objective.  If you ran into him, you picked him up. 

In this one, Black Shadow crashed into the red block, and a yellow pole fell from the top of it and landed on him.  He was destoyed.  That was pretty par for the course as we smashed into terrain and each other like crazy. 

For Christmas, I gave them all a copy of the rules that I had printed out.  They were pretty excited.  Another happy Christmas memory as we sang a "Slaying Song Tonight"!     

Review: Gaslands- Osprey Games

The Car Combat genre of wargames is an interesting breed.  It has a long pedigree, going all the way back to the 80s.  It is unclear where the origins of the car combat genre first appeared, however I imagine the Mad Max series of movies played a large part in their origins.  The first Car Combat games I can recall are Steve Jackson’s Car Wars and Games Workshop’s Dark Future.  I personally never really got into either game as they were not my cup of Tea at the time. 

The majority of my exposure to Car Combat games was actually through video games.  Here the genre has a rich history!  Of course, you could argue that the grand-daddy of the Car Combat game is the Twisted Metal franchise.  In the Twisted Metal world, the game was sent in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by a god-like being who hosted the Twisted Metal tournament.  The prize was the winners wish to come true. 

In a way, Gaslands plays off the ideas of Twisted Metal and meshes it with the movie The Running Man.  The game represents teams competing on a season of a TV show called Gaslands where the winning team earns a trip of the post-apocalyptic ghetto of Earth to the paradise of Mars.  They only need to beat all the rivals to win.

I have a personal history with Car Combat wargames as well.  I was an avid player of the Twisted Metal games.  When I was 13 or 15 one of my first tries at writing a wargame was attempting to make a Car Combat game.  I called it Burning Rubber and it involved making a team of racers.  They actually raced around a track that had pre-set squares.  The track had obstacles like ramps, oil slicks, cows, mines, potholes etc.  You bought drivers and cars and equipped them with weaponry to fight each other with.  For a first timer, it had a lot of the hall marks of some of my later designs such as campaign play with driver experience, injury, vehicle permanent damage, and resource management of the team.  Looking back, it wasn’t a bad first attempt.  There were even different types of car races, with the ultimate goal to be the first team to get a car across the finish line.  I wish I still had the rules, but they were lost to time long ago. 

When my kid was younger, I also made up a quick race game that involved math Flash Cards.  The track was composed of facedown flash cards.  To move your car, the player had to answer the flash card.  Cars could only go a certain number of flash cards in a row.  This was a fun game to help teach my kid math instead of boring flash cards.      

Since then, I have continued to work on Car Combat games.  My current title is Total CARnage.  Here the focus is on making a simple, fun, family game based on dexterity mechanics that was heavily inspired by playing Flick’em Up!  In addition, I have been working on the campaign and expanded rules for Redline which is a more traditional wargame using templates, rules, dice, etc.  for mechanic resolution.  This game has mostly been inspired by airplane games more than other Car Combat games.  So, I was eager to dig into Gaslands.  Let’s get in under the hood….

Things I Liked

Right off the bat, I loved that this game was designed for using Matchbox cars, Hot Wheels, and other similar sized brands.  That element spoke to the affordable gamer in me.  I don’t have many of those sitting around anymore, but they are cheap enough and now have some wacky designs. 

This game uses a clever Initiative/movement mechanic called “gears”.  A turn is divided into 6 Gears.  Depending what Gear your vehicle is in determines how many times it can move and influences what maneuver templates it can use with or without penalties.  Vehicles in a higher gear are activating more often and therefore “moving” faster than lower gear vehicles.  As you go up in gears, some movement templates become easier or harder to do.  This acts as a form of stress that can cause cars making the wrong maneuver to wipeout.  Higher gears also make it harder to control if you wipeout.    

The movement templates mean that a player never uses a tape measure, worry about turning radius by degrees, etc.  It is a relatively smooth and intuitive system.   Templates are also used for ranged shooting attacks.       

Rams and shooting attacks are opposed rolls.  They are very simple based on the number of attack dice of the weapon, with a success being 4+.  Easy to remember.  Vehicles being attacked can evade and nullify a hit with a 6+.  I prefer when a game allows you to nullify a hit and not just sit there while getting shot up.  Simple and intuitive mechanics for combat

Finally, I like that many of the scenarios are actual races where you need to get through “Goals” the fastest.  That means you need a balanced force of speed and muscle to get you through the scenarios successfully.     

Things I Did Not Like

For some inexplicable reason, this game uses custom dice!  Granted, they explain it as 1= this, and 2= that but it encourages you to make your own custom dice for the “gear shift” mechanic.  The “Gear Shift” mechanic seems to take a page right out of X-wing and similar games.  Each vehicle has a handling rating, and you roll the gear shift “custom” dice.  Some results can be used to cancel results, and others put stress on the car/driver by causing a slide, spin, or picking up a hazard token.  Too many hazard tokens and your car will wipeout.  Gear Shift dice allow you to change your gear up or down, remove hazard tokens, or nullify slide/spin results.  Ultimately, cars with high handling lead to a lot of fiddliness to determine their “gear Shift” dice. 

I was disappointed with the campaign system.  It allows you to create teams based on sponsors and get some sponsor perks but ultimately drivers and cars do not have much of a path for advancement or debuffing.  They use Audience Points to allow some customization, but the campaign season is just not as meaty as I would like.  I mostly blame space limitations for it.  However, there is a lot of good details in the sponsor and sponsor Perks section to allow you to make distinct race teams. 

From Gaslands.Com the game's website

Meh and Other Uncertainties

The game uses a dashboard off to the side for each vehicle.  That is where you keep track of hazard tokens, gear, damage, etc.  I am glad that the game specifically calls out that these go on the side board of this game would seem very token heavy on the game board.  Thankfully, this is not the case.       

The game allows for a wide array of vehicles culled from all sorts of sources from motorbikes, to monster trucks, to helicopters and tanks.  I am pretty sure I could build all of the cars from Twisted Metal franchise for use in Gaslands if I wanted to.      

The back of the book has all the templates and dashboards you need to play ready to photocopy.  I am pretty sure they are also on the website for Osprey too.  However, you will need to make your own.  It also has a quick reference section as well.  

I enjoyed the full color art in the book, even if it was a bit stylized for my usual tastes.  There were also many shots of cars driving aroudn and fighting.  Some of the Browner colored cars were uninspiring, but some of the Performance Cars looked very cool.  Plus, they used a couple of interesting angles to add to the drama and "TV Show" look.     

From the Osprey Publishing website

Final Thoughts

I could see this game being sold by Fantasy Flight Games.  It has all the potential elements.  It basically uses the flight path model with movement templates.  It has custom dice with symbols that cancel each other out and add tokens to the car’s dashboard.  I could easily see them selling single car packs with driver and equipment upgrade cards too!  It really feels like this was a game pitched to them, but picked up by Osprey in some “Freaky Friday” style of mistake.

This game will ultimately work best as a club game where each player has one or two cars they control.  The rules are relatively explicit about this when they go into the scenarios and building a team.  It should lead to some good mayhem and seems easy enough to play.  I agree that the “Gear Shift” mechanic will be better for fewer cars on your team rather than more.    

Ultimately, I am glad I got these rules.  I think my family will prefer to play Total CARnage but I think my regular gaming buddies would prefer this game.  It also gave me some ideas to explore for my own Car Combat games in the future.   

         

Total CARnage: Battle Report- Thanksgiving Massacre!

Over Thanksgiving break, I spent time with my family.  I am sure this is not unusual for most of my gentle readers.  My daughter asked if we could play Total CARnage.  Thankfully, my in-laws still had a box full of old toy cars and a bunch of wooden blocks. 

My daughter and the other young ones quickly picked cars and set-up a board.  I set-up the gangs and we gave each of the cars silly names.  I then explained the rules and we got playing.  I didn’t expect much, just a game or two and then off to other things.  We had several video game rigs (including VR) and a number of board games.  Why would we want to play Total CARnage for very long. 

I was in for a surprise.  The kids couldn’t get enough of it!  We probably played for about two hours the first day, and as soon as I woke up the next day they were asking to play more!  We probably played another three hours.  I guess they liked it.  Even some of the adults rotated in.  I know what I am going to do for the kids Christmas presents this year, a box of Hot Wheels cars, some pennies and a quarter, and a print-out of the Total CARnage rules PDF. 

I didn’t get a chance to get many pictures, but here are a few below.  Notice the festive table covering to verify it must be Thanksgiving!  We played several sceanrios including Kill’em All, Get the MacGuffin, Convoy, and Race to the Finish.  

Some of the car names included: 

• Deathtrap
• Coffinmaker (Which we kept calling Coffeemaker as a joke)
• Duece
• Dragonhood (Which we called Dragon Bonnet as a joke) 
• Moneymaker
• Turbo
• Speedline
• Barbie Basher (It was a neon pink car) 

There were some innovative tactics too.  The kids would try to shoot blocks to get them to fall on rival cars, ram cars into other obstacles for extra damage, and once someone hit a ramp and jumped on top of the other car and immobilized them.  It was pretty insane.  

My daughter recommend I make a similar game, but for Green Army Men before Christmas.  I think I have been given a challenge! Stay tuned. 

Total CARnage: Battle Report- Convoy Attack! and Race to the Finish!

Today I got to play TotalCARnage with my daughter.  It is a dexterity based car combat game.  The key feature is WYSIWYG resolution.  If terrain falls or is knocked over, it stays that way.  Instead of using rulers and dice all resolution is completed using a “flick” mechanic.  It is designed to be quick, dirty, and decisive.

The Forces

Purple People Eaters

They are a fierce cannibal warband driving purple cars.

Standard Vehicle (Flames)

Machine Gun

Hits: 5

45 Points

Standard Vehicle (Classic Car)

Cannon

Hits: 5

35 Points

Total= 80 Points

Truk Police

A band of wasteland do-gooders in trucks

Standard Vehicle (Green)

Cannon

Hits: 5

35 Points

Heavy Vehicle (Black)

Cannon

Hits: 6

45 Points

Mission: Convoy Attack

The attackers sets-up terrain. The defender is set-up with one vehicle touching the board edge. All other vehicles are in a line facing the opposite board edge. 1 of the defender’s vehicles is the “objective” vehicles as chosen by the defender. This time it is the Black Truck of the Truck police.   The attackers are placed touching any board edge. If the objective vehicle escapes the board the defender wins, if not the attacker wins.

The Green truck is in front of the Black truck facing the long way down a 6ft by 2 ft table.  The terrain is wasteland terrain with some rocks and dunes.  There is no clear way down the entire board without hitting terrain.  The Purple People Eaters have the flames car on the opposite short edge, while the Old Car is coming in on the left board edge behind a rock about half way up the board. 

Turn 1:

The Attackers go first, and it is the Purple People Eaters.  A really poor initial flick sends the Flames car careening into a rock at a 90 degree angle from where he started!  Woops!  Down 3 Hits all ready!

The Green Truck rumbles forward just short of the rock half way up the board.  The Old Car barely moves and gets ready to try and ambush the trucks as they pass. 

The Black Truck moves out, but is overzealous and accidentally rams the Green Truck in the back!  Green Truck is down to 2 hits, and Black is down to 5. 

Bad driving all around!

Turn 2:

The Purple Flames car backs-up, and the Green truck rushes forward and clips a dune for one more hit.  He fires his cannon and hits the Purple Flame car, both are now down to 1 hit. 

The Old Purple Car speeds out after the Green Truck and fires his cannon to finish him off.  However, his shots fall short.  The Black Trucks moves up, but is does not have a good shot as he comes up to the Old Car.

Turn 3:

The Old Car fires point blank into the Black Truck and follows it with a powerful ram!  The Black Truck is down to 1 hit, and the Old Car has 4 left.  Not good for the Truck police. 

The Green Truck fires his cannon at the Purple Flames car and misses.  He then backs-up to avoid getting fired at.  The Purple Flames car turns and drives to cut-off the Black Truck’s route. 

The Black Truck fired on the Purple Flames Car, but missed.  He then rolled up closer to it to try to get to the board edge. 

Turn 4:

The Purple Old Car rammed the back of the Black Truck and hit it with a close range Cannon shot for 4 hits of total damage.  It is at -3 hits, not enough to explode.  However, the Truck Police have lost the game.  All other actions are irrelevant so we call it a match.

    

Conclusion:

A quick and bloody match finished.  Some poor initial driving really caused issues this game.  Lots of ramming and collisions this game!  I am surprised the Green Truck and Purple Flame Cars made it without getting immobilized.   

Mission 2:  Race to the Finish

The defender places terrain and attacker chooses a short board edge. Defender deploys anywhere on the edge, and the attacker is then placed anywhere on the same board edge. The first gang to exit a vehicle on the opposite board edge wins.  Purple People Eaters are the attacker. 

In this one, we said that the two sides are racing to a settlement.  If the Cannibal Purple People Eaters get there first, it is time for a banquet.  If the Truck Police get there first the townsfolk are saved!

Turn 1:

The Old Car goes first and sails up the board and past a bunch of terrain.  The Green Truck pursues and fires with his cannon, but misses.  The Purple Flames Car chases and rear rams the Green Truck!  2 hits on Green and 4 left on Purple Flame. 

Turn 2:

The Purple Flames car opens fire with his Machine Gun and immobilizes the Green Truck.  However, he was so focused on shooting that he crashed head first into a mountain!   1 Hit left. 

The Black truck raced ahead, and came perilously close to fall off the edge of the board!  The Old Car was more carefully and pulled ahead, but had no targets to shoot at. 

Turn 3:

The Purple Flame Car backs away from the mountain he hit to go around it.  The Black Truck makes for the gap past the dunes.  The Old Purple Car shoots him with his cannon and takes him down one hit, and slowly pursues.  The Black Truck is in the lead!

Turn 4:

The Old Purple Car goes to ram the Black Truck hard, but misses and ends up flying off the edge of the board.  Ka-boom!  The Black Truck carefully drives to the edge of the board and past the sand dunes.  He has won the race!

Conclusion:

The Truck Police have managed to get to the settlement before the cannibals and saved the day!  Hip-hip Hooray!

We then started to play about 6-8 more games that I didn’t bother recording because we were having too much fun.  We even played a few three-on-three games with my wife too.  There was much mayhem, crashing, exploding, and merriment.

Final Thoughts:

Another couple of quick, fun games completed.  An entire campaign could probably be played in an evening even with a few more cars per side.  This would make a great family night game as the rules are super easy and even a novice to wargames can pick them up fast.  Plus, it was a hoot smashing cars together.    

I need to get to the store and find some more cheap cars to add to me collection so we can play it with even more crashing and smashing!  My family particularly enjoyed the Race to the Finish scenario.   With more cars and on a 6x4 table that would get crazy fun!     

Wargame Design: Redline- Car Combat Game in W.I.P.

Car Combat games have been on my mind a lot for the last year or so.  I attribute this mostly to the Delta Vector Blog and their chat group.  They started talking about them late last year, and their discussion really got me to start thinking about the genre.

My last Car Combat Game, Total CARnage, focused on using Dexterity based mechanics for a quick game that anyone could play.  There the vision was to eschew traditional wargaming mechanics and do everything with found materials.  Therefore, it used no dice, rulers or templates.
 

 
I enjoyed the design, but I couldn't stop thinking about Car Combat.  Total CARnage came about after playing a few games of Flick'Em Up.  However, my next game came about after playing and reposting battle reports for one of my favorite games; Aeronautica Imperialis.  I began to think about how aircraft games possessed many of the same traits you would want in a Car Combat game.
Here were some things I thought would be essential for a Car Combat game:

1. Manuever would be critical
2. Positioning would be a big aspect of the game
3. Ramming 
4. Going out of control and crashing
5. Fast game play

After looking at the old Car Wars, I was turned off by the more simulationists aspects of the game.  That was not the style of game I wanted to play.  I wanted something where the emphasis was on turning and burning and riddling enemy cars with machine gun bullets. 

I turned my attention away from Car Combat games, and instead started to look at other aircraft related games.  They all had a relatively similar basis, but captured the aspects of combat that were needed in Car Combat.  High speeds, maneuver, positioning, and firepower.  I looked at the following games:

• Aeronautica Imperialis
• X-wing
• Check Your 6
• Bag the Hun
• Wings of Glory
• and many, many others.....

Then, I started to put font to electronic page I decided that I wanted my game to accomplish the following things....

1. Maneuver and position would be the core of the game
1. Shooting would have limited range 
2. Shooting would be a limited resource
2. Speed in game play
3. Long movement distances (to represent speed)
4. Simple mechanics

The first draft of Redline was born from these considerations.  It is now at a stage where the core mechanics can be used and tested on the table.  There are still plenty of things to evaluate such as weapon balance, points for building vehicles, if the core mechanics even do what I set out to do, etc.  However, it is at a point where I think I can add it to the Work In Progress section of the blog.  Once the core rules have been balanced and worked out, I will move onto adding scenarios and campaign play to the main rules.  You do not need to wait for those parts to give it a try.  

Feel free to give it a test.  I have added a thread in the Messageboard so you can add your feedback and thoughts.  Enjoy!  

Blood and Spectacles on the Wargames Vault

If you look to the right hand side of the Blog, you will see a list of Free Wargames.  I encourage you to take a look at the list and see if anything strikes your fancy.  Currently, I have 3 titles available on the Wargames Vault for your downloading pleasure.  Today, I am going to dive in a bit to each one and give some Designer's Notes to these three games.

The game that got me started on the Vault was a car combat game called Total CARnage.  The topic of car combat games came up on the Delta Vector discussion group.  For those who do not know, the EvilMonkeigh has a great series of wargames design blogs that helped me think deeper about my own designs.  I credit much of my effort and drive to complete projects to him and his group.  It is a great blog and I recommend it and the discussion group heartily.  Sadly, I do not get to participate as much as I used to.

 
Much of the discussion was circling around the old Car Wars from Steve Jackson games.  I never got to play, but it sounded like a fun game but one that was pointed closer to a simulationist bent.  I prefer my games to be a bit less crunchy.  However, the concept of car combat was put in my head.

A bit later, my brother-in-law introduced me to a game called Flick'em Up by Z-man games.  This game was novel to me as it used a mechanic called a "Flick".  It also billed itself as a tactical wargame.  At first, the purist in me rejected the idea that this could be a wargame.  Then I played, and the basic rthymns of the wargame were there, the only difference was the moving and shooting resolution methods.  It was not resolved by dice or cards.  Instead, it was resolved by player dexterity.
I quickly made the connection to car games and the basic skeleton of Total CARnage was born.  From there, I made a few other design decisions.  One of the most influential was that I did not want to use any specialty wargamin gear like templates, rulers, dice, etc.  I wanted it so a person could pick up the rules and be ready to play with found items.  Therefore, it uses toy cars, loose change, and your own two hands to resolve all key actions.

This ruleset was the first one I published, but it was a huge departure from my traditional design style.  I had been wedded to a more traditional approach to wargaming and Total CARnage is not that approach.

The next game I published was born when I was organizing my gaming area.  I kept running across all these great old Warhammer 40K and Necromunda models that I wanted to use again.  I still play Necromunda relatively frequently, but I have not played 40K since 5th edition.  I really have no intention of going back despite the rumors of an 8th edition dropping.  However, I had all these awesome (and painted, but not as awesome) models that I wanted to use.  That was the impetus for Rampant Stars.

In a moment of fevered inspiration I wrote out Rampant Stars based on Daniel Mersey's work on Dragon Rampant, Lion Rampant, and The Men Who Would Be Kings.  Since reading those works and Dux Bellorum I have been heavily influenced by Mr. Mersey's design ethos.  I like to think that Rampant Stars is the sci-fi off shoot of those ideas.  It includes a simple activation system where troops do no always perform as intended, traits to customize generic units, scale agnostic, bring what you have, simple morale, and everything is based of straight forward versions of the 4Ms.  These are all signatures of Mr. Mersey's ideas and I have customized or modified them to fit my vision for a simple and generic set of Sci-fi rules that can be played in a single hour.   

There is one area where I break from Mr. Mersey's work dramatically is in mission generation.  I lookd to inspiration to two major sources.  The first was the old Rogue Trader which had awesome scenario generation tables, and the more modern Rogue Stars.  In Rampant Stars a group of players can quickly and easily determine a mission, location, and complication that will make each battle unique!  In addition, each game has a built in time limit of 1 hour, so these games are short and sharp affairs.

The final game on my Vault is The Games: Blood and Spectacle.  This is a game of Roman Gladiators fighting in the arena for profit and fame.  The player is a Lanista and controls a Ludus of Gladiators of different skill level and styles.  The main inspirations for this game were Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Crom, and Super System.  I wanted a game that was a campaign game, but was filled with decision making and choice at all levels.  I think this game delivers as you decide during list building, in each event, and during the campaign elements.

My initial attempts at this game were less than flattering.  Gladiators ended up locked in close combat simply swinging away at each other mindlessly as an exercise in pointless dice rolling.  Boring.  Later versions had intricate maneuvers that allowed Gladiators to get bonuses based on position etc.  This led to too much "If This/Than That".  Thankfully, Crom and Super Systems pointed me to a solution.

Instead, of these other methods that I had used in other Gladiator games I would use a resource management approach of diminishing dice pools combined with a striking success mechanism.  Essentially, Gladiators in combat had to choose how may of their dice to use to attack or defend in opposed skill rolls.  6's would allow them to activate a special maneuver.  This allowed each player a great deal of choice but still allowed for cinematic action.  Was it better to use your dice to push home an attack, or to save it for a defense later?  Choice was the name of the game.

There is list building, roster management, skill development, ludus enhancements, and even dirty tricks you can play on your rivals.  I tried to merge the awesome campaign systems of Games Workshops Specialist Games system into the campaign system in The Games: Blood and Spectacle.  Gladiators can be injured, die, gain skills, earn freedom, or be buffed/de-buffed.  It depended on how you spent your dinarri and who you decided to use in the Arena during the Games.
Before publishing, this game was available for free for download at the Free Wargames Wikia.  It managed to get its own Board Game Geek page.  It was downloaded about 2,000 times.  I made some minor adjustments and then put it up on the Wargames Vault.

These three games are not the only ones I have made, but so far they are the only ones to make it to the Wargames Vault.  If you look to the right side of the Blog, you will see to categories of games to try.  The first is Free Games and the second is Work-In-Progress Games.

Free Games are games that are complete and fully-fleshed out.  Theyonly require my time to do some proof reading on.  However, they are full formed and ready for you to play.  Work-in-Progress games just have the basic mechanic in place and I am still developing.  They are ready to play, but maybe missing one or two elements such as a campaign system or mission generator.  On the Message Board, there are also threads to discuss all of these games.  

I hope you take the time to enjoy my games.    

Total CARnage: Battle Report- Kill'em All for a MacGuffin

My daughter and I had some time and decided to play TotalCARnage!  We grabbed a few of her old Hot Wheels cars straight from the box, some of my badlands terrain, and quickly decided on our forces.  We played on a relatively small table at 4 feet long by 2 feet wide.   Therefore, we decided to just play a standard Kill’em All style scenario to get started.

The Forces

Purple People Eaters

They are a fierce cannibal warband driving purple cars.

Standard Vehicle (Flames)

Machine Gun

Hits: 5

45 Points

Standard Vehicle (Classic Car)

Cannon

Hits: 5

35 Points

Total= 80 Points

Truk Police

A band of wasteland do-gooders in trucks

Standard Vehicle (Green)

Cannon

Hits: 5

35 Points

Heavy Vehicle (Black)

Cannon

Hits: 6

45 Points

Set-up and Mission- Kill’em All!

The Truk Police took up position closer to the rock spire, but they were ready to move to the center of the board.  The Purple People Eaters were on the opposite side of the wastelands flanking a dune.  They also looked like they were heading to the center of the board. 

This is a simple Kill’em All scenario.  The side that ends the game with operational vehicles is the winner.  

Turn 1:

The two sides move cautiously towards the middle.  However, the Purple People Eater (PPE) with the flames decides to pivot and skirts dangerously near the edge of the board.  No one bothered with any shooting yet as the jockey for position. 

Turn 2:

The Flames PPE moves forward and decides to fire a burst of machine guns at the Green Truck.  However, the shots fall short. 

The Green Truck rushes forward and has a head-to-head collision with the other PPE car!  Both cars are reduced by 3 hits down to 2 each.  Plus, the PPE car bounced back from the collision.  The Truck also blasts the PPE with his cannon at close range, reducing it to 1 hit!

The old PPE car fires back at close range, but misses!  He then pivots and scoots away from the green truck. 

The other truck cruises safely across the center of the table with no shooting, ramming, or colliding. 

Turn 3:

The Flaming PPE pivots and moves up close to the Black Truck and machine guns it at close range, hitting it twice!  It now has 4 hits left. 

The Black truck pivots to go after the nearly destroyed old PPE and rushes in.  However, he accidentally rear rams his friend.  Woops!  This takes the green truck to less than 5 hits and immobilized him, and reduces the Black Truck to 2 Hits!  All is not lost as a cannon shot takes out the last hit from the Old PPE car too. 

Only the Black Truck and the Flames Purple People Eater are left in the game now!

 Turn 4:

The two remaining vehicles simply maneuver this turn.  The black Truck tries to slowly extricate himself from the mass of immobilized vehicles while the Flames PPE turns away from the combat to get some distance. 

Turn 5:

Both vehicles look to be moving to go around the far sand dune, but neither has the right angle for shooting or ramming yet. 

Turn 6:

More driving around.  This time the Flames PPE actually goes backwards!  The Black Truck tries to make a sharp turn, but is too slow.   

Turn 7:

The Flames PPE manages to finally get a long distance shooting angle and opens fire with his machine gun.  He manages to snag the Black Truck twice, and even cause him to shift a bit.  The Black Truck is now down to 1 Hit left!

 The Black Truck tries to drive away, and comes perilously close to the table edge. 

Turn 8:

The Flames PPE moves to get the sand dune between him and the Black Truck.  The Black Truck decides to try some fancy driving and aggressively hits reverse to get a firing angle  However, his aggressive driving is too much as he accidentally backs into a rock outcropping and immobilizes himself!    

Conclusion:

The Purple People Eaters win this round!  The Truck Police manage to stay in their immobilized vehicles and fend off the cannibals while they tow their other car away.  It is a long walk for the Truck Police as they head back to their home settlement.   

Re-match! 

Set-up and Mission- Get the MacGuffin!

The Forces for this mission are the same as the Kill’em All!

A package of rations was set-up in the center of the board between two sand dunes.  The Purple People Eaters set-up with the Old Car ready to race forward to get the rations and the Flames car ready to provide covering fire with the machine gun.  The Truck Police were set-up similarly on the opposite side with the heavy going for the rations.  Truck Police are the attackers.   

In this scenario, a car must stop next to it for an activation, and then get it off the board.   Should be fun!  

Turn 1:

The two sides move towards the rations. 

Turn 2:

The two sides race forward and the lead starts flying!  The Green Truck misses the Old Car.  Meanwhile, the Flames PPE moves up and spray lead at the Black Truck and misses.  The Black Truck rushes up and starts collecting the rations. 

Turn 3:

The Old Car blasts the Green Truck with a powerful cannon shot that sends the truck bouncing back.  However, it comes hurtling back into the fight and returns the favor on the Old PPE.  Both cars are down to 4 hits. 

The Flames PPE moves backwards and unloads its machine-gun at the Black Truck, and manages to ping it twice.  It is now down to 4 hits.  However, it also has the MacGuffin now! 

Turn 4:

The Old Car reverses to try and defend the board edge and set-up for a potential side ram on a fleeing Black Truck.  Instead, the Black Truck turns towards the Old Car and tries to muscle past but ends up ramming them head-to-head.  Woops!  Both vehicles are reduced to 1 hit and are bounced around form the impact. 

Turn 5:

The Old Car for the PPE backs up and unloads a cannon shell into the Black Truck and immobilizes them.  So much for having the MacGuffin. 

The Green Truck backs-up to try and get to the MacGuffin itself and help his comrade.  In his crazy reverse driving he manages to put a shell into the Flames PPE. 

As the flames car moves to the objective, he lets rip with his machine-gun on the Green Truck but only hits him once. 

Turn 6:

The Cannibals in the Old Car roll-up and swarm over the Black Truck.  They hoot and holler as they try to steal the MacGuffin. 

The Green Truck backs-up recklessly and collides with a dune, but a cannon shot again manages to hit the Flames Purple People Eater car.  Both cars are now at 3 Hits with the Old Car at 1.  

      

 Turn 7:

The Green Truck races forward to contest the MacGuffin from the PPE.  However, the Flames car drives up and machine guns the Green Truck into scrap at close range.

Conclusion:

The Purple People Eaters rip the rations from the back of the Black Truck in triumph.  They hoot, holler, and threaten the Truck Police in their immobilized vehicles before loading back up into their damaged cars and cruising away for a feast!

Final Thoughts

This game was good fun!  It was dead simple to set-up, play, and take down.  The entire process took less than 60 minutes for two games.  The longest part was choosing the forces and setting up terrain. 

The Machine Gun was the star of the show in these games, as it managed to chew through the Heavy vehicles armor pretty well.  Long range shots were not easy to pull off, often missing.  Crazy, aggressive driving was often rewarded with crashes and collisions as well. 

It will take some time getting used to the way the game plays as you have to be cautious about when to fully commit your forces versus when they need to skulk around and maneuver for shots.  It was also surprisingly hard to set-up a ram that was not head-to-head!

Overall, a fun time was had by all.  If you are interested in trying it yourself, you can pick-up these rules for yourself here: http://www.wargamevault.com/product/208982/Total-CARnage