Mech Attack Playtest: Flyers, Jump Jets and Fisticuffs!

Recently we gathered at Karl’s house to for our regular gaming session. While Karl and Tim spent the evening learning Saga, Mattias, Michael, and I chose Mech Attack. Unlike the 28mm monster game we typically run at conventions, this game was set at 10mm and took up considerably less space. We also tried out a playtest version of the latest ruleset which includes aircraft, melee combat, and jump-jet mechs.

Michael picked a force of just three big, powerful mechs. I took two mechs and three tanks, while Mattias grabbed a bit of everything, including a plane and a jump-jet mech with fists for punching.

The first turn was mostly spent getting into position as we dodged through a modern city. We had no real objectives beyond the destruction of our foes. The long-range firing proved relatively ineffective as we jockeyed for position.

While Mattias and Michael exchanged long-range fire with their two heavies, I ran most of my mechs and tanks straight at Mattias. One of my tanks held off Michael on my flank, but proved completely
outmatched against his small mech.

What happens when a plane fights a mech at close range? We found out a few turns in, when both the airplane and the close combat mech with jump jets got to prove themselves.

The plane dropped down to attack one of Michael’s heavy mechs in the rear, but did not accomplish much more than scratching the paint. All the mech had to do was turn around and blast away for two turns before the plane was gone. The close combat mech also proved relatively useless, spending the entire game punching one of my tanks. We all agreed that if that mech had been a medium or a heavy it would have done far more damage.

As the game continued, Mattias’s force crumbled between Michael and me. He was forced into a fighting withdrawal and probably would have made it off the board if the game hadn’t ended when it did.

My medium mech survived an incredible amount of punishment and by the end had only three boxes of armor left out of the 50 or 60 it started with. My heavy mech was battered by Michael's two big mechs and ended up a burning wreck. My tanks proved fairly useless and I don’t think I’ll use them very often in the future. We all had fun trying out the new, revised playtest rules for Mech Attack and I will certainly purchase them when they become available.

-- Mike C., Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

It's My Birthday And I'll Play Warpath If I Want To

Taking a page from hardball Chicago politics, I used my influence as club organizer earlier this month (and my birthday!) to push for a big game of Warpath in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. We typically play skirmish games here at CSW, but plenty of members have entire legions of 40k figures carefully packed away in foam trays, and this was the perfect excuse to get them all onto the table! Here's how it all went down. (Skip to Parts II and III if you just want the battle.)

Part I. 40k Apocalypse via Warpath 1.0
For those unfamiliar with Warpath 1.0, it is the predecessor to the current Warpath rules, and is essentially the fantasy version of Kings of War with a few sci-fi bits bolted on. Even though they have been supplanted by the current iteration of Warpath, you can download the 1.0 rules for free on Warseer.

The current Warpath 2.0 rules have moved the game beyond simple "Kings of War in Spaaaace!" I still prefer the more streamlined and abstract 1.0 rules, though.

I like giant battles in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but I don't like the 40k rules. Games Workshop's well-known sci-fi battle game is, in my opinion, a serviceable platoon-level game, good for 25 to 35 figures and a vehicle per player, but over the years it has been unfortunately been scaled up to the company level, resulting in battles featuring 80+ figures and multiple vehicles and without the necessary streamlining of mechanics.

If that weren't enough, over the last three editions 40k has become bogged down with almost RPG-like levels of granularity and complexity, with the addition of layer upon layer of special rules. Even the 40k "Apocalypse" rules for battles at the battalion level don't actually reduce the complexity of the system -- they just pile on more special rules. The result is that a game of "Apocalypse" 40k can take -- no exaggeration here -- a day or more to play out.

Enter Warpath, which -- despite what it's creators will say -- is essentially just a skillfully executed and heavily streamlined version of Warhammer 40k. Most of the army lists for Warpath have direct unit-for-unit analogues in 40k, and even the points values and abilities of the comparable units are similar.

Warpath 1.0 is not supported any more, but the four army lists provide enough stat-lines to represent most 40k units with a little tweaking. Of course, that wasn't going to be quite enough, as we also decided we wanted to have titans and superheavy tanks in our battle.

Jon was brave enough to take this on! Check out his custom rules supplement below.

• Titan and Superheavy Tanks in Warpath 1.0

Part II. Game Setup
Each player was assigned a certain number of points and allowed one superheavy unit beyond that, resulting in about 6,000 points per side. Here is the order of battle (Warpath army list used in parentheses).

Forces of Evil

• Karl - 2,500 points of Rebel Imperial Guard (Corporation) and a Wolfhound Titan
• Jon - 2,500 points of Orks (Marauders) and a Stompa

Forces of the Imperium

• Mike - 1,750 Points of Imperial Guard (Corporation) and a Baneblade Superheavy Tank
• Tim - 1,750 Points of Imperial Guard (Corporation) and a Baneblade 
• Josh - 2,000 points of Dark Angel Space Marines (Forgefathers) 

We scored the battle based on a combination of enemies killed and objectives seized. Mike's beleaguered Imperial Guard defenders set up in the central complex (fortress, chapel and mining building) in the middle.

The attackers -- me and Jon -- set up on one side and the rescuers -- Josh and Tim -- setup on the other side. This pic shows Mike's Guardsmen in the middle with Tim's rescuing tank company on the way and Jon's rampaging Orks on the other side.

And here we see my traitor Guardsmen invading the city. Pay no attention to the lack of shading on nearest two tanks. I built and painted them for this game and hadn't quite finished them yet…

Josh brought a jaw-dropping 35 Dark Angels Terminators!

Part III. The Game

The first turns were largely uneventful, consisting mostly of movement with some long range firing to and from the Imperial Guard defenders in the center of the field. Like many games, Warpath is designed for a 4x8 foot table, and the ranges reflect this. Our table measured 6x10 feet, so it was some time before the majority of the forces came in range.

The game quickly seemed to separate into the Orks vs Imperial Guard and Traitor Guard vs Dark Angels.

The trio of Rebel Basilisks, however, used their long range and indirect fire to pour devastation into the troops on the tower and would continue to do so for most of the game. With three shots coming down per turn, it was reliably deadly.

By the second turn, Valkyrie gunships swept onto the field, doing some serious damage to the Ork rear guard.

 The Dark Angel Nephilim wreaked similar havoc on the Rebel Guardsmen.

By this time, the Imperial Guard armor had presented itself in force and was savaging the Ork line. Mike had wisely included a lot of armor in his Imperial Guard army.

In addition, he skipped most of his infantry options in order to include a Knight Titan. His prudent choices paid off as the combatants drew near.

In the city, the Knight Titan moved close enough to fire on the Dark Angels. Return fire immobilized its legs, but the weapons remained deadly and functional.

In the third turn, two Rebel tanks emerged from reserves. Per the rules in Warpath 1.0, I brought them in on the flank, 36 inches forward (one foot per turn).

By this time, Rebel armor, heavy weapons and walkers were close enough to deal some serious damage to the Dark Angels, destroying several units in a single turn.

On the opposite flank however, the Orks were suffering under the Imperial advance.

The Stompa's head was blown off, and though that didn't destroy the giant war machine, it drastically reduced its effectiveness as the crew struggled to control it.

Concentrated fire from the Imperial Guard armor caused further casualties across the Ork line and to the Traitor Guardsmen holding the center.

At this point we called the game. It was only turn 3, but we had started about an hour late and had run out of time. (Editor's note: It appears Warpath 1.0 gives a complete 40k experience, right down to being unable to finish the game!)

In the end, despite doing serious damage and holding three of the five objectives, the Orks and Traitor Guardsmen came up short to the forces of the Imperium.

Part IV. Observations

Reaction to this game was mixed. Two of us absolutely loved it, two of the players liked it with some reservations, and one player reported that we have other games in our stable capable of giving a better game experience.

Though we only made it to turn three, each player turn took less than 30 minutes, which is not bad for a game featuring three players who had never played before, and two players who had only played a couple of times over the last year.

With more games under our belt, I think we could eliminate most rulebook flipping and cut the playing time nearly in half. One major lesson we learned is the importance of making sure that all players have some anti-armor weapons in their force. Josh's force lacked a way to handle tanks and titans, and it proved to be a major disadvantage. I think this will be solved in the future by changing the heavy weapons selections for some of the vehicles and troops and making use of some of the anti-armor close combat and short-ranged weapons available to many units.

For my part, I really enjoyed the whole experience. It is not a complicated game, but for those times when you just want a massive, somewhat ridiculous battle, it fits the bill. Warpath certainly captures the spirit of 40k: cramming an insane number of troops and vehicles onto a comparatively small battlefield. I have no patience for the 40k rules anymore, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for the minis and the background, and this definitely scratches that itch.

Also, I've still got quite a number of 40k kits in storage, and a game like this is just the excuse I need to get them painted up. All of this is to say: I definitely hope we'll be playing this again. It fits my personal preferences for fun and streamlined rules that don't get in the way of my favorite part of wargaming: the spectacle of painted armies clashing on the tabletop, which drew me and so many others into the hobby years ago. That is something we certainly delivered in this game.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member
-- Photos by Josh, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Thanks to Josh for providing the massive central fortress, Jon for providing the Stompa and Warhound, and Mike for bringing a metric ton of tanks to the game.

More Reinforcements: Trebuchets for Kings of War

The Kings of War arms race continues! After our game in November, several club members have been busily bulking up their Kings of War armies with new acquisitions. My latest find came via eBay: the "Lords of Madness Trebuchet" from the prepainted D&D Miniatures product line.

I was very impressed by the prepainted Mage Knight artillery that Pat has been fielding in his undead army, so when this item was mentioned on Dakka Dakka, I hunted it down so that my Kings of War chaos army wouldn't lack artillery on the battlefield.

The stock model looks like this.

At $6-10 each on ebay, it's currently the least expensive trebuchet available to the 25/28mm wargamer. It's not for everyone and it has some styling that is not historical, but it would work well for virtually any fantasy army. The only change you might want to consider is to cover up the screaming face motifs for non-evil forces.

As seen in the picture below, it's got some rough edges and flash. I could have cleaned those up and repainted the model, but I wanted to go for a a fast-finish, tabletop-quality operation. Here's what I came up with.

It's a little small, to be honest, but a full-size trebuchet is an enormous war engine, and not something well suited to a game requiring maneuvering. The figure in the picture is a Warhammer Battlemasters Chaos Warrior. He's 28mm to the eye and very heroic in proportion.

Kings of War allows for unbased war machines, but you can also base them on 50x50mm or 50x100mm bases. These are based on 70x50mm bases and they look perfectly useable on the tabletop battlerfield.

To avoid covering up the tiny wheels, I skipped my usual basing material of concrete patch and instead based with sand, rocks and bark glued down with water-thin superglue. I wanted it to be obvious that the rocks were placed around the wheels for stabilization.

I've begun to use thin superglue a lot recently. It's not as cheap as PVA and can get messy fast if it flows the wrong way, but you can glue down your basing material almost instantly and start painting with almost no dry time in between.

Did I mention that I bought three of these trebuchets?

Bottom line, this is a great, affordable war engine option for fantasy wargaming. You can buy a whole unit of these for less than the price of one metal model. It might even work for smaller scales, though the timbers would be quite stout. Being made of vinyl, it will never be quite as crisply detailed as metal, plastic or resin, but if you're looking for a sturdy tabletop-quality model, this is highly recommended.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

More Reinforcements: Knights and Warjacks for Kings of War

Recently I added two new units to my Kings of War chaos army: a unit of warjacks and a block of chaos knights. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Wait, what? Warjacks in Kings of War? I thought you could only use them in that other game?"

Well, if you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that Chicago Skirmish Wargames generally scoffs at games that limit the models you can use in your army. If something looks cool, we'll find a way to get it onto the battlefield! In this case, I'm using the warjacks as "Lesser Obsidian Golems" in Kings of War. I've always wanted to paint a warjack, and when this opportunity arose, I figured "Why not paint six of them!"

Thanks to fellow club members Tim and Mattias, who helped me source these figures at the bargain basement prices, which in turn made this project possible. There's no way I'd be able to do a unit of warjacks at anything near MSRP.

My chaos army is mostly drawn from the Kingdoms of Man army list, with allies from Undead and Abyssal Dwarves lists. Golems are a hard-hitting (if slow-moving) unit of soulless automatons. The official Mantic miniatures are fine figures, but the Khador warjacks are a better visual fit with my army's style. With their axes and large armored shoulders, they look a lot like mechanical versions of the chaos warriors and knights that make up the core of my force.

The pic below shows the difference in height between shorter original metal models and the taller current plastic models.

The two plastic jacks below are the leader models for the group. The jack on the left is stock. On the right, I modified the legs for a more dynamic pose and converted a left arm to arm it with two axes.

Except for a plastic head on the right, the two metal jacks below are built from stock metal parts. However, I think in Warmachine one of them would have a gun arm. Kings of War golems don't have ranged weapons, so I did a lot of mixing and matching in order to make them all armed with different variations of hand weapons.

The two metal warjacks below benefited from a bag of Khador warjack spare parts that Tim found, which yielded some alternate heads to give a bit more variation to the unit. The one on the right I call "The Boxer." He has two plastic fists and a face with a jaw that juts out. The one on the left has a plastic fist and I converted a double-bladed axe for his right hand.

These guys were painted quickly with base colors and a dip. I matte varnished the red areas, but left most of the metalic areas a bit glossy. They've only got about four colors anyway, so it was an easy job. The bases are just bits of pine bark with sand and gravel.

It's lucky that Lesser Obsidian Golems are the only infantry unit in KoW that are on 50mm bases, because these guys are just barely able to rank up on the tabletop with the 50mm round bases that they come with. The 40mm bases used by most large infantry in the game would have been unworkable.

Also, I recently took possession of these six chaos knights, straight from Mattias's workbench.

You might recognize them -- they are actually just the plastic chaos knights from Battlemasters, the 1990s board game from Games Workshop and Milton Bradley. The figures don't have much fine details, but they're workable. I think you'll agree that Mattias has taken them to a whole new level with his painting. All I did was clean them up and glue some skully-bits to their shields and then give them the rocky basing style to match the rest of the army.

For our Song of Blades and Heroes games, I created a bit of background, calling them the "Night Herons of the Black Crown." Mattias took that literally and gave them a starscape motif on their armor, bringing real visual interest to figures that don't possess an abundance of detail.

I chose one knight and overbrushed various decorative elements and rivets in bronze, though I probably should have been a bit more thorough. He may serve as a mounted general for the army.

Thanks Mattias! The addition of these two units brings my Kings of War army close to a solid 2,000 points. I've got a few more units on the way, but for now I can slow down a bit knowing that the army is almost big enough for most any game that we would play. In case you missed it, both units took part in a huge Kings of War battle earlier this month, though I didn't finish basing them until afterwards.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Kings of War: The Killing Fields of the Agamin Desert

Last week the club gathered at Games Plus for another game of Kings of War. At 4,000 points per side, this 5-player battle was our largest game yet of KOW, and I'm pleased to report that the fast-playing ruleset once again gave a satisfying game replete with epic charges, heroic stands, brutal artillery barrages and deadly magical attacks.

A note about our armies: If you're a regular Chicago Skirmish Wargames reader, you'll know that we love games that don't put any limits on the models that we use. King of War embraces that ethos, which is why our armies are composed of miniatures from a dozen or more manufacturers, everything from Citadel to Reaper to RAFM to Mantic to old school Battlemasters to D&D prepaints and everything in between. If you're curious about the origin of a particular miniature, just ask in the comments section.

The game took place in the Agamin Boneyard, a vast windswept desert in the southern reaches of Qaarra. Mike and Alex commanded two detachments of stout dwarves, which allied with Tim's heroic defenders of the wilderness (hobbits, fairies and elementals). Here is their immense battle line, starting with Mike's dwarves, then on to Tim's nature warriors, then finally (barely glimpsed) are the dwarves commanded by Alex.

Here's the same battle line, looking from the opposite direction. Dwarves riding pigs!

On the other side of the battlefield, Karl and I mustered our forces: 2,000 points of undead for me, and 2,000 points of chaos warriors for Karl. Here is our battle line, starting with the undead army (dominated by Nethyrmaul the zombie dragon) and continuing on to Karl's red-armored chaos hordes (and the master tactician himself consulting a rulebook in the background).

Here's a closer look at Karl's battle line, which stretched off our felt battle mat and onto another makeshift battfield extension we had put together. We had immense 6 by 10 foot playing area at our disposal, which really allowed for an epic battle (as you'll see in the photos).

We played a variation on the "Kill and Pillage" scenario and placed 8 objective markers on the battlefield to fight over. At the end of six turns, victory points would be tallied based on objective markers held and casualties inflicted.

With that, we were off! Karl and I got the first turn. With creaking bones and clanking armor, the undead and chaos legions advanced ... slowly. Most of my undead guys had the "shambling" special rule, which meant they couldn't move very quickly. Karl's advance was a little better. A few of our units were quite fast, which enabled them to quickly outpace the bulk of our infantry. As we'd learn later in the game, this was both a blessing and a curse...

I don't know who the guy is in the background of this pic...

The turn passed to Mike, Tim and Alex, who surged forward toward the objectives scattered across the battlefield. Here's a closer look at Tim's hobbit horde -- literally 40 hobbits on a movement tray, backed up by an assortment of earth, water and fire elementals.

Mike's beautifully painted dwarves advanced in lockstep, hauling their artillery weapons as they came.

Nethyrmaul and his lesser bone dragon minion seized the small farm in the center of the table, from whence they would spew frightful magic attacks for the rest of the game. In the background, Karl looks on approvingly.

On the flank, Karl's fast-moving chaos cavalry crashed into a troop of dwarf boar riders commanded by Alex. This initial fight was just a harbinger of the slaughter to come as the armies moved ever closer.

Finally the vanguards of each army clashed near the center of the table. This big scrum included Tim's elementals, fairies and hobbits, as well as my wraiths and undead cavalry, plus Karl's red dragon, werewolves and chaos warriors, all gleefully smashing each other.

First blood came when Tim's fire elementals succeeding in routing Karl's unit of beastmen berzerkers. The cloven-hoofed fighters fled in terror and were removed from the battlefield.

On the flank, a troop of dwarf warriors commanded by Alex found themselves in a desperate predicament, as they received a charge by a horde of chaos warriors. Yes, that is a block of 40 old Battlemasters chaos warriors, all ranked up and ready to kill. Woe to the 10 dwarves standing in their path!

Even as this butchery unfolded, Alex kept up a steady stream of marginally accurate fire from his cannon. This is a rebased siege cannon from a prepainted MageKnight kit.

As quickly as he could, Karl rallied and charged in with his remaining chaos regiments. More slaughter ensued on both sides.

Back in the center of the battle, Tim's fairies and elementals had cut a swathe through Karl's elite units and were threatening his flank. Luckily he had a few more units in reserve to plug the gap. Tim's flying fairies are actually Epic 40k Eldar with butterfly wings!

On the far left flank, a grudge match was developing between Mike's dwarves and my skeleton regiments, which were both inching closer to each other under a barrage of crossbow and catapult fire.

Here's a more expansive look at the center of the battlefield, where Nethyrmaul held court with his ghastly breath attack and Tim's elementals rampaged through the smoke and flames.

By this point, many of Karl's chaos units were in full rout, having collapsed under the onslaught of Alex's dwarves and Tim's elementals and fairies.

The brutal frost giant himself joined the battle, helping to defeat Karl's cavalry.

Around this point, we reached our time limit and called the game. We had played five very satisfying turns (the scenario ends at 6 turns, so we basically played it to completion).

After tallying the results and quibbling over my questionable mental math, we concluded that the forces of good had prevailed over the armies of woe. Tim, Mike and Alex shared the victory while Karl and I cheered ourselves up in the knowledge that my undead army would be twice as big next time, once I raised all his slain chaos warriors from the grave.

Once again Kings of War gave us a great, visually stunning game. The glorious spectacle of 8,000 points of 28mm fantasy figures clashing across a 10-foot-long battlefield was truly something to behold. I hope my photos did the game justice.

Even though this was the first game for Alex and Mike (and only the second for me) we quickly got into the flow of the game and needed only minimal rulebook flipping to resolve most situations. I was using an army builder on my iPad, which presented all my stats and rules in a single screen.

I'd like to play the game again soon, though perhaps on a slightly smaller scale, since we don't regularly have access to a 6 by 10 foot table!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member