More Musings on Nuclear Renaissance

Karl and I managed to find a free evening last week to play a second game of Nuclear Renaissance, the post-apocalyptic skirmish game from Ramshackle Games. We're pretty excited about this game, as it gives us an excuse to use our prodigious collection of post-apoc vehicles and figures in a fast-playing skirmish ruleset.

Our first game, a 5-player affair played out on a 4x8 foot tabletop, was a bit too large to really get into the nitty-gritty of the rules, so we were glad to get an opportunity to try out a one-on-one game on a 4x6 foot tabletop. We bumped up the point total to 1000 to get more figures and vehicles on the battlefield. Here's the table at the start of the game.

Karl's task was to move across the battlefield and seize two objectives: the blue fuel pump on the right side of the map, and the fueling station itself on the far side of the table (the building with the vertical slats). He deployed most of his guys aboard a big, armored truck and roared across the shattered cityscape toward the fueling station, while a smaller contingent of foot soldiers hoofed it to the fuel pump (which was much closer to his deployment zone).

I deployed my post-apoc raiders (Kolony Ferals from Pig Iron Productions, if you're interested) near the fueling station, and my intent was to send them into the ruins and stop Karl's advance somewhere in the middle of the table.

Alas, it didn't work out that way. We quickly learned that Karl's truck (with a driver and gunner in the armored cab and 4 gun-wielding gangers perched in the back) was a virtually impregnable rolling fortress, capable of motoring at top speed across the map while everyone aboard sprayed bullets in all directions. This is exactly what happened in our game.

In Nuclear Renaissance, it doesn't matter how fast you're moving -- all passengers can fire out of a vehicle, and they can also claim a cover bonus when targeted by return fire. In practice, this meant that Karl could race his truck forward each turn, while it served a mobile bunker for the guys aboard.

I tried attacking his truck piecemeal with my few guys who had firearms, only to watch it shrug off the damage. I also tried charging into combat with the various passengers which, despite looking cool in photos, didn't even slow the truck down.

Finally I mobilized my buggy (converted from a G.I. Joe toy) and moved in close to use my flame cannon against the truck. At last I scored a decent hit! But by this point my guys were fairly decimated and Karl had seized the fuel pump, so we called the game.

I'll have to chalk this one up to a poorly designed scenario (by me). Because we played on a 4x6 foot battlefield, my guys never even got close to the secondary objective on the other side of the map. The entire game came down to a small two-foot-square area around the fueling station.

When we play Nuclear Renaissance again, we'll need to really compress the battlefield (4x4 feet square, maybe?) to encourage mobility. Either that, or convert all the ranges from centimeters to inches.

Also, we only had 1 melee combat in the entire game, and it was a guy versus a truck. This game was dominated by shooting. This seems to be the norm for our games even though it seems to run contrary to the design philosophies of Nuclear Renaissance, which makes firearms extremely expensive to encourage fisticuffs. We've even talked about some formal house rules to limit the more powerful firearms, like the vehicle-mounted heavy machinegun, which basically splattered any target without much effort each turn.

After the game, Karl and I agreed that Nuke Ren works best within the framework of a club that can self-moderate so ultra-shooty gangs and munchkin characters don't dominate. Most any generic system with unit creation mechanics can fall prey to this phenomenon; it's not unique to Nuke Ren.

We also agreed that Nuke Ren is best suited for casual gaming or campaigning where scenarios and narrative gaming are paramount. For a competitive campaign or a tournament, the game might well devolve into an arms race. And of course, this scenario would have played out completely differently if we had added a third (or fourth!) player. Doubtless we'll continue to tinker with the rules to find the right balance for an ideal game. So far Nuclear Renaissance is a very decent framework with endless room to explore and experiment.

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member