Warpath: Battle report and game review

At last week's club game night, Jon and I had a chance to try out the Warpath ruleset by Mantic Games. We completely forgot a few things (such as modifiers for shooting at units that have moved, etc), but in general we got a pretty good handle on the rules. After the game report, I'll review the rules.

Like Mantic's Kings of War fantasy game, the rules and force lists for Warpath are free! Our game pitted the Forgefathers (Mantic's space dwarves, represented in this game by my Blood Angels Space Marines) against the Corporation (represented by my Imperial Guard).

We found that the Forgefathers and Corporation army lists were a good fit for the Space Marines and Imperial Guard units in my collection. Each side had approximately 1,000 points.

Forge Fathers (Blood Angels Space Marines)

• Huscarl (Commander Tycho)
• Steel Warriors section with BFG and special melee weapon (10 marines with missile launcher)
• 2x Drakkarim teams each with flamer and special melee weapon (two 5 marine assault squads). We gave this unit jump packs at a cost of 20 points per figure. This is not a standard option in the rules, but we borrowed a similar upgrade from the Marauder Orx force list.
• Stormrage veterans team (5-marine devastator squad) with 4 BFGs (yes, this is how Warpath handles heavy weapons...they're all BFGs)
• Heavy Drakkar (Land Raider tank) with 3 BFGs

The Corporation (Imperial Guard)

• Commander (Commissar) with special melee weapon
• Sniper (Ratling)
• 3x Corporation marine sections each with BFG and special melee weapon (10 Guardsmen with autocannon)
• Heavy weapons section with light laser cannon (3 lascannon teams)
• Striders with burst lasers (3 Sentinel walkers)
• MBT-01 Pulverizer tank with heavy laser cannon and light laser cannon (Leman Russ Demolisher)

We each deployed our forces along a table edge and agreed to play a kill-em-all/meatgrinder scenario. Here's how the deployment looked for each side of the table.



We used our first moves to advance into cover, either in buildings or behind hills. However, two lucky rounds of fire killed off my Steel Warriors section and one of Jon's Marine sections before they even had a chance to get into combat. Our tanks fired away at each other with little effect. Jon's MBT-01 did a little damage, and I realized that my Heavy Drakkar did not have the firepower necessary to damage his Tank with anything other than a very lucky rear shot.

By the middle of turn 2, one of my Drakkarim teams (assault squad) had already leapt into close combat with Jon's Marine section. The other team would have done so as well, but Jon's heavy weapon section suppressed them and they dove for cover.

Realizing the futility of firing on Jon's MBT-01, my Heavy Drakkar moved to engage his right flank, where it destroyed his heavy weapons section in a barrage of fire from three Hailstorm Autocannons. The MBT-01 fired on the Stormrage Veterans (devastator squad) but somehow the tank missed with both weapons.


In turn 3 the Drakkarim team wiped out the marine section in close combat. However, the second marine section took up positions in a ruined rotunda and eliminated the second Drakkarim team before it had a chance to recover from suppression.


On the far flank, the Heavy Drakkar destroyed all three Striders (Sentinel walkers). The Stormrage Veterans and their commander advanced, but were now in full view of the MBT-01 tank. They managed to do some damage to the tank.


In turn 4, the MBT-01 drives over the Stormrage veterans (giving us a chance to try out the rules for running down pedestrians with vehicles) and then turns to chase the flank of the Heavy Drakkar. The veterans stay in the fight but only after sustaining heavy damage. The Corporation commander (commissar) charges into the remaining Draakkarim Team.


By turn 5, it was all over. The Corporation commander's fury routed the Drakkarim team, and the marine section in the rotunda finished off the Stormrage veteran squad. The commander of the Forgefather force and his remaining tank quit the field in defeat.


Warpath Reviewed

Warpath does little to conceal its roots as a Warhammer 40,000 knock-off game. In many ways, it is 40k stripped to the bare essentials and then modified even further with a few mechanics that speed up gameplay. Thus, I'll be making many of my observations by comparing it to 40k.

The most obvious change from 40k is that squads take damage as a single unit, not as a collection of miniatures. When the squad takes damage, figures are not removed — instead, the damage is accumulated by making notes next to the squad's army roster sheet. Every turn that damage is taken, the squad makes a roll to see if the amount of damage accumulated thus far is enough to surpress the unit or take it out of the fight. This means that many games might not see any figures removed in the first turn or two, even though damage is being taken. Some 40k players might find this disconcerting, but testing for destruction only once a turn speeds up gameplay and forces the opposing player to judge how much firepower he or she wants to concentrate on a particular unit.

Like damage, combat is determined on a squad-versus-squad basis, with almost no emphasis on individual figures. The exceptions are heavy weapons (BFGs) that can fire separately from the rest of the squad. Warpath differs significantly from 40k in that unless suppressed, a squad's combat abilities do not degrade as it takes damage. This is a big abstraction compared to 40k, but as with other changes, it does massively speed up gameplay as the combat capabilities of the unit are contained in its statline and do not change from turn to turn.

I was pleasantly surprised that Warpath has a movement stat. This simple change provides a bit more variation between units and is a welcome change compared to 40k, which which has one baseline movement rate for most infantry.


Vehicles seem to be handled well, if somewhat simply. There are provisions for firing arcs, overunning enemy units, collisions, transport and ordinance weapons. Notably absent are differing armor ratings for side, front and rear. Vehicles take damage in the same manner as other units, but units with "penetrating" weapons get a bonus when firing at the rear and side arcs.

Other notable features of the rules:

• Pre-measuring is allowed at any time
• Rules are included for aircraft strafing runs
• A section of 25 special rules provides just enough variation to give units a bit of flavor. Many entries will be familiar to 40k players, such as rules for individual characters, jump jets, steadfastness, armor piercing, and crushing strength.

Warpath will not be my go-to ruleset for all sci-fi gaming, as I have a few major reservations about the game. First of all, calls for each player to field a very large army. After our game, 1,000 points seemed like the minimum amount necessary for an enjoyable match — Warpath is clearly made for gaming at 2,000 or more points per side. It's simply too abstract to function well for a small skirmish of just a few units per side.

I'm not entirely sure it has enough tactical possibilities to make it a game that I would play every week in the way some folks play 40k. Creative scenario generation could fix this, but it's not going to offer the kind of granularity and unit customizability that keep people forever re-reading their codices and tweaking their 40k army lists.

Warpath does not have a unit creation mechanic. Mantic has planned for 8 races (3 have been released so far) and they seem thus far to be extremely analagous to 40k races. However, if your sci-fi army doesn't fit one of those force lists, you will have to do a bit of adaptation on your own. I don't see this as a big downside, as the available army lists seem to have enough unit variation that only minor changes seem necessary.

Lastly, I feel obligated to compare Warpath to my favorite sci-fantasy game WarEngine. I see them both as fulfilling different roles. WarEngine offers more granularity and tactical options: it has a reaction/overwatch mechanic along with more customization. Like Warpath, WarEngine isn't well suited for very small battles, but unlike Warpath, it also isn't a good choice for very large battles with lots of vehicles and tanks. I would use WarEngine for battles with 5-7 squads and a small vehicle or two per side, whereas Warpath seems to work best with 8 squads or more and lots of vehicles.

Despite the reservations above, I really enjoyed this game. Having never played Warpath before, it took about 2 hours, but both Jon and I agreed that a game of this size would typically be completed in an hour or less. Our enjoyment of the game was probably colored by what we were hoping to get out of the game: a quick, enjoyable game of "40k lite" full of familiar rules, big armies and streamlined gameplay.

And of course, we were delighted to get our 40k armies on the table. Both of us have big 40k collections that we really like but just don't get much play anymore.

Warpath delivered on all counts. As a disaffected 40k player who still loves the miniatures and background — but who no longer has the desire to play games that take longer than an hour or so — I will definitely be using Warpath again to get my 40k figs back on the table.

So is Warpath for you? That depends. As mentioned before, the game is a streamlined 40k-clone that makes no pretentions about being realistic in scope, rules or background. According to Mantic, it's about "big battles," and if commanding a company of troops and a tank platoon on a battlefield the size of a soccer pitch (like 40k...) with a fast-playing and very streamlined ruleset (not like 40k) is your thing, then Warpath will probably deliver.

— Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

28mm on the cheap: Mega Miniatures

Though not as cheap as the dollar-per-miniature goal that we strive for, a few companies today make quality metal 28mm miniatures that range from $1.50 to $3 a piece. Building a 100-figure, Warhammer 40k-style army can be expensive even at this low price — though less so than with Games Workshop products — but warband and platoon skirmishes are quite manageable, and being able to choose exactly what you need is a definite benefit.

One of my favorite companies in this price range is Mega Miniatures, aka MegaMinis.

Mega is owned by Johnny Lauck and produces a large selection of fantasy, modern and sci-fi miniatures. MegaMinis has some proprietary figure lines, some of which are as low as $1.89 a piece!

In the opinion of the author, however, Mega's best offerings are the defunct figure lines it has acquired and rereleased. This includes ranges of figures from Grenadier, Metal Magic, Demonblade Games and Alpha Forge.

This review will give you a brief look at some figures from the Demon Blade and Alpha Forge lines as well as a couple of Mega Minis' proprietary designs. Though they have been selling off the molds to many of their older fantasy ranges, Johnny has been re-releasing Demonblade figures at a rapid rate and assures us that he plans to keep releasing nearly the entire line in the near future.

Demonblade Re-Releases

Among other games, Demonblade was the producer of Shockforce, the game that originated the club-favorite ruleset WarEngine — as well as a massive line of figures, a few of which are described in detail below. Note that the figures are exactly as they came from Mega. No flash has been trimmed and no mold lines have been removed.

Frontier Defense Force
These figures were originally released as Shockforce Megacom Troopers. They're well sculpted, though perhaps with not quite the same level of clarity as the classic Games Workshop Cadian troopers that they are fairly obviously based on. So far there are 15 to 20 sculpts released for this line, covering all manner of troopers armed with a basic lasgun and a selection of special weapons such as grenade launchers, missile launchers and flamethrowers.

These figures were originally scupted by the great Bobby Jackson to supplement the K-Force troopers that Demonblade had acquired from Grenadier. These earlier troopers are similar in style, but a bit bulkier and not quite as crisp (I have almost the entire line) but have not yet been reissued by Mega.

Here's a trooper leader and a kneeling trooper.

Here's a trooper with a plasma gun (called a heat gun by Mega) and a flamethower. The flamethrower is called a "Heavy Machine gunner" by Mega.

Despite its similarities to the smart gun from Aliens, this long-barreled weapon has a hose on the bottom of the barrel and is attached to a set of tanks on the back of the model, all of which strongly suggests that it's a flame weapon. That said, with a magazine and removal of the tanks, this would make a great SAW.

Mega also makes a flamethrower trooper with a more traditional GW-style Flamethrower that they call a vaporizer.

As a nice touch, these figures come with separate backpacks. I liked the backpacks so much that I contacted Johnny, who sold me some separately.

Here's a pair of scouts. There are four of these in the figure line. Each is armed with a sniper/assault rifle and is posed in a crouching or kneeling position. The backpacks for these figures are cast-on.

The treads on the boots seemed like a nice touch and the detail overall is good.

All in all, I'm very pleased with these figures. I ordered about 10 of the Demon Blade trooper miniatures

Moonshiners

These figures are a rather goofy range of cartoony rednecks previously released as Brethren models for Shockforce. The figures below are the only ones I purchased from this line and I chose them because they looked more like post-apocalyptic survivors than the rest of the range, which is a delightfully wierd mix of cartoony inbred redneck men and Daisy Duke-looking women.

The overall sculpting is a bit softer than the troopers, but the look is well excecuted and they will fit right in with my other post-apoc figures.

Alpha Forge

Alpha Forge was best known for it's Star Mogul game. Mega has released all these figures, which includes two races of aliens, human troopers and salvage crew, androids, robots and even a vehicle or two. They also had a line of zombie survivors, two of which I purchased.

Salvage Crew

I've purchased most of the Alpha Forge Salvage Crew figures. The link above has them, as well as quite a few Demonblade figures, mixed in the same section. The Salvage Crew models come with 2 random heads from a selection of 10 to 12.

The heads are hit or miss, some are quite nice, some are just OK.


Zombie Survivors

These are really nice figures with lots of character. They are mixed into the "Modern Civilian" section of the MegaMinis website. You can tell them apart as they are the figures that are shown unpainted.

I liked all the figures that I reviewed, but these had the sharpest detail and were the best sculpted.

MegaMinis' Designs

Here's a couple of examples of scupts that Mega has commissioned for itself.

Robot Small is a really cute fig, and the model is notable because he may have use in a 15mm as a full-sized robot or 10mm as a hard suit.

I picked these animals from a few different product codes and packs just to give you an idea of the size and sculpting of Mega's animals. Even though many of the larger animal molds have been sold, at 166 different codes, Mega still has what is probably the largest selection of 28mm animal figures on the market today. The cat and dogs pictured are all only $1.43 each!

Overall, I'm very pleased with these figures. No one is going to confuse them with the hyper-detailed high-end figures from companies like Infinity or Privateer Press, but they are all well sculpted figs that are a good representation of their subject matter.

While many of Mega's propriety sci-fi and designs and reissues of classic fantasy figures are somewhat dated in scale and style, the ranges they have acquired from Demonblade and Alpha Forege are mostly from the late 90s and early 2000s and still compare very well with current styled figures in size, style and proportion.

It is also worth noting that the casts are very clean. Mold lines are no more than you would expect from the major brands, which is surprising when you consider that Mega does their own casting!

I do have to mention that one of my troopers did have a very small miscast hole in the side of his boot that will have to be filled with putty, but it was not a major issue.

I highly recommend these figures to anyone seeking sci-fi figures on a budget. Mega Miniatures has done the hobby a great service by making these great figures available again and at such a low cost.

— Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Games played: WarEngine and In the Emperor's Name

Last week's game night saw two events being run concurrently: a WarEngine scenario hosted by Mike, and a guncrawl game run by Tim at an adjacent table. Tim used the 40k-lite skirmish ruleset In the Emperor's Name for his scenario.

I had a chance to play through both scenarios in about 3 hours. In the WarEngine game, we decided on the spot to make use of the excellent 2-story warehouse terrain piece that Karl had brought in. We plopped it in the center of the table, put a tank inside and said that both sides were racing to claim to vehicle for themselves.

The photo below shows how close my scavengers (from Pig Iron's Kolony Ferals line) got to the tank before being thrown back by the opposing troopers.



The game was a bit of a bloodbath for me. Both Mike and I concluded that WarEngine tends to play best at around 2,000 points per side, which is generally a far larger game than our club plays. In WarEngine, 2,000 points per side is at least 20 models per player. For this game, we played 1,000 points per side, and consequently we just didn't get a very robust experience in terms of mobility and morale. It was just too small for the game's rather epic firepower mechanics.

Karl also ran his Void Junkers through the same scenario. Here are a few pics from his foray. Note the sandrunners...they devastated their enemies, but then one fell to enemy fire, and subsequently fell off the table and broke. Karl decided to put the stricken sandrunner back on the table where he died, hence this photo.



Over at the other table, Tim had set up a bunch of interlocking floor tiles taken from the Doom board game for his guncrawl. To my surprise, he had written a short bit of fluff that set the scenario in our Galactic Frontier setting, which was completely awesome and really helped set the scene for me as a player. In the game, a handful of Terran troopers were investigating a derelict stellar wreck (or space hulk, if you'd prefer) which was infested with bugs. Here are Karl (left) and Tim prior to the start of the game.


Tim is developing this scenario to maybe run at a convention one day, so we played it less like a by-the-book battle and more like a competitive brainstorming session. We both suggested new ideas and modified existing elements on the fly. I particularly liked the inclusion of one-time-use batteries carried by the troopers. These batteries could be used to open doors, activate various utility robots scattered throughout the ship, or attempt to download sensitive information from the ship's mainframe computer. The Terrans received only 10 batteries at the start of the game, so they became a precious resource that had to be shepherded throughout the scenario.


Here are a couple more photos of the doomed Terrans as they pushed deeper into the crippled starship.


I found that I really liked In the Emperor's Name. The ruleset is solid and the gameplay is fast. I also love that it's a fan-made supplement that appears to be supported by an engaged group of players. The average game calls for 6 to 10 models per side — almost exactly the same amount as Song of Blades & Heroes — so I predict we'll dig deep into this ruleset for sci-fi skirmish.

— PatrickWR, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member