Full Thrust: Diplomatic mission ends in fighting

I played my first game of Full Thrust using the Cross Dimensions rules. I greatly enjoyed the game and finally experienced an Epic Space Battle. Our attempts to do this as kids, using Starfleet Battles rules, resulted in 2-day long games with a metric ton of paperwork. Using Full Thrust, we were able to finish a multi-ship game in 3 hours, with minimal bookkeeping.

Our host had a cool starfield mat for our game, and Patrick and Ryan had impressive ship collections, so I was able to borrow a New Anglican Confederation fleet. Together Ryan and I would have a total of 6 capital ships and 6 gunships; Pat would have 2 battleships, a number of missile destroyers and smaller capital ships, and at least 6 gunships.

However, his force would be split; some waiting in-system, the rest forced to wait at least 5 turns before coming on to the board. After a quick description of the scenario and some initial setup, we went over the rules. Pat is good at explaining rules and we were ready to go after an overview and some quick questions. I'm going to continue in narrative form, because the game really fired my imagination.

Constant border tensions had been taking their toll; our many attempts at peaceful resolution had been rebuffed by our unpleasant Gothic neighbors, the Neu Swabian Legue. One more attempt at a peaceful diplomatic mission would be attempted, but this time we would have some insurance in place--no more "deep space accidents" as our Germanic friends called them. In conjunction with our allies from the Eurasian Solar Union and a task force from L'Astromarine des FSE, we prepared a mix of capital ships, escorts, and gunships. With great care and stealth, we infiltrated a gunship squadron of three ships and and one small escort into a gas cloud near the flagship of the Neu Swabian League. Running on minimal life support, they waited patiently for the arrival of our diplomatic mission.


We approached in 2 groups and made good speed towards the planet of New Alsace-Lorraine. The stance of the NSL fleet changed in a manner that seemed rude and hostile. We sent out communications assuring them that we were on a diplomatic mission while putting our crews on battle-alert. After a short while it became obvious that the NSL fleet was moving to attack, and we decided to activate our insurance. The gunships exploded out of the gas cloud and massed around the sides and stern of the NSL battleship. Attempts at communicating with the battleship were pointless, as it immediately opened fire on our ambassadors of peace. The gunship Kukri was crippled almost immediately, and was soon lost with all hands. However the ESU ship scored many hits on the battleship, and my gunships Dagger and Raj fired all they had. It was obvious that the NSL wanted a fight.


Our capital ships were still too far to assist, so the gunships were all on their own for a while. They continued to inflict heavy damage on the battleship, but before long gunship Raj was obliterated. The Dagger finally pulled away and made towards the planet. About that time the capital ships came into contact, and the darkness of space was filled with missiles, torpedoes, and beams. To be honest, my gunners did only slight damage to the NSL fleet, but my allies scored hit after hit; many of them well-placed shots to power cores, life support, and fire control systems. Our right flank advanced steadily, while I held the middle, and sent the CL Victory to meet gunship Dagger at the planet. Victory had a full complement of elite and heavily armed diplomats that planned to land at the planet’s capital city.


The NSL’s reinforcements had arrived and entered the fray by now, scoring many hits on the Dagger but failing to destroy her. She would shortly take up orbit around New Alsace-Lorraine and begin to disrupt planetary communications. My allies continued to disable or destroy NSL ships; the first of the NSL battleships drifted, without bridge control and a failing life support system, directly into the path of BC Vengeance. Vengeance’s boarding parties, wearing vacc suits, were soon swarming over the crippled hulk.


The CL Victory took heavy damage on its way to the planet but took out a gunship in return and was well on its way to landing troops, I mean diplomats, on the planet, when the NSL fleet retreated and engaged their FTL drives. Our colonists could rest a little easier, knowing the border had been pushed back...at least for a little while.

— Bryan, 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

Coming next week: Zombies!

Tim sent over this photo of a house (made from Hirst Arts molds) and a pack of zombies from Wargames Factory. We're slowly assembling a vast horde of undead, as well as some intrepid survivors, ahead of our Nov. 3 zombie game. Tim is devising a scenario using All Things Zombie from Two Hour Wargames, with a few special rules thrown in for good measure.

Expect a post-game report with photos after the game!

How to turn a model railroad building into wargame scenery

My newest structure, which we used during this week's game night, started life as a Walthers kit, Backshop 933-3039. I found it in a resale shop for 6 bucks! This exact kit is currently out of production, but a slightly larger version is available.

Though in HO scale (roughly 18mm scale) this building's large entrances (intended for HO railroad engines) and extremely high ceilings suggested possible use in 28mm wargaming. Being from Walthers, it's no surprise that the molding of parts is flawless, assembly is dead simple and the resulting structure is very sturdy. However, a few changes had to be made.

In order for larger 28mm vehicles to access the structure, the front and back entrances were enlarged.

The grooves for track in the floor, as well as the rest of the floor, were plastered over.

The large windows looked great, but for wargaming purposes some of them need to be reduced. Luckily, this kit comes with rolling door and brick options for the various entrances, which happened to be the same width as the windows! These, along with a bit of brick I had cutaway from the enlarged doorways, were used to mostly brick up the windows on one side.

This added the impression of rolling window shutters as well.


Also, it had a sloping roof, unsuitable for the placing of miniatures. This was remedied by cutting away the roof guides on the inside of the parapet walls and making new edge supports for the flat roof out of various bits of plastic.

Perhaps most importantly, the kit has no 2nd story floor. Luckily it included two extra roof supports and some other I-beam bits which I sawed up and used to make supports for the floor. The floor itself is a piece of plastic cross-stitch mesh fabric, a material I find supremely useful for walkways, windows, grates and other wargame terrain details. As always, I lightly sanded both sides so that the soft plastic will better accept glue and paint. Superglue is a must for this type of material. This mesh was also used for a ladder and the grating over the drains on the ground floor.


Nearly all the various techy bits are pieces of Pegasus Hobbies Hexagon and Chemical Plant kits. Hexagon panels have obvious attachment points where they are meant to clip together, but the tech sections from panels are easily trimmed with a pair of clippers.

After assembly, painting was quite easy. I primed the entire thing with Krylon Ruddy Brown. Windows, grating and roof were primed black. I did a "wet" drybrush of colors, followed by a lighter drybrush for some sections. Then I glued in the windows and gratings that had been primed black and painted those. Brown wash and orange drybrush helped dirty up the details, then I lightly dusted the building with a clear matte spray to protect the paintjob.

In the end the piece is very playable. The roof and 2nd floor accommodate figures well and two of the sides have adequate cover on the ground floor. We found during a recent game that the interior was large enough to accommodate big 28mm vehicles.


Most importantly, the finished product is generic enough to would work well in near-future and sci-fi genres that our club tends to play. These pictures show it being used in a game of WarEngine, and it will feature prominently in our upcoming post-Halloween zombie game.

Much of the inspiration for this building is owed to the wonderfully 40k-ified railroad buildings featured at Necromundicon, which are far more detailed than mine, but also more tied to the “Grimdark” 40k setting. Our club isn't known for playing 40k, but those who do will be pleased to know that this building scales well along side the 40k plastic building kits.

—Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Ryan's Orcs carry the flag for Chicago Skirmish Wargames — literally

Ryan, a founding member of Chicago Skirmish Wargames who has since embarked upon a self-imposed exile in Kansas City, found time this summer to finish painting a group of GW Black Orcs.

Look closely at the banner — it was inspired by the City of Chicago flag, which incidentally served as the basis for CSW's own logo. Props to Ryan for keepin' it real with his roots! We hope to face off against these green-skinned raiders when Ryan visits next spring.

Review: Tomorrow's War by Ambush Alley Games

Tomorrow's War, the new hard sci-fi tabletop wargame from Ambush Alley Games and Osprey Publishing, is something of a hybrid. It's not a skirmish game where individually armed soldiers move around the battlefield on their own initiative, nor is it a stand-based game like Alien Squad Leader, where the smallest unit is a base of 3-5 figures representing a single squad or fireteam.

Rather, Tomorrow's War uses individually based figures (of any scale, though the book uses plenty of 15mm and 28mm example photos) to simulate squad-based actions. Single figures don't fire at single targets; instead, squads add up their firepower based on the number of effective troopers plus any support weapons. They roll these attack dice against a similar handful of defense dice representing the opposing squad and any cover modifiers.

This basic engine forms the nucleus of a very innovative, playable sci-fi game. It's clearly designed to model gritty, near-future sci-fi, rather than the zany, far-future hijinx that other games cover all too well. The rules don't differentiate between basic trooper weapons — an assault rifle = laser rifle = heat ray. But that's OK ... Tomorrow's War rewards common sense tactics, which is refreshing to say the least.

Our club tried out Tomorrow's War last month after receiving a preview copy from Osprey. Having played 5150 from Two Hour Wargames, we were pleased to see that Tomorrow's War's reaction/overwatch system forms an integral part of the game. Each turn, the player who wins initiative can choose to place some or all of his fire teams (the smallest unit building block in the game) on overwatch, thus giving them the chance to interrupt enemy actions later in the turn. Then, non-overwatching units get to move and shoot like normal — but the enemy can attempt to react to these actions with reactions of his own. It's the rare turn where you'll be sitting on your hands, waiting for your opponent to finish moving his dudes.

Unlike 5150, these action/reaction cycles don't go on forever. There is a clear stopping point, which TW defines as a "round of fire." Our club liked this a lot, as we'd gotten caught up in several seemingly endless chain reactions during our last game of 5150.

Some games offer a super-granular approach to weaponry (think lots of +1 bonuses, different range bands, templates, etc) but TW deliberately ignores all this. Basic soldier weapons can see and shoot anywhere on the table within line of sight. Every piece of open ground is a potential kill zone.

Differentiation comes in the form of various troop stats, which are generally shared by everyone in a given unit. Troop Quality is the most common stat rolled, but there's also Morale (how inspired the troops are on this particular day), Tech Level (better tech = more firepower), Supply (well supplied troops can afford to waste ammo), Confidence (do you trust your logistics supply chain and senior leadership?) and Combat Stress.

Frankly, the number of individual stats here seem a bit overwhelming. Why differentiate between Morale and Confidence? Semantically they mean about the same thing, and I don't think the game would suffer much if they were just rolled into one stat. Thankfully, most firefights will involve just Troop Quality and Morale.

It's also clear that the authors LOVE their acronyms, especially as it pertains to weaponry. I can't tell you how many times I struggled with abbreviations such as RGL, NOE, SAGP and SLAM. Often these abbreviations showed up in sentences, only to be defined in a pullout box three pages later. Not good, especially when the reader (me) is flipping pages trying to find the definition so he can properly get his game up and running! The writing assumes a level of military tech-speak that I don't yet possess.

Another quibble is the wound system. When a unit takes casualties, the figures may be 1) dead 2) lightly wounded or 3) severely wounded. If it's the last two options, the figure stays on the board but reduces the combat effectiveness of the squad (as they administer first aid and move more slowly with the wounded trooper). The rules for this are fantastic, but the execution pretty much requires you to place a bunch of little counters, chits or markers next to lots of individual figures throughout the game.

In our game, 3 of 4 figures in a fireteam had taken wounds, which meant that there were 3 individual tokens attached to the team, for a total of 7 little doodads that needed to be moved whenever the squad moved. This resulted in a very cluttered tabletop, which we didn't like because we enjoy taking lots of photos of our game (requiring the regular removal of tape measures, dice, counters, chits and tokens prior to the photos). We're already looking into some alternative and/or aesthetically pleasing ways to track wounds. Again, the rules for wounded figures are top notch, but the tabletop logistics are tough to deal with.

The game lacks a point system, which is perfectly fine for my club but which may turn off other players. I enjoy the challenge that comes with creating a balanced scenario or adapting something I found elsewhere for Tomorrow's War. The web is full of inspirational material, plus most of the scenarios written for Force on Force, Ambush Alley's flagship title, can be easily ported over to Tomorrow's War.

Individual chapters deal with vehicles, air support, artillery, robots and cyber-warfare. Power armor is suitably epic in TW — gone are the days of vanilla space marines fighting and dying in droves. If you field a 3-man fireteam of power armored infantry in TW, you can expect them to dominate their section of the battlefield. Power armor feels like power armor should, and that is a wonderful thing.

The section on asymmetric warfare is particularly interesting, as it includes a set of balanced rules for playing games with very imbalanced forces. A squad of basic troopers might look powerful on paper, but the game ensures a fair fight if they try to tangle with a nest of colonial rebels on some far-flung backwater planet, for example. You've really got to read over this section yourself to truly grasp the potential for asymmetric scenarios in Tomorrow's War.

The best part of Tomorrow's War is that most of the game is highly intuitive. The players instantly grasped the spirit of what the writers were trying to convey: that is, the explosive action that comes with a desperate, futuristic firefight. You want to move your guys? OK, well that chaingun team is going to fire off a belt of ammo if you do. Maybe you want to put that squad on overwatch to keep an eye out for insurgents? Well, the rebels might appear suddenly on your flank without warning.

What didn't I go over? Production values are top notch, but you've probably read that in other reviews. The official fluff is well and good, but our club probably won't be using it. There are rules for aliens, but the authors suggest that they not be all that different from human troopers, which is fine by me.

To sum up, Tomorrow's War is a great exciting product that has injected a big dose of hard sci-fi excitement into our local club. We're eagerly anticipating the commercial release so we can try our hand at crafting some scenarios.

— PatrickWR, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

After-action report: Tomorrow's War

After a supply ship was brought down by Neo-Soviet recon elements on the desert world Fornacis V, the decision was made to send in a retrieval squad from Markham's Skybolts, a well-known mercenary company operating dirtside on the planet. The pilot bailed out and made landfall, offering vague details about the Neo-Soviet platoon that was mustering in the dry woodlands around his position. He sought refuge in a nearby colony hab-unit and waited for rescue.

My local club gathered this week to try out Tomorrow's War, the highly anticipated "hard" sci-fi ruleset from Ambush Alley Games and Osprey Publishing. We had been hearing about this game for the better part of a year, as it debuted a while back as an add-on to an existing Ambush Alley title. Now it's being released as a standalone hardcover book — a gorgeous tome, I should add, replete with tons of color photos and example illustrations.

The folks at Osprey were kind enough to send me an advance copy to read and review. What follows here is a battle report of the Skybolts' attempt to extract their pilot from a Neo-Soviet ambush. I'll offer a more substantive review of Tomorrow's War in a future post.

For this game, I ran a scenario straight out of the book. Four players showed up, so I opted not to run a squad and instead perched on a stool spewing rules minutiae for the entire two-hour game.

The photo at the top of this post shows the battlefield at the outset of the game. The three 4-man Skybolt fireteams (figures from Pig Iron Productions' Heavy Infantry range) entered at the bottom of the picture and had to reach the building, grab the pilot and exit the map by Turn 8. Four Neo-Soviet squads were waiting in ambush in the scrub woods surrounding the building.

The first two turns saw the Skybolts players rush their mercenary squads forward, using the rapid move ability to grab some cover on the flanks.

The Neo-Soviet players responded by moving a few squads out of ambush and advancing forward, prompting a couple firefights. In Tomorrow's War, a unit that is being fired on can choose to react by either returning fire or moving away. Moreover, a troop quality check made at the outset of that exchange means that sometimes the targeted squad is able to shoot first, inflicting casualties on the enemy squad before it has a chance to shoot.

Lots of these little firefights — called 'rounds of fire' in the rulebook — erupted as the various fireteams jockeyed for position on the tabletop. The Neo-Soviet troops were low quality but numerically superior. The Skybolt mercenary soldiers were high quality, but few in number. Both sides inflicted a few casualties before the Skybolts managed to charge into the building in the center of the table, quickly locating the missing pilot. From there, they used the comparative safety of the building to pour fire into a Neo-Soviet squad, all but wiping them out.

By this point we were on turn 5, and the mercenary players knew they didn't have much time to dither. They hustled the pilot back toward their edge of the table as fast as possible — which wasn't very fast, considering that squads escorting dependents (the pilot in this case) can't use the rapid move ability! Seeing this, the Neo-Soviet players charged their squads out of cover and began a full-on pursuit across the windswept battlefield. Here they go!

The Skybolt squad in the lower right corner has been 'wiped out' in game terms. The soldiers aren't dead, but there isn't a healthy trooper available to make a first aid check, so the unit stays tipped over until its casualties are assessed. As it happened, this squad wasn't reached by a healthy trooper before the end of the game, so the tipped-over models counted as captured soldiers for the scenario. This particular victory condition put the Neo-Soviet players over the top when we tallied up points at the end.

Anyway, the Skybolts slogged through a fearsome hail of gunfire as the Neo-Soviets enveloped them with superior numbers. Luckily Skybolt one squad that had spent pretty much the entire game on overwatch proved very useful at disrupting the Neo-Soviets advance. With just 3 combat effective soldiers, this little fireteam held up at least twice their number of lower quality Neo-Soviet troopers. This sacrifice allowed the main squad to escape with the pilot at the end of Turn 8. Here's the squad (with pilot) as they make their exit off the battlefield. The rearguard fireteam is just visible in the distance; those soldiers were honored posthumously for their dedication to the mission.

So, the Skybolts won, right? They accomplished their mission? Well, they did, but the Neo-Soviet players also had their own mission objectives. Chief among those were "inflict casualties" and "capture wounded," both of which they did in spades. The Neo-Soviets were able to squeak out a victory based on the specific parameters of this scenario. A marginal victory at best, as one of the Skybolt players pointed out.

Here's a picture of the final positions of the units on Turn 8. The Neo-Soviet players' squads are badly mauled but still active; the Skybolts also suffered proportionate casualties.


Overall I was very pleased with how this scenario turned out. Tomorrow's War doesn't have a point system, which makes it extremely important to craft well-balanced scenarios. This game was an example of that. The forces were evenly matched even though the Neo-Soviet player put about twice as many miniatures on the table as the Skybolts player. The mechanics supported this as well, with the Skybolts using their improved troop quality and weaponry to counter the numerical superiority of the Neo-Soviets.

The victory conditions meant that although the Neo-Soviet players were rather demoralized to watch their troopers die en masse for most of the game, they were still able to accomplish their objectives and win the day. This was a nice departure from so many games, where if you lose a big pile of figures you're pretty much guaranteed to lose the game as a result.

We made a few rules blunders here and there, of course, but overall the game played out quite well. I've played in horribly one-sided scenario games that were just no fun to play. This game moved along briskly and victory wasn't assured until the very last turn of the game! It was "a real nail-biter" as one player pointed out at the start of Turn 8. This game will likely become the go-to squad sci-fi game for our club.

(Editor's note: This battle report was originally published on RPG Diehard on Oct. 7. It has been republished here after Chicago Skirmish Wargames started its own in-house blog.)