Legionary View: After landing and recovering from stasis, the crew must preform numerous rocket system checks and tediously switch engines over to standby mode or else they could be stuck here for ever. As they nervously watch the skirmish going on outside their portal windows, they all make mental notes to tell the Planetary Legion how important it is to speed up the recovery process and to automate these routine job functions. Next time, they may need to exit the ship very quickly in order to join a fight.
Xyban View: When the five member Sentinel of Xyban recon squad assigned to investigate the rocket landing of some new strangers they find themselves facing five Eeek Warriors that simultaneously appeared at the landing site. The Sentinels immediately launch a communication drone to alert the main Xyban force that an Eeek Hive must be located nearby. The newly arrived mysterious ship will have to wait… Eeek Warriors are always hostile; a firefight will surely ensue. And in fact it does.
Eeek View: Kill the Xyban scum! None shall survive.
So the other day, Kyle came over and helped me playtest the Fictioneer Troop Combat rules that I’m working on. The idea is for a quick and easy set of rules for these (or any) sci-fi minis. Though the rules will be easy to learn/read, I really want to make sure it is a fun and competitive game. There is a good framework for it currently established. We still need to work on play balance (troop point cost, or establish army lists) and the faction backstories. The rules focus on encounters between a few infantry squads (4-8 figure each) per player for beginners, up to a full company (maybe 40-50 figures) as they gain experience with the rules. Larger battles and encounters of primarily vehicles are not the focus of these rules but experienced players may choose to explore there.
The game plays very fast (i.e. it’s deadly). The first thing that we learned was to not get too attached to your figures. In the photo above, most of the Xyban troops (in red) had been kill. The one lone remaining Sentinel passed its moral check and continued shooting at the three remaining Eeeks. Killing one of them forced a moral check for their side; pinned. Ah-ha, things are looking up (for the moment). The Xyban fires again… this time a miss. Unfortunately, the Eeeks recover from the pin and make short work of finishing off the Xyban scum. The little 5 on 5 firefight took maybe 5 minutes to play out. And without any writing of orders, tracking wounds, etc. though in larger battles, you will likely want to use pinned markers. There is also no prone position in the game. The figure laying on their side are the dead which become cover and/or movement obstacles. I’ll be making these rules available once they are polished and playtested a bit more.
Another thing we got to try out were my new measuring tapes. I know it is a strange thing to be excited about for most people but if you do much wargaming, you rely on these things a lot. Typically, you need a tape that is around 4-6′ long. The problem with most of this length is that they are very narrow and flimsy. Your alternative is to lug around a big 25′ tape and hope you don’t drop it on your minis. I recently ran across a listing for some interesting ones from Stanley called FatMax (meaning they are wider than others I guess). They have a 6′ long one that is 1/2″ wide. It sells for $4-5 most places. It has a small compact housing with a good hand feel. The thumb lock is easy to use one handed. And the bright yellow makes it easy to find on the tabletop. It comes with a keychain attached that I easily removed though some folks might like that feature. Overall… highly recommended. Good job Stanley. Another quality tool.
While I was getting stuff out for our game experiment last weekend, I ran across a box that I forgot that I had. It contained the below gems in it. Six packages of new old stock Fictioneers… original packs, never opened. I’m torn as to what to do with them: Open/paint them, and game with them; or sell them as-is to some collector that would appreciate having them in the bag. Any thoughts?
RRB Minis & More 