Oathmark: A Review + Some suggestions for Houserules added

For years during the first decade of this century my go-to ruleset for wargaming was Warhammer Ancient Battles, basically Warhammer Fantasy Battles without the Fantasy. It was the best ruleset around in my not-at-all humble opinion in the sense that it was the best playable ruleset that I could find after reconnoitering horrors like DBM. It was however a clunky, typically 1990ies ruleset with lots of tinkered bits screwed on and a lot of frustrating stuff. I eyed the fantasy version of WAB but that already seemed terminally broken and cheesy.

When WAB went, I looked around for replacement. War & Conquest was promising and better, but still retained some of the frustrations and failed to attract opponents. Hail Caesar showed me that the Black Powder engine was fit more a lot of things, but not pre-firearms wargaming. It was bland and tasteless. Kings of War had nothing that intrigued me. So little showed up and over the years I sold most of my armies.

And then Oathmark was published. I succumbed to the hype, bought the rules, painted an army of dwarves that had been gathering dust for years, dug out some more fantasy stuff I had laying around and played some games. And was hooked. Why? Well, to be perfectly honest because it plays like Warhammer with the same joy and without the frustration.

The rule mechanics
The credit for this goes to the rules of course. Joseph McCullough, he of Frostgrave fame, used his thoughts on wargaming to write a mass fantasy battle system and in my opinion he has succeeded very well. And by doing this he crushed quite a lot of conventions that have ruled mass fantasy battle systems for years.

First, this is not an IGO-UGO system but has alternate activation. Players alternately activate units. So it doesn't have turn phases either. An activated unit has two actions and may move, move a lot, shoot or charge into contact and if it does so a bilateral combat occurs immediately. Activation rolls are no do-or-don't affairs. A failed Activation roll limits your actions, but still enables you to do things with that unit. These two things make it a dynamic game that constantly engages all players.

Second, Oathmark ditches Priestley's Law (Only D6 Games Will Sell) and uses D10s. Predictably this will give more gradual and less predictable results.

The rest of the mechanic seems relatively conventional. Units have stats like Move and Fight, need to roll a minimum value to succeed in things like Activation rolls and Hits and roll for Morale when taking casualties. There are the traditional races like Dwarves, Humans, Elves and Orcs and Goblins.

However, all rolls are achieved with a maximum of 5 dice, never more. Also, a Die roll always causes an immediate result. So no To Hit/To Wound/To Save sequences. Just a Defence minus Fight = Target Number roll and a success is a hit. No buckets of dice here.

The Army building
Army building is done brilliantly. There are two ways. First you can traditionally choose a race and take units from the list of units of that race (and some unaligned ones). Units have a point value so you can tailor battles to a specific point value to balance things. 

WARNING: building armies this way leaves the game open to all kinds of min-maxing tricks that will eventually completely derail the game balance!

Alternatively (and MUCH recommended!), you can build a Kingdom with a capital of a specific race, but additional territories that enable you to field units from different races as well! While other races' territories are slightly more expensive to "buy" into your Kingdom, you can take any. But not all. You can only take 10 territories out of 44 as your starting Kingdom and each territory gives you specific units of a specific race. For example Plains give you Human cavalry. I created the Kingdom of Dale/Erebor from The Hobbit this way.

The differences in races are notable. Elves tend to be expensive and extremely disciplined elite specialists, are very hard to break, will almost always activate but are never numerous. On the other end of the spectrum there are the goblins, brittle, undisciplined and mediocre at best but cheap enough to field them in hordes.

This means  that in order to create an army that excels in everything, you need to enlist different races. For anyone that learned Fantasy in a GW store, this is heretical! But if you were raised with Tolkien, all this should come easy to you. 😁

There are multiple troop types (although not all races have all troop types) like several infantry types (spearmen, linebreakers, militia etc), cavalry (heavy and light, horse and wolf) artillery and a list of aligned and unaligned monsters and creatures that either fight in small units or alone.

A unit is kind of standardized. Man-sized figures are deployed 5 rows wide and 1 to 4 ranks deep. A unit is never bigger than 20 figures. Bigger figures like trolls deploy in one rank of 3 or even alone, like Dragons. Ranks give you bonuses in To Hit roll, Morale checks and Shoot rolls, but make you more vulnerable for artillery. A good dilemma improves a game, I always say!

There are Characters, but they are not the one-man juggernauts from Warhammer. Instead, a General actually Commands units (he can activate more than just his own unit and boost Morale Checks) and Champions might at most give an extra Kill in combat or may challenge enemy officers or Champions. They actually feel and play like the troop type they are supposed to represent.

Spellcasters are powerful, but expensive characters. You can buy them in levels and the higher the level, the more spells and the more dice you may roll to cast them. But also much more expensive. Spells can only be cast once per Activation per Spellcaster, can make a powerful impression but so far have not been gamechangers.

Monsters can be very impressive, like the 800 point Winged Dragon which is practically a small army in itself. However, in a 3000 point average game it will eat up over a quarter of your points, so it better be a gamechanger. That amount of points will buy four (4!) full units of Goblin soldiers!

So how does it play? 
It plays fast. Units are not particularly fast, but they are maneuverable. This is because units may move or maneuver through obstacles as long as they can end their movement in formation and outside the obstacle. So you are spared the horrors of "clipping" and being unable to move because your unit was 2mm too wide. Besides, even failed Activation rolls enable one Move action. So there is always something happening. The game never drags. You never have to wait for something.

Combats are fast because both combatants roll simultaneously for their own Target Number and remove casualties and then one or both units move away from each other. Combat can be very bloody between unequal opponents and units with large losses will have trouble to make their Morale check. And when already Disordered (after one failure) a failed Morale check will send a unit packing.



As a player you are always engaged, since combat follows contact immediately, both players need to roll and after your opponents activates a unit you immediately are next. The game continues to flow until one of the armies breaks or retreats.

The rulebook
The rulebook is extremely well laid out. It is teeming with clarifying diagrams and subjects are usually explained in one or two page spreads (with accompanying tables) so you almost always find what you are looking for on one page spread. There are the main rules, advanced rules, scenarios and Kingdom and Army building chapters. There is a Campaign chapter that explains how your Kingdom may expand (or shrink!) during a campaign, which might give you access to new troop types. There are army lists for Dwarves, Humans, Elves, Goblins and Orcs as well as aligned and unaligned Monsters and other creatures.

A few rather important rules are a bit hidden away in some surprising locations in the rules, so read them really well (which is always a good thing by the way). It took me a while to spot the fact that a failed Activation roll wil raise your target number for shooting by +1 (which is mentioned in the bit about Simple Actions rather than Shooting) and I needed someone to point out to me that a so far unactivated unit that has been engaged in combat i.e. has been attacked cannot Activate anymore in that turn (which is mentioned in Activation rather than Combat).

It is a visually pleasing book too. 192 full colour pages with lots of pictures, paintings and drawings bound in hard cover.




The miniatures? 
While there is a line of Oathmark miniatures from North Star anythings goes really.

This might however be the place to say something about basing. Oathmark bases human-sized figures on 25x25mm and bigger figures on 25x50, 50x50 or 50x100. So a unit front is either 50, 125 or 150mm wide. This already tells you that front width is not extremely important, just handy.

Don't rebase your 20x20 or 25/round stuff. The important thing is to remember that a unit frontage is 5, 3 or 1 figure wide (depending  on the size of the figure). In combat the attacking officer always lines up in the middle of the frontage he is attacking with his unit. Maneuvering units may move through obstacles as long as they don't end on top of them. So the exact width of a unit is not very important. At most, a unit of 5 20mm bases wide can deploy in a 100mm corridor instead of a 125mm one. I have yet to see that happen.

So don't rebase or get hung up on base sizes. No need. 

What could be better? 
The book made it out of the printing process with some printing mistakes. The Oathmark players' Facebook page has an errata list. An official one is in the works. Nothing to get upset about.

Overall Oathmark seems to have been quite well tested. So far players have only found one Spell that seems to invite abuse (Smoke) as well as one rule (Making Room on page 34, see below for a possible solution). The rest of the game seems to work very well and as intended although those intentions are not always to anyone's taste, but well, wargamers will be wargamers.

The Conclusion
An extremely enjoyable mass fantasy wargame. It will capture my attention for quite a while to come. Extremely recommended!!!

The Sequel?
Three additional books are published at this time and reviewed here.

EDIT October 29th 2020: Dragons

The consensus seems to be emerging that Dragons are Oathmark's equivalent of the nuclear ICBM i.a.w. unbeatable by anything except another Dragon. We played one game so far with Dragons on both sides. The Dragons mainly fought each other, but when they didn't, they were indeed lethal against other units. However, although killing them with something other than another Dragon is hard, pinning them in place is relatively easy, thus neutralizing quite a large amount of points while you can defeat the rest of the enemy's army. 

EDIT March 16th 2021: Artillery

Some words about artillery. Having played a number of games I have noticed, as have others, the effectiveness of artillery. And not only catapults and such but long-range magic as well. When playing a slow moving army on an open plain (a really classic setup after all) against an Artillery- and Magic rich army your army will be severely held up and weakened along the way, only to be massacred when finally in contact. Artillery is very effective, especially in combination with artillery-enhancing or -replacing spells. 

This not a fault IMO. Rather it forces you to play accordingly and choose your tactics and battlefield better. You will need screening units and cover against long-range fire. Gaming tables will need -and feature- surprising amounts of terrain after a while. 

Playing Oathmark is in that respect actually more like late 19th century warfare than Ancient or Medieval. 

In a world of magically enhanced artillery, no general worth his salt would consider advancing slowly over an open plain. The results would be predictably disastrous. And in Oathmark, they are. So take note. This is Fantasy wargaming after all! 

EDIT July 29th 2021: Some suggestions for Houserules

After a few dozen games and a new Errata and FAQ edition I thought it time to give my views on Oathmark Houserules. Oathmark is a good ruleset, but not without problems. Fortunately the designer encourages tinkering so no problem needs to stay unsolved! 

First, the most recent FAQ at this moment is to be found here. I think this has some problems as well, to be addressed below.

Dispelling

This spell may be cast on any unit and lifts the effects of an earlier spell cast on that unit. 

Unfortunately, some Spells are not cast on units and are therefore invulnerable to any countermeasure. Some rather significant examples are Smoke and Looking Glass, which will usually bother you the entire game.  Especially Smoke invites abuse this way (for example, a unit standing right behind the Smoke can never be Charged from the front, as the attacker has no LOS through the Smoke and may not approach because the distance would be less than the minimum of 1"), so we thought this needed the following Houserule: 

All Spells can be Dispelled, unless the Spell description explicitly tells you it can't (like Mud). 

Making room for an attack

On page 34 you will find the next paragraph of text: 

In rare cases it may be necessary to move a unit that is not involved in the combat slightly to make room. In this case move the unit directly backwards until it is at least 1"away from the currently active unit. 

To be honest we never used this. But its potential for abuse and bizarre game effects is immense. 

Apart from the fact that it doesn't describe what "rare" is supposed to mean and conversely you can actually use the rule all the time, this makes it extremely hard to shield any of your units from attacks as long as the attacker has LOS to his intended target. It also makes it extremely hard to block an attack by placing your units in your opponent's way of Move or Maneuver, as long as he has LOS to his intended target.

After all, the attacker can simply oblige you to move your shielding unit backwards until it is out of the way so that he can attack the unit behind it and can now maneuver unhindered because your unit hindering him simply moves backwards. As long as your unit can move backwards, it apparently is obliged to do so. 

This completely removes any motivation to maintain battle lines (which are of course meant to prevent just such a thing) and the idea that a unit would simply move out of the way to make room for an attack on its neighbor is too weird even for fantasy. To make problems even bigger this rule made it possible to hugely abuse the flanking rule and gave cause to another weird FAQ adaptation (see below).

From the moment that I discovered this paragraph I have been completely baffled by its possible purpose so I contacted the author for clarification. As it turns out the rule was meant for the situation that: 

a) the attacker moves to charge and makes contact with its intended target

b) the attacker's unit must now be placed flush against the target unit

c) but can't since another enemy unit blocks this. 

d) so this enemy unit is moved backwards etc.  

To be honest, knowing this, I still think the rule is unnecessary. When an attacker does not fit against the target unit I'd say that the charge should be considered blocked.  The target unit is then simply too well shielded. 

So my suggestion would be to completely disregard the paragraph on Making Room on page 34.

If you do insist on using this rule, I think it should actually have been written down like this: 

In case an attacking unit has already made contact with its target but cannot be placed flush against the target due to another enemy unit not involved in the combat it may be necessary to move that last unit slightly to make room. In this case move the unit directly backwards until it is at least 1"away from the currently active unit. 

It still leaves to be desired though. What if the unit that makes room bumps into an obstacle or another friendly unit? Does this make the charge impossible or is this a pushback? It just causes more questions. Better to disregard it completely. 

Flanking and rear attacks

The rulebook on pages 34 and 35 gives pretty clear rules on when a unit attacks a flank or a rear. The front, flank and rear quadrants are found by drawing diagonals through the unit's "footprint". When you attack a unit, which must always be done by a Move straight forward, the moment of contact and the location of your unit's officer determine in which quadrant you attack. 

Unfortunately, the "making room" rule opened this up to immense abuse. Imagine your unit is facing an enemy unit A right in front of it at a few inches distance. To your right front is another enemy unit B. Now you announce that you want to wheel to the right and attack unit B. This is impossible, since the unit A in front of you is in the way, so you move that backwards until completely out of the way with the help of the Make Room Rule. You are now positioned in the flank of unit B and proceed to flank attack that unit. 

To solve this, the designer did not simply trash the Make Room Rule (like he should have done IMO). 

Instead he completely rewrote the rules for Flanking and Rear attacks. Now the start of the Charge (whatever that may mean) and the location of the officer determine the quadrant in which the attack takes place. Firstly, this makes it necessary to painstakingly measure in which quadrant the charge starts. 

Also you can now have a unit with a narrow front starting its charge inside the flank quadrant of the target unit and, due to its movement direction at the start of the charge, ending up entirely in the front quadrant at the moment of contact, only to be then dragged around the target unit until ending up on the flank. 

Finally, the attacker from the example above can still force unit A backwards, wheel to the right and attack unit B. Only now the attacker is making a "frontal" attack, as this is where his officer usually starts (I think, since it is unclear whether the Charge "starts" with the Wheel or with the Move Forward) and is dragged to the front of unit B. Thus having essentially now made a charge by moving more than a full move to the right, which is normally not allowed. It boggles the mind.... 

Suffice to say that in my not at all humble opinion this creates even more complications, unclarities and weird situations. So ironically my suggested Houserule is to play the Flanking and Rear attack rules simply from the book and: 

To completely disregard the first two Q&A's from the "Other" paragraph from the FAQ as well as disregard the paragraph on Making Room on page 34 of the rulebook. 

Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age

Joseph McCullough

hardcover

Osprey Publishing

EPIC OATHMARK BATTLE REPORT!!!!!

Last Saturday my buddy and me kicked off my Christmas holidays with a massive 5.500-points-per-side Oathmark Battle. Dark Elves with human slaves fought an Undead army with human... well, apprentices I suppose?

By mutual agreement we also both brought a Dragon. We also Houseruled that location-bound Spells like Smoke and Looking Glass would be Dispellable (which in the rules they are not, for some strange reason).

The pictures below show the table. There was quite a lot of terrain as the armies fought in the little hamlet of Nicolaasburg on Patricks lovely table.

Note that even with this amount of terrain we were still able to play a quite dynamic battle, due to the maneuverability of the units. No Warhammer army would ever have been able to maneuver on a table like this, but Oathmark armies can!

The battle ran about as follows:

With clear chokepoints on my left, center and right wing I decided to stop the center gap with Smoke, the left with my heavy cavalry supported by a Vampire and try a breakthrough with my humans on the right.

My artillery would use Indirect fire (by means of Looking Glass as planned, but actually the Dragon, being Enormous, could simply look over the Smoke) firing over the Smoke to whittle down Patricks Elves.

The Elves advanced cautiously over the entire front, parts 1 and 2 of my plan ran smoothly, although my Vampire took a beating from Patrick's Trolls, but the humans in front of my right wing proved tenacious and were only slowly being driven back, refusing to break (because we used the rallying rules wrongly, btw).

My Dragon managed to cause quite a lot of damage to the Elves. There was this very satisfying moment when my Dragon, walking partly through the Smoke Spell, Firebreathed Patrick's Linebreakers.

But eventually Patricks Dragon attacked him and pinned him in a deadlock in the center, the rest of the battle raging around the two fighting monsters.

To speed things up a bit I Dispelled my own Smoke and charged the battered remains of the Elves in the center with my Skeletons. The left wing blockade worked fine and the Elves in the center were practically annihilated. However, my Skellies suffered terrible losses from the Elven Archers (because I forgot that Skellies only suffer half damage from bows) and Patricks humans on my right still refused to either die or Break, being slowly pushed back however.

Eventually we decided to play out the Dragon fight, as the remaining player with a Dragon would still have quite good cards on the table. After the dust settled, my Dragon lay dead and Patricks Dragon stood reeling with just 1 Hitpoint left.

As large parts of my army were still very functional but Patricks Elves were practically destroyed and his Humans decimated (and I had to be home in time for diner) we called it a win for the Undead.

Lessons learned:

Dragons are way to powerful to use in a game and have fun. Don't.

Morale deterioration seemed very slow. Even units of humans reduced to 25% still kept making their Morale checks and the fact that you are not allowed to push them off the table meant they would simply stand their ground to the last man instead of being routed.

Some house rule seemed in order but as it turned out we made mistakes with rallying Disordered troops (that actually cannot just shake off Disordered and Activate, but are limited to a Simple Action in that turn).

A spectacular and great game that took us from mid morning to the end of the afternoon to finish. 5.500 points is quite a bit... Many thanks to Patrick for his great table and even greater hospitality!

Black Sun by Crucible Crush: a Review

Regular readers of this blog will know I am a sucker for any wargame that drags the Cthulhu Mythos into its rules in any decent way. So when Crucible Crush and Bob Murch of Pulp Figures' fame announced a "Weird War Vietnam" ruleset I was immediately interested. Frankly, this announcement was what got me into collecting Vietnam figures in the first place.

My expectations could be summed up as expecting a ruleset that would enable me to play Vietnam skirmish in a not-too-complex way with a generous helping of Cthulhu Mythos per game. I had a thorough read, some correspondence with the writers and a game.

The Background

The background boils down to this: somewhere in the jungles of Cambodia an ancient temple houses a way to another dimension: the Black Sun. This parallel Earth-like jungle world was once constructed by an ancient race, now long gone, and is inhabited by strange and dangerous alien creatures. As well as by a number of Earthly beings that happened to wander into the Black Sun during the past centuries and survive there.

When the Vietnam War in the early 60ies exponentially increased activity in the area, Vietnamese and US forces started to get trapped in the Black Sun dimension as well. While trying to escape, they still continue their conflict. But they are not alone.

Besides an unknown number of Eldritch monsters and alien wildlife the Black Sun world is also home to the Adaro (think Deep One Vietcong with AK47s), the alien Fury Bugs being a combination of both monsters and wildlife all rolled into one, survivors of the 1938 Nazi Lemurian Investigation Group expedition (LIG) and the members of a crazy Cthulhu Mythos cult; the Children of Hastur.

Most of these are trapped in the Black Sun dimension, although some have means of escape. You play one of these factions and and pit yourself against other factions in order to capture the mysterious Crystals that dot the Black Sun dimension and somehow hold the means to escape from the Black Sun.

Future expansions will offer more creatures, scenarios, a campaign and perhaps new factions. All this was promising enough for me in any case!

The Rulebook

An A4 full colour 64 page softcover including rules, faction lists, 3 scenarios, Quick Reference Chart, some counters, force and "What the..." cards and lots of pictures and drawings. More below.

The rules mechanism

BS is for the most part a tried-and-tested IGO-UGO rules mechanism with a few interesting innovations. I understand it is derived from the Flint And Feather ruleset but since I don't know or own that one I cannot comment on any (dis)similarities there might be between the two games.

You build your force by choosing a Force Card containing a leader (Boss) and using his point pool to buy more force cards from the same faction. The force cards are the building blocks for any force and are included in the rulebook to be scanned and printed.

A Force card holds all the data on a character or a group (like a fire team or a MMG team) and are therefore also handy reference cards during play. A BS Character or group only has 4 stats and sometimes some special skills, Fighting Value being the most frequently used stat. FV also doubles in function as a Hit Points number. 



The players roll for Initiative and then in turn (once each) for Activation. The roll will Activate all, some or one of your Groups depending on their state of mind. Group composition is are flexible and groups may split and join at will. Groups will function better when led by an NCO or CO.

When you roll a 6 one group Activates and a "What the..."(WTF) card is drawn. WTF cards cause unexpected events, like napalm strikes, monsters et cetera. 

Additionally while drawing a WTF card your leader may get shot in the back by a disgruntled grunt depending on his Frag stat. An interesting take on things I never saw before. WTF cards are provided in the rulebook to be scanned and printed.

An Activated group gives two Actions to any group member. Between Actions your opponent may React (if he can get his troops Activated) and thus interrupt your turn.

Actions can be Move (run, walk, sneak), Shoot, Rally and a number of other things amongst which is Ambush, which gives you an enhanced Reaction in your opponent's turn.

To React to- or Act against someone your opponent must be Spotted and this must be done consistently, thus simulating fog-of-war and the obscuring nature of, well, Nature.

Shooting and Combat are Group affairs (shooting itself as well as determining the target: you fire at a group, not at individuals) and work as a roll against FV, modified with circumstances like cover and such.

Hits are turned into random pin/duckback/wound results against random opponents (also not something you often see). Weapons have different ranges, Damage stats and number of shots. All the major weapons from the period are present in the stats.  Hit results may be Pinned, Duck Backs and Wounds of various impact, up to instant (even "Gory") death. Sometimes things call for morale checks (Frostiness) and units can be suppressed by enemy fire.

How does it play? 

Keeping in mind that the tables you need to determine things like Wound- and Activation results will eventually settle in your memory the game plays pretty smoothly. For our first test game we had to consult the tables a lot. Activating, moving, spotting and shooting work fine. We played about 5-6 turns in about an hour and a half, taking our time to look things up when they were unclear. Gunfire is bloody, so sneaking and using cover really are important, as it was in reality.

The Spotting rules really enhance the feeling you are sneaking through a jungle, know that the enemy is somewhere but cannot always see him.

While Wounds, Pins and Duck Backs limit the effectiveness of individual figures, they do not affect the state of mind of the group they are in. We never encountered a Frostiness test, since those only happen under very specific circumstances (not even your leader dying causes it) and suppression is only caused by specific things like MMGs or grenades so also did not occur in our test game (which did not have those weapons). So Morale and Suppression do not factor in heavily, or at all. I must say, for a modern skirmish game, this felt a bit bland.

In our game we never rolled a 6 for Activation so never drew a WTF card. Therefore we did not encounter any surprise events or Mythos creatures.

What is good? 

The game played smoothly, giving a good impression of small unit jungle warfare in the 60ies. The impact of morale and suppression was very limited, which I missed to be honest, but in the end this is a rule-mechanical choice based on taste since such things will slow down the game. I know for a fact that not all wargamers appreciate their little metal men to cower or run because of a bad Morale roll....

The Force Cards were excellent reference tools and building a force with them is a breeze. The Quick Reference Card included in the book was also quite comprehensive. All in all an enjoyable game.



What could be better? 

The rulebook, it must be said, contains some choices I do not understand and a number of mistakes in rule-and example texts.

Of the latter, the most disturbing ones are dealt with in the Errata list provided on the website by Crucible Crush, together with a new QRS that corrects a few typos in the Weapon list. Mistakes will occur in any book, but I feel this one could have benefited from better and more thorough editing. Nevertheless, this can be solved by using the Errata.

In some spots the rulebook uses different words to indicate the same thing (Frostiness for Nerve Test or Spotting for Observation) that sometimes make it confusing to find something. When I wanted to know how Spotting works, I looked for a chapter called "Spotting". In this case the chapter was called "Observation", but already in the second alinea it becomes "observation or spotting" and henceforward "spotting".

The rulebook includes stats for Shoggoths, Tyrannosaurs (you can never go wrong with those two) and  indigenous Black Sun creatures like Crystal Trolls and Crystal Centipedes. However, since there are no WTF cards included for those monsters in the book, you will never encounter them in the game unless you make your own cards.

The rulebook also includes stats for some weapons, like mortars, but no Force Card for such units to include them in your force. Since Force Cards are the only way to include them and no points cost are provided, you cannot play those units despite the fact that they are mentioned and detailed in the book.

The rulebook includes detailed Force descriptions for all factions. The one for the LIG includes ghouls, a Golem and Ichillitons. There is a description of the Golem nearly a page long . However, there are no stats or Force cards for them. So of the three combat groups described for the LIG you can actually play only one.

I understand a number of these things will feature in future supplements. For example, all monsters that have been produced by Crucible Crush so far have Force- or WTF  Cards already made. Some of them could not be included in the book due to space constraints and will feature in future supplements. But this is not explained in the book, giving the initial impression (at least to me) that it wasn't complete. Especially the lengthy description of the LIG but them being a faction you cannot actually play in the game for lack of stats and cards, baffles me.

The book contains many pictures showcasing Pulp Figures' figures made for the game. They also feature as illustrations on the Force Cards. While rules are often explained by text examples, these are not always clearly formulated, sometimes incorrect and might have been helped with diagrams or -even better- pictures of  said figures acting out the example. This way, the figures could have been showcased and used to explain the game at the same time.

As long as you don't play Adaro or Fury Bugs as a faction you'll have to depend on the WTF cards for the "Weird" part of the game: the encounter of monsters and Black Sun events. However, they only occur in about one in 6 Activations and most WTF cards are mundane Vietnam War events. And some monsters don't feature in the WTF card pack in the book, so you might never encounter any for many games in a row. There is way too little "weird" for my taste.

Conclusion

The rulebook could have been edited better and gives the impression of being incomplete, missing stats and cards that could (and in my opinion sometimes should) have been included. The entire LIG for example could have been left out and kept for a supplement, freeing up space to include things like mortars and WTF cards for more Mythos monsters.

Turning the layout from single to double column would also have freed up at least a few pages of space that could have been used for content, like stats, cards or scenarios.

For a Weird Nam Game, there is plenty of good Nam gaming going around, but not nearly enough Weird. WTF cards for the monsters in the book should have been included. It might be a good idea to print out the WTF cards with monsters on them twice and put two of each in the WTF deck. Of course you might then encounter (and need miniatures of) two Shoggoths, but really, who can object to that?

For a modern skirmish game the effects of gunfire on group morale and movement are very limited. I personally think these effects should be more severe as that would be better suited to the period, but I understand the choice for less impact from shooting and casualties came from playtesting.

There definitely is an enjoyable game here, but it takes some work to get your hands on it.



Black Sun: rules for 28mm Weird Nam Skirmish Battle
Crucible Crush, 2020 
64 pages softcover

SPECTRE OPS SciFi game

Last week I played a Spectre demo game with one of my mates using his SciFi Shadowrun setup. Two rivalling gangs made up of a boss, two bodyguards and some cannon fodder clashed over a break-in in one of the gangs's stash hole.

Successful use of overwatch fire, cover and suppression got my gang out of that scrap with minimal casualties. And produced some atmospheric pictures, thanks to Ivo and his mobile phone.

Note the blacklight lamp!

The most Ancient period of wargaming: Pre-historic! part 1

Every once in a while I get the itch to try out something new, something Original that I haven't seen around much. After watching an excellent 2-part documentary about the Neanterthal Man I decided to go for Pre-historic wargaming, if the term wargaming can be used in that context.

Because of course during the bigger part of the existence of prehistoric Man there were no such things as wars. Defining the period as starting at about 400.000 BC when Homo Neanderthalensis entered Europe and Asia from out of Africa until about 10.000 BC when Homo Sapiens had firmly eshtablished himself as the dominant species across most of the planet, most of Man's societies were small groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers that propably only met at seasonal meetings or at the off-chance coincidental meeting while roving their hunting grounds.

This might have led to armed conflict as often as not, but it feels a bit of a stretch to call these small skirmishes "wars".

So encounters in this period that can be played as a conflict should mostly be hunts and coincidental scuffles between small groups of hunters for the posession of a prey or cave or something.

Da Moddelz
It does take some searching, but there appear to be quite a large number of miniatures available, if only from a rather wide number of manufacturers. No one makes a omplete range of prehistoric figures. This should not surprise anyone, since PH is a very small niche in an already niche hobby.

Nevertheless the ranges are quite complete. Generic prehistoric people, branded as "cavemen", "prehistoric people", Cro-magnon or Neanderthal are and were made and sold by several companies.

First worth mentioning is DeeZee which has some Neanderthals and a lot of contemporary animals, which of course make up the larger part of PH figures. I bought most of my animals here.

Lucid Eye has lovely Neanderthals and Cro Magnon (modern Homo Sapiens) that were my eventual choice for the humans.

Steve Barber Models has prehistoric people as well as animals and produces the ruleset Prehistoric Settlement for which they make figure packs. Their Smilodon and Megaloceros were added to my collection.

Acheson Creations has quite a range of animals. But since they are transatlantic for me, the shipping costs stopped me there. They have lovely figures though.

Foundry has a range of animals amongst which are some prehistoric animals as well as animals that already existed alongside prehistoric Man. I purchased deer and bison as well as zebra to use as prehistoric horses.

Northstar has sabretooth cats and cave bears.

Rattrap Miniatures has a few animals in their Pulp range.

Toy brands Schleich, Safari and Papo make plastic prepainted prehistoric animals. Most are too large to use with 28mm but the giant sloth from Safari came in several sizes in real life and may pass for the biggest species. The Papo Komodo dragon is way too large for 28mm but perfect for prehistoric monitor lizard Megalania.

I aimed for contemporary animals that were actrually encountered by prehistoric Man. So I skipped any dinosaurs or Terror birds however tempting it was to add them to the game. I might succumb yet....

More pictures of painted figures and games are to follow.

Da Rulez
Completely a secondary priority in my book, I only started researching rulesets after purchasing the miniatures. Several sets came along and I purchased three: Tusk, Paleo Diet and Adventures in the Lost Land. I borrowed Prehistoric Settlement from a friend.

In the coming months all sets will be tested and reviewed. Paleo Diet looks the most promising at first glance, but the proof of the Mammoth is in the eating :)

Sharpen your speartips, cover your fire and stay tuned to this channel! 

Better wargames on grounds of Terrain....

“The strategy for employing the military is this: There is dispersive terrain, light terrain, contentious terrain, traversable terrain, focal terrain, heavy terrain, entrapping terrain, and fatal terrain.”

-Sun Tzu –

Even back in the day good old Sun-Tzu had some interesting things to say about the ways terrain could work for you in a battle. And unsurprisingly history is dotted with examples where terrain played a crucial and determining role in the outcome of battles and wars. This should teach wargamers something valuable: terrain can enhance your games!

I will not go into the visual aspect of terrain (i.e. how to make your gaming table look better) as rows of books have already been devoted to that. Instead, I will address terrain as a means to make your game more interesting!

It goes downhill from here on.…
While terrain may serve as an objective, we can do so much more with it. Instead, let’s place a hill. Instantly lines of sight change as a large obstacle blocks them. 

Movement is hampered as moving uphill might slow figures down. And especially if an enemy has already settled on top of it climbing the hill is particularly unattractive, as this enemy defends high ground (+2 Attack roll or something). Suddenly simply moving across the table has become something to reconsider.

Speed limits and dead ends
Rivers, steep cliffs and walls might simply block movement and force troops in other directions. A swamp might slow movement down to a crawl while not offering any particular cover, yet offering the enemy ample time to shoot at your poor mud-sloggers. Then again, should the enemy use it to secure his flanks, or to hide behind? Spicy dilemmas abound!

Terrain might discriminate between troops. While infantry may cross woods relatively easy cavalry cannot enter woods at all as anyone who has ever been swiped off his horse by a low tree branch can testify! This causes more tactical considerations.

Terrain might offer benefits, as troops might move faster over roads than they would through a field. This of course channels your troops along certain predictable routes. It offers you the -always interesting- choice between speed and surprise.

All this of course serves to make the intellectual challenge of a game more interesting. Even without writing detailed game scenarios a pitched battle (allegedly the most played type of wargame ever!) can be made very complex by placing some woods, hills and marshes.

Good terrain rules!
Should you rules contain no specific terrain rules, I suggest by all means make them yourself!
Let’s look at a corn field. Or rather: through it. You can’t, at least not very far. So field of view in a cornfield would not be blocked, but severely limited. This should influence the chance to hit someone walking in a cornfield with a ranged weapon, as a target that is far enough away might just as well stand behind a wall.

On the other hand, unlike a wall a cornfield offers zero protection against ranged weapons once someone has drawn a bead on you. Explosions in a cornfield will hurt the target just like it would in an open field.  So a cornfield would influence a to Hit roll, just like a wall would, but not a Save (if your rules know such a thing) unlike a wall unable to stop the projectiles hurled at you. 

This would offer a more interesting variety of terrain rules than say: terrain is either Difficult (Movement penalty and cover) or not. That way it will actually become both useful as well as pretty to invest in some good crops on the table!

There’s something moving over there….
While terrain is usually static, it does not need to be. Smoke and fog might float across the table creating a moving blockade for view. (Sky)ships can really be moving pieces of terrain from which figures shoot or fight. A moving bridge is a very simple example.

There is only a fine line between figures and moving terrain. Stampeding herds of cattle are little more than moving terrain creating dangers for your little soldiers. Shambling zombies moving on “automated” movement- and reaction rules are actually terrain that can move as well as fight! 

“Get to the choppa!”
So simply by choosing and placing terrain, we can direct or at least influence movement of troops, create dilemmas and choices and create an interesting game scenarios without actually having to write one.

One of the most successful games I ever played is a simple VTOL evacuation mission where the 

Rescuers have to pick up the Objective before the Hunters capture it. The Objective must be collected and escorted to a landing zone and evacuated by air from a landing spot at least a foot wide. There are several such spots on the table, all several turns of movement away from the Objective. That’s all. So far the scenario has always been lost or won by a hair’s width.

I hope I have inspired you to make more use of terrain. Not only does it look better than a green sheet with a lonely tree, but it makes for better games as well!