Warzone Primer Series: War Without End!

This is the first post in a series about Warzone Resurrection. In this post I am giving you an overview of the world of Mutant Chronicles. Mutant Chronicles and it's tabletop wargame Warzone first hit the gaming scene in the mid 1990's, it was the first ever competitor for Warhammer 40k. Unfortunately due to poor investment decisions got folded away with the company by the end of the 90's. There were a few failed attempts to bring the IP back. Now Prodos Games has relaunched the game as Warzone Resurrection, with  brand new miniatures line and rules system, it should be hitting retail shelves in sometime in April.

The Solar System is a battlefield. From Mars' red deserts to the steaming jungles of Venus, conflict rages. From the huge caverns of the Mercurian underworlds to the cold hells of the Asteroid Belt, battle lines are drawn. The great megacorporations make war on each other. The fanatic soldiers of the Brotherhood clash with the undead warriors of the Dark Legion, who, in the names of their demonic masters, seek to conquer all who live. There is no peace. There are only small gaps between wars, when the combatants seek to rebuild their strength before another cataclysmic clash with their eternal enemies.

The Megacorporations

Where once there were nations, now there are only corporations. They rule the inhabited worlds. Everything is driven by their relentless quest for dominance and profit. The megacorporations are gigantic entities, fiscal titans who bestride the worlds of humanity, bending everything from foodstuffs to firearms. Their workforces are numbered in the billions. Their wealth is beyond counting. Their conflicts shake the tortured planets with their violence.

To be an employee of a corporation is to be part of a way of life and to commit yourself body and soul to a cause. Every moment of every day, the citizens and workers are bombarded by the propaganda of their employers. They are told that only their corporation is right, that only their way of life is good.

The citizens of democratic Capitol know that they are free and that all others seek to destroy their freedom. Capitol's huge armies are commited to defending that freedom.

The subjects of Bauhaus' Four Elector Dukes know that they are surrounded by enemies who covet their wealth and their technical superiority. The generals of Bauhaus' military orders work hard to ensure that their wealth is preserved.

Those who serve Mishima's Lord Heirs know that only they understand the true meaning of honor and that the universe is full of those who seek to take advantage of the strife in their ancient dominions. The Samurai stand ready to give their lives in defense of those lands.

The clansfolk of Imperial are just as certain that only the strong survive, and by their conquests, they prove their strength.

The enigmatic employees of Cybertronic know that they are the focus of universal hate and that all seek their destruction. To succeed, their enemies must overcome their cybernetically enhanced defenders.

So conflicts are bred. So wars are born. In a time of economic catastrophe and scarce resources, these beliefs are enough to drive millions to war.

The Brotherhood

Rising above the wars of the corporations are the members of the Brotherhood, the spiritual guardians of humanity. At the head of the Brotherhood stands the Cardinal, the most powerful man in history, a being of enormous spiritual, moral and temporal power. He is served by countless billions. Missionaries spread his word, Inquisitors hunt down his heretical enemies. Seers wield the strange mystical powers of the Art in his name. Countless soldier-fanatics are ready to die at his command.

Faith in the Cardinal is the last remaining glue that binds humanity together. People of nearly every corporation (with the notable exception of Cybertronic) attend sermons in the towering Cathedrals on the walls of which the eternal truths of the Chronicles are inscribed. Citizens of every corporation heed his message of hope and redemption. They all need something to believe in, for the times are dark.

The Dark Legion

Those who serve the Dark Apostles are the eternal enemies of all humanity. The numberless hordes of the Dark Legion raise their gigantic Citadels on all the worlds of humanity. Undead warriors swarm against the armies of humanity and force even the fallen to serve them. Countless Heretics infest every corner of human society and spread their message of corruption and rebellion, fostering wars between megacorporations, spreading distrust and hatred among humanity.

They serve Ilian, the Schemer, Mistress of the awesome mystical power of the Dark Symmetry. They revere Algeroth, Apostle of War, Master of the Dark Technology. They heed the lies of Semai, Apostle of Spite, who turns sibling against sibling. They dance to the insane tune of Muawijhe, Lord of Madness. They revel in the abominable foulness of Demnogonis, Apostle of Corruption. These mighty beings serve a greater master, the ultimate source of all evil, the Dark Soul.

The Apostles are not only the enemies of humanity, but of each other. Their minions often skirmish in battles for leadership and dominion. Thus are even more battles fought. Thus is yet more blood spilled.

The Cartel

In the face of unrelenting attacks from the Dark Legion, even the megacorporations have declared an uneasy and sporadic truce. So mighty are the servants of the Dark Apostles that they have forced the corporations to band together to oppose them. Thus was formed the Cartel, a cooperative organization which acts in the name of all the megacoprorations, seeking to maintain a fragile peace and coordinate operations against the Dark Legion. The greatest servants of the Cartel are the legendary Doomtroopers, recruited from the finest warriors of all the corporations, trained to a peak of perfection inconceivable to lesser mortals.

So far, the Cartel's success has been mixed. It has managed some triumphs against the Dark Legion, but has completely failed to keep the peace among the megacorporations. Indeed, it is more a vehicle for negotiating temporary cessations in hostilities than a true representative of human unity. Still, in offers the only fragile hope that a united humanity can stand against the darkness.

The Warzones

On all the inhabited worlds of the Solar System, there are warzones - huge areas of conflict where the megacorporations and the Dark Legion clash.

On Mercury, fiefworld of ancient and honorable Mishima, hundreds of small guerrilla wars are fought between the representatives of the megacorporations as they seek control of the huge, underworld caverns and the incredible mineral wealth these contain.

In the jungles of Venus, human armies besiege the towering Citadels that rise above the primordial jungle while the megacorporations make war against each other for possession of the riches of the Graveton Archipelago.

Amid the ruins of southern Mars, the soldiers of all the great powers fight for what remains of the most fertile region in the system, even though the canals are dry and the great desert once more encroaches.

Amid the tiny worldlets of the asteroid belt, fierce battles are fought between Imperial and the Dark Legion. These conflicts are all the more savage because of the restricted areas they are fought in.

On no world is there peace, nor is there any prospect of it. This is an age of war, in which humanity fights for survival and only the cunning and the mighty can hope to triumph. This is an age in which sharp reflexes and good weapons make the difference between life and death.

I'd like to give a shout out and thanks to my buddy Neuicon for saving me from having to type this all out from the books. Check out his Mutant Chronicles blog, Tales from the Warzone.

Next time I will talk about the basic game mechanics of Warzone Resurrection.

Until next time, keep your powder dry and lead flying!

Terrain in Skirmish Gaming

What makes skirmish games different from other miniature tabletop games is the way your models interact with the terrain on the tabletop. Experienced skirmish gamers know that terrain is an extremely important part of having a successful game. It is important to have multiple levels of terrain and having places to hide are both very important; it also adds a very realistic feeling.

Battlesystems starship or military complex table

Your strategy should evolve from the terrain present in your game. Having multiple levels of terrain makes the game interesting and adds to your strategy. There is nothing more realistic and evocative than placing a sniper on the highest point on the board with a good viewpoint of the tabletop. Plus from this vantage point he may be able to ignore some terrain since at this elevation the terrain may be too low to affect the snipers shots as you are looking at your target from above. 

City fight table from the Grunts website

My general rule of thumb when setting up a skirmish gaming table it to make sure that at least 60% of the surface area is covered in terrain of some sort! With this terrain density you can get a really great tactically deep game.

Infinity demo table

No matter in what kind of terrain your game is taking place on you should always have plenty of cover. If you are playing on ruined city streets you should be able to gain cover peeking around corners or hiding behind piles of rubble. Realistically you want to have protection for incoming fire. It is almost always better to get your models into cover suffering any movement penalties than to stay out in the open to move at your full move rate. In my opinion it is better to play smart using every ounce of cover to your advantage than to rush in and get your units killed.

Another fantastic thing about skirmish gaming terrain is that if you are a clever modeler you can have close quarters firefights within buildings. Fighting room by room is a fantastically tense and fun thing to do in skirmish gaming. It can be done with battle level games but is not very practical to do well above the skirmish level.

Until next time, keep your powder dry and lead flying!

Why You Should Consider Skirmish Gaming

Skirmish games are typically played with small armies of miniatures ranging from 5-30 miniatures per side. This makes entry into a skirmish game really easy. The games themselves are usually more detail oriented mechanics wise as well; because the forces are smaller the complexity of the game can be increased without bogging down gameplay.

Killzone at Adepticon 2011, thanks to Brian from A Gentleman's Ones Blog for the pic

Some people will disagree with me on the following, these people will ardently argue that my Micro skirmish category is the only true skirmish game, but this is my opinion. I put skirmish games into 3 categories, Micro, Macro and Scaleable skirmish.

Micro skirmish games are the ones where your force is made up of anywhere between 5 and 15 models, each model usually acts on its own even if part of a “unit.” Typically a Micro skirmish game can be completed in around forty-five minutes or less.

Macro skirmish games are the ones where your force is made up between 15 to around 30 models, sometimes the models act as units and the better ones allow models to act on their own even if part of a unit. These types of games can run anywhere from an hour to ninety minutes depending on the complexity of the system.

Scaleable skirmish games are my favorite by far as they straddle the line between Micro and Macro games. This allows you the gamer to choose how small or large you want your games to be. Both versions of Killzone and Warzone are all Scaleable skirmish games!

So to answer my own question “why skirmish gaming?” it is the easy entry in monetary and hobby outlay; with the added benefit of having fast paces small games that do not take up a lot of time. Sometimes it is just nice to have a force for a game that is painted to a higher standard than you would never consider doing in an army level game like 40k. Plus on top of that you can also go to town converting and modeling your minis to make each one be unique from the rest; this is actually one of my favorite things about skirmish.

Skirmish games also tent to be much more tactical in the gameplay, since you do not have the resources to just throw away a unit, you must seriously consider each of your actions to effectively use your units to complete the mission at hand.

Another of Brian's amazing tables!

Another thing that is really cool is the terrain making opportunities that you have with skirmish gaming that would just be impractical in a battle game (like 40k) setting. Terrain is also infinitely more important in a skirmish game than a battle one; if you play a skirmish game on a standard 25% terrain 40k table it will devolve into a shooting gallery and the side with the strongest shooting will typically run rough shod over other lists.

In my next post I will cover the importance of terrain in skirmish gaming.

Until Next time, keep your powder dry and lead flying!

Special Operations Killzone needs the communities help!

I need some assistance getting Special Operations Killzone up to date. I have poured a ton of passion, heart and soul into SO Killzone, I would hate for it to sit unupdated much longer.

Currently I am not playing much in the way of 40k at all; I have been more involved in 30k for a while now. Then couple this with the fact that I have been heavily involved writing stuff for Warzone Resurrection and the cost of the rapidly releasing 40k codices you might understand why Codex Operatives is woefully out of date. On top of that I am getting constantly emailed telling me that the Codex Ops is out of date.

Basically it boils down to the fact that I do not have the time nor am willing to spend the money on game books I won't be using to keep the Codex Operatives updated; so at this point I do not have any idea of when I might be able to tackle such a project on my own.

If SO Killzone has any hope of getting properly updated it will only be through the help of the community. The main rules are set and good to go as is, but the codex operatives needs a 6^th ed update for everything after Dark Angels.

I have asked for help in the past and even had a few people say that they were gonna help, which is great, but this time around if you volunteer you need to have the initiative to get these things rolling without me assigning a task; I am very busy currently and do not have the time to micromanage the project.

What needs doing and what sort of things are you looking for? Codex: Daemons, Tau, Eldar, Space Marine, Sisters of Battle and Tyranids need doing. You need to look for special rules and Wargear that will mess with the one man unit dynamic of SO Killzone. Remember every model in SO Killzone acts as it's own unit.

Here is a link to the current SO Killzone documents.

If you are willing to help out email me at galaxynflames @ gmail dot com

With your help Special Operations Killzone can thrive and get updates in 2014!

Until next time, keep your powder dry and lead flying!