All Quiet on the Martian Front
Jul 2, 2014 22:20:33 GMT -5
Post by lanceradvanced on Jul 2, 2014 22:20:33 GMT -5
Okay, had a bit of time to get to know this game, and the system, and so far, it looks pretty good, though some things remain confusing.
Basic storyline, it's 1914, the Martians are back, for the 2nd War of the Worlds, and control major portions of the world, having this time landed in remote territories and established a foothold.
The fluff is pretty good, the Martian Invasion has preempted WWI, but all the familiar characters are there, Lawrence is in Arizona with the Apache for example, and Churchill persuaded the Brits to help America with a Lend-Lease program. Tanks are steam powered, but with fairly good reason, gas tanks are more vulnerable to the martian HeatRay - The Martians follow pretty closely to the book, with their Heat Ray, and Black Smoke.
Game is turn based, players roll for init, every turn, then move, attack -and move again-, then start the process again, rolling for init.
Most die rolls are d10, first a to-hit roll, trying to beat a unit's defense, there is no attack stat, all units are equally good(or bad) shots.
Once you hit, you follow with a to-wound roll, against the target, and here things get fun...
Different guns have different modifiers to the roll if you beat something's armor, usually it just dies, unless it's a big unit (tanks are not big units)
Big units have a damage table, you roll -once- on the table, with a +1 mod per wounding hit, nearly every result will weaken the armor stat of the unit, and some will get you fun results, like having you dice off to see who controls the unit for the next turn movement or shooting.
Martian tripods are big units, they start with an armor value of 11, they take a bit of killing.
Units can also assault, after getting into b2b, it's worked out -exactly- like shooting,
Units that take causalities, will take morale tests, they may rout, if they rout, they may disappear entirely if they get to close to any enemy unit, or take more damage while they're routed, panic is contagious too, if units are too close to one another they may force other units to take morale tests too, since most units are 3 models, by the time somethings taken enough causalities to make you lose morale, it's probably dead anyway.
Oh, and Martians ignore the morale rules...
Now on the upside for the puny humans, morale -can- affect initiative rolls, the martians have to miss out on that one(except if they're evil and target command units)
Also, humans are sneaky little gits..
Human infantry can be deployed as "blips", what a blip is isn't revealed till it's approached, or damaged, and for each blip, you also get two decoy blips to place out on the field, humans can also trap and ambush terrain pieces depending on the scenario
Besides Infantry, Humans also have tanks, lots and lots of tanks.. some with -lots- of guns, and other fun toys, and that's just the US, and not the Brits who have come to help, with their martian-back-engineering-advanced tech.
However, what humans have that is -really- rude are Rough Riders and Clamp Tanks...
Clamp Tanks are fairly simple, it's a tank, with a clamp, if it hits in assault, your tripod is immobilized, period.. end of statement, can't do anything about it, welcome to being a fire magnet, you have to move for any reason, like a damage result, you die.
Rough Riders, are the same, only different, they're doing the whole Snow-speeder vs ATAT trick, they hit, you're immobilized, and a fire magnet, the good news is against these tow cables you -can- try to break free,but you stand a good chance of damaging yourself.
What can the poor martians do to prevent this? they can screen themselves with zombies or drones, or kill you before you get to them, but tentacles aside, most martian tripods have no h2h ability (notable exception, the harvester tripod, which comes with 4 grabby tentacles and a built in Cuisinart.
Models are pretty good,thye took a wierd turn and went HO scale for the game, and bases are a seemingly random mix of round and square, all cut from thick plastic card. a bit of flash on the human stuff, and the plastic could be better, it shattered and cracked on a few models on gluing,
There are a few "issues" with the rules, mostly around what and how to equip the steam tanks, the Kickstarter funding let them make a universal plastic tank kit, that can be built a number of different ways, some of which have one or more gun mounts more than the rules say they do, and with a rather vague rule on customizing your tanks guns.
Right at the moment, I have a fairly balanced, but slightly unusable army for humans and martians, the way kickstarter unfolded, I tried to get a variety of tanks, but ended up with 15 "can do anything tank kits", some rough riders, but no human infantry, which was a mistake, because the humans need them for command units. Similarly the martians are kinda crippled, because I don't have the Slaver/Scientist tripod yet who I need to control my drones/zombies.
Over all, it looks good and I think I'll enjoy playing it, when I get something more playable
Basic storyline, it's 1914, the Martians are back, for the 2nd War of the Worlds, and control major portions of the world, having this time landed in remote territories and established a foothold.
The fluff is pretty good, the Martian Invasion has preempted WWI, but all the familiar characters are there, Lawrence is in Arizona with the Apache for example, and Churchill persuaded the Brits to help America with a Lend-Lease program. Tanks are steam powered, but with fairly good reason, gas tanks are more vulnerable to the martian HeatRay - The Martians follow pretty closely to the book, with their Heat Ray, and Black Smoke.
Game is turn based, players roll for init, every turn, then move, attack -and move again-, then start the process again, rolling for init.
Most die rolls are d10, first a to-hit roll, trying to beat a unit's defense, there is no attack stat, all units are equally good(or bad) shots.
Once you hit, you follow with a to-wound roll, against the target, and here things get fun...
Different guns have different modifiers to the roll if you beat something's armor, usually it just dies, unless it's a big unit (tanks are not big units)
Big units have a damage table, you roll -once- on the table, with a +1 mod per wounding hit, nearly every result will weaken the armor stat of the unit, and some will get you fun results, like having you dice off to see who controls the unit for the next turn movement or shooting.
Martian tripods are big units, they start with an armor value of 11, they take a bit of killing.
Units can also assault, after getting into b2b, it's worked out -exactly- like shooting,
Units that take causalities, will take morale tests, they may rout, if they rout, they may disappear entirely if they get to close to any enemy unit, or take more damage while they're routed, panic is contagious too, if units are too close to one another they may force other units to take morale tests too, since most units are 3 models, by the time somethings taken enough causalities to make you lose morale, it's probably dead anyway.
Oh, and Martians ignore the morale rules...
Now on the upside for the puny humans, morale -can- affect initiative rolls, the martians have to miss out on that one(except if they're evil and target command units)
Also, humans are sneaky little gits..
Human infantry can be deployed as "blips", what a blip is isn't revealed till it's approached, or damaged, and for each blip, you also get two decoy blips to place out on the field, humans can also trap and ambush terrain pieces depending on the scenario
Besides Infantry, Humans also have tanks, lots and lots of tanks.. some with -lots- of guns, and other fun toys, and that's just the US, and not the Brits who have come to help, with their martian-back-engineering-advanced tech.
However, what humans have that is -really- rude are Rough Riders and Clamp Tanks...
Clamp Tanks are fairly simple, it's a tank, with a clamp, if it hits in assault, your tripod is immobilized, period.. end of statement, can't do anything about it, welcome to being a fire magnet, you have to move for any reason, like a damage result, you die.
Rough Riders, are the same, only different, they're doing the whole Snow-speeder vs ATAT trick, they hit, you're immobilized, and a fire magnet, the good news is against these tow cables you -can- try to break free,but you stand a good chance of damaging yourself.
What can the poor martians do to prevent this? they can screen themselves with zombies or drones, or kill you before you get to them, but tentacles aside, most martian tripods have no h2h ability (notable exception, the harvester tripod, which comes with 4 grabby tentacles and a built in Cuisinart.
Models are pretty good,thye took a wierd turn and went HO scale for the game, and bases are a seemingly random mix of round and square, all cut from thick plastic card. a bit of flash on the human stuff, and the plastic could be better, it shattered and cracked on a few models on gluing,
There are a few "issues" with the rules, mostly around what and how to equip the steam tanks, the Kickstarter funding let them make a universal plastic tank kit, that can be built a number of different ways, some of which have one or more gun mounts more than the rules say they do, and with a rather vague rule on customizing your tanks guns.
Right at the moment, I have a fairly balanced, but slightly unusable army for humans and martians, the way kickstarter unfolded, I tried to get a variety of tanks, but ended up with 15 "can do anything tank kits", some rough riders, but no human infantry, which was a mistake, because the humans need them for command units. Similarly the martians are kinda crippled, because I don't have the Slaver/Scientist tripod yet who I need to control my drones/zombies.
Over all, it looks good and I think I'll enjoy playing it, when I get something more playable