TIME TO GET MAD!!

The completion of my 8^th Army project means I can turn my painting time (which does seems to be rather limited at the moment) to a few side (non-WW2) projects. The first, inspired by a recent blockbuster movie and some other gamer's work on the Guild forum, sees me converting and painting Hotwheels cars to try a few ‘car wars’ games of Outrider.

Outrider is a downloadable, print and play game, and so far it looks good, although all the work making all the cards and counters (double-sided) needed is daunting. I can see few long evenings of slicing and gluing ahead of me. Hopefully, it will be worth it. The basic movement mechanic will be familiar to Wings of Glory players, using manoeuvre cards, which is a mechanic I like, so I hope Outrider will be a version of that game, but with screeching tyres, lots of collisions and general mayhem.

So far, we have plans for ‘gangs’ of 3 cars each. The Law (cops) and the Green Machine (independent mercenary) gang are complete. My Outlaws criminals are still on the painting tray, but almost complete. This is the work so far, with the first games in the next few days. I’ll try and write-up a report when we play, to review the game. 

Converting and modelling (the best bit) involve a good rummage in the bitz box (why keep it otherwise?) and a search through a lot of old plastic kit sprues, with all those spare bits left on. I knew there was a reason to keep them. They provided all sorts of interesting bits and peices to be carved up and stuck on. The more ramshackle the better.

 

This all takes me back to my very early gaming days, trying to play the impossibly complex Car Wars at age 11, and not being able to ever finish a game. Later, we played Dark Future (again with lots of diecast car conversions), then Gorkamorka (urgh!!), which was supposed to be sort of Mad Max with Orks (I think). Hopefully, Outrider will prove better entertainment for an hour or two than all three of them. 

Soldiers of God, coming soon

Today, after about a year of work (on and off with other BG projects), my Crusades game is finally off to the printers. 'Soldiers of God' is a full battle game, utilizing units of between 8-16 models (cavalry is 4-8 models), in either small fast moving Raids, Field Battles (the standard line-up and fight) or Siege Assaults (one sides gets the castle walls to defend, the other attacks it).

It is card-driven, using an action card deck (which will come with the rulebook), to give orders to each of your army's 'Battles'. A 'Battle' is a sub-division of the army, a third of it, either the left, centre or right Battle. These can all act together on the same action card.

The way action cards and Battles interact is governed by your overall Battle Plan, which is a pre-chosen plan of attack (or sometimes defence), which dictates which cards your Battles get for this engagement. These set cards are then added to with random drawn ones, so each game gets an entertaining level of unpredictability, and the cards will never allow a game to be played the same way twice - even if you you used the same forces, over the same terrain, with the same battle plans, the game would still play-out differently.

Picking a force is from one of the two army lists in the game, Crusaders and Saracens, in a familiar way, except the scenario being played adds restrictions to this. So, Raiding forces look very different to castle garrison forces or those deployed for a field battle. Siege Train equipment, ruses and tactics are also available, but only in Siege Assault games.

The rules aren't scale specific, they will be playable at all scales, because the players pick the ground scale and measurements based on their collection and table-size.

Here is the cover and couple of preview spreads from the book. Enjoy. The books should be available from various retailers, including Warlord Games, Perry Miniatures and Northstar Figures in 6 weeks-ish (fingers crossed).