The many universes of the varied role playing games have led to
proliferation of detailed supplements to provide the gamer with background
information on the lands traversed by the player characters. This need for
source material quickly found an audience in the miniature figure wargames
with each new rule set being published with supplemental material. For a
fantasy or science fiction wargame rules set centered in a world (or worlds)
different from our own, these source books provide a means of enhancing the
game by giving a colorful background and purpose for the battles fought on
the table top.

I have had little or no experience with the Warzone system prior to
receiving several items for review. Now, I’m seriously rubbing my chin and
contemplating making an investment in the system, as my wife despairs. In
truth, I have little patience with BSMSs (Big Shoulderpad Miniature
Systems), but there’s a depth to the Warzone milieu that I find jaunty and
stylish.

Venus: Bauhaus Forces of War is the first supplement to the Warzone second
edition rules. As the title states, this supplement provides the details on
the planet Venus in the Warzone universe and of the Corporation of Bauhaus,
one of the five major corporations. Venus is a terraformed, jungle planet
cursed with a day of rotation longer than its yearly orbit around the Sun
leading to a Venus day that is 117 Earth days long. Bauhaus, whose roots
harken to an imperial Germany, is the dominant corporation of Venus.
Through this supplement, players will find a rich new world to fight over
and detailed information on the armed forces of Bauhaus.

Okay, so what do you get for your hard-earned shekels? The book contains
nearly 100 pages of information. After a brief introduction, the book gives
30 pages of maps and short graphic vignettes, which introduce the six
campaigns covered in the book. These vignettes provide campaign maps and
visual glimpses into the continual fighting on the jungle world. Next come
detailed sections on Venus, the Bauhaus Corporation, and the four ruling
Duke Electors. The six Venusian campaigns are outlined, allowing for combat
between Bauhaus and any of the other four Corporations or the forces of the
Dark Legion. Several new rules for Warzone follow. Among these are rules
for night fighting, including concealment, tracer rounds and flares, and for
the hazardous jungle, which can be as deadly as the enemy. The final third
of the book deals with the Bauhaus Armed forces, giving information on
various troop types, special units, heroes, weapons, vehicles, and a
thousand point army list for each of the four Duke Electors. The book also
includes two pages of punch out templates and counters for use with the new
rules. My only gripe with the book is the total lack of a table of contents
or index, making it hard to quickly locate specific information.

The supplement is visually striking with illustrations or photographs of
Warzone miniatures on every page. The graphics portray the terrain of Venus
and spark the imagination. Photo vignettes of miniatures offer inspiration
and ideas for jungle terrain for the game table. The visuals distinctly
evoke the Target Games style. In the army section, each troop type is
illustrated at least once and those types with miniatures available have
photos of the figures. The different uniforms and camouflage patterns along
with the differences in helmet types are clearly shown.

The Verdict

My overall impression is that Target has a winner. The background material
is rich and allows the reader to easily imagine the savage fighting in the
dark jungles of Venus. The Bauhaus troop types and army lists provide a
variety of units, which can be tailored for fighting on any part of the
planet and will forma basis for Bauhaus forces elsewhere in the solar
system. The supplement covers the subject and I await reading the next one
on Mars and the forces of the Capitol Corporation.

And such a setting. Combine a healthy main course of Philip Jose Farmer’s
RIVERWORLD with Jerry Pournelle’s JANNISSARIES, throw in a soupcon
of Fortschen’s THE LOST REGIMENT and Turtledove’s VIDESSOS series,
and you might have an inkling of where this game takes place. Essentially the
setting takes place along a giant highway, called “The Way.” The Way is
sometimes described as being a mud track, sometimes a superhighway. The setting
changes with the groups encountered along the way. The Way is more or less a
giant rift between different universes and times, where small groups of people
wander in from time to time. These are the “armies” (though that might be an
over-exaggerated term for what is, essentially, company level elements). These
small groups of people form settlements on either side of the Way, which has
arable lands on either side for roughly 1000 miles or so. There’s a convenient
impassable mountain range up North and an equally convenient trackless ocean
down South. What you end up with (and this is what the designers intended,
I’m sure) is a setting where ANYbody could fight ANYbody. In the basic rulebook,
the following races are described:

• The 312th Armored infantry: a futuristic African infantry unit.
  
• The Anthropod order: a gang of intelligent insects.
  
• The Aztecs
  
• The Church of Personality: a weird group of characters that “channel”
  famous dead celebrities, such as Marilyn Monroe, Richard Nixon, and, of
  course, Elvis.
  
• The Circus of Terror: A travelling circus of crime and savage violence,
  presided over by the villainous Kount Klown and the Ringmaster (The Cabal’s
  first miniatures release is of the Circus of Terror).
  
• The Crawling: Creatures of Myth, Magic and Horror fiction, everything from
  the Wolfman, to Centaurs, to Count Dracula.
  
• Demons of Springfield: A warped vision of 1950s America, with Demons
  instead of humans.
  
• The Grangers: Cybernetic Cowboys riding robot horses.
  
• Homelanders: A multi-tribal Indian homeland.
  
• The Horde: Descendants of the various hordes that overrun Rome in the Dark
  Ages.
  
• The House of War: Descendants of Arab Desert Warrirors
  
• Knights of Wodenburg: Teutonic Knights subtly altered by crude cybernetic
  enhancements (parenthetical note:
  the illustration of one of the knights shows a character with a cyber-shovel
  grafted on in place of an arm. Ever wonder how these guys with weapons
  instead of arms take care of… er… basic hygiene
  requirements? They still eat, don’t they?)

• The Logical Revolution: a race of robots and androids that have made a
  proselytizing religion out of pure logic.
  
• Monotremes: Intelligent, upright platypuses… or is it platypi?
  
• Nueva Roma: The Roman Empire reborn… sort of.
  
• Quebec Guard: A loose amalgam of Napoleon’s Grande Armee (remnants), Dutch
  Traders, and Iriquois Indians.
  
• Terrapins: Warlike giant turtle pirates? Gotta throw that in too.
  
• Tiger’s Paw: Samurai and Ashigaru.
  
• Verdun Victors: Apparently, a large chunk of a Franco-American force
  lifted from the Trenches during WWI.
  
• Wastelanders: This universe’s barbarians… they dwell on the rims of
  habitable civilization.

How it Plays

SLOWLY! Having about 200+ painted cowboys and a big stinkin’ lot of
classic horror creatures painted up, I attempted to have a small scale skirmish
with a design-my-own army of cowboys vs. The Crawling (described above).
Even using the Quick Rules (pages 6-7), I was in for a slog. I tried
creating a small force of mounted cowboys led by a model called Zeke, the Trail
Boss. I ran into snags creating their weapons (six shooters and rifles),
as described by the create a weapon rules. First of all, you need to plug data
into this equation:

(Range in inches/3)(4*Damage
+8*Attack)
________________________________

(Actions/2)

to create a new weapon type. The design approach was NOT to create a
series of archetypes from which you can extrapolate your weapons (as I often do
with GURPS), but to have the algorithms available for the player to create his
own. That’s definitely a “universal” approach but not one that I have
patience for. If I need a calculator to figure out a game, I start to
glaze, big time. Each figure (model) needs individual stats for the game
to work. These are:

Initiative	The Model’s Reaction Rating
Movement	Range of Movement, in inches
Personal	Personal Combat Rating
Range	Ranged Combat Value
Speed	Number of ACTIONS
Defense	Defensive Rating
Damage	Damage this Model can Inflict
Soldiery	A “Quality” Rating
Unnatural	All-inclusive term for Magickal Stuff

Keep in mind that units can be individual characters or units.
Characters equate to single man leaders or special troops. Units
equate to Squads. See why I think the term “Army” might be a tad
excessive?

Weapons also have their own stats:

Range	Range of the weapon
Damage	How much damage it does
Actions	How many actions it takes to wield it
Attack	Attack Modifiers

Every stat has a point cost, which goes up the more proficient you would like
a model to be. I couldn’t find a table or information anywhere about
relative size of battles crossindexed to point cost budgets, which would have
been useful. I’d like to have a pretty good idea of just what 500 build
pts. would buy me vs. 1000.

Due to my confusion and a need to get something done, I bailed on creating
cowboys and just called them “Cyber Cowboys” and used the stats from the
Grangers, above. Works for me. I could (roughly) figure out the
character creation process but didn’t have the time or desire to do it.

The Game turn sequence was (in my opinion) reasonable enough:

Army Initiative: Roll 1D10 to see which side goes first per turn.

Movement: Move Forces, Init Roll winner first (half of his guys), Init Roll
Loser next (half of his guys), then the Winner again, then the Loser, until
everyone who can (or is desired to) has moved this turn.

Personal Combat: Any models within 1″ of each other on opposing sides may
attack. Init roll winner first.

Range Combat: Any distant combat (guns, arrows, throwing rocks, etc.) takes
place in this segment.

Unusual Combat: Aka “unnatural” combat… the weird things like magick spells
get thrown here.

Soldiery: Basically, a morale and cohesion check.

The main concepts of TWOW conflict are relatively simple: combine the
relative statistic (personal or range) + 1d10 + and modfiers, and compare it to
the target defense attribute + 1d10 + any applicable modifiers. If the
Attack is higher, the attacker wins. If the Defense is higher, the defense
wins. There’s a ton of chrome, of course, but that’s essentially it.

In my sample game, the Cyber Cowboys dismembered the Crawling in nothing
flat.

Concluding

My impressions are a little negative. There’s a good tactical game in
here somewhere, but it’s so laden down with exceptions to the rules, special
circumstances and most important, POOR RULES EDITING. I had a tremendously
hard time figuring this game out. It’s not as if the rules I needed
weren’t in the text, it’s just that aren’t presented in a very coherent manner.
A really decent index will help this game tremendously, as well as some
decent rules summary charts in the center of the book presented as handouts.
I genuinely like the notion and setting of TWOW, it’s just that I don’t
think the Cabil really thought this one through sufficiently to have the forces
presented to be even remotely balanced– and the designers seem to place a great
deal of importance to the notion of balacing forces against each other for a
fair fight . Given, the world isn’t balanced and is never fair,
it’s not so unlikely that a low tech group would fight a higher tech group (see
ZULU if you want a historical example) — you just shouldn’t expect anything but
a foregone conclusion. The designer spend so much time trying to create
an artificial medium between high and low tech armies that it gets tedious.
Such is the problem with “universal” rules… you have to be
universal with them. I sincerely hope the Cabil considers doing a
second edition, or at least starting a giant FAQ file to clarify this mess.

The Verdict

Slow, Poorly Edited but containing some interesting chrome and a half decent
combat system. NOT recommended for large scale enagemeents.

A line of miniatures has been released with TWOW; they will be reviewed next
week.

Contrary to what the title suggests, this has nothing to do with jiggly
camera work or spooky witches. The Swords Against Sorcery project is an
attempt to create a simple set of miniatures rules that you can play when
you don’t have enough time for a full blown game of Warhammer or
Chronopia. It is also meant as an alternative for those of use who do
not buy miniatures produced by either of the two big players in the fantasy
miniatures market. I don’t like dwarves with heads bigger than their chests,
nor do I like swords bulky enough to pass for vaguely sharp iron clubs.

More importantly, though, I’d like this to become OUR baby. I’d love to get
feedback, ideas, criticism, whatever from the on line miniatures community.
I want people to take these rules and bend, fold, and mutilate them to their
hearts’ content. The system presented here is completely freeware. Contact
me at mearls@gamingoutpost.com
if you have any cool ideas or conversions for this system. This is a
prototype version of the rules, so there’s plenty of bugs to exterminate
here folks!

So have at it! If your idea of miniatures gaming is all about tooling around
with toy soldiers rather than wading through archaic rules and wrangling
over the newest and coolest army list, you’ve come to the right place.

Why Another Miniatures Game?

I think this is an important question for any designer who is sitting
down to work out a new game. There are plenty of games out there already,
many supported by miniature lines and a steady stream of supplements.
Unfortunately, none of them meet my needs. I like to collect miniatures
scattershot, based more on how much I like the figure than on how well the
figure fits into a predesigned army list. I also like games that play fast.
I don’t want to spend eight hours playing out a single battle.

So, let’s look at what I want out of these rules:

• Small numbers of figures per side. This is faster to set up and requires
  a far smaller cash investment.
  
• Movement based on squares, like a chessboard. This helps cut down on set
  up time and simplifies the rules.
  
• Non-standard units. With such a varied collection, I can’t build units
  of models that look the same.
  
• Fast playing. I want a miniatures game that takes less than an hour from
  set-up to finish.

Ideally, you could get a quick game in while waiting for the rest of
your gaming group to show up. Just grab some of the figures from the
communal pile of monsters and have at it!

A Note

Part of this project grew out of the Plain English Roleplaying (PERP)
system I’m working on. The die mechanics there are very simple, but I’ve
been toying with a system I call the Binary Engine for some time. The
initial seed for this idea came from Greg Stolze, who mentioned a few ideas
he had for systems on the Unknown Armies RPG mailing list. The seed planted
by Greg has grown into a complete system that I’ve been tinkering with for
quite some time.

Who Goes First

One player flips a coin, the other calls it in the air. The winner gets
to decide who goes first.

Activation

The player who went first chooses one figure, moves it, and makes an
attack (if applicable). Once that player is done, the other player selects
one of his figures, moves it, attacks with it, and so on. If one side is
vastly outnumbered, the side with more figures should activate more than one
at a time in order to ensure that whoever went second is the last one to
move any figures. In general, try to divide up activation so that the side
with more figures is moving roughly the same number per activation.

Movement

One movement point lets a model move one square in any direction.
There’s no movement point cost for turning, and in this version of the rules
there’s no rules for facing. Let’s just assume that our fighters are smart
enough to check six once in while and leave it at that. (For now, at least.
When I add rules for assassins and thieves this will change.)

Attacking

A model may attack any model in an adjacent square, including models in
adjacent diagonal squares.

Rolling the Dice

You’ll need three different types of dice in Swords Against
Sorcery: six, eight, and ten sided. Six siders represent an attack.
Eight siders represent the model’s parrying and dodging. Ten siders
represent the model’s speed. When you roll a die, an even number is a
success. An odd number counts for nothing.

Your Hand

When it comes time to attack another figure, you’ll have to choose
which dice you want to use: attack, defense, or speed, and in which
proportion. Will you use all of your dice in an attack and go for the quick
kill? Will you turtle up and wait for help to arrive? Or maybe you’ll go for
speed and get in a quick strike to disrupt his attack? If you have a
training of 5, you could use 3 attack dice, 1 defense die, and 1 speed die.
Or, you could use 4 defense dice and 1 attack die. You can use any
combination of dice, as long as the total for all three types is equal to or
less than your training. Keeping your dice hidden from your opponent, choose
the type you want to use on this attack. Once both players have chosen, both
roll at the same time. I’d suggest rolling in separate boxes (the kind that
GW use to package their plastic figures work well) so your dice don’t get
mixed up. (If they do get mixed up, remember Mearls’ First Rule: The even
ones are mine.) Tally up the successes for each die type and resolve the
attacks. First, compare how many speed dice came up even. The figure that
has more speed successes strikes first. If it kills the opposing figure with
its attack, discard that figure’s hand. If the target survives, the target
player must discard a number of dice from his hand equal to the damage
sustained. Note that speed dice (they’re useless now since you lost the
speed contest anyway) and dice that came up odd (these are, surprisingly
enough, useless no matter what) may be discarded to meet this requirement.
If the speed dice come up tied, all damage is simultaneous. Yes, it is
possible for two figures to kill each other in the same round. If no one
uses speed dice or no one rolls any even numbers on the speed dice, it is a
tie. If one player uses speed dice but gets no successes while the other did
not use any speed dice, it is still a tie. In this case, both models have 0
speed dice successes.

Resolving Damage

Each defensive success removes one attack success. Once defense dice
have been accounted for, the attacking player hits if he has any attack dice
left. Count up the remaining attack dice, add in any factors for strength or
magic weapons, and deal that much damage to the target. Damage is subtracted
from the model’s training. When training hits zero, the model is eliminated.

Ganging Up

Combat isn’t always a one on one affair. If two or more miniatures
decide to gang up on a lone figure, the figures that gang up determine their
hand by adding up their training scores. So, if two figures with a training
of two each attack a single figure with a training of six, the two figures
make a combined attack with a training of four. When resolving damage in
this situation, the figure that is outnumbered gets to decide how to
allocate any damage it deals out. In the above example, if the lone figure
did two points of damage it could deal both points to one of its opponents
or one point to each of them.

Fleeing Combat

Sometimes, a model is so badly outclassed that running away is its best
option. In this case, the model may only use half of its training dice in
speed dice for that combat round. If it survives, it may make a normal move
out of combat. A model that has already moved may do this only if it has not
already used all of its movement points this turn.

That’s the basics for melee combat. Missile combat is a little
different. We’ll talk about that under the next section: traits.

Traits help differentiate model types. They are a set of rules that
give you a lot more options in creating figures without adding too much
complexity. Traits include things like bravery, strength, toughness, and
armor. Here are the most common trait types:

Toughness

Toughness lets a figure take some punishment without affecting its
ability to fight. Toughness is marked like this: Toughness (N) where N is
some number. When a figure with toughness gets hit, subtract any damage it
takes from its Toughness first. When Toughness hits zero, begin subtracting
damage from Training. Example: An ogre with Training (5) and Toughness (4)
gets hit on round one for 2 points. Its Training is still (5) and its
Toughness is now (2). If the ogre got hit for 4 more points in the next
round, its Toughness would drop to (0) and its training would fall to (3).
The toughness would absorb 2 points before dropping to zero. The remaining
two points would come out of the ogre’s training.

Armor

Armor is anything that prevents damage, like chainmail or a dragon’s
scales. Armor is rated with a number like toughness, and is marked like
this: Armor (N) where N is a number. Armor subtracts from the damage done by
each attack that hits a figure. Armor does not go down, unless a magic spell
or something nasty destroys it. Example: Sir Edwin is wearing chainmail,
which gives him Armor (1). He’s also a real tough dude, so he has toughness
(2). He gets hit by five orcs, each of whom does 1 point of damage. Since
Edwin’s Armor works on each attack separately, each orc does no damage (1 -
1 is 0, QED). Now, if the orcs all did 2 points of damage, we’d subtract 1
from each hit, leaving us with 5 points of damage to allocate. Edwin’s
toughness absorbs 2 of those points, leaving 3 to subtract from Edwin’s
Training. Edwin is learning the hard way that 5:1 odds aren’t very good even
for a hero, no matter what the legends he’s heard say.

Missile Weapon

This trait indicates that the model has a bow, sling, spear, or
something else that lacks the up close and personal touch of a sword or axe.
This trait’s rating indicates how many dice the model rolls to make a
missile attack. Missile attacks work only like attack dice. You roll the
dice, count up the successes, and deal that much damage to the target. The
target has the option of spending training dice for defense, but if it gets
attacked later on in the round dice spent to defend against missile attacks
can’t be used in melee. You also can’t make a missile attack and a melee
attack in the same round. If you fire your bow and then some slob charges
you, you don’t get to use ANY dice to counter the attack. Better hope you
wore that platemail.

Strength

If a model has a strength rating, it does extra damage when it hits in
melee. A strength (2) model would add 2 to any damage it does in melee. You
have to hit first, so you can only add in this extra damage after your
opponent has accounted for his defense dice. If you have no attack dice left
over, you didn’t connect with your attack and don’t get to add your strength
bonus.

Guts

A figure with guts is a terrible foe indeed. Stab him, hack him, shoot
him, as long as he can stand he’s coming at you with a vengeance. Figures
with guts ignore training penalties from damage. They still die when they’ve
taken enough damage to reduce their training to 0, but they always get to
roll their full training in combat no matter how much damage they’ve soaked
up. Think of berserkers and you have a very clear picture of what kind of
model would have guts.

Bravery

This will come into play when the morale rules are worked out. Other
morale-related traits include terrifying and inspiring.

Negative Traits

It is possible for especially pathetic creatures to have a trait below
zero. A halfling or a weakling mage might have a negative strength, for
example.

Armor

Armor gives models the (surprise!) Armor trait. Chainmail gives Armor
(1), platemail gives Armor (2). Leather impresses the wenches but not much
else.

Weapons

Most weapons, such as axes, swords, and maces, all have the same effect
in Swords Against Sorcery. A figure’s training rating assumes it has
a one handed weapon. A model armed with only a dagger or its bare hands does
-1 damage. A model armed with a two handed weapon does +1 damage. This bonus
(or penalty) acts just like the strength trait.

Shields

Shields give you an extra defense die in combat. So a model with a
shield and Training of three chooses three dice to roll, adds in an extra
defense die, and rolls its hand.

Missile Weapons

Missile weapons work just like melee weapons: they affect the amount of
damage an archer does. A light weapon such as a sling or a dart does -1
damage. Self bows, spears, and throwing axes do normal damage. Long bows and
crossbows do +1 damage.

The Greedy Dudes vs. the Vaguely Defined Menace

If you’re like me, you hate it when a scenario calls for a very
particular sort of miniature, usual one that no one within 100 miles of you
has ever seen, much less painted. This scenario is meant to be very open
ended and usable with only seven miniatures.

What You Need

• A chessboard (you can get one out of any $5 set at your local drug
  store)

• Four terrain markers (coins work well. Regular miniature gaming
  terrain works, too, just make sure each piece isn’t larger than a square on
  your chessboard. Since this scenario is set indoors, you’ll want to use
  columns or furniture rather than trees!)

• Five door markers (Anything that doesn’t look like a terrain marker
  works well here too.)

• Three miniatures for the Vaguely Defined Menace (orcs work well here)
• Five miniatures for the Greedy Dudes (adventurer types work well
  here)

The Story So Far

In a fit of larcenous greed, the Greedy Dudes have broken into the
Local Ruler’s treasure vault and are stuffing their pockets with gold.
Unfortunately, the Dudes’ coin gathering activities have been interrupted by
the sudden appearance of the treasure room’s guards: the Vaguely Defined
Menace. The Dudes want to get out of the room with some treasure, while the
Menace wants to take down the dudes before they can scamper away.

The Forces

The Dudes (4)

Typical moneygrubbers, they could be adventurers, thieves, or desperate
televangelists.

Training: 3
Size: Medium

The Menace (3)

Big and mean, the Menace could be ogres, trolls, or the Oakland
Raiders’ starting linebackers.

Training: 4
Size: Large
Toughness: 1

Special Rule

On any turn, a Dude may opt to fill his pockets with money rather than
move or attack. A Dude cannot spend training dice on any turn spent
gathering money. Mark down each time a dude stuffs his pockets with cash.

Set Up

The Dudes and Menace each set up on the edge row of opposite sides of
the board. The Dudes figures are placed on the board, then the Menace. The
Menace player then places each door marker on a space on the two unoccupied
sides of the board. The Dudes player places the four terrain markers after
the Menace has placed the doors. The terrain can go anywhere on the board
but no piece may be placed adjacent to any other, including diagonally
adjacent. The terrain is impassable for all models. It costs one MP to move
on to a door marker. A figure that moves on to a door marker immediately
escapes.

Scenario Objectives

The Dudes get one point for each dude that escapes the room. Also, the
Dudes get another point for every turn spent gathering money by a model that
escaped.

The Menace gets two points for each Dude eliminated in combat.

The End?

Nope, these are just the prototype rules. We have morale and magic
rules coming down the pipeline, plus our first army lists. I’d like it if
people could give me a little feedback on what’s here so far. Particularly,
I’m interested in how much people like the die mechanic. In our next
installment, I’ll come up with two army lists: Good Guys (elves, dwarves,
humans, and heroes) and Bad Guys (orcs, trolls, dragons, and villains). Send
mail to Mike Mearls with
questions and comments.

Hi, all.  Walter O’Hara here, the GO miniatures reviewer.  I’ve
just received my first shipment of minis to review for the GO site.  As I
was unpacking the box, I realized that there is such a wide variance in the
size, heft, and quality of miniatures that would I need to establish an
body of metrics for judging miniatures by.  Hopefully
you’re so awed by my casual use of the word “metrics” that you won’t realize
this is just a fancy-schmancy term for a “yardstick.”   Can you tell I’m a
consultant in real life?

The first rule of doing anything well is to see if there’s somebody who
thought of it first.  Fortunately, in this instance there was.  Mr.
Toby Barrett, philosopher, gentleman, sculptor, ACW Naval Enthusiast (and,
important to this article frequent contributor to the Courier Magazine) is
the head of the one-man band operation known as Thoroughbred Miniatures. 
If you haven’t seen Thoroughbred ACW Minis, visit the website, they
are a treat.   Toby often wrote for the miniature wargame magazine COURIER
in the past, frequently expressing confusion and frustration with the incredible
scale variance between two figures that purport to be cast in the same
scale.  So, at editor Dick Bryant’s suggestion, Toby developed what’s
commonly referred to as the Barrett Measurement Scale
(BMS).  Toby’s scale is quote widely in the hobby press, even if
his initial goals in creating it were more modest than what has developed
later.

The BMS measures a figure from the bottom of the foot to the eyes. The
stand itself is omitted in the measurement, however, an over thick stand
should be noted in any review. The eye level was chosen simply because it was
impossible to establish the top of the head of figures due to the fact that so
many different caps, helmets, and headdresses were being wore thus obscuring
the top of the head. This measurement (in millimeters) can best be derived by
choosing a figure standing reasonably tall and straight versus bending over. A
second – and more abstract – value is assigned to the figures heft; light – L,
medium – M, or heavy – H, and only describes how thin or chunky the figure
appears. (These codes basically match what is used today in describing a man’s
build, light, medium or heavy.) Thus, a 26H rating means the figure is 26
millimeters in height from bottom of the foot to the level of the eyeballs,
and is relatively a thick casting when compared to most figures……. 19L
means 19 millimeters and a light or thin casting…..and so on. The heftiness
rating is more arbitrarily derived. (Toby’s words, from a recent
email) 

We will adopt the BMS as a method of reviewing miniatures (hopefully)
somewhat objectively.  To recap, the data elements we capture for reviews
are:

Height (BMS): A numeric value derived from measuring the
figure with a ruler (a number)
Heft (BMS): An
subjective value that the reviewer assigns meaning how “chunky” the figure is
(L,M or H)
Thick Stands (Y/N)? Does the figure come
with a thick stand, thus affecting its overall height measure? (Y or
N)

To this lot I will also add a few of my own:

Quality: Defined as the physical quality of the casting…
any flashing that needs cleaning? Did the piece arrive intact?  Anything
missing? (1-5 on where 5 means “Best”)

Proportion: Is the figure proportioned correctly?  Are
all body parts in scale with each other?  (1-5 on where 5 means
“Totally in Proportion”, 1 means “Disjointed and Wacky”)

Line: Is this miniature part of a supported series? 
Will there be more of them?  (narrative answer)

Sculpting: Is the figure animated correctly, based upon the
description of what the figure is supposed to be doing?  Is the sculpture
crude, or detailed?  Does the artist convey what the designer’s intent?
(narrative answer)

Painting: Any difficulties painting?  Are there
painting resources included with the minis (or available separately?)
(narrative answer)

That’s that.  Hopefully the adoption of an objective set of metrics will
make miniatures easier to review, not harder!

I have a yen for for fantasy era tactical war games in the same vein as the ones that SPI released oh-so-many years ago (Lord of the Rings, Swords and Sorcery, et. al.). As long as the universe is logical and consistent, fantasy makes a great subject for conflict simulation gaming (read: “Wargames”). So I was pretty impressed that Fantasy Flight, the company that released Twilight Imperium and its many high priced add-on sets, has now released a series of very reasonably priced, pseudo-miniature style wargames called DISKWARS.

To begin with, this isn’t a collectible, though you should find yourself doing some trading and swapping of “disks.” You purchase ARMIES of the various fantasy races and genres (Undead, Dwarves, Elves, Dragonkin, Desert Dwellers, etc.). These are shipped in small boxes with about five-six countersheets called “flats.” About 3 of these flats are of the same theme as the box cover, the rest appear to be randomly inserted. The counters are circular (hence the title of the game series), and very nicely illustrated. You are expected to play the army in one box against the army in another, though there will probably be some shifting of units between boxes. Armies have alignments, good, evil and neutral. The rules state that no good units can fight in evil armies and vice versa (neutrals can fight in both). I found good units packed with evil armies and vice versa, so I had to do some swapping.

Disks are one huge LAND disk (which functions as your “home base”.. where your reinforcements appear, where you send armies to to capture, etc.). There are small SPELL disks and a SPELL BOOK marker (to hide what spells you use). There are TROOP/CREATURE disks of various sizes (theme troops and unique troop/creatures tend to be larger than the generic army troops). There are also some generic (square) game play markers that come in every pack for mechanisms like activation and hits.

Each disk has a buy cost, a movement rating, an Attack Value, a Defense Value, and a Toughness Value (hit points, essentially). Each unit also has a Unit Cost for unit purchasing. You are budgeted so much Unit Cost points per scenario.. generally, a 40 pt. army will make for a short game, a 50 pt. army a medium game, and a 100+ pt. army will make for a very long game indeed.

The Play Sequence goes like this:

1) Reinforcement

You maintain a reinforcement pile (a stack of disks, with only the top unit showing). Bring new units, up to however many is dictated by scenario rules.

2) Activation

This is where the action is. In the activation round, a unit can Move, Activate a Special Ability or Cast a Spell.

Moving is odd. You flip the disk, end over end, towards the scenario objective. Each flip is a “movement point.”

Special Abilities are varied.. anything from flying to spell casting.

Casting Spells is pretty straightforward. You have spells that are of a certain level, and spellcasting units that can cast spells of a certain level. You have to purchase spells within your Unit Construction budget, so you never have enough of them.

3) Missile Segment

Missiles are the oddest aspect of this rules system. You have to have a missile firing unit within range of a target. Then you put arrow counters (rated for the same rating as the firing unit) on top of an UNUSED DISK. Raise the disk six inches above the target unit and tip it over. Any arrow counters that land on the target disk cause a hit!

4) Combat Segment

Combat is very rock-scissors in the Diskwars system. One unit’s stronger, or it isn’t. If two enemy units meet during the movement phase of activation, they get into combat. If one unit is strong then another, the weaker one gets killed.

5) Remove Counters

Pretty much what it says.

There are a lot of things I like about Diskwars. The price is nice at $9.95. The art is glitzy, about on the level as some Magic The Gathering art. I love the tactical miniatures feel to the game… you don’t use a map, you just use your kitchen table top. I’ve played several games now, and am still trying to find the perfect combination for attack. There is a nice balance to the units that I have purchased already. On the downside, I don’t sense a lot of variation in this game. The special abilities aren’t that great. There appear to be all of 77 flats printed so far. That doesn’t add up to a lot of variation in the units, when you consider that there are 7 or 8 major armies out. Expansion sets are called for. The spells are okay, kind of ho hum in my opinion. Standard fantasy fodder.

What really burns me is the combat system. A simple larger strength rating kills the weaker unit? Don’t we get modifiers? How about a CRT? The missile fire is… well, gimmicky at best. It’s just a little too silly. The game plays very, very fast as a result and there doesn’t appear to be a real secret to winning… the big units kick the little unit’s butt, and that’s that.

The Verdict

However, I think there’s a lot of room to tinker with this system. It could be really great if they release expansions and variant combat rules… so I give this a (qualified)

THUMBS UP!

I buy a lot of gaming material from Uncle Jed’s Game Shed, which I can
highly recommend as a great place to find trully obscure games. Recently I
was eating a pizza with Jed himself, and I challenged him to get me a bundle
of Jorune supplements.

Jed said, “No problem. Furthermore, I’m going to mail you
this…this…beautiful thing. Just wait.”

I asked what it was, but with an evil gleam he simply assured me that my
life as it now stands would be torn asunder by the force of this strange
present.

Flash forward a few days: a gigantic UPS box arrives. Inside I find
long-lost Jorune supplements and the subject of this review: MasterMaze.
Though I am still mortal and have not been completely transformed by its
arrival, I will freely admit that MasterMaze is a deeply impressive piece of
work.

I don’t often directly quote copy in a review, but here’s an accurate
description of just what this 60 piece set does:

“MasterMaze’s pieces lock together with easily removable bow-tie closures so
you can keep your dungeon together for long periods, or change it as you
play. Each MasterMaze piece is carefully crafted of durable resin and
completely hand painted. The swinging doors included with every set are
crafted of hand painted metal. MasterMaze pieces feature a felt bottom to
protect your tabletop, and they come in a custom-cut styrofoam container for
easy storage and safe transport. The Room Set gives you incredible
flexibility at an affordable price, while the Room & Passage Set adds
versatile passage pieces to greatly expand your dungeon creations.”

So they are hand-painted, felt-bottomed, beautifully crafted dungeon
corridors. They are sturdy, well-packaged and portable. If you have ever
enjoyed using minatures in your RPGs, this product will make the dungeon
crawling experience leap up off the tabletop.

Finally, there’s the price: at $60 for the complete set, these things are a
steal. Include the discounts of 20% or so at Uncle Jed’s, and this is a
miniatures accessory you can’t afford to be without. If you want to see the
corridor just before your opponent gets knocked into the wall, or judge
bowshot angles on the fly, or need a gorgeous backdrop for your miniatures,
this is an affordable and well-crafted accessory.

Ah, free… Free. As in “Don’t cost ya nuttin’ pal”, or “can’t beat the price…” FREE. Can a better word be? Maybe the great poets thought so, but they didn’t mention it. So this bit of doggerel, unearthed in the family rat hole er, archives, will have to do:

Maybe you can pick up on the fact that I like free stuff. I’m the guy who goes to trade shows with shopping bags, or stands in line at Costco to get a free dinner from the ladies who hand out the samples. Or goes through the Hare Krishna pitch on the Mall on the Fourth of July to get a free lunch. Twice (that vegetarian faire is pretty light, after all, and they made a mean fudge). You might see me with an ice bucket, packing my cooler just for the living heck of it at some hotel some time… hey, I paid for it, right? My co-workers call me the Minister of Free Stuff.

The web explosion is a boom time for guys like me. The number of totally FREE game designs out there is staggering, and getting higher every day. Let’s face it; not every sure-fire, drop-dead hit is going to get published by a commercial game publisher. Faced with losing the time and creativity investment, many altruistic individuals are putting their labors of love on the ‘Net, available for anyone to download (usually in PDF format, but not always). Most games are turkeys, but some are real treasures. Such a game is THE RULES WITH NO NAME, a skirmish miniatures rules set that is set in the Wild Wild West– the American West that is. Now, I imagine that the gaming audience out there today must look at “historical” subjects with glazed eyes and coated tongue. After all, we’ve all read those depressing studies that indicate the average high school student couldn’t tell you who Abraham Lincoln was, doesn’t know who fought in WW2, etc., etc., yadda yadda yadda. These are all probably true for all I know– I’m no authority on education. What I DO know is that a significant number of gamers appreciate a milieu that offers a TON of action, a little violence (a little?) and can be resolved with relative non-complex rules. How else do you explain the predominance of Games Workshop with the early teen to young adult demographic? Okay, the multimillion dollar marketing budget helps… you don’t have to be obvious. THE RULES WITH NO NAME (TRWNN) Wild West Skirmish Rules delivers in the action, violence, and lack-of-complexity categories in spades…. And it won’t cost ya one red nickel, pilgrim.

TRWNN is set in the American West, but not precisely our historical frontier. It’s clear to me that Bryan Ansell, the rules designer (president of the Foundry, a miniatures company that, oddly enough, makes some great cowboy figures), has seen a movie Western at some point in his life. Ansell’s approach is simple and highly interactive: 1 figure (casting) represents 1 real individual. The time scale and ground scale are somewhat unimportant, I’ve played this game with 15mm, 25mm, and 54mm (even Lego figures). What are important are the activation rules and the combat tables. Each GM prepares a FATE DECK in advance of a game; this is a deck of FATE CARDS. Any cards will do; the backs of old business cards are particularly good for this purpose or you could use the Fate Deck Online that I created (see below). Some method of associating the card with a figure on the table must be devised (a roster, or writing on the cards, etc.) Each fate card is turned over, once a turn, and GM calls out who has the action card. The figure associated with the card can do one of several actions:

• Pass
  Do nothing (except turn to face any direction)
• Move
  Throw three dice, this is the maximum distance in inches that he can move, he may set off in any direction at the beginning of his move, but must move in a straight line, making no further turns. He must end his turn facing the direction he has moved.
• Move & Fire
  Works just as above, except only two movement dice are thrown, and the character must fire at the end of his movement if an enemy is within his arc of fire.
• Fire
  turn to face any direction then fire.
• Aim
  the character aims at an opponent. He states who his target is, and turns to face him.
• Reload
  the character reloads one of his guns, after suffering an out of ammo result.
• Recover
  characters who are wounded or duck back must use a turn recovering before they can make any other action. Any number of wounds and duck backs can be recovered from simultaneously in one action.
• Get up
  Characters who are knocked down by a bullet or in a fight must get up before they can make any other action other than recovering.
• Duck back
  a character may voluntarily duck back, so that he can no longer see or be seen. He must recover before he can then make any other action.
• Fix gun
  Attempts to unjam his weapon
• Challenge
  Call one or more of his enemies out to a duel in the open.
• Fast draw
  Go for his gun, often in a duel or backshooting situation.

Everything in TRWNN is a variation of this list above. Combat is extremely simple; you: 1) Measure the distance (“gun to nose”); 2) Look the shot up on the Range tables to get a base number, then modify that number based on a lot of variables– the rank of the firer, movement, wound status etc. 3) Roll a number of dice equal to the adjusted number. Any SIX result is a hit; Any ONEs more than sixes means the firing weapon is unloaded, two ones over a six means the gun is jammed; three ones (optional) means the shot is fumbled. Damage is a simple Location versus Effect table; most damage is accrued by number of wounds but some results are immediately deadly. Head shots, for example. There is a nice chrome level to this game, I’ve added to it myself on occasion. Some of the funner aspects of the game are the Ranking of the figure itself (Citizen, Gunman, Shootist and the notorious Legend of the West), Skills, and all sorts of other fun stuff that Ansell (and some volunteer tinkerers) have added on over time– the skills and ranks, in particular, make for a semi-RPG experience. See the Net.Sources at the end of this review for some interesting TRWNN material.

In conclusion, TRWNN is fast-paced, energetic, funny and not too serious. Best of all, it doesn’t require an expensive infrastructure of hard-bound rules manuals, expensive minatures, and/or some governing ordinance that states what is kosher to play with and what isn’t. You can definitely use ANY Deadlands miniature on TRWNN, or something in the 25-30mm line or roughly the same size. There is a wealth of miniatures in various sizes to use to play with, however they are not really necessary. You can get started with a cheap bag of 54mm plastic cowboys and indians from just about any reputable dollar store, using shoeboxes for buildings… I did, and it was a blast. If you have some old Lego sets laying around, Lego makes a great cowboy and indians line that is just fine for this purpose. Be inventive, you don’t have to spend every dime you make to have a good time at the gaming table.

NET.SOURCES: THE RULES WITH NO NAME

The Rules

The Foundry’s Page

Additional Material done by yours truly (a fairly accurate source of miniatures, too)

Some Games in Action (3 Pages)