Xenos Rampant: Science Fiction Wargame Battles

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A miniature agnostic, fast playing, highly customisable Scifi skirmish wargame? Have Osprey pulled it off with Xenos Rampant? Hell yes they have! Models and miniatures—and the freedom to play with them— really is the heart of the system. It’s interesting and telling that Xenos Rampant doesn’t start with a rules section. It starts with how to build a detachment for the game, because this really is about making a system that works with anything you want to play with.

Now this is a fun section of the book to read. The authors were kind enough to provide the players with several genre settings and appropriate special rules or extra scenario elements. Here are some examples: Lenoon : That’s a really big plus I think, it lifts it up a bit from what it could be, which would be a list of really generic unit archetypes and a simple but clear ruleset that and those two things I think are really good and that’s totally fine. But you’d I think you’d struggle to get somebody really interested in that if you didn’t have all the little customisations that let you make “your guys”. Or like the little rules in the rulebook and the unit entries or the kind of Boasts and Glory system for your leader. Those leader skills where you can really start to build some character into it. Scenarios and Campaigns Looking at all the options in xenos rampant, you can basically mirror any 40k unit, and I think that has been their aim, however because of that you can easily create unbalanced forces.

Lenoon: Yeah in my opinion I think you’re right about the editing thing as well and this is one of the things I really like about this second edition: you’ve got all the alternative rules boxes, and the authors’ notes and things like that. And giving the rules that space to breathe is really handy. You know I’m sure we’ll talk about it when we come to talk about units, but it is really good to just get that little commentary on either a different twist you can have on the rules or what units might represent. That’s a nice touch. The Imperial Commonwealth troops reinforced their positions and continued firing at my Star Alliance soldiers. Ending Xenos Rampant: Sweep and Clear We decided to prepare our armies using miniatures we had laying around. David added more troopers, as well as a mech (which wasn’t use for this game), to his Imperial Commonwealth army. The figures are mainly from Wargames Atlantic. I dusted off my Algoryn army for Warlord Games’ Beyond the Gates of Antares to use in my Star Alliance army. Xenos Rampant is (as advertised) a fast paced science-fiction skirmish game. Unlike many games, Xenos Rampant does not impose a specific setting or universe where the action takes place. Instead it provides players with an “open” game system and the freedom to adapt the setting, stories and so on to your needs and fancy.

We deployed our forces on the 2 long edges of a 6 x 4 desert gaming mat covered in lots of ruined city structures. David’s commander rolled the “Unpredictable” trait and I did the “Extreme Disciplinarian” aggressive trait. Star Alliance trade corp. on the right. The previous Rampant-games used 12, respectively 6 in combat and shooting. Xenos Rampant uses 10 or 5 dice. Similarly courage is tested with 2 or 1 dice. Xenos Rampant , the sci-fi variant of Daniel Mersey's large skirmish Rampant wargaming system, is finally here next week. While you're gluing your models, getting your paints ready, and drawing up your army ideas - hear from co-author Richard Cowen all about the process behind its creation, and get a sneak peak at how it plays... There are a plethora of unit types all built on the same basic statlines – activation scores, courage, fighting and shooting ability, movement and armour – and the simple variation in these values gives the game it’s basic unit archetypes. Profiles cover Scifi staples like Elite Infantry, Beserkers, Giant Xenomorph monsters, hordes of chittering lesser aliens, military and civilian vehicles and transports. 13 basic unit types cover every eventuality, and if the game stopped there, you’d be able to consider it a pretty flexible system able to fight just about any kind of battle. But it doesn’t, because when Xenos says miniature agnostic, it bloody means it.Obviously, not every setting is to everyone’s liking. But in general, they cover the most common tropes of the science-fiction-genre and are an excellent incentive to (as they say) write your own story. 5. First Gameplay-impression Our Xenos Rampant test-game. Behold the Styrofoam and plaster sci-fi ruins in all their glory.

The Club Runs a well known and well attended convention each year called Phalanx at Sutton Community Leisure Centre. Commander traits (as they are called) may have direct or indirect impact on the game. Some allow you to do re-rolls, while others impact deployment and so on.On top of those 13 basic unit types, there are 30 additional rules for infantry, 18 for vehicles and 35 “Xenos rules” representing weird and wonderful abilities. The core infantry and vehicle additional rules are things like Armour Piercing (reducing an enemies effective armour value when shooting), or Mobile (faster movement), and 30 different options, variably available to the 10 infantry archetypes, cover an awful lot of ground. You can design virtually anything you want from these – and the same goes for the three types of vehicle and the 18 vehicle options. All of these options are very simple mechanically, explicable usually in 1-3 lines of text and come with a points value as an upgrade or downgrade. Xenos Rampant’s army list consists not of specific squads from a particular faction inhabiting a prescribed setting, but of general unit types that players can customise to their own designs. Morale as mentioned above is tested either with 2 or 1 dice, depending on the units strength. Furthermore it does not take into account the total number of losses, but only the actual status of your unit.

A new element in the game. Vehicles behave slightly different than Infantry, especially during movement. They are however a very entertaining addition to the game. Xenos Rampant is the newest game in the Rampant series from Daniel Mersey and Richard Cowen, published by Osprey Games. Straight away if you’re aware of what Mersey and Osprey have been putting out recently, you know you’re in for a few things: Lenoon: On that note actually, it’s worth talking about the range of kind time that it aims at. It’s mediaeval in the broadest possible sense, kind of post-classical fall of Rome or fall of the Western Roman Empire all the way through to the fall of the next one really. There’s leeway on either side, so there’s rules for pikemen and for shield wall and stuff like that. Romans could fit into this, they might not fit perfectly but you could definitely do it. You’ve got the Infantry with shields, and you’ve got javelinmen and you’ve got cavalry and that’s a little Roman Force for you right there. There are rules for guns, and I like that the rules for guns are a little bit weirder than the rules for archers and crossbowmen. I wouldn’t personally take it all the way to the Pike and Shotte era, because I think at that point you’re it’s a very different kind of game but you could certainly give it a go. A few tufts of grass and a length of clear plastic 3mm rod to finish. Here are a few more images of the troops involved After heavy shooting, and the Imperial Commonwealth having destroyed my Elite Infantry and my Commander, the fight was taken to close hand to hand combat. Star Alliance Elite Infantry under fire.Then I was introduced to Frostgrave. A maximum of ten members per warband, plus a few zombies and other monsters for NPCs, seemed a lot more achievable. So, I went out and bought way too many models (I may have issues with self-restraint). My ‘compact’ warband consisted of a couple of necromancers, forty cultists, and several dozen undead. This warband was too big for Frostgrave but, as it turned out, perfect for Dragon Rampant. I even finished painting them all. Then I collected warbands of Chaos Dwarfs, pleasure cultists, barbarians, landsknecht, and samurai, at which point I realised I had replaced one addiction with another. For people who like modern and/or science fiction, this game will allow you to play in your favorite setting, be it your own creation or your current fandom.