The Sandwich Factory: 2009

I must admit I was sceptical about Urban War at first. It had army lists. It had a points system. It used 40K-esque 'to-hit, to wound' mechanics. The models were expensive. Both 40K and VOID had left a bad taste in my mouth (the former for being a money-grubbing simplistic tactic-less marketing machine, and the latter for being an unimaginative ripoff of the former).

On first read of the rules my view wasn't much improved- the combat resolution system seemed like 40K all over again, there seemed to be modifiers all over the place, I had to worry about all these markers, everyone had these silly melee weapons in The Future and models had those stat-line things I don't like. In short, I wasn't expecting great things.

Eventually, I gave in to peer-pressure and decided to get some models so I could play. Upon perusing the Urban Mammoth online store I saw that, whilst expensive, the models were very nice- the designs were very evocative, the sculpting looked top-notch, and they looked different to the standard sci-fi fare from other companies. I liked the look of the Triads (gasmask ninjas in space!), so I ordered a starter set, and Hiro Tarikishi (because he looked awesome) on Wednesday evening. My brother purchased a squad of Viridians off my friend's brother who had bought lots of them at Salute and then promptly lost interest in miniature gaming. He got them assembled on Thursday and undercoated them on Friday (he's just finished painting one of them as I type. I wish he wasn't so damn good, he makes all my stuff look crap).

Come the club meeting on Saturday, my stuff hadn't arrived, despite me ordering them First Class postage (then again, it is coming from Scotland, and carrier pigeons can only fly so fast :P) so I assembled a force of proxies and set off to try the game out. First game was a 3 player game with 300pts each- My Triads versus my brother George's Viridians versus Daniel's Junkers. Me and George immediately went at each other, with a long range sniper duel wiping out most of our armies making us easy pickings for the Junkers, who cleaned house.

George went off to play Warhammer, so me and Daniel had two more games. The first one was an overwhelming victory for me. My sniper and some retainers kept all his competent figures pinned down, whilst Hiro killed four legionnaires in two turns in a Riddick-esque massacre in a forest. The third game was a reverse of the above. We played the Bridge scenario from the rulebook. Turn three saw eight legionaries and a Lictor sitting on the objective in a group huddle. Lacking any kind of explosives or automatic weapons I just couldn't kill them fast enough to stop them completing the mission, and thus I lost.

From those three games, I learnt a few things:

Kabuki Dolls die really easily. In all three game my Kabuki Doll got shot to ribbons as she charged the enemy.
High Calibre models own, with their bonuses to hit with aimed shots, follow on actions, extra movement when rushing and the penalties to shoot them at longer ranges. In particular, Hiro (or any high CAL melee unit) kicks ass in dense terrain where they can't be shot at easily. In the second game he charged one legionnaire, killed him, reactivated, charged another legionnaire, killed him, charged another one, drew the combat. Rinse and repeat next turn.
Overwatch is useful, if tricky to utilise properly. Even if your opponent doesn't send any models into the interdicted zone, you can still deny him areas of the table; useful in objective based games- a few snipers covering the objective might make your opponent hesitant to go for an early rush on the objective.

OK, enough rambling, here's a review:

Lets start with the models: Very nice, if pricey. The Junkers and Viridians I've seen have excellent sculpting, lots of detail, paint up really nicely, and just look *cool*. Effort has obviously been put into giving the range a coherent visual look, which really pays off when you see them on the table. Now all I need is some Urban stuff to fight over...

The rulebook costs £1 for the PDF, and clocks in at 110 pages. Not a bad deal, really. It has a very full colour cover, with b/w illustrations throughout, with a predilection towards people in gasmasks and semi-naked female ninjas. No complaints here, but a little more variety would have been nice. Overall production values are high- the art is very good and evocative, the layout is good. It will eat your ink cartridge though, so either get a gullible friend to print it (like I did) or get it printed at a copy shop or your college or something.

The first six pages are taken up with fluff and maps and such. Basically, in The Future humanity is mainly split into the three factions of the Tripartate Alliance (Junkers, Viridians and Syntha), with VASA as a kind of space police, with the alien Koralon as the Big Nasties. The human factions are involved in various low-intensity wars with each other, and the Koralon are trying to eat everyone. The game is set on Iskandria, a massive city-world full of high-tech buildings and stuff. Its Urban. There's a War. Nothing surprising there. The six human factions are all loosely styled after real-world cultures (except Syntha, who are all robots)- the VASA have a Soviet Russian theme, with fur hats, long coats and babes with jetpacks; the Junkers are based on ancient Rome, complete with scutum, lorica segmentum and those funky helmets; Viridians are all gasmask wearing faceless soldiers of a very capitalist culture reminiscent of a cynical view of America; the Triads are styled after ancient Japanese culture, with ninjas, cybersumos and guys in straw hats; the Gladiators are, unsurprisingly, based on Roman gladiators.

The next page has all the obligatory "What is wargaming?" "Whats a tape measure?" "Why has this dice got all these sides, it must be an instrument of the devil!" stuff. Then come the rules, which are about 25 pages long, discounting force-lists. They are clearly written, although they could do with more examples. The force lists take up about 35 pages, followed by the armoury. A few basic scenarios round out the game rules section.

The game works thusly:

Each model has a stat line. The stats are rather 40K-esque, with a model having scores in Assault, Shooting, Strength, Toughness, Wounds, Command, Size, Move and Calibre (CAL). The first five will be familiar to anyone who has played 40K or warhammer, and are basically the same. Command is used for morale, reactions, motivation etc and is *very* important. Size is only really important for very big or small units, as it gives opponents a modifier to shoot at them. Move is self explanatory. Calibre is variable- that is, each unit can be purchased at various levels of Calibre. Calibre is very important- it gives penalties to shoot at the model at longer ranges, it lets them reactivate after a Snap-fire action, it lets them perform actions better on Lock-fire orders and it improves their chances of successfully pulling off an overwatch shot. Calibre is thus VERY important. Consequently, there are restrictions on the number of high-CAL models you can have in your force, as detailed by your force list.

Each turn is split into three phases: The marker phase, the order phase and the actions phase. The marker phase is purely administrative, where you remove all leftover order markers from last turn and remove one shock marker from each figure with such a marker (I'll explain those in a bit).

The order phase is where most of your tactical decisions are made. There are three orders you can give each model- Snap-fire, lock-fire and overwatch. You place the appropriate marker face-down by each figure to show their order status. This may sound tedious (I know it did to me), but this is where the game gets really tactical. Models on overwatch cannot take any active actions, but can fire to disrupt enemies that take action within their LOS. Models on Snap-fire orders act first, but are not as effective as models on lock-fire. For example, models on snap fire can only move up to their Move stat with each action, whereas models on Lock-fire can move double this, and often further through use of CAL. Thus, you must often choose between acting first, and acting effectively. This means you really have to thinking about this game, which I think is a break from the 'set 'em up and knock 'em down' approach of GW's games.

Next comes the action phase. This is where the models actually activate. Firstly, players roll a d10 (the game uses d10s exclusively) for initiative. The player who rolled highest gets to activate his models first, unsurprisingly. First, all the players reveal their figures with overwatch counters. You're supposed to do this in initiative order, but we didn't see the point so just did it simultaneously.

Models on overwatch are basically 'on hold', waiting to act in response to an enemy's actions. They can interrupt another model's turn to act, either by shooting at them or counter-charging. This is fairly powerful, and is balanced by the fact that units on overwatch can only react once per turn, and because if no enemies take action within their LOS they can't act at all, wasting their activation. Thus it is often prudent to place a few models with powerful long-range weapons on overwatch to cover other troops whilst they move in to take an objective or close with the enemy, but sticking your entire force on overwatch is very rarely a good idea.

To successfully react to an enemy in their LOS, the model has to pass a command check. They get to add their Calibre to the roll, and subtract one for each range band beyond short. If successful, they get to take a shot at the enemy model. If they fail, they don't. Either way, they lose their overwatch counter, so you often see one model drawing the overwatching models fire so his mates can cross his LOS without problems.

Next, players alternate activating their models on Snap-fire, one at a time. Models on snap fire can either shoot (with penalties for snap firing), move their move stat, move half their move stat and shoot (with even more penalties) or charge their move stat into melee. They also have a limited ability to react to the enemy- they can counter-charge, evade incoming template weapons, and can make reaction shots in a similar fashion to a model on overwatch. However, reaction shots are more limited than overwatch fire, as they can only be made in reaction to an enemy firing at the model itself, and whereas overwatch fire automatically happens before the enemy action, reaction fire may not- both players roll a d10 and add the Calibre of their models. The highest roll shoots first.

Models on snap-fire may be able to take follow-on actions after their normal actions. They must make a successful command check. If successful, they can immediately take another action. They can take a maximum amount of follow-on actions equal to their calibre (thus calibre 0 models cannot use them at all). This make high-calibre models very powerful, as they can potentially act to or three times more than everyone else. This means leaders can be powerful figures without having to give them ridiculously high numbers in everything ala 40K.

After all snap-fire models have been activated, models on lock-fire orders are activated, one by one. Models on lock-fire perform their tasks better than figures on snap-fire. They can either move or shoot, but cannot charge, so only models on snap-fire can engage in melee. If they choose to move, they can move double their move stat. Also, for each point of Calibre they can make a command check. For each check they pass they can move an extra 2". Thus high calibre models can zip around all over the place.

If they choose to shoot, they can make a command check for each point of calibre. For each pass, they can add +1 to their shooting roll. This can be really useful for long range sniping shots in the early game.

Shooting works very much like 40K- the shooting figure rolls a d10, and needs to score a certain number of higher, as determined by his Shooting score. There are modifiers for range, depending on the weapon used, as well as for the type of orders he is on. If a hit is scored, then the Damage of the weapon is compared with the Toughness of the target, giving a score to wound on a table. If successful, the target loses a wound. If, like most models, it only has a single wound, it dies. Unlike 40K, most models don't have an armour save. Only models in cover, and those with the Heavy Armour special rule get a save, and they are often fairly unimpressive. Then again, every little helps.

A model that is hit -but not killed- by shooting, for whatever reason, must make a Shock test. This is a command test (see, told you it was important). If it is failed, the model receives some shock tokens, the number of tokens depending on whether it has been activated or not, or if it is currently active. The net effect is that the model loses its next activation, as models with shock tokens cannot be given orders, and a shocked model will always have at least one shock counter left in the orders phase of the next turn. This means that, unlike 40K, models actually care if they've been shot at *before* they die.

Also, a model that is wounded, but not killed, because it has multiple wounds, a model that loses a close combat or a model that sees a friendly model of a higher calibre die, must make a Panic test. This is again a command test. If it is failed, the model gains a panic marker. This remains until removed, again by a command test. Models with panic markers have -2 to hit in melee and shooting and cannot charge or countercharge. Between them, Shock and Panic add enough psychology that models don't run around like fearless automatons, which is good.

Close combat is also very much like 40K- you compare the two models' Assault stats on a table, and find the core needed to hit. Then you use the same damage procedure as for shooting, with the exception that close combat does not cause Shock. Two notable difference from 40K is that very few models have multiple attacks, and that there is no 'Initiative' or equivalent- models both roll a d10, and add appropriate modifiers, such as charging or counter-charging, defending cover etc. The winner strikes first. One other difference from 40K I like is that grenades are an actual weapon, not just a close combat modifier. This just feels right- grenade should make people go boom!

Each faction has about 5 or 6 unit types, excluding sergeant-types. They have a nice variety between the faction reflecting their different play-styles- the Viridians and VASA have lots of heavy firepower, the Triads and Koralon have lots of close-combat troops, the Junkers and Gladiators have hordes of low-quality troops.

Overall, the game is great. I really like it. It's much more cerebral than 40K, with lots of difficult strategic choices to make, and a psychology system that's a bit more complex than "25% of our men are dead, lets run away". Its not perfect- the cover rules are a bit tedious, the psychology could have done with more development, more friction in the command and control system would have been nice, but these can all be house-ruled in. Overall, a solid game that I would recommend to someone looking for a fun 'beer and pretzels' sci-fi game that had a bit more to it than 40K.

Urban Mammoth's Website