Quirkworthy

There’s a difference between heroes and leaders. At least, there is some of the time. A few individuals can do both, but many of the heroic survivors of Greenville’s largely disintegrated population aren’t cut out to lead troops in battle. They have other qualities that come into their own under different circumstances and will leave the leading to the army guys.

For the moment though, I just thought I’d mention the military leaders and their signature trick, which is to activate several of their men at once. This allows the leader to make coordinated attacks (or “advances to the rear”) at critical moments in order to overwhelm and surprise the opposition. Normally the turn sequence limits a player to moving two models at a time, but this allows a leader to move himself and then up to four more nearby soldiers. With this ability the military heroes work very nicely with hordes of soldiers around them, which makes sense visually too.

Sergeant level characters now have the ability to do this same trick, but only once per game (rather than with “Hero Points”). This makes waiting for the right moment even more important for them, though it does take a bit of the pressure off your heroes and means that the influence can be spread more widely. The range on this effect is quite short and having several models that can do this allows you to keep your opponent guessing about where the axe might fall.

Of course, on a multi-mat battle this is even more useful. With more troops you’ll want ways to move them around more quickly, and this is just the ticket.

Nothing says “you’ve been invaded” quite as well as several huge robots crunching down Greenville’s Main Street, disintegrating everyone they can see. I’d really like to be able to get that image onto the gaming table in Mars Attacks, though the reality is that a single mat just isn’t big enough to contain lots of these monsters – they’re just too big!

So, as well as the single mat scenarios with the big guys in, we’ve been playing with the idea of a larger game, fought across several of the gaming mats. The nice thing is that the rules are so simple that this remains a fast and furious scrap, with the heroes standing out as larger than life even among the robots, saucers and armoured trucks.

The rules need a couple of logistical changes for dealing with larger areas and a few more tweaks if you’re playing with more than two players (another fun option). In the main though, they don’t change that much – what does change is the sweep of the battlefield (they look really impressive with waves of Martians, robots and saucers on) and the game play. With more on the table you can be even more cavalier with the lives of your Martian grunts.

Forward to victory!

I promised I’d get back to heroes eventually, and here I am. As I mentioned in some of the comments, I’ve had a rethink and come up with an improvement on my original idea for the hero rules. It’s still nice and simple, but now integrates the different elements I wanted to include much better and gives the player an interesting headache to think about to boot.

I’m afraid you’ll have to supply your own aspirin.

As with many of the rules I like, the actual rule itself is so simple that it doesn’t look like much on a page. The real fun comes in trying it out in a game.

So what’s the rule? Well it’s a variation of something you may have seen before.

Each hero can do all the things that a soldier can do in their turn. In addition, each hero has two more stats that allow them to do other things too.

Firstly, they have a number of Hero Points. I may think of a better term, but for the moment that’ll do. This ranges from about 2-5 depending on the hero.

Secondly, they have Smarts. Basically this is the special thing that hero does: their signature trick, if you will. For some it might be hotwiring Martian tech, for others it could be inspiring nearby soldiers to action, the ability to use stealth, oratory, disguise or whatever.

During a turn a hero can spend their Hero Points on none, some or all of 3 different things:

1. They can do a limited additional action (move 1 square or take a shot).
2. They can use their Smarts.
3. They can ignore the results of one attack (a get out of death free card). This usually happens in the opposing player’s turn.

Each use of each choice costs one Hero Points.

However, this pool of Hero Points is finite. If it tops up at all it only does so very slowly. In essence, you have to decide between doing funky stuff or saving the points to protect yourself and the balance you choose will make a big difference to your tactics and the outcome of the game. This gives you the effect of heroes being able to do cool stuff, dodge bullets and generally outlive the ordinary soldier, but at the same time this luck cannot last indefinitely. The fact that it doesn’t last also adds a time-running-out element, and time pressure is often exciting in a game.

It’s a bit like Fate, Luck or similar ideas that have been used in many games before. Few (no?) rules are ever entirely new and it’s just the twist and the combination that makes different games different. I’ve not seen this family of rules with quite this combination of uses before, but it’s generally a solid and very workable rule so I’m sure it’ll work fine. I especially like the fact that it rolls the increased survivability of a hero in with their powers, thus limiting both. I also like the fact that it gives a very simple framework within which to define any number of heroes with almost any type of ability. By the time you’ve read this far you should be able to read the stat line of every hero that ever turns up in the game.

Now I’ve checked with the Mantic guys that I can change the few bits I needed to to make this work, I’m playtesting this for the next few days and will then put up some individual hero stats for you to try as well. Sounds like we’ll need a new scenario too. Shame 😉

A little bird has whispered in my ear about yesterday’s post. Apparently I made a mistake and it’s not just the humans that alter their appearance – the Martians change too, just much more slowly. There are some earlier designs in the comics (issue 5 if you’re curious). However, the ones you see today (look out of the window – they’re coming) are a style that’s been in vogue since the 1920s.

So now you know 🙂

One question that has come up a few times is why make the GIs contemporary and not 1950s or 1960s? It’s simple: if you look at the Mars Attacks cards and comics they’ve always been set “now”, whenever that might be. The styles of the troopers has changed over the years, but not to reflect anything other than the idea that the invasion is happening right this minute – turn on CNN and you’ll see the saucers.

And the bugs.

If you wanted to use 1960s GIs then there are plenty of models around by various manufacturers and you could just swap them out. It wouldn’t make any difference to the game. Of course, if you could find a cheap bag of badly modelled, bendy “army soldiers” in vibrant green and some random scale then that might be the most appropriate of all. Those Mantic models are just way too detailed 😉

Answering this question also made me think about other periods. We’ve already seen the Aztec and Knight characters in the comics (and the unpronounceable Aztec hero is already available in the KS). Why not other periods? After all, the Martians have been visiting Earth for centuries and if they bumped into Aztecs and knights then what about the folk in-between?

Of course the Martian invaders wouldn’t change much. For our purposes that means not at all. There’s no need to invent changes just for the sake of it. The other side is the one that’s more varied.

In rules terms there’s not much difference in soldiers from the last couple of hundred years. In fact, since America decided not to be a colony, a Martian invasion would meet similarly bolshy defenders with guns whenever they turned up. Fighting against pre-gunpowder warriors might need a tweak or two to feel right. I can’t imagine it would be a big change though.

Pre-1908 (ish) you’d want to change flying car to flying cart. The card would work the same though. Pre-gunpowder you’d need to look at the artillery, mortars, etc, but ACW fights would work with them too. Strafing runs, on the other hand, are WWI and on.

Like I said, a few tweaks, but nothing major.

Hmmm… interesting….

I’ve seen a few people asking how big/bulky/etc the Mars Attacks models are, and having managed to scrounge up a couple yesterday I thought I’d do a few comparison shots for your amusement.

The MA models look like they’re made of frozen milk because they’re 3D prints and that may be what they’re actually made from. Whatever it is, it’s translucent and very hard to pick out details, but that’s not why we’re here. There are lovely photos of the nicely painted models all over the Kickstarter, Mantic’s blog and so on. This is all about size.

I’ve tried to prop up models where appropriate so that the bases are close to the same height. I may be out by a tiny bit, but we’re talking under a mil, so the tops of the models are pretty close to right. Oh, and the final version of the Martians will naturally have a clear goldfish bowl on their heads too. Don’t forget that.

So, first up, how do the Mars Attacks models compare to Mantic’s other SF models? Here we have a Corporation trooper and an Orx. The Corporation model is a normal human in a bit of body armour, but isn’t all bulked out or bioengineered, so should be a good comparator for the Mars Attacks GI.

We’ve got to look at a Space Marine just because most gamers have seen them and it’s a useful benchmark.

I only had one Infinity model to hand and it wasn’t human, but at least you Infinity players should be able to use it as a size reference.

Finally, I’ve been thinking of the Hasslefree post apocalyptic models and wondering if they’d fit in scale. Looks like they do very well.

So there you have it. How large is your Martian? That big.