Classic Game Review: Rogue Trooper

Rogue Trooper is a 1980s game from Games Workshop, one of the many board games this company released in the 1980s. The game invites you to avenge the Quartz Zone Massacre by taking on the role of one of the few survivors. The game is set in a grim world of the future where decades of war have turned the air of the planet poisonous. Troops from both sides must fight in full body suits for protection and one tear can prove fatal.

You are a genetic infantryman (GI), developed and clones to be able to survive the otherwise poisonous atmosphere, and with better weapons and more intense training than the average soldier. To protect their investment, the military embed a bio-chip in the head of each GI. Should the GI be mortally wounded, a comrade can extract the bio-chip to be added into a new clone body later. Before this, each chip can add a tactical advantage to you by controlling your supplies, gun, or tactical equipment. Because when you’re reduced to a silicon chip, it’s nice to make yourself useful.

The objective of the game is to be the first to identify and kill the traitor general who sent your regiment to its destruction. Do do this you must complete a series of missions, which you get from mission cards. Successful missions give you the clues you need to unmask the traitor and confirm his location.

The game takes place on a colourful board representing the landscape of Nu Earth, where the game takes place. Having gone rogue, you are being hunted by both sides, so military encounters are best avoided where possible. Each hex of the board has a coloured boarder to tell you who is controlling that hex. Blue for Norts (the enemy), Orange for Southers (sometimes the enemy) and Grey for the front lines, which are the most dangerous of all. Red hexes offer something different, sometimes good, sometimes bad. It’s mostly bad.

Over the course of the game you will cross-cross the board moving through various hostile environments in your search for the traitor. other players are trying to do the same, and will help or hinder you as they wish. If another player dies and you are close enough, you can extract their bio-chip and add it to your equipment. If you have space, and if you really want to. Should you visit the military command satellite, they can be cloned a new body, and start playing again.

Ultimately, this is a game for fans of the original comic book series. Published in 2000AD in the 80s, Rogue Trooper was second only to Judge Dredd in popularity. There are plenty of fans of the series around, as the recent successful Kickstarter for a Rogue Trooper miniatures game shows.

If you aren’t familiar with the series the learning curve is that much steeper as there is plenty of assumed knowledge here, such as who you are and why you are so obsessed with finding the traitor, and why your own side have disowned you, even though you are always helping them out.

The board game provides a nice afternoon’s diversion, though it does not play as well as a modern-designed boardgame, meaning fans of the series will get the most out of this, which isn’t surprising. Players of Dungeon Run will be familiar with the ‘cooperative right up to the final sequence’ style of game that Rogue Trooper offers.

If you enjoyed this review you may also like our reviews of:

Dungeon Run

Rune Age

Small World

Games Workshop Shuts Down 3D “Print-a-like”

ICv2 refers us to a Wired magazine article about the growing trend of 3D printing. For any miniatures gamer this is a fascinating subject that only gets more interesting by the day.

Short version: Cheaper, more precise machines and easy to obtain software now turn anyone into a spare room miniature designer. Sale does not have to be of the figures produced, simply of the plans needed for others to produce them. Your home copier suddenly becomes able to copy things in 3D and a whole new vista of opportunities opens up.

For established companies this could offer a powerful new distribution channel, assuming you have the wit to see it this way. Or you could try to squelch it in order to protect your current distribution channels, no matter how inefficient. Ask the music guys how that went.

The first shots have been fired when Games Workshop issued a takedown notice to Thingiverse under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The designs have been taken down, not for being copies of Games Workshop’s miniatures, but for being too close to Warhammer 40,000 in their look and feel. Hmmm.

This will no doubt be only the first move in a long-running saga, and while it’s easy to side with David against Goliath, sometimes Goliath has a point. The little guy keep hurling stones! The positives to come from 3D printing, at least at first, will be (hopefully) easier to obtain scenery for wargamers, buildings and the like are readily available. That models the scale of a Warhammer 40,000 tank are being made with detail close enough to worry the likes of Games Workshop is a sign of how quickly this technology is coming along.

This is not the last we’ll hear of homebrew 3D printing. See also our article on Kickstarter and games.

Game Review: Blood Bowl

Blood Bowl is Games Workshop’s fantasy football game of violence and mayhem. A curious blend of grid iron, football, and fantasy that comes together in a perfect storm of gaming. This game also straddles the world of board games and miniatures games. The game is played on a board (representing the pitch) and teams are represented by metal or plastic figures you can paint up just like any wargame.

Your first task in Blood Bowl is to pick your team. The boxed game comes with your choice of either Humans or Orcs. The current rules of the game include many more teams including Goblins, Ogres, Elves, Dwarfs, Undead and more. To start with though the game gives you two fairly well balanced teams. The Orcs are harder to hurt than the Humans, though the Human players can move faster on the pitch, keeping themselves away from the green fist of the orc.

The objective of the game is to score more touchdowns than your opponent in the allotted number of turns. The game is divided into two halves, each of 8 turns per player. You can have 11 players on the pitch during the game. If you use the teams from the box, you will also have a single reserve player ready to use is someone gets badly hurt (and someone usually does!).

Each team has a limited number of specialised players, including throwers, blitzers, and catchers. Not all teams have access to the same specialists, so each team requires a different style of play. Goblin and Halfling players can even throw their smaller players up the field, ball in hand!

In your turn each of your players can either move, pass the ball (once per turn) block – that is hit – an opposing player standing next to them. A single player on your team may blitz, meaning move and then block. A well-timed blitz can set up an important touchdown or just remove a key player from your opponent.

Should you fail in your attempt to do anything – picking up the ball, passing or catching, or get knocked down yourself during a block, you turn ends and play passes to your opponent. For this reason it is best to do the low risk activities first.

Blood Bowl can be played as a series of one-off games, but play really shines in a league format, where you keep the same team from match to match, and your players grow and improve their skills and stats over the season.

A copy of Blood Bowl (complete with painted miniatures as shown) is available in the LXG club library.

If you enjoyed this review, you may also enjoy our reviews of:

Chaos in the Old World
Space Hulk
Talisman

Legends of the Third Age

Following on from the success of our War of the Ring tournament in July, we are organising another tournament for the November meeting.

Legends of the 3rd Age

Date: November 21st, 2010.

Venue: Cavendish Rd State High School Assembly Hall. Corner of Cavendish Rd and Holland Park Rd. Holland Park, Brisbane.

Details: 1500 War of The Ring, armies as per the book, battlehosts allowed. There is a limit of 5 levels of magic mastery per army, and no more than one Extremely Hard to Kill! model per army.

There will be three rounds, covering all the deployment and win conditions found in the book. The first Legends tournament was won by a Gondor & Arnor army, with Mordor a close second. Who will take out the second event?

Cost: $15, pay on the day

Contact: Adrian Roberts on adoroberts@hotmail.com

Chaos in the Old World

GAME REVIEW: CHAOS IN THE OLD WORLD

Chaos in the Old World is an intriguing new board game from Fantasy Flight Games. As with their other products the production quality and presentation is top notch and great value.

The game action takes place with each of four players taking the role of a Chaos God attempting to take over the world, while stopping his rivals from doing the same. The end goal is the same, however each god has a different method of reaching that goal, meaning that the way you approach and play the game will change radically depending on which god you find yourself playing as.

Nurgle likes to spread disease and rot, Tzeentch want to create magical energy, while Slaanesh want to corrupt the local nobility. As for Khorne, well Khorne just wants to kill things. The human heroes and rulers of each land are at best an annoyance in your quest for world domination. Your only true threat comes from the backstabbing actions of your fellow gods!

Each turn consists of the players attempting to dominate and subvert the various regions of the Old World while preventing their opponents from doing the same. Cultists do much of your work, with lesser and greater daemons that can be summoned to wreak serious havok! You are limited by how much you can attempt to achieve in a turn through the use of power points. Once yours are all spent, you can do nothing until the following turn.

Overall, Chaos in the Old World provides a varied and fun playing experience. You don’t have to be knowledgeable of the Warhammer background the game uses, but the gods act consistently within that for those who care.

A copy of Chaos in the Old World is available in our Club Library.

If you enjoyed this review, you may also enjoy our reviews of:

Cyclades
Small World
Talisman

Space Hulk is Back!

The good people at Games Workshop have decided to release a new version of the classic board game, Space Hulk. This version will only be available for a limited time.

Set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Space Hulk is a tense board games that pits the elite Space Marine Terminators against the vicious Genestealers in the ruins of a spaceship.

The club committee have decided to purchase a club copy. Space Hulk ships on the 5th of September and should be available to play at our next club meeting on 20 September. Happy bug hunting!

Update: See also our Space Hulk Review.