Gamma Wolves: A Game of Post-apocalyptic Mecha Warfare

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I like the blind deployment system IN THEORY, but what I have seen of it in practice makes it look like a non-value added component of the game. Granted, this can be influenced a great deal by terrain selection, scale, and models being used. In theory, it adds some uncertainty to deployment and initial tactical thinking and decision making. However as I have seen it in use it does not appear to add too much to the game beyond complication. Your mileage may vary on this one. Initiative is determined by the number of Frames out of Line-of-Sight. The force with the fewest models in Line-of-Sight gains initiative and therefore can "surprise" the enemy by acting first. It is a bit wordy to explain, but intuitively it also makes sense. The player that is doing a better job "hiding" his units has the advantage of action. However, beyond activating and using 1 Frame first, the game uses Alternate Activation. The main game revolves/defaults to a "Loot" style scenario. However, it is just as effective to kill all the bad guys before they kill you to get all the loot. There are 5 other scenarios that put a twist on the basic Loot framework. This style of game has some of the same critiques I had of Frostgraveand I personally think it hurts the games replayability. Building your crew of Gamma Wolves and their frames is one of the key elements of Gamma Wolves and is a classic example of Strategic Decision Making in a game. All of these key choices occur before a game even begins, and can be talked about endlessly before or after any particular game. This helps allow for a lot of replayability and out-of-game discussion about the game itself. This includes things like propulsion systems, load-outs, and pilots. Shooting is an opposed test between your Weapon Systems firepower + Pilot ability vs your opponents ability to evade. If the Evading unit gets more successes, they avoid the firepower. If failed, additional success past the first to hit can be used to add damage or adjust where the shot is hitting. I am always a fan of opposed test, as no one likes to get shot at and do nothing.

This book had a lot of ideas that I liked. I get the feeling they had a number of cool models, and then they sat down to build a game to use those models in. That is an approach I have used myself, and an approach I recommend. I also get the feeling that the author was not a stranger to stompy robot style games.In 2291, the Earth is a blasted wasteland split between Arcologies and Free Stations. Humans can no longer live on the surface of this polluted and irradiated world. All that is left is to strip the carcass of the previous civilizations. The Gamma Wolves are operators of mechs who go into this wasteland to gather loot and scrap, and return to civilization to trade it in and power their own crumbling Arcologies. Pretty dystopian and Mad Maxx, but with stompy robots instead of cars. The firefights are intended to be up close and personal, but the range to maneuver distances seem to be a bit off. The game feels like it emphasizes firepower, and it is easy to get the mix of terrain to board size wrong. This makes the "blind" deployment seem sort of pointless and some of the decision making feels a lot easier at these knife fight ranges. The game allows you to have 8 different pilots and 6 different frames. Therefore, you can have cards of pilots and frames that you swap around prior to battle. This acts as your "roster" for any given mission. This allows you to make some strategic choices prior to any given battle in a campaign and allows you to take some pilot casualties and do some RPG-lite with your crews. Pilot Level is used as a balancing metric in the game as well. The game is scale and model agnostic with some tweaks. Sizes of mecha are based on some rudimentary base sizes, which were bigger than I expected. However, easy tweaks could make smaller scales work, and even let you play on smaller boards! Plus, if you build it, you can bring it! I like that idea.