At turn 5, we had to roll a D6 to determine whether the game ends or continues. I went on 2 more rounds. Round 6 was marked by a last effort to kill as many opponents as possible. The text itself is well written and easy to understand (being a non-native speaker, I am grateful for that 😉 ) They can't even have play tested these for a couple of games as if they had they'd see how unbalanced forces easily became unless everyone just maxed out everything when they play tested it and it balanced somewhat by that means.

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. Some of us have been playing a lot of Xenos Rampant of late. It’s a SF offshoot of Dragon Rampant, which we also play often. These rules are endlessly variable and virtually any miniatures can be utilised. Since we were already somewhat familiar with the basic principles of the game from Lion Rampant, the game mechanics were fairly easy to handle.

Osprey Wargames Series

As in almost any wargame, the dice decide on success or failure and the many funny events that take place in-game, like your best troops running from some space-cauliflower (aka the Super Soldiers of the Star Alliance trade corp.). Xenos is a miniature-agnostic skirmish wargame for science fiction settings. It could be played at 28mm in a grim dark galaxy, it could be used to cover near-future grounded combat, it could be just the rules you’ve been looking for to do the Weird War 2 campaign you’ve been thinking about, or simply to throw whatever you and a friend have to hand onto the table to crank out a fast, enjoyable and deceptively simple game. It’s got heroes and villains, vehicles, aliens, soldiers, shooting, high-tech and high-concept, explosions, psychic powers and everything you could want for your Scifi skirmish, all built on a solid grounding of clear and flexible rules.

If that’s not explanation enough, Xenos Rampant is a large skirmish wargame inspired by the science fiction wargames of the 1980s and 90s. However, it is a modern ruleset that emphasises fast play and intuitive rules mechanics, while also not being bound to any era or style of science fiction nor any specific ranges of models. As in the days before the widespread availability of plastic kits, armies consist of 30–40 infantry with maybe a vehicle as a centrepiece. Of course, nowadays, you can get a couple of boxes of plastic models quite cheaply meaning you don’t have to break the bank to put a force together. 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.The scenarios cover most of the encounters the average wargamer is familiar with: random skirmish, ambush, capturing certain points/objects of interest… Genre Settings The Club Runs a well known and well attended convention each year called Phalanx at Sutton Community Leisure Centre. We all mostly know the Dan Mersey base rule mechs and their variations and we don't need 1000 minis a side to play them (or 'official' minis - GW). But for those unfamiliar with the Rampant-Games, we wish to briefly present the game mechanics. Basic principles of Xenos Rampant

Of course, we had to get used to the many special rules for our units. For me, it was very tempting to buy this and that option while preparing my detachment.

A fan made suppliment for players of Dragon and Lion Rampant

Instead of simply activating a unit (as one might know from most games), Xenos Rampant relies on an activation roll. I.e. depending on your dice roll, your units activation might fail (and you lose your action in favor of your opponent) or you may proceed. 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. I've just been trying out the new Xenos Rampant rules in a test game and got to the stage of squads shooting each other. The number needed on a die, the Shoot value, for most squad types is very high. Eiltes seem ok on 4+, but Heavy, Light and Recon Infantry need a 6 to hit. Is this correct? It seems a very low chance indeed.

Some game specific terminology, like “suppressed” instead the usual “battered” or “shaken” I am used to, take some time to sink in. But I managed to maneuver through De Bellis Antiquitatis, so I might be able to handle unfamiliar terminology 🙂

Since David’s Imperial Commonwealth army took out my Star Alliance Commander, I had to roll on a D6 to see whether he survived or not. I rolled a 6! He not only survived, but survived heroically and I rolled another D6 to see how many career points he would get. I rolled another 6! So 6 career points. The Imperial Commonwealth got 2 career points. Those points will come in handy in later games, to which we look forward to. Imperial Commonwealth (Player: David) 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. 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. Richard originally built Xenos Rampant as an unofficial variant based on Daniel’s Origins-nominated system, and we have worked together to develop the idea. The basic rules should be familiar to players of Lion Rampant, although the very different nature of futuristic warfare has necessitated some changes to the rules. A 24 point Xenos Rampant force – Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Elite Infantry Walker and a Commander