I mail a lot of books to my brother in the UK. There were a few books waiting for me when I arrived in London this morning. One of those books was Chris McDowall’s latest war-game, MAC ATTACK. This is a 6mm scale sci-fi war-game, essentially Chris’s take on the venerable mech game. These sorts of games are typically quite crunchy, so it’s interesting to see how Chris distills battling mechs to its true essence. I had expected the book to be bigger. It’s a cute little thing. An A5 perfect bound softcover. You can pack this in your backpack without breaking a sweat.

The rules for MAC ATTACK are captured over four pages that open the book. The first introduces some core concepts of the game, in particular motion and heat, two attributes of each mech. (Or should I say MAC? I won’t, but these things are called MACs.) Motion tracks the sort of movement the mech has made: faster movement makes you harder to hit, but also makes it harder for you to hit other mechs. Heat tracks how hot your mech is getting. If it hits 6 you overheat! The second page explains how battlefields and terrain work. The third and forth page are effectively the rules for the whole game. He’s done it again!

A turn in MAC ATTACK is broken up in to 4 phases. An initiative deck is created with each unit being assigned a card. Draw cards to see who gets to activate. During the move phase you’ll move your mechs, and in the process assign them their motion dice. Depending on the sort of movement action they take, they might gain some heat. The movement phase is followed by the attack phase. The initiative deck is shuffled and the players once again draw cards to see which unit will activate and fight. To fight you will roll a number of attack dice dictated by your mech’s weapon. The target number to be rolled on each dice is determined by summing both units motion dice. The roll can be modified if the target is crashed, in cover, or inside a building. A 1 is always a miss, a 6 is always a hit. Hits are assigned to the various modules that make a mech, which will destroy them over the course of the game. Hits that would hit a destroyed module instead cause internal damage to the mech. This feels like a pretty elegant combat system. Once all the mechs have had a chance to activate in the attack phase, you will destroy any mechs who have taken more internal damage than their class. You’ll learn what a mech’s class is by turning the page and reading the rules for making MACs. Dealing with damage in this way means you’ll never have your mechs blown off the board before they have a chance to cause some damage themselves. The turn closes with a cooldown phase. The mechs all lower their heat score based on their mech’s class, modified by whether they have radiator or coolant modules, or are sitting in water. And that is that! The book concludes with pages and pages of advanced rules, variant ways to play, etc, if you want to expand on this simple base.

The next few pages cover building your mechs, buying the weapons and hardware that will make each unique. There are several factions described in the book. The lore for the setting is basically a couple pull quotes per faction, their example units, and the (amazing) art from Amanda Lee Franck. It’s impressive how you can get across within those tight constraints. Like the Doomed, the expectation is you’re kit bashing your mechs, taking Battletech minis and mixing them with junk you have laying about your house. The game also has rules for taking your little epic scale infantry and tanks, perfect if you’ve picked up Legion Imperialis like myself.

Rather than bespoke scenarios, Chris has a scenario generator like War Cry, where you will generate your deployment, victory conditions (for each side) and a twist. You could use the generator, and the advanced rules at the back of the book, to come up with interesting narrative scenarios.

I’ll need to figure out the simplest way to get this game to the table. Maybe I can find some mechs in the used bins at the Sword and Board? Maybe I can use some Tyranids as Kaiju? I’ll have to report back once I’ve played the game. (It does have solo rules, so you don’t even have to play with any other dorks.) This is the first mech game I’ve read that feels compelling enough to play. Most feel way too fussy. I think that’s the mouth feel most people want with these sorts of games, but this feels like it might be a good compromise. You have a lot of granularity still, but seemingly without a lot of the complexity. Will have to play and see if that is how it all pans out.

I finally took my posse of Heretic Legion models and played a game of Trench Crusade with Raff at the Sword and Board. Trench Crusade was created by Mike Franchina, the main artist for the game. The rules were designed by the legend himself, Tuomas Pirinen, of Mordheim fame. There is so much to love about this game, where to begin?

Trench Crusade takes place in an alternate version of earth where rogue Knight Templars open a gate to hell and the the next 800 years or so are all about people fighting demons and that sort of nonsense. The game’s present day is 1914, the start of our WWI, just another day in this worlds never-ending war. Mike Franchina’s artwork helps bring the setting to life, elevating it beyond just another Weird World War sort of game.

The rules for the game are nice and simple. There is a single resolution mechanic: roll 2d6 and try to score above a 7. A 12 is a critical success. The number of dice you roll can be modified based on a model’s profile, equipment, situational rules, etc. In such cases you’ll add additional dice to your dice pool. The rules refer to this as +DICE and -DICE. A +1 DICE and a -1 DICE cancel each other out, so you’ll end up with a pool that contains 0 or more +1 DICE or -1 DICE. This then works like advantage or disadvantage in D&D: you will roll all your dice and take the highest two, or the lowest two, depending on the make up of your dice pool. This is the roll you’ll make to shoot or attack. You’ll also make a roll like this when taking ‘risky actions’, like trying to climb a wall or make a diving charge. If you shooting or melee attack is successful, you will make a similar roll on an injury table. Rolling a 9+ takes a model out of action. A 7-8 will knock the model down. A 2-8 will also cause the model to gain a blood token. These can be spent to modify die roles. The opposing player can spend them to make your unit less effective in combat, or make their own units more effective when targeting that model. All in all it’s a nice and tidy system: it’s fast to play.

There is almost no looking anything up, no complicated tables, etc. There is far less rolling lots of dice to accomplish nothing, a common feature of Mordheim. You don’t have to track wounds, as there is no hit points. Tougher units will have an armour score that reduces the results of the injury die, making them more likely to survive. The blood tokens act a little like wound markers, as a unit with blood tokens will be easier to kill in subsequent attacks, but it’s dynamic and not a sure thing. In our game we I was constantly spending the tokens I had inflicted on Raff’s elite demon monsters to make them less effective in combat, trying hard to keep my little heretic troopers alive. I also managed to get some lucky rolls, resulting in one of troopers almost killing Raff’s super-demon. That model is Tough, so when it would be taken out of action the first time it’s simply knocked down. It got back up and demolished that little trooper on its next turn.

We played a one-shot, but as soon as it was done I wanted to start a campaign. The rules look very similar to Mordheim. The models in your warband can get injured, explore, level up, buy new equipment, etc. I’ll need to dig into all of that later. The book also has a healthy set of scenarios that look quite good. The default assumption is players will play 12 games in a sort of escalation league, the last game being the final free for all conclusion to the campaign. You start the campaign with a 700 ducats spending limit, and a limit of 10 models on your team. You end the campaign with a limit of 1800 and 22 models. You could field quite the platoon.

The rules are available online for free—fantastic. The digital rule book takes advantage of the format, with hyperlinks to help you navigate through the document with ease. There is way finding in the left side margin of each page, to help orient your place in the book, but which also serve as hyperlink navigation through the book. The layout and design is lovely. The rules are well written and clear. There is a simple presentation of the rules that takes up about 8 pages and explains the whole game. This is followed up by a longer presentation of the rules which goes into a little more detail, providing additional clarity and examples. The simple rules are likely all you’ll need to read to play if you’re familiar with war-games, or need to refresh yourself on how the game works. Seeing a rulebook like this from a small indie company makes Games Workshop’s “we only sell you overpriced hardcover books that are out of date when you buy them” stance extra annoying.

I currently have enough models to do about 800 points. Evan kitbashed a Commando for me, which I’ll need to prime and paint. I want to try and kitbash more troops as well. Get to a point I could field a bigger posse for a bigger game.

I’m hopefully we will start a campaign in the city, and I can experience the fuller game. This game certainly is meant to be experienced as a long running campaign. That said, as it stands the rules work well for a fast standalone game. This is a solid skirmish game. Well worth checking out. I mean, it’s free!