Little Wars was held in Melbourne's South on 11th of May, 2019. My mate Ross collected our friend Brendan and me and the three of us headed down at an ungodly hour early on Saturday before Mother's Day. I packed up my kit the night before, so was able to slink-off into the morning mist without unduly distributing the family.After an hour-ish trek, we arrived to meet the fourth member of the crew, James, who had secured our table and we commenced setting up i.e. throwing all manner of our collective masterpieces (which some may call rubbish) in an attempt to construct a playable table. I had envisaged a slightly lower, more spread out 'main' table; however, I had failed to take into account Ross's fabled 'Mushroom Tower' which stands a simulated 9,000 feet in the air... basically twice as high as I had anticipated/remembered. Bugger. That meant I had to stack my boxes higher and as a result, I had less coverage. But, as it happens, that meant more space for our collective vehicles and space monsters to zoom around.
And zoom they did! Leveraging the rules from Mad Maxamillion, there was all manner of sweeping moves going on. My Eldar Wave Serpent moved in from the edge, dropped two Dire Avengers and a Storm Guardian with Flamer onto the wing of Ross's Mighty Beast, then edged forward to land the remainder of the Team onto the platform proper, just below my crane. With that taken care of, the Serpent then zoomed off between the towers, did a tight turn to head back in the direction it started and laid on some serious fire on all and sundry.
Meanwhile, on the wing of the Mighty Beast, my Eldar encountered some Squats who gave them a hard time - the Squat's toughness meant that they were shrugging off Shurkin and Flamer alike and things didn't really go their way. On the platform, the rest of the Team traded fire with the Squats and James's Heratech whilst waiting for their opportunity to access the inside of the installation.
Yes, inside of the installation.
The latter part of the game was fought in the confines of the platform's internal warrens. There were no less than six different Teams all vying for supremacy. The result: fire going every which way, short-term alliances formed and broken all while the Necrons, who had awoken from their slumber, laid waste to everything that moved.
Thoughts on the game
It was a lot of fun - playing with three good guys like Ross, James and Brendan means you don't have to worry too much about getting it 'right' as everyone is there to enjoy the company and experience firstly, with winning being incidental.
With that perspective, the flying part of the game was a bit less formal than some would expect, but that didn't detract from the fun. I suspect we played 10 Turns of vehicular combat? With close to 10 vehicles doing their thing, it took maybe 20 minutes per Turn to resolve so that was a couple of hours of gaming there. We slowed down for a snack or two, popped out to check the bring-and-buy, chatted with friends and spectators... it was all pretty relaxed. Not too much adaptation of the MM rules was required and if we were to do that bit again, I might suggest we treat it more as a race of some type, maybe involving Objectives rather than our chaotic fly, shoot and land! approach. Also if the flyers were more homogenous, that may have sped things up some, also may have blanded the game as well... oh well, no complaints here.
The Kill Team half of the game within the platform played pretty well. It was my first 'Indoors' Kill Team game (different) and I could see it working BUT I noticed that Kill Team hasn't currently got a ram and knock-back mechanic - we had single units blocking an entire squads' approach through a room because they couldn't be pushed away. Also having 6 (or was it more?) independent Teams wasn't great - especially during the Move Phase, it reminded me of the worst waiting for ones Turn type experiences. Sure there were some memorable moments but I think we've done better capping the numbers of players/teams to 4.
One thing that was a lot of fun was the Command Cards that James and Brendan prepared. Used instead of Command Points, each Turn we'd be dealt Cards so that we held a max of five. They provided for all sorts of game changers e.g., shoot twice, declare a dud weapon, dodge, buff this, de-buff that etc. The guys generated a huge deck of the Cards, all with lovely art, and that added to both the vehicular and skirmish games. The highlight of the games IMHO - well-done lads.
So what's next?
We'll likely keep on playing Kill Team - no reason not to, it's a fun game. I'd like to try some Campaigns using rosters etc from the rules proper, giving us some continuity in the games and allow for a story-line to build some. Mixing the flying with skirmish... I'm not totally sold but don't discount it yet - I suspect that with some more tinkering and balancing, it could work well.Some of the lads are wanting to do something with Samurai in the near-term - that could be fun and a little different as well. Who knows: maybe Little Wars 2020 will be a step back in time? Watch this space...