Comrade's Wargames

Last month a new game landed like a hand grenade right in the midst of Comrade’s Wargames – THE DOOMED, the new apocalyptic sci-fi skirmish game from Osprey Publishing, written by Chris McDowall.

My group had been eagerly awaiting the release of this game. The premise sounds delicious – warbands of grimdark sci-fi soldiers battle across a benighted planet overrun with nameless horrors. The setting is not defined in great detail, but it seems clear that THE DOOMED is aimed at baroque sci-fi, the sort which features demons, inquisitors, cyborgs, cultists, and motley bands of hardened soldiers. Sound familiar? It certainly tracks with what we’re all about here at Comrade’s Wargames.

We got in a game toward the beginning of October, so I’ll intersperse some photos and impressions of our game throughout this post. Here’s the setup for our game: an abandoned laboratory.

THE DOOMED (sorry, caps lock just seems to pop on whenever I type the name of this game) is a skirmish-sized game meant to be played on a smallish table filled with terrain. The maximum size of any warband is eight models – no more than that. There are 4 flavorful warband lists to build your forces. In addition to two opposing warbands, every game features a Horror – a chaotic monster of some sort, usually with a few weaker minions nearby. Each Horror has its own set of special rules that govern its behavior on the battlefield and the behavior of its minions. Along with the Horror, each scenario also specifies some nexuses, which are basically “weak points” on the battlefield that must be defeated before the main Horror can die. Imagine egg sacs, or power stones, or prey carcasses … as long as those exist, the Horror is effectively “shields up” and largely invulnerable. The nexuses must be dispatched in order to defeat the big boss.

As you can imagine, this was an absolutely delightful game concept. Player-vs-player, with the added twist of a rampaging spoiler faction that operates under its own set of rules. To be clear, THE DOOMED is not intended to be a competitive game. Instead, it is designed to represent savage combat between warbands where the greatest threat is probably not the opposing player … it is the Horror that stalks the tunnels, slaying without prejudice or preference. The game is designed to promote collaborative gameplay alongside traditional matchups. Will you join forces for a turn or two to punish the big bad, and then go back to gleefully slaughtering the opposing warband? Who will break the gentlemen’s agreement first?

Our game got underway with some cautious exploration by both warbands. Inquisitor Ash, commander of John’s contingent of feudal sci-fi guardsmen, led her warriors to examine the first laboratory.

Meanwhile, my Dark Mechanicum warband led by Ozmas Hyperfane, the Sanctified Ferromancer of the Sixth Liturgy, filtered into the abandoned science facility by another route, which unfortunately brought them into close proximity to THE DEVOURER (i.e. the Horror that we selected for this scenario). The Devourer activated and promptly began pursuing my Dark Mechanicum warband.

One of the most innovative aspects of THE DOOMED is that there are no movement rates or weapon ranges. You basically nominate a model, describe where you want to move, and then roll a dice vs. your figure’s Quality to see if you are successful. If you succeed, you move directly to that point. If you fail, your opponent places your model anywhere along the route you described. Yikes! Ranged combat operates similarly … everything is understood to be in range, so the only real limits are line of sight and intervening terrain and cover.

I’ve played games like this before, and they really require – nay, demand – an incredibly dense terrain setup. Thankfully, that happens to align with our interests here at Comrade’s Wargames, and we are blessed with a wealth of beautiful handmade terrain to adorn our battlefields. Just something to be aware of it as you’re reading through THE DOOMED rulebook.

Even as the Devourer closed in and its devilish minions spawned at random points throughout the battlefield, my warband tried to remain focused on the objective, which was to occupy and seize two of the three laboratories. The labs themselves had a variety of nasty rules in effect to make them into truly deadly combat zones.

As the halls rang with the sound of desperate combat, somehow Ozmas Hyperfane barged his way into one of the labs and encountered a puddle of viscera which represented one of the Devourer’s nexuses. Aha! Its weak points were revealed!

Before Ozmas could stomp the goo puddle, he had to dispatch John’s feudal guardsman. Thus our first player-vs-player combat was joined!

THE DOOMED has a fairly simple combat resolution system, so it was easy to get up to speed. Weapons have straightforward profiles emphasizing the number of dice rolled to attack or the number of dice rolled to deal damage, along with a special rule or two. The rules system in general seems to play second fiddle to the voluminous sections devoted to the various Horrors, their lairs, their henchmen, and their in-game capabilities. Truly, this is a scenario-based game, and the star of every scenario is The Horror.

The Devourer quickly picked up the scent and smashed his way into the laboratory to confront Ozmas Hyperfane. The confrontation was decidedly one-sided – the poor cyborg was smashed into pulp and wreckage by the enraged beast. Oops … there goes my leader! How could I possibly carry on without this key piece of my warband?

Meanwhile, Inquisitor Ash and her cohort of goons was doing a good job of clearing and securing the other labs. Demonic dogs (spawn of the Devourer) continuously menaced her and her warriors as they struggled to gain the upper hand. More critically, they were responsible for destroying the final two nexus points, thus making the Devourer vulnerable to lethal attacks.

And about that Devourer … to put it mildly, he decimated my warband, slaying them almost to a man. Temporarily out of targets, the big guy stepped out of the laboratory – and into range of my cyborg railgunner, who proceeded to pop him at range with a series of spectacular dice rolls, followed by whiffed defense rolls by the Devourer, which snuffed out the big guy and ended our first game of THE DOOMED.

This was a tremendously satisfying game that brought together several of my favorite tabletop gaming concepts: skirmish sized games with warbands comprised of unique models, AI-driven NPC factions, and objective-based scenario play. John’s terrain was lovely, and his newly painted Devourer model (plus those demonic dogs) was a real treat to get onto the battlefield. The game itself is definitely designed to encourage some fun kitbashing and DIY terrain creation. The massive list of unique Horrors in the rulebook, combined with an equally comprehensive array of scenarios, ensures that we’ll play this one again soon … and that no game will be precisely the same.