Of Spats And Pedrails
For the third year in a row Zombiesmith has put out a Quar book, and for the third time in a row the book is beautiful, well-organized, and full of Quar gaming goodness. If you're a Quar fan let me save you reading the few hundred words of this review: you want this book. If you're not a Quar fan, yet, you owe it to yourself to take a look at one of these books to see why you should be, or at least to see how good a gaming book can be. Having established that an actual review of the book is superfluous, let me dive in.
Of Spats And Pedrails is 132 pages of Quar background and new rules for both published Quar miniatures games, This Quar's War and Songs of Our Ancestors (TQW and SooA). The former is a small-unit based rules set, while the latter is skirmish rules derived from Song Of Blades And Heroes. For TQW Of Spats And Pedrails adds Command Squads and their specialists, Forlorn Hopes, elite squads, armored tractors and softskin vehicles, aerocraft, and vehicle design rules. For SooA players Of Spats And Pedrails will give you wonderful vehicle rules for both armored and softskin vehicles along with vehicle-related special abilities and weapons.
For Quar fans there is a lot of new background set in the year 1772, a bad year for everyone. For the Coftyrans, their wall has been breached, and they've been unable to expel the Crusaders. Fidwog, the other notable royalist holdout, is now completely encircled. For the adherents of Alykinder's Crusade their war is stalled on every front, and in Kryst they have driven the First Families from the region only to find that the native insurgents that have been fighting the royalists for fifteen years are no more eager to be ruled by Alykinder than by the First Families. Material and personnel losses on both sides have been heavy, but at the same time these difficult years have given some individuals and units the kind of battle experience that transforms them into a new kind of fighter, the elite.
The nation of Toulmore is an ardent bastion of the Crusade and has been mentioned in TQW and SooA, and now gets its own chapter, with background, fiction, units, and vehicles. These vehicles include the first two models available, the Ailthean Light Gun Tractor, and the ominous Baeliog.
Fidwog is the subject of the royalist chapter. Like Coftyr, Fidwog has held out against the crusade for over a decade. Where Coftyr has its wall, Fidwog has mountains and trenches. Where the Coftyran cavalry ride the nimble cadier, the Fidwoggers have the gwylon. I hesitate to describe it, because I can't make it as believable as the book, but if I tried I'd say it's a mountain-adapted kangaroo with velociraptor claws. Riders use swords, carbines, and anti-armor torpedos on lances. The royalist chapter continues with a section on the Royal Coftyran Flying Service and two Coftyran armored vehicles.
Kryst is a land of desert and karst that grew wealthy from the caravan trade. It was ruled by an unpopular First Family, and is now ruled by the Crusade which has become even less popular. Alykinder's Airmobile may have helped drive out the royalists, but the economic hardship since the Iron Regime has taken over has erased any gratitude. Some of the soldiers of Kryst fight for the Crusade, others are building an insurgency against it, but all have the toughness and marksmanship of desert fighters and are adept at fighting alongside their armored vehicles. We get to see their weapons up close and learn about their units and two more armored fighting vehicles before this chapter proceeds to the partisans.
The partisan pages include more background and organization, then wonderful characters and their SooA stats, along with the "partisan wagon." What looks like a large barrel has been mounted on a pair of large wheels and is pushed by a cadier; an LMG is mounted forward, giving the partisans, if not an armored fighting vehicle, at least a mobile support weapon with some protection. As the old military aphorism goes, if it stupid but it works, it's not stupid. The partisan wagon despite its humorous appearance is quick and tough. I'm not sure how they manage to steer it or communicate with the cadier, but the LMG should help even up the playing field.
The ironmongery is as good as ever. Each nation has its own small arms, presented here not just as specs, but with their history, their social connotations, and quirks. For us 15mm fans this is just painful, because our minis don't show the weapons as they deserve, but it's fun to read.
Having played TQW but once and that without these new rules I won't try to review them except to say that as a SooA player, I'm just a little envious.
This is assuaged by the masterful vehicle rules for SooA. Vehicle rules for skirmish games are treacherous – it's easy to make vehicles overpowering, and most of the time they come out pretty mindless, too. They move, they shoot. I've played the vehicle rules for Flying Lead (the other Song of Blades and Heroes rules with guns) and found them confusing and unsatisfying. The Spats & Pedrails vehicles rules bring you concrete flavor that translates into narrative interest during the game. An armored tractor is not just another figure with a higher armor value, it has visibility issues, it moves like a tractor, and best of all you get a fun view of what all the crewmembers are doing inside that metal box.
When you roll to activate a vehicle all the crewquar will get a number of actions equal to the successes you rolled, and each crew position has different actions they can take. The commander can spot a new target for the vehicle and fire his gun if he has one, and he can pass an action to another crewquar. He cannot fire the weapon or turn the turret. The gunner can turn the turret, reload, and fire the main gun, and he can spot but only in front of the turret. The driver can move or turn the vehicle, and he can reach up and fire the gun but not reload or turn the turret. The result of this little dance is a flavorful sense of what's happening inside the vehicle as the crew struggle to do everything that needs doing. This system plays quite quickly and smoothly, but these mechanical behemoths feel, appropriately, just a little cumbersome. Which makes them killable If the infantry is clever and bold. As it should be, infantry that tries to hide will just get blasted over time. If they can jump out from cover and run up with sticky bombs they can bring down goliath. Vehicle damage pits the penetrating power of the weapon against the thickness of the armor, and leads to damaged engines or tracks, and reduced crew factors (giving crew fewer actions and making the vehicles less effective).
Bottom line, these rules are playable, flavorful, and infantry still matter. You can have a game with an armored tractor on each side and the infantry can still decide the day. Skirmish rules don't usually give you two of these three attributes, and I can't think of another set that gives you all three.
Aesthetically this book surpasses the other two both quantitatively and qualitatively. Except for two or three pages giving the nitty gritty of the new rules, every page has art, and it's all new. Sequoiah Blankenship is behind it all again, so again it is very imaginative but still grounded, exciting while showing quar in workaday situations, and somehow makes you happy and just a little melancholy at the same time. There are landscapes showing quar cities and walls. There are two new quar domesticated beasts that will amaze you. There are quite surprising quar vehicles. And there are lots of quar. There are quar in full field kit wielding weapons. There are quar lounging around their machines. There are quar giving orders and quar avoiding work. There are quar you can imagine inspire those around them, and there are quar that will make you laugh. The artist is showing you quar, without ever insisting that you feel overawed by them or sorry for them.
Zombiesmith et al raised the bar for what a gaming book can be with This Quar's War and Songs Of Our Ancestors, and they have maintained that standard in Of Spats And Pedrails. These books are beautiful. They are clear. They are fun to look at and fun to read. They get the rules across clearly. They draw you into a different world and make you believe in things that can't be, or rather, things that don't happen to be, but which obviously could be. They do all this without any skulls or cleavage. They never insult the reader at all, and that's actually a welcome relief.
Finally, l must reveal that while spats are mentioned (black spats are the trademark of the 42nd Bedlahm Light Infantry Regiment) there are no pedrails in the book. Unless maybe I'm wrong about what constitutes a pedal.
says there is no limit to how large his horde can be.
