"Age of Madness: Army Design Contest & Free DLC Update" Topic

Hello All!

WAM ARMY DESIGN CONTEST

Since the launch of WAM we've been receiving some wonderful comments about a core feature of the game: flexible army building. Like the game "AK-47", the point system is designed to let you field just about any army you want to. Below is a link to sample armies from our personal collections:

link

The OmniCorp force is my personal favorite. The Mad Max warband belongs to my elder son while the UN Castaways belong to my younger son. Since the game's launch I'm 0-2 against the Mad Max guys but 1-1 against the Castaways. Meanwhile the Castaways are 1-0 against Mad Max.

So we've decided to hold a contest for WAM army design. There will be three criteria: Composition, Backstory, and Painting. Composition score will be determined by how well the force would appear to function on the battlefield relative to Backstory. These two criteria must be considered together since they drive tactical approach and should work together. Painting score is pretty easy and based on quality of painting and basing.

Note that far more weight will be given to Composition and Backstory than Painting. A key facet of WAM is the ability to use whatever troops you have laying around without the need to re-base. In fact, the AFV in the Castaways force is a re-painted Matchbox vehicle and my OmniCorp mech is a WizKids mech snapped off its click-base and re-painted. Our troops are a mix of Peter Pig, Flames of War, QRF, etc., so don't be shy. Basing doesn't matter either with anything from 30mm x 30mm up to FoW large bases working just fine for the game.

Also try to develop a fun, creative, compelling back story. A force can be based on your old army unit, alma mater, hometown, favorite movie (Red Dawn anybody???), etc.

The prize will be a $30 USD gift certificate at Scale Creep Miniatures. We're a regular customer of Mark's and love his reliable service. $30 USD will generally cover a 15mm WAM infantry army since armies tend to be about 12 elements/stand with 2-4 figures per element.

To submit an army for consideration shoot an e-mail to VisceralImpactStudios@gmail.com. Include the force composition/point values, a few paragraphs on the backstory, and a photograph. The deadline is October 31 (Halloween!) and we'll announce the winner in November prior to Thanksgiving in the USA. That way the winner will probably be able to get his new troops by Christmas! :-)

A CLEAR AND PRESENT MADNESS

We're also working on our first free DLC for WAM. It's called A Clear and Present Madness and will include the most requested items to date such as mounted infantry and helicopters/gunships. It will also include a new optional mission structure to encompass an even wider array of battles and sample modern TO&Es for current real-world forces. It will be posted as a PDF and available for free to everyone.

Thanks to everyone who has started playing WAM! We've really enjoyed the feedback and look forward to seeing your army designs.

VIS

PS Do remember that you can be as conventional or creative as you wish given the game's setting. I have a Bradley rifle company out of Fort Benning while one of my sons is building a weird force of 1930s pulp fiction-style mafia and giant mutant weasels that we purchased from Splintered Light while at Siege of Augusta. My Benning troops are totally conventional while his mafia/weasels are completely off the wall (he fields the weasels as Blade elements with the Hardened II trait for extra hit points).

Mine was shipped yesterday from Lulu. Looking forward to getting it.

Great set of rules. Mucho reccomended!

BTW…here's a mini-challenge:

The game's weapon types are "generic" sort of like "AK-47 Republic". Each weapon type represents a class or family of weapons in the real world. For example, weapons include types such as the M81 Autocannon, the M71B Autocannon, the C52 Tank Gun, and the LAW-22 light anti-tank weapon.

Embedded in the specific weapon type code (e.g. M81, M71B, C52, and 22 above) there's a mnemonic to help players remember game stats such as range, AT value, and Anti-personnel (APERS) value.

It varies a little bit for specialized weapons such as ATGMs but I'm curious as to if anyone has figured it out. You don't need to buy the game to see the code since the Quick Reference Sheet is available on the website warfareintheageofmadness.com for anyone to download.

We find this mnemonic especially useful in the meta-games of army building and vehicle design. You have a strong idea about a weapon's capabilities even when looking at the consolidated points cost lists and without having to reference the armory section or QRS.

I'll award 3 months of TMP supporting membership to the first person who posts here the decode of the LAWs (except the LAW-T2), Autocannons, Low Velocity Guns, Tank Guns, and Gun Mortars. The ATGMs and LAW-T2 are a little tricky so we'll leave those out. This should be super easy!

Happy hunting! :-)

I have played it once & it was a huge amount of fun. My only complaint is that may be hard to use vehicles.
Because of the small (3x4 ft) playing area their mobility & long range weapons are of limited value. They represent a lot of points (maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of an army's points) & are vulnerable to numerous weapons.
We plan to try it on a 5 x 6 foot table to see if they become less vulnerable & more valuable. Any infantry that is not provided with transport may be delayed in entering the battle. An infantry stand without transport will roll 1D6 with the result being the turn that it shows up in the deployment area. As we have so many nicely done vehicles they need to be used!
We also plan on using the 4" Kalistra terrain hexes & dispensing with measuring devices entirely.
They were tons of fun.

John Kelly

Oh yeah, we will be doubling the points allowed to 2400. In the first battle I had 9 stands with 1 T-72 tank. With 2,400 points & the new transportation requirement we are imposing I will have 19 stands with 4 APCs, 2 with ATGM's, 1 with an autocannon, & 1 with only MG's. I am using Ground Zero Games 15mm SciFi troops while my opponent is using QRF modern troops. They both seem to work in 2066.

JP Kelly

Are you modifying the troops maxes and mins as well?

JPKelly's comments about vehicles in WAM's main rule book are extremely accurate. He definitely has an excellent feel for the rules!

The main rule book is focused on infantry combat since we wanted to keep the investment required to play the game in time, money, and space as small as possible while also providing and fun and tactically interesting experience. So vehicles serve a supporting role by providing mobile "large HE" support to engage infantry in full cover and to kill other vehicles. This infantry focus also enables pure-infantry armies to be fully competitive with vehicle-based armies in the context of the main rule book set up.

That being said, the origins of the rules lay with our collection of WWII 15mm figures. The point of reference for playing with those figures with respect to game size was the German Armored PzGren company and American Armored Rifle Company. Those totaled about 16 infantry elements/vehicle models in WAM's scale, the same as a modern Stryker company.

We've had several requests for larger battles with more vehicles including helicopters so we're adapting our WWII structure to "Big Battle WAM". We're including BBWAM in our upcoming "A Clear and Present Madness" free DLC.

Forces will be around 2,400 points as JP has already figured out (you must be psychic!) but that necessitates other tweaks too. For example, Perks and Penalties are costed out based on 1,200 point armies so we're going to provide a more flexible PnP system that will let you build forces of any point value. Vehicle hull costs have also been tweaked since they can't score VP. We're also going to establish an element cap so pure infantry armies don't become insanely large and slow the game down too much (probably 16-18 elements).

As a preview, here's what a Stryker Company looks like in BBWAM. Essentially it's the same as a full dismounted Stryker company in WAM but with a full complement of Stryker vehicles. All of the infantry elements have the Hardened I trait.

STRYKER COMPANY
1x Command Element w/FO and Medic traits
1x Stryker CV

3x Rifle-MG Elements w/LAW
3x Rifle-MG Elements w/GL
3x MG Elements
3x Stryker ICV*

1x Stryker Mobile Gun System (MGS)
1x Stryker Mortar Carrier (MC)

*A fellow who actually served in Strykers wrote to us and convinced me to increase the passenger capacity to 3 compared to the Bradley's 2…his argument made total sense to me so we're making the change.

Amazing we have been playing our own rules recently which are remarkably similar, even to using 4" bounds (we call them hexes.) The feel of the rules are very similar with similar combat systems, but significant differences in command. They are for modern battles in Africa, a truely post-apocalyptic continent! We have some really A++ air rules where you might bomb your own troops. Helicopters are basically fast vehicles when at nape of earth.

So we were all set for these rules which allow us to use our 15mm Peter Pig AK-47 troops, our WW2 troops, & our 15 mm SciFi troops! For the big battles we double the minimums & maximums, double the costs of Perks & allow 4 perks to be chosen.
Most fun I have had with a commercial set in a long time.

JPK

I prefer a grid over rulers too. We've also played WAM using a 4" square grid, sometimes using 15mm figures and other times 20mm. Both worked great using the same grid. Only reason we didn't use grid in rules is that it adds a requirement to play the game vs using any ruler or tape measure.

The key driver for the use of 4" "bounds" for measurement is that they mesh perfectly with 10cm increments. Even half-bounds of 2"/5cm are easy. So players in both metric and imperial measurement countries use the same messurement increments when discussing the game: bounds. The upcoming revision to DBA does the same thing using "base widths". Players also seem more relaxed using 4"/10cm bounds for some reason.

Also, good catch on doubling Perk and Penalty values…they're statistically tied to force size. You really undsrstand the system "under the hood".

If you have any additional suggestions or requests for improving the game shoot us an e-mail or post here on TMP! :-)

For those interested here are some suggested front armor ratings for tanks in the WAM system. They are extrapolated from the extensive listings in Fist Full of TOWS 3.
m1A2

Oops. Here they are:
11 – M1A2
10 – M1A1, T-90
9 – T-80
8 – Centurian, T-72
7 – T-62, T-64
6 – IS-3, M60, T-55, M-48
5 – IS-1, IS-2, M26
3 – Sherman

JPK

Correction, a Centurian should be a 6. A Stryker & Bradley are both 4's.

Just a reminder/update that submissions are due October 31 for the army design contest:

link

The prize is a $30 USD gift certificate at Scale Creep (and additional some additional behind-the-scenes money to cover postage so you get the full $30 USD to apply to figures…that should cover a complete WAM infantry force).