Tom (author of the system) and I met today so I could try out his LaserGrenadiers rules. You can get the rules here:
lasergrenadier.wordpress.com
They are currently in order spread out through his blog. I will help him reorganize things in a more user friendly format when time permits.
Tom graciously walked me through the rules and I got to ask design and logic questions along the way. This really helped my strategy as we played. The game has been in development for a long time. It is rather "crunchy" when it comes to detail. Here's my summary of the experience.
Figs in a unit can have differing weapons.
Rolls for morale are by figure.
Ditto for all actions.
You can move, fire, and shoot in any order.
Move shoot move included.
There are spotting rules and you spot again each time line of sight is broken.
Pre-measurement is allowed.
Figures are based individually.
Terrain and line of site are WYSIWYG.
If you are spotted out in the open you are probably paste.
There are no character units and this is pure hard-scifi. Melee can happen but you will probably be shot to pieces if you try and charge someone that isn't right on top of you.
Reaction fire is rather nasty but if you sit there waiting for something to happen indirect fire will likely mop you up nicely.
You want to roll low in the system.
Automatic weapons use templates to hit! Even assault rifles. It was an interesting change but fit the crunchy feel of the rules. With cone rifles and all sorts of nasty gear for infantry to carry…the template is a major draw for why you would want to carry a slug thrower.
A tactic I learned was to snake from terrain to terrain…breaking line of sight as much as I could. This made my cavalry hard to see and kept them alive much longer than expected. I stayed "off the radar".
It is fairly easy to stat out any figures you have for LaserGrenadiers. There are lots of greeblies for tricking out units. Tom had a hover drone that helped spot targets which is very critical as you might imagine. I caught up with it once and dumped a full clip of machine pistol ammo into it. Poor rolls resulted in it escaping. Since it used Grav movement it was gone in a flash.
We played a meeting engagement so I could get used to the rules. The previous night I had rolled horrendously while playing the Castle Ravenloft board game. Today, the dice were with me.
My autocannon tank on the left side of the table rushed up and tore into his infantry. That was a turning point in the game. Our vehicles exchanged fire but with his forces breaking or wiped out we called the game. I immediately thought of ways to make my troops more versatile and was anxious to look over the options for rebuilding the list.
We were able to finish a game with 10 man units, a tank, and some Battledrones per side in two hours. This included his walking me through everything and helping me stat out my figs. The system is not fast play but is also not too complicated. It takes me a bit to learn a ruleset but once I got shooting modifiers down (thanks to a handy chart) I was fairly autonomous in short order.
I outgunned Tom a bit in hindsight but we had a great game. I am looking forward to playing again and will enjoy tweaking my troops. We had just thrown some forces together to try things out.
Tom was very easy going and great to game with. The rules even piqued my girlfriend's interest (huge bonus!)
Here are some pics of the game
link
As with many gamers I forgot to start taking pics until a few turns in :)
