I've recently ordered a selection of 10mm-scale miniatures for the hard-sci-fi setting I've been writing (in the form of a novel that will hopefully get finished sometime). All miniatures are my own designs, printed by Shapeways. Aircraft and trucks are WSF; infantry are FUD painted with acrylic and given a coat of matte varnish to retain the paint.
The gist of the background is that a handful of regiments of infantry and air cavalry are deployed to the Gamma Doradus system to reestablish order after severe solar events cut the system off for nearly thirty years- an event referred to by locals as the Break. The system's primary inhabited planet, Shoshone, lost most of its population to freezes and starvation in the first few years, as its civilization gradually disintegrated. Much of Shoshone's garrison troops eventually went bandit, turning against the population they were intended to protect. Worst of all, the cessation of solar storms that allowed the deployment of the humanitarian mission is only a temporary lull- they're stuck in for another ten years, according to the astronomers. Making the best of a bad (to put things mildly) situation, the deployed troops begin integrating with the surviving population and those garrison and law enforcement who did not go bandit. The aim is something like the USMC's CAP program in Vietnam- to use small units of advanced troops with modern body armor, communications (badly degraded by solar storms), and VTOL aircraft as force multipliers for the locals.
I'm going homebrew with the rules- they're skirmish/squad-level; a fireteam and a vehicle or emplacement on each side makes for a very engaging game with good scenario design. D10s are used throughout for higher granularity. A mechanic I'm especially pleased with is ammunition- no bookkeeping; any doubled dice results means that a weapon is out of ammunition. Weapons have a maximum ROF, but may roll fewer dice if desired. There's an element of risk versus reward- more dice means a greater chance to hit, but a far greater likelihood of running out of ammunition. Sustained firefights are not likely to produce casualties once both sides get dug in; the real damage gets done by units flanking while the base-of-fire element keeps the enemy's head down.
Traditional turn structure has been thrown out- players alternate activating figures, and no figure may be activated twice in a row. Proximity to a squad or team leader allows activation of a cluster of figures in one go, or for nearby figures to receive a bonus action. Ordinarily, figures only get one action- it must be used wisely.
Another mechanic I'm using is the requirement to re-roll successful rolls to hit against units in cover, units beyond half range (with weapons not equipped with optical sights), and fast-moving aircraft. It is a VERY harsh penalty, and the chances of scoring a hit are realistically small. Troops in cover are very hard to dig out; your options are CQB or artillery, and artillery is quite hard to come by in a setting barely a step up from post-apocalyptic.
Vehicles are very fragile, especially VTOLs, and must keep their speed up. I have not yet gotten to playtest armor, but it will be mostly confined to MRAPs and other light armor. This is balanced by giving vehicles very high crew survivability- crews of disabled trucks or downed VTOLs tend to survive, and can have a large impact on the outcome of the game.
One of Shoshone's primary industries before the Break was uranium mining, with 80% of ore exported. Mining continued after the Break, to keep small power stations online, but at a reduced scale. This scenery piece (clearly unpainted) represents the production shaft at one of the dozens of small-scale mines active after the Break, producing low tonnages for local use.
Here, the same mine scenery piece has been painted- intended to suggest rust and neglect, but not abandonment, given the recent tire tracks and good condition of the equipment. It is adjoined by a metal warehouse or barn- in this scenario, the barn housed a stash of mine explosives controlled by bandits (known as Wreakers to the locals). Air Cavalry troops, played by my fiance were inserted to destroy the stockpile. This was her first taste of wargaming, and she took to it very well, capturing a AAA emplacement whose defenders ran out of ammunition, and turning the emplacement against its former masters- the ensuing explosion killed or wounded almost all of the defenders!
A photo from the same game- an OVX-3A Pueblo scout fanjet about to insert a pair of aero riflemen, who will wind up capturing the AAA emplacement and winning the game. These fanjets have an abominable combat record, with only a 17% survival rate (I counted). Allowing fragile VTOLs to hover within range and LOS of emplaced weapons is not wise at all; the enemy must be suppressed or otherwise distracted for insertions or extractions to proceed as planned. I am going to order an MVX-7G Bannock heavy special operations transport fanjet to counter this, but my luck is not good with such things.
A photo from a game we played earlier tonight. My light infantry fireteam has established a base of fire (center bottom) with a .338 medium machine gun and a rifleman armed with an M440 grenade launcher, while the team leader and another rifleman (middle right) sneak up to a Wreaker supply cache located in the house on the mountain. I made a tactical error in sending my TL on the assault- he should have made up the other half of the support-by-fire element- he was killed by autocannon fire from across the valley, the only fatality sustained by either side during the game. The loss of his command-and-control ability complicated and hampered my efforts to suppress Wreaker troops on the mountain while my surviving rifleman tried in vain to destroy the cache.
I later managed to call in a QRF- a game mechanic that has seen quite a bit of use- consisting of an OVX-3A and an ARVX-1B Arapaho fanjet gunship. The OVX-3A, as usual, was shot down by small-arms fire when preparing to land on the mountain and retrieve my now-badly-wounded rifleman, who had also managed to get himself captured by the Wreakers on the mountain. Thankfully, both crewmen survived with minimal to no injury, secured my rifleman, and got him safely off the mountain. The Arapaho gunship, in addition to knocking out a Wreaker AAA emplacement and a technical armed with guided missiles, knocked out the weapons cache with a salvo of four missiles. In light of the casualties, need for a QRF, and loss of a VTOL, we decided that the game was a tie, despite my Air Cavalry troops achieving their primary objective.
The playtest games- we've gotten through four games in two days- have been very successful, allowing me to find and eliminate or correct rules conflicts and interactions. Narrative elements have also been added and expanded upon- the ability to take POWs, munitions caches that may be used to replenish ammunition, the ability to overrun and capture emplacements, characters who may repair knocked-out but salvageable vehicles over a long period of in-game time, QRF/reinforcement requests, et cetera. The experience is supposed to be similar to that of a squad or fireteam leader on the ground, with appropriate control over your troops, ability to make use of environmental objects, and realistic options for higher-level support.
