With a ton of great information from the public beta, Scum of the Earth trundles towards completion so I thought I'd talk a bit about what all you will find within the rules.
The goal of "Scum of the earth" is broadly to get as many of your unused figures off the shelf and on a table.
You know the guys, those 8 grenadiers you bought and then never got the rest of them painted?
Yeah, those figures.
Television warfare
To that end, we do what we affectionately call "television gaming": Set up battles like they do on a mid-budget television show or film.
So 6 stands make up a unit and 5-6 units make up an army.
What's a stand? Could be a single 28mm figure or it could be 3-4 6mm figures.
Know how on film they will show you a battalion and its 30 re-enactors and the camera zoomed in real tight? Yup. That's what we're doing.
Mechanics
The mechanics are quite straight-forward:
Roll for movement distance, combat is a firing roll vs a roll to "withstand", close combat is an opposed roll with units being far more likely to break from close combat (but also carries far higher risk).
Figures are removed to represent loss of cohesion, rather than physical losses which means your guys tend to stay on the table a bit longer.
We include the option of heroic leaders and adding a few well painted character models like an inspiring bagpiper or a tough old sergeant.
Traits
You can play "a soldier is a soldier" or you can give some traits.
We have a master list of 20 traits and each period of warfare will have a handful more.
So your French hussars might be Arrogant and full of Elan, while the Prussians in 1870 can Schnell Feuer!.
Think of traits as little slices of history for your troops, sometimes a bit humorously so.
Campaigns!
Of course you can play a campaign and it's dang cool too.
I don't want to spoil the entire thing but it works like this:
Each player controls 4 territories, represented by cards.
As you do battle, you will gamble territories that may fall under enemy control.
Some will even give you a bonus on the battle field.
The goal of the campaign is to capture at least 2 enemy territories, one of which must be the Link to their headquarters.
This enables you to launch the winning assault.
Again, the goal is to get people actually PLAYING campaigns to completion.
I hope that catches your attention.
You can still catch the beta for a few days longer at
link
Last words?
How about a Motorhead reference and getting +1 victory points if you lent any of your figures to the opposing players?
Best wishes mates, can't wait to get this one into your hands.
's motivation to paint Napoleonic ships returns!