"Xenos Rampant 15mm" Topic

Played a learning game tonight with my friend Richard who is new to the rules. 36 points a side. My face huggers lost a close one.

Loads of pics here:

flic.kr/s/aHBqjBcZZh

Well, what did you think of the rules? I haven't seen many reviews of Xenos Rampant, so your opinion would be helpful.

Great pictures.
link

Nice photos, Khurasan?

But these are interesting
IMG_20240204_150406050
Who made (makes?) them?

Alas I've never played Xenos Rampant.
As Mr Warner writes what do you think of the rules?

To be honest I'm not a huge fan of the rampant rules. My friend wanted to learn so I obliged him.

In part they are designed for 2 players on a small table, and most of my gaming is 6-8 players on a 6x12 table. They break down in this situation unless you write a lot of house rules. Movement can be very limiting for example.

The Warmaster style activation mechanic is very gamey. If you fail an activation your turn ends. Huh?

Some stats are clearly just play balance. My Xenos hot on a 3+ in melee when attacking but only on a 6 when defending. It does allow some variation in troop type.

Vehicle are basically just treated as big monsters.

But they are super fast and breezy. We played a big game with a noob in 2.5 hours including a lot of chit chat about non game things.

You could provide command chits for commanders of each detachment. Based on quality they could provide a chit to allow a reroll of a failed action. They could either be a set number or replenish each turn. I am thinking about usingthem for my 15mm Starship Troopers game at Cincycon.

Thanks

John

The activation rule in Xeon's Rampant allows a re-roll if within 12 inches of a commander. If you fail that, you are done. There is also an optional rule to have every unit roll their own activation independently and if that unit fails you keep rolling your other units.

The author states that he hates skirmish rules with total command and prefers the chaos of battle where sometimes units don't get the command, are confused or otherwise don't always do what they are told. Choosing who you want to move first is part of the strategy in this game. Do you roll your easier to move units first, or try to move the unit you most want to go so you get a re-roll.

For multi player games we play where each commander roles for their own forces on a side. If that player fails activation and they're re-roll, they are done, but the other players keep going until they are done or fail. When all players on a side fail or are done, play goes to the other side.