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blipvertus.
blipvertus-
Near future sci fi. Or as I like to describe it, Ukraine next week.
Photos are from a recent game. Black Pact (basically space pirates) vs UN Raid Force Alpha (elite clones and sophisticated drones).
Scenario was for Black Pact to escort a traitor from one side of the map to the other. UN was trying to stop them.
Black Pact are generally average skill but because they’re a criminal gang, they have access to their opponents special weapons but have to spend a limited resource to do so.
UN are elite soldiers and very tough drones but are few in number.
The orange tokens you see in some photos are lean out tokens. They allow you to creep up to the corner of a building and lean out so you get the benefit of cover but also get to draw line of sight from the token.
The game is _incredibly_ lethal.
But it’s very tactical. You need to use cover, concealment and smoke to protect your soldiers while advancing.
And it has a simple but effective reaction system so you can essentially overwatch an opponent’s movement or engage in a shoot out or try and scramble back into cover.
Made by Enemy Spotted Studios, the rules are free.
It’s also run by veterans and a percentage of sales in July are being donated to veteran suicide prevention.
These are dusters. It’s a pilot in a mech suit. A very powerful unit, dusters are strictly optional in game play and you only bring them if both players agree.
Honestly, most players don’t play with them but the models are neat.
These guys are Harlow Kinetic Solutions, 1st Reaction Force. They’re a PMC with roots in South Africa. Think of the guys from the movie District 9.
They’re about speed and getting in close. Their Springbok drones remind me of the police drones in the movie Chapi.
These guys are Impisi. They’re the insurgents of Abol, the first interstellar human colony where Blkout is set. Lacking in skill and using looted weapons, they’re all about asymmetric warfare.
In Blkout, electronic warfare is a thing. These guys are so low tech, they’re aren’t affected by it. The big guy with the shoulder mounted cannon is the Scrap King. It’s basically a guy in home made power armor using battlefield salvage.
These guys are UN 3rd Reserve Battalion. Less skilled than the clones of Raid Force Alpha, these guys have more endurance and want to operate as a clockwork army where humans, drones and AI each have defined roles.
The big robot is called the Peacemaker. His role is as an interdiction suite. He negates enemy electronic warfare and makes peace by eliminating targets. He’s a drone.
The Pointmen are AI robots, one step up from drones. They’re tough and they shield other units. Think of the police robots in Chapi where the robot goes in first and the humans are right behind.
The reservists are the human element. Less skilled than other soldiers, they’re better protected and have access to weapons other soldiers don’t. They use the Peacemaker to take down threats then use the Pointmen as shields.
These are the UN Raid Force Alpha. The soldiers are clones. The robots are the downloaded memories of dead clones. Both are incredibly skilled but will always be outnumbered.
There are other factions, the ones above are just what I play.
Combat is simple. You form a dice pool. You start with 2 dice and add or subtract dice based on cover or special rules. You have one stat. You then Roll dice (D10) needing to equal or exceed your skill. Each is a success. A 10 counts as two successes.
Most of the time you get an armor save. Most of the time it doesn’t matter as the game is _very_ lethal. One unsaved hit kills most models. A 10 on an armor save does nothing for you. It only counts as one success because only Skill tests can critical. Armor saves can’t.
In the photo below, two models are shooting at each other so simultaneously. The guy on the left rolled two successes. The guy on the right rolled two 10s. That’s 4 successes. His hits get applied first. In this case the target on the left could not survive four hits and just instantly died with no armor saves necessary.
Models have two status; Ready or Engaged. Ready models can shoot or react to enemy movement with Overwatch. If you’re being shot at, and you’re ready, you can return fire or dive for cover ( called a Juke in game terms).
Once you shoot, juke or overwatch, you’re engaged and can’t respond to the enemy until the next turn. Turns represent seconds, maybe up to half a minute.
Must admit as soon as I saw the Pointmen from the UN 3rd Reserve Battalion faction I immediatly thought of the Police Bots from the Creator movie
There’s a LOAD of robots and future hard sci-fi troopers in that movie that seem to fit in with the BLKOUT aesthetic (and quite a few paint jobs that could be copied)
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