Season 1 - Granite!

Over the next few months we plan to show off the minis and preview art for the characters which will make up the Supers Unlimited Season 1 releases.

The range is being planned in seasons, groups of minis to build up existing Factions or add new Factions.

One of the Season 1 characters will be Granite!

Stay tuned for more previews and information in the weeks and months ahead.

Supers Unlimited Miniatures

Hi all!

I just wanted to flag up that Kitbash Games is working on a small range of supers minis which we plan to launch later this year!

The initial range is expected to comprise 9 minis: 4 Heroes, 4 Villains and 1 Anti-Hero. The launch will be backed up by a set of quick-start rules and eventually a full build your own characters rule-set.

The first of the minis we have to show are The Cowl and Doc Cosmos. The Cowl was completed recently while Doc Cosmos was developed as a personal project which we have decided to include in the wider Supers Unlimited range.

The first four minis are already sculpted, and the fifth is underway - the rest will follow soon! As soon as we get painted examples of the minis we will show them here.

In the mean-time, updates will also come through the Kitbash Games Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/KitbashGames/

Thanks! :)

Scorpio Troopers Rising!

This art for a Scorpio Trooper is the second piece commissioned for Squad Wars.

There is a loose background provided in Squad Wars should players want or need it, howveer the game is very much designed for players wanting to create or recreate their own preferred settings.

In the fluff that is included, Scorpio is a trans-national terrorist and criminal organisation, divided into many splinter cells. Recently there has been a schism between the ideologically fanatical groups and the more criminally focused elements.

Scorpio Troopers are the backbone of Scorpio forces, their red and black armour and fatigues making them a distinctive sight and intimidating presence in fire-zones.

Copyright (©) Kitbash Games 2017

What Is....Squad Wars

This will be the first in a very occasional series of posts under the ‘What Is….’ banner, basically giving a brief overview of one of the books planned for the Kitbash line.

Squad Wars is a rule-set designed to play out modern military-action pulp skirmish games, with the emphasis on being fast-paced, flexible and fun, yet still allowing tactical and strategic thinking.

Forces are built up with Characters, and Characters are defined by their Traits, Skills, Weapons, and Gear. Character creation is built around a few archetypes as follows: Operators (your main characters), Solo's (infiltrator/assassin types), Grunts (your standard soldier), and for really exotic gaming, Robotic Troopers (almost mindless combat automatons).

Characters be grouped in various ways, so you can form Units of Grunts (made up of basic infantry or support types carrying RPGs, LMGs or GPMGs, as well as medics, officers etc.), who can also be led by an Operator.

Operators are the headline Characters, and can form Units with other Operators, or a Unit could have a mix of Grunts and Operators. Many Operators can be created in such a way to offer Unit buffs, especially if they are the Unit Leader.

Solos function independently and are typically powerful and vital assets in your Force, but you need to time their usage right as they can find themselves unsupported, think of them as your scalpel whereas Units are your hammer.

Game-play alternates between players Activating a single Unit or Character at a time, paying their Action costs from the models’ own Moxie pool (think of Moxie as Action Points). Moxie builds as the Mission progresses, and is spent to use Actions or Reactions (Reactions are usually used in response to Enemy Actions), but can also be lost as models become Suppressed.

Squad Wars does not use Rounds to limit game length, instead the Mission continues until Endgame is reached, after which point players finish their final Activations and determine the winner. Each Mission has its own Endgame parameters, and players can supplement Missions with Secondary Objectives (think of these as lesser ‘side Missions’, but unlike Missions players may be playing different Secondary Objectives which are kept secret until the game has concluded).

In all, Squad Wars emphasizes action and is designed to allow players to dream up all kinds of themed Forces, emulating classic military pulp action from cartoons, TV shows, movies, books, video games and comics. The core rule-book will be available in a handy A5 format as pdf and Print on Demand options, and is currently scheduled for release before the end of 2017.

Copyright © Kitbash Games 2017

Images includes miniatures from the author's collection and another collection used with permission.

Yomper Ready For Action!

Yomper is the first character whose art I commissioned for Squad Wars. He is a tough, no-nonsense British marine seconded to work with Strike Force, a top-secret multinational military force formed to combat emerging global threats including the insidious Scorpio.

The background presented in Squad Wars is there only to offer a framework should players choose it. The game is ultimately designed to be played with whatever factions players wish to recreate. However, page upon page of text is pretty hard to read, so pictures are needed to make the book easier on the eye for gamers! Therefore, Squad Wars has its own nominal background, but the rules are intended as a tool-kit to develop player's own gaming milieu.

Copyright (©) Kitbash Games 2017

The Shape of Things to Come....

Squad Wars is taking shape. I finally have a working draft of text that I am happy to play-test with, which has meant a lot of writing, rewriting and rewriting again.

While I am doing that and while getting into the play-test phase, I have started commissioning art to fill up some of the pages in the book. This is something I really enjoy as it makes you think as an author about how to describe something as effectively as possible in a simple way that n artists can translate your mental vision into a piece of finished art.

This week I am being a little sneaky, just showing a silhouette, but from next week I will start to reveal some of the art I am gathering for Squad Wars.

Breaking Radio Silence....

Hi and apologies for the break since the last post!

I promise I have not inactive in recent months, instead I have been focusing on readying a second book that will eventually become a Kitbash product: Squad Wars.

While Supers Unlimited is aimed at taking a fast-pace action approach to supers-gaming,  Squad Wars is intended to enable military-pulp-action gaming in the style of classic 1980's series such as G.I. Joe, Action Force, M.A.S.K., The A-Team, and MegaForce etc. The game is not attached to any existing IP, just intended to emulate some of the things you might expect from gaming this kind of over the top genre.

I'll be showing some Squad Wars previews in coming weeks as well as some more Supers Unlimited previews as I progress on that. Both rule-sets are ready for play-test but I have deferred my hoped-for launch to later in the year as I weigh up what I want to do with regards to layout and design.