Xenos Rampant - A 30k Battle Report

The Galaxy is in flames! The Horus Heresy is played out...using "Xenos Rampant" from Osprey.

It is always great to welcome a friend from the hobby world for a game - and a particular treat when they travel from far away. So it was pretty awesome to welcome hobby enthusiast and unbelievably talented painter "MartinN" (aka Nick) on a recent visit to Canada. It's a long, long way from his home in Bavaria, so to make the trip worthwhile, I wanted to run something a little different for Nick. Lucky for me, he is a very relaxed fellow - and when I suggested giving "Xenos Rampant" a go, he was happy to oblige!

What is "Xenos Rampant"?

"Xenos Rampant" is a set of sci-fi skirmish rules published by Osprey. They were first released in 2022, so this is hardly breaking news here. Those familiar Osprey's wargaming rule ouevre in general will surely note the word "Rampant" in the title and suspect a kinship with the "Lion Rampant" rules - and you would be right to, as they share a common author. You can find many reviews and play-throughs of the rules elsewhere online, but I can confirm that, while the two rule sets share many familiar ideas in terms of core game mechanics, "Xenos Rampant" is a delightful, figure and scale agnostic tribute to sci-fi wargaming in general. I had a specific goal for the games with Nick - could they be made to work for the 30k setting?

Spoiler alert: YES. I loved it. Here are a few photos and notes of our own game. 

The Mission: Scenario Kilo - VIP Extraction

I love the whole "both sides show up and try to kill each other" type-game as much as the next gamer. And we are talking 30k setting-wise, of course, so that style of game pretty much tracks. But the 30k setting is also so much more - at its best, it reaches into some of the sci-fi-of-the-absurd from the Rogue Trader days. I figured the "VIP Extraction" mission might make for a nicely warped background. We just needed the right sort of "VIP" for the setting.

The VIP and his flunkies await assistance...

And so - meet Totally Legitimate Plenipotentiary Ruler Effrey J. Trumpstein.  TLPR Trumpstein and his staff have been out on a tour of the explodium refinery facilities in the desert segments of their world. Suddenly, the shuttle is forced down in an isolated area. The vessel is wrecked, but Trumpstein and his staff have (mostly) made it out from the wreckage...they access a terminal near the explodium pipeline and signal for help...but that signal is intercepted by more than Trumpstein's planetary militia...

"It's not all wall-building! We've got work to do!"

Both loyalist and traitor detachments detect the signal. The chance to take "custody" of TLPR Trumpstein is too much to pass up - and in any case, his custody must be denied to the other side! Detachments from the Loyalist VII Legion Astartes and rebel XVI Legion Astartes descend on the target coordinates with a clear objective - secure Trumpstein, and eliminate any problems that arise.

The Detachments

A 24-point detachment resplendent in the fine colours of the XVI Legion Astartes

When I started reading through the "Xenos Rampant" rulebook, one immediately encouraging clue was that the competing sides are described as "detachments", and not "armies"...it's a little thing, but to me this is always a clear signal that the writers have a sane take on gaming...

Stubborn idiots wearing yellow. 

Anyway, for the test game, I opted to use similar detachments for both sides - after all, we were experimenting here, and I wanted to keep it relatively straightforward. One great feature of the "Xenos Rampant" set is the provision of different rules to customize the troops types so that they might closely reflect your chosen setting as possible. 

In "Xenos Rampant", each unit in the detachment has a number of "Strength Points" ("SPs") - either 5, 10 or (in some cases) 15. Note that "SPs" are not the same as the "points cost" to select the unit - so I try to keep each element straight in the roster below.  

Each side, Loyalist and Rebel, had a 24 point detachment:

Example of how you can just use a bunch of cool figures to represent the flunkies, rather than worry about which model has which power/ability/etc. This is the Commander and his detachment. They are bad-ass. The apothecary is a reminder that the unit has the "combat medic" ability.

- Space Marine Commander and command squad (i.e. Elite infantry/detachment commander - enhanced with "high powered blades" and "combat medic") - 9 points, 5 SPs

- 2 x 10-man tactical squads with bolt guns (i.e. Heavy infantry, with "increased squad size") - 4 points each, 10 SPs each

- 1 x 10-man assault squad with chain swords and pistols (i.e. Heavy infantry, with "increased squad size", "assault doctrine", "close quarters doctrine", "mobile" and "skimmer" rules to account for the jump packs and close assault weapon load out) - 7 points, 10 SPs

As you will see if you squint at the photos, each SP= 1 model in each unit. And while the assorted special rules let you capture some flavor among the different squads, they are abstract enough that you do not sweat the load out of a specific figure too much. This is the sort of thing that I observe to be slightly triggering to a lot (although by no means all) GW players, but I find personally awesome and liberating.

The Table

The table was 4'x4', featuring some old temple ruins from some long-gone, pre-Imperial compliance civilization. Explodium pipelines ran over and through these ruins, as well as a roughly paved service road. Finally, the remnants of the VIP's downed shuttle craft dotted the site. 

The Imperial Fists hunker down, as is their wont...

The VIP placed right in the middle - near the terminal his flunkies were using to signal for assistance. The detachments competing to put him into custody deployed 9" in from opposing table edges. I took command of the Sons of Horus while Nick took charge of the Imperial Fists. Battle was. joined!

Another photo of the VII Legion setup...

The Engagement

Both Nick and I sought to advance to the VIP, take him "into custody", and spirit him off our respective table sides. The forces were evenly matched, and fittingly enough, the opposing assault squads repeatedly assaulted one another on one flank. My jump troopers were ultimately able to wear out Nick's guys, driving them back. My jump troops were now free to pounce on one of Nick's tactical squads, and while we were not able to rout them, we tied them up and opened a clear path for my Commander to reach TLPR Trumpstein and his entourage...

It's brother vs. brother in a chain sword brawl! Oh yeah!!

On the other flank heavy gun battles wore down one of my tactical units - lucky for me, they bent-but-did-not-break. All together, they tactical and assault marines were able to jam up the Imperial Fists long enough for my Detachment commander to spirit Trumpstein away to a, er, secure location. Yes...that's it...a secure location...safety first with The Warmaster, of course!

"Sir, you'll need to come with us."

In all the action took about five turns, tops. On reflection, I wish I had more terrain available, particularly some buildings, to break up line of sight a bit more - that might have compelled more maneuvering. I would also expand the size of the playing table, as a 6' x 4' would still provide plenty of fun while challenging players with a bit more maneuvering. 

My assault squad can be seen here fleeing tactically repositioning after a less-than-successful attack on the Imperial Fist tactical squad at the right side of the photo - but at least we delayed them.

Conclusion

For my part, I loved "Xenos Rampant"! You roll buckets and buckets of dice while exchanging fire and hurling your units into violent assaults. The units for the most part wore down very slowly, but this made sense given the nature of the stats of the troops involved - to me this "felt" right, very much "marine vs. marine". It's got enough detail to provide for flavor and character, but abstract enough that you are not fussing about which precise version of plasma pistol or power sword or whatever is equipped on the model. 

XVI Legion Praetor, accompanied by flunkies, sets out to accomplish the mission. His iterator is already putting out the good word! 

It is also SO easy - and fun! - to assemble detachments. In the future I can see how it would be fun to, say, include a lightly-equipped militia rabble alongside the Marines, or to include a unit of Marines from an allied Legion featuring some different traits. The newer version of 30k is certainly more flexible in terms of force construction, but there are still a bunch of rules to watch and hoops to jump through. "Xenos Rampant" keeps it WAY more simple.  

Should you ditch 30k to play "Xenos Rampant" instead? I'm not here to make that case per se - the 30k game is a specific sort of wargame experience, and I have enjoyed many, many games of 30k myself over the years. 

But I would still very, very much suggest picking up "Xenos Rampant" and giving it a try! Think of it as a fun, easy sort of palate cleanser. If you have a 30k force, odds are you already have more than enough painted models to try it out, so it is not hard. The "GW Hobby" can be engaging, but it's good to try different stuff, and this is a fun and easy way to enjoy the setting you love without burning the calories needed for the full GW rules experience. The hobby is not a zero sum game, after all and Osprey have some wonderful skirmish rules out there. Give them a shot!

Anyway, it was SO awesome to host Nick - thanks for visiting us in Canada. 

And that's it for this post - stay tuned for more painting (soon, I hope!). 

Forged in Battle 15mm 8th Army Infantry

I've now (mostly) finished the infantry company for my 8th Army in the Western Desert project. I do have some Vickers MMG teams and 3" mortars, as well as a couple stands of Boys AT rifles and 2" mortars, yet to complete but I wanted to post these models up.

 

The great majority of the models are from Forged in Battle, a UK manufacturer you might know better as West Wind - why the name change I'm not sure. I say "the great majority" because a couple Peter Pig models have snuck into the company (the pistol-armed platoon commanders). More on this later.

 

You'll notice that the models are based for Flames of War... so you might well wonder why I didn't just use Battlefront infantry. I sure would have liked to do that - but they are unavailable. From anywhere. I even emailed BF directly to ask when they would be back, and I was told that there were no plans but my request would be "passed on to the production team." Take that for what you will, but my experience with BF is that they're a hot mess.

 

There are a couple other options for 15mm 8th Army infantry - Peter Pig, Command Decision - but I chose FiB because the painted models on their website looked absolutely gorgeous. I was happy to paint these models, I think they look pretty great, but while it came good in the end, getting this order from FiB wasn't exactly straightforward.

I put in a large order of both British and Germans - a large infantry "platoon pack", a pack of MMGs, a pack of mortars, and a pack of two AT guns, for each side. The FiB shipping caluclator led me to a workaround as adding one more pack doubled the shipping... so I ordered one pack of AT guns as a separate order. That's additional hassle for the retailer for sure but a poor customer experience when the shipping doubles by adding one pack of models. Anyway...

  

The models arrived in "reasonable time" (I followed up with them once IIRC) and while many of the castings looked quite nice (including these 8th Army infantry) some of the castings were absolutely appalling (the German infantry and MMGs). I did communicate this back to FiB and their representative was very apologetic (apparently the molds were worn out and due for replacement). She offered to replace the bad castings and I heartily accepted that offer.

I also requested some missing poses from the British MMG packs (I only received one gunner figure for the four MGs) and the reply was somewhat puzzling... basically I was told that packs contained a random assortment of models. I get that in an infantry pack you might not get identical numbers of every pose (I didn't), but surely you need to include four actual gunner models in a four-machinegun pack!

In due course the replacement Germans arrived but FiB had forgotten to send the machinegunners. They eventually did send them but from start to finish the order took several months.

ANYWAY... I really like the British infantry (with a couple exceptions - the Thompson sub-machinegun carried by the NCO (photo below) is terrible-looking, and the Christ-like officer (all he's missing is a cross) is just strange and was left unpainted - hence the Piggie replacements. However the rest of the infantry models are all quite good, the equipment looks great, and the poses are all really useful. There are three prone Bren-gunners and number twos included, plus a prone Boys AT team and 2" mortar team. All really good stuff. 

Painting: helmet and uniforms AK Light Earth, washed Agrax and re-highlighted. Flesh Doombull Brown highlighted Cadian Flesh, socks Steel Legion Drab, rifles Leadbelcher, AK brown, highlighted New Wood. The webbing was left LE with the Agrax wash and the contrast obtained by highlighting the uniform around it, if that makes sense. Rifle slings are Deck Tan which I may tone down a bit as it's pretty light. For the groundwork I mixed Medium Brown into the basing gel and wet-brushed it up with AK Khaki and finished with a Deck Tan drybrush.

So my goal now is to get the rest of the infantry painted in the next month, with a target of having a game on Thanksgiving weekend. I'll keep you posted on progress. As for Forged in Battle... well it was an experience. The models I got were pretty nice but it took a lot of effort to get them - something I'm not really used to as a customer of an established business. The FiB representative was very friendly, responsive and accommodating of requests but honestly, most of the requests shouldn't have had to have been made in the first place. Worn out molds should be identified and replaced before miscast figures are sent to customers, and packs of special weapons should contain all the figures needed to crew them. Thankfully it all worked out in the end.

Toodles!

More Sons of Prospero

For Prospero! Another XV Legion Astartes tactical squad is ready to move out. 

We are in the final weeks of summer, and it is time to show some results from the painting desk, including a project that started, um, last winter...you know, sometimes, how a specific painting effort just sort of dribbles along...well, here is one such effort, from GW's Horus Heresy setting (no surprise there). This is a brand new, 20-man tactical squad for the XV Legion Astartes, the Thousand Sons. These are multipart Mk III armoured plastic kits from GW's newer "Age of Darkness" range, sporting custom resin heads and embossed shoulder pads. 

A couple of the "regular" grunts. Love those whacky proto-space-Egyptian helmets!

The "newer" plastic Mark III armoured kits are, well, not that new any longer, but still seem relatively new to a grognard like me. I was a huge fan of the previous generation of Mk III plastic Space Marines and the newer ones, while nice - and admittedly better-proportioned - still didn't quite have the full "space-baroque charm" of those previous sculpts. Plus, they featured the divisive spiked helmet...anyway, see here for more on all that. 

Another view of some of the regular chaps. I also find that I love the chunky bolt guns that come with the newer Mk III plastic kits. 

At any rate, the point in this post is not to revisit that, but I did wonder late last year if perhaps a blend of the newer plastic Mk III kits and the older, custom Legion heads might look cool in the instance of the Thousand Sons? I had seen some examples online, and it looked...kind of sharp! Given that I had been looking build up my XV Legion collection, I thought a second large, full-on 20-man tactical squad might be the way to go...

Vox trooper and vexillary on hand to support their fellows. 

And it turned out pretty good, at least in my biased opinion. The old custom Forge World helmets don't have the best fit with the newer plastics - the "neck" recess on these plastics is much deeper than previous, so it takes a little careful adjusting to make sure the helmet sits. But it still comes together nicely! I painted these fellows in singles and in pairs through the spring and summer - so it took forever - and then I procrastinated on getting the photos, then finally getting the post done etc. etc....but here they are at last!

The Sergeant got to keep his "regular" combed helmet! As is proper, he also has some scrolls - and a grenade - because 30k.

You might also note that I left the unit's Sergeant with the original head from the new plastic kits...and it turned out alright! Of course, his helmet sports a comb and not a spike, but this has emboldened me to experiment further with these newer plastic Mk III kits - if not for this Legion, then another one.

I do like this fellow taking aim...

As ever, I continue to stick to the non-metallic red for this project. As nice as it might be to find some way to achieve that metallic red look, I do like this matte finished red/gold/white combo as well. The custom Thousand Sons bits really help them "pop" on the table as well. 

A great many Horus Heresy enthusiasts love the assorted specialized units to be found among the army lists, but for me, the very best Horus Heresy gaming is to be found when huge 20-man tactical squads march across the battlefield and bash each other to bits! Good times! My XV Legion Astartes is now in a much stronger position to pursue this strategy, as these fellows will join a similar-sized "beakie" squad painted in a previous Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. 

One last group photo...

Will bashing away with huge tactical squads still be fun in the 3.0 version of the "Age of Darkness" game? That remains to be seen - I'm still awaiting my first game using the new version of the rules, and I haven't even yet tortured myself in trying to understand the new variations on the Thousand Sons' legion-specific rules. I do know that a chunk of my version 2.0 force will not be fully "valid" due to the changes in how Veteran Tactical Squads are configured - but having this second huge tactical squad handy will more than cover that "gap". As ever, the real pressure continues to be a dire lack of vehicles...might be something I will look to address during (when else?) the next Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge!