Heyhey, here we go again! Hope you’re having lovely holidays. Today I’d like to talk about Battle Suit Alpha by Wiley Games. A set of rules written by Jaye Wiley for mech combat from the Fistful of Lead family.

 

Introduction

I was sitting on the lovely Lead Adventure Forums and asked the lovely people there about wargames rules to use with 1/144th Gundam model kits (a weird thig I got very much absorbed with the past 5 months). The ever-helpful Ultravanillasmurf suggested Battle Suit Alpha (BSA). The PDF was USD 10.00 on Wargames Vault, so I thought I’d give it a try. Especially given how these rules are based on Fistful of Lead (first published in 2001); a long-standing family of rules which I’d seen suggested a lot for various genres over the years. So this is a good excuse to get the rules in the name of ‘research’.

Side note, showing my utter ignorance – only during writing this blogpost I learned that these rules sets got nothing to do with the venerable A Fistful of TOWs set of rules. You live, you learn.

The Book

The 61-page PDF I got (printed version available as well) is full-colour and pretty fancily produced, but is still very readable. Throughout the rules you’ll find diagrams to illustrate some rules or just give the important info at first sight when looking up rules during a game. On top of that there’s plenty of these grey boxes with examples and clarifications for the rules in this chapter, presented by veteran mech pilot Ivanna Petronova.

 

Apart from giant stompy robot suits the rules cover vehicles, infantry and even flyers. Apart from a little back and forth scrolling I did in the close combat section, the rules are very clearly laid-out.

After an introduction and basics like figure and table size we’re presented with the basics of the rules, how activation works and each of the actions are explained. After that we get rules (and a points system) for creating your own lance of mechs, including rules for adding support infantry/vehicles and equipping all of them. And there’s a lot you can build with those equipment and traits options. As always with that sort of generic army lists it’s very handy that the author included examples for how to represent popular franchises in these rules (including kaiju!).

 

On top of that there’s campaign rules for leading your lance through several linked scenarios, including various staff, R&D, replacements, promotion and so on, all based on Reknown points. The rule book includes 6 scenarios, plus rules for fighting in space. In the very back there’s some lovely author’s notes, a Quick Reference Sheet, templates, mech stats sheets and tokens to print.

 

The Rules

BSA (based on Fistful of Lead:Bigger Battles) uses are card-based activation system, using regular playing cards. At the beginning of each turn each player is dealt as many cards as they got units on the table. Players use their cards to activate units one after another, starting with kings (if any player has any), then players may use queens to activate a unit, and so on, down to Twos. Several cards grant special bonuses on top, which may or may not be useful in any given situation. On the whole it’s a very good system, even though at first you’ll constantly find yourself checking wether or not the cards you were dealt grant any bonuses and which ones.

When a unit is activated, it may carry out one action. These actions are very much along the usual lines – move and shoot, move fast, shoot well, charge, rally, etc.
However, there are some added twists, such as the addition of evasive maneuvering, which makes the unit harder to hit whilst moving or the mech-only Powerslide. A rule I would like to see added in almost any set of rules including anything faster than a dude on foot, because it allows to get reckless and crash into things.

Movement rates are fixed based on unit type, moving fast will just double that. Shooting, close combat and the like are rolled for (all d10 based), some basic modifiers are applied. For shooting you roll to meet target numbers (differentiating close or long range), close combat is based on opposed dice rolls.

The basic rules really aren’t complicated at all; according to the author they’re supposed to give swift games with up to 10 units per side (usually between four and six, depending on how large you like your mechs). The activation system being the most interesting part about the rules. I think that this is where friction and tactial choices happen.

 

Test Game

This is a very ad-hoc test game, featuring terrain I had just grabbed out of the box that arrived in the mail a few days ago and one figure not being quite finished yet. The scenario takes place in late November 0079.UC. After successful Operation Odessa Earth Federation forces are trying to hunt down pockets of remaining Zeon forces on the ground. After reports of raids against Earth Federation supply lines in the area two mobile suits are dispatched to investigate and take out any Zeon resistance.

The Forces

 

Earth Federation Forces (E.F.F.)

RGM-79 GM (left)  – Medium Mech (4 Damage Points), Autogun (in-universe: Beam Spray Gun), Light Armour, Shield

RGM-79SP GM Sniper II (right) – Medium Mech (4 Damage Points), Railgun (in-universe: Beam Sniper Rifle), Light Armour, Fast

 

 

Principality of Zeon Forces

MS-07 Gouf (left) – Medium Mech (4 Damage Points), Autogun, Laser Sword (in-universe: Heat Sword), Light Armour, Shield

MS-06S Zaku II (right) – Medium Mech (4 Damage Points), Autogun, Light Armour, Shield

 

The Game

Zeon mobile suits deploy in the left…

… Earth Federation mobile suits on the opposite side. The Sniper II covering the road with his beam sniper rifle.

Zeon forces take the initiative and advance. The Gouf sees a free alley right ahead, so the pilot goes full steam ahead. Note: Time to test the Powerslide rule! Took the Gouf a whopping 9″ further. That move has to be made in a straight line and to the full extent, so it’s possible that it leads to a spectacular crash. In this case it didn’t, but it still proved to be a bad idea…

The Zaku pilot takes the right and moves much more carefully…

   

The unwise Powerslide brings the Gouf right into the Sniper II’s crosshairs.

The pilot lowers the visor, the new sensor array works a treat. The Gouf takes 2 points of damage.

Note: The gun has the Deadly special rule, which basically gives it the ability to inflict critical hits, which it did on the very first hit. The 2 points of damage impede the Gouf’s movement.

The Zaku II pilot – ever the opportunist – is aware that the sniper rifle has to cool down before it can be fired again and opens fire at the Sniper II at long range. Despite the good plan, he misses his shot. Note: The Zaku II is activated with a Jack of Clubs, which grants him a shooting bonus.

At least it has the Sniper II distracted enough though to advance into cover behind the next building…

Hoping to get a good shot at the Gouf just like his comrade did earlier, the GM moves to the flank and readies his Beam Spray Gun.

The Gouf takes a breather behind the building and reconsiders his reckless approach. Note: The Zeon player got quite lucky with his cards there, and managed to have some repairs done on the Gouf. I assume he’s franctically re-attaching cables or beats the instruments or something.

Soon he is joined by his pal. Both Earth Federation mobile suits got their eyes on the building now, only waiting for the Zeon mobile suits to stick their round, colourful heads out…

Finally the Gouf pilot decides that it’s time. He storms around the corner and has the thrusters do overtime. Bobbing and weaving, he advances towards the GM, whose shots all either miss or bounce off the hardened steel alloy armour.

Steadily falling back, the GM pilot fires two more salvos at the Gouf in an increasingly desperate fashion.

Speaking of whom, the Zaku II pilot speeds out at the same time, distracting the Sniper II, who misses his shot.

 

Meanwhile the Gouf storms into close combat.

The GM manages to parry the first blow, but the second hits badly.

Note: Here’s a pretty interesting thing about Battle Suit Alpha – the winner of a round of close combat may choose to switch places with their opponent. This doesn’t only allow for fancy anime swordfight stuff, but in this case actually gets the Gouf behind cover from the Sniper II (as visible in the next picture)!

Fully dismissing the presence of the Sniper II now, the Zaku pilot opens fire at the badly damaged GM and adds another point of damage!

This opens him up for retaliation in the shape of a point-blank beam to the chest, resulting in 2 points of damage.

 Still, things look grim for the Earth Federation team. The GM is barely standing upright, tries for a very last tackle to the blue meanie, …

 

 

…but is struck down by his Heat Sword.

At this point the game is called; it result in a “Sieg Zeon“.

 

 

Verdict

I got the impression that Battle Suit Alpha is a fast and pleasantly sleek rules set for fighting sci-fi games in which stuff blows up. It’s noticeable that this is a modified version around the core of rules which get applied to all sorts of genres, settings and historical periods. Which is perfectly okay with me when it comes to sci-fi/fantasy, and especially skirmishes.

Clearly the main attraction here is the activation system, which is quick, clear and allows for some decision-making on the player’s side. Otherwise it’s lighter on the decision-making, apart fromthe usual maneuvering on the tabletop and so on. Of course I only played with two units per side, which keeps complexity way down as well. That being said, according to the rule book “a normal game” will be something along the lines of either 4 light, 3 medium or 2 heavy mechs per side. So it doesn’t get a whole lot more on top of that. Due to the card activation mechanism, these rules also cater perfectly to multi-player games. That actually might be the key to larger games. A single person confronted with a hand of say 15 cards to allocate to units can easily be overwhelmed. Split it between three people things get clearer.

Speaking of the unit building aspect – that’s pretty rad. You can put together representations of a ton of units. I could well see using these rules for games of a sort-of Adeptus Titanicus (even though I hear that the rules for that are pretty okay) or just straight-up Warhammer 40,000. Well, a game with your 40k figures. Of course you can’t model all the tiny little minutae of the equipment of each single figure. I would have suggested playing this with Epic figures, but games of more than 10 units per side might get a bit complicated.

It goes without saying that these rules are perfectly suited for Battletech.

The sky’s the limit, but that isn’t true, because there’s rules for fighting in space in there as well of course! This sort of army building of course can lead to a generally generic feeling if you play a lot, and the accessability of the rules might also mean that they lose a bit of glamour on several games within a short timespan. As usual, scenarios probably are the solution to that. As well as a gaming table that’s not too small and features enough terrain. According to the rule book, the minium size of table is 3′ by 3′. I’ll always suggest going above 4′ by 4′ on anything if in any way possible.

 

Does it Gundam?

Now as for the representation of Gundam / Mobile Suit combat – Just from reading the rules I was very worried that it would feel too slow and that ranges in general would be too small. The rules are made for large robot suits, but these here are roughly 13cm tall at 1/144th scale. Which is pretty darned big. Whilst playing though it felt perfectly okay, because each turn represents just a very, very short timespan. Each unit only gets one action after all. Which probably is the correct way of capturing short, frantic engagements. The suits feel appropriately hard with 4 Damage Points each. If you add shields on top it can be surprisingly hard to actually hit the opponent’s models.

One word on the rules for damaging models – these are interesting. Basically it’s a to-hit roll, followed by a to-wound roll. That to-wound table looks incredibly swingy at first, results ranging from “1 Shock” to “Out of Action”, but in practice modifiers take care of things staying plausible. Of course rolling a 1 on the D10 will be bad, while a 10 will reap significant effects.

Of course the models aren’t perfect for swift wargaming, and if this was a game between several people I’m sure it would be a good idea to stop players from posing the models all too much just to get the perfect pose for the situation. But then again I build and paint these in a way they stay fully posable, because that’s the unique thing to them compared to the modelling I do otherwise. Also the reason why I don’t put them on bases. The BSA rules actually suggest measuring mechs from the head, which makes a lot of sense, no matter the size of the models you use.

 

So yeah, fun rule. I’ll give them a robotic thumbs-up. Card activation is almost always a good idea, and there’s a lot in these rules to have fun with. Get out your giant robots, sci-fi landships and whatnot!

I hope that you enjoyed this review and battle report and found it interesting. If you have any questions, queries, etc. feel free to contact me via Battle Brush Studios.