Armageddon Hour

Despite best efforts I’ve made no progress on the scenery this week and am beginning to despair that I will be able to complete the swamp and the realistic water keeps shrinking so much it is unusable.  So for a change I decided to buy a one-off game to scare away the winter blues and purchased Armageddon Hour via RPGNow so I thought I would share my first impressions and post an AAR tomorrow.

Delivery

For the first time ever, I had a problem buying the files as PayPal failed to link back to the site but thanks to the fast response from the team it RPGNow all files where downloaded.  A couple of minor points to note:

1. You get 25 files to download (including 1 zip file) ranging from PDFs via PNG to JPG.  Now why this could not be one PDF and 1 zip file or all packaged into a zip file I do not know.
2. Do not set RPG Now as a trusted site in IE8 to stop the pop up at download stage.  If you do this you cannot download anything and the site seems to think you are logged out.

Contents

The rules come in three files.  The first is a full colour JPG of the front cover, a full cover set of rules and an ink friendly version with basic pictures and colouring.  I only printed the first eight pages of the rules as the last page is a full colour advert for the teams that made it.

You get six full colour levels and here the quality really begins to shine:

The above is a small sample of one level (copied without permission and not meaning any threat to copyright ownership) and all are to this standard with each level being 7 * 10 tiles in size containing everything from a bed to a radiation symbol.  The zip file has the Paper Make It Shuffler data inside ready for you to change the plans as required.

Supporting these are the core files you need.  First all the characters and opponents are provided for printing and you get a set of paper bases to stand them up.  Even better, if you have never made paper figures before you even get a sheet of instructions on how to print and assemble them.  One Monk Minis have created a wonderful set of mutants, robots and a great gritty hero with NBC suit and shirt options called Frazer.  In total, you get 63 figures – hopefully the enemy units do not all attack at once!

You get 5 A4 sheets of help cards,  these detail search items, equipment and monster attributes and the odd sting in the tail (Radscorpian).  Each of the cards have a coloured board around them that shrinks the details down a size or two and to be honest adds nothing to the game.  Plain white with a simple boarder would have done fine for these bits.

The last sheet is the weakest of the lot – the play sheet detailing the equipment / health and status values.  Though neat it is hard to read and has Ganesha Games website address as a watermark all over it.

To this you have to add 4D6 and a stopwatch / timer as this is a race!

Overall I give this 9 out of 10 for presentation and a big complement to all three companies for the linked up solution.

Rules

The rules are very clear and easy to understand (so far – playing will tell) and comes with a warning I’ve not seen before – a section entitled ‘This Game is Tough’.  Fortunately you are provided with a couple of cheats at the end if you find it impossible to win with an ominous note that you will not need to make it harder.

The activation rules (actions) are based on the SOBH basis of rolling dice and performing up to three actions before the opponents get a single action each.  These actions include moving, searching, weapon fire and reload or patching yourself up modified by moving between levels (good chance to patch yourself up, reload etc) or by skill cards that modify your base attributes by allowing you to run faster, be a more accurate shot or better in combat.  By the way your enemies also have special skills to even things out!

Combat allows for grenades, ranged weapons (with line of site) and hand to hand attacks if you are desperate.  You can run out of ammo, be swamped by enemies and even infected if you are unlucky.

Each type of tile can have an impact on movement, enemy location and combat so the rules detail the tile types on a single reference page.  Keep this handy.

On the last page you get some basic advanced rules for score and experience and 10 FAQs to help you.

All in all, I give 10 out of 10 for these.  Nothing in my read through sticks out as unclear and the minor layout problems (one blank area, no page numbers and 1 advert) do not detract at all.

Coming up soon, the first game.

One tip – print full size.  I am used to printing at 50% for 15mm games – this does not work for this game you have to go large!