Since Star Wars came out in 1977, I have always loved science fiction and fantasy. Like millions of others, it opened my eyes to new beginnings.
In 1979, at the age of 15, I bought and played my first tactical board game. It was Squad Leader. I loved the game mechanics and the concept of recreating events from World War II in the scenarios given. Shortly thereafter, my first science fiction board game was Starship Troopers, which was based on the book by Robert Heinlein. The idea of powered armour troopers appealed to me right away.
In the early 80’s I started creating ideas of my own for tactical, strategic and RPG games, all based on this one universe. One of my best friends had helped with it by creating drawings of vehicles and equipment that we could use in the games. I even created an alien language. Not perfect linguistically, but passable. It was great doing all that stuff back then, but it was not getting me anywhere. We did it just for fun.
About 12 years ago now, I created a science fiction strategy board game of galactic war. There were 8 races involved, each with a background. The map involved about 30 or more worlds throughout the galaxy. I took that game to a local game manufacturer and was given a tour of the facility, showed them the game and was told what it would cost to get the initial product. I knew it would be expensive at the time, and I had no idea where to go with it after that. So I put it on the sidelines.
Last year, in summer of 2013, a great science fiction movie, called Pacific Rim, came out about giant mecha fighting giant monsters. Since then I have seen that movie over 25 times. I was waiting for someone to create a decent tactical or strategic board game based on that movie, but no luck. All that came out was a simple card game and a standalone miniatures game, both of which I have. So in January 2014 (which is the time when I usually have my brainstorms), I decided to create a game based on that movie.
I was able to complete the first draft of the game, complete with game board, playing cards and components within two weeks. As I made modifications to it over the next few weeks, I had my friends and family members playtest it for me. They enjoyed the idea and lots of input was provided for improvement.
About 6 weeks after starting the Pacific Rim strategy board game, I decided to contact Warner Brothers to get licensing rights to use the material from the movie for the game. All I got back eventually was that they are busy and could take a few weeks for them to return my request.
My wife convinced me to take my own route with the game, rather than possibly give up rights to it to a big time movie company. So I hemmed and hawed that day, and looked over the material I had created 30 years ago. It was then I had an epiphany. I had all the info right here in order to make my own strategic board game.
So with the exception of my job, and some community work I do, I spent a lot of late nights, followed by early mornings for the next two weeks constantly working on modifying the game to suit my concept of an epic science fiction strategy board game. The end result of that is Kaiju Conquest. A strategic board game of alien invasion and combat between mecha and monsters.
Although I will be posting more detailed events on this page, I also have a link to the Kaiju Conquest Facebook page to look at previous and current postings.
This cover art is the first piece of art I had my illustrator, Becca T-R create for the game. It was to determine if she was the right artist for me. She did not disappoint.
So, I playtested game 46 with my long time friend and fellow gamer, Todd, the other day. He played the Kaiju, currently called Sazzarran, pronounced, Sa Zzarr an. I played the UNRF (United Nations Reaction Force), a United Nations combined earth force.
Rather than explain in detail how to play, see the link to the rules.
http://www.kaijuconquest.com/?forum=376271
We were trying out a few changes to the rules to see if the Kaiju forces would have a better chance at winning the game. Up to this point, the humans were winning two thirds of the time. One of the original rules for the Kaiju was that only one Portal would appear on the first turn. But we decided to try it with the Kaiju player rolling 1d10 on the chart and applying any result. What happened was he rolled a 10, which means three portals appeared on the first turn.
His target cities were Honolulu, Anchorage and Vancouver. All within one zone of each other. When the Kaiju player deploys on the first turn, they get the Sea Leviathan automatically, as well as one other Titan per portal in play. In this case, the Kaiju player gained four Titans on the first turn, when he would only receive two. The four Titans were the Sea Leviathan and three Brawlers. With the exception of the Sea Leviathan, of which there is only one, there are 6 other Titan types, of 3-4 copies of each that a person could put into play. So Todd just happened to draw three Brawlers in his Resource Cards along with a lot of Sazzarran military land, sea, air and Reaper units.
The UNRF player, myself in this instance, gets 16 Resource cards every time on the first turn, and gets to choose every one of the units listed on each of the cards. The exception is the mecha, which the UNRF player does not get until the second turn. So any mecha cards drawn are immediately replaced with normal military units. I got my units and placed them on the city zones to protect them as much as possible while gaining zones for control and victory points.
The first turn, as usual, was a slaughter for the UNRF units in the zones that the Kaiju deployed. The Kaiju player was able to spread out some of his units to neighboring zones to gain control and victory points of his own.
In fact, by the end of Turn 1, the Kaiju player had 20 Victory Points to 11 VP's for the UNRF. Most of those VP's for the UNRF was the bases and zones I already controlled.
On Turn 2, the Kaiju deployed a portal in Hong Kong. The forces on the west coast also spread out to more neighboring zones, gaining some and losing some. The end result was the Kaiju player had 51 VP's, and the UNRF had 32 VP's.
On Turn 3, the Kaiju player had the Sea Leviathan, four Brawlers and an Ironsides in play. The UNRF finally gained one Aquatic and one Jungle Warrior mecha. I placed each one at a base on each coast to cover both sides of the Pacific Ocean.
The Kaiju player used a Bio-Bomb in Hawaii, causing only one UNRF Army unit to convert to a Sazzarran Drone unit. The UNRF used the Heroic Sacrifice Command Card on the Aquatic Mecha, which can only be done when it is wounded. Using the card forces it to detonate its nuclear engine, in order to decimate the Kaiju units and Titans, managing to eliminate the Ironsides, which was already wounded, and wounding the Sea Leviathan. The end result for that turn was Kaiju with 84 VP's and UNRF with 49 VP's.
On Turn 4, the UNRF player had lost 3 of its 4 bases, but had 2 Jungle Warriors and a Quad Guardian located at Hong Kong base. The Kaiju player gained two portals that turn, and more units and Titans. By this time, the Kaiju forces had occupied every city zone on the west coast except Santiago. Some of the Kaiju forces moved to Tokyo to take over more zones, The UNRF needed to take back zones so attempted to attack with the three mecha, using the Evac units to transport them from Hong Kong to Tokyo. The battle was brutal with two Jungle Warrior Mecha, a Quad Guardian mecha and three Evac units against a Sea Leviathan, one Brawler and a few Sazzarran Sea and Reaper units.
The end result was the Sea Leviathan and Sea units departed the zone, as there were no aquatic mecha, naval or air units to properly engage them. So the Kaiju Brawler and the Reapers were defeated with the two Jungle Warriors and Quad Guardian still in play. Turn 4 ended with Kaiju having 100 VP's and UNRF with 61 VP's.
Turn 5 was the last turn, after 2 1/2 hours, as the Kaiju had 6 bases and occupied the entire west coast. The UNRF would not have lasted another turn with the little resources they had at their disposal. The final score was Kaiju with 124 VP's and UNRF with 68 VP's. This last image below shows the amount of Kaiju units occupying the west coast.
So what did we learn from this one?
1. Not to allow for the Kaiju player to have more than one Portal on the first turn. We decided to keep to theme and the historic element of the war, as it was written.
2. The Kaiju player would still get a chance to destroy cities rather than preserve them if it will mean gaining VP's over the UNRF player. For every city destroyed, the UNRF player loses the amount of VP's equal to the damage points the city has. So if Hawaii has 4 damage, then the UNRF player loses 4 VP's.
3. The bases, bio-bombs and nukes can only be exchanged based on Resource cards not the units within the cards. During this game, it allowed the Kaiju player to gain 6 bases and several bio-bombs throughout the game. It is possible, at risk of less units in play, but it was best to have it based on the original rules.
So that is gaming session 46. Stay tuned for future playtest games. Any comments is appreciated, even on the Kaiju Conquest Facebook page.
This is one of the Kaiju Titans, simply called the Giant Ape with background information. Because there was more than one of the same Titan, the humans had basic naming conventions for them, although some would call them by other names. Over the next few weeks I will be introducing the other mecha and Titans that fought in the invasion of Earth.
Height: 40m
Primary Role: Front line assault Titan
Secondary Role; None Identified
Description: Normally a friendly race. Their hair is a mix of browns and blacks, bluish feet and hands.
Background: The Shimen Kolata is a native to the world of Byndazii. Byndazii is a temperate world, with a few large continents and many islands. It has a mix of desert, mountain, jungles, arctic and temperate regions. The Shimen Kolata prefer to inhabit the rain forests and mountainous terrain. The rain forests on Byndazii can reach over 100m tall.
The Shimen Kolata enjoy leaping and climbing about these trees. There is another intelligent species on Byndazii called the Ferook. Where the Shimen Kolata are 40m tall, the Ferook are about 2m tall. The Ferook have a light coating of striped and spotted fur that is unique to their species, much like the Shimen Kolata.
When Sazzarran diplomats (I use that term diplomats loosely) appeared on planet, they were amazed at the variety of species, especially the Shimen Kolata, when they could see them. It seemed the Shimen Kolata were a timid sort, considering their size. But it was soon found that they could be protective and very ferocious when provoked. And because it is in their nature, the Sazzarran did provoke the Shimen Kolata any way they could.
The Sazzarran wanted the Ferook to help them capture some of the Shimen Kolata, but the Ferook would have nothing to do with it. The two species lived together well and preferred to leave each other alone. When the Sazzarran started to threaten then kill the Ferook, the Shimen Kolata took notice and attacked the Sazzarran envoy.
Many of the Sazzarran were slaughtered, but so were some of the Shimen Kolata and many Ferooki. The remainder of the Sazzarran envoy departed Byndazii, only to come back with a larger force and captured many of the Shimen Kolata. They took some of the Ferook with them also, to study. It was later that the Sazzarran scientists discovered the Shimen Kolata and Ferook were of the same species. Apparently, after many years of adulthood, the Ferook depart their village and disappear into the rain forest and mountains. It is later that they eventually grow into Shimen Kolata.
When nature calls, the Ferook respond and have to leave their village or risk causing untold damage and suffering to their people when they start growing bigger and become less intelligent. The Sazzarrans can now tap into that resource as much as possible when they need a new pool of war beasts for their invasion of new worlds.
10 November, 2014
PLAYTEST GAME 47
Yesterday I playtested game 47 with my 7 year old grandson. He played the Kaiju (because he loves the monsters), and I played the human UNRF.
On Turn 1, he had a Portal appear in Perth, with a Sea Leviathan, Thunder Dragon, a Sea, Air, a couple of Army and Reaper units. He moved an Army unit with the Sea Leviathan to Wellington, New Zealand, which was easy to take out as their was only a UNRF Garrison unit there. They tried to take Sydney with some of the military units, but were fought off with only a UNRF navy unit remaining. Turn 1 ended with Kaiju player getting 12 Victory Points (VP's) and UNRF with 21 VP's.
On Turn 2, the Kaiju control Perth, Wellington, and Manila with a Base. They still have the Sea Leviathan and Thunder Dragon in play, as well as an Earth Shaker. The UNRF have 43 VP's and Kaiju have 51 VP's.
On Turn 3, the Kaiju appear in Panama City with an Earth Shaker an several Sazzarran units against a lonely UNRF Garrison unit. No contest. The UNRF try to take it back but no luck. By the end of the turn, the UNRF have 1 Command Warrior and 2 Aquatic Warriors each spread out at Hong Kong, Hawaii and Mexico City zones. The Kaiju control Manila, Perth and Panama City. The UNRF have 64 VP's, and Kaiju have 87 VP's.
On Turn 4, two Portals appear. One at Manila, and one at Los Angeles. The one at Manila has an Earth Shaker, 2 Land, 2 Air, 2 Reaper, 1 Sea deploy to support the 1 Land unit and Base. The Portal at Los Angeles deploys an Earth Shaker, 3 Reapers, 1 Land and 2 Air units. The Kaiju move to Lima on the West coast and Sydney on the East coast. The UNRF move to Wellington with the Sea Base a Navy and Army unit to take the city zone back from the Kaiju. The UNRF also move against the Kaiju forces at Panama City where a Kaiju Base was deployed, as well as Manila to take it back.
So there are four battle fronts: Lima, Panama City, Manila, and Wellington. Lima was a pushover as they only had a token force there to defend it. The Kaiju lost their base and their forces at Panama City. The Kaiju managed to hold out at Manila and still maintain control of it, The attack on Wellington resulted in defeat for the UNRF forces, as the Sea Leviathan proved its worth and changed the tide of battle in the Kaiju favour.
The end result was the Kaiju control Lima, Los Angeles, Manila, Perth, Sydney and Wellington. They have the Sea Leviathan, 2 Earth Shakers and 1 Giant Ape remaining with many Sazzarran units still in play. The Kaiju player wins with 145 VP's to the UNRF 123 VP's.
During this game, deploying the Garrison units at city zones not controlled by the UNRF worked. It gave support for the human city zones, and provided resources that they would normally not get. It also made more sense to at least have Garrison units at human city zones.
We also played with modifications to the CMD stats of the units on both sides. I had to modify their CMD stats so that they were balanced throughout the Battle Board, and not massed up on just one CMD level, CMD 7 and 8 being most common.
Having the mecha and titans take full or more damage on their good side then starting fresh on the Damaged/Wounded side, allowed the mecha and titans to survive little longer.
Overall, with the new modifications, the game was more balanced, as was proven by the Victory Points on both sides. Usually, the UNRF would win by almost twice as many points. If the Kaiju won, it would have also been by almost twice as many points. More playtesting will prove whether the new modifications will keep the game balanced. Also, when the blind playtesters start playing, hopefully it will give some new insight to game improvement.
The image at the top of this page will be part of the cover art for the game. It was the second illustration I had Becca T-R design, based on my vision. This image depicts the first entry to Earth by the alien invaders. The Thunder Dragon is shown in close combat with the Battlemaster, piloting a Command class mecha. The mecha is approximately 60m tall. The Thunder Dragon is approximately 160m long from head to tail. The scene takes place just off Honolulu, Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteOne other point from the gaming session 46 is that it was more fun to change the way the mecha and titans take damage. For example, a Command Warrior mecha takes 8 damage on the undamaged side and 4 more damage on the damage side. Usually, if a mecha or titan received equal or higher than its damage points on its good side, it would be turned over with the extra damage applied to its Damaged side. So by that method, a Command Warrior could take a total of 12 or more damage points and be destroyed.
ReplyDeleteSo we decided to make it more fun by allowing a mecha or titan take damage equal or greater than its undamaged side. Once that happened, the mecha or titan would be placed to its damaged side, and any damage tokens would be removed. So now it starts fresh with the damage rating on its damaged side.
For example, during the game, I had an Aquatic Warrior (also known as a mermecha) that normally takes 8 damage points to its undamaged side. It was fighting against the Sea Leviathan. The Sea Leviathan gets four attacks with one re-roll allowed per attack. So it used all four attacks against the Aquatic Warrior doing about 30 points of damage (1d10 roll +5 Strength for each attack). Since the Aquatic Warrior only takes 8 damage on its good side and 4 on its other, it would have been automatically destroyed, but we wanted the mecha and titans to be more resilient than that, and play it dramatically. So, the Aquatic Warrior takes its 30 damage and is now turned over to its Damaged side, where it now only has 4 Damage to receive, or more, before it is destroyed.
Think of Pacific Rim, when Gypsy Danger faces off against Knifehead, and knocks it back into the water with it plasma cannon. They think it is dead. But lo and behold, it rises back up and rips them a new one. That is one example of a titan taking more than it can normally take and still come back wounded, but fighting.
Another good example from Pacific Rim is near the end (spoiler alert) when they nuked Striker Eureka, hoping to take out Slattern and Scunner. It turns out Scunner was destroyed by the blast, but the larger Slattern took severe damage and tried to come back fighting against Gypsy Danger, which did short work of it with its sword and nuclear furnace blast.
So that is what we decided to do with this game to make it more fun, exciting and add a little bit of drama to it. There has not been a game of Kaiju Conquest that I, or anyone else I have seen play, that have not enjoyed playing it, even if you lose badly, It was still fun having the mecha and titans slug it out while regular military units and cities are getting wasted around them.