Warpath

Warpath
Wargame published by Mantic Games
No. of Players	2
Session Time	A few hours
Authors	Stewart Gibbs, Matt Hobday, Jake Thornton
First Publication	2011
Essential Books	Warpath, Warpath: Firefight, Warpath Sourcebook, Deadzone, Dreadball

Warpath is a relatively new 28mm scale tabletop game from the upstart UK-based miniatures publisher Mantic Games. The miniatures are slightly cheaper than the established competitors (Games Workshop and Privateer Press), and are highly detailed, if wide-headed.

Warpath was initially released several years ago, but the game released then bears little resemblance to the game we have today. Mantic had had some initial success with their Kings of War fantasy wargame and were keen to release a sci-fi counterpart. A limited range of miniatures were released for four out of eight promised factions, but general consensus in the community was that the rules were not up to scratch and Warpath almost dropped off the radar. In the meantime, Mantic released two other sci-fi games set in the same universe, Dreadball and Deadzone, which helped develop both the background and the range of miniatures. 2015 was the year Warpath finally came to the fore, with a set of alpha test rules unveiled at the Mantic Open Day in May and a highly-successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the full release of the game, which hit retail in April 2017.

A smaller version of Warpath was created at the same time, called Warpath: Firefight, using the same minis, and largely the same rules and flow, but designed to be the size of Bolt Action or 40k 2nd, with just a few dozen soldiers and a tank. This is done with different points and force construction, by shifting down to squads of individuals as the basic unit, as opposed to Warpath which uses teams (set in a movement tray) as the basic building block. The skirmish game Deadzone breaks this down again, by making the individuals in the squad the basic unit, and dispensing with the heavy vehicles. Really, with this three tiered approach, Mantic has you covered no matter how big or small you like your battles.

The models are currently made of hard plastic sprues (basic and heavy infantry, large vehicles), resin (some light vehicles and characters), metal (one Asterian unit, some heroes, and numerous alternate weapon kits for walkers), and PVC plastic resins (light vehicles, characters, and elite units), with hard-plastic vehicle kits coming courtesy of the latest Kickstarter. The starter rules for Warpath, Firefight, and Deadzone are available for free on Mantic's website, while more details on the game and story can be found on the Warpath Universe website.

Gameplay

Warpath is a D6 based system which uses alternating activation of units. When a unit is activated it can typically perform two 'actions' (the most common being Move and Shoot). These actions can be in any order, so you can shoot and then move, giving your units a lot of tactical flexibility.

'Suppression' is a key game mechanic in Warpath, and can be just as important as killing enemy soldiers. When units are fired upon the will acquire suppression tokens. If they accumulate too many they will become suppressed (where they fight less effectively) or even grounded (where they cannot do anything and may flee the battlefield). Units can shed suppression tokens by performing certain actions (Rally or Regroup). Certain weapons such as autocannon and HMGs deal out additional suppression, and units can also perform a 'Blaze Away' action (i.e. spray the general area with firepower) for the sole purpose of adding suppression tokens.

Warpath also has a Command system which uses specially marked 8-sided dice. Character models in Warpath are generally nothing special in terms of fighting ability, but they do add command dice to your pool and can issue orders. Orders can be extremely effective if used correctly, and allow your units to perform a variety of special actions. Examples include moving a unit at triple their speed, bringing in reserves, re-rolling failed hits, activating two units simultaneously and allowing a unit to activate twice in the same turn.

The Factions

• Asterians: Space elves and their army of drones. Amazing leadership and shooting abilities with every drone able to release a smoke screen of poisonous gas, and have hovering weapon platforms that do things like shoot exploding balls of plasma. Also have a faction of naturists who ride large beasts and wield swords and bows and arrows made out of futuristic polymers, and take Asimov's "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" as a personal mantra.
• Corporation: The main human faction and the bad guys of the setting, along with a number of incorporated alien species who are wageslaves in perpetual capitalist servitude and not permitted on the wealthy human worlds along with all the human poors prosperous and welcomed members of galactic society.
  • Enforcers: The Corporation's special forces. They wear armour that looks a bit like Iron Man's suit and have access to a variety of high tech gadgets, and are created with physical and psychological modifications and training not dissimilar from the Spartans in HALO.
• Forge Fathers: The space dwarves with lots of high tech toys. Guns in this faction either melt through armor like butter or spray bullets like it's going out of style. The tough faction unsurprisingly. They are also a faction which manages surpression very well.
• Marauder Orx: Orx and goblins in spaaaace. Whilst they might appear to be brutal savages the Marauders are actually highly disciplined, professional soldiers for hire. In Warpath, they are a sub-list of the GCPS, meaning you get to add GCPS tanks and flyers to your greenskins without needing ally rules, and likewise can use Orx as shock troops in front of your humans. Marauders are unique in the galaxy in that they are totally immune to the Plague mutagen.
• Nameless: A confederation of squid, octopus, and other aquatic cephalopod species living far beyond corporate space, allegedly already laying the ground work for an inevitable war. First minis coming with Star Saga, along with a Deadzone beta list, and Warpath lists to follow.
• Plague: Ordinary citizens turned into vicious killing machines by an ancient alien mutagen, created by an unknown party and stored in tempting archaeological artifacts, last defeated in the dawn time by an early Asterian empire. They are the most combat-orientated of all the factions.
• Rebs: A ragged army of anarchists and freedom fighters. Although humans have a strong presence, the Rebels can field a variety of alien species such as the Yndij (cat-people), Sorak (which walks on its arms and shoots with it's feet. Seriously!), Sphyr (shark people who had their ocena world accidentally turned into a desert by a human nuclear Exxon Valdez, woops!) and the almighty Teraton (massive teleporting space-dinosaurs!). Currently Deadzone only.
• Veer-Myn: Space Skaven.
• Z'zor: Bug people. Still only a Dreadball team at this stage.
• Assorted other aliens: Between Dreadball teams and MVPs, and Deadzone mercenaries, there are so many different alien species with fluff and miniatures in the games that it makes a certain Grimdark universe look like upstate Maine

Project Pandora

See Space Hulk to get an idea of what the game is about, except instead of power-armored Space Marines against insect-like Genestealers, you have Imperial Guard-like human soldiers fighting mutant rat-men Veer'myn on their own space ship. Now out of print, and replaced in the lineup by

Star Saga

A scifi dungeon crawler using a 2.0 version of the rules from the fantasy game Dungeon Saga, kickstarted and due out to backers and retail in late 2017, set to introduce a number of new characters/mercs, and the firs minis for the Nameless faction outside of the Dreadball team, and one merc.

Dreadball

A spin-off game set in the Warpath universe, Dreadball is like Blood Bowl, but is set in space, uses aliens, is played on a hex grid, isn't based on American football and has completely different game mechanics. Dreadball has become something of a runaway success for Mantic, with plenty of leagues and regional tournaments springing up in the UK and beyond. The fluff is subversive, and explains how the GCPS use the sport for huge propaganda and public distraction value, like desensitizing the public to alien threats by showing them as beatable sportsball athletes who may or may not be highly sophisticated total fakes (Weekend at Bernies Z'Zor, humans surgically altered to look like something that could be Asterian), while famous incorporated alien players are treated like WWE stars.

A revised second edition is due in early 2018.

Deadzone

Deadzone is an urban skirmish game which pits small 'strike teams' of around 5-10 models against each other. Some comparisons between Deadzone and Necromunda are inevitable and it will appeal to the same market, but Deadzone is significantly distinctive from Necromunda in terms of gameplay, aesthetic and background to quell any accusations that Mantic are stealing ideas (in this game at least).

Deadzone is played on a gridded 2'x2' mat with modular scenery tiles which allow players to construct 3D gaming environments (in the fluff, most Corporation colony buildings are built from these mass-produced flat-pack tiles and connectors produced by a futuristic version of Ikea). No tape measures are required because all distances are related to the grid; a rifle, for example, has a range of 6 squares, a normal model can move up to two squares in a turn.

A second edition was released in mid 2016, and since then the new GCPS list has been added to the game after the Warpath kickstarter funded their minis, and the Nameless list is currently in public alpha testing.

Fucking Awesome