Though I'm yet to get too into it here, Bot War is an exciting Indy miniatures game produced in Australia by Trader's Galaxy. The game has a strong '80s Nostalgia Vibe with obvious influence from Transformers, but to stop there would be selling Bot War short, as there are also strong elements of Marvel Comics, GI Joe and even Knight Rider making up the wonderfully vibrant setting and range of miniatures. The minis themselves are also very nice, crisply cast in whitemetal with a decent heft not seen much these days. The rules are simple, but with enough depth that each army uses different strategies and nothing dominates too badly. Naturally, I'm planning to mix my Bot War stuff in with various superhero and Kaiju games already, but that's not to say I won't be playing games in the existing setting as well. To whit;
On the distant and ruinous planet Syberkron, bands of rouge bots and aliens scavenge for the precious energy crystals they need to survive and power their weapons and technology. Forming naturally around such sources as leaky reactors and old capacitors, energy crystals are well worth fighting and dying for, especially when the other guy's doing the dying. The lowest scum of the galaxy, the loathsome Overlord Gorg and his minions, and the insidious Infestors, Bots who have fallen to their basest desires and turned savage, found themselves in the same rusted section of Syberkron, after the same crystals.
My opponent, Justin, points out my unfinished Infestors. I did have both Termite and Weevil finished, but Weevil broke in transit. Justin borrowed some of my fantasy figures to proxy the Overlords troops.
Termite's "Advanced Deployment" special rule lets him start on one of the crystal objectives and count victory points before the game begins.
Overlord Gorg moves up to harvest his own energy crystals whilst directing his Sharkmen minions forward.
Fire is exchanged as both sides close quickly, but damage is piecemeal.
Using their Air Support ability, the Infestors move up quickly, but find themselves overwhelmed by the brutal Sharkmen.
Weevil is the first to be taken out of the fight, as I discover that the Infestors are build more for mobility and firepower than close combat.
Wanting to see how his Combat Scimitars fare, Mantis charges into the nearest Sharkman, but fails to connect when it counts.
Beetle tries to lay down some covering fire, but in Bot War, shooting is far less brutal than close assault.
As the Sharkmen close in, things look bleak for the Infestors.
As Beetle falls, the victory points swing in the Overlords' favour.
Despite his massive frame and extra limbs, Termite turns out to not be much chop in hand to hand combat, but some lucky rolling helps him even the score a little.
The small victory is short-lived, however, as Gorg closes in and finishes off the last Infestor before half of the turn limit has passed.
As always with learning games, I picked up a lot from this first game of Bot War, like my army being more built for mobility and shooting than close combat and the Overlords have some great synergy out of the box, but that didn't stop it being a hell of a lot of fun. The game is very fast, with even 8 "hits" characters being taken out in one blow with the right roll of the dice. I'm not usually a fan of custom dice for a game, but the Bot War set is both affordable and well presented, with enough dice and energy cubes for two players in most circumstances. The resource management of the cubes makes the game a little deeper where it needs to be and is making me look forward to bigger games and more complex scenarios.
If you're interested in a fun indy miniatures game from Australia, check out Bot War here:
https://tradersgalaxy.com.au/product-category/bot-war/
