Xenos Rampant Rules Review

I apologize for the long absence folks, my life has been busy and I have been letting the blog fall by the wayside. In the meantime I’d like to introduce our very first guest writer, a great friend of mine that goes by the pen name WorelyBirds! He will be reviewing the rules Xenos Rampant, and the views expressed the guest do not necessarily align with the views of the owner blah blah blah . . . We hope you enjoy!

In this installment of the Brushes & Bayonets blog, I’ll be reviewing a set of rules that can be used to recreate pretty much any kind of science fiction battle you could want, Xenos Rampant. A science fiction version of the Lion Rampant system by Osprey Xenos Rampant will let you play anything from Starship Troopers to Star Wars  and all manner of settings in between with relative ease.

I will be using the B&B rule review format which rates rules in 5 categories: Cost, Ease of play, Essence, Fun factor, and Bonus. In each category rules can score 1-3 points. 1 point being ok, 2 being good, 3 being great. If there is one exceptionally good or bad category it can score either a -1 or a 4 but this can only be scored once per review. This means that a score of 10 is average. Let’s get right into it.

Cost: How much is it to get a decent game on the table?

The cost to run a game of Xenos Rampant will vary based off what exact science fiction setting you want to run. In terms of miniatures each side doesn’t really need more than 30 miniatures depending on exactly what scale of unit you want to play with or the size of the battle you want to play. The only real requirement is that the units be roughly the same size and you can then take miniatures from anywhere and play, we used mini’s from a Star Wars board game and they worked great. You will need some terrain for the battles but nothing all that excessive, one game we played we used cardstock buildings that you can easily print off and fold together. All that being said the amount of expense you want to put into it is up to you but overall to get any form of a game on the table is pretty cheap due to the very relaxed requirements and the wide range of sources you can pull from.

Score: 3

Ease of Play: Is it easy to learn, teach and remember?

The game is not too terribly complicated to play overall as each units potential actions are all spelled out on a unit card along with the difficulty of the action. All the other stats you need are easily located on the unit card including any perks that allow it to take certain actions for free. The activation system is also very easy, with each unit having a free action and other actions it requires a check for. If a action check is failed the turn is passed over to the other side.

The actions themselves are also somewhat limited and easy die rolls to resolve. The downside is that in order to model any science fiction setting the game has a bunch of tags or modifiers that can be placed on to a unit to modify it to fit the setting. The issue that arises from that is that there are a lot of modifiers and a unit usually has three or maybe four of these modifiers on it and it can be hard to remember what they all do especially when you have three or four groups of units all with different modifiers. 

Score: 2

Essence: Do the rules capture the ‘feel’ of the period?

Now I don’t want to put too much flak against Osprey here because they were trying to cover a lot of ground with this game. In doing so there are a lot of modifiers they created that you can place on a unit in order to try and make it fit the setting more. The modifiers definitely help with making each game feel more tailored to the setting however, with that said I don’t think they quite hit the mark.

The main problem with trying to make a system that covers as much ground as this is that you essentially have to water down each trait so that it’s not too specific and can be used in multiple settings. As such the games usually feel like generic science fiction that happens to have models from a specific universe. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with a generic science fiction battle because those can be fun, but if you were trying to create a system that can be used for any setting I wanted the setting to pop out more. Basically the complaint here is I likely wouldn’t play a Xenos Rampant Star Wars game when I could just go play a Star Wars specific game that captures the setting better.

Score: 1

Fun Factor: Did I have a good time?

So I am not saying I didn’t have a fun time playing the games of Xenos Rampant shown in the pictures however, this score is based off how much fun I had compared to other games and Xenos Rampant definitely fell below other games. Some of the complaints that I think made this score low will be talked about in the next section so jump down there and I’ll explain further.

Score: 1

Bonus: Is there anything else to say?

*cracks knuckles* Alright now let’s begin with the major complaints I have against this system. I very much do not like the activation mechanic in this game and the mission objectives don’t help either. Now there are multiple different mission types that I have not played so my concerns could be alleviated in some of those, although I am not sure they would be. The standard games we played I have real issue with. A side gets to activate units until they fail to activate one and then it turns over to the other side and they do the same. If you fail to activate a unit the unit does not get to perform any action it simply fails and the initiative is transferred. This means you could roll one die, fail to activate, and that’s your turn. While not likely, it is also entirely possible to never move or perform any action during an entire game and a system that allows for that to happen is a major no-no for me. I have heard that this may have been altered in different variant of the Rampant system but this was the rule as written in the variant I played.

The next issue I have is that the standard game I played is set up where there are several objectives on the board that you have to take and whoever takes the most wins. If your opponent has units that get free movement it is MUCH easier for them to simply sweep in and take all the objectives and win in a turn or two if your units have to roll for movement. This compounds with the fact that the boards are usually pretty small (3’x3′ or 4’x4′) which makes maneuver unimportant especially with the range of projectile weapons. I played in a game where there wasn’t a huge amount of terrain and everyone moved once and then just sat and fired at each other until one side died. Additionally while I don’t have specific evidence to back this up, in the games I played larger units seemed to be much more powerful compared to smaller but higher quality units. Now it could have been because of modifiers or something else, but if it was then that also brings up the issue in that some modifiers are also MUCH better than others. The one example that immediately came to mind is that Droid units don’t have morale checks which can significantly advantage them even if there are penalties in other places. 

A final complaint I have is that a unit can only move OR fire on a turn and cannot do both. This coupled with the difficulty of activation means that you can spend tons of time just trying to get a unit in place to fire only for an enemy to then run out of sight or deal large amounts of damage before you get a chance to fire. There is a modifier that allows you to shoot back if shot at but not every unit has it and I believe they only get to use it once so if they’re in the open it’s not a huge benefit when there are multiple enemies around. 

Overall there are definitely things I think need fixed in this game. I don’t want to be all negative for this game system because I think there are things that can be done to significantly if not totally remove most of my concerns, and some of those may have even been done in other variants of the game, but as it stands I do not like this system.

Score: -1

Conclusion

Final Score: 6

The final score clocks in at a 6, which is below average.  In its current state I wouldn’t really recommend buying this set of rules. I appreciate what Osprey was trying to do here and I applaud their effort but for me it just fell right on its face. I don’t think it’s necessarily anything specific to Osprey only that game systems that are setting agnostic tend to feel generic and boring because of it and that combined with all of the issues I have with the specific rules they chose makes me rate this game very low.

Here is the link to the product and support.

https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/xenos-rampant-9781472852366

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Until next time- Worleybirds