Stumbled on this video in 2024, because I bought a copy of Xenos Rampant. Thrills me to say, as relevant today, to me, as when you first published this. Thank you.
Just saying, this if a fanstic combination of a book review, practical list review, and quick demo... fantasic content and besides all the nostalgia, really great job with this. Thanks!! Definitely has me hunting around for a copy of this game and digging through the old models now....
OMG, those classic Ork models are fantastic! Brings back wonderful memories of when I got into the hobby in the 90’s and weekends and summers spent gaming on an old ping pong table.
I like the idea of using 15mm minis, but if you leave the measurements in inches then you'll get a really good "weapons have range" feel out of it! Most games give weapons such a short range that it can be a bit weird if you think very much about it.
I remember Battletech had a bit in the rules about that, saying "Yes we know the ranges are unrealistically short, if they were more accurate you would need a tennis court and that's just annoying to deal with."
Really want to play this game, as someone who kind of paints "for fun" and has lots of units with mixed weapons I like the unit size/ hit point composition rules.
Great vid and review. Waiting for my book to get here. I'll be using 15mm minis though. You can't beat the price point of 15mm plus being able to have a bigger battle in a smaller space. For the price of 1 squad box of space marines you can get 4 or 5 squads and a few vehicles too.
Nice! regarding board size just reduce ranges/movement? An inch is 2,54 cm I think so 2 cm per inch or something? Not as precise is just starting off map and march in turn 1? Free actions are new to me, will definitly try these rules out.
Thank god, they eliminated the necessity to past a test for some commands. It is horrible to lose your turn of action just because of a bad roll. But I still think the biggest problem of the rampant games is that one player has to wait until all the enemy units take action to actually do something. This demos is proof of it. The poor marines didn't even do anything and they already lost the game. I think we need to house rule that every turn, each of the players needs to take actions for just one unit. First, they must rally all their units. Then do all wild attacks. And finally activate units of their choice. In that way, the players have a better chance to do something.
To be fair, the Marines were a shooty army, the Xenos were a close combat army, and everyone was packed closely together for purposes of the demo. Had there been a reasonable amount of distance between the two armies, things might have gone differently. That being said, rules are made to be modified. People should play how they want.
It means the action is normally automatic, but in some cases they still have to roll for it. If elite infantry are suppressed and recover, for example, they can then try to roll for that action, but if they were just activating normally they wouldn’t have to.
i am glad for the people that this provides fun for and another rule set to liberate people from the dark tyranny of james w. shop. but personally dont see it replacing or supplementing rules i already use
@@oldhammered scifi speaking grimdark, and rogue trader. in process of tooling up and collecting for mantic firefight :) i think thats going to be my new game esp with the emerging tournament scene with xenos rampant i dont see anything that rogue trader already does for me, and RT era has enough obscure and weird rules that there is always something 'new' esp to start hobby and stl projects with, but i am a weird grognard
Nice video. Gave my self XR for christmas, and love it so far. Will mainly be playing scifi, Is there any reason to pick up any other rampant games? Like dragon for magics or so?
I think Dragon Rampant is a pretty fun mass combat fantasy game. Plus it’s an older Osprey blue book, so it’s inexpensive. I’ve seen some Men Who Would Be Kings battle reports, and that looks fun too.
Those systems are never balanced well enough. The lower the point cost, the worse the balancing. In your example of the Heavy Weapon upgrade for the heavy infantry for example. The Heavy weapons cost the same amount of points as a new unit, but only increase the number of hits by 1,6 on average with full unit strength, so if you roll 10 Dice 1,6 of those dice will land on a 6, even if we sum it up to 2, that's 4 hits total or 2 extra hits, if you add a whole new unit, that rolls 10 new dice you have about the same damage output (on average probably even better) but double the hitpoints, so you rather take 2 vanilla squads than one with heavy weapons. I'm fairly certain just fielding 12 vanilla units will be WAY better than any upgrade you can buy for the 24 points.
I think you make some valid points, but I think you have to take into account that the more units you take the more likely it is that you’ll fail an activation and cede the initiative to your opponent. You’ll certainly have a more durable force, but you are unlikely to be able to utilize all of the extra firepower.
Love the old models. The Cadians are awesome.
Stumbled on this video in 2024, because I bought a copy of Xenos Rampant. Thrills me to say, as relevant today, to me, as when you first published this. Thank you.
If you only have a 3 foot table you can always start your deployments off the board, so basically a 'meeting engagement'.
Yup yup. Or sometimes I just play at "half scale" and just half the measurements lol
Just saying, this if a fanstic combination of a book review, practical list review, and quick demo... fantasic content and besides all the nostalgia, really great job with this. Thanks!! Definitely has me hunting around for a copy of this game and digging through the old models now....
Really appreciate the walkthrough of the two list builds!
OMG, those classic Ork models are fantastic! Brings back wonderful memories of when I got into the hobby in the 90’s and weekends and summers spent gaming on an old ping pong table.
Great overview and really enjoy seeing all of those legendary GW miniatures! Brings back a lot of great memories!
Yeah that’s was awesome.
Absolutely Fantastic intro into the game, especially how to pick forces.
Love those old models!
Always good to have another reason to bring out old favorite miniatures, I’ll be picking this one up eventually
Fantastic run down and great minis
Great video! Looking forward to playing this some 15mm alternative armies figs!
Thanks Lee&Lynn! I love you guys, great vid as allways 😊
I like the idea of using 15mm minis, but if you leave the measurements in inches then you'll get a really good "weapons have range" feel out of it!
Most games give weapons such a short range that it can be a bit weird if you think very much about it.
I remember Battletech had a bit in the rules about that, saying "Yes we know the ranges are unrealistically short, if they were more accurate you would need a tennis court and that's just annoying to deal with."
Great overview. Got my book a couple of days ago and can't wait to get some games in. Got a lot of minis currently just collecting dust....
imperial robot - was not joking when calling the channel oldhammered, great video
Really want to play this game, as someone who kind of paints "for fun" and has lots of units with mixed weapons I like the unit size/ hit point composition rules.
I have my first game of this in a week or so. Great introduction video to the rules, which are similar, but not the same as other "Rampant" rules.
Nice to see the classic marines in action, once again. It seems a good rule set.
I really enjoyed this video!
Totally enjoyed.
Love those guard models. beautiful paint job
Great vid and review. Waiting for my book to get here. I'll be using 15mm minis though. You can't beat the price point of 15mm plus being able to have a bigger battle in a smaller space. For the price of 1 squad box of space marines you can get 4 or 5 squads and a few vehicles too.
Nice! regarding board size just reduce ranges/movement? An inch is 2,54 cm I think so 2 cm per inch or something?
Not as precise is just starting off map and march in turn 1?
Free actions are new to me, will definitly try these rules out.
Kinda of a long shot but do you remember that paint recpie for that Great Unclean One?
He was acquired second or third hand, so your guess is as good as mine.
Thank god, they eliminated the necessity to past a test for some commands. It is horrible to lose your turn of action just because of a bad roll. But I still think the biggest problem of the rampant games is that one player has to wait until all the enemy units take action to actually do something. This demos is proof of it. The poor marines didn't even do anything and they already lost the game. I think we need to house rule that every turn, each of the players needs to take actions for just one unit. First, they must rally all their units. Then do all wild attacks. And finally activate units of their choice. In that way, the players have a better chance to do something.
To be fair, the Marines were a shooty army, the Xenos were a close combat army, and everyone was packed closely together for purposes of the demo. Had there been a reasonable amount of distance between the two armies, things might have gone differently. That being said, rules are made to be modified. People should play how they want.
Excellent video!! One question, why do free actions have a number in parentheses after them? Like FREE (5+).
It means the action is normally automatic, but in some cases they still have to roll for it. If elite infantry are suppressed and recover, for example, they can then try to roll for that action, but if they were just activating normally they wouldn’t have to.
Thanks!!
Omg, wht a good Review, i was wondering wht can i do with my minis, i need that book 😂
Your table will work fine, but you need more (a lot more?) terrain.
i am glad for the people that this provides fun for and another rule set to liberate people from the dark tyranny of james w. shop. but personally dont see it replacing or supplementing rules i already use
Hi Z. What rule sets do you like?
@@oldhammered scifi speaking grimdark, and rogue trader. in process of tooling up and collecting for mantic firefight :) i think thats going to be my new game esp with the emerging tournament scene
with xenos rampant i dont see anything that rogue trader already does for me, and RT era has enough obscure and weird rules that there is always something 'new' esp to start hobby and stl projects with, but i am a weird grognard
Nice video. Gave my self XR for christmas, and love it so far. Will mainly be playing scifi, Is there any reason to pick up any other rampant games? Like dragon for magics or so?
I think Dragon Rampant is a pretty fun mass combat fantasy game. Plus it’s an older Osprey blue book, so it’s inexpensive. I’ve seen some Men Who Would Be Kings battle reports, and that looks fun too.
Are there alternating activations? or do you activate your entire side?
On your turn you can attempt to activate all of your units, one by one, but if you ever fail a unit activation roll, your turn ends.
Those systems are never balanced well enough. The lower the point cost, the worse the balancing. In your example of the Heavy Weapon upgrade for the heavy infantry for example. The Heavy weapons cost the same amount of points as a new unit, but only increase the number of hits by 1,6 on average with full unit strength, so if you roll 10 Dice 1,6 of those dice will land on a 6, even if we sum it up to 2, that's 4 hits total or 2 extra hits, if you add a whole new unit, that rolls 10 new dice you have about the same damage output (on average probably even better) but double the hitpoints, so you rather take 2 vanilla squads than one with heavy weapons. I'm fairly certain just fielding 12 vanilla units will be WAY better than any upgrade you can buy for the 24 points.
I think you make some valid points, but I think you have to take into account that the more units you take the more likely it is that you’ll fail an activation and cede the initiative to your opponent. You’ll certainly have a more durable force, but you are unlikely to be able to utilize all of the extra firepower.
Nice U.N.A container
Who wants to place bets on if he knows xeno is not short for xenomorph