I had an opportunity to play an early playtest of the latest ruleset in the weirdos series of rulesets, previously experimented with Sword Weirdos: Orcs vs Halflings (Test Game) , and here is the result of that game.

The Battlefield

The game was played on my standard 3×3 table (which I believe is slightly below par for Squad Weirdos) and the few bits of terrain I own which are more scale agnostic

The Armies

Eldar Pirates

I ran an Eldar Pirate Force, going up against Chaos Squats. My force in Squad Weirdos parlance consisted of:

• 1x Space Elf Leader (Character)
• 2x Space Elf Squads (Squad)
• 1x Combat Robot (Large humanoid)
• 1x Zoat Terror Squad (Squad)

I recently painted up my Zoats, and I’m quite happy with them:

Chaos Squats

The Chaos Squat force fielded by my opponent were:

• 2x Squat Bikers (Character Squad, one as commander)
• 3x Squat Troopers

My opponent took a shot of his army before the game, ilustrating some wonderful figures and great paintjobs:

Battle Report

The first major event of the game occured as my Zoats charged a group of Squats on overwatch – and being wiped off the board without inflicting a single casualty.

My Spirit Walker Dreadnought was able to act as a great pivot for the army, blasting away at the Squats while the Elf Leader (pictured above in the middle of a field) squared off against the Squat Biker leader squad.

On the other flank a second squad of bikers was caught in a crossfire between the Dreadnought (pictured earlier) and the squads shown above, and were wiped out.

The remaining footsloggers were whittled down on both sides, and after an epic combat between the Elf Leader and the Squat Biker command squad ended in an impasse – the early lead by the Elves carried them to victory.

Squad Weirdos Playtest Review

The Weirdos system is no doubt a very elegant solution – the premise is that statistics are die-types, typically involved in opposed rolls. For example, a 2d8 Firepower roll by the shooter versus a 2d6 Armour roll on the target.

Anti-Determinism

A very interesting concept used is that both misses (currently) and hits roll on tables to determine the effect – a weak hit may result in the target firing back as a freebie, while a strong hit may inflict multiple casualties/wounds.

Though this illustrates a very cinematic view, frankly I’m just not experienced enough with the system to know how to properly mitigate at the kind of risk implicit in this arrangement – you could shoot an enemy, miss, have them fire back at you and kill three of your figures.

Compare this to a OHW-style game as seen below which is far more deterministic and as a result presents more interesting strategic challenges, rather than tactical ones.

I found this in my game of Sword Weirdos, that it was absolutely chaotic and very difficult to predict. Maybe a fun way to smash figures together and roll dice, but not really the kind of game I’m interested in long-term.

Thanks!

With thanks to Ed for providing the food, rules and great company for this game. I should also highlight these are early preview/beta rules and may not represent the finished Squad Weirdos game.