Wreck Age Second Edition Review
Review by David Lent
Wreck Age 2nd Edition is a skirmish miniatures game that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. The world’s richest inhabitants left the planet and everything including society fell apart without them. It’s been several hundred years since the exodus and crops are beginning to grow again and so is the population. There is much conflict over resources, energy and equipment. Only a select few possess knowledge of the previous digital age and historical information is a closely guarded secret. Most groups only possess limited historical information concentrated on certain subjects. Nobody seems to possess a clear picture of what the world was really like before the exodus and some groups simply rewrite history to further their own goals. It’s your job to keep your group alive and prospering in this hostile, unforgiving world.
To play this game you need the rulebook, miniatures, dice and a tape measure. The rulebook contains a lot of background information about this world, tabletop rules, character creation, factions and advanced rules. It’s written in a way that is easy to understand and the illustrations in the book look good. This game has an outstanding selection of miniatures. The sculpts are amazing and there are some really interesting sculpts such as motorcycles with riders, boars with remote control explosives strapped to them and lots of characters that could be used for ANY post-apocalyptic game. The variety of sculpts is truly amazing. Wreck Age’s miniatures include a stat card, which lists all of a character’s attributes.
The sequence of play in Wreck Age is very simple. It’s initiative test, activation and end phase. To do an initiative test, each player rolls a number of dice equal to their character’s wits. The winner gets to choose who activates a character first. During activation, each character gets to do a number of actions determined by his action points. Some of the actions that can be performed are moving, running, sprinting, close combat, shooting, reloading and activating devices such as blowing up explosives with remote control. Simple actions cost a specified amount of action points, but complex action use the entire activation of a character. The weapons and equipment used in this world are usually either found or homemade. Thus, ranged attack rolls include a malfunction dice that can cause your weapon to jam.
Shooting in Wreck Age can be done with an aimed shot, regular shot or hip shot. Obviously, an aimed shot is the most likely to hit the enemy, but it is a complex action so it uses the entire activation. However, a regular shot only costs 2 action points and a hip shot is free. The shooting modifiers table is very rich and allows the defender to take actions to reduce the probability of being shot. Some of these actions are going prone, moving, operating in low light and using cover and concealment. Whenever a character is damaged it is either wounded, down, dying or dead. Wounded characters get a +1TN modifier to all shooting, fighting and power tests. If a character is down, he cannot activate. During every end phase, he may do a power test to return to action as wounded. Dying characters cannot activate and dead is obvious.
I had the pleasure of playing two games of Wreck Age at Polar Vortex. The first game pitted the Drifters vs. the Stakers. Drifters are a nomadic people that conduct raids to steal whatever they need. The Stakers are the regular people in this post-apocalyptic world who are starting to form civilized communities. In this scenario, the Stakers were located in a walled in area with guard towers and a shed containing supplies. The Drifters goal was to blow up the gate to this town with a pig carrying remote control explosives. First, the Drifters moved their men closer to the town using cover while the pigs ran flat out towards the gate. The Stakers responded with intense sniper fire and wounded or took down a few Drifter men and killed one of the pigs. However, one pig made it to the gate but failed to detonate. The next turn saw more exchanges of fire before the last pig made it to the gate and successfully detonated. Several Stakers were killed and the door was open to further raids.
The second game was the actual raid inside the town. The Drifters had pack animals they needed to get next to the shed so a character could load them with supplies. When the scenario started, several drifters were wounded while trying to attack the guard tower with the sniper. They failed to go prone or use cover effectively and paid for it with bullet wounds. Eventually, some drifters got close to the guard tower and took out the sniper with some accurate fire of their own. On the other side of the battlefield, the Drifters kept the Stakers busy while the pack animals were loaded. The pack animals were able to leave the town with much needed supplies, so it was a Drifter victory.
I’ve found Wreck Age to be a breath of fresh air as far as skirmish miniatures games are concerned. The reason for this is because it has many role-playing elements that give a storyline as opposed to just a straight combat game. In a campaign, the players build their crews just like building characters in a typical role-playing game, but the narrator strings the scenarios together to form a coherent story and goal. Unlike typical miniature games, your characters can advance and trade equipment with each other. What makes this better than a typical role-playing game is the fact that the miniatures combat rules are just as rich as a typical skirmish miniatures game. There is no watered-down combat like in typical RPG’s. This is serious miniatures combat. In addition, Wreck-Age is designed with tournament play in mind; so super-competitive miniatures gamers won’t be disappointed. This is an excellent skirmish miniatures game with actual plot and great miniatures. I recommend it without hesitation.
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