[Kickstarter] Bot War 3rd Edition - April 20th

Disclaimer: I'm not associated with this Kickstarter

Welcome to Bot War! Bot War is an 8mm tabletop skirmish war game set in an alternate 20th century. The game sees giant Bots, Corporate Organisations, Nations, Aliens and Monsters battle for control of the earth.

Launch Page: [url]https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/botwarminiaturegame/bot-war-miniature-game?ref=clipboard-prelaunch[/url]

Key Features
Maximum number of pledges to ensure it can be delivered
Funds at 200 pledges
First 200 backers get a bonus model
Resin models
Potential 35 models if it sells out
No model overlap with 2nd Edition resin starter set

Pledge/Stretch Images

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Basic Background

[url]https://tradersgalaxy.com.au/product-category/bot-war/[/url]

The game has been inspired by the cartoons I loved back in the 1980s. The story is set in an alternative 1980s Earth where the main ruling nation is called the Democracy.

The basic overview is that the Democracy is invaded in “alternative” 1982 by a nation called Atlantica, led by the ruthless King Gills. This undersea nation had been hidden from the surface for millennia. The attack from Atlantica was a complete surprise and the most powerful nation on the surface, The Democracy, was facing utter defeat. When all seemed lost, a dimensional prison smashes to Earth after colliding with a craft. The craft breaks into pieces and the most intact piece crashes near the Democracy citizen militia forces.

Inside the craft are the Valiants, immortal beings who are emissaries of the One. A supreme being of immense power. They were chasing the dimensional prison filled with bodiless evil entities called the Deceivers.

Taking pity on the desperate humans, the Valiants make an alliance and push King Gills forces back into the sea, freeing the Democracy and ending the first Atlantican war.
After King Gills retreats, the citizen army then turned their attentions to the corrupt power in their own Government. These corrupt individuals flee retribution and form Snake Corp. An evil corporate war machine using black market Bot technology for evil purposes.

Meanwhile, the Deceivers had been freed from their prison, and with no bodies, possess some corrupted humans who build them a factory to create physical bodies as powerful as the Valiants.

Thus in “alternative” 1985 the Bot War begins with these 5 factions, Valiants, Deceivers, Atlantica, Democracy and Snake Corp.
Not long after King Gills defeat, a comet hits the ocean causing massive tsunamis. In the comet was a Bot of significant strength and power – Omen. King Gills salvages Omens body and starts his studies, which led to King Gills producing his own version of Bots to counter the Valiants.

With the Deceivers in new physical form, they immediately start creating distrust between the Valiants and The Democracy which leads to the Democracy rejecting with suspicion most of what Bot technology has to offer, instead preferring to rely on trusted human tactics and equipment. Only a small specialist research team under the command of Democracy’s greatest heroes are permitted to research Bot technology .

In the first year of Bot War 5 additional new factions have arisen.

Due to the origins of their imprisonment the Deceivers have learnt that they carry the curse of Infestation. This curse means that with each body destruction their code becomes more fragmented and error riddled, changing them with each resurrection, to eventually become Infesters, debased and depraved Bots with little left of who they once were. These reprobates are led by The Queen. A hugely powerful Bot created by accident in a Deceiver plot to control of the Infester curse.

The Trashers are a faction of former Valiants who have committed a great offence whilst on Earth and have downloaded the Trasher code of repentance. This code changes their physical appearance giving them much greater resilience but poorer targeting. They cannot return to their Valiant cousins until they atone through deeds of great valour in arms.

The Overlords are huge alien monsters from a planet obsessed with gambling on gladiatorial games that pits huge mutant beasts against one another in fights to the death. The Overlords are masters of gene mutation and travel the galaxy looking for the most powerful creatures to splice together. On Earth, the Overlords are testing their latest progeny against the Bot War. Hoping to hone the skills of these beasts and achieve ultimate glory and prestige back home in the arena.

The Beastlords have been on Earth for some time having been first sent by the One during the dark days of the dark ages. Since that time, they have been the silent watchers for humanity. Beastlords are the only mortal Bots, as their code is known only to the One and it is not compatible with any known download factory.

The Red Star nations refused to lend much aid to The Democracy during the first Atlantican war as they had been enemies with the Democracy and its allies for 40 years. However, since the first Atlantican war ended, the Red Star Nations have come under attacks from many of the factions involved in the Bot War. Of these, the most devastating has been from the Overlords. Because of their distrust and limited access to Bot technology, the Red Star nations have focused their war efforts on cybernetic technology. Joining Bot enhanced weaponry to some of Earths most powerful creatures both past and present.

Thus the Bot War rages across a 1985 alternate Earth.

Beginner's Guide to Faction Selection

I thought I would offer some very brief descriptions on the in-game play style of 10 factions for Bot War. Basically how I designed them to play in-game. For those familiar with tabletop wargaming there may be some terms in here you recognise. For those new to the genre I am confident you will get the gist of what I am saying.

Valiants - I'll start with the obvious one first. Even though the background is focused on the Democracy, the Valiants are probably the flagship faction. It's for this reason that they are what I term your beginner faction. They play quite “direct” in that they dont use tricks, their movement is mostly common sense, and they have good Ranged Attack and Close Attack across the board. Probably all round the easiest and most stable faction to use. Meaning that they are also relatively resilient and somewhat forgiving in game.

Deceivers - This faction is designed to be quite different to Valiants. On the whole the faction is more difficult to use correctly. They have a lot of abilities that mess with the opponents plans. They are also highly mobile with many of their characters having Movement 8 and Air Support. They are a little less resilient than Valiants too and their Close Attack ability as a whole is a fair bit lower on the scale to Valiants. This is mainly down to not having much access to Ram Attack. The faction, if used correctly, could be one of the most powerful in the game. But it is hard to get the most from this faction.

Atlanticans - This faction is perhaps the most powerful faction in the game as it has access to everything. Basically every troop type. Although the difficulty of this faction is the sheer choice and it's often hard to get the right list that works. Often the only way is to pick a theme and stick to it. The issue is that picking a theme will mean that the theme is never quite as strong as the theme of another force you are trying to emulate. For example an Atlantican air warrior force will not be as strong as a Deceiver air warrior force. Atlantica does everything well, but it cant do that one thing excellently if you get what I'm saying.

Democracy - The first faction with no bots. Whenever I think of the play style for Democracy, I think of Wood Elves from Warhammer. That's how they play. Lots of Ranged Attacks with avoid, avoid, avoid Close Attacks. In saying that, the Democracy can win Close Attacks. Just not often. With the expansion of Max Stars Special Branch, the Democracy definitely have more options akin to having a bot force focused on Ranged Attack. Special Branch are better in Close Attack than the other Democracy models. But still they are on par with mini bots only. Keeping in line with their Wood Elf comparison the Democracy also do not follow the normal deployment rules. In fact almost all models in the force have either Scout or Advanced Deployment. This can give a big advantage in the game to grab objectives early on. A quick note on scenarios in Bot War. The scenarios are part of the faction balancing mechanic. Without them some factions will be too powerful and others too weak. Those not using the scenarios and just playing straight up fights will find the balance of the game put out.

Beastlords - These guys are you ogre-type faction. Incredibly powerful, especially at short range. Beastlords excel at everything within the 10” short range. However Beastlords are very few in number and can really struggle if you dont manage your energy correctly. They will also really struggle in any hold multiple objective scenarios because of their low model count. In the space portal scenario though they are extremely hard to beat. Of all the factions managing energy for Beastlords is paramount to victory. But you can almost bet on crushing your opponent one on one with Beastlords.

Trashers - These guys are an extreme outlier faction. They have almost no ranged attack at all. This makes trashers a hard faction to use as your opponent simply doesnt fear you at range at all and can hold back and snap ranged attacks off without issue. Unless you have Chopper, but I have discussed that in another post. Because Trashers are almost pure Close Attack they have a little bit more resilience and a little bit better access to energy for powerboosting. This makes them a really dangerous faction. If they can be avoided then they will just get whittled down and defeated. If they get into close attack they will absolutely mess up your opponents day. Even the weakest Trasher is better than a larger mid range bot in another faction in close attack. In more open terrain tables Trashers will be hard pressed. In the city Trashers excel and will have your opponent in fear of a Trasher Ram Attack.

Infesters - This is a strange force to use. And a bit like Trashers their style can be changed with the addition of one model. In the case of infesters, thats the Queen. Adding the Queen to your force will change their play style. I wont really go into that here. I'll stick to the default Infesters style. The key ingredient to Infesters success are clones. Essentially infesters are your “undead” type force. Able to field loads of cheap efficient bots and overwhelm even the toughest opponents. Like “undead” the key to beating them is to destroy the necromancer rather than risk all the minions. So destroying the true Infester will auto remove all the clones of that model too. For example, imagine fighting an 80 point force made up of just Locust followed by 17 clones locust! That's 18 models you would be facing!! It's a scary prospect indeed to be outnumbered almost 3:1 in games of Bot War. Infesters mostly mirror Deceivers playstyle but its the cloning that really sets them apart as something entirely different.

Snake Corp - This faction swaps things up. Essentially the real workers in this force are the vehicles. The back up are the bots. Snake corp have some of the most useful and powerful vehicles in the game. More so now with trial rules out for squads and platoons. The bots are mostly ok with some like slyder and raven better than others. But overall the snake corp bots are there for a little extra muscle in close attack. The vehicles are where the faction lifts their game especially if facing bots themselves. Against bots, snake corp have the cheapest access to RA4 in the game. They have arguably the best helicopters and arguably yhe best dedicated flyers also. They also have great access to energy. Overall Snake Corp have the best vehicles in the game and their play style should reflect this to get the most of the faction.

Overlords - This faction is not yet fully released and is still under trial rules so I wont discuss them in too much detail. So far they have performed well. At the moment the faction is propped up on the strength of Gorg himself but as more releases for this faction come out the force will balance better into the other characters. The overlords are a faction that really needs teamwork to function at its best.

Red Star Nations - this force works two extremes. On one hand you have reasonably weak numerous infantry backed up by helicopters. Hardly any other support. And certainly no midrange support options.
On the other hand you have the brutal ferocity of the dinoborgs. As this faction is not tet released i wont go into great detail. However the key to getting the most from this faction will be managing to combine both of these extreme threads into a coherent force.

Basic Gameplay Videos

By the maker:
[url]https://www.facebook.com/tradersgalaxy/videos/926810711026369/[/url]

Independent:
[url]https://youtu.be/bdZ2cbN362s[/url]

Facebook Group: [url]https://www.facebook.com/groups/312126222670983[/url]