Dispatches from Cyrano’s War Room, Part 4

Jim Owczarski, 17 March 2025

So, how did it go?

If you have come this far, you know I had been working to bring the Star Wars universe to the wargame tabletop. I chose Quadrant 13 from the Too Fat Lardies and built a company-plus-sized force for both the Rebellion and the Empire. I selected the first scenario from that rule book, rolled up terrain as prescribed, and away we went.

The video of all the festivities is here:

My observations are:

A great deal of the outcome of the game was determined by the Rebels not understanding the briefing. The particulars are in the video’s after-action review. In summary, they did not think the Empire forces would be able to see them without spotting as the IABSM¹ system provides. This led them to deploy entirely to one side of the battlefield, thinking it would yield surprise. It did not. And, though it prevented the Empire from hitting with its preliminary bombardment, it had unfortunate consequences.

click images to enlarge

In general, the system worked well, if in the methodical way that IABSM games have. The Empire, though it had blinds, did not choose to use them much, preferring to open fire on the Rebels at range and turn most of the fight into a gun battle. The limited terrain called for by the scenario builder as well as setting the fight on an arid planet must bear some of the responsibility for this. This decision did lead, however, to my next observation.
In Quadrant 13, ranged weapons are no joke. Unlike its predecessors, every shot is modified by the technological level of the scenario, doubled. This means a “6” was added to every roll. The consequences became quickly apparent as, lacking adequate cover and even over long distances, hits, pins, suppressions, and kills piled up very quickly. The center of the table started to look an awful lot like the aftermath of Verdun. Area effect weapons proved even more powerful. I have of late been using a decal to mark the location of kills on the table. It came out a lot.

The choice of giving the Rebellion one level of armor and the Empire two seemed to work and made the charging white-helmets just a bit more survivable in the attack.
All scenarios should try to involve dewbacks.

The special rule for Petulant-Youth-Definitely-Not-Named-Skywalker also fit the idiom well. He was ranked a “Big Man” but was allowed to command no one on the assumption no one would listen to him. On the other hand, he gave a bonus in close combat due to skill with his lightsaber and had a small chance of deflecting hits with same.

Overall, I judge it to have been a qualified success and I think the crew agreed.

First game finished, I turned to the question of what was to happen next. My first notion had been to work my way through the scenarios in the rule book and add in bits and pieces of complexity as we went. During this process, I was distracted by the Mechanical Turk. If you do not recognize this nom de voyage you are not a regular viewer of the YouTube channel, for which you are forgiven. The Turk, a funny, skilled New Zealander, has been building tabletops for our use for several months now. His offerings have ranged from Napoleonic to World War II. Intrigued, it would seem, by our poking at Star Wars, he sent over a pure-dead-brilliant, IABSM-ready table for the Battle of Scarif from Rogue One. This is, as I have written before, the only Stars Wars movie outside IV-VI that I will admit as canon. Here is an image of it:

click images to enlarge

Guy has skills.

The first thing this did, as I began to discuss a new scenario with the playtest group, was wind up the nerds who pointed out that the “standard issue” (whatever the Devil that means) Stormtrooper armor was not appropriate for the Battle of Scarif. I could have, and in fact was sorely tempted to, stamp my feet and insist that O.G. Stormtroopers are the best Stormtroopers and all the other nonsense should be pitched over the rail. With Tabletop Simulator raining down options, however, I thought better of the tirade and began building Scarif-appropriate (whatever that means) Imperial forces.

All this got me thinking about a great many things, not the least of which was Fun; Capital F. Histogamers can come off as a crusty bunch. Let us face it, we are a crusty bunch, irrespective of age. I did begin to wonder if I was missing the point of building battles in a universe as ultimately ridiculous as Star Wars.² As the movies that inspired them, it seemed to me they should be epic, they should have sweep, they should move along quickly, and they should be Fun first. Please do not misunderstand: IABSM is one of my favorite rule sets. It is, for me, the best company-level system for World War II gaming and the competition is not close. Despite what some of the crew think, the well-regarded Chain of Command is entirely IABSM‘s poorer sister. I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum, though, has a pace and it is measured. I more than once wondered during our playthrough if that pace was not inimical to the spirit of the genre.

This turned me back to two rule sets that I have already considered and to which this series will now turn: Xenos Rampant and Grimdark Future. I have built a company-plus-sized battle for these two as well as Q13 set on this lovely Scarif map. I have picked basic scenarios for all three. Even at this early stage, I can tell you that I am fascinated by the differences in each order of battle born of each rule set. And I think I still have players willing to give it all ago.

That can mean only one thing: Rules Fight.

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