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TITLE: Metropolis – Battle Force Conflicts (2004) AUTHOR: John Robertson and John Grant PUBLISHER: Urban Mammoth PUBLICATION DATE: 2004 WEB SITE/SUPPORT FORUM:
PRICE (with date): $30.00 (in 2008) REVIEWED BY: Mark “Extra Crispy” Severin PERIOD COVERED:
THE BOOK: Metropolis is a softback book of 128 pages. The book includes the rules as well as army lists. Also included are a variety of pages intended to be photocopied – templates, charts and counters. It is lavishly illustrated throughout with full color art of the various factions featured in the game. There are not, however, any pictures of the actual miniatures anywhere in the book. There is a detailed table of contents but no index or glossary. SCOPE: Metropolis is a tactical combat game. ARMY SIZE: The game is built around squads of between 4 and 10 figures. A reasonably sized force will number 40-60 miniatures. BASE UNIT: Each unit represents a squad. Units are required to remain within 2” of one another and no two may be further apart than 12”. Units that have lost this integrity cannot shoot or assault until it has been restored. Most squads have between 4 and 10 models. Each figure in a unit is rated for each of the following characteristics. Most are rated on a scale from 1-10 (10 is excellent). The average human soldier scores a 4 for these attributes.
The rules do not discuss basing, but it is assumed most figures are based. The Urban War figure range includes bases. Ranges are measured from either base edge or the edge of the figure/vehicle. TURN SEQUENCE: In Metropolis, a turn has two phase. First comes the Marker Phase, an administrative phase in which figures may recover shock (see below). Then comes the Activation Phase in which players alternate using one unit at a time. Each player rolls a D10 to see who moves first. The player with the highest die roll may move first or nominate another player to do so. Activations come in two stages. First all units on Overwatch Orders are activated (essentially, each player calls out which of his units are on Overwatch and marks them with a counter). After all Overwatch Orders are declared, the remaining units may be activated. Once activated a unit may move, then shoot, then assault. These are all optional, of course, but must be performed in that order. So you may not shoot before moving, for example. As the unit is moved, enemy units on Overwatch may attempt to react and take a Disruption Shot (opportunity fire). This require a Command Check. GAME MECHANICS: Dice Used: The game uses ten sided dice. Shooting: In Metropolis firing is performed one unit at a time. Each unit fires at a single enemy unit. In some cases a unit may split its fire but this requires a Command Check. Target selection is limited – the nearest enemy unit being the default. Units may override Target Selection by making a Command Check. This may be done for the entire unit or in some cases for specific models (support weapons for example). Range is handled with simple bands – specific weapon types then have modifiers to hit and for damage in each range band (and, of course, some weapons only fire out to short or medium range, etc.). To shoot D10s are rolled for each firing model. Most will roll only a single die though some weapons or models may get more than one attack. The score needed to hit an enemy unit is determined by cross referencing the firing model’s Shooting rating with the Shooting Table. A model with a SH rating of 7, for example, hits on a roll of 3 or more. The die roll is modified by target size, cover and a few other modifiers. If the firer has a higher Caliber rating, they receive a bonus as well. The enemy player allocates resulting hits to his models. Basically every model must receive a hit before any model receives a second; closer models receive hits before models further away. Otherwise the owning player may allocate hits as he chooses. For each hit, a Damage check is made. A D10 is rolled and the Damage Table consulted. The Damage Table compares the targets Toughness with the Weapon Damage of the weapon. The table lists the score needed to inflict a wound on the target. For most targets a single wound will result in the model being killed/destroyed and removed from the table. In addition, the target may be eligible for a Cover Save. If the unit is in cover or behind a large obstruction, it rolls a D10 for each wound suffered. If successful, the cover absorbs the wound and the model is unhurt. Area effect weapons roll to hit as normal. If successful they place a template and all enemy units partially or wholly under the template take damage checks. If the to-it roll fails, there is a simple deviation mechanism. It uses the shape of the D10 face as an “arrow” to show the direction, with distance determined by die rolls. Shock Checks: Beside causing casualties, combat can also cause Shock. Units that take hits when fire on may have to take a Shock Check. A Shock Check is a Command Check with one difference. In addition to rolling a D10, the unit receives one extra D10 for each point of Caliber that the model with the highest Command Rating has. So if the model with the highest Command Rating also has a Caliber of 2, the unit would roll three D10 and use the highest result for the Command Check. Units that fail their check are marked with 1 or 2 Shock counters. Units with a Shock counter may not be activated. In the Marker Phase that begins a turn, all units remove a single Shock marker. No unit may ever have more than two shock markers. Disruption Shooting: This a variety of opportunity fire. It follows all the normal shooting rules but requires a Command Check. Basically, if an enemy unit within range and LOS performs a move or shoot action, one friendly unit may attempt a Command Check to take a disruption shot. Close Combat: There are three moves associated with Close Combat
When charged, a defending unit may attempt a Counter Charge. The unit makes a Command Check and if successful, may charge the attacking unit. Charging units receive a bonus in close combat resolution. Models roll to hit and to cause damage in a sequence determined by their Caliber rating. The higher rated unit strikes first. This a model with CAL=3 may hit and kill a model with CAL=1 without even being attacked in return. Units with equal CAL ratings attack simultaneously. Close Combat uses the same mechanism as Shooting except that the Cose Combat Table cross references the assault ratings of the attacker and defender. Modifiers include bonuses for higher Caliber; certain weapons carry a bonus as well; cover and morale. The loser is the side that suffers the most casualties. Ths unit must make a morale check. The combat is then over. It is possible for units to remain in base-to-base contact at the end of the combat. Command Checks: A variety of actions and situations will call for a unit to make a Command Check. To perform the check, the highest Command rating in the unit is determined. This is cross referenced with the Command Table which determines the roll needed to pass the check. A D10 is rolled and compared to the score needed. If the check is successful the unit may act as desired. If not, it may sometimes suffer a penalty or simply fail to act (as would be the case with Disruption Shots). Note that the Command Rating is not itself the number needed. For example a Command Rating of 6 means a check is successful on a 4+. Morale Checks: A Morale Check is a kind of Command Check. Units test morale if they suffer casualties or lose a close combat. Units that fail the morale check Panic and may not shoot – they may only move. Units automatically rally when activated of there is no enemy unit in LOS or within extreme range. Otherwise they make a Rally Check. To Rally the unit performs a Command Check. Rallied units recover immediately and may act as normal. SPECIAL RULES: Also included are Special Rules. These are just model or unit specific characteristics or abilities, such as Camouflage; Heavy Armor; Immune to Panic and so on. ARMY LISTS/SCENARIOS: There are seven armies and an army list is included for each. Each list requires taking certain core units. You may then add support and special units and models. Each unit and model has costs allowing for evenly matched armies of the same point value. REVIEWER’S COMMENTS: Overall Metropolis is a fairy well produced rule book. It is rather light on examples, and often the examples given are of the more basic concepts. There is a diagram and example of target selection, for example, but there is no example or diagram for shooting or close combat. The book is certainly good looking, though I found it odd that it has no pictures of the associated miniatures range at all. In general the rules are pretty well written and cross referenced. The table of contents is sufficiently detailed such that the lack of an index is not too serious. I was confused slightly by the shooting rules. First, it is unclear to me how ranges are measured. In some places it sounds as if you simply measure from the closest model in the firing unit to the closest model in the target unit. In other places it sounds as if you must check the range and LOS for each firing model. Easily resolved I’m sure but there is a significant gray area here. One obvious issue with the game is the need to cross reference figure characteristics with a table all the time. A Command Check is not a “compare a D10 to the Command rating” mechanism. I know why they did this. For example Command Ratings of 8, 9 and 10 all pass Command Checks on a 2+ But the way they wrote the mechanism still allows them to differentiate figures with a Command Rating of 8 vs 10, giving other advantages to the higher rated figure. The same applies to the other characteristics. The other issue is that individual figures within a unit may have different Caliber ratings. One may always assign the same rating to all figures in a unit to make for easier game play, but detailed rosters will certainly be needed to play Metropolis. PLAYER’S COMMENTS: Not played. |
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