VOID, Warzone, VOR the Maelstrom... Who's played them?

[Blackwolf]

I played Warzone a fair bit in the day,nice ,fun simple game. However what really got me into it was the outstanding background fluff( especially if you got the RPG books). I’ve still got all my books,and some figures. The Mark Copplestone sculpts we’re the best, a lot we’re dire.
My army were Imperials,with Lutheran’s in the Dark Eden setting,brilliant book that one

[Westfalia Chris]

(...)
As for Kryomek, I've heard of it quite a few times over the years, but otherwise know very little about it. Is/was it similar to Warzone/VOID/VOR?
(...)

I'll admit I never actually played Kryomek. Still, the very first gaming models I bought were some Kryomek bunkers to use with Micromachines Star Wars toys, and I got a big chunk of the range including the rules in 2020 to do a "retromorph" not-Aliens project. Lots of fun painting the metal figures, less with the resin stuff (moulds showing their age).

I read the rules with much interest, but found them to be incredibly complex, even for 1990s Scifi rules, although the production quality was great. Writing style a bit dry, too, but hinting at a fascinating fluff backbone... Since I have no actual nostalgic reminiscence for them, I would probably use the classic miniatures in conjunction with the Void rules and use suitable Viridian and VASA profiles for the Colonial Marines and Predators and Koralon for the xenomorph threat to play outdoor games, and an adapted form of 1E Spacehulk for indoor crawls.

[NotifyGrout]

@NotifyGrout:

Thank you for the detailed breakdown of Warzone First Edition.

It's interesting that you mentioned the unit sizes being around 5-6 models, and that armies were 5-6 squads, as the boxed set they put out (in, I'm guessing, Second Edition) with the scores of plastic figures in it seemed to suggest that it was being aimed at units that were around 10 models strong, with perhaps 6-7 units a side. Do you recall what balance was like between factions at all please?

Speaking of miniatures, I thought Prince August was still making and selling these? Or are they only running down old stocks? Or are these a different era of sculpts? If I wanted to play this game, am I basically looking at proxying to get consistent-looking forces? Anvil Industries looks like they might be a decent place to start with for Imperial/Capitol/Bauhaus factions, although I suppose VOID and/or VOR models might also be a decent fit (especially Syntha troops as Cybertronic). What would you use as proxies?

Most of this has been covered by Chris already, but there are still a few things I can try to help with:

Prince August bought the remaining stock way back when. What research I was able to find indicated that due to rights for the Mutant Chronicles IP changing hands a couple of times, the molds were destroyed. Sadly, instead of heroic 28mm, when Fantasy Flight got their turn, they went with 54mm...I don't know whose idea it was, and I try not to be negative, but...why? Who thought that was a good idea? Were they trying to go for an Inquisitor vibe, but with prepainted plastic minis

As for proxies, Anvil Industry would certainly work, but I don't know how cost-effective it would be. For Void minis, I'd go Syntha for Cybertronic as you said, Viridians for Capitol, and Vasa for Mishima (they have some pan-Southeast-Asian flavored minis).

If you want an old school trench warfare look, these are pretty cool for both Bauhaus and Imperial standard troops: https://cpmodels.co.uk/product-category/28mm-ranges/28mm-sci-fi/trench-warfare/

I tend towards best bang for the buck for normal troops, preferring to spend more on heroes, monsters, and vehicles. So I look at plastic kits for the infantry.

• Maelstrom's Edge has some nice stuff here. I could see these being used for Capitol, Cybertronic, or Imperial: https://www.maelstromsedge.com/medge/store.jsp
• The Iron-Core range from Wargames Atlantic would be solid for Bauhaus, especially if combined with the Death Fields Raumjager units for Venusian Rangers or other special forces: https://wargamesatlantic.com/collections/iron-core
• Mantic's Coporation troops would be a solid start for any human faction, with Enforcers serving as elites. Plague for Dark Legion, or Veer-myn for a different angle on it (space rats overrunning the galaxy rather than techno-undead could certainly work): https://www.manticgames.com (make sure to browse both the Warpath and Deadzone ranges).
  Legionnaire proxies here: https://www.manticgames.com/games/deadzone/plague/plague-3rd-gen-troopers/
• Stargrave's Trooper sprue might be worth a look, too.

Those should give you the basis for a solid core of proxies, adding models depending on how many of the expansion books you want to use. I would stick to the base book and the Dawn of War supplement, unless you get so far into the game that you decide you really must have vehicles and even more troop options. I went back through the books and felt that the other expansions, while adding a lot more choices, also bogged the game down.

[Wachaza]

For Void minis, I'd go Syntha for Cybertronic as you said, Viridians for Capitol, and Vasa for Mishima (they have some pan-Southeast-Asian flavored minis).

Junkers for Bauhaus. IIRC Void started when Target lost/folded the Warzone license so the early Void minis were the next Warzone edition's minis repurposed. The Scottish design studio turned their work on the next edition of warzone into i-kore and Void.

[Major_Gilbear]

Merry Christmas to all, and thanks for the additional replies - I'm glad to have asked these old games now; as I suspected, it seems that they are hidden gems!

@ Wachaza:
That's interesting to hear about, as the original VOID models don't look all that more advanced in sculpting style (to me) over the Warzone models. I suppose that the Romanesque stylings of the early Junkers does makes sense for Bauhaus if you were to regard them as being a bit themed towards the old Holy Roman Empire a bit? Viridian as Venus makes more sense to me though, and I suppose I'd have guessed Junkers would be Mars or perhaps Imperial? Cyberton as Syntha seems fairly obvious.

@ Westfalia Chris:
I do seem to remember that it was an alternate universe/parallel world setting where humans ended up coming into contact with the Kryomek aliens, but as I said before, it was a game I knew/know very little about. I may need to look into Kryomek it seems! 

Go for it! Judging by the comments I've received so far on game size and game balance/duration, what's actually holding you back? 

Honestly? Space and a crazy huge backlog It's sometimes hard for me to internally justify "more sci humans" you know ?

Well, if they are small squads, you could justify them (and the terrain) for Stargrave? Plus, depending on what models/how you paint them, perhaps you can give Warzone a go with them too?


Thanks again for all the comments folks, I've appreciated everyone's insights so far. If anybody else reading this thread has any experience, please do chime in! Even if it's just to say "I agree with what X person said", it's all helpful to me. Also, since it seems like a few of you played these quite a bit in the past, please feel free to post up photos of your squads and armies for all three games - I'd love to see peoples' forces from back in the day. 

[v_lazy_dragon]

I read Void V1 back in the day, and liked what I read,  but was too tied into 40k to switch systems (I did use some Viridians as Catchans). Warzone v1 and v2 were both systems I was aware of at about the same time - had a taster of v1 rules from a magazine article advertising new units and some additional equipment and decided (rightly or wrongly) that they seemed complicated compared to 40k.
The set that caught my eye back then was Shockforce for its supposedly post apocalypse setting and the excitement of what ammounted to Cadians, skaven in space and ratskins all facing off against each other; but I never got the chance to buy any

[Storm Wolf]

Hi I have never played void or warzone, but I have dabbled with Kryomek which has of the best fluff IMHO it was just a shame that the rules were only partially playable.

As I get older retro-gaming in all its forms is to be applauded 

All the best and a early Happy New year

Glen

[Major_Gilbear]

The set that caught my eye back then was Shockforce for its supposedly post apocalypse setting and the excitement of what ammounted to Cadians, skaven in space and ratskins all facing off against each other; but I never got the chance to buy any

Shockforce from Demonblade games? I have never heard of it before your post here, and I had to look it up! Seems like it was obscure enough that there's very little info about these days, which is a shame.

[NotifyGrout]

Check the Facebook group for WarEngine (membership is not required: https://www.facebook.com/groups/623283044910535/files)

The 2nd Edition rulebook appears to be complete, but the WarEngine ruleset gives the reader an idea of what was to come before the project was abandoned (from what I can tell, the author had to move on to other things) WarEngine appears to be complete rules-wise, but it has zero premade force lists. I think it comes down to ready-to-play vs. a toolkit approach.

I love Warzone 1st, but even now I'd argue that a lot of modern rulesets are better.

Warzone deserves to be remembered for using a d20 and alternating unit activations long before most other miniatures games (at least in the sci-fi or fantasy realms). Similarly, Shockforce/WarEngine deserves recognition for being a sci-fi game that was designed to play fast (even faster than Warzone) and because it was a direct refutation of the "buy everything from us, we are the hobby" attitude of Games Workshop (some things never change  ).

[nandrin]

We played a lot of VOR back in the days and had a pretty active gaming group. I love to play the original as well as the free version "No Limits" which is available as download and basically is the same rule set, along with the army builder options which never came out due to FASAs demise.

- Ease of play.
It is a pretty straight forward system. Players alternate activating one unit. Unit coherency must be obeyed, and each figure has action points which can be spend for moving, firing etc. in any order the player wishes to do. It uses d10.

- Variety of units/variety of play within each army.
I think the existing army books for VOR give a pretty good selection of units with different styles of play. 40k like, you have to field some standard units before you can field the elite ones. In No Limits, as the name suggests, you can basically play anything.

- Do you need big squads, or are small 5-6 model squads playable.
Squads usually have 4-10 models, with grunts tending to have more and elite units sometimes only 1-3 models. A 1000P game will consist of 25 - 40 Models.

- Variety of gameplay/replayability.
Replayability is good, especially if you play different scenarios.

Game duration.
- A typical game of 1000 Points will last about 2 hours.

- Differences between the games.
sorry, I never played the other games mentioned.

- Any notable pros/cons.
Cons: It is a dead game, which holds a lot of players back for reasons I never understood, but I am no expert in psychology 
Only few scenarios on the market, although the available books are quite entertaining. In No Limits, you have to resist to the urge to build "perfect armies" which is certainly possible for min-max players, but boring to play against.

Pros: It is a really solid rule system with very few uncertainties. I like possibility to customize armies due to the many abilities, weapons and equipment you can choose from.
The minis for VOR are still available, and in No Limts, you can play anything from your collection. I played my Tyranids and Necrons under these rules as well as some of the original FASA stuff. Still own UNA, Growler and Zykhee.
Great opportunities to build vehicles and unique armies which suits exactly your style of play.

[Major_Gilbear]

@ nandrin:

Thank you for your review of VOR; I noticed all the books for it are currently on super-sale at RPE, so I bought them all for further research! 

_____________________________


I also acquired most of the VOID books (purple rulebook revision, though I'm going to try and get the Starter Box version too for the scenarios). I did struggle to find a printed copy of the Koralon Forcebook however; was this a limited or digital-only release? It seems to have been released later than the others, and the stuff in it is *quite* different to the starter lists in the purple book, so I'm guessing that maybe it was Urban Mammoth rather than i-Kore?

Finally, I saw Warzone had (apparently) two different editions for the third edition ("Universe Under Siege"):


Does anybody have any idea what the difference(s) between these two books is please?

[akanous]

Finally, I saw Warzone had (apparently) two different editions for the third edition ("Universe Under Siege")

Does anybody have any idea what the difference(s) between these two books is please?

The image on the left was a mock-up or promotional cover Excelsior was using prior to the release of their "Ultimate" edition.  They only ever released one edition of their version and it used the cover shown on the right.

[Major_Gilbear]

Ah, I see, thank you akanous.

I also discovered yesterday that the reason I can't find a printed Koralon book for VOID is that there was never apparently a printed version. Which did surprise surprise me a bit, as they did get two pretty complete miniatures releases...

[Malebolgia]

Yeah, they released most of the models first and then started doing the army books. So the books didn't offer that much extra...but they were very nice though. Great quality printing, full colour, great art and photos. At that time that was quite special in this hobby.

[Keeper Nilbog]

I played Warzone in all 3 editions (dropped 2nd as 3rd does it better), and have also played Void, Kyromek and Shockforce.

The Shockforce rules (1ed) came with a build system, so you could "do it yourself", along with around 5 pre built lists for the "Fallen America" setting. These were:-
Corp (basically Imperial Guard)
Gothrats (Skaven with guns - mutated rats)
The Mobs (Gangster - Mafia - Orcs)
Tribal (Amerindians/ratskins)
Deathtec (undead Cowboys)
The Brethren (Good Old Boys/Southern Trailer Pack people).

The rules were simple, and had some elegant mechanisms. Throughout the book were little "history" quotes, such as the French selling weapons to various factions as they found Americans killing each other quite humorous.

The game did have a small figure range (good luck finding any), but the bell tolled for it when GW challenged them over the models for the Orc and Rat factions, as they felt they were to close to their ranges
A second edition was produced, but I'm not sure what happened with it (happily playing 1st).

Warzone (1st and 3rd - universe under fire), can have 5 man squad's for basic troops, though 3rd lists are structured so that you can have 3 times that amount if you want.
Universe under fire (Warzone) is an all in package, rules, equipment, battlefield/command assets, and lists for all the factions, Corporate, Brotherhood, Cartel,  Dark Legion (Cult's and Powers) and Dark Eden. It also has the History of the setting, Corporation and Dark Legion.
Well worth it if you can get a copy (I know there's a web site that has almost all the Warzone books on it (not some of the 2nd force books - always wanted the "Dark Eden" one).