Shadowrun miniature skirmish game "Sprawl Gangs" (fall 2013)

[Cherno]

I just stumbled upon an exciting piece of news that was posted a while ago by the guys at Catalyst Games, current IP holders of the SR franchise in it's non-videogame form.

http://www.catalystgamelabs.com/2012/12/21/the-year-of-shadowrun/

Fall-Winter 2013

The next big release for the year occurs with Catalyst’s publication of Shadowrun: Sprawl Gangers, a tactical miniatures game designed by Ross Watson and Randall N. Bills.

Sprawl Gangers is a competitive, skirmish-level miniatures game for 2 players, with everything needed to game right in the box. Players will take on the task of building gangs (Ancients, Halloweeners, First Nation, and so on) following specific point values of a scenario, and modifying the various miniatures based upon what new resources (weapons/gear/magic/tech) a player gained through previous games. Gangs won’t simply fight for the sake of fighting, but will actively building their turfs and resources. Among other things, this will allow for the hiring of the exact right shadowrunner when they need that ace in the hole. All this adds up to the experience of watching your gang grow and expand through exciting play across a swath of games.

Sprawl Gangers will be sculpted and manufactured in conjunction with CoolMiniOrNot, who have run three of the most successful miniatures game Kickstarter projects to date: Zombicide, Relic Knights, and Sedition Wars.

“We could not be more excited to be a part of this new facet of Shadowrun. When we initially started talking about the possibility of doing a Shadowrun miniatures game with Catalyst, I personally jumped for joy. We have some big fans of Shadowrun in the Cool Mini family; so you know Sprawl Gangers will be receiving some major blood, sweat and tears from our staff. Old and new Shadowrun fans alike would do well to expect great things from Sprawl Gangers,” said Kevin Clark, Director of Research and Development at Cool Mini Or Not.

Really?

Shadowrun?
Miniatures? (screw the "customizable" part, we all know how this ended last time for SR )
Skirmish & Campaign rules á la Necromunda & Gangs of Megacity 1?
Hireable Shadowrunners?
Made in cooperation with freaking CoolMiniOrNot?

Holy crap, I just jizzed my pants!

Please don't screw this up, please don't screw this up...

[Tom Reed]

Oooh boy! I am so glad that I didn't get rid of any of my old Shadowrun figures.

[Dentatus]

OK. I'll be watching with keen interest.

[hjorhrafn]

I remain confidently pessimistic.  I want this game to be good.  If I can convince myself it is going to suck, then everything they do right will be that much better, and what they mess up will be no worse than expected. 

[Jonas]

Interesting, I would love to see a well executed Shadowrun game 

[Grimmnar]

Ah yes Shadowrun. '86 was a good year. Had loads of fun with that game. Good times.

Grimm

[Cultist #3]

This could be sweet!

However I have to repeat the "don't screw this up" 

[tnjrp]

Well well, an actual Shadowrun minis game then, eh? Wonder if NewEvolutionGames is in any way involved or if this just rains on their planned parade bigtime?
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=45211.0

Anyway. Little interest in actually playing S:SG as of itself but may want to get some of the more baseline human minis at some point. Strongly doubt I'll be taking part in the near-inevitable KickStarter for this one tho.

[YPU]

I must say I always was interested in seeing the more modern current edition of SR in miniature shape. And if this is indeed a all you need is in the box game with a campaign system I might just buy it. Years ago my friends and me had great fun with mordheim despite its rules not being great for skirmish. We have discussed doing something like that again but the focus has shifted towards sci-fi and we dont really have the time to spend each week trawling for miniatures to use as the new recruits we got.

So all in all I must say this is looking very promising. An as with many kickstarters these days they tend to go way beyond their initial goal and get upgraded with loads of extras which often make it quite good value for money.

I am curious what they are going to do for board/terrain on this. If done right it might be useful for other things as well.

[Cherno]

I would suspect they'll have a generic urban floorplan mat plus maybe a couple of small card buildings in the box.

[YPU]

Actually now that we are on the topic (kind of)  I was wondering if any SR players could explain me something. How do you generally play map wise? DnD has a very clear grid system, savage worlds is intended for miniatures or counters and fate uses zones. But what id the default for SR?

[chromedog]

Well, DMZ - the last combat styled game add-on for SR used a quasi grid system - a series of 'splat' (*) marks, in a hexagonal pattern, spaced an inch apart in each direction.   Miniatures or standees were placed on one point and movement to another point or turns, etc were based from here.

There were a set of 2D top down floor plans released for DMZ (some in the base box, and additional ones in the "Sprawl sites" pack (shopping mall, apartments, police stations, junkyards, etc).

[Cherno]

^^Of course, that was about 20 years ago, sooo...

I guess there is now right way to do it, and SR doesn't outright require a gridded or whatever floorplan to resolve combat (as opposed to, say, D&D). Gunfights could just as easily be narrated, but if you want it more tactical, you never go wrong with square grids

[fourcolorfigs]

Yes, while I am largely leaving 28mm behind due to space and lifestyle changes, this may be my one exception for 2013.  Very exciting news!

[Conquistador]

Yes, while I am largely leaving 28mm behind due to space and lifestyle changes, this may be my one exception for 2013.  Very exciting news!

Careful, I am fighting the "exception temptation" thing myself as I approach retirement/downsizing from house to apartment myself (I am switching to 1/600 for battles and trying to limit skirmish type games in 25+ mm to things I would want to play more than once  month.)

I have decided that if I add something in "large figure" gaming I must sell off two somethings first.

Otherwise everything becomes an exception...

Gracias,

Glenn