Behind the Veil
Lightning Strike supplement one: Venus
Lightning Strike, 1st edition, is a pretty complete game. One thing I complained about was lacking rules for stealth, and those rules are some of the stuff found in this slim supplement, detailing Venusian forces.
What's it all about
Behind the Veil gives Lightning Strike players - and any Jovian Chronicles player thirsty for More Information - the things they need to field Venusian forces. In the Chronicles, Venus a shady setting, suspected of most of the popular conspiracies, seen plotting for Solar system control through superior commercial influence. Little concrete is known about the torching planet's inhabitants. Much less about it's military.
Finally, the single Ryu exo-armor detailed in the Jovian Chronicles basic rulebook gets a bunch of siblings and parents. Behind the Veil provides the hardware to field Venusian troops, some extra rules, some flavoring and background information to better grasp the Venusians, and an errata to patch Lightning Strike, if you haven't found the errata from the Web already.
What you get
The price is pretty steep for 32 pages plus two color sheets of counters. However, you're paying for a major addition to the Chronicles setting, and a whole army to play with. And it's all done really well, which is no surprise - after all, this is a Dream Pod 9 product. I'm beginning to wonder that there must be a terrible pressure at the Pod offices to make sure that each and every product exceeds the loyal fans' very high expectations.
There are four pages of short fiction. It's okay, but nothing spectacular. I've always found Pod's Heavy Gear fiction better than what they manage with the Chronicles. I do wonder if the four pages could've been used to a better effect, such as more background information. On the other hand, Pod has always kept it's gameworlds very human-sensitive, and using wargame space for fiction is true to that trend.
After the first half of the two-part fiction, the reader is treated to five pages of information on the Venusian way of life. A brief recount of the society's history, the color art on the cover and the descriptions of Venusian politics manage to paint a pretty good picture of what it's like beyond the mists of the hot planet. For example, every Venusian warship looks just like any civilian vessel. All of the guns and sensors are housed within concelaed holds and covered by commercials and art - Venusians have highly decorated spacecraft. When it's time to fight, the advertising boards slide back to release drones, exo-armors and an array of high-tech weaponry.
Drones are an addition to Lightning Strike's repertoire of units. As one might guess, they're computer-controlled machines, used in place of the more expensive, human-guided units in certain situations. Venusians use drones to a great degree. There are four pages of rules on drone use, which appears a bit much. They are a nice concept, though, and likely to feature in my games. Again, it's all optional.
With the reader made familiar with the fundamentals of Venusian life and warfare - this being a wargaming supplement, after all - a bunch of new rules are presented. Venusian exo-armors are excellent close combatants, and the new grappling rules make that count. They add color to close combat and not a great deal of complexity - just what an optional rule should do. There are two new weapon characteristics, self-destruction and armor-destroying, of which the latter feels like overkill (pardon the pun) - halve Protection, but also inflict Overkill results. Railguns and cluster munition missiles (CMMS) are added to shipboard weaponry. CMMS are particularuly useful as a deterrent against clamping exos, as they can targeted at point-blank range.
The two new vehicle perks add a lot to the basic Lightning Strike. Stealth allows a unit to better avoid being targeted. A nice touch is that during game setup, units with Stealth are placed on the battlefield last. Cloak allows a unit to completely avoid detection under certain circumstances. This should change game tactics a great deal.
Very few vehicles have Stealth or Cloak, but those that do are certainly interesting to try out and fight against. Exactly what I'm looking for in a supplement: not just more of the same, but new things to do and play with.
Lastly on the new rules -department, there are rules for external cargo, including docked exos and interceptors. Easy to use and a welcome addition, but this is something that really should've been in the basic rules.
The campaign model stays the same - and it's still great stuff - but Venusians get their own thresholds and guidelines for repairs, certain strategies, resupply, transports and so on. It feels that the whole campaign engine has been thought through with the Venusians in mind. The changes are all small and logical and give welcome color to using a different army.
What you get, part 2: the Mecha
Then on to the primary selling point of Behind the Veil, the new mecha. The Venusian mecha designs are distinctive and sure to aesthetically appeal to a lot of mechaheads - I know I dig them a lot. They've got a huge ego, a lot of self-assured confrontialism, and what they give away in delicate systems they gain back in swift, cool decisiveness.
The exos
Ryu, general purpose exo-armor. This once's familiar to Jovian Chronicles players from the rulebook.
Ryu Bonebreaker, close combat general purpose exo-armor. Looks very little like Ryu, armed with twin massdriver-shotguns. Very distinctive look.
Korikaze, special operations exo-armor. Four-armed stealth unit.
Kaminari, assault exo-armor. The looming orange exo from the back cover.
Sakura, executive-class exo-armor. A weird design maybe more reminiscent of interceptros than exo-armors, the Sakura has a crew of three and a horde of drones in it's bays. Legless, like the CEGA Syreen.
Guang-Gung, infantry support exo-armor. Another weird design, the Guang-Gung has four combination arms/legs and carries a force of exo-suits to battle. The future adaptation of the armored personnel carrier.
Kitsune, commando exo-suit.
Tanuki, heavy exo-suit. Actually the smallest exo-armor in existence. Most Venusian ships carry Tanukis for executing and defending against boarding actions. My new favorite exo-suit.
The fighters (interceptors)
Siegfried, light fighter
Brunnhilde, heavy fighter. Pretty neat-looking.
Rienzi, torpedo fighter
Alberich, electronic warfare craft
The warships
Imperator patrol cruiser. Based on the CEGA Bricriu, but looks way better.
Huang-Ti observer. Stealth ship designed solely to spy.
Chieftain escort cruiser. Very fast, usually seen in the role of protecting civilians.
Satrap transport cruiser. Transports don't come better-looking than this. Coolest space ship I've ever seen.
Tsar heavy cruiser. Same goes for this heavy cruiser. I so want to see these Venusian ships as miniatures.
Shan-yu battlecruiser. Venus' largest military vessel, which is still a long cry from most other nations' heaviest hitters. Manned by Very Important Persons of the Venusian Bank, mostly, these babies rarely see any danger.
In addition to the detailed entries above, there are seven drone designs. As a definite plus, all of the detailed mecha get a droolable "action" image, in addition to the technical drawings found on the datacards.
All in all
If you're into Lightning Strike, you should probably get Behind the Veil. The new rules are nice and the units are wonderful. While there aren't enough counters to really play, a color copy or two of the countersheets will fix the problem. You're buying an army.
Behind the Veil is expensive for a roleplaying supplement, but as a wargaming supplement it's OK - you'll have to play a lot of games to go through all of the new stuff presented in here. There isn't nearly enough new material to make this a worthwhile buy for a pure roleplayer, but as a combined tactical/roleplayer, I found the roleplaying material a great bonus to a great wargame supplement.
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