CAV (Short for Combat Armored Vehicle) is Reaper Miniatures game of Giant Mecha combat in the 23rd Century. Mankind is the newest race to reach the starts, and through over aggressiveness, manage to earn their way to a pennicle of power, equal to many older, more established empires. For many people, it will remind them of the old days when Battletech was new. For others, it is going to be their first Mecha Miniature game. For either, I believe it is going to be a fun system.
FIRST LOOK
The cover is nice and clean, with a brilliant illo of a Dictator CAV on the cover. The format of the book is nicely done, with a light industrial look to the borders. Splashed throughout the book are full-page images and sidebars, which make getting through the history and development segments exciting and enjoyable. One thing that is disturbing about the layout, however, is the Headers for each section blend into the background, and if you aren't looking for them, you would never know you had moved into a new section of the book. However, this is a minor quibble.
A CLOSER LOOK
Most of what you get for your money is a lot of history, and a fair number of mecha descriptions. The history is both colorful, and slightly scary. I would have liked more details on the alien races (As of this moment, there is apparently 6), but overall, they are presented well. One could run a RPG with the material they give you, if one was so inclined.
For instance, Humankind, during the conflict with the Rach made many Orbiting Defense Platforms around their colony worlds. After the war was over, they continued to serve and protect. However, some of them started to malfunction. In fact, some of them disappeared altogether, along with ships in the shipping lanes.
Eventually, someone found what they called a hive-like construction in space, with small fighters and CAV drones running about in a mad collection. It was unmanned, and defended itself intensely. The orbital platforms had attained sentience. The 'Psychotic Robots" (Or psyro's) became a threat to the galaxy, whereever they showed up.
There are other examples, but this demonstrates how much thought was given to the world as it was being developed. Reaper also plans to keep the fans active by integrating their home rules and home units into the universe, making it as much a piece of work by the fans as it will be by the company. This has been done before to various results, and it should be interesting how it develops from here.
THE NITTY GRITTY
The combat system in the game is fast and furious. All Games are played using d10's, a bunch of d6's to keep track of damage, and a deck of playing cards. (We used Earthquake cards, and they work just as well). Each game begins by players choosing their forces. Each player gets between 2000 to 4000 points in which to build an army. (This is about enough to buy 8-16 good CAV's, or some CAV's and a lot of infantry and Armor). After choosing their forces, and dividing them into groups of four, they get one card for the initiative deck. They can also buy additional cards with their starting points.
Once the field is set up, and both sides have their armies in place, the game begins. Players move their groups one at a time, depending on who's initiative it is (As told by the Initiative deck) in a pair of contested die rolls, modified by the Combat Card of each of the units. One to lock on, and one to deal damage. A side chart determines damage.
When a CAV is damaged, it is marked with a die. The higher the number, the more damaged your unit is. The Damage Track system works very well in this regard and things can go from good to desperate in just a few turns. Expect high Casualties. CAV's aren't designed for endurance.
Which brings us to the point I like about the game. Infantry and Armor units can and do make a difference. With the right equipment, Infantry can take down a heavy CAV unit. The game makes a distinction between hard and soft targets, so guns that are good against CAV's and Tanks are not as good against Gunships and Infantry. That makes weapon selection and balanced planning a must.
The ability to customize your CAV's is rather limited in these rules, but I imagine that will change when the supplements start coming out. However, there is enough ways to change things that it will keep you busy for a while. It would have been nice to have had a wider selection of weapons then what was provided.
THE RESULTS
For those of you who are looking to get out of Warhammer 30k, and into something new, this is your boat. Simple rules and relatively fast play make for a quick game, with much less investment. At this time, it was hard to find many CAV miniatures. However, the ones I did find were priced along the lines of old Battletech Miniatures, which means that
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