The Inside Scoop on Gaming

The Mecha combat game system has been a staple for miniatures war-gaming since the very first edition of Battledroids (or Battletech if you prefer) hit the shelves. There have been too many different ones to count, from Games Workshops’ Adeptus Titanicus, to Hero games’ extremely deplorable Robot Warriors. Now a new game company takes their own peculiar stab at the genre, one with all of the hard core seriousness of battle cattle, And an extremely easy yet workable system. The game is Junk by Dark Omen Games.

Set on the post apocalyptic world of Joisey, (a place that makes HOL look like a tourist trap,) the inbred rednecks of this little dirt ball, fight clannish wars with Cans (their own form of Mecha built from scrap yard pieces) Trucks and of course redneck infantries, wielding shotguns. The genre itself is simple enough to get players involved into the action, without having to deal with too much politics or factions. And there are plenty of good reasons to fight (from family feuds to the whole tastes great, less filling debate!!)

Mecha combat itself is handled pretty decently using an inch based set up rather than hexagonal mapping. The game uses a multi D6 system for both resolution and damage (not unlike Shadowrun or West end Games’ D6 system) there are however a few unique things that make this game stand out. Firstly of course are the deranged collection of artillery that exist for your cans (such as the port o John Launcher or Chain saw or “can Opener” ) also the unique system of fuel. (all cans run on booze (mostly beer) and the type of fuel you use, can greatly effect the amount of actions you can do, at the cost of possibly damaging your can. This power to maneuver rules set is both unique and very playable, showing a lot of detail in it’s deceptively simple design.

One interesting point is that with proper conversion this game would make a pretty decent serious mini’s game (not that it needs conversion, but I think it’s important to indicate that the game engine itself is rather solid, as opposed to being a simple parody of the genre (such as say stupor powers which is not as viable as a serious superhero RPG) The art of Junk is bad, (I don’t mean just crudely drawn I mean bad, however it is 100% within keeping with the genre, to be honest well drawn anime stylized art would have been more of a detractor to this product than the crudely drawn rednecks that populate the book.

Possibly the only real detractor I had was the lack of an actual miniatures line. Now again this is not the worst thing that could happen to a game, but with the genre being so unique it would have been nice to see, or even say upscale the system to a 1/72 from a 1/285th scale game and give a chapter about how to build your own cans out of Hot Wheels and the like. It would be a helpful thing for a game that is not likely to have an audience that will support a costly set of metal miniatures. (Granted you can simply multiply all distances by 5 and get the same effect, but it would be nice if such were included. Also I have a serious belief that this game will not break any sales records due to the comedic nature of the game (so often games such as this tend to make marginal showings) which is a bit of a tragedy because even with out the redneck humor, there is a solid set of mechanics driving this system

So if the idea of a game that is 1 part heavy gear/or battle tech, one part the Red Green show, and all sorts of fun I highly recommend picking up a copy of junk and git to a feudin’ now!!

(Note: One decent miniatures replacement that works well for Junk (we found anyway) is Mattel’s Robo Wheels hotwheels line, a group of transforming car/robots that look as if they crawled out of the junk heap themselves. And almost cheap enough to work)

Junk
Junk Playtest Review by Jamie Herbert on 25/02/02 Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty) armored combat in the not so intelegent future! Product: Junk Author: seth ben-Ezra Category: Board/Tactical Game Company/Publisher: Dark Omen Games Line: Junk Cost: 14.95 Page count: 102 Year published: 2002 ISBN: 0=9704314-0-9 SKU: dog1000 Comp copy?: yes Playtest Review by Jamie Herbert on 25/02/02 Genre tags: Science Fiction Comedy Other	The Mecha combat game system has been a staple for miniatures war-gaming since the very first edition of Battledroids (or Battletech if you prefer) hit the shelves. There have been too many different ones to count, from Games Workshops’ Adeptus Titanicus, to Hero games’ extremely deplorable Robot Warriors. Now a new game company takes their own peculiar stab at the genre, one with all of the hard core seriousness of battle cattle, And an extremely easy yet workable system. The game is Junk by Dark Omen Games. Set on the post apocalyptic world of Joisey, (a place that makes HOL look like a tourist trap,) the inbred rednecks of this little dirt ball, fight clannish wars with Cans (their own form of Mecha built from scrap yard pieces) Trucks and of course redneck infantries, wielding shotguns. The genre itself is simple enough to get players involved into the action, without having to deal with too much politics or factions. And there are plenty of good reasons to fight (from family feuds to the whole tastes great, less filling debate!!) Mecha combat itself is handled pretty decently using an inch based set up rather than hexagonal mapping. The game uses a multi D6 system for both resolution and damage (not unlike Shadowrun or West end Games’ D6 system) there are however a few unique things that make this game stand out. Firstly of course are the deranged collection of artillery that exist for your cans (such as the port o John Launcher or Chain saw or “can Opener” ) also the unique system of fuel. (all cans run on booze (mostly beer) and the type of fuel you use, can greatly effect the amount of actions you can do, at the cost of possibly damaging your can. This power to maneuver rules set is both unique and very playable, showing a lot of detail in it’s deceptively simple design. One interesting point is that with proper conversion this game would make a pretty decent serious mini’s game (not that it needs conversion, but I think it’s important to indicate that the game engine itself is rather solid, as opposed to being a simple parody of the genre (such as say stupor powers which is not as viable as a serious superhero RPG) The art of Junk is bad, (I don’t mean just crudely drawn I mean bad, however it is 100% within keeping with the genre, to be honest well drawn anime stylized art would have been more of a detractor to this product than the crudely drawn rednecks that populate the book. Possibly the only real detractor I had was the lack of an actual miniatures line. Now again this is not the worst thing that could happen to a game, but with the genre being so unique it would have been nice to see, or even say upscale the system to a 1/72 from a 1/285th scale game and give a chapter about how to build your own cans out of Hot Wheels and the like. It would be a helpful thing for a game that is not likely to have an audience that will support a costly set of metal miniatures. (Granted you can simply multiply all distances by 5 and get the same effect, but it would be nice if such were included. Also I have a serious belief that this game will not break any sales records due to the comedic nature of the game (so often games such as this tend to make marginal showings) which is a bit of a tragedy because even with out the redneck humor, there is a solid set of mechanics driving this system So if the idea of a game that is 1 part heavy gear/or battle tech, one part the Red Green show, and all sorts of fun I highly recommend picking up a copy of junk and git to a feudin’ now!! (Note: One decent miniatures replacement that works well for Junk (we found anyway) is Mattel’s Robo Wheels hotwheels line, a group of transforming car/robots that look as if they crawled out of the junk heap themselves. And almost cheap enough to work)