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Armageddon 2089 is based on the d20 rules of the D&D Player’s Handbook. It’s a 304-page full colour hardback book. As far as I can tell, everything except product identity is Open Game Content, but “if you have any questions on the Open Game Content of this product, please contact Mongoose Publishing for clarification.”
For a chapter-by-chapter summary of the book you can go to Mongoose’s site at http://www.mongoosepublishing.com and read the details for the Armageddon 2089 book.
For this review I’ll put my opinions on Style and Substance first and then, because it’s a d20 game and people seem to expect it, I’ll try to give some of the “crunchier” details and specific comments chapter by chapter.
Opinion
Style
Clearly Armageddon 2089 has had a lot of money spent on it.
Artwork is generally good, with good quality rendered images of Meks in the Warmeks of the World chapter and adequately drawn images of characters and equipment, much better than the non-2000AD artwork in the Dredd books, for example.
However, layout and design are poor. Tabulated information is badly laid out: values creep into the wrong column; the wrong rows are highlighted; the text itself is often hard to read. The voice of the text switches from rulebook to in-character without warning. Diagrams are uncaptioned and contradict the text. And throughout the book the same god-awful bog standard font is used relentlessly: body text, tables, headings, everywhere.
For example, there are occasional “pop-up” boxes from the IWN news service that give titbits of information about the world. Now these boxes have been designed to look like the 2089 equivalent of a website, with a little IWN logo, a screen border and so on. But the “on-screen” text is in the same font as the main rules text, killing the effect completely. (As an aside: to “computerise” the IWN text it’s coloured monochrome green on a black background. Weren’t green-screens old hat in 1989, let alone 2089?)
I think the best way to describe Armageddon 2089’s typography is to say that it looks like Mongoose forgot to include a font when they sent it to the printers and everything flopped back to its default settings.
If Armageddon 2089 was just ugly, I could forgive it. However…
Substance
Armageddon 2089 has lots of detail in its rules, but in almost every case that detail is misplaced. There are pages of rules on contract negotiation, the properties of electromagnetic emissions and other minutiae. Ultimately, who cares if my radar has a 15 degree sidelobe? Am I really going to calculate the effect on my EM signature for different arc-segments of 10m hexes with 60 degree sides? And anyway, don’t radars rotate? On the other hand, the Warmek Combat chapter promises a potentially useful Quick Reference section: it isn’t there. We’re promised a whole chapter on Wargaming, which ought to have tightened up the combat rules: it isn’t there. The whole effect is as though the author produced a comprehensive 500 pages of work and the publisher pulled out the juicy bits, putting them aside for supplements. (By the way, Armageddon 2089 already has at least four 128-page supplements on the shelves for $24.95/£16.99 each.)
The rules that are there lack coherence and you will find yourself jumping around the book trying to chase down references, which isn’t helped by the poor index. Rules contradict themselves, often on the same page and in at least one case from one sentence to the next.
When I’d read through this book the first thing I did was design some low cost Meks suitable for a start-up company. That was fun, but, after reading the financial rules in the Mercenary Companies chapter, I decided that lasers were the weapon of choice for small Meks: they’re light, moderately powerful, don’t require the expense of ammunition and don’t have the logistical problem of lugging around reloads! That’s not a problem until you realise that anti-laser armour is so relatively cheap and so very effective. Anyone with half a brain would take anti-laser precautions. Of course you could simply fiat that problem away but it really jarred.
So anyway, I’d designed my Meks and characters and decided to try out a Mek versus Mek combat, imagining it as two rookies on manoeuvres at an Academy. I couldn’t do it, not even a one-on-one slugfest. I was bogged down as soon as I’d started. Now I’ll admit that I may have a mental block or I might have grabbed the wrong end of the stick somewhere and it’s my fault I couldn’t run a combat, but there was nothing in the rulebook to help me out. The one worked “example” of combat is in the Electronic Warfare chapter (not Warmek Combat) and as such was more concerned with Scanning than combat (and it doesn’t cover that very well). What it does cover of combat is ridiculously inadequate: “Round 3: Rickman begins to launch SADARM howitzer shells at the Rec4 with pinpoint accuracy. The Rec4 is damaged but not severely, and Greene warns the rest of his squad.”
Despite a chapter on Campaigns there is no advice on how to balance encounters: CRs have been abandoned and left entirely to the GM. Perhaps you can use the $ value of Meks and vehicles as an indication, but I think it’d be an unreliable one: antilaser armour or its variants could really skew encounters and a team without dedicated antiair radar and missiles is virtually defenceless against long-range standoff airstrikes.
There’s not even an introductory adventure to give an idea of how to balance the game. This means that in the worst case your group could spend a great deal of time learning about the world of Armageddon 2089, crafting characters, selecting and maybe even building Meks and get creamed right out of the blocks. If they do survive their first mission they’ve still got their bills to pay: hope you didn’t fire that missile!
Chapter by Chapter
Welcome to Armageddon 2089
This chapter is a three page potted history of the world from the start of the 21st century to 2089. It also covers the rise of the Warmek (or just “Mek”) as an instrument of war and how it has changed the face of warfare. It’s a great summary and it gives a real flavour of the world of Armageddon 2089.
Details hint that there may be subtle differences between the histories of our Earth and that of Armageddon 2089: the attack on the World Trade Center took place on 11th September 2002. Well, it may or may not be an alternate history, because by The World of 2089 chapter it’s back to its real-world date of 11th September 2001. This is an indication of the editing of Armageddon 2089 in general: inaccurate and inconsistent from the first sentence of the first paragraph. If you’ve bought the book, get used to it.
Coincidentally, you may have seen this chapter as a preview PDF. I can’t find it anymore, but if you’re interested in reading this chapter for yourself you may be able to find it somewhere on the web.
Introduction
This is another brief chapter, used to introduce the d20 system to newcomers and draw the attention of d20 veterans to the new points of the Armageddon 2089 rules. The final paragraph does mention that mixed groups of Warmek and non-Warmek characters are not recommended because of differences in power level.
What this means is that your Warmek Officers are expected to work both inside and outside their Meks, and that means doing all the legwork, contract negotiation and intelligence gathering. I’d have preferred it (thought there’s nothing stopping me, I suppose) if it was actually recommended that groups were mixed, perhaps each player having two characters. That way you could have the specialist scientists, lawyers, commandos and mechanics for the out-of-the-Mek segments of the game and the dedicated Warmek Officers for the full-on combat. Instead, Warmek Officers have to pull double duty which could have them fall between two stools.
Characters
There are eight basic classes, five Warmek Officer classes and three classes to cover the rest of the world.
The Warmek Officer classes are: Field Officer (jack of all trades); Assault Officer (button masher); Comms Officer (Scan monkey); Scout Officer (rogue) and Warmek Weapons Officer (wizzo/chief sidekick). These classes do not allow multi-classing, though they will allow the ubiquitous Prestige Classes™, which will surely appear in future supplements. However, most Warmek Officer classes allow a certain amount of “cross-training” to allow characters to take different feats or other skills as class skills. Respectively, each class gets a d8 hit die and 4+ skills per level; d8 and 2+ skills; d6 and 8+ skills; d6 and 8+ skills and a d8 and 4+ skills. Everyone gets the Fighters BABs and two good saves, though these change from class to class.
Of the five, Comms Officer and Warmek Weapons Officer seem doomed to support status. The Comms Officer will spend most of her time rolling Scan checks while the Weapons Officer will potentially be at the mercy of his pilot. Imagine role-playing C3PO strapped to Chewbacca’s back every session, with nothing but a blaster pistol for company. (“I SHOOT IT! I SHOOT IT AGAIN!”) However, I suspect that these opinions probably say more about my own lack of imagination than the design of the classes.
The three “other” classes seem to be the 2089 equivalents of D&D’s Commoners and Experts: intentionally well below the power levels of the heroic classes. For the record, the Civilian has a d6 hit die, wizard BAB, no good saves and 10+ skill points; the Officer has a d10 die, cleric BAB, two good saves and 6+ skills and the Soldier has a d12 die, fighter BAB, one good save and 4+ skill points.
There’s not really much I can add in the way of comment about classes: I don’t have the eye for d20 mechanics that some people seem to have so I can’t make an educated guess about the design of these classes.
Skills and Feats
There are 26 existing skills and ten new skills for Armageddon 2089.
Two skills are particularly interesting for Warmek operation. Concentration is used to take actions while piloting a Mek or vehicle and to maintain aim under fire or in difficult conditions. Attempting a free action while piloting a Mek is DC 5, a full round action is DC 15 and failure will cause a penalty to all skill checks or attacks. However, all Warmek Officers get the Unshakeable class feature at 3rd level which allows them to always Take 10 on Concentration and Warmek Pilot checks, so these checks will become largely irrelevant in time.
The Scan skill is used to detect Meks and other potential threats using a variety of devices from radar to seismic sensors to the old Mk1 eyeball. It takes a standard action to perform a sensor sweep and one check, pass or fail, seems to last until any of the situational modifiers change. Since situational modifiers include firing weapons, the electronic warfare environment could be pretty fluid.
There are over forty General feats in Armageddon 2089 (about 25 of which are from the Player’s Handbook), 20 new Warmek feats and four feats that can be taken in either Warmek or General versions.
Mercenary Companies
After character creation comes a chapter on creating and running a mercenary company, a kind of meta-character for the whole PC group.
The group has an initial budget of $25m, or $20m if you look further down the page. This is intended for companies of four to six players. Outside that range it is recommended that you add or subtract $3m per player. From this start-up loan the company is expected to buy everything from Meks to repair contracts to office space.
Oh yeah: make sure you put aside at least $5.5m for software and maintenance contracts or you’ll halve all software bonuses! Since software bonuses affect things like missiles and scanners, a starting group just can’t afford this penalty. They don’t have the skills to rely on non-missile weaponry and their Meks won’t be big enough to buy weapons that hit as hard as missiles.
There are brief variant guidelines for creating Corporate, Military and Criminal (organised crime, that is) versions of a company, which essentially boil down to “you get some stuff cheaper/free but there are strings attached”.
This chapter also covers rules for calling in support, loan repayments, tax assessment, recruiting staff, touting for business (using Gather Information and Diplomacy) and, I kid you not, detailed rules for negotiating each step of a contract from first impressions to the final handshake. (I’m slightly surprised that there’s no “Firm Grip” feat included in the rulebook. Maybe it’s in the upcoming Company splatbook…)
The upshot of this chunk of the chapter is that there are six types of mission, running from Garrison duty at $10k to Assault at $50k, which can be further spiced up with one or more of 11 complications from landmines (+$3k) to all-out nuclear sterilisation of the combat zone (+$50k) if the mission’s a bust! After factoring in the expected duration of the mission and the economic muscle of the employer’s nation you come up with the base offer value for the mission. An example is given of a three-day extraction mission with minor complications for the European Federation, one of the setting’s major players. That’ll net you a cool $32k, though it’s not clear whether the monetary value of a mission is per Mek or for the entire team. Either way, $32k will barely cover ammo costs and may, literally, not cover the cost of a new paintjob if you so much as scratch your Mek. Fire just one missile and you’d be down over $80k.
The base offer value is then the starting point for negotiations, during which you can add terms or try to boost the job’s cash value by (I think) up to 100% in 10% chunks. You add terms to contracts point by point, dicing each step of the way until you decide to stick or the DC gets too high. Considering that the example merc start-up is hoping to charge $1 MILLION for their first job, I hope they’ve rolled up a fantastic Civilian to act as their lawyer. With these rules, Johnny Cochran couldn’t get them $1m…
There is no worked example of a negotiation process. This is both a bad and a good thing. There are bonuses for roleplaying listed in the negotiation tables but good grief, would anyone want to earn them?
By the way, don’t get the idea that this chapter has anything like a mission generator. Each type of mission is given the barest description and there is no suggestion of expected enemy threat, either relative or absolute. “Assault missions involve primarily combat directed against a fixed location. The Striking Cobra’s assault on Brussels was an Assault.” There you go.
Personal Equipment
This chapter is all about non-Mek equipment. There’s a pretty comprehensive list of weapons along with a note explaining that they can fire out to 20 range increments, rather than the d20 default of ten. A few examples of weapons: pistols do between 2d6 and 2d8 damage with range increments from 3m to 12m (yes, it’s all in 1.5m squares now…), rifles do 3d8 with increments from 30m to 60m and that old favourite the Barrett Light Fifty, sorry, M100, does 5d8 damage with a range increment of a mighty 90m. That’s a maximum range of 1800m, but best of luck hitting with that –40 penalty. Overall there are plenty of weapons and other goodies like specialist ammunition
In terms of non-weapon equipment there’s a very “eclectic” mix, with, to my mind, some glaring omissions. For instance, there are entries for items like “blanket”, “carryall” and “hammer” but nothing for binoculars, an item you’d think would see more use, especially in the Scan-happy world of 2089 combat. It’s not for lack of space that some equipment was left out: there are six kinds of toolkit and eight kinds of lock!
Personal Combat
Like some other Mongoose products, Armageddon 2089 does away with armour class and replaces it with defence value (DV) which is a basic 10 plus reflex save bonus plus a size modifier. Armageddon 2089 defines a new size scale, relative to Warmeks, so “Medium” represents something from 9m to 13m tall. Humans are classified as “Personnel” size with a +4 DV modifier. Size bonuses may or may not be added to attack rolls. I’ll type out the text from the rulebook exactly as it appears and let you decide: “Thus vehicles and Warmeks of Medium size have no particular penalties or bonuses to DV, and characters are classed as Personnel size, with bonuses to both DV and attack rolls. Note that unlike other d20 games, size bonuses to attack rolls are never applied in Armageddon 2089.” Well, judging by the examples in this chapter they’re not added to DV either, but size bonuses are included in the summaries for DVs, melee attacks and ranged attacks.
Armour is represented by a damage reduction value, which in turn is countered by a weapon’s armour piercing value. Cover gives a bonus to DV as well.
5’ squares are replaced with 1.5m squares, I guess to make ranges compatible with the 10m hexes used in Warmek combat.
Also in this chapter are loads of environmental effects from Arctic Ocean to Radiation to Weaponised Ebola (DC20)! As an aside, fire effects seem to be in standard PB scale instead of Armageddon 2089’s scale as a cigarette lighter is considered a Tiny size fire, unless 2089 lighters have 3 metre flames.
Warmek and Vehicle Combat
This is the heart of the book, or it should be.
Warmeks also use DVs just like humans, make initiative checks as normal and fight in six-second rounds, but there are plenty of differences. Warmeks may move and attack every round, using Power Points to regulate how far they may move and how many weapons they may fire. Indeed, if it has the power, a Mek may fire as many of its weapons as it can in a round. The pilot’s Base Attack Bonus only determines how many different targets it may engage in one round, not how many attacks he may make. However, each weapon may fire only once per round.
Warmeks use hit locations, which have separate Armour and Structure Point (SP) values. Warmek damage works on a different scale to personal combat. Depending on which page you believe, one point of Warmek-scale SP damage is either equivalent to 10 hitpoints of personal-scale damage or will utterly destroy a soft-armoured (no Armour) target. Unlike damage reduction, a location’s Armour is used to calculate a Hardness score which is subtracted from incoming damage. Some types of weapon ignore Hardness, some types of ammunition ignore the Hardness of some types of armour. Remaining damage is subtracted first from the Armour and then from the vehicle’s Structure Points. Reducing a location to zero SP can cause Catastrophic Damage effects, including fire, explosion and total vapourisation.
What else have we got? Specific rules for rockets, missiles, indirect fire, falling down, getting up, manoeuvres and mishaps, weather effects, repairing damage, combat engineering. What we don’t have is a promised chapter on wargaming. A couple of paragraphs right at the end of the chapter mention miniatures: “we suggest that massive battles…may be easier to play with the use of miniatures…See the Wargaming chapter for more information on large-scale Warmek combats.” Well, I’d find it difficult to run any scale of battle without resorting to miniatures. And that’s where this chapter falls down. The rules are neither abstract enough to run battles in your imagination nor concrete enough to use as a wargame.
Electronic Warfare
This chapter essentially covers the topic “how to Scan things”. Things can be spotted visually, by infrared, radar, seismic or magnetic scanners, but curiously no rules on how to hear things (ear to the ground versus Seismic signature, Tonto style?). Visual spotting depends on the target’s size and the spotter’s altitude. Other methods depend on the specific signature of the target and the range increment of the scanner, which again can scan out to 20 increments (though what each scanner’s range increment actually is is debateable). It’s a shame that visual scanning doesn’t work in the same way as all other scanning. It would have been nice to do away with the complicated table for sizes, elevations, ranges and DCs and replace them with one set of modifiers. Maybe that was not mechanically possible.
In this chapter there is a lovely diagram showing the electromagnetic “lobes” produced by emissions on certain frequencies and half a page describing them. Sadly, every frequency in the Electromagnetic Spectrum table is listed as “Directional, no sidelobes”.
I’d got the impression, probably from Mongoose’s own pseudo-review, that Electronic Warfare would be Armageddon 2089’s version of D&D’s magic or Shadowrun’s Matrix: a shadowy world layered above the physical one, where Communications Officers fought for control of the ether, boosting their friends and foiling their enemies. Instead, Comms Officers get to spend their standard action making Scan tests every round instead of firing weapons. Yeah great, where do I sign up for Comms School?
Warmeks of the World
This chapter has 30 Warmek designs from several faction-specific manufacturers, though there are no specific restrictions on which ones your company can buy. Each design has a lavish spread with a large rendered picture of the Mek, a mini schematic, a HUD’s eye view of the Mek, a page of stats and a page of mock review, written in the style of a consumer magazine. At first glance this chapter looks great: great pictures and most of the Meks look good (though they do suffer from “tiny hand” syndrome). If you’re looking for a comparison, they’re more in the style of late Battlemechs rather than the original classics like the Thunderbolt or mighty Warhammer.
However, a closer look shows a few minor flaws. Some designs have poorly formatted and confusing tables of information; some information is just wrong; the dark green font used on every other line of the tables is hard to read against the dark background image on every page and the advertising blurb for every company seems to have been written by the same copywriter (because, in real life, I suspect it was).
But once you actually analyse the designs you see the real trouble with this chapter: too many of these designs are useless at the start of a campaign. Some designs are exercises in extravagance: one design costs $191,961,800 and there are even three variants of the same model, each weighing in at over $233,000,000. Remember the starting budgets of $25m (or $20m)? Well these monsters are so far out of even a “Successful” mercenary company’s budget that they’re irrelevant. But the reason most of these designs are useless is because Warmek Officers need a minimum Warmek Pilot skill level in order to pilot each size category of Mek. It’s a six rank minimum to pilot a Medium Mek, so, unless you take feat, a character must be at least 3rd level to pilot one without a penalty, a penalty a low-level character can’t really afford. The uber-designs should have been left to the Warmeks of 2089 volume as a treat for mech-munchkins. The core rules needed bread and butter Meks. The Mercenary Companies chapter even recommends that starting groups should stick to Meks selected from this list of “tried and tested” designs. Custom designs are heavily penalised: not only do they cost more to buy but they cost more to repair and, crucially, take much longer to repair, greatly increasing “downtime” between missions. Sadly, even the off-the-shelf designs that a new character can afford and pilot will need to be upgraded with essential items like targeting processors and basic communications suites.
But I admit this is a minor gripe, because the next chapter allows you to build your own engines of destruction…
Mek Construction
These six pages detail the basics of Mek Construction. Essentially you pick a chassis, pick a size and type of powerplant, load up weapons and equipment, slap on some armour, calculate the base speed of the Mek by comparing its total mass with its powerplant rating, look up its emissions signatures for electronic warfare from the table back in chapter 7 and then give it a name. The main limits for construction are mass, size and cost. Nothing new here if you’ve ever built a mech before. All the details for weapons and equipment are listed in the following chapter. Well, I say “all the details” but I suppose it’d be more accurate to say “most” of the details. A lot of information, especially for scanners and suchlike, is actually covered in earlier chapters.
One wrinkle I did notice when I was designing start-up Meks was that Small size Meks could end up in a power “blind spot” where they couldn’t get a powerplant with enough juice to let them move at running speed but had no room to carry energy storing capacitors (capacitors are a fixed size) for even short bursts. The inability to run could have significant implications not only in combat but also between encounters. For example, some of the Huge Warmeks in the previous chapter have in effect a higher top speed than most of the Small ones: 72kph versus 42kph. You can hide, but you can’t run…
Warmek Technology
This chapter details all the goodies you can load onto your Mek. There’s loads of great stuff: tons of weapons, ammunition, types of armour, scanners and electronic equipment and gadgets galore. Technology runs from centuries old machine guns to bleeding edge railguns and particle accelerators.
This chapter mostly details the stats for each weapon or piece of equipment rather than the rules, which are covered in other chapters. For instance, here you’ll find the damage and range increment for a particle accelerator but you’d have to look somewhere else to find out it can only fire to a maximum of five increments and ignores Hardness. For its EMP effect you’re referred somewhere else.
Damage runs from 1d3 for a 12.7mm machine gun to 10d20 for a one-shot bunker-busting missile. Range increments are from 20m for the particle accelerator to 800m for the biggest railgun, with 300m being typical. That means that a particle accelerator has a maximum range of just 100m and that a railgun can fire up to 80 ten-metre hexes and still be in its first range band. Theoretically, Meks can engage an enemy at very long ranges but the attack penalties will be high and lines of sight more than likely obstructed. Hmm… I wonder how frequently LOS to a 20m tall target would be blocked?
Ground Vehicles and Aircraft
This chapter contains a selection of over 20 vehicles from soft-skinned civilian vehicles to hard-armoured vehicles and military aircraft. You get a stat block, a paragraph of description and a small line drawing for each. There is a nice selection of vehicles to play with, comparable to what you’d get in a video game.
Included in this chapter is a selection of unmanned and autonomous vehicles: airborne drones and robotic followers. The robotic followers are essentially pickup trucks that can be used to lug around ammunition or specialist equipment. Think of them as the near-future equivalents of mules and hirelings, if you will.
The World of 2089
Well, this chapter gives a geopolitical and cultural overview of the world of Armageddon 2089. Over 21 pages. It’s simply a wordier version of the Welcome to 2089 chapter.
What it doesn’t do is give any useful military information that could be used to create adventures. What would be likely targets for an assault mission or a recon? What level of defences could a given nation muster in the short, medium and long term? What is the quality of the men and materiel in their armed forces, both national and mercenary? What is the terrain like? What are typical encounter ranges? How long will it take defenders to spot intruders? How long does it take to travel by transport sub from one nation to another? Where are the major supply and transit depots for each faction? This is the kind of detail I would have appreciated in a mech combat game.
This chapter does try to give a portrait of typical characters from the “major” nations but they’re painted with a broad brush. What it doesn’t do is give an idea of what it’s like to live in a country for player characters who own and operate giant warmachines. Remember the chapter on Mercenary Companies, where you bought those offices and hangars? I’d have expected this chapter to have a few notes on what it was like to be a mercenary in each country. What are the gun laws? Where do mercs have their hangars? How are Meks transported from hangar to mission? If you’re going to go into detail, go into the right detail.
While this chapter was an interesting “once only” read for me, because I’m a bit of a history and current affairs junkie, it’s not very useful in game terms. It’s a bit like going into a bookshop for a guidebook to Ibiza and coming out with “A brief history of the Balearics”: if you’re looking to get “doved up” you’ll have to do all the legwork yourself.
Corporations
Chapter 13. This features a dreary trawl through over 30 corporate entities, ranging from agribusiness to clothing to vehicle manufacture. This is the worst example of misplaced minutiae: for each corporation you get a list of subsidiaries, well known brands, CEOs, commercial rivals and other fluff.
What on earth is this doing in the core rules for a mech warfare game, especially one based on the real world’s near future? Good grief, in the unlikely event that I ever want to base an adventure around a detailed agribusiness I have the whole real world to choose from. I’d just call it “Monsantola” and say the CEO was “Drake Ardine” or “Cecily Vandu” depending on whether they were a goodie or a baddy (you decide which is which). Anyway, I expect much of the attraction in a near-future Earth setting is the potential for satire and name recognition. Berlin is still Berlin, so why replace Boeing with “Boeing-Aire”?
The introduction to the chapter explains that brand identification draws players into the world more than generic items would do. That may be, but the rules already list every weapon, scanner and Mek with their full brand name already, to the extent that some items are even indexed under their brand name rather than generic title. Looking for a “helicopter”? Try “Zapalic II Attack Helicopter” instead.
Fluff of this detail should have been left to the Earth 2089 sourcebook. Why couldn’t these pages have been used for something useful, like an introductory adventure or a series of force lists for the basic mission types? Surely, with the “unprecedented level of attention” given by the playtesters, someone would have had an introductory adventure lying around?
And do you know what? In 17 pages there’s not one adventure hook.
Campaigns
Here we have 17 pages of GM hints and tips intended to broaden the horizons beyond mere combat. Topics include general things like pacing and character death and more 2089-specific topics such as setting a suitably pre-apocalyptic tone.
There are also very slim suggestions for adventure hooks for four types of campaign. There are two bullet points for each campaign type with an extra one bestowed on Mercenary Campaigns. Sadly, none of these hooks go into any kind of detail. Maybe this chapter isn’t the place but we’re getting to the end of the book and there’s been nothing at all about how to plan, balance or run encounters
There are three very useful pages on being “Behind Enemy Lines” which detail why players wouldn’t necessarily be squashed like bugs the first time they touch enemy soil. Other good sections are on the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction™ and how to operate a military chain of command without making players feel like pawns.
This chapter also outlines the Armageddon 2089 system of awarding experience points. Since there are no Challenge Ratings, “In general, players should earn between 1,000 and 2,000 experience points for every gaming session…” and/or “In general, 1,500 experience points per session per player should be the norm.”
Glossary
A single page, describing just a few, randomly selected terms in cursory detail. An example: “Rapid Fire: Machineguns, autocannon and any other weapons that can fire many shots within a short space of time are Rapid Fire weapons.” That’s it. No page references, no game effects.
Not exactly dripping with usefulness.
Designer’s Notes
Mr Sturrock sounds like a nice guy.
Conclusion
I imagined that the price and apparent quality of the production were some kind of insurance, some kind of measure of the care taken to produce this book. I was wrong. Once you actually read it, the whole book, from cover to cover, is a poorly edited, poorly presented half-baked mess. It’s a shame, because there are great ideas in here and I like the idea of setting the game in Earth’s near future. You could get this game to work but it’d take a lot of effort. As it is, I couldn’t put this game on the table: it’d be too much effort for my players from a stone-cold start. Doesn’t this defeat the purpose of the d20 system?
I’d love a hard-science mech game to succeed. Armageddon 2089 just… doesn’t.
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