The Tower of the Three

An ancient Tower stands at the gate to the Valley of Kings. Decaying wreckages and a host of fallen adventurers litter the flat, desert landscape all around. The deadly firepower of the Tower’s crew will not let any Raider crew come close to the Valley’s treasures. It is time to eliminate it for good!

As you likely know, we are developing a skirmish game in the Nekroplanet Grob setting. The rules have been written, and are currently going through playtesting while I’m sculpting the Raider figures and working on illustrations. If you want to check out the current version of the rules, you can find them in the dedicated Discord server: LINK.

Each scenario in Nekroplanet Grob is a set piece pitting a warband of Raiders against a warband of Grobniks. It can be played fine with generic or proxied terrain, but it naturally looks and feels best with thematic terrain that matches the world and scenario description. I’m currently on the path to crafting thematic terrain for each of the scenarios we’ve so far decided to lock in as part of the rulebook.

In The Tower of the Three, the Raiders’ goal is to set up explosives at the base of the tower to blow it up, all while under fire from a trio of Grobnik Sharpshooters and other robotic guards. The battlefield scenery includes the titular tower, surrounded by a bunch of wreckages of vehicles and bodies of raiders who unsuccessfully attempted this feat in the past.

Fun fact: the idea for this scenario was sparked by imagery from “Three Blind Archers”, an episode of the animated series Samurai Jack:

The Terrain

This was another project that required a dip into my collection of plastic trash and toy parts. You can find similar projects of mine HERE, HERE, HERE, and in Wargames Illustrated vol. 427.

First, the Tower. For playability’s sake, it would need a flat platform on top, large enough to fit three Grobnik Sharpshooters.. We used a Pringles can to represent the tower in our previous playtest games, so I used one as the base for this build. I greebled the blank surface with a ton of mechanical detail, including plating, wires, satellite dishes, pipes, and much more. The ground at the base of the tower has broken stone tiling, tying it with the less hi-tech Nekroplanet terrain in my collection.

The Tower’s vicinity is littered with wrecked vehicles and debris of all shapes and sizes. I wanted some wall-like pieces that would block line of sight, some impassables that can be seen over but provide cover, and some area terrain that would slow down movement. A good mix will make it more interesting to look at and game with. I looked at vintage sci-fi artwork for ideas,. There are quite a few paintings of crashed spaceships out there. Here are some from my mood board:

This terrain assortment was built with water pistols, plastic robots and vehicles, ping-pong balls. The bases are thick card, covered in cork and hot glue to give it volume and sturdiness and then textured with sand. 

Finally, I made a handful of dead Raiders to scatter around. They are small scatter terrain, and add a ton of flavour to the board. I used them to prepare a tutorial on how to craft casualties, so more on them next week!

The Scenario

Over the weekend we put all this new scenery on the battlefield for the first time. It proved a good varierty and amount of terrain for this scenario, but nonetheless I have a few more ideas for builds that I will likely add at a later date. Anyways, I played the Grobniks, and Ivan (my brother and main designer of the rules system) played the Raiders.

Setup

The Raider player claims two adjacent corners of the board, and the area within 6” of these corners makes their deployment zone. The Grobnik player then places the Tower anywhere on the board. Then the players alternate placing Points of Interest and an even number of Terrain pieces on the board.

The players choose their forces and Assets in secret. The Raider player gets 8 Model slots and 8 Assets to choose from, and the Grobnik player has 6 Model slots and 8 Assets to choose from. Assets are single-use effects that can be used during the game, and they are chosen in secret. Traps are a special type of asset used by the Grobniks, which are tied to specific points of interest on the board, and get triggered when the Raiders attempt to interact with them

A scenario may have specific limitations that ban a certain troop choices or Assets. For example, the Grobniks will automatically start with three Sharpshooters as a part of this scenario, and they are not allowed to hire any additional Sharpshooters; or: the Raiders in this scenario may not select the Personal Teleporter Asset.

These were our Warbands for this game:

Grobniks:

• 3x Sharpshooter
• 1x Annihilator
• 4x Sentry
• 1x Enforcer
• 1x Assassin

Grobnik Assets:

• 2x Beyond Death
• 1xCripple
• 2x System Jammer
• 2x Wave of Corruption
• 1x Laser Trap

Raiders:

• 1x Juggernaut
• 2x Sapper
• 4x Trooper
• 2x Commando

Raider Assets:

• 1x Comms Uplink
• 1x Force Field
• 1x Homing Missile
• 1x Long-Range Scanner
• 1x Stealth Generator
• 1x Stimpack
• 1x Target Finder
• 1x Trap Disarm Kit
• 1x Utility Drone

The Grobnik player places three Sharpshooters on top of the Tower, then deploys up to two Model Selections within 2” of the Tower, keeping the rest in Reserve. The Raider player then deploys all of their models in their Deployment Zone. Grobnik reinforcements will start arriving after the first round, once the Tower signals it is under attack.

A Raider close to the Tower can place an explosive on it, and their team’s ultimate goal is to place three explosives by the end of the game. The Grobniks’ goal is to keep the pesky enemy away from the Tower.

To see what happens, in this playthrough I placed the Tower near to a table corner instead of keeping it equally distant from each Raider deployment zone like I normally do. It wasn’t totally disastrous, but it did mean my Sharpshooters were in the Raiders’ range of fire sooner, making them a viable target from the very first Round.

Recap

In Round One, the Raiders begin approaching the Tower. A lucky Homing Missile takes out one of the Sharpshooter triplets, while the Raiders lose a Trooper to sniper fire.

In Round Two, my Annihilator and Enforcer emerge from the Raiders’s deployment zones in pursuit. We get a few casualties on both sides.

Round Three another Sharpshooter bites the dust from an expertly fired grenade. The Assassin shows up and pounces on the Sappers that are too close to the Tower, shanking one to death. The Annihilator and a Commando take each other out simultaneously in a brutal melee combat exchange.

In Round Four the remaining Sapper pulls an asset combo to drop an explosive and immediately detonate it, wiping three models off the board and seriously damaging several more. The Juggernout plants the first bomb on the tower base.

Round Five the Grobniks activate a Wave of Corruption, killing the Juggernaut, a Trooper, and their own Sentry. Now we have only two models remaining on the board: a Grobnik Enforcer and a Raider Commando. The second bomb is placed on the tower while the Enforcer trucks along in pursuit.

With Round Six the game ends with two bombs planted and two models still alive, one on each side. It’s a Victory for the Raiders!

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