All the weirdos have left the building

Sword Weirdos and Space Weirdos by Garske Games

I had opportunity to play SWORD WEIRDOS by Garske Games not too long ago. I’ll not bury the lead; I like small unit games by preference and I really like clever and easy Indie games with a whimsical spirit. Sword and Space Weirdos have this quality in abundance. I missed an earlier game session where the Scrum Club played Space Weirdos, but did manage to catch the fantasy variant the next time. We each took a handful of fantasy figures, statted them out per the warband builder rules, and took the game for a spin. The result was a good time.

Casey Garske puts it like this:  

 Sword Weirdos is a skirmish wargame that allows you to build stats for just about any fantasy or historical model in your collection. Your model’s class and weapons determine its special abilities. With 26 classes and 54 weapons and other pieces of equipment to choose from the possiblities are…a lot. I’m not that great with math.

Sword Weirdos description, DriveThruRPG.com

Weirdos is a very small unit game that centers around the development of small “warbands” with a point based system. The customization element provides you with different specialists to take on enemy teams with, like spellcasters, healers, missile weapon guys, etc. This game has features that makes it easy to adopt and easy to teach newbies. Borrowing Mr. Garske’s bullet points:

• Low model count: 5-10 models or so for each side.
• Use any fantasy/historical minis you have.
• Short but comprehensive. Everything in one 24 page zine.
• Minimal tokens, but still a few because I like them.
• No tape measures or rulers, all movement and ranges are measured with 5” sticks.
• Uses all your RPG dice (except the d20, d20’s get enough love) because dice are fun.
• A points system, but you shouldn’t worry about it too much.
• Alternating activations, opposed rolls, Maneuver Points, and random tables mean everyone is involved and rolling dice all the time.

If all of this sounds like familiar gamey bits you have seen before, the designer admits as much in his description. There’s nothing particularly innovative or new about yet another skirmish game, but I really like how Garske takes all this stuff most of us know already and packages them together in an elegant, small footprint game experience that surprisingly has legs. Character creation is pretty easy– there are several character templates in the point buy section that help you build a warband swiftly and easily.

The Point build system is pretty simplistic. Every figure on the board is a Weirdo that can be purchased by build points and defined by customization.

Start by Choosing a point value for your warbands.
75: a small game suitable for smaller playing spaces.
100: a medium-sized game good for just about any play space.
125: a larger game better for a medium sized play space.
→ Your weirdos may cost up to 25 points each.
→ Your warband stats are not secret, let your opponent look them over and answer
questions about them when asked.

Weirdo Attributes are: Speed (measured by sticks), Defense (definted by Dice), Might (definde by Dice) and Willpower (defined by Dice). Higher numbers are better but it all costs build points.

First Game of Sword Weirdos with these weirdos.

We played Weirdos at Scrum HQ (Joe Procopio’s House) about a month ago. Joey and Me versus Joe and Steve. At this juncture, I am not remembering how I set up my warband* but I recall I had a couple of shooters, a healer type and a nature guy who could leap to the top of precipices. The scenario was basic capture the flag stuff and I don’t think I accomplished my squad’s goals, but we did kill like champions.

* Edit: I just found my warband list in the waste bin. Here’s what I made– The Forest Folk. Ralalolar the Leader with the Leader Skill, wearing leather armor and shield, and the Extra Planar power (jumps up high). Benito the Healer, wearing leather using a shield and a sword. He has the “Heal” power. Retan the Pit Fighter, Shield Chain mail and Spear (he was a good fighter), Sir Tethael the Knight, Sword and Chainmail, a decent fighter. Brock the Archer wearing leather, with a Bow and Arrows and a Dagger. He’s Quick. Bear the Bowman, very similar to Brock in kit and weapons.

My Weirdo Squad coming in from the edge at start. That’s Retan, Sir Tethael, and Brock and Bear.

On the field of battle, my right looking North. I had lots of Viking-like guys with spears.

Come get some, Gobbos! Note the footprint marker. The max you can move is three moves (measured by a stick), the Gobbo top center moved two segments of movement that turn. Elegant and simple.

Steve’s Warband had a giant troll (monster sized). Since Units are so customizable in this game, Steve basically built a monster with a higher might range than the others (for extra build points).

Here are some of my weirdos taking advantage of a handy clump of trees for cover. You can see they both moved three sticks (evidenced by the markers) and have expended all actions this turn to get to the treeline. Just about every action is done on the board and in the open.

I don’t think I won any “capture the flag points” but I don’t care. I had a good time with these rules. I like the elegance of the action/move system and it all fits together pretty well.

You can see my attack is develping nicely. I have moved towards cover and am using my shooters (two archers) to keep Joe’s troops at a respectful distance as we move up under that rock arch in the center.

The fight heats up as we come into melee contact. My two pole armed Weirdos (the spear guys) are handy here.

In the end was a giant donnybrook and we exchanged some casualties. as I said, I don’t recall who captured the Runes of Ultimate Evil or whatever macguffin we were there for, but we had a hell of a time playing.

Summary: This is a great little system and Mr. Garske shows some talent. I doubt it would scale up to larger than a big skirmish in size or with more players than 6 maximum and I personally wouldn’t alter the scale of basic 28mm very much, because movement and combat start getting awkward. Regardless, in the niche it was designed for, it works splendidly. I was very entertained. The great thing about the Weirdo games (Sword and Space) is you probably already have all the miniatures and terrain for this game already, if you are in this hobby and like either science fiction or fantasy games, like me. Mr. Garske is hardly asking a mint for these files and I was happy to reward him for his labors. The game is very well supported and I look forward to him publishing a warband builder for Sword Weirdos (one exists for Space Weirdos).