Mystic Space Playtest 01 After Action Report

 About a month ago I had the opportunity to playtest, in person, the alpha version of the rules for a new wargame called Mystic Space.

Mystic Space is a scifi heroic space fantasy wargame produced and written by Ivan Sorensen, aka Nordic Weasel.  Ivan has created a plethora of solo, coop and verses wargames including 5 Parsecs from Home and 5 Leagues from the Borderlands that are both published by Modiphius Entertainment.  

With Mystic Space, think of colorfully armored armies of humans, and exalted Heroes, along with looming mecha-like Walkers, thundering across the battlefield, heeding the rallying cry and bark of their commanders to rapidly seize objectives and defend them to the last; all for the glory and expansion of their Faction.  In my view, it is a very heroic noble-bright tone with a dash of anime and giant robots, that is missing from most wargames that are focused on the gritty and grimdark.  

Full disclosure, I am on the Nordic Weasel discord and correspond with Ivan, along with playtesting some of his wargames.

I was very lucky in that my playtesting partner, Skeaze, brought two Mystic Space armies (15mm scale) that were sculpted in Blender, 3D printed and even painted, all by his own hand.  Now, how could I refuse?

If you are interested in the digital sculpts that Skeaze has made for Mystic Space, you can check out his Cults3D page, which is here.

Anyway, each side had two Infantry squads and three Heroes.  Mystic Space is a Victory Point accumulation game, and securing the Objectives in the battlespace is one way to accrue Victory Points.  

Infantry is important in Mystic Space because only Infantry squads can claim Objectives. Heroes (at the time of playtesting) could not claim Objectives, but they could contest them.  So, I viewed Heroes as support units for my Infantry.

Claiming an Objective involves an Infantry unit being within two inches of the Objective, and no opposing force being within two inches of that same Objective.

In addition to claiming Objectives, there were rules for obtaining Victory Points by wiping out opposing units.  However, since this was our very first game, and first engagement with the alpha ruleset, we decided to simplify these. 

We decided that reducing an Infantry squad to half strength would result in a gain of two Victory Points, and subsequent annihilation of the same squad would give the opponent one more Victory Point.  Thus, reducing an Infantry squad from full strength to zero members would result in a total of 3 Victory Points gained.

Similarly, the death of a Hero would result in the opponent gaining a total of 3 Victory Points. Thus, if one side was fully wiped out, the opponent would gain a total of 15 Victory Points; 9 from three Heroes and 6 from two Infantry squads.

In the particular scenario we were testing, we decided that we would have four Objectives on the board and that each Objective successfully claimed would give the claimant 1 Victory Point at the end of each turn.

Now onto the forces description.  I mentioned that each side had two Infantry squads and three Heroes.  However, each side was not identical in terms of the type of Infantry and Heroes.  My side was the Terra Hold faction and my forces consisted of 1 Light Infantry Section (eight figures), 1 Assault Infantry Section (six figures), a Leader Hero, Champion Hero, and an Ironclad Hero.  My colors were green. My opponent’s side was the Eden’s Path faction and his army contained 1 Light Infantry Section (again, eight figures), 1 Armored Infantry Section (eight figures), a Leader Hero, Rapid Hero, and Ironclad Hero.

It was not exactly a mirror match but it was close. Light Infantry Sections were sort of your basic army unit. The Assault Infantry Section had decent pistols and more importantly were all armed with melee weapons.  In contrast the Armored Infantry Section fielded by my opponent were a slower moving, but more armored than usual group of eight soldiers armed with rifles and two heavy weapons. 

Both my fellow combatant and I each had a Leader and Ironclad Hero. All Heroes, once activated in a turn, can also activate an Infantry Section within Command Range (6 inches typically).  Leader Heroes have a Command Range of 9 inches, a ranged weapon, a melee weapon, and spells; the latter of which had yet to be fleshed out in the rules so we skipped that entirely.   Ironclad Heroes were a little slower but had the most armor of any unit in the game (4), a ranged weapon that fired twice per shooting action, and a melee weapon.  Ironclad Heroes were very resistant to damage, a factor that we learned throughout the battle.

To differentiate our near identical army loadouts, I had a Champion Hero and my opponent had a Rapid Hero.  A Champion Hero was a melee specialist of sorts; armed with a pistol and a powerful melee weapon.  A Rapid Hero was the fastest Hero in the game; and I expected it to be contesting my Objectives fairly regularly.

Now, there was one additional thing my opponent and I had to consider with each of our force's loadouts. Which units were going to field Trace pistols or Trace guns? Normally in Mystic Space, when a unit shoots another unit, the shooter rolls 1d10 and adds their weapon's accuracy, then adds or subtracts additional factors and compares the result to the value of 10. A result of 10 or higher is a hit, and misses do nothing. Trace firearms function differently. They are essentially railguns and the shooter draws a straight line from the shooting unit to their target. All units that intersect that line are hit, even if friendly. No 1d10 to hit roll is required. A large piece of terrain (like a cliff face) will interrupt the line however.

The Light Infantry Sections and the Champion could field a Trace gun and Trace pistol, respectively. Although, those units that were hit by a Trace weapon will have the chance for an armor save; the way the trace weapons could target multiple figures in a squad made us both pause and consider the arrangement of the figures in our squads when they were deployed on the battlefield and when they had to squeeze into smaller corridors on the map. After all, we didn't want to give the opposing player any advantage of automatically scoring a hit on multiple figures in a single shooting action!

With these thoughts in mind, it was time for deployment of the troops. The battlemap had five major pieces of terrain on it. One piece was close to each corner and a group of ruins was present in the middle. Four Objectives were placed on the table. One Objective each, were placed near me and my opponent's deployment corners. The other two Objectives were in the middle of the map. These were the toxic barrels in the ruins you can see in the first picture (below), and a group of crates tucked away in the crook of the green-topped plateau. These middle Objectives would be the most contested areas during the conflict. 

Deployment was interesting. We used the following rules that may not reflect the final Mystic Space product. Each player placed a number of deployment markers on the battlefield equal to the number of forces they had. We numbered the deployment markers 1-5 (we each had 5 units to deploy) and took turns rolling 1d6. Depending on the number that came up on the 1d6, we would remove the deployment token with that number and place a unit of our choosing on that location on the board. If someone rolled a 6, we rerolled of course, given that we only had 5 units each.

Another note about deployment. The robot miniatures that you will see in the pictures we used as proxies to represent our Ironclad Heroes. There are giant robots in Mystic Space. They are tentatively called Walkers. At the time of the playtest, however, rules for Walkers had not been fully developed.

The first turn proceeded as expected given the layout of terrain and Objectives in the battlespace. I was lucky enough to will the initiative roll, so I went first and immediately had my Assault Infantry Section secure the Objective that was in my corner on top of a plateau. Claiming that Objective would result in production of one Victory Point per turn at the end of the turn. The rules do not require devoting a unit of Infantry to guard the Objective in order to generate Victory Points. This is great because it encourages players to advance all of their forces into the fray. My opponent executed the same plan with his units, claiming the Objective (a satellite dish) that was in the middle of a crater, in his corner of the field. 

In addition, during the first turn, I also rushed my Light Infantry Section into the ruins in the middle of the map to claim the Objective there. The Objective in the ruins was a pile of leaking toxic barrels. Perhaps that was an ill omen for what would happen to my Light Infantry in the ruins! Anyway, at the end of turn one and I was sitting pretty on two Victory Points.

Turn two arose and the shooting began in earnest. My opponent jockeyed for position, arranging his Leader and Ironclad Heroes as well as his Light Infantry within the visual arc of my Infantry squad that had holed up in the ruins, guarding the toxic barrels Objective. I suffered a withering hail of fire. The result was that five of my Infantry, out of eight soldiers, had been penetrated by lasers or burnt to a crisp by plasma fire.

Things were not looking good. However, my much-diminished Infantry squad rallied, successfully removed the panic markers caused by the decimating firefight, and were able to return fire. Shocked that my Light Infantry force was so close to destruction so soon, I moved my Champion Hero into the ruins to support them.

Another flash point was erupting. Due south of the ruins and in a narrow corridor bordered by crumbling stone and two grassy plateaus, my Assault Infantry had spied and were in range of my opponent's colorful Armored Infantry. Accompanied by an Ironclad and Leader Heroes, my Assault troopers fired enfilade into the mass of enemy troops, inflicting three casualties (denoted by the smoke tokens in the below picture). The opposing Hero, the Rapid, stood and delivered; making all of his armor saves against the firearms of my Ironclad Hero and shooting back with impunity.

Meanwhile, in the ruins, the remainder of my Light Infantry screamed and fell under the combine arms of my opponent's Light Infantry Section and Ironclad Hero. Brimming with confidence, the opposing Leader (figure with a red pistol and blue sword) engaged my Champion (pants painted in green) in close combat. He also proceeded to engage his remaining Light Infantry Section with my Champion as well, hoping to gain advantage and dominate my Champion by obtaining bonuses to hit by surrounding him.

Satisfied that his forces would wipe out my Champion, my opponent moved his Ironclad from the ruins combat to the southern narrow corridor flash point. Things looked far from great for me.

However, that is when we came face to face with how dominant a Champion's melee skills were. My Champion weathered a storm of blows from Hero and Infantry alike, and then returned blow for blow with force and honor. When the butcher's bill came due, my opponent's Leader lay dead on the ruined ground and two men of the plucky but foolish opposing Infantry squad were smashed to a pulp.

The conflict in the southern corridor was claiming lives and becoming tense. As soon as my counterpart's Ironclad came to support his diminishing number of Armored Infantry, the armor save luck of his Rapid Hero ran out. My Ironclad finally finished off the Rapid in a barrage of Injector rifle fire.

The close quarters firefight quickly turned into a muddy, bloody melee where no side was spared. My Assault Infantry engaged his Armored Infantry and slowly, painfully, the slightly superior armaments of the Assault squad ground the superior numbers of the Armored Infantry to dust. Two lone Assault squaddies stood triumphant atop of a mound of bodies, heaving with labored breaths and brandishing their Honor Blades in victory. 

In the central ruins, my Champion valiantly parried strikes and withstood blows that would crumple a lesser human, but quantity has a quality all of its own, and my Champion disappeared under the tide of the opposing Infantry's pummeling rifle-butts and thrashing fists.

All told, we tallied up the casualties and Objectives that accrued Victory Points and came to a conclusion. My opponent stood tall with pride, having claimed victory from the jaws of defeat by a single point! 

Mystic Space is shaping up to be a great game with lots of action, drama and tactical decisions on display. More current editions include rules for the giant robots called Walkers, special bonuses for Factions, and lore about the conflict and the major players within it. Even more is to come including a Spell list and rules for Faction Artifacts. I'm very excited about the developments and I can't wait to play it again.