Shard!

For only $20 a month!

A collectors guide for Vor: the Maelstrom

JANUARY 2001

This month I bought my Forcebook. Yep, it's $20 and soaks up all my availabe cash, but I absolutely need to have it before I go any further with this project. It's finally been published, although well past a quarter overdue. But the wait was worth it! The artwork, the stories, even the rules themselves are all top-notch. What's that? There are typos and inconsistencies? SO WHAT? It's a game, not assembly instructions for a nuclear missile! But now that I have this little goodie in my hands, I can start planning my purchases for next month.

I know that I want a shooty army. I meant to have a shooty Zykhee army, but then there were Deathdancers, and Wardyns, and Jho'tokk, and, and.... So I have 18 shooty Zykhee out of 50 or more models. Then my Neo-Soviets were going to be shooty, and they kind of are, but Neo-Soviets being shooty is kind of like Little League being Pro Baseball; they try REALLY hard, but will never really be there! And my Growlers aren't Fireguts, so they CAN'T be shooty. So it's time for me to pull out my beautiful new Shard Forcebook and see how to annihilate the carbons....

WOW! The first thing that hits me is the Concussors. Power 5 shooty bits out to 45"? Armor 5 with shielding? All this for 35 points? Sign me up for that! Looks like my desire for a ranged-warfare specialty force is here. But, to be REALLY fair, I should look at the rest of the units available to me as well. So, what follows for the rest of this month's little article will be my own unexpurgated review of the smashing new Shard forcelist, one unit at a time. Remember, these are all my first impressions from reading the Forcebook and have no basis in any actual real experience in playing a Shard force.

Shard Special Rules

Well now, this is something different... a flat 20% chance of the entire force suffering -1 GUT due to proximity to the Veil. Oh, there's other things involving line of sight and special campaign rules, but Veil Terror, now that shows the Shard's unique place in the Maelstrom. One of the Campaign Force Traits stands out as well: Crystalline Stockpiles, which for 15 CP allows you to reduce the cost of most of your Force by 3 points per model. This is a fantastic thing, since Shard are more expensive than many other Forces on a per-figure basis.

Axion

This is the powerhouse of the Shard army. A strong stat line coupled with a plethora of unique powers make this one of the most powerful regular units in the game. However, a limitation of one per force means that the Axion will become proportionally less effective as games get bigger in Point Value.

Prime

While Primes don't have all of the special abilities of the Axions, they are walking artillery pieces with a fair amount of their own abilities. This, coupled with liberal availability, makes Primes one of the best all-around units in the force. Now, they do have a "Burning Hatred" rule, such that sometimes they have to charge the nearest enemy within 12"... my solution is to design a Prime that never gets within 12" of the enemy. Primes are my choice for "Unit Most Likely to Annoy the Enemy."

Jagged

Jagged are melee specialists with little ranged weaponry. If I wanted melee troops, I would play my Zykhee or Growlers. I'll ignore these guys for now.

Concussors

Concussors are, in my opinion, the best value for points n basic troop selections in the entire game thus far. I really like these guys and plan to build my force around them. They also have some AMP suits which look WAY cool, but only time will tell how effective they are. Concussors will be the first unit I get for this project.

Ambients

Hmmm... these guys are interesting. Basically living shields. They won't do much on their own, but they sure will be a help to other units. Especially Concussors and Primes tricked up with heavy weapons.

Scryes

Gee, these guys are like the Ambients, but cause difficulties to the shooter, not the effect. The idea of a unit of Ambents AND a unit of Scryes protecting a unit of Concussors seems pretty cool. Maybe I'll have to try this combo sometime.

Fledglings

Like Growler pups but less effective. Expensive financially, freaky looking, and low-yield in the game, I think I'll pass on these guys. Why do units with no options for ranged combat have a RC stat of 1 instead of 0?

Crawlers

Crawlers are better than Fledglings. Not much, but they can wander about and shoot things in an indiscriminate manner. I figure these guys to be big, spidery Rad troopers with all the same tactical uses and expendability. But again, they are financially expensive for an essentially low-yield unit.

Husks

I like the Husks. I like them a lot. They can soak up some serious damage and keep healing themselves. Although they do not have the best offensive abilities, they are just the thing to run up in front of scary enemy units and draw their fire. BOOM! Well, here's 3 MP, I'm no less than 0 LIF, I feel better already.... Unfortunately, no models for these guys yet (unique in the Shard force this way, I might add.)

Nanite Swarms

These guys are worse than Fledglings. I won't dignify them with any serious commentary.

Striders

Well, these guys are nice. Heavy Beam Lasers and the MP to use them twice a turn. More mobile artillery platforms. And not too much of a hit in the wallet for what you get. But, for those of us on a budget, maybe a Prime is a better choice.

Eradicator

It's big. It's spidery. It's a beautiful model. Regardless of it's relative merits and flaws in game turns, even if it has the survivability of a Rad trooper against Razorfang, I must have one of these.

Shard Terrain Table

This is interesting. It's a terrain table that applies to more than one world. Any world the Shard are colonizing can use this table. Shard do't ven have to be involved to use this table. It's almost a replacement for the main terrain table in the Vor Rulebook. I highly recommend the use of this table in your games, even if no one is playing a Shard force.

Next Month:

It's going to be a month of firsts here at the Shard for $20 a month report. A first look at my first figures, and my first battle reports with my first Shard force.

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