In my last post I ran through the whats-in-the-box basics of Incursion. Now it’s time to get down to the nails and lagbolts in order to answer that most important question: How does the thing play?

For today’s exercise, I’ll be using some examples from the game’s introductory scenario — “Recon”. Essentially, a couple of American APE troopers are trying to get from one side of the game board to the other. Their only obstacle is an unending stream of very pesky Sturmzombies.

The forces available for each of the game’s scenarios are generally customizable. Players are assigned a number of Resource Points (RPs), and they expend those RPs to purchase their forces. The first scenario is a bit limited, though. Each side gets 6 RPs, but the scenario mandates that the Americans must purchase two ‘models’ (ergo, two ‘Grunt APE’ models at a cost of 3 RP each) while the Crazed Maniacs must spend all of their RP purchasing Sturmzombies.

Faced with Reaction Fire, even Zombies want to be someplace else.

For 3 RP the Nazis buy the Sturmzombie ‘card’, which gives them 3 new Sturmzombies EACH turn. So in this scenario, the Bad Guys buy the Zombie card twice and will get 6 fresh undead nightmares to bring into play every turn. That’s a lotta stinky Zombie.

There is no time limit on the scenario, but it seems like it will be in the Grunts’ best interests to hurry up. To win the game, one of them has to survive to get off the map. If both Grunts die, the Zombies win. If at least one escapes, it’s another glorious victory for the troops of the Lucky 7th.

Probably the biggest thing the Americans have working in their favor is the game’s Reaction Fire rule, which allows gun-armed troopers to fire every time a model expends an Action Point in their field of fire. But there’s a catch – in order to use Reaction Fire, a model has to end its turn with NO enemy models currently in its line of sight. Additionally, if a reaction-firing model with a multiple ROF rolls doubles, it loses Reaction Fire mode. So Reaction Fire can be a powerful tool, but it isn’t always easy to end up in the right spot to make use of it.

So. In order to get at least one of their guys off the map alive, the Americans are going to have work to maximize their ability to lay down Reaction Fire. The light machinegun bolted to each of the APE Grunts has ROF (2)  for Reaction Fire, which gives them a pretty good chance of scoring a kill each time they fire on a Fortitude (4) Sturmzombie. In ‘normal’ fire, the Grunts have ROF (3) — but they also have only AP (3), so they’re not exactly sprinting across the board.

The Zombies, on the other hand, have to work at keeping the Grunts out of Reaction Fire mode so they can get in close for Hand-to-Hand combat. They’ve got AP (5), so they can move fast enough. The trick for them is getting some big waves of Zombies going so the Grunts don’t have a chance of ending a turn with nothing gribbly in their line of sight.

It’s a tough proposition — and the congested nature of the subterranean setting cuts both ways. All of the twists, turns, doors and short lines of sight make it easier for the ‘Zeds’ to get closer without getting shot at. But it also makes it easier for the Grunts to get themselves into spots where they can go into Reaction Fire mode.

With nothing in their arsenal to make the Grunts duck and cover, the Zeds have a tough time in the ‘Recon’ scenario. They can circle around, make big Zombie conga lines and try to use doors and corners — but sooner or later they’re going to run into a wall of Reaction Fire. A Grunt who ‘loses’ his Reaction Fire status (by rolling doubles on his shooting) might get himself into trouble, but the Zeds really have to work to put together a perfect storm of threats if they’re going to have a chance at winning.

If the Grunt player remains patient, doesn’t panic and manages his lines of sight he is going to get to do a lot of shooting via Reaction Fire. In a couple playings of ‘Recon’ so far, I haven’t had the Sturmzombies get close to winning.

What do you get when you cross the claustrophobic setting and hardened-armor firepower of a game like Space Hulk with slavering hordes of zombies controlled by the evil will of a Nazi mastermind?

That’s easy. You get the latest game to hit the Big Table — “Incursion”, published by Grindhouse Games.

As I’ve mentioned before, my gaming addiction is not entirely limited to ‘normal’ wargames. Strange settings, bizarre themes and oddball systems are well-represented in my game closet. When a game pits the good guys against two of alt-wargaming’s most despicable villains — crazed Nazi scientists and merciless zombies — how am I supposed to ignore that?

So here it is.

Lots of goodies in the box

Incursion is set in the grim – yet oddly campy – game ‘universe’ first established by Grindhouse in their miniatures rules “Secrets of the Third Reich 1949″. The game’s slice of the story is fairly straightforward: heavily armored, firepower-laden American troopers are trying to crack into the well-defended lair of evil genius Hugo von X, the maniacal Nazi scientiest responsible for creating a host of wonder-weapons and abonimations.  There’s power armor (Armored Personal Exoskeletons in this case), machineguns, flamethrowers, grenades, BFGs, Sturmzombies, evil twins, malevolent mutants, attack-trained werewolves and even a Doomsday Device that needs disabling.

Dudes. That kicks ass. What’s not to like?

For a retail price tag around $50, the box comes packed with a nice array of goodies. There’s a two-sided, mounted game board; four sheets of markers and figure stand-ups printed on impressively heavy stock; a  large stack of cards; a pile of plastic figure-stands; three d6; a molded box insert to hold the bits; a rule/scenario booklet and players’ aid card.

Countersheet detail

The physical production is very good quality.  The only quibble I have worth noting is that the die-cutting of the markers and standups was a bit variable. Obviously, the sheets were struck from the ‘front’ facing of the game pieces. In some cases, the die didn’t strike quite deeply enough, leaving an incomplete cut through the printed surface on the back facing of the sheet. The issue was resolved easily enough by tracing the cuts with a sharp X-acto blade — it was just a little more of a hobby project than I’d expected.

Incursion’s rules are pretty simple, especially for a ‘skirmish’ level wargame. The turn sequence is old-school, IGO-UGO with bidding each turn to get the initiative. Your guys/gals/things then expend Action Points to peform actions from a pretty limited menu of options – move, shoot, face, ‘use’ something (switch, door, whatever), stab/poke/whack.

Weapons roll a number of d6 (‘Damage Dice’) equal to their rate of fire. If the roll equals or exceed the target’s “Fortitude”, a Damage Point is scored. A ‘model’ that collects DP equal to its damage rating is elminated. Sturmzombies, for example, have a Fortitude of 4 and are eliminated by a single DP. American ‘Grunt APEs” — the game’s star-spangled red-shirts — have Fortitude 6 and take 2 DP to eliminate.

Sturmzombies can only attack hand-to-hand. Most HTH attacks in the game roll just a single Damage Die. Zombies benefit from a sort of ‘gang up’ rule that adds a Damage Die to the attack for each subsequent Zombie attacking the same target in a given turn (i.e. first attacking Sturmzombie rolls 1 DD, second attacking Sturmzombie rolls 2 DD, etc.). Given the confined nature of the game map, it’s a trick to engage with multiple Zombies at once — but it’s enough of an advantage that it certainly seems worth working toward.

There are a few special bits here and there, and the battle cards add some interesting twists and turns to gameplay. I’ll get into some more details about shootin’ and stompin’ with a little battle report when I get a chance.

So far, I think Incursion is a fun, thematic and fairly simple head-knocker of a hybrid board/tabletop wargame.  More to come…