Playing 6mm Epic with Xenos Rampant

My usual Wednesday night gaming generally consists of a diet of historical gaming, be it ancients, medievals, black powder era or world war 2. Recently, we've been playing Sci Fi, namely Xenos Rampant, as part of a playtest for the magazine. 

One of my regular opponents, Sam, wanted to dust off his recently 3D printed Epic models and try them with the Xenos Rampant. As an old Epic player, I was keen to see what XR could do.

Sam chose a Marine army, while I took Guard. My 36 point army consisted of one unit of heavy infantry (with increased squad size), three units of light infantry (with increased squad size and mobile, represented by the Chimera transports), one support infantry (anti tank), one Fighting Vehicle squad (Russ tanks) and one Fighting Vehicle (basilisks - light armour, artillery). 

Facing them were the marines, mostly in white as they were unfinished. The marines consisted of 2x Heavy Infantry with increased squad size (Marines), 1x Mobile Armoured Berserk Infantry with increased squad size (Assault Marines with Jump Packs), 2x Elites with SuperHeavy armour (Terminators) and a Fighting Vehicle squad (Predator tanks).

There was three objectives each side had to control by the end of the game. While my Guard were faster than the Marines, the lack of staying power meant while I could capture objectives, I rarely could hold onto them. My best bet was to whittle the enemy down with ranged fire.

My armoured forces were very powerful and worked well, but in the second game, my poor dice roling meant that on several occasions I just failed to activate them.

Overall, I was very pleased how we adapted an exisiting forces to Xenos Rampant and how it played out. We certainly had fun. Our firt game used centimetres for movement, which was slow but an interesting tactical challenge. Our second game used standard inches and was far more quick and bloody.

The Basilisks were very good at long range fire and performed very well, generally supporting the infantry or the advance of the tanks. Sadly, I didn't have any superheavies!

The first game was a Marine victory, thanks to poor deployment. The second game was also a Marine victory but that was bad dice rolling on my part. Both times I managed to capture one objective while the Marines captured two.

Xenos Rampant does work well on several levels and scales. We played two games easily within a 3 hour period. The game is due for release soon by Osprey.