Galactic Heroes - First Game and Review

I'm happy to say that I was a kickstarter supporter of Fistful of Lead:  Galactic Heroes.  I got my promised game rulebook, activation card deck, galactic codex, vehicle supplement, template, dice, vehicle, and scenery.

If you're not familiar with the game, the original Fistful of Lead is a wild west game that uses a card-based activation system and allows you to have several factions on the board, all in competition with each other.  The Galactic Heroes version takes the system and expands it to science fiction settings, and the accompanying codex provides sample statistics for a number of popular sci-fi movies, books, and games.

The boys and I took the rules for a spin in a grim, dark world perhaps 40,000 years into the future that should be familiar to many sci-fi gamers.  The scenario, modified lightly from one in the basic rulebook, sets four factions against each other in a remote desert planet town, all trying to capture a droid containing plans for the Doom Moon.

A dusty town, a hive of scum and villainy, where four factions are vying for the valuable droid.  At upper left, the desert raiders have come out of the mountains spoiling for a fight.  At upper right, the Emperor's elite troopers have disembarked from their ship at the spaceport to collect what rightfully belongs to their master.  At bottom right, the local constabulary venture out from their barracks to retrieve the droid, either to curry the Emperor's favor or because they've turned heretic.  At bottom left, the mysterious Tor have appeared via a glowing blue wormhole opening made possible by the mystic that leads them.

One of the local constabulary takes a lucky shot and downs the Tor war walker.  One of the neat features of the GH system is that everyone can hurt everyone if the dice are right.

The leader of the Emperor's elite troopers downs a desert raider.  The desert raiders advanced constantly into a hail of fire from the Emperor's top hit squad, and suffered casualties accordingly.

State of the board after a turn.  All factions have advanced toward the droids in the middle of the board, and all have traded some shots with each other.

Droid success!  One of the local constabulary checked a wandering droid and found that it contained the plans to the Doom Moon.  I didn't have enough droid models handy, so the droid in question may look a bit like a Heroclix refugee from the Teen Titans.

The Tor troops trade shots with the desert raiders.

The Emperor's troopers rain down small arms and rocket launcher fire on the desert raiders.  At this point, the desert raider player opted to restart his faction, which the rules allow to happen with the caveat that the reborn faction loses its advantageous edges.

The Tor proved effective in shooting up the local constabulary.  The Tor weapons have a range advantage that proved decisive over some of their foes.

An Imperial commando goes down (foreground), and his leader gets shaken by enemy fire (background).

A local trooper gets nailed by Imperial return fire, and the Imperial leader goes down.

The Imperial leader makes a check to see if he can recover from his wound (mandatory), and rolls a 1 - the only way he could get put out of action!

The Tor war walker, downed again by constabulary fire, is attended to by the Tor Psionic, who heals him.

The Tor war walker promptly jumps up and fries a constable with his flamer!

And return fire downs both the Psionic and the war walker!

I recommend blowing this one up to full size.  One Imperial commando is wounded and out of ammo a left, the rocket launcher trooper at bottom is shaken, but manages to get a shot off and vaporize one of the local constables.  A desert raider is creeping in at right on the rear of the Imperial advance.  Complete chaos.

More chaos.  The Tor war walker, now with two wounds, trades fire with opposing constabulary, many sporting wounds of their own.

Eventually, all the factions' forces were worn down by attrition.  The last Tor warrior grabbed the droid and made a run for the Tor portal orb (exit point to victory) while the Tor war walker provided covering fire until it ran out of ammo, then served as a barrier to the advancing desert raiders.

Success! The last Tor warrior takes the droid with the Doom Moon plans through the portal to win the game.

First impressions:
- The activation system may be the best selling point for this game.  The card-based system lets multiple factions play at the same table, and incorporates bonuses into the flow of the game to create a fun and engaging experience.
- Though I generally favor longer ranges for shooting weapons, the relatively short ranges given by the Codex that came with GH still managed to shoot up all of the factions.  Not sure if I'd change the ranges for weapon effectiveness given the massive attrition that this game produced.
- So far, the one thing missing is a point system.  We gave the Emperor's elites and the Tor five troopers each based on their tougher stats, and the desert raiders and constables six troopers each to try to even it out.  The Tor Psionic and war walker proved very effective, and the extended range of their weapons also weighed heavily in their favor.

We resolved to give the system another try, again in the grimdark universe, but to give each faction a Psionic and war walker of their own to even things out.  We've played that, and I'll post it as soon as it's written up.  More to follow.