Until recently, we thought that Titan Walks – massive multiplayer games of Warhammer 40k using two-foot tall Titan models – were the most resource intensive miniature wargame on earth. Enter Ohio-based model maker and experienced firearm handler Daniel, who combined decades of experience with airguns and a massive Gundam collection to create a full-destruction wargame, which plays like a hybrid of XCOM and a firing range.
Normally, Wargamer asks our interviewees about their favorite Warhammer 40k faction, but Daniel – who prefers not to give his surname – has “very little” background with miniature wargames. “A hometown friend introduced me to Warhammer 40k a few years before developing my game”, he says, adding “I like it, but I’ve only ever gotten to play two or three games”.
In 2019, with a digital desk job and screen-based hobbies, Daniel was looking for something to do in the real world – right in time for the Covid-19 lockdowns hit. Just “as the existential dread was hitting”, he “happened to stumble across an article about the life-sized moving RX-78 [Gundam] statue that Bandai had built in Japan”. He bought his first Gundam kit that week.
If you’re well-versed in building Space Marines, but have never touched a Gundam, Daniel is enthusiastic about what the kits offer. “I am constantly in awe of the level of engineering that gets put into those kits for such an affordable price”, he says.
When we ask Daniel how many Gundams he’s built, he says: “I haven’t kept score”. While he finds building them meditative, he admits “I don’t know what to do with the models once I am done building them”. He sells better builds via Etsy, “but not everything I build is worth putting up for sale”. “These ‘unworthy’ models take up space, and that’s a problem”, he adds.
His solution is as destructive as it is creative, and draws on a fond childhood memory. “As a kid, when a toy broke beyond my dad’s ability to repair, we would take it outside and either shoot it with a BB gun or strap it to a bunch of fireworks and give it a proper send off”, he says. “It was a great way to bond while keeping a kid from being sad about broken toys”, he reflects.
When he started “blasting completed models to pieces with a pellet gun”, he “quickly noticed that the armor of these models sometimes actually worked like armor” on real world military vehicles. His curiosity piqued, he embarked on a whole range of ballistic tests, using a variety of pellets and velocities, monitoring the results.
When he started buying more models just to shoot them to bits, he decided to try and make an actual game out of it – a wargame where you really blow up your opponent’s models.
Daniel emphasises that the rules for his custom wargame are still in early development and subject to change. The first step is, of course, to build your figures. Models are assigned to one of six classes, each with unique weapons, stats and special abilities.
Each unit gets two actions per turn, which can be used to move, attack, or use special abilities. “It plays relatively similar to the XCOM video games”, Daniel says, but adds, “this was actually not intentional, as I only played XCOM after making my game – I thought I was being original”.
Attacks don’t require any dice rolls: “you position your unit in a good firing position and literally fire your weapon at your target in real life”, with different weapons represented “by shooting different projectiles out of the pellet gun at different velocities”. There are also range limits, and a requirement that you have line of sight, “though some special abilities allow you to fire without line of sight”.
As components are blasted off your models, their effectiveness is reduced. “This is the only table top game with environmental destruction that I am aware of”, Daniel says. He’s even added in a levelling system for campaign play.
Daniel compares the game to paintball: “there are consequences to failure”. Just as paintball players don’t want “to earn a new welt” by being hit, “when you spend time and money building a unit, it can really suck seeing it take an explosive round to the chest in the opening salvo”.
But winning as a result of your tactics feels all the sweeter. “This is the only strategy game I’ve ever played where I truly care about the units I was commanding into battle”, he adds.
The game relies on some custom equipment that Daniel has made himself. “The pellet gun has been modified to use a large HPA tank, rather than a CO2 cartridge”, and “to have adjustable velocity not only to make the gun less powerful, but also to allow for quick velocity adjustment for different weapons profiles”.
Daniel says he “had to MacGyver my own solution out of 20 year old paintball marker components as it seems like nobody currently sells these”. The BB pellets used in the gun are frangible “to prevent deflecting or ricochet”, while explosive ammunition uses modified pellets with cap gun caps glued to them.
This game has very obvious risks, and Daniel describes a long list of safety measures. “First of all, I have decades of experience with airguns and full fledged firearms”, he states. “I have only played this game with family or close friends with whom I have been shooting since I was a child”, he adds, emphasising “everyone understands and respects the basic principles of gun safety”.
He recaps a list of gun safety essentials: “Never point the gun at anything you are not ok with destroying; keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire; always be aware of your target, what’s behind and near it; never fire until everyone is behind the firing line and is aware [you] are going hot.”
Plenty of equipment is needed to minimise risk. “Obviously, eye protection is required at all times”, Daniel says. A suitable playing space is harder to source. “You absolutely cannot play this in your house” – the pellets may fire at low velocity, but they can still penetrate drywall.
Daniel uses his garage, protecting the window with a plexiglass screen. The players set up a pellet trap behind targets before firing so that “any misses, deflections, or over penetration will get safely caught”.
Probably the hardest safety aspect for others to replicate would be Daniel’s own experience and careful experimentation with the pellet guns and the models.
The specific rounds he uses and velocity they’re fired at were decided on after “months and months test shooting different pellets and BBs”, calculating the muzzle energy of each round. He limits the projectiles used in the game to those with a muzzle energy of three joules, a value found in some airsoft sniper rifles.
The firing energy of the round isn’t the only consideration: the “size, shape, and material of the projectile” all determine its effect on the target. Dangerous ricochets were “a real problem” in early tests, until Daniel started using frangible BBs that disintegrated on a hit.
The explosive rounds, which involve simply gluing a cap gun cap to a BB, “really do enhance the level of damage dealt to the model”, as well as looking awesome – but will “on rare occasions create tiny little fires”. Two fire extinguishers and “loads of water” are kept on hand as a further safety precaution.
With such a safety-intensive set-up, and only a select group that Daniel is happy to play with, “scheduling can be a bit tricky”, he admits. “If we play four games in a year, I am happy”, he says.
Everyone who has participated loves it: “they all keep pushing me to try and market the game”, Daniel says. The response from people who’ve seen it online is divided between those who want to know how they can play, and those who can’t stomach seeing models blown to pieces.
Wargamer is deeply impressed by Daniel’s creativity and commitment, but will echo his sentiment that – unless you have a lot of specialised training, appropriate equipment, and can reproduce his ballistic tests – you should not attempt to play this game at home. Instead, we can recommend plenty of games like XCOM which don’t require specialised protective equipment and a custom firearm.
There’s also the recent news that Bandai is releasing an official Gundam miniature. That will come with some brand new two inch tall Gundam kits. If you already have a collection of Gunpla, check out the fan wargame Mecha Stellar, which has stats for just about every Gundam mech under the sun!
Source: Wargamer
