Review - When the Navy Walked (1/3)

The first review at the Expanse! A game. I'll aim at the quality of Reviews from R'lyeh and do the material justice by splitting it up into three parts. Today we'll have the concept and background, tomorrow the ruleset and gameplay, and on Thursday the army, unit and machine building. So what is it I'm going to be looking at? 

The oddly-titled When the Navy Walked, an indy wargame by ArmChairGeneral. He's been worked into a frenzy with the tension, as evidenced by this comment earlier today.

When the Navy Walked then. Out of left field maybe? It was for me too. The curiosity was first piqued by the General's blog and an excerpt from the first tie-in novel, Between Spears and Steam, posted here as if by fate. I found out later there's a supplement in the works, a roleplaying version planned and a website up and running, so it looks like it's aiming for the stars. The question is, what is it exactly, and is it worth playing?

Put simply in terms most would recognise, there's the block manoeuvring of a game like Warhammer, the low-downtime unit-by-unit play of a game like Epic, a turn sequence not dissimilar to 40K and lashings of wacky machines and steampunk. The steam's a given, but the game manages to be both punk and anti-punk at the same time.

Concept and background today of course, but something on the materials as a whole too. I'm working from the full-colour second edition pdf, available at wargamevault.com, with the current range here. It may be that the version I'm using is an earlier one. At the moment all materials are electronic, although this will change in the spring with the release of a print version. I'm also told the first expansion is nearly ready, and Conflict on Mars! is the title. It's clearly pulp - we know by the question mark.

The pdf feels homebrew and has plenty of photographs, diagrams and sketches, and the impression is of a much-loved world built up over time. All of the images in the three parts of this review are taken from the pdf, with permission of course. The outer margins are decorated with a clean evocative edging, and although the inner margins may be narrow, the pages do still have plenty of white space for notes. The width available also means the tables and photographs can really spread out, and by doing so they well suggest the vast spaces of the game world. Because the concept is all about scope.

From the get-go I can see this is my kind of game. Take this quote:

When the Navy Walks is more than just a miniature game of alternate history - it is a springboard for the imagination, a place of steam and dreams and the living, breathing creations of dreamers and aethertechs.

In the first few pages we're thrown into the setting. The timeline sets off in 1872 with the discovery of "the Aether Engine (LLAD), a turbine engine powered by coal and able to generate sufficient thrust to enter low-Earth orbit." The centre of the Earth, Atlantis, Mars and Venus all get a look in, each with their own native inhabitants. Woven in to the tapestry too are perpetual motion, underwater colonies, prehistoric creatures, air pirates and our would-be alien masters. Given the influence of classic writers like H G Wells, Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and maybe even H P Lovecraft, we quickly find our feet in this strange familiar world and a sense of the potential begins to grow.

The background takes us through the development of the high-low-technologies, the machinations of the Great Powers, human weaknesses and the costs in life and reputation. There are events we recognise - the Scramble for Africa, the American Civil War and the Great War - but they're not as they should be, and there's much we'd only come across in pulp sci-fi or see in B-movies - spaces at the heart of the Earth and beneath the waves, New Worlds in the aether, and Venus as a planet of swamps and arachnids. Even grey aliens get a mention. The picture painted is a troubling one, of conflict beneath, across and above the surface of the Earth, the uncertainty of a runaway arms race and strange new realms and peoples.

The scope then is grand and the planned roleplaying game seems a good move if the riches are to be used in anything like the way they could be. You can see how much the supplements will have to work with. The innocence and barbarity are an unsettling mix, but a mix that drew this reader in. Part of the interest for me comes in seeing the mistakes as they are made, and wanting to restrain the worst instincts of the actors.

As for the potential of the tabletop game, there's a sense of a world uncharted and days to be seized. I found myself wanting to get started on the double - not the best move here - thinking about how the tactics we're familiar with would apply to landships, walkers and aetherships, and how much the conflicts of the time in our reality would mesh with those of the alternate history. Part of the fun of the game itself is actually creating the forces mentioned in the background - to help this along the army, unit and machine building is almost completely open. This has drawbacks of course, and the game is not really one for those looking for balance. The pay-off though is more than enough fiction, narrative and drama for a clear net gain.

When it comes to play itself, the ruleset very appropriately claims to have "a unique engine". The essence is the idea of command and the key mechanism does well to suggest the challenge of managing a mixed force of men and machines in the crucible. The tech of the background can be the heart of an army and sabotage plays a role too.

But I'll give my thoughts on all of that over the next couple of days.

Part two

_