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BASICS
Armageddon: 2089 Total
War is Mongoose
Publishing’s foray into the
world of d20 Mecha rpg’s.
It is a 304-page hardback
book with a color cover
printed on slick glossy
paper that is also full color
throughout. It requires
that you have the
Dungeons & Dragons
Players Handbook and has
a retail price of $44.95
USD.
INSIDE
Before digging into the
meat of the book you’ll
notice that just from your initial flipping through of the book that it’s a very
nice looking tome and a lot of time was spent making it such. The text is
easy to read and all of the War Meks have a very realistic look to them.
Regarding the presentation of the material my only wince was at some of
the tables. They have a black background with white (so far, so good) and
green (not great) text. The green gets difficult to read and red or yellow
might have been a better choice in the tables.
The background of Armageddon: 2089 starts with the crashing of two
hijacked civilian planes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
(The authors list it as taking place in 2002. I’m not sure if they meant to
offset it by a year or not though.) and the state of affairs for pretty much
everyone around the globe declines from there. Isolationism, greed, global
warming, consolidation of nations, and more all play a part in shaping the
new world that is not post-apocalyptic (not yet anyway) but sees nations
warring with each other and making prolific use of mercenaries piloting
giant waking tanks called War Meks. I read through the background twice
and still felt less than thrilled about how things shake out for not only the
USA but also the UK, which is embroiled in its own civil war and is not
exactly on the best of terms with the rest of Europe. I flipped back to the
designer’s notes and saw that us, the readers, maybe getting a little
disjointed at how things turned out in this fictional setting is exactly what
they were shooting for. You know what, they succeeded and after reading
through those notes I took a step back and didn’t really think about it in that
first light again. Maybe I was just thinking too close to the source when I
initially read through it. There are also ‘news’ clips scattered throughout
the book that continue to fill you in on the background of the game world.
You cone to realize that there are really no classic ‘good-guys’ in
Armageddon: 2089. None of the national players have clean hands. It’s
like someone said, “Sh*t soup is for dinner and here’s your bowl!” Now,
go out and kick some ass and make some money. Capitalism is still alive
and well you see!
Character creation is standard for a d20 game and will be familiar to any
previous d20 system player. PC’s are human and have a handful of Mekoriented
classes to choose from and there are a couple of non-Mek classes
that would mostly see service as NPC’s but could also pass for PC’s.
Many, but not all, Skills and Feats from the PHB are available to your PC’s
and these are added to by new ones specific to the futuristic world you find
yourself in.
There are two types of combat that you’ll be concerned with, man
(personnel) scale and War Mek scale. Trust me, you don’t want to get
caught outside of some kind of ‘hard’ armored protection when the big guns
start firing. Heroes, your characters, are afforded a bit more leniency when
it comes to being turned into a greasy spot on the ground when being fired
at by the massive armament of the War Meks, but just a bit. You’ll end up
dead too unless you have a seriously hardcore plan of action in place. The
solution? Well, like I said there are two types of combat to be worried
about and each has its place in the game with some crossing over being not
47
only possible, but quite exciting. Imagine your group of characters, each in
a War Mek (very likely) battling an enemy group in a large city, dodging
behind buildings and even bringing some down in the process of trying to
get to a location where you need to retrieve some objective. Said objective
requires that at least part of the party dismount and head into an
underground garage on foot while the rest keep a lookout. Combat ensues
in the garage and at the same time new ‘hard’ targets emerge to muck things
up above ground. Two fights going on and when (if) the guys below are
victorious they still have to get safely back to their Meks up topside. Yeah,
that could work quite well.
The rules for Mek combat are detailed enough to the point that you could
use them exclusively for a tabletop wargame if you wanted. A huge
selection of Meks are presented, each with nice computer generated artwork
and full stats, as are rules for constructing your own for you number
crunchers out there. While the stars of the battlefield are definitely the War
Meks conventional armor has not gone by the wayside and still plays a vital
role in combat. Mongoose is really good about providing useful downloads
on their website and I’m hoping to see a Mek construction utility there at
some point.
Combat centers around trying to avoid getting hit (duh!) by way of your
Defense Value replacing AC and armor soaking up points of damage when
you do get nailed. Hit Points are as you’re used to and one way that combat
stays fast moving is that all characters get the ‘Shot on the Run’ feat for
free. Running and shooting from cover to cover will become a staple of
your combats and should generally help to keep your PC’s alive a bit longer
providing they don’t decide to run straight at a tank wearing just a jockstrap.
Oh yeah, stray shots can suck so be careful where you point that
thing!
The Campaign section of the book continues, with the help of all of the
background, to prepare the GM to run the game. Things for those living in
the year 2089 are in a very bad place most of the time. The initial
background section that I alluded to earlier takes up just a couple of pages
but the world is greatly detailed later on and while the world has not taken a
turn for the better at the back of the book it’s a very interesting read to see
how the authors took events of the modern age and extrapolated them (in
their own way) into the world of Armageddon: 2089. The main players are
the USA and its allies (not necessarily who you’d think of), the European
Federation and its allies, The Tiger Combine (Southeast Asia), and the
Nordic League with plenty of neutral bodies all over the place. Of course,
the threat of mutually assured destruction hangs over the heads of pretty
much everyone, but nobody is going to pay you to sit around and watch
cartoons all day. There are several campaign types presented (Mercenary,
Corporate, Special Forces, and Tanker/Infantry) and each can present its
own challenges or if your up to it as a GM you can splice a couple of them
together.
VALUE
This is not an inexpensive book at nearly $45, but don’t be taken aback by
the price. You certainly get what you pay for here. The presentation is
among the highest I've seen and it’s a quality production. The setting is
rather pessimistic, but offers plenty of opportunities for role-playing,
adventure and combat. An introductory adventure would have been nice to
see, but there are plenty of campaign suggestions to help your GM jump
start things. The index is a wonderful addition, especially in a book of this
size. Armageddon: 2089 reminded me of several other games
(MechWarrior and Traveller mostly) but is really it’s own creation. Being
set solely on Earth and less than a century in the future means that even
with political, temperate, and social changes that take place in the
background it can still be familiar to your players without having to learn
the history of a whole new universe. I liked the economic aspect of the
game and operating as a bunch of mercenaries is fun, but becoming filthy
rich mercenaries is even better. All in all I found that I liked Armageddon:
2089 very much and while it’s a bleak world that you’ll be heading into it’s
a very interesting one that offers plenty of role-playing opportunity and
many chances to blow big bloody holes in those bastards just over that next
ridge.