Rivet Wars Game Review

GAME PROCESS

 Rivet Wars is a tactical game with miniatures. You command an army: you buy soldiers, put them on the field and send them on suicidal attacks - from the trenches to "no man's land" and further to your death - to try to break through the enemy's defenses and capture key points. Naturally, all this time sitting behind the front line in a safe palace, sipping champagne and weaving sandwiches.

 This fierce battle rages in the Rivetlands, which are currently divided between an alliance of independent states opposing the hegemon of the Blythoon Empire, and several other states (which will most likely appear in expansions). Both the plot and the names of many locations are very reminiscent of the situation a hundred years ago with Europe engulfed in the First World War. The participants in the conflict look like soldiers from the time of the Great War, but in their arsenals there are steam, diesel and clockwork mechanisms: rocket motorcycles, battle wheels and mechanical monsters that resemble quadrupeds and ostriches.

 Since this is a tactical game with miniatures, you will have to move small figures of motley soldiers and war machines around a checkered field and roll dice in combat, checking characteristics such as unit type, firing range and target armor. But this is by no means one of the classic wargames with measuring rulers, viewing angle, line of sight or endless tables and modifiers. Rivet Wars is very polished and devoid of many cumbersome nuances inherent in the genre.

 In the basic box - "Eastern Front" - there are 19 allies and empire minions each; 8 types of units on each side. Each species comes with a card describing its type, cost, movement, armor, HP, range, attack power, and special abilities, if any. There are two more decks of cards for secret tasks, for the completion of which commanders will receive victory points, and special actions that allow you to do something useful for yourself or harmful to the enemy, bypassing the standard rules. Plus, lots of cardboard tokens representing barbed wire, mines, bunkers and key points, and help you keep track of loss rates, available deployment points and gas attacks.

 There are 10 scenarios in the rulebook (plus additional online ones both official and fan). Each has its own layout of the field, consisting of 6–9 double-sided tiles. Also, each has its own income limit in the form of deployment points and rivets that you get each turn, as well as its own set of cards, victory conditions and special rights. Choose the one you like, lay out the game - and go into battle!

 Commanders take turns, each turn consists of five operational phases.

 1) Selection phase: you draw 1 action card and up to 2 secret task cards (the main thing is not to exceed the hand limit: it is equal to 3 and 2, respectively).

 2) Deployment phase: commanders mobilize new units. In Rivet Wars, two currencies are deployment points and rivets. Some units require only glasses to purchase, others also require rivets. You can't collect glasses, but you can rivets. After buying units, they must be placed on cells in your territory, within the activation zone (it varies depending on the scenario).

 3) Combat Phase: Commanders go hand-to-hand...or riveting? This is the only phase that can get a little frozen. It is not difficult to check whether the unit is on target. Determining how many dice to throw is also the same. You can also shoot diagonally, but only on 1 cell. After that, it's just a matter of factoring in your unit's attack type (how powerfully it fires at that target) and special abilities and boosts, if any. In addition, each faction has two "units", which are essentially upgrades for armored vehicles and do not walk the battlefield on their own. And, finally, if there are several enemy units on the cell being attacked, they will have to be attacked strictly in a certain sequence. So keep a close eye on the attack stats of your units storming the enemy.

 After that, it remains only to count the results that have fallen out. You hit an enemy on a roll of 5+. Multiple hits count as one, but don't worry, most units in the base only have 1 HP. There are a few that survive; they will have to monitor their health with the help of mini-tokens, which are inserted into the miniature stand.

 4) After the end of the firefight, the movement phase begins: you can move units, strengthening key sectors or making a tactical retreat. It's simple: the movement rate is equal to the number of cells that can be passed. As in the case of shooting, you can also move diagonally, but only one square. In addition, it is worth considering that some types of terrain limit the movement of certain units.

 5) And the final phase: if you captured a key point in your turn, held existing ones, completed a secret task or destroyed an advanced enemy unit, then you will be awarded victory points, which are tracked on a separate tablet. Once one of the factions meets the scenario's victory condition and both factions finish walking, the commander with the most victory points wins.

IS EVERYTHING ON THE EASTERN FRONT WITHOUT CHANGES

 Wargames with miniatures often scare away newcomers with a high threshold of entry, many rules or mechanics. In addition, it is very desirable to paint your army, and many have neither the time nor the desire for this. Such games also require, as a rule, a large table, a three-dimensional terrain (to look good) and a measuring ruler. And it is not easy to get involved in them. If the game system you're interested in is years old, you'll need to buy a lot to keep your army competitive and/or diverse enough. In addition, many popular gaming systems have their own specific culture and group dynamics: not always unfriendly to newcomers, but still requiring a specific approach. However, many tabletop players are interested in miniatures wargames, they just don't know where to start, or they don't have that much time. But what if you came up with a miniatures wargame that was essentially a regular board game?

 Don't get me wrong, Rivet Wars has plenty of content by relative standards. Half a dozen add-ons have already been released, and more are sure to come. You can spend many sleepless nights painting all the miniatures that come to mind. And if you have enough income and desire, then you can spend a small fortune on a complete set with all fake bottles.

 Despite these common features, Rivet Wars is an ordinary tabletop that perfectly conveys the spirit of a wargame with miniatures. It cannot be said that it is unique in this way - there are analogues - but Rivet Wars copes with this function perfectly. And, unlike many analogues, there are no frequent "Star Wars", fantasy or zombies, which seems more attractive to me. In addition, if you have the skills and time, there is nothing to prevent you from devoting yourself to decorating a lot of miniatures, just like in wargames.

 Matches in Rivet Wars are fast, simple, and full of fierce battles. For this reason, ironically, experienced wargamers-miniatures are unlikely to be interested in this game system at all, let alone give it as much time and attention as they do with their favorite hardcore games (although lovers of decoration will appreciate the minis here). Rivet Wars is intended for tabletop players who would be interested in miniatures wargames if it weren't for the complicated rules, horsey price tags, and specific culture. But if you're a collect-them-all type of person, you might also be interested in Rivet Wars with a lot of content, especially with the possible release of new expansions.

 How is Rivet Wars different from hardcore wargames with miniatures and why is one closer to cash?

 First, the playing space is relatively small and is limited to a cardboard field, not a table. Although the wide range of available miniatures shows the diversity of the game system, the presence of the field shows that this is a tabletop. The field consists of tiles with the size of 3x3 cells, and each cell has 4 cells (2x2), so that there are a total of 36 cells on each tile. Cells are important for units' movement and attack range. Small units occupy one cell, medium units two, and large mechanical monsters as many as four. However, movement and attack range are measured by cells, not individual cells. Therefore, a single infantryman can move and/or fire from the bottom corner of one cell to the top corner of the next one. You can even reposition units in the same cell, which is important given the strict order of attacks. In general, both movement and attack are easy to master, and these simple mechanics will attract tabletop players rather than miniatures.

 Secondly, there are very few obstacles and different types of terrain here. There are no buildings at all, nothing blocks the line of sight. There is no shooting from the heights. There are a few barbed wire tokens, tank traps, and mines, but they don't really restrict movement and can be neutralized fairly easily. The area is represented mainly by trenches, which have several distinctive characteristics. They can only be occupied by infantry, effectively blocking the movement of other types of units. Entrenched infantry are more survivable thanks to the defensive bonus. And units with the "runner" ability (as a rule, this is ordinary infantry) get +1 to movement there. In general, everything is spartan, which is rare for wargames with miniatures.

 Thirdly, there is the customary drawing of cards from the hand for tabletops. No, card management is not the basis of the game, but they significantly enliven the gameplay. I like the secret quests: they add intrigue to the party and dilute the endless see-saw battles (more on that below). But some players don't respect them, because some tasks are easier to complete than others, and their difficulty varies greatly depending on the circumstances. Moreover, although you can hold 2 tasks on your hand, you cannot pull out a new one until you complete one of the old ones. So, due to the will of randomness, a couple of failed tasks can stay with you for a long time. As far as action cards go, they're all generally useful and mostly very buff. Their limit is 3, so the chances of drawing a card corresponding to the situation are higher. In addition, at the beginning of the selection phase, you can discard one from your hand if it seems useless or weak.

 Fourthly, and in the last ones, the battles here are fast and very random. To be honest, it's hard for me to compare how random they are compared to their closest counterparts, as I'm mostly familiar with game systems that have deeper attack and damage distribution mechanics. Rivet Wars is much simpler. Even easier than Star Wars X-Wing, which is considered a very accessible game. In Rivet Wars, you simply roll dice equal to the unit's attack rating on the chosen target and hit a 5+. One hit is enough for most units. But even though they die like flies, you can recruit new ones just as quickly, plugging holes in your defenses.

 And this is the main disadvantage (more precisely, limitation) of the design of Rivet Wars. Here (at least in the base for sure) you don't engage in deep tactical planning and you don't try to outmaneuver the enemy, but run as fast as possible to key points. It turns out a kind of swing: you move forward and capture a key point in the calculation of gaining a victory point, the opponent responds in the same way, grinding your units to powder and recapturing the point. But you already have a ready-made reinforcement from the past... And so on in a circle. The special rules of the scenarios diversify the game a bit, so that the missions are not clones of each other, differing only in terrain. So, in one of them, the allied player places a landing force of several soldiers behind the enemy's front line during the starting layout. Otherwise, you receive additional points or rivets before the deployment phase depending on the number of accumulated victory points. There are also secret missions and action cards that add variety as well.

 The winner is usually unclear until the last one. Depending on the scenario, it only takes 6-10 victory points to fulfill the victory condition, and you'll be "trading" key points for most of the battle. With such a schedule, only a few player mistakes can separate victory from defeat. Or bad dice rolls.

 As far as bugs go, Rivet Wars has a place for strategy - just a little, though, as the units in the base aren't diverse enough. But they are strong and weak against certain opponents, so an effective offensive requires a balanced army. You can't just take and put all your money into medium or heavy troops; there are not enough of them. And they can capture key points, which are the main source of victory points. On the other hand, if you try to overwhelm your opponent with a horde of infantry, you won't have the flexibility to win battles. Also, a significant tactical role is played by the order of placement of units in the cage, taking into account the sequence of attacks and enemy units within range. This helps prevent offensive defeats.

 As for randomness, there is no escaping its influence. When in the course of the "swing" one of the commanders will not be able to recapture the points captured from him due to failure, it will be very difficult for him to make up for what he lost. But since the parties are fast, this is not such a critical drawback, but rather an inevitability for such a simple design.

 The base also suffers from a lack of unit variety. Only 8 per faction: you won't have to think long about the formation of squads here, unlike wargames with miniatures. In addition, we got the impression of a slight imbalance in favor of the Allies. Their shooters can quickly neutralize the empire's panzerfausts, the reverse is not true. They also have several units capable of covering an entire cell with an attack. And more counter to heavy mechanized units. However, in general the light, medium, heavy units and heroes are balanced enough to be fun to play. It is especially nice that large tanks cannot be bought before at least the 3rd turn, when enough rivets are collected. And if you buy heroes, it will further delay the arrival of heavy equipment. Interesting choice.

 Several additions with new units and mechanics have been released for the game. To fully enjoy Rivet Wars, it is desirable to have one or two dopa. If you don't want or can't make additional investments, the bare base may disappoint you. On the other hand, to eliminate problems with balance and replayability, it is enough to add only a few pairs - you will not have to go broke. And for lovers of "collect them all", there is also a place to turn around.

 The miniatures are elegantly crafted (more precisely, they are cast from plastic), pleasant to the touch and immediately attract attention. They look paler in the photos than they actually are. And you don't need to collect anything, which will please beginners. But they will look really chic after painting. Too bad I'm not an artist; even my daughter wants to paint them. Will have to take good care of her set of felt-tip pens.

 Many people write that Rivet Wars is a great gateway to the world of wargames with miniatures. Actually, many people think so. I will not agree. Gateways are called so because they are gates that lure new players into a certain hobby. In my opinion, Rivet Wars is not suitable for this role, although it is not the game's fault. Just wargames with miniatures - a very niche thing even by tabletop standards. If you've always been drawn to this genre, it doesn't matter where to start. If not, then most likely you will not be interested in them after Rivet Wars. Or you may initially show interest, and then quickly lose interest once you realize how much time, effort, and money you have to spend. Rivet Wars is just for such ordinary desktops. Let them not go further than this game, but it is not necessary. She has an unusual attractive style, great moves, fast games and simple and slick combat mechanics. In short, this is a miniatures tactic for those who have always wanted to try something like this, but were afraid of hardcore games.