Squad-machine?

Warmachine and Hordes are well known as a Skirmish Game, where small or large armies gather to contest on the field of battle. The said field can be anything, from streets of a city, to a plateau made of a titan, to a valley of concentrated evil.

It's a wonderful game and shows it. The varying points levels can change the game significantly too. And the larger it gets, the more intense the game. They even had to offer a different system for the larger battle games.

But what about scaling in the other direction?

Lately I have been looking at different scaled games, such as squads, to battallions to space fleets, etc etc. But after looking at Mercs, a squad based game, the thought occurred to me what it would be like to have Warmachine/Hordes scaled down to a handful of Solo models?

They pretty much already have a method for it made from Dungeons and Dragons rules. However, I don't think it's very good for, say, a monthly tournament. Five characters to each player, and the organiser would have to check each character sheet for errors or anything fishy going on in there, and the elaborate rules posted and applied, etc etc etc.

So make it a little easier and specific rules to X Models. Like what they've done with Warmachine/Hordes. The difference is that they've balanced out the game according to the format, which is Skirmish battle.

And it's noticeable in it's own way. Models can die in an instant from a stray bullet in this game, which is not wanted in a game so small. A game should endure, give a player a glimmer of hope before the chances get the better of them and steal that hope away and crush it under the sole of it's foot.

Or something like that.

I probed a friend of mine the other night about it, and he said he was absolutely interested in it and we came to the same conclusion: that the damage system is the only problem. His suggestion was to scale the armour and damage accordingly. The rest of the system was fine.

But while my friend and I work out a way to play the format (We may even attempt the Mercs method for a bit), I'm sure Privateer Press will surprise us with something along these lines one day.