Having brought the mean streets of Mega City One to the world of miniature wargaming, Warlord have again plundered the pages of 2000AD for their latest skirmish game, this time traveling back to the mythic Celtic past and the none more bloody world of Sláine Mac Roth.

For those who didn’t grow up eagerly awaiting each new issue of the ‘Galaxy’s Greatest Comic’, your man Sláine was a Celtic tribesman who, exiled from his tribe at a young age for bedding the chief’s daughter, spent his formative years as a bit of a rogue before returning to save his tribe, becoming the first High King, then the living representation of the Horned God, and finally enjoying all manner of time traveling capers. 

With over 40 years worth of stories to cram in there you’ll forgive us if we skipped over some of it, still if you haven’t read it just put this magazine down, go get yourself the collected edition of The Horned God and we’ll pick up afterwards.

Right, all done? So you get the idea, Celtic goddess worshiping tribes facing off against evil sea demons and worshippers of giant cosmic death worms, all served up with lots, and I mean lots, of violence. The perfect setting for a game of toy soldiers really, so the question is how well does Slaine - The Miniatures Game capture all of that? As it happens reasonably well. 

The game is based on the system used in Warlord’s aforementioned Judge Dredd game with just minor tweaks from its veteran designers, Andy Chambers and Gav Thorpe, to represent a world with less high-explosive rounds, more double handed axes and gods that like to meddle in the mortal affairs. Each side tends to field just a handful of models, and whilst all sides (Sláine’s Earth Tribes, the wicked Drunes led by the Lord Weird Slough Feg and the deep sea Fomorians) have access to regular warriors the focus is very much on the larger than life heroes from the comic.

Of note is the game’s initiative system, with players pulling tokens from a bag, and having the ability to push for more actions but o course the key part of the game is combat and here that’s built around a dice pool system, with specially marked dice each bearing 3 Hit icons, 2 Shield icons and 1 Special icon. When models are in range and the axes start swinging you roll a number of the dice equivalent to each of their Fight stats. So, for example, the big man himself Sláine gets a mighty 5 dice whilst a lowly Drune Skull Sword just 2. Various weapons and special abilities can modify that but generally you’re tallying up the attacker’s hits, comparing those to the number of shields rolled by the defender and if there’s more hits and shields an equal amount of damage is done.

Or almost, the dice pool mechanic is nice, it always feels good to chuck a handful of dice around and it gives you the feeling that your big hero is a force to be reckoned with. But, once you’ve gone through all that, calculated the various modifiers in play, the defender gets to roll another pool of dice, this time equal to their Evade stat with any Special icons showing up negating all damage and if that was unsuccessful you roll a final dice pool equivalent to their Resist stat with every shield result lowering the damage. The result is you can end up with several combat rounds that result in little damage, which for a Sláine game can feel oddly bloodless.

The Starter Set itself comes with 9 models, including Sláine in both his regular and hulked out ‘warp spasm’ forms, plus some huts and a rather nice ‘weirdstone’. This is fine for getting your head around the game but you’ll soon need to add to that, luckily they’re fairly priced and if you’re a fan of Simon Bisley’s art the Balor and Slough Feg models especially look like they’ve just stepped out of the pages of The Horned God. The scenarios, certainly those focused on the Starter Set are more narrative driven and the game comes with a slim yet entirely workable, and fun, system for running campaigns with several players as you fight for territory and the favour of your gods.

As wargames go it certainly has its quirks, but plenty of charm too and when your hero is salmon leaping over undead Drunes, lopping off heads left, right and centre they’re easy enough to forgive. Whilst unlikely to become anyone’s main wargaming focus, once you’ve got a handle on it most games pass in a fairly breezy 60 minutes or less, so it all makes for a great alternative to pull out as and when you fancy something different. If you’re a fan of the comics or just looking to add a new a wargame to your collection that’s both easy on the wallet and the clock then Sláine is well worth a look.

Game design: Andy Chambers, Gav Thorpe
Published by Warlord Games

This feature originally appeared in Wyrd Science Vol.1, Issue 3 (Oct '22)

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