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A Review of Sludge War, by Sean Sutter at Metal King Studio

Gameplay: 7/10
Lore: 7/10
Hobby: 9/10

Sludge War is a fantasy wargame set in the age of black powder, and it is a gritty, gory delight. The gameplay is easy enough that the rules can be grasped in minutes (and summed up on one sheet of paper), but there is enough depth of story and a ton of hobby possibilities to make this easily one of my favorite games of the year.

What is Sludge War?

Sludge War is a full battle wargame, meaning that while it can be played with small skirmish-level forces, it’s meant to be entire armies on each side. The setting is a post-apocalyptic fantasy world where everything is terrible–“sludge” is a very apt name–and black powder musketeers fight alongside knights and sorcerers.

The game comes was written by Sean Sutter from Metal King Studio, and the rules appear in Blaster Vol 3, which you can get here.

But let’s get to the meat of it. If you’re going to play Sludge War you’re going to play it for one reason: for converting an army. Sludge War is a miniatures agnostic game, meaning that you’re going to need to come up with your own miniatures, and the setting is just quirky enough that the majority of the fun of this game is going to come in creating delightfully dark soldiers and cavalry. Imagine medieval knights fighting alongside Napoleonics alongside arcanists alongside samurai.

The one downfall of the game–and I’m sorry to say there’s a downfall, but there is one big one–it’s that the game is meant to wield full armies, so you’re going to need to devote a LOT of time to creating your force for Sludge War before you ever get to play it. If you love kitbashing weird and wonderful miniatures, then this is a dream. But if you’re just trying to test the waters it’s a little hard to get into.

Sludge War’s World

The lore of Sludge War is that the world existed on something called the World Tree, a magically massive tree that we’re told billions of people lived on or around. But the magical properties of the tree were so enticing to the people that, against the warnings of the prophets, they began to dig and mine the roots of the tree for powerful resources. And then, one day, everything went to hell.

The world tree exploded. Those billions died. And what is left is described as islands of land strung together by the twisted and dying roots of the tree, as well as archaic bridges. And the people who are left are trying to eek out an existence in this new shattered reality.

There’s a lot of fun stuff here: the magic of the world tree was used to build airships, and so these ancient dirigibles fly above this broken world from island to island. The few areas that are available for agriculture (which are repeatedly called “planes” instead of “plains” for some reason) are brutally fought over as they are the most valuable resources left.

Sludge World’s Gameplay

Stress and Gore

The rules for Sludge War aren’t complicated, but they focus on something very evocative. Where most wargames have rules for nerve tests or morale, Sludge War kicks that up to 11 with two conditions: Stress and Gore. Stress tokens are added to units when they, or units nearby them, suffer casualties. But Gore is something entirely new, and my favorite mechanic of the game.

Sludge War is all about the brutality of combat, and the horrors of war. Again, the name “sludge” is perfect. So to recreate the horrors of war, Gore tokens are added to the battlefield whenever combat takes place. The tokens represent real gore–guts and blood and bodies–but they also just represent the terrors experienced during a battle. But the fun part is that the Gore tokens affect anyone who is near them–on either side of the table.

So, if units clashed in the center of the table and wounds were taken, there would be Gore. There might be a lot of Gore. And any unit that is near that Gore, from either army, is going to have to take tests to see whether they can withstand the sight of such awful brutality. Passing nerve tests can remove Gore tokens from the board (this doesn’t represent scooping up guts and throwing them away, but regaining bravery) but failing these nerve tests results in fleeing.

Essentially, the Gore mechanic is like a typical morale test in any game with the crucial exceptions that the Gore is placed in a location on the board–not assigned to a unit (Stress tokens are assigned to units)–and the Gore will affect the nerve tests of anyone who is nearby. So it’s easy to picture your soldiers witnessing a column of infantry getting pulverized by cannon fire, whether the infantry is yours or the enemy’s, and being terrified that they might be next to go.

Activations and Orders

The game has alternating activations, a mechanic that I like quite a bit. It spices it up by adding the possibility that, when rolling for initiative, if both players roll the same number, the eventual winner gains Unstoppable Momentum, meaning they can activate more than one unit at a time (or they can remove extra Stress tokens).

When a unit is activated, it can take a Short and a Long Order. Short Orders are “Move”, “Steady”, and “Focus.” Long Orders are “Charge”, “Combat”, “Fire”, “Hold Position”, and “Withdraw”.

The orders aren’t a complicated mechanic, though there is a fair amount of modifiers to rolls that require you to do a lot of quick math in your head: modifying things for their stat lines, their Stress, their damage characteristics, their cover, their charges, and so on. The modifiers can get to be a little much, but once you’ve played for a while you’ll get it down.

Creating the World of Sludge War

Units

Unlike some fantasy games where each side has different types of units available to them, Sludge War gives all armies access to the same types of units. These units are:

• Commanders
• Arcanists
• Officers
• Chaplains
• Sorcerers
• Line Infantry
• Jagers
• Foot Knights
• Shock Troopers
• Light Cavalry
• Heavy Cavalry
• Heavy Knights
• Field Guns

Consequently, there’s no need for something like an Age of Sigmar Warscroll to define your faction’s units. You take the same type of units that your opponent does, making this less like Age of Sigmar or Kings of War and more like Napoleonics and other historicals.

But don’t get the idea that this means there is a lack of creativity in the game. Far from it. The whole POINT of Sludge War, in my opinion, isn’t that the rules are amazing–though they are fun–but that the hobby aspect is such a delight.

Kitbashing

When you create your army, you get to make up everything about them: their name, their background, their culture, their uniforms (or lack thereof). There is absolutely no reason why your knights have to be medieval European and not Feudal Japanese samurai, and no reason why your line infantry has to be Napoleonic and not War of the Roses or American Civil War.

And the fun part is that they can be all of the above. Mix and match and kitbash anything that you want to make any type of army that you want.

When I set out to make my Sludge War army, I drew on the Warlord Games kits for Pike and Shotte: Cavalry and Line Infantry, as well as the Warlord Games Waterloo box and two American War of Independence sets. I also incorporated some old knights I had from Perry Miniatures from the Battle of Agincourt.

Below are some of the boxes that I think would be lots of fun to convert to Sludge War armies.

War of the Roses Mercenary Infantry (View on Amazon)

Samurai (View on Amazon)

Pike and Shotte Infantry Regiment (View on Amazon)

Pike and Shotte Cavalry Regiment (View on Amazon)

Ottoman Janissaries (View on Amazon)

American Civil War Artillery (View on Amazon)

Landsknecht Missile Troops (View on Amazon)

Afghan Tribesmen (View on Amazon)

Anyway, you get the idea. You can do almost anything.

Sludge War Terrain

This is the other hobby aspect of Sludge War: it doesn’t really require you to make new terrain–you could very well use any historical or fantasy terrain–but it does encourage you to try to make some unique terrain for the game. Most notably, Sludge War takes place around the roots of the World Tree, so making your own twisted and gnarled giant roots can be a lot of fun to add flavor to the game. It’s not a necessity, but it is an extra.

Conclusion

Ultimately, this game comes down to two main selling points for me: the concept of Gore as a mechanic, and the enormous opportunity to kitbash an army from dozens of kits into something new and weird and different.

The downside is: do you really want to devote the time to create an entire Sludge War army to a game that is likely not going to have a lot of players? The ideal scenario, in my mind, is that this would be a perfect project for a gaming club that would stretch over half a year or longer. The entire club agrees on the Sludge War ruleset and devotes their hobby time for many months to developing their own armies and factions, perhaps building a little terrain, and then coming together for some (many?) games at the end. But this isn’t going to be a game where you can just show up at the FLGS and expect there to be an audience.

Still, I had no end of fun in creating my units.

My ratings:

Gameplay: 7/10
Lore: 7/10
Hobby: 9/10