Scott Hadley is a man with a mission – to single-handedly fill the world with as many dieselpunk mecha miniatures as possible. Not content spending the last two years crafting original mech designs the equal of anything in Warhammer 40k, he’s finishing up work on an original miniature wargame called Of Oil and Iron – and it’s coming to Kickstarter soon.
Hadley has designed over 35 mecha ‘rigs’ for Of Oil and Iron already, all available as digital kits to print off on a home 3D printer. They’re dieselpunk designs made from heavy industrial components that would look right at home on a cargo train, industrial bulldozer, or WW2 tank. The aesthetic overlaps somewhat with Warhammer 40k, but owes a bigger debt to the artist Jakub Rozalski (whose work was used in strategy board game Scythe and RTS game Iron Harvest).
The game and miniatures are designed to work whether you print them at 28mm scale – some of them would look right as proxies in certain Warhammer 40k factions – or 15mm scale for cheaper prints and quicker painting time. You can get a free sample model by signing up for notifications about the Kickstarter.
Hadley released the alpha version of the rules for Of Oil and Iron to his MyMiniFactory subscribers in June this year, and has provided me with a sample. He’s keen to emphasise he has a changelog as long as his arm for the rulebook, which he’s implementing for the final version that will be available in the Kickstarter campaign.
My first impressions are that this is a close relative of Adeptus Titanicus – and that’s a good thing, because Titanicus slaps. Each rig has a control console that details its core stats, and which has sockets for an engine block, upgrades, and of course weapons. I love to see it – one of the key pleasures of mechs is tinkering with loadouts, and all of Hadley’s designs come with ample options for different weapons to print and swap.
I haven’t tested the game yet, but the rules suggest the rigs will be real lumbering brutes in fights. Rigs are limited to making a maximum 90 degrees turn during their movement, with any tighter turns requiring them to sacrifice the rest of their movement. Damaging a mech requires first penetrating its armor, chewing through structure points, and then inflicting showy catastrophic damage – and even that won’t kill a mech outright in one hit.
Overall it looks a hair simpler than Adeptus Titanicus – you don’t have an angry machine spirit to worry about, for a start. But there is heat to manage on your engine. You can take up to five actions in a turn, making huge advances or multiple by redlining your engine, risking deadly blowback on the rest of your machine.
The crowdfunding campaign for Of Oil and Iron will launch on September 30, though Hadley is still finalising prices. The finished version of the digital rulebook will be around $14 / £10, while getting that plus two digital starter armies, terminals, and stretch goals, will be somewhere around $75 / £55 – and Hadley says there’ll be early bird discounts. Everything is digital at this stage, though if the campaign is successful he’s considering options to offer pre-printed miniatures in the future.
The models in Kickstarter are already available from Hadley’s online store (at about twice the price of the Kickstarter campaign), but there is new stuff coming in the campaign. Some of this is locked in already, like a campaign system that will be included in the final version of the rulebook. And there are “six new rigs by five talented guest artists” waiting to be unlocked as stretch goals.
Boy do I love mechs. Here’s an article about the time I derailed a round-the-world holiday to hunt down a niche mecha wargame. If you’re similarly mech-pilled, come and share your faves in the Wargamer Discord community.
I have a backlog of robots to print. I’ve been wanting to test the 6mm scale Full Spectrum Dominance for years, I’ve accumulated a full army from the Warmachine 3D subscription, and Hadley has provided me review samples of the Of Oil and Iron product line. When I finally get a chance to test the game, I’ll let you know how it is.