This Quar’s War, Wargames Atlantic’s New Shiny Product Line

Quar, A peaceful folk, at least, when they aren’t at war with other Quar on Alwyd. Problem is, the last war is still raging on and off for the past 800 years. It’s This Quar’s War Mostly farmers, they are not really a lot different from you and me, but look like anteaters, or some sort of resemblance to them. Most of them, because of the wars, won’t get old, and you can tell their age by the spots on their skin. They could be yellow, green, blue, orange and what not.

There are always power hungry beings in every culture, race, fictional or not, and present in every story. In the story of the Quar, this is also the fact. The Coftyrans started the war by invading the Crusaders. Since then, the war has been raging ever on.

Factions of This Quar’s War

Quar history has told us that there were a couple of different factions. The new release focusses (for now) on the Crusaders and Coftyrans. The Crusaders are the farmers that took up arms to defend their territory and eventually started attacking the Coftyrans. These are the organized, more classic soldiers, trained for battle.

So, now you know a bit of the backstory of the little critters with pointy faces. There is a premise for a great game here, and we are going to have a look at the time of first opening the box, after building the models and after the first try of the game.

Opening This Quar’s War

Taking off the wrapper of a new box is always exciting, and this box is no different. Knowing Wargames Atlantic, the quality is high, and the real question lies in the rules from Zombiesmith games. Upon opening the box, we see sprues. 4 A4 sprues with one half Crusader and the other Coftyran. Notably, they aren’t on the same part of the sprue, so you can buy and share boxes. A nice touch when both players buy a box, they benefit from each other’s sprues to make more units.

The box includes a poster and combat chart in one for in-game reference. On the other side of the chart is a poster of a Quar looking out over a hilltop of some sorts. Underneath is a bag of standard D6 Dice, the Rhyfler’s handbook (game manual), the sprues, and the game cards.

On the sides of the box one can find cut out terrain, but logically, that destroys the box. If you use this, you need to store the game elsewhere. Nonetheless, a brilliant extra that too little companies do these days.

Building This Quar’s War

I took it slow and found out I needed about 3 evenings to build the 24 models. I did not find anything of an army building guide. Later I found out you don’t need one. Reason being, that the Quar aren’t as organized as regular units in our armies. Rhyflers are one man armies, is what the Quar like to think.

The box builds 12 Quar per side:

The contents of the box built easily. There are a lot of the same units (rhyflers are rhyflers) and only the other side has different weapons. Since this is a Wargames Atlantic product, it might look the same on the sprue, but built, there is no single one the same. In other words, no model is the same.

One huge compliment to Wargames Atlantic, is that there is finally a kit where the arms do not matter which one you take if the model carries a 2 handed weapon. You have the right hand with weapon and a separate left arm that connects to the weapon and the shoulder. IT ALWAYS FITS!!! Big win here for Wargames Atlantic!

Playing This Quar’s War

You need one leader (Yawdryl), so the starter builds 11 rhyflers per side and 12 in total. A Yawdril is the one that can push others around the battlefield without spending their activations. This does cost the Yawdril 2 actions and thus depleting the model for this round. Nonetheless, when you start playing, you notice that this is very helpful.

A rhyfler has basic weapons or special weapons, being an automatic weapon of some sorts. The box hints you to build 1 automatic (Cryfen HMG) and 10 Harlech (sort of bolt action rifle I guess) rhyflers for the Coftyrans. The Crusaders get a bit more raw power, but have less range as the rest of the models. 3 of them are Ryshi heavy rifles and 8 of them have the Bogan shotgun style weapons. At least that is what I guess the Bogan is.

As with any game, you have stats and the most important one is the SK, where you check against. In True Quar fashion, all the units in the box have an SK of 12. When one unit shoots another, you check the range of the gun they use, say a Bogan (6″range). If the range is further away than 6″, the model suffers a -1 penalty on shooting.

Say that the shooting unit is 8″ away from the target in this example. 8 is more than 6, so the shooter suffers a -1 penalty. This is deducted from the shooters’ skill, making it 11. The shooter then rolls 3 dice, which combined need to be less than 11 to hit. It gets hilarious if you actually score a hit.

This Quar’s War logical weirdness

When a unit gets shot, it goes prone. But how on earth do you determine if it’s actually dead or incapacitated? You “poke it with a stick” A friendly of the prone model has to check what on earth happened. You do this by moving the model to the prone model and roll a D6. There are certain outcomes that determine if the model gets up again to fight on, or if it goes to Quar heaven, full of delicious bugs to snack on for eternity.

You have 3 basic movements, which are moving, fighting (either shooting or melee) and dive for cover, which is exactly that. If a model decides to dive for cover, the shooter has a -4 on the shot. The model that went for the safe route, has to use an inch of their movement to get up again when it’s their turn.

Then there is pluck, which are basically spendable luck tokens, that can alter rolls and such. We didn’t use pluck in the first game, but afterwards, we did try to solve some things with pluck involved, and it seems to add another layer to the game that cannot be missed when playing normal games.

The cards of This Quar’s War

yes, we also have cards… and boy are they terrifying in some form. The cards display the uncertainty and unpredictable way of war. When it’s your turn, the opponent takes a card, where there can be 3, 4 or 5 actions on it. You always have 3 actions, but have to ask the opponent if there is more to be done. Some options like the command ability of the Yawdril take up 2 actions. After the 3, it’s a gamble if something succeeds or not.

My findings

Although we played the first game with a plant and an upside down soup plate as terrain, we had enough. The game consisted of 1 Yawdril and 4 rhyflers, with each a special weapon. I (Crusaders) won the first battle and this will not be our last one. Because the game is so simple, but tactical enough not to be a simple game, it lures you back into the next battle, yearning to send more opponent Quar to bugsnack heaven.

I said I would come back to the building part of this article, because I sensed a bit of story in the faces of the Quar. They are sad, both sides are. They are tired of fighting and killing and want to go back to the way it used to be, 800 years ago. When you have a look at the poster included in the box, you see it different now.

Even if you consider the story, you will not overcome the silliness of the game and what it presumes to be. A purely fun game with some depth to keep you and a friend busy for an evening, laughing at what on Alwyd is happening with your Quar.

It’s the absence of tokens I find a useful improvement, and I hope Wargames Atlantic does sell the tokens eventually, because you will need them when you start to play bigger games. Also, why are there no left-handed Quar? More of a nitpick than a comment I guess, but still. It’s anteaters, but as a lefty, I feel discriminated heh.

Yes I would…

I would highly recommend this game if you want lighter skirmishes than the regular rules heavy staple commonly available on the market. For me, I will buy more Quar boxes to expand my army.

You can get this game at the Wargames Atlantic shop, or on the site we always talk about (link above). For more Wargames Atlantic reviews, box openings and more, please check out the Hobby category, here on the site and hope to see you all reading here back again in another blog. A big thank you to Wargames Atlantic to have me open a box of This Quar’s War and opening my eyes to this (for us) sleeper hit.