My first OPC - Grimdark Future game

Greetings, my fellow Archons, Succubi and Coven leaders. The other day during a painting session we had a spontaneous 1000pts battle of my fledgling Coven vs my buddies Orcs. He asked for us to use the one page rules, for a faster, more casual game, and indeed, whipping up a force of just 1000pts took seasoned list writer me about 5min. Lol. Though, points in OPR seem to be about double then what you would expect in 40kl 9th, ie our forces would pretty much translate to 500pts armies, something akin to the old 40k in 40min formula.

The OPR grim dark rules are curious: the rule set is incredible slim, many corners are cut and if you know the real deal you sometimes smile at its crude or naive ways, BUT in the end you get what you want: moving around army men, roling dice, killing stuff. Its incredible how GF provide a feeling very similar to 40k, but much more relaxed and laid back, because there is so much less rules clutter. I can see why some people prefer it, but I am an old school guy who loves a good amount of crunch. I mostly play fluff heavy lists instead of meta, but still got a plan with my unit selection and like some interesting rules for every unit, but overall GF really gave me the same fix on the battlefield. That being said, GF is free, so maybe give it a try, the rules are especially great to showcase tabletop wargaming to a friend and a super smallish 1000pts battle takes about an hour.


My force consisted of one Flesh Wizard/Haemonculi with syringes and an upgrade that gave it and its joined unit regeneration, 10 wracked warriors with 2 liquifiers all in a raider and one ravager/heavy skimmer.
The Orc sported a big blob of boys lead by a Waaaaghboss, 5 rocketpack boys, 10 Goblins, 1 zaaaaaap gun artilery and a battle wagon. Because of the small game size, we threw down a couple of terrain pieces and set up 3 control points, one basically in the middle and one on each side of the map.


Turn one was mostly maneuvering were I consolidated both my vehicles at the control point. Turn 2 both pushed forward, the ravager nearly destroying the battle wagon and the wracked warriors jumping out of the raider, liquifying the 10 poor gobbos. The artilery defended the point on the Orcs side and wounded the ravager a bit, the battle wagon wounded it once, too, but both its rokkits plinked off my hull, which I attributed to its shadow field and I explained in great detail. The big orc mob took the point in the middle and faced the wracks direction.

Turn 3 the rocket pack boys came down on my side of the table and tried to snatch away my control point. My ravager charged them and, with some unlucky dice rolls, wiped all 5 of them out in a flurry of blade vanes and severed orc limbs. Ouch. The wracks swarmed the battle wagon and liquified it on point with no wound spared, sorta chirurgical, wont you say, while the raider flew to the middle point, contesting it. The Waaagh boss plus boys hacked it to pieces, though, without giving it a second thought.

Turn 4 everything left fired at the big blob of orcs and pretty much killed (liquified) everyone but the Waaaagh boss and my wracks were close enough to contest the control point. The Waaaagh boss couldnt leave it to attack the wracks, because then my ravager could just snack the point away, so camped on the spot.

So last turn, my wracks attacked, it was super, close, because the boss was pretty tough and had regeneration, but with a flurry of brutal torturing devices he was brought low with literally the last throw of the dice. (2 wounds left, my last wave of attacks hit 3 times, he got a 5+ save, but made only one).


So, all in all the OPR GF rules were pretty fun. The feeling comes pretty close to an actual game of 40k, but everything feels much more slim and less cluttered .. much like the start of the 3rd edition or the ravaged hordes WHFB, if anyone remembers those times. Though on the other hand you don't get many fluffy rules and a lot of units are somewhat the same, with the only significant difference being the number of dice you roll. But as the rules are free on the interwebs I recommend everyone to give them a try, if you want the most casual beer and bretzel affair. And I recon that this rules are great in order to introduce someone to 40k, without overwhelming them with 1000 rules and tidbits.