5 Reasons To Back Army Men by Neal Litherland

Hey there brave adventurers!
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It's been a little while since we've posted anything on our blog here, but we haven't forgotten you! No, High Level Games has been working hard on the creation of TTRPG content! You may have seen some of our projects like Dealing With Your Demons, The Price of Iron, A Kingdom's Edge, and all the wonderful things we have helped Clinton Boomer release on the Storytellers Vault!

Well, now we are back with another wonderful project. This is a game written by Neal Litherland, called Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic. Army Men is a game where you take on the role of plastic soldiers fighting against the Vespoid threat! Let me tell you 5 different things that are exciting about this game.

1) The Vespoids:
The Vespoids are the main adversary in Army Men. These plastic bugs are reminiscent of the bags of dollar store plastic toys your grandparents might have given you on a holiday. They are a new threat that has recently come out of seemingly nowhere and have driven the various Nations within the Plastos Federation to join together against the threat. The Vespoids are a fun nod to your childhood, but also represent a greater threat that is just waiting to come after you in the game.

2) Morale and the Battlefield:
The mechanics for Army Men are really great about creating an authentic military feel. One of those key new mechanics is the morale system, which runs on a +1 to -4 scale, representing the high intensity of battle that makes things difficult and also opportunities to drive things in a good direction when the squad is really working well together. This is paired with an effective series of rules to make combat on the battlefield a little more tactical, including enhanced rules for cover and concealment, covering fire, and other things to make combat tactical, and fun to play.

3) Take It Deep, or Not:
You can take things deep, or not, based on your preference as a group. The game is designed so you can either dive deeply into the issues with a deep-seated military industrial complex, or you can play a funny game of plastic people in a largely plastic world. You can ask where did we come from? Why are we soldiers? What is this war really about? Or you can pretend you are kids again in your backyard where the bigger questions of the world just don't matter. The game is designed well for both types of play. Also, the game uses the term Men, but gender in the world of Army Men is as broad and multifaceted as it is in our real world.

4) The Plastos Federation:
The Plastos Federation is the League of Nations style group that has unified the several nations of plastic people, to include Acrylica, United Polymeria, The Acetal Alliance and the Styric Republic. These nations represent a wide swath of plastic people who used to be actively at war with one another. However, the greater Vespoid threat has brought them together and now they are weathering the strange new alliance with the goal of ensuring their unified survival. Of course, all the political issues between them have not evaporated, allowing for some interesting conversations and stories around the edges of the battlefield.

5) Casts and Resins: 
In Army Men you can take on the role of one of 5 casts and one of 5 different resins. The casts are your character classes, Ordinance, Grunt, Medic, Scout, and Tactician. Each of these casts has a few subclasses that allow you to focus and specialize your character. Your resin refers to the color of the plastic of your person. So you can plays as a classic Green solider, or Red, Tan, Blue, or Gray. This, alongside the robust Background system allows for really varied and interesting characters from all the various Nations within the Plastos Federation. 

So, if any of this sounds interesting to you, you should check us out on Kickstarter! ​