Well if we’re diving down the BLKOUT rabbit hole here at Iron Dice I guess I’m the experienced cave diver in the group. This is one part new project, one part dusting off of an older one for me. I’ve been around Enemy Spotted Studios since their 2021 “Killwager” Kickstarter. Following the Kickstarter I played Killwager, in a few of its forms, pretty regularly until the release of BLKOUT maybe a year and a half ago or so. I bought up the initial model releases for BLKOUT with the intention of diving into it but the local scene dissolved away a bit and, well, they sat on the shelf. Killwager is perhaps best described as similar to BLKOUT, except more crunch and more force customization. The downside is it’s not as quick, dirty and easy to get into or whip out and play as BLKOUT. BLKOUT has streamlined a lot of the older mechanics to make the game play faster and deadlier.

When the group chat was talking about what everyone was going to do I waited until everyone had chosen forces to make to see if there were any left unselected. (I have Harlow and UN forces awaiting paint too). The leftover faction was Manticor, so away I go. My Manticor force up to this project was just the original Kickstarter Manticor painted up. I have the “Manticor Insertion Team” from the Killwager Season 1 release as well. From the BLKOUT range I have the original Manticor Borz Group Force and I picked up the Mantcior Strikeforce Expansion from Kickass Mailorder, who is now stocking BLKOUT products. In total its a good block of 16 models from BLKOUT plus the four I’ll finish up I had from Killwager purchases.

Of course, I can keep saying “Manticor” but if you aren’t familiar with the universe it won’t mean anything to you. I had to catch up on the lore a bit as it has advanced some since I was hot and heavy on the game. The Manticor Borz Group which my force will focus on are the military arm of a larger organization known as Chimera. Fond of augmenting their biology with technological enhancements, the Manticor troopers further improve their durability with heavier armor and powered exoskeleton units. This jives with the original Killwager Manticor being tough as nails Russian flavored drop troopers, they’re that just more so now I think.

MANTICOR BORZ GROUP RULES

From a rules standpoint the Borz Group focuses on durability and firepower. You can download both the BLKOUT rules and the unit rules for free from ESS, but I’ll showcase them here a little bit. First thing in a BLKOUT list for a game is choosing a force. Manticor only has one the Manticor Borz Group. However the UN has two entries so perhaps in time we’ll see more variations of forces within the factions. There are three important categories which compose a BLKOUT force’s rules. First is the Battle Drills. These are special abilities you can utilize your by Control Points (a resource of which you receive three of to use during a game). One Control Point gets you one use of one of the Battle Drills. I really like the durability focus of Manticor so I plan to make good use of Thorax Shields for extra defense dice.

Next is the Force Rule, which is a single, overarching passive bonus for the force as a whole. Manticor’s makes them harder to take down with explosives. Lastly is the Armory, which is a set of special weapons and/or equipment items. Each unit you select in your force will have a certain number of the uses of the Armory indicated by colored triangles on their unit card. Much like the Battle Drills we discussed earlier, one Armory use ability gets you a single one time use of one item above. Once a unit expends its use, or uses, of the Armory that’s it for that unit. Important to note is that the Armory uses on a unit card are shared by all the models in that unit and are not a “use per model”. Looking at my options above I have plenty of heavy firepower to choose from. The Airburst Rifle will ignore cover via the Seeking rule, and the RPG and Strip grenades give me options for some boom boom at various ranges. The Thermite Launcher is a single use option which will be great to take down large or heavy targets. Why? That Sustained (6) keyword.

That’s throwing a lot of re-rolling successes at someone. Every other time I’ve seen this keyword its been Sustained (1) or (2). 6? Well, I guess Thermite is some nasty stuff… Of course, I need to hit my target first and with my dice rolling prowess I’m sure the Thermite Launcher will see plenty of whiffs.

MANTICOR BORZ GROUP UNITS

As of this writing there are six units to choose from in a Manticor force if you have both the Borz Group and Strikeforce boxes. In a BLKOUT list you get to choose three units and a Handler (more on that soon). You can also replace one of those units with a BLKLIST unit (freelancers for hire). If both players agree, you may each replace one unit with a Duster. What’s a Duster? A giant mechsuit unit. They’re tough as nails and pack quite a punch. They deserve their own article really, so we’ll do that. So for my basic Manticor list I’ll be selecting three normal Manticor units, no Dusters, no BLKLIST. Below are my options, I’ve included a key from the rules to help you make a little sense of it.

There’s a lot of info to unpack there and I spent some time going through each unit with the rules at hand to make sure I understood what I had available to me. I did the same with the Handler options. Handlers are like your hero/leader type model for a force. There are six universal ones available at the moment, each with its own flavor, indicated by their name such as “Siege Handler”. The unit cards are just like the other ones and going through them I then assembled three lists I’d like to try, making sure to try to use each Manticor option at least one time.

List One: Cherepakhi (Tortoises)

As the name implies this setup focuses on durability. I sacrifice the number of bodies, coming in with eight models. However they all pack solid armor rolls with most rolling 2 dice and all of them looking for a 4+ on a D10. On top of this we have a lot of heavy weapons here. The strategy is outlast and outblast the enemy.

List Two: Volki (Wolves)

My second idea utilizes a the Assault Handler and focuses on bodies, a lot of bodies. Or at least what I can pack into a Manticor list. Ten models with lighter armor but packing a lot of Heavy Rifles means there’s going to be a focus on more conventional infantry tactics here. If needed the Ubiytsa units can also engage in some pretty deadly melee.

List Three: Vorony (Crows)

This list focuses on a certain set of abilities. The Cyber Handler and the Insertion Team specialist give me options for Data Attacks, cyber warfare attacks that can apply the pinned status to enemy units. The Bratva Team specialist has a two use Sidewinder that does the same thing. The idea here is to wreak havoc with selective pinning and data attacks to frustrate the enemy while the CQB Ubiytsas close in for the kill.

CONCLUSION

So what’s left for me to do is paint up the minis and play some games. Luckily I have a ton of terrain painted and ready to go for this already, so it should be a relatively quick thing to get on the table. If you’re curious about the system the rules are free and it’s pretty quick to learn. ESS’s discord is active and any questions you have will be answered pretty quickly. I’ll be back to pen a little article about Dusters in the future when we inevitably add those in, as well as showcase my Manticor when they’re done.

Evan