An Ode to Obscure Games: Kryomek

 Hi!

Todays post is all about another early 90's game that is still in production but hasn't seen any developments or indeed releases in decades.

Krymomek is a game originally produced by Fantasy Forge in 1991 and is very much in the style of the Alien movie franchise.

I picked up the original rules and its supplement Hivestone from Macs Models in Edinburgh (they're their original demo copy!) and it was one of the first non GW books that made its way into my collection and its stuck with me all these years.

Setting wise, its about a human based spacefaring race that jumps into undiscovered space and finds out that they are not alone. The Kryomek are highly aggressive and a galactic war immediately breaks out with both races trying to wipe the other out.

The rules themselves are based on Stargrunt 1st edition and is aimed at the squad to platoon level with the odd vehicle. Interestingly this seems to jar with the background as its all about either mass battles between the Nexus and Kryomek or small squads infiltrating the Kryomek hives trying to locate the Hive Masters, the brain that motivates the antlike xenos.

Looking back at it, it feels like there should have been a 28mm skirmish style of game with a single squad trying to fight its way through a hive with specific objectives along the way or clearing out infestations like Space Hulk. A second, larger combined arms game in 6/10/15mm scale where you could make the most of the epic conflicts mentioned in the background. It does feel that this was designed with 40k in mind though.

I must admit that the rules themselves weren't what attracted me to Kryomek though, its the background and art. Its a hard sci-fi setting that you can totally imagine being set within the Alien universe with humans using guns and robots to take on a close combat themed enemy. The artwork is also superb, with the likes of Adrian Smith, Tony Ackland, Pete Knifton and Stephan Tappin, all ex GW artists as well as Chaz Elliot, Colin MacNeil and Bob Olley sculpting much of the range, also all ex GW sculptors.

 

The combination of 80's style sci-fi high tech and the grotty, lived in artwork, like the image above (which totally reminds me of a Rogue Trader pic of two renegade marines) and the fascinating pseudo military scientific report that the background is written in, Kryomek is a fascinating object.

There are only two forces in the original rules, the Nexus and the Kryomek. While the Kryomek are very much a horde type of alien menace with their forces consisting of ravenous Hellions, primitive bipedal eating machines, the Warriors, vaguely humanoid beasts with acidic blood and a variety of somatic weapons, be they single molecule blades or acid projectors. The big guys on the battlefield are snake bodied Warmasters, the driving force of the Kryomek on the battlefield.

As for the Nexus, they are split into several sub forces. There are Nexus Marines, essentially marines from Aliens with vests and guns. Next they have Nexus SWAT, power armoured and heavily armed elite troops. The final human option is the CYCLO convict troops who are used as suicide troops. The Nexus also have access to an assortment of AI units including the absolutely terrifying TALOS units and even light combat walkers.

The supplement HIVESTONE brought in Nexus Rebels, Colonial Marines, Megacorporate forces as well new Kryomek sub-strains and an assortment of bits and bobs, not to mention the much needed force lists and point costs that the original book was missing.

Its still free to download and I highly recommend folks pick up at least the PDF or the books which are also still available through Scotia Grendel.

Alas as with so many of my collection, the games creators Fantasy Forge became Grendel and went bust so the figures and game were picked up by Scotia Grendel in the UK and MSD Games in the US so while the game is technically still up and running, there is no real update on the game, be it a revised 2nd edition or supplements, new figures or whatnot.

I believe that following the demise of Warzone, John Robertson, the creator of many of the wonderful games of the 90s, Kryomek, Leviathan, Warzone and Chronopia tried to regain the rights but wasn't able to do so, possibly because of the split between UK and US companies and went on to develop VOID, which is most definitely its spiritual successor.

Kryomek has such brilliant potential but needs new miniatures as the three sculptors for the original range had such different styles that the figures don't really fit together very well. Also I'd love to see a redeveloped 2nd edition with fully playtested and revamped rules but this seems a bit unlikely.

Unlike quite a few of my games, Kryomek does seem to have a player base that is keeping it alive with a fairly active Facebook group so its well worth looking it over if you are on social media.

I'll be posting some more bits and bobs tomorrow with the last of my Obscure Games series for a while as I'm hoping to have some Leviathan stuff finished as the week goes on but its been loads of fun to post up all these lovely niche games so I suspect that I'll be posting more of them as the year goes on!

In the meantime, All the best!