Kickstarter Quick Picks: ‘Hardwar'

Geek Dad

11-07-2025

The turn of the 22nd century was a time of great progression for the human race, space exploration, scientific and technological advancements. It was also the time of neo-colonialism, and a new order emerging from the pyres of the old world. It was the time for a new breed of war – the Hardwar. What Are Kickstarter Quick Picks?
Kickstarter Quick Picks are short looks at projects currently on Kickstarter that are of interest to me, and by extension, many of our GeekDad readers. A Quick Pick is not an endorsement of the Kickstarter campaign, nor have I (as yet) received any product copies to review. If you like what you see here, go check out the campaign and decide for yourself if you'd like to back it, or wait until GeekDad has had a chance to go hands-on. As always, caveat emptor- let the buyer beware. What Is Hardwar ?
Hardwar is a 6mm scale tactical skirmish scifi miniatures game for 2 players, ages 14 and up, and takes about 30-90 minutes to play. It's currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $82 for the 'Force Commander' pledge, which is essentially a single-player starter set containing the rulebook in both print and PDF, one miniatures set of your choice, dice, and tokens. There are many different pledge levels and add-ons available, from those who want to dip their toes into the game all the way to people who want everything.
The Kickstarter campaign is currently live and has met its minimum funding goal, and will run through July 31st.
Hardwar was originally developed by Strato Minis of Poland, with rules by Krzysztof Raczynski, Rafal Zerych and Robey Jenkins. Strato Minis Studio was acquired by Modiphius Entertainment in 2024. Modiphius recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for this 6mm scale tactical sci-fi miniatures game.
New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer. Pro-painted Consortium Security Squadron. Image by Modiphius Entertainment. Hardwar Miniatures
Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality.
Modiphius sent over a Consortium Security Squadron, one of the 9 different unit sets available in the campaign. All of the miniatures arrive unpainted and require assembly. While there were no instructions included with the minis, each was individually bagged and I had no trouble putting them together. The miniatures are in 6mm scale, and made of a resin that was easy to work with, and had minimal mold lines. Trimming was easily accomplished with a hobby knife. The Longinus tank sprue. Image by Paul Benson.
Plastic bases are provided for each of the miniatures as well. Just a couple of drops of super glue was sufficient for assembly. Despite the small scale of the miniatures, it should be possible to magnetize the turrets on the tanks, if you wanted to be able to turn them during games. The completed Longinus tank. Image by Paul Benson.
Another argument for magnetization is that a couple of the models came with alternate weapons or turrets. I only had access to the Quickstart rules, so was unsure what swapping these parts out would do for the model stats. However, with the full release of the rules and unit information once the Kickstarter campaign fulfills, those mysteries are sure to be solved. A couple of unused parts that are sure to have rules in the final release of the game. Image by Paul Benson.
It's not just tanks that you'll find in the unit sets, but also walkers and flyers. Here's the pieces of one of the Consortium walkers: The pieces of the Ranger walker, cut from the sprues. Image by Paul Benson.
And here's what the Ranger looks like fully assembled. I opted for a pose that would have the walker raining down missiles on the enemy. The assembled Ranger walker. Image by Paul Benson.
Here's a look at all of the minis from the Consortium set, assembled and based: The assembled Consortium Security Squadron. Image by Paul Benson.
To give you an idea of the actual size of these miniatures, here's a look at one of the 6mm-scale tanks side by side with a 40mm Star Wars: Shatterpoint miniature. Look out Anakin, it's a tiny tank! Image by Paul Benson. How to Play Hardwar
You can download a copy of the Quickplay rules here.
Note that any rules that I mention refer specifically to the Quickplay rules. There will be a full rulebook, which will have much more in-depth rules than provided in the Quickplay, as well as stats for all the units in the game.
To play the Quickplay, you will need:
■ 10-12 twelve-sided dice, called 'D12s' ■ A tape measure marked in inches ■ 4 Miniatures per side, representing combat elements (more for longer games and more tactical options) ■ A handful of small dice or counters representing damage points, Smokescreens, Vulnerable and Exhausted elements ■ A print-out of the cards on page 21 as reference for your elements' stats ■ A pen or pencil to mark off damage on the elements (or use dice)
■ A flat surface of 2×2′ (61cm x 61cm) to represent the battlefield, with a few terrain pieces such as trees, buildings, and hills.
As noted in the Quickplay rules, a game of Hardwar is 'two or more sides meeting in a decisive engagement of tactical and strategic importance to all participants.' These are the Combat Missions that you can choose from to play. In the Quickstart rules, a single mission, Patrol Encounter , is included.
The game length and table size in Hardwar are both dependent on the size of the force chosen. For Patrol Encounter, the game should be played on a 2'x2′ board, and should last around 30 minutes. For the largest games of Hardwar, you'll be playing on a 4'x6′ table, and the game will last 90 minutes or more.
In general, after setting up the board with some terrain, each side will then deploy their forces opposite each other, with the elements (individual miniatures) touching the edge of the table on their side. At the start of each turn, player will place Action Tokens next to each element (usually 2 per element) showing how many actions that element can take during its activation. The person with the least elements on the board at the start of the turn has the initiative, and will go first.
A turn in Hardwar consists of players alternating activating elements, until all players have either activated all elements, or passed. Once all activations are resolved, then there is first a cleanup of tokens, and then a check to see if the victory conditions for the Combat Mission have been met by either player.
When activating an element, you can perform up to two actions, removing an Action Token each time you perform one. The actions include: move, shoot, aimed shot, advancing fire, guard, and special action (as indicated by the element's special abilities on their stat card). I'm not going to go into detail on how these all work; for that, take a look at the Quickplay rules. However, it's worth discussing how the attack rolls work, as this system is at the heart of Hardwar. Attack and Defense Rolls
Hardwar uses a system of exploding d12 dice for all attack and defense rolls.
To perform an attack, you add the Firepower number of the attacking element, and roll that many d12 dice. Any natural 12 explodes, enabling the roll of an additional d12 known as an Augment die. The Augment die can also explode if a '12' is rolled.
The target number for an attack is the distance between the attacking and defending unit in inches, with 1 added to the target for every inch of light terrain it passes through, or +3 for heavier cover, as well as the defender's Armour value.
The defender rolls a number of dice equal to their Defense value, modified by applicable conditions and any special rules. The attacker and defender then cancel out die results that match.
For any attacker dice left over after removing matching sets, the attacker can then group dice together into sets, adding together the results on their die faces as needed to reach their target number. Each successful hit causes a point of damage on the enemy element. Critical hits (caused by pairs of the same number) cause Critical Hits, which add an additional point of damage to the attack.
Here's a shooting example from the Quickstart rules, to help clarify how shooting works if that was hard to follow:
A Firepower 4 Attack produces results 6, 6, 4, 7 at a distance of 8″ with a target that has Armour 2 for a total target of 10. Let's assume the Defending element rolled their Defence dice and did not cancel any of the attacking dice. The attacking player decides to assign 6 & 6 to one group, and 7 & 4 to another. The first has sufficient range (total of 12 vs 10″) to be a successful hit and is also critical, doing a total of 2 points of damage, while the other is a hit (total of 10 or more) so inflicts just one point of damage, for a total of 3 points of damage. The Syndicate Taskforce. Image by Modiphius Entertainment.
If you're interested to get an idea of the flow of a game, I've included the battle report that Modiphius put on the Kickstarter page below. Why You Should Back Hardwar
For you middle-aged gamers like myself, you may remember Epic, a 6mm-version of Warhammer 40K where you could stage truly massive battles, but on the same size table as regular miniature wargames. But Hardwar has a slightly different approach. While you certainly can play bigger games, Hardwar is geared more towards taking big mechs and tanks, but allowing you to play skirmish-level encounters with them.
The ever-increasing popularity of skirmish-style miniatures games is unsurprising. While maneuvering large armies on a table can be satisfying, it also takes up a lot of time,both in gameplay and in building and painting your forces. Skirmish games deliver a lot of the rewards of those games, but without the space and time constraints of their larger cousins.
With Hardwar, you also have a ruleset that is easy to learn and looks to play pretty quickly. l'm always a sucker for exploding dice in games, and I appreciate the simplicity of combat as presented in the Quickplay rules which manage to avoid getting bogged down in the minutiae of different types of weapons and armor. The rules aren't so simple that those are disregarded; different elements in Hardwar will have special rules that come into effect during gameplay. But if you've ever played games like Warhammer 40K, you know just how easy it is with those rules to lose sight of the forest for the trees.
There also seems to be a good amount of variety between the different factions, at least judging by their miniatures. One of the sets, the Udar Industries Hardbots, contains only walkers and nothing else. It will be interesting to see just how differently all of the factions play. Some of the farm terrain available in the Kickstarter. Image by Paul Benson.
The miniatures, as mentioned previously, are all detailed and easy to assemble. I'm also confident that they'll be a breeze to paint. Some speedpaints and a couple of highlights here and there should give a nice looking force in no time without much effort. And did I mention there's also 6mm terrain that's offered as part of the Kickstarter campaign? There are three different futuristic Farm terrain sets available as part of some of the pledge levels, or you can grab them as addons.
I haven't as yet had a chance to try the Quickplay rules for myself, but it looks like Hardwar will be a blast to play. I love the quality of the miniatures, and the quickness of the matches. As someone with limited space, this is also a game that will take up very little space to store, which can definitely be a plus. So if you're looking for a scifi skirmish game that's easy to pick up, take a look at Hardwar.
For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Hardwar Kickstarter page!
Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews.
To subscribe to GeekDad's tabletop gaming coverage, please copy this link and add it to your RSS reader.
Disclosure: GeekDad received a set of miniatures for review purposes.
Liked it? Take a second to support GeekDad and GeekMom on Patreon!
Ken Denmead Editor-in-Chief
Matt Blum Managing Editor
Z Associate Editors/GeekMom Partners
Jenny Bristol Senior Editors
Jonathan H. Liu, Patricia Volmer, Sophie Brown Associate Publishers*
David Michael, Gerry Tolbert, Andrew Smith, Ray Wehrs, Joel Becker, Scott Gaeta, Beth Kee, Joey Mills, talkie_tim, Danny Marquardt, Adam Bruski, John Bain, Bill Moore, Adam Frank, Lacey Hays, Peter Morson, James Needham, Matt Fleming, Adam Anderson, Jim Reynolds, Seiler Hagan, Bryan Wade, Petrov Neutrino, Jay Shapiro Editor (Emeritus)
Chris Anderson Contributors
Paul Benson, Darren Blankenship, John Booth, Jenny Bristol, Rory Bristol, Robin Brooks, Tom Fassbender, Whit Honea, Rob Huddleston, Will James, Michael Knight, Joey Mills, Brad Moon, Anton Olsen, Skip Owens, Mariana Ruiz, Derrick Schneider, Tony Sims, Dakster Sullivan, Mark Vorenkamp
*Thanks for your support on Patreon!