Let's Write Some Rules

 Rationale 

I was sitting, trying to decide which miniatures to base up in multi-figure bases for Horizon Wars (instead of repairing my damaged stands that the kids at school were too rough with). I ended up with a Ferret, some AMX tanks (can’t remember which ones), some pickup trucks with figures shooting from the back, and an assortment of random Sci Fi figures from various manufacturers. I pondered. I thought. Finally I decided to just leave it as I really wanted to make a rag-tag militia but also have them fight like one. Horizon Wars doesn’t really have a built in mechanism for that (other than just knocking stats down, but that doesn’t feel right. It just makes them more squishy/less offensively effective). I got thinking about some of the offerings from Nordic Weasel Games, but I don’t really have any of his rules that are geared towards multi-figure stands. Wait, isn’t Laserburn an NWG game? I have had it for ages but haven’t used it because it calls for so many stands of infantry and vehicles. Could I just use Starport Scum, or Blast Pistol, or Clash on the Fringe and just fudge it so the stand of figures counts as the one character? Not sure.

 

So, let’s write some rules. 

 

What do I want? 

Simple combat mechanics but still a handful of cubes (polygons) 

Minimal book keeping. 

Morale. 

Some sort of troop quality system that links into morale. 

I might steal the Battle Rating (BR) system from the Battlegroup rules. This is the mechanic whereby your army has a numeric value (BR), and after unit loss or objective loss you pull chits. Each chit has a number, and once you hit your BR the game is over. You have lost.

 

The past 

A couple of years ago, in an attempt to help the students who struggled with literacy, yet who had chosen to do the wargaming activity, I wrote my first set of rules. It was a sort of amalgamation of elements of Horizon Wars, aspects of Flying Lead, and probably some thoughts I had had to come up with quickly, in order to write them and have them ready for the next day. They were one side of A5, and were a very bare-bones set of combat mechanics. They are devoid of morale, win conditions, unit costs, unit quality. Here they are:  

 

Combat rules. 

Each unit will move then shoot, OR shoot, then move, OR sit still and shoot. 

At the start of each round, each player rolls 1 dice. The person who rolls higher chooses who goes first. You then take it in turns to activate ONE unit until all of your units have been activated. Then repeat this whole thing. 

 

Infantry 

Move distance – 6 inches. 

Firing – Roll 3 dice.  

Range – 12 inches. 

Defence – roll 3 dice. (2 hits kills infantry) 

 

Vehicles – tanks/armoured cars. 

Move distance – 10 inches 

Firing – roll 5 dice if sitting still. Roll 3 dice if you have moved. 

Range – 15 inches 

Defence – roll 1 dice. (3 hits kills a vehicle) 

 

Mechs 

Move distance – 8 inches 

Firing – roll 4 dice if sitting still. 3 dice if you have moved. 

Range – 13 inches 

Defence – roll 3 dice (3 hits kill a mech) 

 

How to do shooting! 

Measure the distance in inches between attacker and target.  

If the target is within the range that is good. If it is outside the range then roll one less firing dice. 

If the target is in a building or behind cover, then you roll one less firing dice. 

If you roll 5 or 6 you get a hit. The defender rolls their defence dice. Any 5 or 6 they get cancel your hits. 

 

If someone has been hit, then they stay hit until the end of the round. This means you can gang up on a unit to get lots of hits, in order to kill it. When the round finishes, if a unit has a hit and is still alive, get rid of the hits and start again.  

Analysis 

There is no room for morale here. I like the idea of a handful of cubes where you add or remove them based on certain criteria. Long range? Remove 1D6. Target in cover? Remove 1D6. Is there room for troop quality here? Perhaps. This is perhaps reminiscent of NWG’s Starport Scum where Goons cannot roll more than 2D6 in an attack, whereas Heroes can roll 3D6 or more, and that also goes for armour saves. Troop quality might be represented here. But then if I go with the idea of a unit being pinned, it needs to be unpinned. And then if it is double pinned it is KIA? Not sure.  

Here is an idea for some infantry stats, and possible abilities, if that is the route I want to go. I get strong Starport Scum vibes from this though.

So regular infantry can move 6 inches. They roll 3D6 while attacking under 12 inches, and only 2D6 for anything over that. They also get to roll 3D6 defensive roll. If they are pinned, you can unpin them on a roll of 4+. If they are double pinned then 5+? Can I spend a resource to get it back to 4+? Man, now I am thinking of this, it is harder and harder to keep it simple.

My issue is that my brother said that game designing is playing a crap game hundreds of times until it becomes a good game. 

Well. Here goes nothing. 

A Poor Man's Fleet: A Billion Suns pt. 4

That moment when creating something when you finish it is quite special. Today marks the end of the beginning - my three junk built, prototype, experimental spacecraft are complete. They are not combat ships. I do not want to have to handwave a bunch of in-universe lore as to why combat ships are not the same. Now I know that wouldn't be too difficult, thinking back to tank development and probably ship development, where new technologies and streamlining of things mean each has potential to be different and older models need to be sent back for refit. But I just want to buy miniatures and paint them, then fight them.

 

Here we have the transport ship with a full load. It turns out weathering spaceships is difficult. I mean scorch marks around the engine is easy. But rust? Dust? In space? Not sure. I went for it anyway.

I really want them to look beaten up. My flight stands aren't all that bad either. In total each ship has cost me pennies in terms of materials. 

The same class of freighter but unloaded. I really love this.

I went a bit too heavy with the drybrushing here. This is my least favourite ship, but it is still fine. I am just happy to have them done. Now to start sourcing up some money in order to buy some fleets.

A Poor Man's Fleet: A Billion Suns pt. 3

 Progress has been made on this project. Firstly my internal maths keeps telling me that if I spend x on this bit of junk with which to build a spaceship, and y with which to build flight stands, then I may as well just fork out the cash on buying a Brigade Models fleet or two. 

The second progress is actually flight stands. I have a large box of assorted MDF bases and a stash of nails. I hammered a nail into a base to see what would happen and it sticks pretty well. 

The third part of progress was the arrival of these tiny little magnets. They stick nicely to the nail head and are small enough to just look like a greebly on my home made freighters.

Here are my freighters on flight stands. They do the job. I am actually quite pleased with myself and how this turned out.

These magnets are like 1mm x 3mm I think. Maybe 4mm. They are tiny but strong. I bought 25 on eBay for a few quid.

Excuse the poor focus but I wanted to highlight that the flight stand is literally just a nail, nailed into a 3mm MDF base. I will paint them black at some point.