Jungle Troops, a Dinosaur and a Spider Mech walk into a desert...

These guys have been white with their flesh painted, based on 1 Euro cent coins for a good long while now. This week I decided to change their bases and get them painted. Likewise this GZG 15mm drone walker has been languishing in my model/painting tool box so I thought it was finally time to finish it. The dinosaur is just a fun thing for carrying loads through difficult terrain.

 

Let's Write Some Rules - Playtest 1

So here we are, a week or so since deciding I want to write my own rule set and here I am, having a first playtest of the combat mechanics, initiative system and morale system. There are no objectives, there is no story. Just some things plugging away at each other to see whether or not it is tedious, too easy, overpowered, or if it just plain doesn't work. I am not sure how to organise this. 

Team Blue:
4 squads of regular infantry
2 heavy tanks

Team Red:
4 squads of regular infantry
1 heavy tank
1 very light tank with an MLRS rack on top.

Infantry:
Move 6"
Attack 3D6 under 12". 2D6 over 12".
Defence 3D6
Morale 3D6
Count as a V. Light gun vs vehicles.

Heavy Tank:
Move 6"
Defence 1D6
Heavy Armour
Heavy Gun 5D6 under 20". 4D6 over 20".

Light Tank MLRS:
Move 10" (Which I forgot about.)
Defence 1D6
V Light Armour
MLRS 5D6 at all ranges. 

Rule notes:
All D6 rolls are successful on 5+. There are no modifiers at all to this. There are no crits or special fails. 

A bit of cover and a few units to battle it out. Let's see how it goes.

One of the first bits of action was some long range infantry vs infantry fire. Neither squad had cover, but because they were over 12" away, each was only rolling 2D6 while attacking and 3D6 while defending. So nothing stuck really.

Long range tank vs tank fire didn't hit the first time. Or it did but the defense roll stopped it, or the armour pen roll failed. This happened a couple of times.

The squishy MLRS vehicle launched a volley at a heavy tank. Lots of hits. But the AP of an MLRS volley isn't great against heavy armour in this iteration of the rules. I wanted it to be scarier to weaker things. I want heavy armour to be beefy.

So the MLRS did nothing vs the tank. I wonder if I should have some kind of area of effect mechanic for something like that. Like the hits are all vs all units in an area?

On the left are the 5D6 of the MLRS shots. Three hits (5+). Centre is the tank's defensive roll, representing PDC or something. It did nothing. The 3D12 are the penetration rolls but none of them were high enough to penetrate the armour. I quite like this system. Could I have a 2D6 roll to keep one kind of die?

Another tank vs tank shot.

One hit. Failed defensive roll. Failed to get higher than 8 to penetrate heavy armour with a heavy gun.

More tank combat. This time successful.

This time the penetration roll is higher than 8 so penetrates. Penetration means instant kill. I have no between mechanics. No disabled but reparable. Nothing like that. Just penetration = kill.

Here the MLRS successfully killed the heavy tank.

One hit. Failed defensive roll. Managed to get a 12 so penetrates. Lovely. 

Infantry combat. Each Team Red squad rolled 3D6, scored a couple of hits, then Team Blue failed the defensive rolls. The top squad took two hits, meaning if they get one more then they are dead, unless they unsuppress themselves. The bottom squad is pinned from one hit. If they get one more hit then nothing happens. If they get two more hits then they become suppressed. If they get three then they are dead. Becoming pinned just makes you combat ineffective for a while, but doesn't make you easier to kill in game terms. Just a target that can't move or shoot back.

Heavy tank vs squishy light tank. It was easy and to be honest should be expected if you get in the gun sights of a heavy gun.

Here are the rolls. Penetrated with all three hits. Maybe there is something there, where multiple penetrations are needed? Not sure. if the Light tank had been equipped with improved PDCs it could have stopped some of the hits coming through. But upgrading vehicles is something I need to look at and consider making rules about how many of each unit you can have or how to purchase upgrades. Not there yet.

Killing a suppressed unit was easy. I feel like that was the right way for it to be. If your squad can't defend itself and only allow one hit through then they sort of deserve to be knocked out.

There was quite a lot of this: infantry unit shoots at pinned infantry. Score some hits. Pinned infantry roll defensive roll and cancel enough so that nothing happens. Maybe a pinned unit should have -1D6 of defensive rolls? That is worth looking at. Pictured is the elusive triple-hit-all-defensive-rolls-fail kill.

So it is rare, but it is something that is technically possible. I liked that. I mean many systems have the critical hit system. In Horizon Wars if I score a critical hit against light infantry then they are instantly killed because I choose where the damage goes and I put it on their 1A score.

This was the most surprising of all. Infantry managed to penetrate (roll of 12 on 1D12) the heavy armour. Remember that infantry default to count as V. Light gun when firing vs vehicles. I had multiple infantry firing at this tank before it happened. 

Maybe I should have some sort of close assault rules. Or maybe I should have their gun category be higher when closer. All things to think about.

Notes and observations:

There was quite a lot of infantry fire that had little to no effect. Firing and getting ONE hit against an already pinned squad does nothing. This happened quite a lot so I didn't even bother rolling the defensive rolls. One possible change is that each additional hit increases a unit from pinned to suppressed. But on the other hand, that would kill them very quickly. It was easy to get one hit and pin them. It proved much more difficult to suppress and kill a squad. 

Rallying. I decided that each 5+ on a rallying roll removed a pin marker. Suppressed units had two pin markers. So regular infantry rolling 3D6 were able to completely recover from being suppressed, although this only happened once or twice once I changed the rule. Otherwise I could have played it as suppressed units have -1D6 morale dice, making it harder to completely unpin with one successful 5+. I quite like the idea of each 5+ removing one pin marker, so while possible to go from suppressed to fine, it is harder.

Round beginning rallying. Rallying 1D6 units was cool as there were some units that didn't get rallied. Also, Player 2 would be able to rally any units pinned/suppressed by the first two units of Player 1. It seemed to balance out. 1D6 might have to change with larger games. Although is this game meant to be designed for larger games?

Heavy gun vs infantry in open. Rolling 5D6 against infantry in the open did not kill them very easily. They got pinned quite a bunch, but I was surprised at how long they lasted before finally being taken out. There were seriously several rounds of fire before they finally went down. 

Tank vs Tank combat. It seems fine. Roll a bunch of D6 and you might get hits, then you might roll the armour penetration roll. There was a close call and a couple of misses. I wonder if heavy gun vs heavy armour with a Pen of 8 (on 1D12) is too easy. The very light armour was exactly as squishy as it was meant to be. The MLRS was quite good, although it wasn't really designed to penetrate the heavy armour. 

Infantry vs Tank combat. Infantry count as Very Light Gun vs tanks. I mean, I assume they have some sort of man-portable rockets or something that are not very effective. It was very hard to penetrate the heavy armour (12 on 1D12) but in the end one of them got through the final tank. 

I will play some more but I am actually quite pleased with how they play right now. I may well leave it as it is for the next game to see whether there are other tweaks to be made.

Things to think about
Some sort of area of effect rules for MLRS and perhaps other explosive ordinance. There are no artillery rules as such.

That unpinning mechanic. I like it, but there might be a better way.

Morale for tanks. This has been flat out ignored, but I don't know if it has a place in these rules. But it seems stupid to have it for infantry and not tanks. 

Black Gold - Curtesy of Iliada Game Studios.

These have been knocking around for a little while and I just needed to add some flock really. I did it today with the great weather so I did it outside. Dried very quickly, while trying to figure out my storage solution for my miniatures. They will probably be useful as objectives. These are the Iliada Game Studios models, and while they dwarf my 6mm miniatures a bit I think they work.

 

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.