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.