Rogue Fire v1.1

This week at Axes & Ales I hosted another experimental skirmish wargame experience, building upon the game I GM'ed a couple of weeks back. It's an attempt to mix together a whole assortment of game mechanics that I've enjoyed over the years into a semi-coherent whole - all a bit fluid as I chop and change as the whim takes me. I haven't really got a solid name for the game presently (I may never!) however my mates ganged up on me on the night, and as I was commanding the Eldar force, they coined "Space Elves Must Die!". It has a certain ring to it... mmm...

I'm starting to get some design goals forming - preferences if you will, that are steering me in a certain design and play direction. Those goals include:

1. No Tokens on the game/map board. I want to see minis, not chits. I don't mind them off-board, but I want to avoid them messing up my immersion.
2. Minimal maths. Sure a +1 here and a -2 there is easily done, but while you're focusing on playing a game, maybe trying to enjoy a beer and a chat at the same time, it just isn't welcome.
3. 2-page rule summary. I want to be able to play the game with a 2-page rule summary handy - sure there can be a rulebook to look at the complete wording and examples, but I shouldn't have to use that while playing.
4. Avoid Hit Points and Wounds. A tough one. I really dislike trying to remember which Unit has how many Hit Points and track the same. It's hard enough to know what's happening with my forces, let alone my opponents. This also ties into #1 above.
5. Unit Cards. Pretty easy in the scheme of things, but I enjoy having relatively small cards detailing the Unit's Stats and any special rules - something that can be quickly understood and passed around to opponents. Again, stacking tokens on the Unit Card is to be avoided!
6. Actions and Reactions. I like games where I am forced to continually engage - it appears that only games where I can interrupt my opponent's Turn (i.e. react) do it for me.
7. Easily applied and understood movement rules. Granted using Tape Measures are easy, but there are alternatives. I just don't enjoy having to read off distances, reference back to my Unit Cards, do maths and argue the toss. There are faster ways out there.
8. Novelty! I need something different game mechanic's wise to keep my attention. Two things would be even better!

If you've played any of the other games I've mentioned in my blog, you'll certainly appreciate that one or two of my favourite systems offer most of those features. Oh well, building upon the shoulders of giants and all that... back to the story. I want to play skirmish battles in a setting that provides for ranged combat - given I've a whole lot of 28mm sci-fi, W40K models, I'd like my games to incorporate them.

Prior to the game, I was busy! I find that the more effort I invest into preparing for a game, the more I get out of it. Also, when playing with others, if I can provide them with something more than scrawled notes on a page, they tend to take to it better as well. Come game day, I had the following ready:

• A 32 by 44 inch 2D game board. It was the Forgotten Monestry set from 2 Minute Table Top. It is basically a decrepit ruin, full of rubble and columns, with lots of fire lanes to boot. I printed it in greyscale (my printer refuses to print in colour presently) in poster format which generated 18 A4 pages. It took all of 30-minutes to trim the pages and mount them onto a big piece of cardboard using spray-on adhesive. I think cut them in half and joined their underside with some cloth tape, meaning I could fold them for travel and storage. It cost me maybe $5 in total, looked awesome and worked well. Check this out:

Wow, that looks really good in that photo.

• A Rule Book, Quick Reference Guide, and 2 Faction Lists. The rule book came to 9-pages, and the QRG and each Faction List were all 2-pages each (duplexed).  More about that later.
  
  
• All the Dice, Measuring Devices, Counters and whatnot. The game used a dice-shift mechanic, so I had a set of 2d4, 2d6, 2d8, 2d10, 2d12 and 2d20. Each Unit required an off-board marker for use on the 'Impulse Wheel' (see last Rogue Fire post) - I used some coloured glass 'half rounds' (little glass pebbles, as big as your fingernail that can be picked up at craft shops in bags of 30 for a couple of bucks). I also cut three transparent* measuring and range-finding templates - about 2, 4 and 9-inches long. *They were too transparent - I kept on losing them on the board!
  
  
  
  
  
• Minis! I brought along a band of Eldar (Banshees, Guardians, and Dire Avengers), some Space Marines (Captain, Tactical, and Support), and Tau (Stealth Suit and Fire Warriors). Luckily I brought the Tau as another guy turned up and what was to be a 2-player game ended up being 3-player. Not that it mattered, the more the merrier I say.

It took us all of 5-minutes to stat up the Space Commies, unfold the game board, deploy our forces and get the game underway. Oh, and get another drink to keep ourselves hydrated ;-)

So how does one describe the game? Here's my 1-page summary, lifted directly from the rule book - it was a good thing to write, as the first question I got on the  was "How does this game work?" Having a quick summary helps communicate things pretty quickly and I found it helped me keep my focus when writing up the rules.

The Game’s Fundamentals

A miniature skirmish game requiring zero bookkeeping, no on-board tokens, ensuring continuous player engagement by combining a variable order of play with actions-reactions and rapid resolution.

Unit and Equipment Profiles

Units are described by 3 base statistics: Skill, Armour, and Resolve. Weapons are described by Range, Rate of Fire (ROF), and Power. Various ‘Special Rules’ are employed providing additional colour and character to both Units and Equipment alike.

The Impulse Wheel and Sequential Actions

Faith & Bolter employs a continuous cycle of play which is very different to traditional game turn sequences. Each Unit has a marker that is placed on the Impulse Wheel - a device to track the order of Unit Activations. Different Actions and circumstances cause Units to alter their position on the Impulse Wheel, continually changing the Unit Activation sequence.

Actions and Reactions

Unit Activations and Reactions incur an “Impulse” cost, being the number of Segments the Unit is advanced clockwise around the 8-segmented Impulse Wheel.

Activated Units can select a single Movement, Combat, or Command Action. Once a Unit’s Activation has been declared, an Opponent can elect to perform a Reaction with one or more of their Units. Depending upon the circumstances, Reactions may be resolved prior to, simultaneously with, or subsequent to the Unit performing the Action.

Attack Resolution

Attacks are resolved in three parts: a To Hit roll, a Damage roll, and a Resolve Test. A successful Hit that penetrates an opponent’s armour causes enough damage to typically destroy the Target.

All successful Hits cause Targets to test their resolve. A failed Resolve Test will either cause the Unit to Retreat or result in a Suppression effect - repositioning them on the  Impulse Wheel, delaying their opportunity to Activate and reducing their opportunity to perform Reactions.

There’s a special Die! rule that enables boosted melee ranged attacks against materially suppressed Targets, providing the loveliest of warriors an opportunity to swing the course of battle.

Movement and Line of Sight

The game employs Melee, Short, and Medium Range Templates of specific widths and lengths to accelerate both Unit Movements and Line of Sight determination.

Dice and Template Shift Mechanics

The game employs shift mechanics. The type of dice or templates can be boosted or degraded depending upon the circumstances, negating the need to calculate modifiers and significantly accelerating play.

So how did it go on the night?

Very well, everyone enjoyed themselves and the game when right down to the wire. The forces were:

• Tyronne with 3 Units being a Space Marine Captain (Chainsword and Bolt Pistol), Tactical Marine (Bolter), and Support Marine (Heavy Bolter)
• Rob with 4 Units being a Tau Stealth Suit (with some cannon thingy) and four Fire Warriors (Railguns?)
• Jason with 8 Units being four Eldar Guardians (Shuriken Rifles), an Eldar Dire Avenger (Shuriken Rifle), and three Eldar Howling Banshees (Powerswords and Shurkin Pistols).

We deployed around a large columned area, that had plenty of crumbling doorways and nooks in which to seek cover. Quickly Tyronne and Rob decided to gang up on me and their superior firepower and tougher armour took their toll on the Eldar forces. Once I got one of my Banshees into melee rang of Rob's Tau, the tide turned some with Rob's ranged weapons just not up to the task of dealing with crazy space elves screaming into their owners' faces. Against Tyronne, the Elves concentrated their firepower and eventually crippled the Space Marine Captain, however they took heavy losses in the process. 

What seemed to work:

• The Quick Reference Guide/Summary Sheet was perfect - it had just enough information to aid decision making.
• The Attack Resolution sequence, employing Dice Shifts and a maximum of three dice rolls, was very quick and exciting. It really did make the Space Marines feel like walking tanks that could continue to soak up volumes of fire until something broke.
• Everyone liked the movement/range templates - it allowed Units to weave their way around the columns on the map, jumping in and out of cover with little fuss. That coupled with the Reaction rules gave made for lots of options and excitement.
• Similarly, those same templates accelerated combat i.e. target acquisition and attack resolution given I had printed 'to hit' target numbers on the templates.
• Reactions were good. It seemed balanced e.g., the small, typically random penalty applied to the Reacting Unit seemed justified and was easily determined.
• Using the Impulse Wheel was fun - it really added to the sense of the game being... an action scene in a movie. Mmm... that gives me another idea.

What needs some more work:

• The Map wasn't perfect. But that was largely my damned printer's problem - it was all grayscale! It wasn't obvious what was a wall vs ruins, which was distracting. At least that can be readily resolved AND there might be the makings of another hobby project as well.
• The Impulse Wheel suffers when there are a lot of Units. We had (3+5+8 ) 16 with three players. I think at one point we had over half the unit markers on one Segment alone. That kind of sucked. I think with 10 or fewer markers, things would be fine. We discussed a few options in that regard on the night.
• Related to the above, it was hard at times to differentiate Units and where they were on the Impulse Wheel. That mattered for some of the rules (like Reactions) and as result, we didn't React as often as we probably could/should have. I've got an idea as to how that could be streamlined some more.
• LoS rules need a little refinement. Using the Range Template was great, however... again, I've got a simple idea that I'd like to try.
• Action/Reaction Impulse Costs need some tweaks. A little more spread between costs, maybe Faction modifiers or broader special rules e.g., Eldar Move Actions are at -1 Impulse, Space Marine's don't suffer a penalty when performing Combat Reactions. This might stop markers stacking on Segments and provide a little more flavour to the game.

Back to the drawing board!