Let's begin with the basics:
The public version is a super simplified version of my hobby version. Less in everything. In a sense, I cut things out till I couldn't cut out anymore. Or else, the game would be something else.
Materials?
- A traditional hexagon board. Either a print. Or a 3D field.
- A deck of Unit Statistics Cards (USC). Each player makes its own faction with it. Making USC's can easily be done in Excel, Word and MS-Paint.
- Miniatures; this is something I need to work on. IF, I want them to be 3D.
- A simple rule book.
- Event Cards; same principle. But it needs rework. Same as the USC's. I have a plan, I simply need time.
- A list of possible action points. But simplified for this game.
Unit statistics?
C - Cost ($)
[C - Strategy Points (P)]
B - Armor (A)
B - Movements Speed (S)
W - Projectiles (M)
W - Damage (D)
W - Accuracy (@); #/6 and #/5, or a combination of the 2 are in the plans.
W - Attack Range (R)
F - Attributes in the text section; regarding movement.
F - Flavour text.
A miniature will be standing on the USC. Indicating that these miniatures are linked.
I have many options in how players gather USC's. Either from one main deck, or multiple decks. Or they do some deck building.
I would love to have me some deck building for the players with the USC's.
***
Lets go through the rules for the statistics that I have set up:
The cost.
Will be whole numbers, from 1 to....18, 24 or even 36. I don't know.
The strategy points.
I don't know if I should put them on the USC's. Or simply have a page in the rule book, telling the player how much P a player gets for a certain USC in its faction. Strategy points are used to increase the number of actions. You see, it is a resource that can be spend in order to have an equal ammount of objects perform an action. If you have riflemen with a cost of 4 each. And you have 12 P, then you can have 3 riflemen perform an action. However, if they already used an AP, the cost doubles here as well.
Armor.
As you can see, there is no health value displayed. This means the comparison of armor with damage is not needed. It is simply inflicted. As for health tracking, 1d, 2d and 4d tokens are used. As for Armor, the range is from 1 to X (10).
[The mechanic "Negation" is better used in a card game.]
Movement Speed.
Goes from 0 to X.
Projectiles.
Goes from 0 to X.
Yes, the player gets a reward for using multiple dice if the player uses such units. It is rare and more of a "you are doomed" kind of action if 10 dice are to be used. Of course, only 6 dice are included in the game. And 2x5 is better.
Damage.
Goes from 0 to X. If you use X on a group of riflemen. If you manage to land a hit. Only one rifleman will perish. There is some RPS going on between damage and armor.
Accuracy.
1 or 2 rolls are required to determine if a projectile hits or not. The average accuracy would be 40%. Or a hidden H/D ratio of 2.5. I know most don't understand the H/D ratio. But it is used to balance a game. And in this case, 2.5 helps a lot. I often looked at 3 or 2, or even 1. But 2.5 seemed to be super helpfull here.
Anyway, rolling a 40% with d6. Means you need to reroll when rolling a 6. And we allow no more than 6 rolls per die in total. This means that if we have an accuracy build up from 2 different rolls like for example 4/6 x 1/5. You roll the 1/5 only 5 times at most.
And a combination of for example 3/5 x 3/5. You roll the die, and reroll. If it hits 5 rolls and failed so far. You don't even have to roll the second portion.
Attack range.
Goes from 0 to X.
Attributes.
Not sure if I have the attributes of unit types are displayed. Perhaps I should keep the Organic/Mechanic and Unit/Structure right after costs. Or as a start of the Attributes in the text section. Some units will have multiple weapons too. I will display these in 2 different colours in the statistics and if they have an attribute, it is also in that colour.
Flavour text.
Well....
With the limits set for all the stats.
I am curious of what I can actually design.
I am not going to round figures this time. Nor am I going to have the attacker decide on the targets. Instead...
No, this time I allow the defending player to push forth a target. Then the attacker rolls the dice. And decides which hits are used for removing the target.
In a sense, the defending player sorts the units in an order of possible defeat. With a mindset of roughly 6 riflemen. This should be no issue whatsoever.
The only rule that I am still debating myself over is:
Does the "frontline" have to be equal or bigger then the next line?
I would love that rule. But would players understand?
Especially, if I limit the number of lines to only:
- Front
- Middle
- Back
???
I would love some Event Cards that allow tactical adjustments like flanking and fooling and stuff.
The following 6 "attack" Event Cards are possible:
1st+2nd, 1st+3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 2nd+3rd, all 3.
***
Walls (mobile or not)
Without the "new" cover mechanics. There isn't much flavour for these. You simply have fodder on the board.
I can have only 9 in total?
And it is right here. That I should allow multies of certain objects. But only if I have no other choice. And they come with a disadvantage too.
More armor means that they might get damaged and repaired later on. As for a minimal ammount of armor, you need to have a repairing action alongside the defence.
Seeing as how the costs are designed. I am using the following:
Armor; Cost
1; 1
2; 1.5
3; 1.75
4; 2
5; 2.25
6; 2.5
7; 2.75
8; 3
9; 3.25
X; 3.5
Those with .5 are multiplied by 2 and those with .25 are multiplied by 4.
You really need to destroy the armor 2 or 4 times before the whole object is discarded.
Now we get some flavours:
1; The cheapest fodder wall. Certainly needs some backyard maintenance if the player wants to keep it well maintained. If we look at protecting the basic unit; riflemen. Each costs 4. We need 4 walls for protecting them. If we loose a wall, the riflemen start dying.
1 to X damage can destroy one of these walls.
2; The cost and size is x2. You got a cost and size of 3, with having to hit twice with 2 damage or more. With this, I should introduce the attribute, hit points. But, you need at least 2 for protecting riflemen. And you can repair one, later on.
3; Cost 7, Hp 4. The most durable "fodder" variant. Even though it is 3 to X damage required for removing a hit point. It has 4 hitpoints. And later on, we see a wall costing 7, that is easier to destroy by X.
4; Cost 2. A medium fodder wall. You need at least 2 for protecting riflemen. But the durability is already very high against rifles. Especially if a basic squad of riflemen attacks. There are only 6 projectiles there. And you need to have 4 hits with them. It is still considered to be a fodder wall due to the fact it has actually only ONE hit point.
5; Cost 9. Hp 4. Not only is this one super effective against the weapons dealing only 4 damage or less. It has 4 hit points, just like the one of armor 3. For just 2 more in cost. The weapons of 3 and 4 damage need to hit 8 times in total. However, damage 5 or higher, needs only to hit 4 times, just like the wall of 3 armor.
6; Cost 5, Hp 2. Cheaper, almost half that of armor 5. The catch? It also needs to be hit half of the time in order to be destroyed. The only advantage is that a weapon dealing 3 to 5 damage, still needs to hit 4 times.
7; Cost 11, Hp 4. Same story versus armor 5 as how armor 5 was compared to armor 3.
8; Cost 3, Hp 1. A heavy fodder wall. Why called fodder? 1 hit, and its gooooone! Of course you need 8, 9 or X damage at this point. Still, since it costs only 3. You need at least 2 of these in order to protect a rifleman.
9; Cost 13, Hp 4. This is the most durable wall. But also the most expensive one. Most weapons need to hit it 8 times or more in order to destroy it. But at this point... it is more usefull as a blockade. The size is 13. And a player can have only 1 of these in a 24 game. Which also means.... it provides the player with 11 strategy points per round in a 24 game. This wall is perfect for protecting the support units that cost 13.
As for stopping riflemen fire. You need to hit it 36 times in total. This is the highest number of damage any object can take in the game.
X; Cost 7, Hp 2. And this is the wall that stops every weapon at least once. But due to the Hp being 2, it is actually stopping every weapon at least twice.
You can compare this one with the armor 3. The same costs, but different Hp.
Whereas X damage needs to hit the armor 3 wall 4 times. The 3 damage needs to hit the armor X wall 8 times.
Why get the wall of armor 3 anyways if the X wall is better?
Well, X damage needs to hit the armor X wall only 2 times.
Armor; Cost; Hp; Total Hp
1; _1; 1; _1
2; _3; 2; _4
3; _7; 4; 12
4; _2; 1; _4
5; _9; 4; 20
6; _5; 2; 12
7; 11; 4; 28
8; _3; 1; _8
9; 13; 4; 36
X; _7; 2; 20
Can we have multies of some other walls? Why yes, we can. Here is a list of 4 hit points.
1; _4; 4; _4
2; _6; 4; _8
4; _8; 4; 16
6; 10; 4; 24
8; 12; 4; 32
X; 14; 4; 40
This accidentely closes all gaps in costs. :)
***
Certain attributes that will return for certain:
Multi.
See above about the walls. But it can be done for units as well. It has the advantage of being more durable. But the disadvantage of being bigger.
And to make things fair. The weapon statistics are linked to the multi number. If you have for example 3, then the number of projectiles is multiplied by this 3. If the hp goes down, so does the number of projectiles. But, healing a "squad" simply means, all members return. A squad of riflemen is different than a "squad" of riflemen. In size, combat events, cover mechanics and actions that include movement.
But you mainly choose a squad USC for being able to provide better cover, or heal up to full strenght again.
And you choose a singular USC for being able to take better cover and have better movement and/or positioning.
Size.
Self explanatory? The size equals the cost. If you see this attribute, it comes with a number. A sniper for example can cost 8. But a sniper with size 2 will cost 16. In a sense, a rifleman can now protect a sniper by being a size 4.
Squish.
A combination of a movement and an attack. Actually, this is an assault with one extra rule. The "projectile" must be able to hit the target. If not, the movement is also not performed. Seeing as how organic units/structures are going to be squished. The weapon value is only 50%. The accuracy from 40% to 80%. The 1 damage versions of squish will cost 1.25.
Here comes another thing to consider: A tank needs to check if the target dies. Armor 2 or higher is already out of the question with the current settings. And a tank needs to check if the space that opens up, is enough for the tank.
Obviously, if a tank costs 8, and the space opening up is only 4. The squish doesn't work.
Assault.
A combination of movement and attack. The attack range is 0.6. But movement is 0.4. It simply gets added up. There is no penalty whatsoever. And frankly, I should have done this for my hobby game as well.
As for the action Assault for all other units. There will be a penalty.
I should change the rules regarding the attribute Assault for my hobby game asap.
As for this topic. Next time, I will post some variants of riflemen. And discuss if reverse engineering had use or not for me. At least it showed me that I need multies, no matter what. And while I have them alongside health in my hobby game. I hardly used them there. Yet, here they are needed for keeping the game fair and balanced.