In the introductory post about my wargame, I signed off saying that I would talk about the unique initiative system I was designing for the game this time.
Well, I started looking over it, and realised that before I can talk about it, I need to discuss damage mechanics in the game - because otherwise you’d be reading all sorts of phrases like “resolve damage” and not really knowing what that means!
One of the most important aspects of a wargame is how it handles attacks and damage - it is, after all, a wargame, and it needs to achieve a few things, which I have tried to break down into logical chunks.
1. It needs to be fun.
Despite my emphasis in the previous line, this is above all else a game. The game needs to be fun, and for that to work, it must be properly defined. There’s no point having a game where you try to make it fun for everyone, where one person is playing chess and the other is playing mousetrap. Both are fun, but only when both players are expecting the same levels of competitivity and commitment.
In D&D, you would have a session 0, to make sure that the party is aligned in their goals ant motives - you don’t want a horny bard, a kleptomanic thief, and a lawful-good paladin who enforces their beliefs on everyone in the same party - the first two are clearly there to muck about, at least a bit, and the third is perhaps overzealous in their commitment to their character. If the party doesn’t gel, then they will have less fun.
So the game has to set an expectation as to what is considered fun, and then it has to commit to it. This is entirely function, and nothing to do with aesthetic - there are a lot of boardgames out there which look amazing, but aren’t tactically challenging enough to hold interest1.
I want this game to have meaningful decisions, tactical thinking, and to be dynamic enough that you can swing a game with good tactics. Thus, for this game, I define fun as being a game where there is more than just randomness to decide victory, and where decisions weigh more than dice rolls.
2. It has to fit a theme.
The goal here is to decide what the game should feel like to play. Warhammer 40k has the feeling of overwhelming loss, where every turn sees your army dwindle before your eyes, with very little that you can do about it2. Gaslands3 has the goal of embodying post-apocalyptic high-speed vehicular combat, and the mechanics work wonders for conveying this, with skidding, spinning, gear-shifting, and so on.
For this game, I want the chaos of battle to be conveyed, with meaningful suppression and delayed damage. I also want the ranged combat to make sense - you should find it easier to hit a tank than to hit a goblin, for example, and the range should matter.
3. It should be quick, or involve both players
There is nothing worse than a combat game where one player does everything, and the other player does nothing. They get disengaged, and feel like it’s their lot to just remove models. Anyone who’s played a low-save horde in Warhammer 40k will know what I mean - the opponent rolls, and you remove models - no defence, no decisions, you’re just there to have your models killed. When you roll saves, you’re engaged in the combat.
Well, for my game I opted to try and make the rolling quick and the combat smooth. With my delayed damage mechanics, it wouldn’t be possible for the defender to roll saves during the attack - because then you’d know what the result was! So I opted to try and make it quick.
Let’s get into it.
With these three aspects in mind, let’s see what I have got for the combat in the game.
From the start, I knew what I wanted to happen when the target was hit - I wanted the weapon to deal an amount of damage cards (from a pack of standard playing cards) to the target, face-down, based on the damage of the weapon. These would be revealed when the target unit activates, and thus the defender would have the opportunity to react to it on their turn.
The theory is that this would streamline the combat somewhat, as a unit would only be affected on their activation. I have other plans for close combat, given that it is much more up-close and personal and less inclined to uncertainty, which I’ll get into later. However, the first part of an attack will be hitting the target.
Hitting the Target
My goal was to have each attack roll a die and then on a hit, deal an amount of damage. So far, so good. Now, how to make rolling to hit more meaningful than just getting a number or higher on a die? How to make positioning matter, ranges and size matter?
The First bad idea
My first idea was to have the weapon roll a number of dice, based on their range statistic, and then add a number of dice, based on the target’s size, and deduct a number of dice, based on the intervening cover. For example, a weapon with range 4 targeting a size 3 enemy through cover 1 would use 6 dice (4+3-1). Then, they would roll these dice, add up the total, add a marksmanship value from the unit (representing their skill) and try to roll equal to or over the range to the target.
The method of this makes sense - you roll more dice if they’re big, and you have more chance to hit if they’re close. It covered everything I wanted to cover - but it was also hopelessly flawed.
Using the above example, the attacker would have 4 attack, plus 3 for the size, minus 1 for the cover, for 6 dice. They roll a 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, for a total of… huh.
Maths is boring4. Making people who play Red Sky (which I wanted to be fast-paced, gritty, and uncertain) add up loads of numbers will suck. As soon as someone has a multi-shot weapon, it’s going to slow to a crawl. So, I needed a different method.
The Second, Slightly Better idea
My next theory was to use range bands for the weapons. Each range band would be 4”, and you would need to roll a number of “successes” for the shot equal to the range to the target, in bands. Cover adds one to the range bands, and the same principle applies for the number of dice rolled, excepting the cover, which just adds to the number of required successes. A roll of a 4+ is considered a success.
In the example above, the attacker would have 4 attack, plus 3 for the size, for 7 dice. They roll a 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, for a total of 4 successes, meaning that if the target is within 16” (or 12” with cover), then they will hit.
This method is much better, but it has it’s shortcomings - the 4x table is not necessarily intuitive, and whilst I could make a custom tapemeasure with range bands on it, that limits the accessibility of the game. I intended for weapons to have no real maximum range, so you could end up trying to work out the range band for something 49” away, which is not really that great.
However, this has added some other features to the weapons which I like - extra effects.
The concept is that if you hit a target, then you can pay excess successes to trigger effects. For example, you might have a machine gun which, if you hit with it, you can spend 2 successes to get another hit. If you hit with a Sniper, you might spend 3 additional successes to deal a damage card face-up - just as small examples.
This additional flexibility was a great step in the right direction - I can eliminate the need for a machinegun to fire multiple shots, which will speed things up, whilst also keeping the “spray and pray” attitude it is supposed to have.
The obstacle is the range bands, which might not be such a bad obstacle.
Fishing for a third, even better plan.
This is where I am presently - the range bands idea. And I’d like to try and make it more user friendly again.
So, I need to brainstorm.
The range is important - it has to be - so it must be included. This then asks, what is the measure? The standard method is descrete units - feet, inches, etc. Hands are a standard measure for 4” but they are not used outside of the horse world5. I could increase range bands to 6”, making each foot 2 of them, but that just lessens the existing issue, and makes distance on the board less meaningful, which is counter to my goals for the game.
Thus I feel that I may keep the 4” range bands. Knowing that each foot is 3 range bands should make it smooth enough, and I can always source a horse measuring tape if it proves problematic.
In short, this is something which should come out in the playtesting - I may be worrying too much, or I may be underreacting, but the important thing with this sort of thing is to try it out. If it works, then excellent, and if it doesn’t, then that sucks.
So that’s a hit.
Let’s say our exampled unit rolls the number of dice needed to equal or exceed the range band to the target, and has scored a hit. What happens now?
Well, in Red Sky, the hit will mean that you put a number of damage cards on the target, face-down, equal to the damage of the weapon. A machine-gun may have a dmaage of 2, with an ability that for every excess success, you can put another 1 on.
So let’s say that the attacker had a machine-gun which put 3 damage tokens on the target.
That’s the end of the attack - the target now has 3 cards face-down on them, which will be resolved later.
Delayed Damage & Suppression
One of the main features I wanted in this game was to have delayed damage - I wanted it to give that feel of heroic fight-scenes, where the hero doesn’t know if they are dead or not until they look down; where the attacker is unsure whether their target is dead until the smoke clears.
To convey this, I have picked a potentially contravertial method for the damage to be dealt with - last. This lets the player make choices, which is the most important thing for me.
When a player picks a unit to activate, they can spend action points (AP) on them to do things. One of these things is Suppression. Suppression is a way of spending AP to discard damage cards from the unit - essentially, you are forgoing the ability to do things in order to reduce damage. The rules for this will need refining, but the gist of it will be that 1AP = 1 card removed. You cannot spend Leadership AP on a unit which is Suppressed - so no burning all your AP to avoid damage and then acting anyway thanks to leadership AP - but you can spend some on Suppression and some on Actions.
Let’s say that the target with 3 damage on them activates. Let’s say it’s a 4AP unit6, so it can spend 4AP plus leadership AP to activate. Its options are that it can take the damage (which might be none), act normally, and use Leadesrhip AP, or it can be Suppressed, reduce the damage before it is applied, and not use Leadership AP - meaning it won’t be doing many actions.
For a 4AP unit, the chances are that it will need 2AP to move and 2AP to attack. So it could use 4AP and 2 Leadership AP to move and then attack twice (remember that Leadership AP cannot be used for the same action twice in one activation). Or, it can reduce the damage by 2 using 2AP and then move or shoot, but forgo using Leadership AP.
This mechanic, for me, is very sound - it makes suppressing fire work, and it makes it a choice - the unit might choose a heroic last charge instead of hitting the dirt to try and survive. Choices, choices, and that makes it good!
Damage then
I’ve noticed that I’ve delayed the Damage section, which is ironic.
So the unit takes their turn and opts to heroically charge forward whilst shooting. Once they’re done, it’s time to assess the damage.
They have 3 cards on them, and they flip them over. The unit has an Armour statistic of 1-10 (1 being barely any armour, and 10 being nigh-invulnerable). Any cards which are equal to or lower than their armour are set aside - the armour has succeeded, and they deal no damage. For every card of higher value than the armour, the unit takes 1 damage, and for every picture card - Jack, Queen, King - they take 2 damage.
After damage is dealt, if the unit has taken more damage than their Health, then they are destroyed.
Biggest Side-Effects
The biggest side-effects of this method is that, if a unit is on the field, and you are not currently activating it, then it will get one more activation before it dies. This is a big win from my perspective - because there is nothing that feels worse than having that one unit in your army that you have been looking forward to using, only for it to be wiped out in turn 1 by your opponent. This method means that, whilst you might be sure that the unit will die, you can get one good use out of it before it does. And, if you gamble incorrectly, you might find them in the way, or out of position, still alive!
The uncertainty of the damage is what I am going for with this. Whether it will work, I don’t know - again, this will come down to the playtesting!
So, let’s say that this unit which has charged forward shooting has an Armour of 3 and 3 Health, so is anticipating death. They flip the cards, and find a 1, a 3, and a Jack. They take 2 damage, because of the Jack, and the cards are shuffled back into the deck. Their unit is alive - but is out of cover, making them an easy target to polish off!
Run for Cover
One idea I had - which I will have to test out - is Running for Cover. I love the idea of the turns being as reactionary as they are aggressive, so adding a rule such as: “A Suppressed unit which is within cover has +1 to their Armour” means that a unit in the open may be shot a whole bunch, but on their turn (and I emphasise that “turn” is an abstraction of symultaneous events) they might spend AP to run to cover, and then spend their remaining AP to be suppressed - essentially, diving into cover whilst being shot at. This would increase their Armour by 1, which might be the difference between life and death for a unit!
Will these mechanics all make it through? That depends on the playtest, which I haven’t gotten to yet. But, it is a framework on which to build!
Next time, I will finally get to the turn order, and see if anything can be extracted from my mess of notes! I also have some new lore I dug up (which I had forgotten about) which will affect the aesthetic of the game - positively!
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My wife, when reading this, will doubtless think that I am talking about Bears vs Babies. And I am. The game looks very cool, but there is no variety in the function of the cards - essentially, whoever gets the most bears wins. The main appeal of the game is the aesthetic.
Indeed, most warhammer 40k games are won and lost in the list building stage, where you make your army. The effect of your tactics on the field embodies the saying “no plan survives contact with the enemy”.
Seriously cool game that uses hotwheels to play death-race games. All you need is the rulebook, but you can also get custom dice and templates for it, which makes it even cooler!
Some of you may argue that maths is not boring. If you would be so kind, roll 10 dice and add up the total. Now do that 20-30 times. What fun you’re having!
The fact that hands are eactly 4 inches, meaning that they are subdivisions of feet, is further proof that the only reason equestrians use this unit to measure their horses, instead of feet and inches, is pure belligerence. “He’s 16 hands high” - true, but it’s easier for me to picture “He’s 5-foot 4”.
And right now, I have no idea if that’s a powerful or a weak unit - I’m building this right now!