KOG light is a minimalist tabletop miniatures wargame.
Table of Contents 1. basic game preparation, setup & deployment;
2. game rounds, player turns (movement, fighting, shooting) & victory conditions;
3. combat resolution, LOS, damage, specials, infantry & tanks
4. alternate scenarios & game size
5. background, model description & unit selection
6. German forces
7. Russian forces
8. summary of play & designer's notes
Design Concepts & Objectives
Conceptually, KL is AoS-like in the sense that it radically streamlines a more complex version of a wargame in favor of straightforward rules that are more accessible to the layperson, burying and hiding unnecessary complexity into single player target die rolls. Thematically, KOG light is a direct replacement for Heavy Gear, retaining focus on the armored battlesuits and weaponry, but without the calculations, tables and acronyms.
design objectives - Keep It Simple, Stupid!
- minimal page count (maximum 4 pages of core rules, one guiding concept per page)
- English, not acronyms
- standard d6 dice and Imperial measurement
- no tables or +/- modifiers, just straight rolls and re-rolls
- Thorpian 1s & 6s for special effects
- retain core Heavy Gear gameplay notions
- one thing at a time
- limited steps / options / variants active at any given time to minimize mental workload
Development History
Alpha 1 - Oct. 23, 2015: initial release with AoS-like rules for battlefield creation and N/S HG core lists.
Alpha 2 - Nov. 20, 2015: minor cleanup and streamlining of Dice & Re-rolls, Battlefield creation, Game & Player Turn details. Morale was changed to be more akin to Combat Resolution. Combat resolution had additional cleanup, extending the Critical Concepts, and adding Infantry. Building an Army was added, along with a placeholder for Scenarios. Army List descriptions were also cleaned up.
Alpha 3 - Jan. 3, 2016: major reorganization to clarify Setup / Turns & Actions / combat resolution. Reorganized Field of Battle to move Terrain effects into Movement / Combat resolution, and break up Order of Battle to clarify Attacker / Defender steps. Distinguished (Player) "Turns" vs (Game) "Rounds"; separated movement rates from movement modifiers and Charges; clarified FO as a shoot-equivalent action like Hold Objective, revised Crushing Loss. Added Cover modifier and Indirect to Ranged Shooting; simplified Piercing, added Sniper and Pinning in lieu of Burst (redundant effect). Addressed Hard Cover under Damage; revised Critical Hit to a re-roll. Cleaned up Infantry.
Alpha 4 - Jan. 5, 2016: terminology and minor editing cleanup; rules deemed "final".
Beta 1 - Feb. 15, 2016: initial re-scaling of stats for consistent relative power/effectiveness. (unreleased)
Beta 2 - Feb. 25, 2016: further re-scaling of stats (unreleased)
Beta 3 - Jun. 22, 2016: major cleanup of rules: streamlined Cover and Range, removed Morale, added Command effect, added Counterattack v Defend. Added scenarios. Added background fluff. Moved from not-South v not-North to German not-South v Russian not-CEF.
Beta 4 - Aug. 31, 2016: major cleanup of rules: revised Game Round to give Attacker an immediate double turn; restructured Player Turns as Movement & Action; removed Defense when (Counter-)Attacking. streamlined Replaced Defend with Concentrated Attack. Removed Hull stat & Spray weapons. Cleaned up Infantry & Tank special rule. Streamlined Unit selection. Refined German & Russian unit stats. Added summary of play.
Beta 5 - Sep. 26, 2016: major re-balance of all German & core Russian units; added Status Markers.
Beta 6 - Dec. 15, 2016: minor rules & stats cleanup; LOS-based unit coherency. Replaced asymmetrical Linebreaker with Search & Recover, unbalanced missions. (unreleased)
What surprised me was just how much gameplay I could squeeze into 3 pages:
- uneven ground & climbing;
- regular vs top speed move;
- hard vs soft cover;
- indirect fire & forward observers;
- flamer & blast.
I think there is a fair amount of tactical play opportunity, despite the brevity.
Anyhow, as I read the PDF, quite a few things jumped out at me, and I'll have an update over the weekend. Sorry for the typos and such - I'll try to fix them as well.
As I interpreted it, HG is supposed to be about robot tanks running around and shooting at each other, a pseudo-military simulation. I kept the Gear classes and unit type categories, along with the weaponry. Movement speed also matters, along with IF / sensors, so I kept those things. I just streamlined the game by folding duplicates and repeats into a single concept, single test.
What I didn't do was have a lot of EW stuff or Veteran levels, as I felt it overcomplicated things unnecessarily. I never liked the opposed test / multiplication / subtraction resolution mechanics, as I feel that they take away from the fun part of running the Gears around the table and shooting at each other. Not having to tie it from the HGRPG allowed me to move away from all of that stuff.
To me, HG is "run & gun", so that's what I want KL to be about. Something that a pre-teen (or wife!) can easily grasp and play correctly with minimal coaching.
Select any one of your units and move each model in that unit. When finished moving the desired models in that unit, select a different unit and move those models, repeating until all desired units have been moved. After movement is complete, each model unit must finish within 2” of another model in that same unit.
I'd probably put the bolded part as the second sentance instead of at the end. Also, I assume you want the first model in a unit moved to have an exemption from the 2" rule but RAW it too must finish its move within 2" of another model in the unit.
Speed Move–If not moving within 1” of any enemy model, a model can move twice as far along flat ground (<1” vertical), but will not be able to Fight or Shoot for the rest of the turn.
Can you do a speed move through rough ground?
Assault Move–If planning to engage the enemy in close combat, the unit may add +d5” to its movement and attempt to move models within 1” of any enemy models it can see.
Is the d5 a typo? I only saw a mention of a d6 previously. Out of curiosity, why is that distance random instead of just a fixed number (say half your movement rounded down or a flat number for all)?
Any unit with any models within 1” of any enemy models may attack any of those models.
Should that be "attack with those models"? Otherwise, you could have a unit of 5 guys strung out over a 15 inch line (with their 1" bases) and all of them get close combat attacks because 1 guy is within 1" of an enemy model.
Any unit losing more than half of the models it started the turn with must test morale by rolling a d5 against the Command stat. If the result is equal to less than the Command stat, then no further action is taken and the unit continues on unaffected . If the result exceeds the Command stat, then one model is shaken for each point that the result exceeds the Command stat.
Same D5 question as above. Also, if the crappies model like a Jaeger has a command 6+, when will you ever roll above that on a d5 or even d6? Is it supposed to be under you're shaken instead on a d6? Better models get lower command stats making them more likely to run as per RAW.
For Jaegers/Hunters or any model with the HG equivalent of an LRP and LAC, when would you ever use the LRP? It doesn't have indirect and it has the exact same stats and the LAC which doesn't run out. Since you're going with a rules light system, I'd either differentiate the rocket pods somehow from identical autocannons or just get rid of them from the stat line if they're identical.
Hope that helps. I didn't read in detail every part (just up to page 3 so far) but these are some of the things I picked up on that caught my eye.
Partial Line of Sight – exists if one can draw an unobstructed line from any part of the shooting model to any part of the target model, including its weapons. The shooter counts as having Line of Sight, but the target counts as having Soft Cover
Technically a model completely in the open counts as both LOS and partial LOS because even in the open the partial LOS conditions apply . I think you mean "if one cannot draw an unobstructed line from any part of the shooting model to EVERY part of the target model" instead. For hard cover, you only get it for indirect fire without LOS and behind destroyed models. Is the intention to never have tabletop terrain like a mountain provide hard cover?
Also, in reference to the above previous morale question, since you're going for a rules light system and the KISS principle I'd highly recommend keeping an overriding "rolling high is good for the person doing the rolling" system for everything and not switch back and forth (like with morale versus other things). If you changed to "high is good" for morale, you'd have to reverse the stats with crappy gears at say 4+ and the best gears at 2+ for instance.
After a model has been hit, roll a d6. Each result that is greater than the target’s Defense results in damage removing 1 hull point.
I suspect you mean "roll a d6 FOR EACH HIT" judging from the second sentance. I know it's pedantic but for clarity... in the definition of hard cover, should people be rerolling "damage" or "defense"? Judging from the stat names, I suspect you're rolling (or rerolling in the case of hard cover) defense which results in damage.
I hope you don't take offense at the above as I'm just trying to clarify a few things in the hopes of being helpful.
OK, first, thank you all very much for the comments. All of them. At this stage, I hope I've not missed something important, as now's the time to address it. But that's totally OK, because any feedback is still helpful. Again, much thanks!
...
And now, onto the comments!
warboss wrote: After movement is complete, each model unit must finish within 2” of another model in that same unit.
1. I'd probably put the bolded part as the second sentance instead of at the end. Also, I assume you want the first model in a unit moved to have an exemption from the 2" rule but RAW it too must finish its move within 2" of another model in the unit.
2. Can you do a speed move through rough ground?
3. Is the d5 a typo? I only saw a mention of a d6 previously. Out of curiosity, why is that distance random instead of just a fixed number (say half your movement rounded down or a flat number for all)?
4. Should that be "attack with those models"? Otherwise, you could have a unit of 5 guys strung out over a 15 inch line (with their 1" bases) and all of them get close combat attacks because 1 guy is within 1" of an enemy model.
5. Same D5 question as above. Also, if the crappies model like a Jaeger has a command 6+, when will you ever roll above that on a d5 or even d6? Is it supposed to be under you're shaken instead on a d6? Better models get lower command stats making them more likely to run as per RAW.
6. For Jaegers/Hunters or any model with the HG equivalent of an LRP and LAC, when would you ever use the LRP? It doesn't have indirect and it has the exact same stats and the LAC which doesn't run out. Since you're going with a rules light system, I'd either differentiate the rocket pods somehow from identical autocannons or just get rid of them from the stat line if they're identical.
Hope that helps. I didn't read in detail every part (just up to page 3 so far) but these are some of the things I picked up on that caught my eye.
7. Technically a model completely in the open counts as both LOS and partial LOS because even in the open the partial LOS conditions apply . I think you mean "if one cannot draw an unobstructed line from any part of the shooting model to EVERY part of the target model" instead. For hard cover, you only get it for indirect fire without LOS and behind destroyed models. Is the intention to never have tabletop terrain like a mountain provide hard cover?
8. Also, in reference to the above previous morale question, since you're going for a rules light system and the KISS principle I'd highly recommend keeping an overriding "rolling high is good for the person doing the rolling" system for everything and not switch back and forth (like with morale versus other things).
9. I suspect you mean "roll a d6 FOR EACH HIT" judging from the second sentance. I know it's pedantic but for clarity in the definition of hard cover, should people be rerolling "damage" or "defense"? Judging from the stat names, I suspect you're rolling (or rerolling in the case of hard cover) defense which results in damage.
I hope you don't take offense at the above as I'm just trying to clarify a few things in the hopes of being helpful.
1. It's not worded right. There is an implicit concept of unit coherency because it usually works better on the tabletop when units physically move and group together as an organizing principle. I need to re-word "when the unit completes movement, all models must finish within coherency" so that the first model can move at top speed, and the rest catch up, rather than require leapfrogging to move a unit forward. The problem that I had is that managing coherency is less fun than blowing stuff up, and I'm not wanting "broken coherency" rules here. Most likely, I need to change this to Sensor range from the unit leader.
2. Yes, if the ground is relatively flat. Speed move costs you the ability to fight or shoot. Consider traversing a sandy beach or icy sidewalk - you can walk slowly and throw rocks, or you can run slowly.
3a. d5 is from when I was customizing dice. Then I realized that forcing players to hack their dice was contrary to the minimalist game design (also why AoS doesn't have Scatter, Artillery or Sustained Fire dice). It'll be ordinary 6-sided dice to keep things simple. I also need to readdress the implicit use of the GW flamer template for spray, as this should be a straight dice & ruler game (that happens to support templates as a simplifying tool).
3b. The +d6" charge distance is a GW holdover, to reduce the charge stalls that I saw in WFB. However, as there's no particular penalty for leaving combat (for now!), and the emphasis on "run & gun", it may not be an issue. I'll have to reconsider.
4. Yeah, that's the intent (within 1" can fight), thank you.
5. Command / morale is another GW holdover that maybe I don't need. I like the idea that units can be broken, or pinned, but I also note that players really *HATE* it when their models are out of control. I think I need another mechanic that is clearer. If I keep it, it will be a "roll high = good". Also, the stats are crossed up, because that was carryover from a previous concept of continuing Command-based activations a la Warmaster, but that got scrapped because making this a Command game was again counter to the "run & gun" idea.
6. The weapon stats are a little messed up in places, and the direct fire Rocket Pods are the worst of it. What you're seeing there is a mix between the HG stat conversion and WYSIWYG tweaks. The Jaeger/Hunter LRP is looks like it should be a single-use fire & forget weapon, whereas the Spitting Cobra has an indirect fire vertical launch system on its back. The LRP should hit more/harder than the LAC. Balancing stats is the worst.
7. I'll clarify PLOS as unable to see the entire target model.
8. Yeah, "roll high = good" should be an overriding concept.
9. Yep, /each/ hit is correct, thanks. Conceptually, I have the d6s working as wonky d3s doing 0-1-2 points of damage against hull. I'll align "damage" and "defense" for Hard Cover to remove confusion.
Really, it's all very helpful. You did an awesome job of fishing out all of the wishy-washy bits in the rule set where I had been going back and forth on various versions of things. Having this as black-and-white feedback helps a lot in terms of focusing the next set of edits and revisions.
Also, translating HG units into an Army is a little ugly - GW does this way better, hence the FOC-like setup versus HGUA! ____
Barzam wrote: I get that you want the focus on the Gears, but maybe have a statline for infantry and ground vehicles like tanks?
I would also suggest including somewhere what an average cost game would be.
I can do that infantry and tanks in the next iteration - the number ranges were selected to do that within a min 1 to max 6 stat rating scheme.
That's an AoS holdover, where GW deliberately removed points, and I'm keeping them. In general, I like the new HG TV points ratings, whereby core units are <10 points and uber elites are <20 points. I'll expand page 4 to include discussion of points and game sizes. ____
Next Steps 1. fix obvious mistakes as ID'd above 2. revisit coherency concept 3. de-emphasize Command, as it detracts from the core playing 4. add army creation details beyond "make a platoon". 5. add basic infantry, strider and tank to complement gears. 6. reassess ranges and firepower based on 1/144 scale
Thanks for the answers. As for the army building, I have the same question that I had for DP9's Dave during the pre-alpha proof of concept testing... what purpose does having those different squads (strike, recon, fire support, etc) serve over having either a true open system (take anything within the points and a model/action limit per squad) or a semi-open system (one or two squad types like "standard" and "elite" only)? The answer I got for HG was legacy support in a nutshell but you get that with the open and semi open system as well. I suggested only ever having max 2 squads of any vehicle type (instead of the dozen gear UAs the current HG rules have). For your rules, that would meant that you have standard gear squads or elite and label the gears (or variants so a Jager might be std but the flamm jaeger is elite for instance) for each. The only other complication I see off the top of my head for your rules is that you'd have to move "recon" into the individual gear description as a special rule to keep the rule valid.
In going through the current HG army building rules, it was confusing and unclear why things were they way they were. My sense is that the Unit Allowance stuff in the HGB rules carry over from the RPG, where if you're RPing a hand-picked A-Team specialist squad of 3-5 Gear pilots on a 1:1 player:model basis. It still feels very unstructured to me.
After much thought and teeth gnashing, it didn't seem that this would hold as you scaled up to multi-squad formations, much less something like a military platoon, as military units tend to have a lot structure, a chain of command, and so forth.
As a result, I started moving things over to a GW-like approach, with a rudimentary FOC and squad composition. Love or hate GW, they do make it easy to figure out what models you should buy to make a unit.
Going forward, I was focused on the 4 Tactical-era types: core GP vs. Strike / FS / Recon elites. Those, I actually understood.
You are correct that Recon is an implied keyword, and it probably should be called out as such on a model basic for clarity, although it bothers me that I don't have a lot of other model specific keywords (because I deliberately buried them as implicit to the stats and rules).
The notion of collapsing the units down to just standard & elite is an interesting one, especially if similar units get folded together. Certainly, it fits well with the notion of "play stuff!"
Or, I suppose you could eliminate the classifications and just class them on their weight type: Light, Medium, and Heavy and work in elite status as a special rule or something?
I actually kinda like points as a stand-in for production + logistics + training cost.
Battletech weight classes is not something I'd really considered.
Per your query about typical battle scales go, I'm thinking - Duel of 1 or 2 models, X points - Clash of 3-5 models, 2X points - Skirmish of 2-3 units, 3X points
Why Initiative-based Igo-Ugo? Turns?
BTW, with alternation being all the rage for small scale games, it's an obvious question why I went with uneven initiative Igo-Ugo turns. I understand command-based activations and alternation, but just hadn't made a version I liked for this game.
I kinda like strict Igo-Ugo, because it simplifies the "taking turns" concept. I do my stuff in my turn, you do your stuff in your turn. As a time-motion proxy, it's not bad. There is a very high level of clarity here and it scales very cleanly across multiple players, and everybody mattters.
The problem is that strict alternations (AB-AB-AB-AB) gives a clear initiative advantage to the first player, always a half step ahead, which is not something I wanted in a nominally "even chances" game.
OTOH, AoS has initiative, where keeping / stealing the initiative makes for an additional risk-reward strategic element whereby the reactive player for the round has the potential advantage of a doubled turn for a powerful play, against the risk of continuing on as the reactive player. Rather than go with a fixed ABBA schedule, nor a 50-50 coin flip, I used a weighted 21-15 split in favor of a steal each turn. This promotes AB-BA-AB as the most likely pattern, but doesn't guarantee it.
I had considered deeper skews, like stealing on 3+ or keeping on a 6, but I felt those outcomes were a bit too predictable, not dynamic enough.
I feel that you are starting at the wrong place. I would step back and ask:
What is this game about?
How should this game play (and reinforce what the game is about)?
These are fairly open-ended questions but really should be answered thoroughly in the beginning.
So far the game is a stripped-down infantry take and control game, what I would call a "40k heart-breaker" (I'm guessing that Heavy Gear itself probably falls into this category), which is fine for what it is, but doesn't really reflect piloting big mecha around.
A good example is to look at Battletech, as cumbersome as it is, really reinforces piloting these big lumbering mechs. For instance it has rules for: chipping away at armor, damaging internal systems, blowing off limbs, falling down damage, the heat system, etc. Again, very cumbersome and definitely could use stream-lining, but play made it feel like you were piloting and managing these big mechs around.
Heavy Gear isn't Battletech and doesn't have the same flavor obviously. My understanding is that it's more anime based, and so the Gears aren't so-much big lumbering behemoths. They are cool in different ways (What ways are they cool to you?). The game should capture the essence of what makes a Gear interesting beyond being a walking tank and have rules that reinforce that.
Actually, I'm pretty sure I have a fair idea of what I want the game to do, and how I want it to play. As above, I want a hyper-streamlined game with emphasis is on moving and shooting for tactical combat. Draped around that are rudimentary close combat and morale rules, with non-mech units coming soon.
The game is indeed a "stripped-down infantry take and control game", because that's the main sort of game I want. I want a stripped down game, because I am sick to death of overcomplicated games with giant rulebooks overladen with rules on rules. KOGs (Gears) are giant armored suits, so KL is an infantry game. I want the primary mission to be a strategic "take and hold", with Kill Points being secondary. That is the exact design brief I am targeting, so you hit the nail on the head in your assessment.
I don't like Battletech, at all. But if you look, it's there. Chipping at armor is damage against Hull. Crippled represents internal damage. Falling and Heat are unnecessarily cumbersome, and I don't want the game to be that way. Remember that I am on a page limit, and every rule that I add basically trades off against another rule. So if I add heat, then I need to have a stat for it and rules to manage it. That's not interesting or fun. It's bookkeeping, which is the opposite of fun. You'll note that other armored machine games don't necessarily do those things either. GW does just fine with the Thorpian "Gets Hot!" rule, and I note that players *HATE* that rule. And I don't want rivers and lakes to be the dominating terrain features, so that players can focus on parking their multi-PPC mechs in them...
Heavy Gear is ripped off from the A.T. VOTOMs mecha anime. AT VOTOMs stands for Armored Trooper Vertical One-man Tank for Offense and Maneuver - or "walking tank". Heavy Gear took made it into a ludicrously overcomplicated RPG like RIFTS and the other crap at the time. KOG goes back to the roots of a military game of walking tanks. And quite frankly, I think a walking tank is plenty interesting enough just being a walking tank. I also think that the core rules of defense (armor) and hull and various guns and such reinforce that theme nicely.
What's cool to me is that I can put down these 3 pages of rules, with a single stats page per player and be playing very quickly and easily, without fighting a giant rulebook and doing calculations all the time. I can get a newbie up and playing pretty comfortably very quickly. The 2-page spread tells what to do right there. No memorization, no cross-references, not table lookups. Put the unit stats on a separate page, and they have their faction reference right there!
carboncopy wrote: So far the game is a stripped-down infantry take and control game, what I would call a "40k heart-breaker" (I'm guessing that Heavy Gear itself probably falls into this category), which is fine for what it is, but doesn't really reflect piloting big mecha around.
Pretty clearly no, I'd say. A Battletech heartbreaker would be another question, though, but 40k? Pretty sure not.
The funny thing it that back in the day HG got big enough that Btech introduced Protomechs into their mix.
Anyhow, getting back to page counts, I'm thinking final page layout like this:
"Rulebook" 1. Setup 2. Game & Player Turns 3. Combat Resolution 4. Force Selection As a double-sided document, it flips open to the turns & combat resolution.
"Codex" f. Army Construction b. Unit Reference As a double-sided document, use the front to build the army, the back to play it.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Actually, I'm pretty sure I have a fair idea of what I want the game to do, and how I want it to play. As above, I want a hyper-streamlined game with emphasis is on moving and shooting for tactical combat. Draped around that are rudimentary close combat and morale rules, with non-mech units coming soon.
The game is indeed a "stripped-down infantry take and control game", because that's the main sort of game I want. I want a stripped down game, because I am sick to death of overcomplicated games with giant rulebooks overladen with rules on rules. KOGs (Gears) are giant armored suits, so KL is an infantry game. I want the primary mission to be a strategic "take and hold", with Kill Points being secondary. So that is the exact design brief I am targeting.
I don't like Battletech, at all. But if you look, it's there. Chipping at armor is damage against Hull. Crippled represents internal damage. Falling and Heat are unnecessarily cumbersome, and I don't want the game to be that way. Remember that I am on a page limit, and every rule that I add basically trades off against another rule. So if I add heat, then I need to have a stat for it and rules to manage it. That's not interesting or fun. It's bookkeeping, which is the opposite of fun. You'll note that other armored machine games don't necessarily do those things either. GW does just fine with the Thorpian "Gets Hot!" rule, and I note that players *HATE* that rule. And I don't want rivers and lakes to be the dominating terrain features, so that players can focus on parking their multi-PPC mechs in them...
Heavy Gear is ripped off from the A.T. VOTOMs mecha anime. AT VOTOMs stands for Armored Trooper Vertical One-man Tank for Offense and Maneuver - or "walking tank". Heavy Gear took made it into a ludicrously overcomplicated RPG like RIFTS and the other crap at the time. KOG goes back to the roots of a military game of walking tanks. And quite frankly, I think a walking tank is plenty interesting enough just being a walking tank. I also think that the core rules of defense (armor) and hull and various guns and such reinforce that theme nicely.
What's cool to me is that I can put down these 3 pages of rules, with a single stats page per player and be playing very quickly and easily, without fighting a giant rulebook and doing calculations all the time. I can get a newbie up and playing pretty comfortably very quickly. The 2-page spread tells what to do right there. No memorization, no cross-references, not table lookups. Put the unit stats on a separate page, and they have their faction reference right there!
Nope. I'm not suggesting it should be like Battletech or have heat rules, etc. Those rules work for Battletech, but I imagine not the same for Heavy Gear. I've used Battletech as an example because those rules really reinforce its theme. Battletech is about managing, repairing, and scavenging for your mechs so its rules are appropriate for its feel. It might feel cumbersome to some, but it's also the main draw for those that like it.
For the current KOG rules, about any theme could be pasted onto it with very little modification. It could very easily be Infantry, tanks, fantasy, etc. Yes "walking tank" would be cool, but I'm not seeing anything specific that makes it feel like "walking tanks" either. What you have, a quick strip-down wargame, has a draw in itself and has its place, but it's being billed as a replacement for Heavy Gear. And so If I was a Heavy Gear player what's the draw for me?
I'm not quite sure what your objection is. KL is *my* replacement for HG. I have no illusions that the Pod will adopt it, and I have no intention of trying to capture all of the stuff that the Pod has created. I just want something that I can use to play a simple series of battles with my HG minis.
You are 100% correct that nearly any theme could be pasted onto the KL engine with very little modification. That's intentional. Assuming I get this squared away, there's a Car Wars game that I've been itching to write. And maybe even a gang skirmish game as well.
If you don't see the artillery - hull - crippled / destroyed as "walking tank", I'm not sure what I can do for you, because the rules are about as complex and detailed as they're going to get. If this were a gang skirmish game, none of that would apply.
If I were a HG player, the draw is having a ruleset that you can use to get other people to play against, versus having them walk away shaking their heads in confusion. I game with some smart guys, and we love the models, but have issues with the rules. I've tried this when Blitz first came out (ugh), and I tried it again when the KS Beta came out. They're still working on their rules, but they're still an order of magnitude more complex than what I'd call newbie friendly. Make it easy to play, and it's easier to get players, simple as that.
It seems to me that you might be looking for something far more detailed than what I am trying to create. And that's fine, because there are plenty of detailed rulesets out there. I just want to do something small and elegant as counterpoint. ____
It occurs to me that I failed to communicate this as a deliberately lightweight, streamlined game, and I apologize for such confusion.
Well, I suppose you could always have it play more like VOTOMS were even the slightest scratch blows up your mech and the key to survival is who has the thickest plot armor
IIRC they have in the fluff only about 20mm of armor which is the same thickness as outdated light tanks at the START of WW2. While I suspect the composition of the armor is more advanced than simple rolled steel, it still isn't much and should easily be penetrated by modern weapons let alone space capable tech.
Ah Gasaraki. So much potential squandered by focusing on extreme right wing politics, xenophobia, and conspiracy theories. I don't think a show has pissed me off quite as much as that one did.
Getting back to KOG light... with Halloween this weekend, I am thinking to publish Alpha 2 Sunday or Monday, depending on how things go.
I've got revisions in for most of Warboss & Barzam's comments, and it's definitely a better document.
Adding new units and balancing weapon stats are still a little bit up in the air, and the likely cause of any publishing delay. Or I could just share where it sits to focus on the rules portion.
It turns out that the cleaning up the rules was a lot harder and took a lot longer than I expected. Even when I thought I knew what I was doing. While I had (very) rough language in place for the army building and other pieces weeks ago, getting them into a form that I liked took quite a few more revisions. It's a crazy amount of effort to make a mere 4 pages of rules, when each page and/or column needs to be well-focused.
Anyhow, enough whining and excuses... Alpha 2 is uploaded!
In general, Alpha 2 tries to fix the conceptual gaps and unify gameplay concepts so that the game plays clearly and consistently. It has an all new section on creating forces, and a bit on Battle Scenarios, plus it has hooks for Infantry. From a gameplay perspective, I ended up not addressing Tanks, because they're functionally identical to KOGs (I couldn't think of a strong differentiator in how the rules would distinguish them).
Getting into the changes, the actual rules are pretty much fixed to a 4 page layout:
1 - general stuff & creating a battle
2 - game & player turns
3 - combat resolution
4 - battle sizes & army lists
Ergonomically designed to print as 11x17, with pages 2 & 3 to lay open as in-game reference sheet; folded page 4 lays flat while creating an army, and page 1 lays flat when setting up.
For the army lists, I'm thinking to lay this out on Legal paper, 8-1/2x14, with the model reference on top, and army list creation on the reverse. Not quite sure if I'll have space to add Striders. The army lists are also intended to lay flat as in-game reference as well.
Of course, there's still the issue of what models / units to include, and how to balance them. There's also a question of whether Striders and Tanks are appropriate alongside the KOGs & Infantry. Beta 2 is likely to take a while, and I'll probably split the Army Lists off from the Rules when KL moves to formal playtest. With the holidays, this could take a while...
First Impressions of your revised ruleset (probably not something I would play, or not all that much, but intended to hopefully be helpful rather than critical):
If everything is assumed to be based, [base] might be a better term to use throughout the rules instead of using [base] and [model] interchangeably, although either could be chosen so long as it is the term solely adhered to.
Your page count is low enough that adding a [glossary of terminology] either at the beginning or end of the rules for reference might be of use, as well as helping you make clear distinctions as to what does what.
Dice - how many are typically needed to be rolled by a single model each turn; it seems like just (1) one, but I could just as easily be missing where the rules say differently.
As came up in every game of HG I've ever played, especially since they were VASSAL games, it might be wise to make a clear differentiation between what is considered [area terrain] or [instance terrain], and when a base is considered to be within or ''utilizing'' one or the other.
[Hard Cover] also seems exceptionally good, and could easily lead to camping rather than mobile gameplay; this might also tread a bit too close to the HGB! ''nerf bat attack'' style of damage resolution.
[More than 12"] could easily be changed to [no closer than 12"] from (x) territory; the latter wording may make the intent of such a rule a bit more clear.
Is designating a base as a [Commander] secretly written down or openly shared between players; also, wouldn't a [Commander] base already have been designated during force construction.
For clarity, maybe two [player turns] would comprise a single [game round], rather than turn (x) followed by turn (y) to complete turn (z) before starting turn (q) and so forth.
Fighting before shooting; intentional to promote melee or something to be changed later.
Friendly bases should probably always be able to coordinate freely moving through other friendly bases; the half rate might be best left for moving through unfriendly bases if that is allowed.
[Assault Moves] give freebies, which players will almost exclusively use because it's something free; but there doesn't seem to be any [assault] weapons to use with or otherwise restrict choosing this action.
[Fighting Assault] seems to be pretty much the same thing as [Ranged Shooting]; is the intention here to allow firing the same weapon twice in a single player turn, because as with the above there doesn't seem to be any specifically [assault] systems.
[Take and Hold] seems kind of like a penalty with the action restriction.
[Shaken] seems a bit counter-intuitive for an armored war machine ruleset; the whole point of armoring something is being able to maneuver under fire, and again, [Close Assault] seems no different at all from [Ranged Shooting].
Victory conditions, requiring marking an objective during [Order of Battle], unless more clearly defined is probably almost always going to involve each side having to somehow make it to the complete opposite edge of the table, because (players).
[Combat Resolution] should probably keep using the terms of [Assault] and [Shooting]; and again, [Close Assault] seems no different at all from [Ranged Shooting].
Maybe instead of having LoS be a type of LoS, use terms something like [Clear (LoS)] and [Obscured (LoS)] as being more descriptive of your intent and allowing you to cut down a bit on word use.
Obscured (partial LoS) is probably going to need a more clarified tie-in back to terrain types; and [Scout] as a term able to also be a type of model might be more clear than (recon).
[Forward Observer] might need a clarification on how close the model using an [Indirect] capability system must be to the [Scout] providing the appropriate [LoS].
As mentioned earlier [Hard Cover], and to some extent [Soft Cover], seem to emulate the HGB! ''nothing happens when I hit your model'' reality and appear to break your intent of equaling or exceeding a weapons target number always doing something.
How would/should [Friendly Fire] interact with [Hard Cover]; and [Critical Hit] seems to be the same as [Catastrophic Damage], but should probably use one or the other term instead of both.
Likewise, the [Piercing] and [Burst] capabilities causing specific hit damage should probably be more clearly defined.
[Indirect] capability would also seem to be a bit nerfed right from the get go, given the mandatory reroll from [Hard Cover].
[Catastrophic Damage] seems a bit superfluous, being defined as just an additional hit rather than a modifier to the status of a model.
Weapons with the [Piercing] capability probably shouldn't be able to affect infantry, as being outside the role of such a (likely to be rare & expensive) system; this also might allow you to better differentiate what weapons have what traits, or what role a model has in game.
How does [Blast] interact with infantry models.
Games within the as written ruleset would seem to be short enough so that tracking ammo for *RPs is probably an unnecessary addition.
* * *
Final thoughts & suggestions after additional reflection:
To avoid requiring any rereolls, which seems to not be in line with your streamlining, or causing a ''nerf'' cycle it might be workable to cap [Cover] effects without a modifier.
I.E. [Soft Cover] increases model defense by (1) as hits seems to be versus threshold (greater than) rather than a target number, while [Hard Cover] caps damage at (1) for most weapons.
I still think hitting, yet not always causing damage, might not be a good thing in any ruleset.
Capabilities - Varying shots & attacks may end up being more book-keeping than is desired/intended.
Some weapons may have an ''or'' notation, with or without any base capabilities, meaning they can fire as one or the other that turn.
[Assault]; Just means the weapon may be used during the [Fighting Assault] phase of a turn if so desired, and might be more clear than using [Attacks] for this term.
[Piercing]; Should probably ignore the effects of a model having [Soft Cover].
Weapons - CANNONS - Kinetic penetrating munitions. (Causes damage by making holes in targets.)
Automatic (Cannons):
Light; Low to Moderate damage (vs. Gears), Medium range, Capabilities; Spray
Heavy; Moderate damage (vs. Gears & vehicles), Medium range, Capabilities; Spray
Field (Cannons) [Rifles & some tank guns]:
Light; Moderate damage, Long range, Capabilities; n/a
Medium; Moderate to High damage, Long range, Capabilities; n/a
Heavy; High damage, Long range, Capabilities; Blast or Piercing
Shot (Cannons) [Frag & Snub Cannons]:
Frag; Low to Moderate damage, Short to Medium range, Capabilities; Assault, Spray or Blast
Light Snub; Moderate damage, Short to Medium range, Capabilities; Assault Heavy Snub; High damage, Short to Medium range, Capabilities; Assault, Piercing
Electromagnetic ''EM'' (Cannons) [Rail guns]:
Light; Moderate damage, Medium range, Capabilities; Burst
Heavy; Moderate to High damage, Long range, Capabilities; Piercing
Automatic (Guns) [Pack Guns & Grenade Launchers]:
Light; Low damage, Medium range, Capabilities; Spray
Medium; Moderate damage, Short to Medium range, Capabilities; Spray or Blast
Heavy; High damage, Short to Medium range, Capabilities; Spray, Blast
Gun-Mortars [Bazookas & some tank guns]:
Light; Low damage, Short to Medium range, Capabilities; Assaultor Indirect, Spray or Blast
Medium; Moderate damage, Short to Medium range, Capabilities; Assaultor Indirect, Blast
Heavy; High damage, Short to Medium range, Capabilities; Assaultor Indirect, Blast
Mortars: Might be useful to allow them to ignore the effects of a model having [Hard Cover]. Light; Low to Moderate damage, Minimum to Long range, Capabilities; Indirect (only), Blast
Light; Moderate damage, Minimum to Long range, Capabilities; Indirect (only), Blast
ROCKET PROPELLED WEAPONS - Either Kinetic penetrating or Secondary effects munitions.
Rocket Pack; Low to High damage, Minimum to Short or Medium Range, Capabilities; Indirect, Spray
Anti-Gear Missile; Moderate damage, Minimum to Medium range, Capabilities; Indirect
Anti-Tank Missile; High damage, Minimum to Long range, Capabilities; Indirect, Piercing
SPECIALTY WEAPONS - various effects.
Gear Grenades [Demolition Charge]: Moderate damage, Very Short range, Capabilities; Assault, Blast
MELEE WEAPONS - various effects.
Should all probably get something like the [Assault] capability.
Force Construction - No generic factions, (most) ''sub''factions are actual full factions, allowing models to be spread out and accessed as desired.
Possible simplified, non-canon, application of variant names across all factions - Models either have their base name, or get upgraded to a single (1) variant, but never more than one type, period... although [Command] would probably be an exception.
OK, those are a lot of comments, thank you. I can tell you that the intent is for the 4 page ruleset to be short enough that no glossary would be required. Keywords are bolded so players should be able to simply read them as they play.
This is supposed to be a miniatures game of 3-D models, rather than flat bases. Also, bases won't work for LOS.
As above, I'm not intending a glossary, as it would basically duplicate the rules in toto. It's only 4 pages, and only 2 of them are needed while playing the game. I really think it'd be superfluous..
While the game can be played with 1 die, a player should probably have 3 to 5 dice on hand - some weapons might roll 2 or 3 dice, which could expand to 4 or 5 with lucky Crits. In most cases, I wouldn't expect players to need more than 5 dice, and typical rolls will only be 1 or 2, maybe 3 dice at a time. This isn't a buckets of dice game.
Terrain is always an issue, but I think players can assess Area Terrain on their own? However, I suspect that I should define Area Terrain on p.1, and the in-game Terrain Effects on p.2.
Hard Cover is supposed to be good, and that's what players would expect. However, nobody wins an objective game by camping, and this is a strategic objectives game. Indirect Fire is the intended tactical counter.
More than 12" is a deliberate wording, because I think it's clearer. If someone has a Range X weapon or effect, and the starting position is more than X, there is no question that it starts out of range. Not closer than X is similar, but it has the negation language, which is confusing for some people.
Commander represents the player from a thematic standpoint, and will become relevant if/when I get around to creating scenarios that get away from basic CTF game. Target scenario development for Gamma, after the rules and units are "complete and balanced" for Beta.
Game Turns as "Game Rounds" might be clearer, to remove potential "Turn" confusion.
Fighting before Shooting is mostly natural flow from the Assault Move.
There aren't that many models in a typical game, so they should usually be able to go around without any penalty. If there is a bottleneck, then that's what the moving through penalty represents. Recall that these are walking tanks, so they can't easily flatten against a wall to let somebody else squeeze by. It's actually deliberate.
Assault Moves move X+d6" but will preclude any shooting. In terms of covering ground, Speed Moves X+X, which will generally be consistently farther. From a risk/reward standpoint, I think it's net balanced, as sometimes the player will roll a 1 or 2, and they'll be stuck.
Fighting Assault and Ranged Shooting are supposed to be nearly identical from a mechanics standpoint, because they are still fighting. Assault systems use "Attacks" weapons, not "Shots" weapons, per Combat Resolution.
Take and Hold is how you win the game, switching from a tactical focus to a strategic focus. A minor defensive boon might be appropriate.
Shaken can represent simple confusion of trying to raise a dead person over the radio. "Can you hear me now?" Or reorganizing the squad for the next action. Morale is a useful concept, and these walking tanks are far from invulnerable. Initial shots will only damage hull, and there is no risk for that, only if something becomes Crippled or Destroyed. They're fearless lord of battle until they see someone go down.
Close Assault is supposed to be similar to Ranged Shooting, but using Attacks close vs Shots far.
Victory Conditions will typically have the objective on the far side, which is normal. I probably need the "more than X inches from any table edge" clause. Other scenarios will be KOTH or Headhunting.
I try to use "Assault Attacks" vs "Shooting Shots" consistently.
Line of Sight / Sensor Lock are also HG-related. PLOS could use some cleanup WRT Terrain - I agree the whole thing is a little messy.
"Recon" is a HG term that I am using for carryover.
Forward Observer should be anywhere within radio range, which easily encompasses the battlefield.
Hard Cover and Soft Cover are deliberate, as the result isn't final until after the re-roll.
Friendly Fire and Hard Cover? Roll to hit. If success, re-roll for cover. Final result is a 1? Friendly Fire. Roll to damage vs friend. If success, re-roll for hard cover.
Critical Hit goes wide, for more hits; Catastrophic Damage goes deep, for extra hull. It is possible to Crit for 2 hits, Catastrophic for extra hull so a single (very lucky!) shot can take out a 4-hull unit (216:1 odds against, <0.5%). That's also intentional, as it allows me to differentiate AP vs AT effects, for example.
I'll consider rewording Piercing and Burst for better clarity.
Indirect is deliberately nerfed without a Recon unit acting as FO, otherwise, IF dominates the game.
Catastrophic does extra hull, not an extra hit. With a basic Hunter only having 3 hull, taking 2 damage means it's Crippled vs tanking the hit. Getting an extra hit would still have to get past armor. The extra hits and damage are a big deal when the number scale is small.
Infantry are immune to Piercing. Piercing causes Catastrophic Damage, and Infantry ignore Catastrophic Damage, so they just take the one damage to health. Players should not be wasting *ATMs on Infantry.
Blast does 2 hits to Infantry, so they become Crippled or Eliminated quickly.
Rocket Pods are 1-shot, which is what makes them different from cannon. Besides it's either ready or used, so it's not like we're tracking ammo in Tactical.
Thanks again, I appreciate the time you put into your comments, and will be looking at a few changes for the next version.
I haven't admittedly checked out your newest version, John, but I think you may be relying too much on the "4 pages" count as the sole indicator of elegance in the ruleset. FWIW, elegance for me in rules is the scope you accomplish and how you accomplish it in the pages given. While I'm not up to date with the latest scifi rules offerings since I don't go to cons anymore, I consider x-wing's rules to be the most elegant I've ever come across and that IIRC is around 16 pages which by your measure would be absolutely bloated. Ironically, I do think X-wing has become bloated more recently due to the pokemon CCG "gotta catch'em all" aspect of the upgrade cards but the core rules retain that original elegance. As usual, season with salt as needed. YMMV. IMHO. etc. I just wanted to make sure you know that you're not in a race to the bottom (of page counts) with Age of Sigmar!
I wouldn't say that page count is the sole indicator of anything besides brevity. For me, the page limitations are really a question of keeping the game scope tight, and making conscious decisions of what I should keep and where I should focus my effort.
WRT X-Wing, it's OK, but it's just not my cup of tea. I do not like the dice and spacer mechanics. The minis are awesome, but not enough to draw me in on their own. As always, to each, his own.
Really, I'm just wanting KL to be a really tight little game. While I could expand the page count, I think the extra space would be best filled with diagrams and such. So far, it's been a happy coincidence. And besides, I can still adjust margins / font size if content is a real issue. Or simply cut the fat.
Perhaps sole is too strong of a word in hindsight and rather "primary" might be better. In any case, I'd warn against focusing too much on the page count. I've personally never found myself saying "Man, I really wish this ruleset had 4 less pages!" but I have found myself saying "Man, I really wish this ruleset had a glossary/table of contents/index!". The only time page count should be a primary concern is for traditionally printed media where you're about to cross over into another "signature".
That's why you always see books with page counts in multiples of 4. Your cover will probably be it's own 4 "page" signature as they say and you might sneak in the table of contents and index on the front and back inside covers. If you're finding yourself pressed too much to fit it in 4, you've basically got to fill another 4 pages if you go over. Hope that helps.
JohnHwangDD wrote: OK, getting back to your comments...
[..]Thanks again, I appreciate the time you put into your comments, and will be looking at a few changes for the next version.
No worries - I added some material to my post.
JohnHwangDD wrote: While the game can be played with 1 die, a player should probably have 3 to 5 dice on hand - some weapons might roll 2 or 3 dice, which could expand to 4 or 5 with lucky Crits. In most cases, I wouldn't expect players to need more than 5 dice, and typical rolls will only be 1 or 2, maybe 3 dice at a time. This isn't a buckets of dice game.
Mostly I questioned this because I'm not getting a multiple dice impression at all from the rules as worded.
I can see now where doing so with multiple dice might help to speed things up, but only because it's similar to how some other games end up having an effect that can be rolled together at the same time; BattleTech in particular.
warboss wrote: Perhaps sole is too strong of a word in hindsight and rather "primary" might be better.
I've personally never found myself saying "Man, I really wish this ruleset had 4 less pages!" but I have found myself saying "Man, I really wish this ruleset had a glossary/table of contents/index!". The only time page count should be a primary concern is for traditionally printed media where you're about to cross over into another "signature".
That's why you always see books with page counts in multiples of 4. Your cover will probably be it's own 4 "page" signature as they say and you might sneak in the table of contents and index on the front and back inside covers. If you're finding yourself pressed too much to fit it in 4, you've basically got to fill another 4 pages if you go over. Hope that helps.
You are 100% correct that the core rules are designed for traditional print, to be duplex printed on a single sheet of 11" x 17" paper, which is approximated by 2 double-sided sheets of 8-1/2" x 11" sheets of paper, vertically bound.
At some future date, yes, this could be bound with another sheet providing exterior cover art and 2 interior pages, but I am not yet at that stage (as I have bigger fish to fry, specifically Army Lists). Right now, I don't feel like I need (4) more pages of rules. Now that could (should) change (at a later date), and you are correct that I'd probably be looking at a cover, 2 interior pages and a reference of some sort on the back. Let me see where I sit on the Army Lists - if those end up at 4 pages, it's possible that the final product comes out as 16 pages grand total.
BTW, those rule sets that you were hoping would have a Table of Contents, Index and Glossary, how many of them had the brevity of what I'm assembling? I would imagine that a ruleset printed and bound as a sum total of 4, 8 or 16 pages probably doesn't need one. OTOH, something like the WFB / 40k rulebooks & Army Books / Codices? Yes, please!
JohnHwangDD wrote: While the game can be played with 1 die, a player should probably have 3 to 5 dice on hand - some weapons might roll 2 or 3 dice, which could expand to 4 or 5 with lucky Crits. In most cases, I wouldn't expect players to need more than 5 dice, and typical rolls will only be 1 or 2, maybe 3 dice at a time. This isn't a buckets of dice game.
Mostly I questioned this because I'm not getting a multiple dice impression at all from the rules as worded.
I can see now where doing so with multiple dice might help to speed things up, but only because it's similar to how some other games end up having an effect that can be rolled together at the same time; BattleTech in particular.
Oh, if you're asking whether there were any 2d6, 3d6 tests, no, I decided against that. Same with refusing to use +/- modifiers - the die result you see is what it is.
Every test is a straight 1d6 test vs a fixed target ranging from 2-5, with re-rolls and Thorpian 1s & 6s. It's about the simplest thing, and the combat mechanics are inspired by Zombicide.
It's also why I dropped the opposed test mechanics. I prefer shorter, quicker turns vs fewer turns that take longer due to "interactivity". Again, minimizing mental workload as each player does their thing.
I wrote: "I'll consider rewording Piercing and Burst for better clarity."
For simplicity's sake, I'm now thinking that the effect is automatic, so Piercing always does 2 Damage instead of 1:
- 0 0 1 1 1 2 non-Piercing damage (3+) vs.
- 0 0 1 2 2 2 old Piercing damage (3+) to
- 0 0 2 2 2 2 new Piercing damage (3+).
The change is very small, numerically, and distinguishes Piercing from non-Piercing against 6+ Defense:
- 0 0 0 0 0 1 non-Piercing damage (6+) vs.
- 0 0 0 0 0 1 old Piercing damage (6+) to
- 0 0 0 0 0 2 new Piercing damage (6+).
Burst would have similar tables.
An all-or-nothing result is less wordy and a lot simpler, no?
As I was noodling away on Alpha 3, I came back and saw Smilodon's updated comments. OMG.
Philosophically, I can say that I made a conscious decision to go with re-rolls over modifiers (as he recommends). There are clear advantages to both, but for me, I always like it when you get exactly what it says, never any less. I also find that modifiers have a tendency to stack, and that gets out of hand in many games - at some point, there are too many modifiers to comfortably keep track of.
So, for how tight I want KL to be, it'll be a maximum of 1 positive re-roll, which might cancel against 1 negative re-roll, at any given step.
Coupled with that, I am intending to integrate Thorpian mechanics more broadly and obviously in Alpha 3.
Finally, Alpha 3 is undergoing a bit of a somewhat messy rules reshuffle, as I want to have all of the active player "what I can do?" options on page 2, and all of the "how do I do it?" details on page 3. I think that makes a lot more logical sense to keep the player straight.
Anyhow, I'm sorry that Alpha 1 and Alpha 2 were such a mess. I really apologize.
It's almost like good rules-writing is HARD WORK! ____
12/20 - I finished reshuffling things and feel a lot better: - p.1 is focused on setup, only; - p.2 has the turn and all of the actions, with movement modifiers and morale effects - p.3 is combat resolution & infantry.
I reconcepted Charge!, Hold Position & Crit Hits as giving re-roll fail to offset re-roll success from cover / hard cover. Simplified Piercing as an extra point of damage.
Working on Sniper / Pinning as the tactical option to suppress, so: 1. Direct Fire - basic attacks 2. Indirect Fire / FO - counters direct fire 3. Assault - negates *any* shooting 4. Sniper / Pinning - negates - any action And all this in the context of the basic game being CTF.
So, even though the basic balance will be Black vs White, the sides will bias differently due to variants giving different tactical options.
Also, going to reskin the factions as West vs East , peeling back to the German Eastern Front vs Soviet Russia underlying HG's South vs North. ____
12/31 - I did not get Alpha 3 into printable shape, what with family and friends for the holidays. Good thing I'm not getting paid to do this on any formal deadline.
What with the holidays and such, I was extremely tardy in getting Alpha 3 released by the end of the year. I had kinda hoped to release before the 20th, but holidays just crushed me, and the rules simply were not ready with how much reshuffling I was doing.
But as of this evening, I think Alpha 3 is good enough to share, so here it is!
At a very high level, Alpha 3 reorganizes content for clarity's sake, grouping related concepts together.
Page 1 really does focus on setting up the tabletop. Once the game is set, there should be no need to refer back to it. There is no more duplicate reference on terrain types / effects.
Page 2 now focuses entirely on what a player can do in the actual playing of the game, round by round, turn by turn. Movement is cleaned up to better distinguish movement modes vs modifiers.
Page 3 is about combat resolution, so it has the gritty details for how to resolve the various actions, along with the special modifier rules.
Page 4 is largely unchanged, and still has the details for planning a battle of a particular size. Again, during play, there should be no need to refer back to this page, either.
Folded into this major reshuffle, I also reworked Crits and Specials to have better balance in effects, and explict tradeoffs. Overall, I feel a lot better about the rules portion (pages 1 to 4), with emphasis on having in-game reference on pages 2 & 3. Specials deserve come comments, being things that automatically happen - as this is me pushing simplification of the earlier rules. Mentally, I want the player to have a really minimal number of things to worry about at any point in time, playing step-by-step.
I did not get around to reworking the unit stats or balance at all. That'll be addressed in Beta 1, when I pull the army lists into a separate document.
Nevertheless, I'm feeling pretty good about this rework.
In re-reading Alpha 3, there were a handful of minor items in the rules (pp 1-4) that I felt needed cleanup, so I took care of that and published as Alpha 4:
I feel that the rules are in good shape, and accurately reflect how I want the game itself to play. I think the game has the proper "flow", a properly-matched set of +/- re-roll modifiers, and a complete set of specials.
At this point, I am "done" with the rules portion and will move on to the unit stats and balance for Beta 1, when I pull the army lists into a separate document. Target is end of month.
I've been doing a little playtesting with my unreleased Beta rules, and a few things jumped out at me:
1. I probably need to rebalance in favor of increased lethality. While the cat-and-mouse play in hard cover is nice, having things die faster would probably be more "dynamic". I had initially thought that lower combat effectiveness would help increase tactical play and offset first turn advantage. Now, I'm thinking that the starting distance and broken LOS does that automatically.
2. The game wants cover for tactical play. Tighter and denser than 40k, more like Mordheim.
3. I may want to change up the Initiative to incorporate the Commander's Command stat, simply to have both Commander and Command be more meaningful concepts.
Otherwise, the basic gameplay does what I want it to, so I'm basically happy with that.
____
For reference, Beta 1 guns were 2 shots hitting on 5+, with a 3+ damage: 2x 1/3 * 2/3 = 4/9 hull points out of 3 = 4/27 kill (15%).
Bumping to 2 shots hitting 4+ with 2+ damage = 2x 1/2 * 5/6 = 5/6 hp / 3 = 5/18 kill (28%) - roughly 2x as effective. Also thinking to bump ranges slightly to account for the relatively stronger gun.
That's 2x 1/2 * 5/6 for 0.83 hull damage per round, approx 1 hull damage with critical damage.
Tactically, if it's 2 on 1, then they attackers should destroy a defender in the open.
OTOH, with cover, esp. hard cover, the hit rate (and damage) drops a huge amount, so kills become much more difficult. That seems fair to me.
____
As I've been working on Beta 2, I've been thinking I need to rework the 4-page armies pamphlet:
1. World and Setting Background
2. German Empire (~HG South) units
3. Russian Empire (~HG North) units
4. Force Organization
I'm no longer doing the HG Terra Nova thing - the setting is moving to more of an ongoing Great War, with a focus on the German Ostfront vs Russia, in which the breakthrough units are one-man mini-mechs instead of the trench-crossing tanks. Instead of HG stuff, KL will be moving to generic mech classes (basic, elite, recon, heavy, etc.) with specifics by Army. There will be keywording to support this. At some point, there will likely be a HG to KL "counts as" thing.
Good playtest skirmish game today, using the Beta 2 stats for all 10 models I own:
2 Black Mamba + 2 Jaeger
6 Jaegers (1 Blitz)
We focused on the tactical portion of the game, with heavy use of cover/terrain and force concentration on both sides. The double turns from initiative shifts produce interesting swings. Gameplay moved along nicely enough,
We ignored coherency, which isn't a huge deal, as one can assume radios. Also because force concentration tends to group models up anyways.
We also ignored Command / Morale, as the enveloping furball was too tactically enjoyable to play through. For how few models I'll be playing on each side, this may not be a major issue.
I may well rework to pull either / both of those rules from the rules in favor of point-blank (re-roll fail) / long-range shooting (re-roll success) and/or rules for stacking similar re-rolls for auto-success / auto-fail.
I just took a read through a couple times through the rules. There is something that makes it read strange to me, still not sure what it is entirely. I'll go through it again later tonight to see if I can identify it. When I play, I would like rules where I can essentially play along with a Quick Start and not have to jump around and there are parts that I have to refer to another section. On the plus side it is all within the same page layout-wise so I'm not flipping to another page.
Just some observations as I try to talk out loud to figure out what is reading strange to me:
Scenic Terrain – A variety of scenic terrain upon the battlefield that hinders movement (e.g. Rough Ground) and/or obstructs line of sight (e.g. Soft Cover / Hard Cover) will provide a richer tactical game.
We talk about different types of cover, soft and hard but we don't define what conditions puts someone in "hard cover" instead of "soft cover" and vice versa. We touch on it lightly in "Line of Sight" and "Check Damage". It appears the difference between hard and soft, is something partially obscured LoS it is soft cover. If something is behind "heavy, solid" it is hard cover but what defines "heavy, solid cover"?
each result that is at least equal to the target number causes 1 hit on the target model
Is the target number the #+ next to the weapons on your stat sheet?
Cover – If the target has any cover for Partial Line of Sight, then re-roll any successful shooting results
This is interesting. I don't think I've seen cover handled like that before, usually it involves adding a modifier of some sort. Rerolling successful results is interesting.
Hi, the last version I uploaded is Alpha 4, which is basically rules complete, but plays slow due to a lot of Nothing Happens combat. I'm currently working on internal Beta 3, where the play speed is getting to where I want it to be.
The layout is a little different, in that p.2 is mostly movement & turn sequence, as actions are partly dictated by movement, and p.3 is basically combat resolution. In theory, the core rules are its own Quickstart.
Hard vs Soft cover is something that players would designate and define for themselves, rather than being dictated by the core rules. For example, in an urban environment, play concrete buildings as hard cover (re-roll hits & damage), with billboards and shrubbery as soft cover (re-roll hits). And that's probably what's missing - examples.
The weapons have their target number as part of the model's stat, per the Jaeger example: Autocannon (24" 2 shots 4+). Note that a more powerful Autocannon on a more accurate unit might be 36" 3 shots 3+. AoS meets Zombicide, as it were.
I decided against +/- modifiers early on. A Jaeger Autocannon always hits on a final result of 4+. It may re-roll but the final die result always determines success or failure. Numerically, within the typical 3+ to 5+ range, it's functionally similar to +/-.
Right now, I'm cleaning up the game, and will almost certainly be pulling Morale and Command, while revamping Commander. The game will be even tighter and smoother, to squeeze in more, faster turns.
Anyhow, thanks for the comments, and hope that my response helps clarify things.
Note that the rules are not quite ready for public playtesting. I'll try to have a public Beta version up later this week.
____
3/2 - I've taken a knife to the Command & Morale bits to simplify the Command concept and will be further streamlining the general and specific army selection rules.
In reworking the 2nd set of 4 pages, I'm thinking:
1 - Background
2 - German Army & Units
3 - Russian Army & Units
4 - Terrain Effects & alt Scenario
This is some really good stuff that I'll be going through. Even though I think I've got the game playing how I want it. As I'm working through Beta, I probably need to stop tweaking and put a stake in the ground. After that, worry about conversion and revamps. Gotta focus on getting to 1.0
Speaking of 1.0, it looks like Russia will be based on CEF minis, not Northern minis. The North is essentially similar to South, whereas the CEF is clearly different.
Russia (CEF) - Blitz / Assault units (Frames) - Hovertanks & HoverAPCs - Assault Infantry
The default KOG light game will be asymmetric Red vs Blue, which opens up for greater strategic and tactical variety. Those who want to sub in North / PRDF / other Gears can play as German for symmetric Black vs White games. ____
OK, intent is to get a number of Frames: 2x 6-16 basic frames 2x 2-21 basic frames 2x 2-25 recon frames 3x 2-19 heavy frame
I went through the Wargame Design Series of articles, and feel that 90% of KOG light is where it should be, based on my design goals. Of course, that's largely because I went through the trouble of clearly outlining what I wanted my game to do. Having that design brief was a huge help in getting my rules together, because it allows me to ask myself the key question: "does this rule help my game be what I said it's supposed to be?". Also because the initial commentary really helped solidify the conceptual basis of how the game should work.
In reworking KOG light, a question comes up: why are there 2 flavors of Cover? What's the difference between Hard & Soft? Shouldn't I just have "Cover" and let that be it? Yes!
Also, I'm allowing units to fire beyond "effective range", but at a penalty.
Thus, my core combat resolution summary looks like this:
Assault + charged
6 Crit Hit
Shooting + stationary
- extreme range
1 Friendly Fire 6 Crit Hit
Lately, I've been considering "fair" partial activations under an overriding Igo-Ugo structure. We know that ALL:ALL activation has an issue with scale, but 1:1 has the opposite problem of not enough happening. I've seen things with half:half, and that's not a bad compromise, but it creates the question of how to determine "half".
Partial activation has the issue with "exhaustion" over consecutive turns to prevent the ridiculousness of "Rambo" units. I rather dislike the notion of bookkeeping which units moved last turn, as my intent is to only track damage states from turn to turn, with nothing else having permanence after the last resolution step.
For skirmish play, I wonder if 3:3 might be a good compromise. Hmm..
Note that the reason for this is a Horror Vacui situation, where I've stripped out a bunch of stuff tied to un-fun Morale, so now I want to fill the space in the rules.
I've been pondering opposed actions and pseudo-opposed actions, which people say they like.
I'm now thinking that the default is an opposed action, where it's Shooting is vs Armor, and Fighting is either vs Armor or vs Fighting.
Having opposed Defense makes Armor a fixed benefit that doesn't scale up with weapon saturation fire. This makes a 2x 5+ attack meaningfully different from 1x 3+, as a strong success can partially bypass defense.
It also means that units under assault can make a decision to tank the hits or counterattack in response, for a better risk/reward. Not that this will change the bias from shooting to assault, or attack vs defense. It will spice things up a bit, tho.
There's a game called "Pulp Alley" out there that has an interesting take on an activation-based turn sequence. Essentially one player (and it's designed for 2-6 players) has the Initiative, and that means they can decide which player activates a model next.
A player can lose the Initiative by having one of their models lose a fight (their model takes damage while the opposing model does not, all fights are resolved 1:1 like 2nd edition Warhammer with bonuses for being the next in line), or lose a challenge (these happen when encountering objectives, or sometimes when event cards are played).
So each model can activate, but it's rarely in the order that a player wishes, and models that are addressed by acting models can react (sacrificing their own action) or hold off in the hold they'll survive until it's their own time to act.
Thanks for this thread. It has been absolutely fascinating to read it after all the work you've done and see what came out of all the play testing. Excellent work.
I've actually gotten quite a bit behind on publishing updates. There's a half-page of "fluff" I've written on the German v Russian antagonists and world background. It's pretty awful by fiction standards, but it's serviceable.
FYI, the fluff has this the conflicts in the 2030s. I am seriously considering picking up a couple 1/144 Leopard 2s and Russian T-90s, along with modern 1/144 infantry for scale.
Update: more precisely, this is the 100th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), where KOGs take the role of tanks. Same proxy Soviet vs German forces.
While the Alpha-based rules were OK, In the process of playing the game, I found that I didn't enjoy certain things that I had included and kept nearly as much as I thought I would. Morale being punishing and wordy and uncommon, so I removed it entirely. Distinguishing Soft Cover from Hard Cover was unnecessary work, so it's combined to simply Cover. And limiting range unrealistically was bothering me. I also found that I needed reactions to being attacked, so added a Counterattack as an option to defending - so now the target has something to think about, also dice to roll. And Defending works like Attacking, with similar granularity. Finally, I also added a coordinated fire ability for the Commander. On net, models can do more, but the game is more dependent upon adequate cover for optimal play.
I added a number of classic scenarios on top of the default Capture the Flag: King of the Hill, Kill 'em All, and Touchdown!
I tightened up the Building an Army section with more reasonable points values, and reconcepted the scale as individual model skirmish (up to 5 models) or small squad skirmish. If I won't own (or play) more than a dozen models per side, Platoon-level engagement is not something I need to worry about.
That makes for a complete 4-page rules packet that should allow players to organize a game of a particular size and scenario (p.4), set it up (p.1) and then just play it (pp. 2-3).
The 4-page Forces section was heavily reworked with a whole half-page of background (p.5). The Southern Gears forces were redone as German KOGs (p.6), while the Northern Gears were replaced by CEF Frames reskinned as Russian (p.7). The last page is unit/model description, and unit composition (p.8).
Overall, I think the new rules are more dynamic and more tactical. I'm pretty sure the stats are a mess, and it'll take a fair amount of mathhammer and playtesting to clean that up. Rather than waiting indefinitely on that (which has already been quite a few months), I decided to release my update for comment. The fluff should be adequate, and it's no longer WW1, but the Spanish Civil War.
Going forward, the obvious task is to further tighten things. At this point, hypertech like hovertanks, and wierd stuff like mutant dinosaurs aren't going to figure much in the game. Which nicely saves me some cash. I do want to add Infantry, and possibly conventional armor, so there will be placeholders for that. Helicopters and armed drones also want to figure into the game, but that's a real challenge to balance.
I did not go with partial activations, as I think it implies bookkeeping and such that I don't need under Igo-Ugo. I haven't formally ruled them out, either.
Why the change to quasi-WW2? Just as an FYI, the original version of Gear Krieg tested at Gencon used Rafm scale HG minis with the North as the Germans (because they were both more angular) and the South as Russians (due to the curvy design trends for both at least mid/late war).
I've always concepted KL as a European conflict, Germans v Russians.
I was originally thinking WW1, as that's when tanks got introduced. But "WW1 battles" connotes massed infantry and static battle lines of trench warfare and massed artillery. And the WW1 tanks were bizzare. And Ostfront doesn't really have the iconic British tanks. So it wasn't a good match.
WW2 proper was always out of the question. "WW2 armor battles" instantly has people thinking El Alamien or Barbarossa or D-Day, and those are all way too big for what I intend.
The Spanish Civil War occurs when tanks have had some refinement, and the Germans and Russians skrimishing in the background, so it's the nominal historical analogue. But KL isn't WW2 or in Spain. It's just a footnote to history.
The real basis of KL is the ongoing development and anticipated militarization of exo-skeletal assist systems to produce Giant Robots.
I didn't get into GK at all, as the designs just never appealed to me. A lot of 1946 stuff rubs me the wrong way - I have similar issues with DUST, for example.
The decisions to proxy GK as NvS are totally reasonable, just not the direction I'm going.
As I had noted earlier, KOG light is now its own near-future small skirmish game between the giant robots of Germany and Russia. While rules are virtually entirely divorced, KL is still going to have some obvious Heavy Gear influences, because those are the models that I'm using to play with.
My KL German King Tiger KOG is still going to be a translation of HG's Southern King Tiger, and my KL German Panther is still going to be modeled on HG's Southern Black Mamba. The starting stats are going to be fairly obviously derived, but I expect playtesting to push defense down, and offense up.
After that, it'll be a look at how jump jets should work as a boost to movement and/or mobility.
Down the road, it'll be a question of whether to bring in tanks like the Leopard 2 and/or helicopters like the Hind. I think that tanks are probably OK, as they have roughly comparable footprint, and are excellent scale markers like infantry.
Scale-wise, helos are rather challenging, as a 1/144 scale Apache is 4" long with a 4" rotor disc. The iconic Russian Hind is almost 5" long, with a 5" rotor disc - roughly the size of a RT-era landspeeder! The sheer jump in scale suggests that helos are problematic.
Scale issues also pretty much preclude fixed-wing aircraft of any sort, where the helo size/speed/range problem is amped up by an order of magnitude. The iconic A-10 Warthog would be nearly 5" long with a 5' wingspan. With a typical operating speed of 350 mph, it'd traverse the width of a large 6' wide game space in 5 seconds - 1/10 what one would expect of a MBT like the Leopard. Or a Gear, which is, itself, far faster than an infantryman.
On rebalancing, I'm trying to work on lethality. This interesting quirk comes up because defending is optional in KL. That is due to counterattacking replacing defending, rather than being in addition to defending. It's a pure trade between passive defense and active counters.
Rather than mucking about with stats at random, I'm trying to design attack and defense effectiveness against a particular ideal.
I'm kind of a mind that the ideal ratio is probably a little higher than 2 attackers to kill 1 defender in a straight-up fight where it makes sense to defend. Counterattacking under 2:1 should usually result in destruction, making it something of a desperation move.
OTOH, if the defender is dug in (i.e. re-rolling defense from cover), then the classic 3:1 ratio might be about right, consistent with prepared defenses of some sort.
And as defending is optional, the likely result should be just short of killing a counterattacking target 1 on 1. If the attack effectiveness were much higher, then a too-high likely destruction makes counterattacking something of a false choice, as choosing it means you would usually get destroyed for no potential benefit.
Anyhow, that's where I like the stats to shake out for the basic Gaear. Then, I'll embellish up/down by weapons and Gears before tackling Frames.
In mucking about, it starts to become apparent that my decision to add a counterattack reaction / defend in lieu of passive armor has a some interesting side effects.
Whether a target unit chooses to counterattack or defend, either are active choices. Defend represents dodging / ducking / shifting to better cover / activating ECM / whatever. Counterattack, of course, is a deliberate shooting action of some sort. As Defend / Counter is on a per-attack basis, a unit under combined attack can have multiple Defenses and/or counters.
This level of action breaks the inherent time-motion foundation behind KL, that each unit can only do one thing in any given step increment.
I'm now needing to reintroduce passive Armor that might be used against ALL attacks vs active Defense against a particular attack vs active Counterattack...
Distinguishing passive Armor vs active Defense is likely to be 1d6 (D+) Armor vs Xd6 (D+) Defense. Armor might (re?-)roll a single armor die against every attack, so a target might roll 2, 3 or more such dice over a particular turn, with individual successes reducing and negating individual attacks one by one. Defense would (re?-)roll multiple dice instead, giving better chances to completely negate a multi-die attack.
Design-wise, I think this third option gives even better tactical depth for both Attacker and Defender, particularly in many-on-many situation where individual attacks create layered options for both sides.
I need to play this more, but I think this may be the hallmark of KL. Or at least, it feels like an "Eureka!" moment. Suffice to say, I'm pretty excited over it.
Other than the die roll making the effect random, how is that different from the Robotech style hit vs a static target number and then choose whether to actively dodge? I'm not really seeing the benefit with this over a target number to hit then option to dodge.
Not being familiar with the Robotech dodge option, I'm not really sure there is necessarily that much difference. Not that there needs to be - I'm not afraid to steal what I consider to be a good idea if I think it would improve the game. If the RRT dodge option is good, and I happen to have something similar, then I'm OK with that. Potentially, the only real difference could be the requirement to decide whether to dodge at the moment the attack is declared.
I'm just trying to develop a set of tactical options when the non-active player's units are targeted. I am hoping to provide a useful variety of risk/reward payoffs that players would prefer depending on situational circumstances. If this helps, great, it'll stay. If not, it'll go.
Sorry, I figured as a customer you were familiar with the rules as well. In robotech, each unit is ascribed a passive defense stat that represents the difficulty of hitting them overall with just general operation based on typical speed and maneuverability for that model. If the attacker gets that target number on the hit roll, the defender can then choose the active and deliberate dodge reaction roll (at the cost of a command point). There is no automatic counterfire option that I can recall but I can't exclude it for sure it's been about a year since I cracked open the rules. I hope that helps.
Haha, nope. I just split for some of the RRT minis. Never played a single game of RRT. Fair assumption, though.
Anyhow, thanks for the clarification. The distinction between active and passive defense is essentially similar, where KL would effectively give each model a single RRT-like command point that they might use for active defense or else for counterattack.
It is interesting how this moves so far away from the clear Igo-Ugo concept that I previously had.
It's still different in that the robotech version (and I'm sure others) in that your's is randomized and constantly available rather than static for each model and a limited resource.
As for never playing a game, I suspect that puts you in the same boat as most of the kickstarter backers given how badly the game has been "managed" since funding. :(
Well, sorta. My sense is that RRT allows any units to actively dodge until CP are exhausted, right? So sufficient CP would allow a single RRT unit to dodge several times in a single turn.
My thought for KL would allow each unit to potentially dodge once per turn.
As I had mentioned in the other thread, my Arena Strike Cheetah (Ocelot) and Spitting Cobra (Tiger) models don't match the rest of my stuff, so they are likely to not figure in the games that I play. In particular, the Spitting Cobra is completely off from my King Cobra. So different, that I think I want to sell/trade them, rather than build them.
I plan to add unmanned Recon Drones, but I'm thinking the Ocelot and Tiger stay on as reference placeholders for HG players.
As an aside, I see that Pegasus Hobbies sells Russian / Ukranian houses for $7 set of 2. And prepainted infanatry for $7 for 10 guys. And prepainted tanks. Plus, they're local (sorta - over an hour inland!) to SoCal? That's pretty awesome!
What scale is the infantry? I put some ideas for the generic drones up in my blog after you posting about making them. Using left over command heads plus some robotech bits might work for the actual drones (the base and pegs though is another matter).
Pegasus labels it as 1/144, and I have no reason to doubt that right now. As Gears and Frames don't actually exist, there is plenty of squish in the size for the two to coexist.
The 1/144 Pegasus houses and terrain are what's really caught my eye. I see that eBay lists more variety of things than what's on the Pegasus website, which is pretty exciting. Prebuilt, prepainted infantry and buildings on the cheap!
OK, got the initial wording in for active Defend v Counterattack v passive Armor. Now, I need to do a little cleanup in preparation for releasing "Beta 4" ...
After that, I'll be back to working on stats and balance.
With the discussion of ground : figure scale ratio, I think I'm going to be at 3:1, so 1/144 figures & terrain with 1/432 ground. Not that it really matters when we're using made-up guns and such.
Although it does justify the unlimited range weaponry.
For those who have been wondering why Beta 4 is so slow to be published, It turns out that I stumbled upon on a rather fundamental core rules issue that needs cleanup before I publish again. It's rather amusing, and it warrants a post here to explain.
In its very first incarnation, KOG light inherited (i.e. "stole") GW-like phased actions from the AoS ruleset, which is why it's been structured as 1. Move, 2. Fight, 3. Shoot phase. GW obviously derived the AoS player turn from 40k's Move, Shoot, & Assault phases. This is intended to codify how things move in some sort of rational way, to limit actions each turn.
As I've been working on KOG light, I've had something of a time/motion clock in the back of my head, stricter than AoS, which is why I Fight before Shoot, and then clarfied to mutually exclusive Fight -or- Shoot. These restrictions were to prevent "unrealistic" AoS / 40k-like Alpha strikes of Move +Shoot +Charge +Fight, while still keeping a limit on what units can do each turn.
In more recent development, I've been noticing that the game is actually a 2-phase Move, then Act system. For the actions it won't make any difference whether a unit fights or shoots first, so it's OK to let the player choose the order, rather than forcing the player to finish fighting before shooting (or taking shoot-equivalent actions).
After I recognized that it's a Move + Act phased turn, the question then becomes whether I move to a true Action Point / action system a la Infinity. In trying to resolve this conundrum, I've been looking at alternatives for new players. Pure actions means it's possible to shoot, then move, for example. However, pure actions also increases certain sorts of tracking, that I'm not quite sure I want to manage. I think that the extra options change the game into something else, so I hold on the Move and Act phased turn within the overall Igo-Ugo turn construct: I Move, I Act; You Move, You Act.
And then there's the whole business of Fight vs Shoot, where it's one or the other. Not having separate Fight & Shoot phases helps reinforce that it's a single action phase, in which the player may only choose one or the other as the action. And it will help unify the Attack language for Shooting and Fighting, rather than largely duplicating the rules with very minor tweaks. So that's also good.
This has been sitting in the background for so long. All this time, I've been using a turn structure that didn't reflect what the game was had evolved to be doing, and then overcomplicating the rules to make it do something else. When a 2-phase player turn wouldn't have had any of that problem.
For the record, I got in some more work on all of the KOGs, vehicles and infantry, setting converted costs, movement, defense (skill + armor), hull and sensors. So this defines how quick and tough each of my platforms are.
Next step is to re-address lethality in the open, but Beta 4 is looking like a strong possibility to finish this summer / end of month!
JohnHwangDD wrote: OK, got the initial wording in for active Defend v Counterattack v passive Armor. Now, I need to do a little cleanup in preparation for releasing "Beta 4" ...
After that, I'll be back to working on stats and balance.
OK, it's time to talk about another big mistake, of a different sort that I had actually worked out prior to pulling the 40k/AoS phases for Move&Act. It turns out that my initial concept for Armor vs Defense was very wrong.
I was using 1d6 to represent passive Armor vs full Xd6 for active Defense., so 2 Defense (4+) would reduce down to 1 Armor (4+).
Simple, right? Wrong.
1. Reducing dice down to 1 die roll strongly constrains the number of dice I would use for Defense, functionally requiring at least 2 Dice, preferably something more like 3 Dice for it to be truly meaningful.
2. Reducing dice is a completely different resolution modifier when the rest of the game works on re-rolls, re-rolling success or re-rolling-failures. So, mechanically, it felt wrong because it was out of place, out of character.
3. Having a minimum of 2d6 was bumping up Defense rates much higher than I wanted for the desired default ~50% lethality. I'd have needed Attack to be rolling 3 to 5 dice, which broke the design brief of a maximum of 3d6 per player.
4, Stats were getting messy, as I had so few meaningful options to work with, due to the design space being so limited.
Solution
As it turned out, Active Defense simply maximizes the Defense result like a critical effect. The model simply makes the most of whatever it has.akin to how Piercing Weapons always cause a Critical Hit on a 6. Much easier and better, and consistent with other mechanics.
It also "stacks" properly for a "worst case" shot: - re-roll attacks for long range, - re-roll defense for cover, - active defense auto-crits.
Yeah, I should have written this up earlier, but I was too tied up with the numbers. Oops. ____
8/26 - as it turns out, I need to back to Counterattack (and Attack) precluding any Defense at all. All or nothing.
Oh yeah, I need to have a little follow-on discussion about Target Reactions and how they work, why I only have Defend and Counterattack, but not Retreat; also, how they combine to create a Close Combat phase.
In KL, a target only gets one reaction.
That means the best way to take an enemy model out is to gang up on it. Either via massed Ranged Shooting attacks, or else by dogpiling on it in Close Combat. Either way, the target reacts once. After that, the cost is clear for other models to take their shots without any reprisal or other reaction. This is very deliberate, as it creates tactical and strategic opportunities on the tabletop. A clever player can arrange positioning and sequence shooting so that combined weight of fire can focus on a single model to take it out efficiently. Or to engage secondary targets if things go well. Similarly in Close Combat, where a furball allows models to gang up on another model, after the target exhausts its Defense.
Counterattack helps the target choose to extract a cost if the first attacker is too light. So there is some gamesmanship here to choose whether to suppress with a heavy enough attack, or risk losing a light unit to counterfire. The selection and sequencing of the attacks matters. And it naturally encourages dynamic coherency for supporting fire and combat, rather than forcing it.
However, there is No Retreat, because reactive movement would undo the active player's setup work during Movement in preparation for coordinated and/or cascading Action. The typical reactive movement scenario becomes very cat-and-mouse, where the active player moves and takes a snap shot, and then reactive retreats behind cover when someone shoots back. This isn't a bad sort of game, per se, but it's just not in character for mini-mechs stomping around. Worse, it breaks the combined targeting strategy above, both for ranged shooting (where you move to be fully obscured) and close combat (where you simply move > 1" to break out of the secondary attackers). The active player may go through a lot of effort to set up interlocking fire or overlapping combat, and should be rewarded for doing so; allowing the target to simply evade or avoid all of that with a free move would be very frustrating.
Counterattack is also the mechanism by which units "fight back" in Close Combat, akin to the 40k Assault phase. The active player charges and attacks in close combat, and the surviving targets counterattack, still in close combat (because they can't move, as explained above). During the next player turn, the active player repositions models (incidentally gaining the charge bonus); steps back to shoot a fighting retreat; or else breaks contact entirely at speed. But they can stay stuck in, and fight as in 40k. The difference is the active mobility gives tactical choices, placing them in the player's hands.
Finally, the reaction mechanic dovetails with the game round initiative system potentially giving back-to-back player turns. A player gaining double turns doesn't get to double shoot with impunity. The counterattack reactions give the passive player the ability to respond in kind, and helping balance risk and reward. The primary advantage of those double turns comes from the extra movement, to regroup and reposition while the other player has to remain put.
Yes, I'm pretty happy with how this is shaking out.
1. Squad creation. I standardized at 3-6 models of 4 types (Tactical, Elite, Recon, Heavy), each corresponding to a 4 squad type, with standard options to bump or dilute squads as appropriate. It's a very clean replacement for the HG system.
2. Platoon creation. I also standardized this as 2+ squads (1+ Tactical), where Tactical squads unlock non-Tactical squads or models. Also very flexible.
3. Player Turn. Revised Move, then Act is good.
Some wordsmithing and tweaking might be needed, but the gist of it is correct.
Needs more work... A few things were off, to the point that they absolutely need reworking.
1. Counterattack - with layers of Defense, it bogs down. Mechanically Attack - Armor, then Attack - Armor is too many sets of rolls for what's supposed to be a streamlined game. Going forward, Attackers don't get any Defense. So Counterattack is Attack, Attack and all hits cause damage.
2. 3+ Hull wasn't obvious or smooth. We had a unit with no damage, 1 damage, and Crippled models. If I remove the intermediate state(s) between undamaged and Crippled, then active models are either undamaged or Crippled; then Destroyed (or Eliminated). Every model becomes a fixed 2 Hull, which it means I can now remove Hull as a stat, simplifying the profiles. Instead, this just folds into Defense.
3. Lethality - too high (i.e. Infinity-like). Defense was too low, not meaningful. I need Defense to be meaningful, and that is doable with the standardization on 2 Hull.
TBD
1. Game Round iniative - I need to noodle this a bit more. I think I've "fixed" the AOS initiative thing, but need to play it a bit more.
2. Best Defense - Critical defense might not be where I want to go, as this is supposed to be a lethal environment. Just not quite as lethal as Infinity.
All in all, it was a good little playtest, and those other eyes were helpful. ____
8/28 Update!
In reworking stats (lots of work here!), I removed Spray (e.g. Flamethrower) as nobody uses such weapons anymore, also because it's such a strange weapon from a rules POV.
Also, tweaked Defense to remove Best Defense that cancelled 2 hits in favor of adding a Concentrated Attack penalty that re-rolls successful defense. Concentrated Attack makes the tactic very clear to all players, rather than a a quirk of the rules. Yes, it overlaps Precise (which was deliberately intended to negate Cover), but that's OK because Precise is a somewhat uncommon trait tied to high accuracy / homing weapons.
Also, updated the one-shot weapons to 2 shots, with a second checkbox.
Side observation - the absolute volume of rules has gotten visibly smaller. I'm not using the 8th page at all, and I have more whitespace at the end of my columns. I guess that means I'm doing a decent job of editing out the junk. ____
8/29 mini-Update!
As the last page is basically blank, and most of the rules are "fixed" I've been adding a Summary of Play. Because it was requested. Not that it really needs it, what with the playing rules being on 2 facing pages, but it doesn't hurt, and I have the space. Mainly, it gives me a reference that the high level game flow is correct.
I had a really good summer with family and friends, and KOG light was on the back burner for much of it. This wasn't a bad thing, as I gained a certain amount of distance that allowed me to revisit the game with a bit of perspective to think about what I liked, and what I didn't. Going into the holiday weekend, I've decided to publish at months' end to put a marker down as to what I see KOG light being.
At this point, Beta 4 should be cleaner and smoother than Beta 3, but the weapons are still in flux as I work through tweaking the lethality and survivability of the German Gears and Russian Frames. Going foward, I'm going to push for monthly releases to finalize the game by end of year.
So, what changed?
p.1 - I cleaned up the preparation format to better clarify physical whatnots that the game would need. I also recommended more terrain; this is a sticking point in finalizing the game, as I will have to create and provide terrain templates.
p.2 - Game Rounds got rebalanced such that the Attacker starts with a double turn, with the Defender next to get the double. Recent discussion about AoS initiative suggests I've made the correct tweaks to minimize turn bias and average advantage.
Player Turns were heavily revamped to Movement & Action (vs Move, Fight, & Shoot phases) this is smoother and more flexible, simpler for players to process.
Counterattack (and Attack) was revamped to be in lieu of rolling any Defense dice.
Victory conditions tweaked to give minor victory for all destroyed or crippled - an easier win condition than all destroyed.
p.3 Combat Resolution was restructured and unlinked so that experienced players can roll Attack and Defense simultaneously to speed play. Indirect was given a minimum 12" range and moved to Weapons, while Spray was removed as obsolete. Functionally, it's actually an opposed test.
Concentrated Attack was added to explicitly encourage focused attacking, where it was an implicit benefit before.
All models were standardized at 2 Hull, where it previously was typically 3; this simplifies damage tracking (undamaged / crippled / destroyed) along with stats calculation.
Simplified Infantry so they can properly use Cover - this means that Infantry now only have one special rule.
Added special rules for Tanks, such that they are immune to Concentrated Attack as the Tank special rule to distinguish them from KOGs.
p.4 - Alternate Scenarious also count crippled for destruction objectives.
Unit battles now specify minimum units in addition to maximum units
p.5 - background officially set in 2037.
Moved the Model description and Unit selection rules here. Overhauled Unit selection for Squads and Platoons to something much simpler and more consistent - this is a lot easier to build forces with.
pp.6-7 - German & Russian Forces were reworked with corrected, recalculated defensive stats across the board, based on HG Piloting & Armor & H/S stats (ugh). Weapons are still going to take work, along with Frame options.
p.8 - added all new Summary of Play. Designer's Notes updated.
At this point, I think I've redone and replaced all of the AoS-isms from the original draft. It's entirely possible that there are no AoS elements left in the current rulespack. Nevertheless, AoS was a useful starting point for the ruleset, and the emphasis on brevity has been very helpful in preventing bloat. ____
9/1 - Corrected Summary of Play - Game Rounds - Defender has first turn, then Attacker.
Over the long weekend, I got the basic weapons for both German & Russian units roughed out, so that part is coming along. In the conversion of CEF to Russian, I observe that CEF Frames are clearly more deadly than their Southern / German counterparts. Which generally aligns with their higher points costs.
In trying to pull the Russian Frame options together, I've not yet found a good way to represent this, partly due to how I have 2 skill levels (human / GREL) and 2 tiers (regular / BF-19) producing 3 levels of effectiveness x each weapon. This ripples through 4 options per frame type, of which I have 4. Ugh.
p.6 - German Units - rebaselined weapons and Defense -- these are ready for playtesting.
p.7 - Russian Units - rebaselined Defense and base model weapons -- also ready for playtesting. Frame options are still WiP.
p.8 - added Status Markers, updated Designer's Notes
Notes?
I screwed up by not releasing the German not-Gears when I was "done" with their stats at the start of the month. I spent the past few weeks not getting anywhere at all with the Russian not-Frames.
Although I did rough in a placeholder for Status Markers.
*sigh*
The Russian not-Frame options are quite the little mess to deal with, and that the cleanest "fix" is probably to separate Gunnery Skill from Weapon Accuracy and Weapon Strength. I'd have to add a Skill Stat crossing against an explicit Weapon Table, which breaks my initial "no tables" design goal.
Maybe implicit weapon table, or just for the Russians. :
On the terrain front, I found out that I can comfortably fit 5 shipping containers on a single sheet of paper - 2x 20', 2x 40' and 1x 40' high cube. These will be pop-up / fold-flat terrain pieces, so easy to build and easy to transport.
Next up will be box trucks, van, and other vehicles, before I move on to industrial buildings and small commercial, finishing with residential stuff. ____
9/29 - I got the vehicles squared away: 2 box trucks and 4 van trailers! ____
9/30 - and commercial vans! Thinking about it, I should probably change the mix of the van trailers to include some tractors and short van trailers...
I was working on designing some 1/144-scale buildings, and I realized I was wasting my time. It turns out that 1/144 scale is essentially similar to model railroad N-scale (1/160).
Like a duck on a calm lake, things appear quiet on the surface, but there's a furious churn that you can't see... Lately, I've gotten some good, actionable feedback, and have been working through it. Items under review include:
Coherency - this looks good, but radios go really far, and there's probably a more natural and consistent LOS type requirement if I don't standardize on 12" coherency (24" for Recon).
Speed Move - this probably needs to be a shoot-equivalent action to simplify the rules. Allowing the player a choice to move -or- shoot is also probably a good thing in terms of potential decision-making.
Overwatch / En Passant - this is a bugaboo, and I understand the point of interrupting movement for Snap Fire, but I don't much like what it does to the game flow. If I don't do this, I suspect I need to address it head-on in Designer's Notes.
Fire Support - as a rule for one model per side, it's not a good one use of design space. Better to simply make Commanders Recon, I think.
Sensor Lock - a game that purports to use near modern technology probably shouldn't have magical sensors for invisible targeting.
Hold Objective - Should this require the same model for consecutive turns, or allow models to "tag" in and out for the win? Right now, the latter is possible, but I'm thinking it's not really desirable.
Counterattack - Needs example vs Defense: A, then C // A v D.
Linebreaker - this scenario needs to be revisited. Probably with a defined exit zone; possibly as an all new scenario.
Forces of Battle - this needs more restriction, as I see that people with free choice and no history with the massed excess of Tactical models in HG just won't bother with them.
Examples - Rocket Pods need to be called out? 2d + 2d vs 1d + 1d.
Attack / Defense ratings - there are a few units where I was overly generous in consistently rounding up, where the unit(s) in question might have been better realized with some up and some down. German Infantry, for example, is probably too strong.
Movement Rates - in the conversion from HG, to a smaller standard battlefield, I may have gone to far by using the maximum move vs standard move. This will result in a -1" to most units, and a -2" reduction in a few places. .
Visuals - In addition to the above areas, the entire thing is crying out for diagrams and examples, along with a print-and-play sheet.
Designer's Notes - needs to cover the option to simply walk out of CC and shoot... Also needs to address Indirect Fire and Counterattack.
And it still doesn't resolve the Frames issue. -sigh-
This is me declaring victory in terms of getting the game together. It basically does everything that I want it to do from a design and mechanics standpoint, whereby further perfective effort would see very diminishing returns. And really, I need to catch up on building stuff to play with!
Changes?
There was a lot of minor wordsmithing and reshuffling for clarity, but there were a few changes that affect gameplay. Fundamentally, KOG light became a LOS-based game, which helped clean up gameplay and reduce the number of mechanics in the game.
p.1 - I recommended more terrain, at least 1 piece per square foot, as terrain drives gameplay. The game plays poorly on an open plain, and LOS is really important.
p.2 - Unit coherency became LOS-driven, rather than arbitrary distance between models. Models that see each other are in coherency. Models on their own are Isolated and become restricted in their actions.
Unit actions moved to a soft 2AP, first move-ish actions, then fight-ish actions. This makes the time-motion simulation a little bit clearer.
p.4 - I removed the asymmetrical, unbalanced Linebreaker mission in favor of a random Search and Recover, which was easier to explain and fairer to play; the concept of asymmetrical force scenarios was introduced in its place.
p.8 - I illustrated a sample battlefield, and updated the Designer's Notes to address the deliberate lack of Overwatch, and clarify standard base sizes.
TBD?
At some point, I'll revisit Russian Frames, but not until I clear a few other things off my plate.
Anyone with a heavy gear collection that has been disappointed with DP9's rules should check this out. While it's a light game and doesn't yet have the breadth of a published offering, it seems to actually have a functional vision and a implementation consistent with the vision.
Normally I don't like games where the turns are too contained and the opponent waits, but given the model count and the speed of procedures I think it was the right call here. If at a full sized battle, the opponent is simply not going to be waiting that long and they do still have the option of counter attacking, giving them a decision to make during the opponent's turn.
The counterattack rule also makes for an interesting decision for the acting player. If you shoot at something and it counterattacks, if you don't take it out you will be attacked by an attack against which you get no defense dice. So any time you attack you will be taking a risk of being destroyed by return fire.
KOG_light_rules wrote: I may separate Gunnery Skill from Weapon Accuracy & Weapon Strength, all of which are currently folded together; however, this would result in some fairly major rework of all Units stats.
It would also probably slow things down in play. Though I can see for some people that they may get a "that doesn't make sense" jarring moment from the way armour is folded into defense dice. If you shoot a tank and it ignores you, the shot might bounce off the armour. If the turret turns towards you and shoots back, then suddenly it can never bounce the shot as no defense dice are rolled and that's where the armour comes into play.
Also a question
KOG_light_rules wrote:
[3] Assess Damage
Each non-cancelled hit results in damage to the target.
Crippled – If an undamaged model takes any damage, then the model is Crippled, may not Speed Move, and must re-roll any successful attacks or defense. Visibly mark the model as crippled with white cotton smoke.
Destroyed – If a Crippled model is damaged, or an undamaged model takes 2 (or more) damage, then the model is Destroyed,
Would 2 non-cancelled hits from the same attack do 2 damage?
@frozenwastes - thanks for the readthrough, much appreciated! I think you get the gist of what I'm doing with the rules. Obviously, they could be made prettier, and expanded to have more items.
2 non-cancelled hits would result in 2 damage, which Destroys any model, whether Crippled or undamaged.
I have a friend who has been into Heavy Gear since 1st edition. Every now and again he talks about playing it again. While I sort of like 2nd edition tactical, I honestly don't like any of the rules enough to play them. So I will send him a link to your rules as I would play them in a heartbeat.
FYI, I'm working on enhancing the Terrain Pack to include more buildings based on playing PUBG, which has several buildings of appropriate size and style. I've got a couple of the warehouse buildings and the big apartment roughed out.
I'll want to tackle a couple houses and admin buildings before releasing the new Terrain Pack ____
Terrain completed, but I can't upload to share. :(
But that's totally OK, because any feedback is still helpful. Again, much thanks!
But if you look, it's there. Chipping at armor is damage against Hull. Crippled represents internal damage. Falling and Heat are unnecessarily cumbersome, and I don't want the game to be that way. Remember that I am on a page limit, and every rule that I add basically trades off against another rule. So if I add heat, then I need to have a stat for it and rules to manage it. That's not interesting or fun. It's bookkeeping, which is the opposite of fun. 
You'll note that other armored machine games don't necessarily do those things either. 
