Rules critique needed for Exoshift, sci-fi 28mm skirmish, activation/command system

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**Vertrucio**

I need some help with the activation scheme for my game, Exoshift, a 28mm scifi skirmish system. These rules will be a retail product, but will always be available for free online so I might as well ask for help from the community.

First is a write up of the rules, if things don't make sense initially, there's an example of play below written up like a battle report.

Rules write up in spoiler:

Spoiler:

EXAMPLE OF PLAY FOLLOWS

The setup is a group of Sol Marines have encountered a Krr'Akar expedition into neutral space searching for artifacts. The Krr'Akar belong to The Remnant Order faction and are a reptile-like species made up of diminutive, less intelligent, and more numerous males, led by larger and more intelligent females who are escorted by Alphas, which are males that have undergone a physical and psychological puberty as the result of success in its tasks.

Sol Marines are a federation of many species, including humanity, centered around a metropolitan civilization and integrated army.

Battle size here is roughly 750, although, in a real 750 there would be a few more units, including a vehicle or specialty units. This is just an example quickly thrown together. The Disruption mentioned later is a mechanic I have yet to fully implement (and may be cut).

Here is their deployment:

SOLCOM is the Sol Command Unit, she contributes 3 CP to the global Command Pool, on top of the base 3 CP at 750 points.
Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie are Line Infantry, basic infantry for Sol.
Alpha and Charlie have an embedded leader, giving them 1 CP to use on itself or any unit in command range.
Delta are SpecOps on loan from the SRRD (Spinward Rapid Response Division), also performing operations in the area. They get 1 CP usable on themselves only due to being specops.

The Krr'akar Matron is the expedition's leader, she rules her brood with an iron fist, accompanied by 4 well armed Alphas.
The Krr'akar Maidens 1 and 2 are sub-commanders, younger females who are still earning their place in society.
Squads Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, and India are all Krr'akar auxiliaries, made up entirely of the smaller Krr'akar males.

Sol gets initiative, and chooses to go first.

Turn by turn:

Spoiler:

**Biophysical**

I can't see the pictures, for whatever reason, but it seems like a cool system. There is a resource management factor (how do I spend my command points?) and a timing factor (who should I activate first?). I don't know the rest of your rules, but I like the emphasis on activation/movement, because that seems like the most important thing for a commander to think about during a fight. Full disclosure, however, I might just like it because it has a lot of similarity to the activation system for a little game I've been working on myself.

I also like the emphasis on fire teams for the skirmish level game. It makes a lot of sense for the scale and technology.

The part I don't like is that it seems like a single turn could take a while. That might be okay, and if shooting is resolved quickly, it might not be much of an issue, but there's a lot of decisions to make, and that might slow things down. It looks like they're interesting decisions, it's just that there's a lot of them.

**Vertrucio**

Thanks!

My web server has been having problems it seems. Try force reloading (CTRL+F5) to see the images.

I'm also concerned with the time taken for a single round, as well as players over analyzing things. But that's something that can be sorted out through actual playtesting.

Someone else recommended dropping the separation between the Free Primary Activation or even different types of Activations. If playtesting doesn't go well in that regard, one way to speed things up is to simplify things that way.

I spent the entire day rewriting these rules with better terminology and structure. They're now in a form that's actually playable.

Once I flesh out some starter army lists, I plan to post a proper playtest version.