All measurement is done using centimeters. This is a deliberate design decision, since it will allow me to add subtle differences to weapon range bands and units movement values that would be more complicated if using inches. It also allows me to keep unit profiles for speed and other stats similar, and translate other scores directly into on-table top measurements. Also, metric is a better system.

I plan on using D10’s, for easy 10% probability changes with every +/-1. They also provide a decent number of potential results, while being more stable and less likely to be cocked on a rough surface than d20’s.

Movement: I hope to do a couple odd things with movement- first, for convenience of phrasing, a models movement stat provides it with that number of “movement points”, instead of directly translating into distance moved. One movement point=1cm movement in clear terrain. In any type of difficult terrain, it will cost more speed points to move the distance- for example, 3 points:2cm movement. It will also cost certain amounts of speed points to do something like cross a fence. Different units will have different “Costs” for each type of terrain (Rough, Vegetation, Water, and Vertical).

Accuracy: Basically Ballistic skill. How well you shoot stuff.

Melee: One stat- melee will not be super important in this game. However, it will still occur. To resolve melee, players will simply roll off, add their melee skill, and add the number of models in the unit. Player with the lowest roll loses a unit.

Evasion: How hard you are to hit. Generally about 2 points higher than accuracy (so at range one, in the open, models get shot on a 2+ on average).

Armour: How hard you are to damage. Generally about 2 points higher than the power of an Anti-infantry weapon.

Discipline: Serves two purposes. The first is for moral, seeing if you break and run, or get pinned. You must roll under your discipline, including any modifiers, to pass a moral check. The second controls how much your fireteam can spread out. Members of a fireteam must stay within a number of centimeters equal to their discipline score of the team leader.

Command: How many command points a squad/model has access to. Will have a variety of uses, but are well down the road for actually including.

There are four terms I have planned for organizing what a specific rule refers to. “Model” simply refers to an individual model, from a grunt to a tank. Unit is more abstract, referring to a group of one or models which activate at the same time- usually this is just an individual fireteam/vehicle, but could include more unique situations such as a fireteam that is manning some sort of crew-served weapon or vehicle. A squad is a group of models purchased from the army list, with certain sets of restrictions and benefits to models in its component fireteams. Each squad is made up of one or more Fireteams. Fireteams will function as individual units, but benefit from some rules for squads- for example, members of the same squad ignore each other when moving or determining line of sight, even if in different Fireteams. Fireteams from the same squad may also transfer models between teams. I’ll go into mode details about squad building in the “Listbuilding” section.

The turn is divided into two parts- the Command Phase, and the activation phase. During the command phase, players choose two order to assign to each of their units, and choose the order in which their units will activate. The player who begins the game with the fewest units also receives a number of “blank” activations until both players have the same total number of activations. This is because the game uses alternating activation, and I want to avoid one player being forced to sit while their opponent activates a bunch of their units. Instead, they can choose to wait to activate, or insert a few “Dummy” activations that they can swap around with command points. This will represent the smaller force being more elite and able to react faster. Note that you will not receive new “Dummy” orders as your units are wiped out. Players will also have to assign numbers to the terrain pieces, and letters to their units. These will be used to identify target terrain pieces and which units are being assigned the order on the command board.

The Command board will be like the frame pieces you always are throwing away from FFG stuff, at least how I picture it for an actual product- simple cardboard slots for you to put in your commands, on a back of a thinner Cardboard. There will be five slots on each line of the command board. The first slot is where you put the unit marker- the letter of the unit you want to activate. The next slot is for the type of order you want to take first. This can be a movement, combat, or special order (may only assign one combat action per turn). The third slot is the target of your first order- movement requires a terrain piece to be targeted, and some special attacks do require you to target another squad or a terrain piece. Normal combat actions and special actions do not need targets, and are simply assigned blank tokens. Next two slots are for the second order and target. Players roll off each turn, adding their commanders command score. Player who rolls highest chooses whether to start activating their units first or second. Players then alternate activating units.
When moving, players must move their units so that they either end up as close to their target terrain piece as possible, or reach the terrain piece using as few movement points as possible (so, in clear terrain the movement occurs in a straight line to the closest point. Once a model is completely within the area of the terrain piece, or in base contact with the terrain for non-area terrain, it may use any remaining movement to move elsewhere within the terrain piece. Terrain is very important in this game, because it is what you use to pre-plan your units movements. It is divided into four categories (Rough, Vegetation, Water, and Vertical), and will affect units movement differently depending on unit type. For example, well-trained guys in power Armour will suffer few penalties for moving through forest or rubble, but tend to get stuck in the mud rather easily. In contrast, jungle specialists are good in forests or water, but struggle in a rubble-choked urban environment. Terrain may count as multiple types, in which case you use the worse movement value.

For regular shooting, players must choose one model of their unit to be the attacker. The attacker’s weapon is the one which the attack will be performed with. The rest of the fireteam, meanwhile, is providing covering fire, spotting, and other stuff, with the goal of eliminating the need for buckets of dice and to encourage equipping your squad with a variety of weapons. To represent the support of your team, the attacker gains a bonus on their attack roll equal to the number of supporting members in the fireteam. If the team is at full strength, the attacker also receives +1 to their weapons rate of fire. The attacker rolls a d10 for each shot, and adds their accuracy stat. If the result is equal to or greater than the defenders Evasion score, the shot has hit. The defender receives a bonus to their evade score for any terrain they are in, or have taken cover behind. They also receive a bonus of +1 for each range band after the first between them and the attacker. When models in the defending unit have different defence scores, the attacker chooses which defence score they are going to attack, and hits are resolved against models with evade scores equal to or lower than the declared evade score. After this, the attacker rolls any dice that have hit, adding their weapons power and comparing it to the defenders armour star. For each point that the attack exceeds the defenders armour, the defender takes one damage (most infantry models have one HP). The defender adds any cover from terrain to their armour scores. Like rolling to hit, when there are multiple armour values, players roll to damage against a certain value, and will not damage anybody with armour higher than the declared value. From here, models are removed front-to-back.

Not mentioned- Suppressing fire, Precision shots, Artillery Barrage, Overwatch.

I do not intend to place any hard restrictions on list building- so there will be no Core/Special/Rare choices. However, all units have a certain cost of “Support points”. Players receive a limited number of support points based off of the games point value. They can then gain additional support points by taking certain troops which form the backbone of their respective army. This is to make “Core” units something that you want to take to add more specialists to your force. All armies will have at least three units who either add support points or cost zero support points. More specialized units (Scouts, elite Shock Troops, etc) will not add points, cheaper Cannon Fodder-y units will add only a couple points, while the armies respective “Tactical Squad Equivalent” will add a fairly large number of points. These points will scale with squad size (so a max-size Squad will generate points at least equal to an equal number of models in minimum-sized Squads). Players may take theme lists which adjust the support point cost of some unit, but prevent them from taking others.

Squads will be chosen from a list of models. Each squad will have a minimum and maximum squad size, and require you to purchase 1 NCO to lead the squad. There will then be two or three generic trooper options, with different choices of carbines or rifles. The rest of the list will be occupied with specialists who have special equipment or a heavy weapon such as a machine gun or grenade launcher. There is no limit on the number of specialists that you can take, however, they will cost a number of Squad-support points. Like with Platoon Support points, full-sized squads generate more support points than partial squads. Light transport vehicles, such as Humvee-analogues, will also cost squad points. Squads will not split into fireteams until deployment. If you purchase transports you must have enough carrying capacity to carry the entire squad.

Finally, you must purchase a Platoon Officer, who replaces one of your generic grunts. Platoon Officers will have a large pool of command points that they can spend for a wider array of purposes than normal squads. However, this is also something far off in development.

Humans emerged on the Galactic stage as a result of an attack on their homeworld. Humans survived as a result of their enemies poor planning, and several years later launched a counter-attack on what they believed to be their enemy’s homeworld, using reverse-engineered technology. One nuclear bombardment later, and humans were yet again at war. Turns out they just hit a colony. Fortunately for us, most of the intergalactic community was nicer than us and brokered a peace treaty which granted humanity several worlds in the outer territories. These would go on to form the core of the United Terran Exodus Nations. Since this time, however, the Galactic Community has been content to let the Terrans remain occupied with whatever troubles they get involved in. Although technologically outclassed, Terrans are defended by the superbly trained army of the U.T.E.N. Security Council, as well as their local planetary militias.


What I want for the background is a human faction which isn’t automatically “Good” without going quite as dark as the Imperium of man. I want a faction that is justifiably paranoid about self-defence, and trying to expand its territory to stand on even footing with other galactic powers, but at the same time alienates a lot of other power with its sometimes brutal methods. They are well-intentioned, but everyone else sees them as a loose cannon.

In game, Terrans are a professional, but low-tech, fighting force. Their hardware is inferior to the other factions, but is backed up by the full military might of the U.T.E.N., and so they will generally be a bit more spamable than the other factions. Their troops are split into two groups- cheap Planetary Militia, and superbly trained regular troops. Regular troops have good Discipline and Command Stats, and have terrain-handling abilities on par with other factions’ specialists. However, they will also be rather Jack-of-All-Stats, Master of None.

The corporation controls much of the outer territories, and is a major supplier of raw material and exotic good to main part of the galactic community. However, their position controlling much of the outer territories has brought them into frequent conflict with the expansionist U.T.E.N.. The corporation therefore finds itself forced to resort to violence to protect its assets from Terran colonists. The Corporation relies heavily on Mercenaries for its muscle. When forced to commit to military actions, it may draw upon a variety of specialists to get the job done.


Play-wise, the Corporation relies on Mercenaries. As such, their discipline and command scores are poor, although their actual fighting ability is solid. Since the mercenaries want to survive to get paid, they mostly specialize in long-ranged combat and shield spam. Their weapons have good range, but low rates of fire leave them vulnerable in close-ranged firefights. Shields work by giving Armour/Evade bonuses to models within range “X” against models outside of “X”, so also provide good bonuses at long range, but also weaken them in-close (Since they are paying a premium on shields). They do get some close-range specialists, but these guys are specialists, and will take away from your other support units.

These are the guys who attacked earth. They are somewhat like Ants or termites, in that they produce multiple “Castes” of offspring- Workers, Soldiers, Drones, etc.. Unfortunately, the Soldier caste has a tendency wards violence which is unnecessary in the modern, peaceful society. As a response, most of the Soldier caste are exiled to the outer territories. They often form into coordinated bands, which will plunder anything that they come across. Since the Terran War, these bands have shown increased coordination, and their activities seem to be focused increasingly on Terran Territory. Officially, these raids are condemned by the powers that be, however, they seem remarkably well equipped, and no-one believes them. Most of the galactic community are content to take it at face value, as long as they are keeping U.T.E.N busy.

On the tabletop, these guys are represented by a fairly disorganized cluster of warriors born to fight. They are good in a fight, and have good discipline scores, but terrible command stats. As a result of the aggressive nature of their warriors, they specialize in short-ranged firefights and teleporters. They do have some large guns/tanks, but mostly prefer short-ranged, rapid fire or area-of effect weapons.

All I can say is there’s something else at the edge of known space. It doesn’t communicate in any known fashion. It does not seem to be allied with any known faction, seeing how it will attack everyone equally. All I know is that a ship will disappear, I have to spend several months answering for its location, and then ten months later these guys turn up, using the crew as some sort of meat-puppet to attack us. Rinse and repeat.

-A former U.T.E.N. Admiral in reference to these guys.

So, these guys are necromancers-in-space. Since faction archetypes are already split into Short Range/Long range/Multirole, I decided that this faction would be about micro-management and dirty tricks. The generic troops are basically zombies, with plenty of body horror and mechanical parts grafted in uncomfortable-looking places. Commander units will be alien-looking machines, which are still puppets of whoever is commanding the army. Individual troops are weak (for their point cost), with poor discipline and command scores. Commander units have very high command scores, and the Zombies all have abilities which buff them up when assigned command points. There will also be units which allow you to create new units of Zombies when you kill the enemies’ troops. Because these guys cannibalize other factions’ tech, they have access to both shields and teleporters, although not to the extent of their main factions.