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Hello fellow designers!

So, whilst I was brewing over the failing forward thing, an idea sprung up that I'd like to run by you: You always hit!

The idea being that if you are in base-contact with an enemy, or within their range, you will automatically be hit by an enemy - unless you can make your roll to avoid it, whenever you perform an action.

If you succeed, you get to perform the action - if you fail, you get hit and the attacker rolls to see the extend of the damage; most likely ending your activation and you ending up being hurt.

While I like the idea, in theory, I wanted to explore its merits and failings as a mechanic. One thing that I'm already concious of is that it'll require as much, if not more, LOS-shenanigans than Infinity, which isn't really my jam. Another part of me wonders if it'll be too detached in a game that your "characters" will only make reactive rolls, never active rolls.

What say you? Is this a good idea, could it be reworked into something else, or should I just stick with the tried and true roll to hit, save and wound model?

I think Arty Conliffe's Crossfire does this: whenever you try to cross a line of sight you roll to see if you avoid fire.

Addendum, some concrete rules for fleshing out the concept.

ACTIVATIONS

When you choose a friendly model to activate, it can make up to three actions, from the following list:

Move - If in LOS of an enemy with a ranged weapon, or in base-to-base contact with an enemy, requires an Agility test

Shoot - If in LOS of an enemy with a ranged weapon, requires an Agility test

Fight - Can only be done in base-to-base contact with an enemy, requires a Strength test

Rally - Requires a Command test

If the test was successful, you perform the action, and can then choose to perform another action, or activate another friendly model.
If the test was failed, you can choose to either suffer the lesser effect and end your turn, or suffer the greater effect but continue your turn.
Once a model has performed three actions, failed any action test, or chosen another friendly model to activate, it is activated and cannot take any further actions this round.

MOVE ACTIONS
When making a Move action, a model has to make an Agility test if:
- It is currently in base-contact with an enemy model
- An enemy model, with a ranged weapon, can draw a line of sight to it.

If successful, the model can then move a distance in inches up to its Movement value. Otherwise, the model is hit by an enemy in base-contact, or by the closest enemy in line of sight.

SHOOT ACTIONS
When making a Shoot action, a model has to make an Agility test if:
- An enemy model, with a ranged weapon, can draw a line of sight to it.

If successful, the model can then choose to attack any enemy model in line of sight, using one of its ranged weapons. Otherwise, the model is hit by the closest enemy in line of sight.

BEING HIT
The attacker must now roll against the Armour value of the defender, after the defender has chosen which effect to suffer. Roll d10, add Impact of weapon, and subtract Armour of target and confer the table below.

Lesser Effect
1-6 Pinned, ends activation only
7-9 Wound; suffer one wound
10 Injured; suffer two wounds

Greater Effect
1-3 Pinned, ends activation only
4-7; Wound; suffer one wound
8-10; Injured; suffer two wounds


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nurglitch wrote:
I think Arty Conliffe's Crossfire does this: whenever you try to cross a line of sight you roll to see if you avoid fire.

Ah, true! Or rather, the non-phasing (active) player rolls to see if their unit can score any hits on the phasing player's unit.

Technically, these rules are slight different in that there's an "active" roll to hit the target, rather than the target making "reactive" rolls.

I think it would depend vastly on the quality of the opponents. Are all of your characters/units supposedly of the same skill? How easy is an agility test?

If I'm facing a hapless rabble who happen to see me....but my agility test is difficult, it gives the appearance that the hapless rabble are suddenly snipers - simply because I failed a roll. I understand the concept in a game with large fields of fire, entrenched machine guns, etc...but a skirmish game with bows, you seem to be giving a lot of value to the missile weapon units.

Now if there is an overwatch style mechanic, then I'd understand. I enjoy the mechanic from...Fireball Forward(?) where a unit goes onto overwatch by placing a single token within line-of-sight and anything crossing that line is subject to fire. So if you had this kind of mechanic and say someone was actively watching the alley way with a bow....but you managed your agility test to get across the alleyway unharmed, it makes sense to me.

But generally being in line of sight of "anyone" with a missile weapon is pretty deadly, unless your agility tests are extremely easy. I feel like your game could settle into the old issue where no one wants to move for risk of being shot to death by sniping bowmen?

 Elbows wrote:
I think it would depend vastly on the quality of the opponents. Are all of your characters/units supposedly of the same skill? How easy is an agility test?

If I'm facing a hapless rabble who happen to see me....but my agility test is difficult, it gives the appearance that the hapless rabble are suddenly snipers - simply because I failed a roll. I understand the concept in a game with large fields of fire, entrenched machine guns, etc...but a skirmish game with bows, you seem to be giving a lot of value to the missile weapon units.

Now if there is an overwatch style mechanic, then I'd understand. I enjoy the mechanic from...Fireball Forward(?) where a unit goes onto overwatch by placing a single token within line-of-sight and anything crossing that line is subject to fire. So if you had this kind of mechanic and say someone was actively watching the alley way with a bow....but you managed your agility test to get across the alleyway unharmed, it makes sense to me.

But generally being in line of sight of "anyone" with a missile weapon is pretty deadly, unless your agility tests are extremely easy. I feel like your game could settle into the old issue where no one wants to move for risk of being shot to death by sniping bowmen?

There's some good questions to ponder here.

My initial worry was whether it would 'rob' a player of their agency when they activate their models - which is sort of the same issue in the 'hapless sniper rabble' example you highlight. There could be ways around this, allowing perhaps for one reaction per action - but then allowing for a group of hapless rabble to group up?

But yeah, I don't want a game that boils down to 2nd Ed. WH40k Overwatch-style where nobody moves, because doing so became too difficult. I have considered that a model, when activated, will have a pool of dice to use; so that when it makes a Move action it can use both dice, increasing the odds of succeeding, at the cost of being less effective when attacking.

I think the Overwatch mechanic was in Black Ops from Osprey? I vaguely remember something like that, where you could choose to either avoid getting hit by being suppressed, or ignore suppression at the risk of getting hit. Might have to look into that some more, thanks for reminding me!

For me, there are two things that make an engaging game....

1. Attacker gets to "do something" to try and fight
2. Defender gets to "do something" to avoid dying

If the attacker always hits, it deprives the attacking player of making a decision that has consequences to be resolved.

However: Give it a try an see what happens.

I don't agree with this outside of modern or near future naval battles.

People miss, even snipers. I remember the words of a man who had a near miss from a sniper shot in Northern Ireland. There is feth all you can do about it if a sniper fires, he registered the flash in peripheral vision and that was that. He shortly after felt the passage of the bullet. He was an officer and certainly the target.

Now as a mechanic you can avoid some fire. I like how Flames of War handles this, markemanship is a given, but the target number is not based on the skill of the firer but the skill of the target. It's still a passive d6 roll from the point of view of the defender.

Autohits are a reality with computerised weaponry, and it makes sense that random chance is based around the targets defences. It would make sense to have a frigate make saves against expected autohits from anti-ship missiles fired from an aircraft or other ship. This is basically true since 1st Gulf. Well in fact missiles in 1st Gulf had about a 1-2% failure rate, by 2nd Gulf this had disappeared and they effectively auto-hit.
Computerised fire control and on board target and flight systems are so advanced now this is likely a hard reality for modern naval warfare. An anti-missile system however had a random effect. Phalanx can handle IIRC about 7 incoming warheads, Goalkeeper about 10, but both vary and Goalkeeper is higher calibre and runs out of ammo more quickly. Yes I can see the % passed to the defence for modern naval gaming. I would argue the same would apply in space if using realistic rather than space opera physics.

I'll add in Tactical Assault: Combat Cards and Starship Troopers (1st Ed) both included mechanics by which the victim of an attack could mitigate the damage caused in an attack by moving away from the attacker.