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Hey folks,

Thought I would see if I could get some critical feedback on my set of skirmish miniature rules that I have been working on and play testing for the last few years. They are designed to be generic for any setting or models you want.

The main goal is to allow me and my group to play any setting/models, multiple players (2+), short play time (1-2 hours max) and easy to remember rules. Not quite beer and pretzels, but not quite Infinity.

NEW (July 8 2013) : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6394483/Skirmish'd_Rules_v4_95.pdf

OLD : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6394483/Skirmish'd_Rules_v4_9.pdf

It's 5 pages long so not a huge read. The formatting isn't great and syntax and spelling errors abound. Some sections are brief and still very much wip (such as the Special Abilities).

Lots of inspiration drawn from various other rules sets I have played over the years such as Infinity, GW games, Warmachine, Command & Colors, Song of Blades and Heroes, Mobile Frame Zero and many others.

Looks fun!

I think it'd be cool to have even more objectives/victory conditions and deployment types, instead of the standard capture.

The idea of zones sort of reminds me of the new Jake Thorton skirmish game "Deadzone". Seems like you've handled movement, cover, etc. well and the approach should do away with some of the finnicky LOS arguments that can come up in games.

I like your idea of play passing to the opponent when one of their models is attacked. Definitely an interesting approach that I don't think I've seen before.

I also like how combat can result in "withdrawals" instead of just wounding or no effect. Seems like it'd make for a dynamic battle as models shift around the board.

I sort of feel that the Reaction approach is out of place in the game...maybe a bit shoe-horned in? I can understand reactions being cool, and they certainly define something like Infinity, but in this case I don't know if they fit? The defender will already be doing a roll off for combat, which keeps them involved enough, and play will switch over right after so it's not like they're waiting for the entire turn to end before they can act. Then again I could be wrong on how the game normally plays and maybe reactions are critical and the game would be slow without them? I guess I'd just evaluate whether they're in the game because they're cool and a neat mechanic or because they actually work well in the rules.

The Support system on the other hand is great, especially having it integrated into the statline. With tracking support, actions, and wounds do you find each model ends up with a lot of tokens beside each?

Not sure if you can reword "combat values", but when I read that I assumed it was just Range and Close combat instead of all 5 stats (which you did at least clarify). Maybe a more generic term would help. Cool idea for choosing the stats based on Rank though.

How has massed Rank 0 troops vs specialized Rank 3 troops gone in your tests? Seems like Rank 0 troops are a steal of a deal and they could whittle down an outnumbered opponent? Also do you find people normally just dump points into Range and not really into Support? There seems to be a lot of versatility in how armies could be, but I just wonder if all approaches are equally balanced and valid?

You mentioned spelling errors, so, obviously those Some diagrams would help as well, plus maybe a picture of a game in progress so people can better visualize the zones. Also putting the combat modifiers into a table/chart might help instead of point form (same goes for Special Abilities). That's all minor stuff though.

Also are you going to provide some basic "army lists" to get people started? I'm sure there will be a subset of players that love the customization and generic-use-any-genre approach, but others will just want to pick up the game and play by choosing from a prebuilt list. Having some guidance on armies would definitely low the barrier to entry.

Looks fun!

I think it'd be cool to have even more objectives/victory conditions and deployment types, instead of the standard capture.

Thanks for taking the time to look at the rules.

YES! I have loads of ideas for alternate objectives, set ups and scenarios. I am just using the one included for the majority of my play testing as it covers the major goals of the game play I am trying to accomplish.

The idea of zones sort of reminds me of the new Jake Thorton skirmish game "Deadzone". Seems like you've handled movement, cover, etc. well and the approach should do away with some of the finnicky LOS arguments that can come up in games.

Yeah Deadzone looks great (I backed it) but I had a "GRR! They stole my idea!" movement when I first saw it but upon reading the rules they implement the zones quite differently - much more like a miniature game where I am taking a more board game approach to their use. After two decades of playing them I have since given up on playing miniature games with rulers as I just found it far to finicky and time consuming - it's not a bad way of doing things - just not for me any more.

I like your idea of play passing to the opponent when one of their models is attacked. Definitely an interesting approach that I don't think I've seen before.

I am pretty sure it's not 100% my idea but it works. I am making some changes to how it working in more recent play tests though to allow a little more coordination rather than it immediately moving over to the other player. Something along the line of play passes when an opposing model wounds your model with a counter attack or decides to hold. This givs more weight to the reactions.

I also like how combat can result in "withdrawals" instead of just wounding or no effect. Seems like it'd make for a dynamic battle as models shift around the board.

A large part of the game is about area control. I didn't want a moral system or stat/attribute because I wanted the players to be in control of their forces and make decisions about when it was time to hold and retreat based on the events as they unfold rather than the roll of a die. Forcing a model to withdraw is a large part of the game - getting models out of cover, away from objectives and into vulnerable positions is as important as actually causing casualties.

I sort of feel that the Reaction approach is out of place in the game...maybe a bit shoe-horned in? I can understand reactions being cool, and they certainly define something like Infinity, but in this case I don't know if they fit? The defender will already be doing a roll off for combat, which keeps them involved enough, and play will switch over right after so it's not like they're waiting for the entire turn to end before they can act. Then again I could be wrong on how the game normally plays and maybe reactions are critical and the game would be slow without them? I guess I'd just evaluate whether they're in the game because they're cool and a neat mechanic or because they actually work well in the rules.

I admit do love games with reaction systems and it has been a part of this system for a long time. I mainly wanted two things - the first being that no model that could act in a round (ie has not yet taken an action) would just "stand around" when under attack or other evens occurred to/around him - it sucks to put models on the table only to remove them a turn or two later and they have done nothing. The second was I wanted both players to be able to effect each others actions - so you couldn't just attack a powerful enemy without the possibility of reciprocation.

Reaction are also quite limited in what you can do - sure you can immediately counter attack an enemy that is shooting at you but you must shoot back at them. It's another way of forcing each player to make hard choices about what and when they are going to do things.

I am doing some reworking of the action assignment rules so the reactions and action integration is going to be a little different in the next copy.

The Support system on the other hand is great, especially having it integrated into the stat line. With tracking support, actions, and wounds do you find each model ends up with a lot of tokens beside each?

The support system has worked out quite well. I am going to be rolling it back to a previous version that requires less tracking and rules.

There are sometimes quite a number of markers on the board, but that's nothing new for a lot of skirmish games. Outside of moving the tracking to stat cards for models I don't have a solution. I am trying to keep as much of the game "on the board" without a lot of peripheral stuff.

Not sure if you can reword "combat values", but when I read that I assumed it was just Range and Close combat instead of all 5 stats (which you did at least clarify). Maybe a more generic term would help. Cool idea for choosing the stats based on Rank though.

Yeah like a lot of terms in the rules they are more for me than finalized versions. Mostly they are just the terms that stuck while writing and play testing.

The ranks for stat allocation worked very well and that made me happy as it was a real shot in the dark. Came out really balanced.

How has massed Rank 0 troops vs specialized Rank 3 troops gone in your tests? Seems like Rank 0 troops are a steal of a deal and they could whittle down an outnumbered opponent? Also do you find people normally just dump points into Range and not really into Support? There seems to be a lot of versatility in how armies could be, but I just wonder if all approaches are equally balanced and valid?

Actually the play testing has so far been the opposite, rank 0 troops are so fragile due to the fact they are immediately removed after a single wound and have low stats, that they may need a bump.

So far my play testers usually stat out the models with what they look like (unconscious WYSIWYG?) so this hasn't been a problem. I want to leave it very open so if someone want's to just make super cheesy stated models it will hopefully be solved by people not playing with that person (they will get the hint).

So far a mix of models has worked best for winning. The need to be able to take the objectives requires a certain amount of close combat and movement. Some good defense is needed on both sides and ranged combat is impotant to restrict enemy positioning terrain, range and LOS keep it from being a game breaker. As no single model can do all of these things you kind of need to consider your goals.

On the flip side we had a pure fast, close combat force with little defense or support win a game due to some smart use of the battle field and taking advantage of enemy weaknesses.

You mentioned spelling errors, so, obviously those Some diagrams would help as well, plus maybe a picture of a game in progress so people can better visualize the zones. Also putting the combat modifiers into a table/chart might help instead of point form (same goes for Special Abilities). That's all minor stuff though.

All of that is a great idea and would probably help with following the rules

Also are you going to provide some basic "army lists" to get people started? I'm sure there will be a subset of players that love the customization and generic-use-any-genre approach, but others will just want to pick up the game and play by choosing from a prebuilt list. Having some guidance on armies would definitely low the barrier to entry.

Yes! I want to include a few obvious ones right off the bat but will probably have a website with continuous model profile updates.

Thanks again for the feed back questions! Hopefully I will get the update to the rules completed soon. Lots of reworking to the action system that will improve game play.

Wicked, I'll be interested to see what objectives and set ups you come up with. Just when I think all possible ways to deploy miniatures to a grid are done, someone invariably surprises me.

KillusMaximus wrote:Yeah Deadzone looks great (I backed it) but I had a "GRR! They stole my idea!" movement when I first saw it but upon reading the rules they implement the zones quite differently - much more like a miniature game where I am taking a more board game approach to their use. After two decades of playing them I have since given up on playing miniature games with rulers as I just found it far to finicky and time consuming - it's not a bad way of doing things - just not for me any more.

I can definitely relate to your feelings on measuring in miniature games. Especially if people are prone to overmeasuring or sneaking in an extra half an inch (even if not intentional). Sometimes it's nice to just sit down with a square or hex grid and know exactly how far everything is. The only real downside I find is in grid games people will take time to count squares, and long ranges are more of a hassle than a simple measuring of 32". Most times I play Firestorm Armada I wish it was on a hex map like Silent Death.

KillusMaximus wrote:I admit do love games with reaction systems and it has been a part of this system for a long time. I mainly wanted two things - the first being that no model that could act in a round (ie has not yet taken an action) would just "stand around" when under attack or other evens occurred to/around him - it sucks to put models on the table only to remove them a turn or two later and they have done nothing. The second was I wanted both players to be able to effect each others actions - so you couldn't just attack a powerful enemy without the possibility of reciprocation.

Sounds like your touch ups to the reaction system will help integrate it a bit better. I just thought the play passing + reactions seemed like two opposite rather than complimentary systems.

KillusMaximus wrote:There are sometimes quite a number of markers on the board, but that's nothing new for a lot of skirmish games. Outside of moving the tracking to stat cards for models I don't have a solution. I am trying to keep as much of the game "on the board" without a lot of peripheral stuff.

If you have stat cards you could consider adding "tracks" to the edges, and moving a paper clip or slider up and down the tracks. It's a bit cleaner than having tokens on the stat cards, but obviously not as visible as tokens on the table. Another option would be rubber bands around the figures for some tracking, since those move with the model a little easier than taking 5+ tokens. Maybe you could use the model itself for a bit of tracking, like placing it face down for knocked down or backwards for stunned or something. Sounds like going to the simpler less-tracky Support system should help, since then you'll just ahve wounds + acted tokens right?
Definitely is a problem with the entire skirmish genre and not something that is easily fixed.

KillusMaximus wrote:Actually the play testing has so far been the opposite, rank 0 troops are so fragile due to the fact they are immediately removed after a single wound and have low stats, that they may need a bump.

So far my play testers usually stat out the models with what they look like (unconscious WYSIWYG?) so this hasn't been a problem. I want to leave it very open so if someone want's to just make super cheesy stated models it will hopefully be solved by people not playing with that person (they will get the hint).

So far a mix of models has worked best for winning. The need to be able to take the objectives requires a certain amount of close combat and movement. Some good defense is needed on both sides and ranged combat is impotant to restrict enemy positioning terrain, range and LOS keep it from being a game breaker. As no single model can do all of these things you kind of need to consider your goals.

On the flip side we had a pure fast, close combat force with little defense or support win a game due to some smart use of the battle field and taking advantage of enemy weaknesses.

That's pretty interesting, and good to hear that the balanced approach works best so far. I found the same thing for Song of Blades and Heroes whereas initially a person might think otherwise. And people totally unconsciously use WYSIWYG which is pretty funny. Guess it's just one less thing to remember when trying a new game.

Do you happen to have any battle reports of your previous games? I'm always interested to read those.

I am working on writing up a battle report with photos today/tomorrow and hopefully post it soon after. I will be using the rules in the PDF, not anything changed since so as to make it easy to follow along.

A battlereport or tutorial video may go a long way to helping get interest. Alternative move systems like this often seem rather fun, and the system is very interesting. Down side is im bad at working my way through any rulebook

Okay here is an example of a possible actions during the first round in a game. I have 2 forces, some orks and some chaos marines battling over a comm-beacon.


The orks have already captured the beacon and are on the defence while the chaos marines are the attackers. The chaos marines get the first turn.


The chaos marine leader is assigned the advance action - he can move a number of zones up to 1x his Move value and then make a ranged combat attack at an enemy in range and line of sight. He can't get to where he want's on his own though, before moving the friendly model in the same zone uses their support to raise his Move value by 1 point. He then moves up to the barrels and makes a ranged attack targeting one of the orks in the objective zone, which is in range and LOS. The ork chooses to counter-attack with a ranged attack of his own. Both sides roll 1 die for attack (red) and one die for defence (blue) and then compare. The chaos marine has a total attack of 7 (a roll of 6 +1 for his Ranged Attack value), which beats the ork's total defence result of 6 (a roll of 5 +1 for his Defence value). The ork has the ability to re-roll but the best result he can get is a 7 and that would tie, but as he is not in cover he would lose the tie, so he does not re-roll. The ork has a total attack of 6 (5 +1 for Ranged Attack) which loses to the chaos marines defence total of 6 (3 +2 Defence value +1 for cover) as he is in cover which wins him the tie. The ork is wounded and withdraws backwards 1 zone.

As the ork player was attacked during the chaos marine players turn play passes to the ork player now.


The ork that was flanking up on the top right of the battlefield is assigned the charge action - he can move a number of zones up to 2x is Move value but must end in a zone with an opposing model and make a close combat attack against that model. The only time a model can be in a zone with an opposing model is when charging and resolving a close combat attack. The ork charges down to the single chaos marine that in the ruined building. The chaos marine chooses to hold his ground and counter-attack the ork. Both sides roll red and blue dice for attack and defence. They both roll poorly on the attack and neither side beats the other's defence, forcing the attacking ork to withdraw back to the last zone he moved from.


A chaos marine in the lower left corner advances up to the barricades and shoots at the ork taking cover behind the barrels. The ork chooses to hold as his reaction, then he can take any action once the enemy action has resolved. The chaos marine rolls poorly (a 2) and decides to re-roll (he has that ability) and gets a 4 for a total of 6, which beats the ork's current total of 5 (roll of a 3 +1 Defence, +1 cover). The ork also chooses to re-roll and get a 4 which gives him a total of 6 which wins as he is in cover.


The ork then resolves his hold reaction by being assigned a charge action targeting his attacker. Both sides roll a 6 with the chaos marine winning with a total of 9 to the ork's total of 8. The ork is forced to withdraw to his previous occupied zone.

I hope that illuminates some of the rules and game play. I could write a much longer and more in-depth explanation if you are interested? I can do a short picture tutorial for each of the actions/reactions. After a number of games over the last few days I am making some changes to how certain actions resolve and some other rule changes which I will post about later.

Cheers!

Hmmm is this a "standard" sized board and forces from what you've playtested? Gotta say the grid numbers on the rules itself did startle me for a second.

Ok, so if two enemy units move into a zone with a piece of covering terrain in, do they both benefit from it in terms of of shooting, rules assuming that if they're in the zone, they would wise up and dive for the cover if they needed?

 doc1234 wrote:
Hmmm is this a "standard" sized board and forces from what you've playtested? Gotta say the grid numbers on the rules itself did startle me for a second.

Oh oops should have said that at the start. This was two 5 Force Point armies on a section of a 8x8 board (ignore the light blue lines - the zones are the black lines). It was what I had set up already for some rule changes I was play testing.

Ok, so if two enemy units move into a zone with a piece of covering terrain in, do they both benefit from it in terms of of shooting, rules assuming that if they're in the zone, they would wise up and dive for the cover if they needed?

Two opposing models can never be in the same zone unless one of the models has charged the other and you are resolving a close combat attack. Only defending model of the charge gets the cover bonus, I was not clear on this at all in the rules (took it for granted in my mind - oops). Once the close combat attack has been resolved either the attacker fails and is forced back to the last zone they moved from or the defender loses and is forced out of the zone they were in, leaving the attacker in the zone. If either side was killed that counts as a win for the opposing force as well.

If there are multiple models in a zone where one was charged then the attacker can (if they beat their original target) attack again at a new target enemy in the zone with a penalty (well the defender get a bonus actually) or they can choose to just withdraw back to their previous zone.

It's odd how something that plays out very simply is so hard to explain - I am quite rubbish it seems I have to look over what I have written more closely to make sure I am not leaving out things I take for granted.

A note on reactions - they may be going away to keep things a little more simple. Instead if you shoot at a model and it survives it immediately can be given an out of turn action if it has not already been given an action during the current round. Close combat attacks will always be both sides attacking and defending, with a bonus when attacking a model that has already acted this round. I like how reactions keep the game going back and forth but if they are too hard to keep sorted then they should probably go away.

Also I am testing that play will only pass to the opposing player if you choose to pass when it is time to assign an action or if one of your models is wounded/killed during your turn.

Thoughts?

No worries, the AAR was nice and clear for a quick overview. Just got to remember some people (*cough* me) learn games better with visual aids and hands on experience. I'v rarely been able to learn anything but super simple games just by reading the rules. The second thing to remember is to always write the rules as if you were writing them for an idiot. If it seems like it should be obvious, chances are there will be SOMEONE who it isn't obvious to, or it's only obvious to you because its your game.

Ok, next question. You did say about two figures in a zone, lets say unit A charges at Unit B who happens to be in the same zone as Unit C who is Unit Bs teammate, what occurs in this situation? Do both get to react or is C left there twiddling his thumbs?

Secondly ok the force points help put it into perspective. Have you reached any conclusion on what the "optimum" force and board size are yet?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also at the end it talks about force abilities up to the value of the force. Seeing as there are no "points costs" for the abilities, are they on a 1 per model basis or 1 per point?

Other than that i can't really find much way of faulting it right now so to speak. I really like the unit generation and how you work out the points. Rather than two regular joe humans having some vast difference in skill, they all have the same baseline of 1 with little natural quirks and perks. Much more 'realistic' (to use a dirty word). Plus theres no "This has X stats and its balanced because of Y arbitary points value". You can litteraly see and work out simply how much points things are worth (i'll admit i'm partial to games that don't go the peni envy route of points. Not entirely sure there's much difference between 15 points and 150000BECAUSEAWESOME!!!11!)

 doc1234 wrote:
No worries, the AAR was nice and clear for a quick overview. Just got to remember some people (*cough* me) learn games better with visual aids and hands on experience. I'v rarely been able to learn anything but super simple games just by reading the rules. The second thing to remember is to always write the rules as if you were writing them for an idiot. If it seems like it should be obvious, chances are there will be SOMEONE who it isn't obvious to, or it's only obvious to you because its your game.

Yeah it's why its always good to have other eyes on this stuff

Ok, next question. You did say about two figures in a zone, lets say unit A charges at Unit B who happens to be in the same zone as Unit C who is Unit Bs teammate, what occurs in this situation? Do both get to react or is C left there twiddling his thumbs?

Currently unit C does nothing unless unit B wins against unit A and unit B decides to stay and fight him. It's not super elegant realism wise but I was afraid of people just always putting 3 guys in a zone no mater what in order to maximise any bonuses. Unit C would get a bonus if unit B did fight him though as a secondary attack.

Secondly ok the force points help put it into perspective. Have you reached any conclusion on what the "optimum" force and board size are yet?

A 5 point force works on a 8x8 and a 10 point force needs more space, a 12x12 seems good so far. All tests over 10 points havn't had more than 10 units- just higher ranks so I don't know if more space is needed, probably not - just more chance of multiple units per space.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also at the end it talks about force abilities up to the value of the force. Seeing as there are no "points costs" for the abilities, are they on a 1 per model basis or 1 per point?

They are 1 per force point - give to any model you want, so a 10 point force gets 10 abilities to distribute how they like.

Other than that i can't really find much way of faulting it right now so to speak. I really like the unit generation and how you work out the points. Rather than two regular joe humans having some vast difference in skill, they all have the same baseline of 1 with little natural quirks and perks. Much more 'realistic' (to use a dirty word). Plus theres no "This has X stats and its balanced because of Y arbitary points value". You can litteraly see and work out simply how much points things are worth (i'll admit i'm partial to games that don't go the peni envy route of points. Not entirely sure there's much difference between 15 points and 150000BECAUSEAWESOME!!!11!)

Thanks - I am hoping that some of the new changes to the rules I am working on make it clearer. I keep wanting to add details that in the end just gets in the way of smooth play and simplicity.

Well putting all your eggs into one zone probably wouldnt wprk out too well fpr you if your playing to an objective.

Secondly, on my phone but i dont remember seeing much differences to weapon traita. You could handle it with things like "rapid fire weapons mays hit all models in a zone by spraying at a -1 roll" or other types of weapon traits

Secondly, on my phone but i dont remember seeing much differences to weapon traita. You could handle it with things like "rapid fire weapons mays hit all models in a zone by spraying at a -1 roll" or other types of weapon traits

Right now they jsut fall under special abilties - but that entire section is being reworked. Attemtping to balance these against each other and prevent horrible combos but still making them worth while is difficult.

Here is a list of potential new ideas and rules changes. Brain dump.

TURN CHANGES
Play only passes to the other player in the following circumstances
-a friendly model was wounded by a counter attack
-the opposing player assigned a model to hold as a reaction (maybe?)
-the player has no more models to assign actions to or the player chooses to pass

MOVEMENT
-a model cannot move diagonally around a blocked zone (wall, elevation or impassable)
-a solution to the movement rates needs to be done, having to almost always assign 2 points to the Move value to afford any kind of mobility is too restrictive

COMBAT
-a model does not roll any extra dice if they are of a higher rank that their attacker/target, this was to powerful (especially against Rank 0 models) and will be moved over to special abilties that give more dice instead
-the elevation bonus is now +1 to the result, not an additional die
-the range a model can attack at when advancing is 1-3 zones if they move, 1-6 zone if they do not move (extra range may be available as a special ability?)
-ranged attacks do not cause the target to withdraw if they are in the same zone as an objective, this might lead to some other rules about causing and preventing withdraws
-only the defedning target of a charge action of a close combat attack gets a cover bonus

REACTIONS
-assigning a hold reaction now also passes play to that player after the action resolves
-remove reactions -

SUPPORT
-a model can only support once per round
-the support value now shows the bonus given (rather than just +1) instead of how many times the model can give support

RANK ZERO MODELS
-too fragile at the moment? removing the bonus die for higher rank attack/defend helps but still not enough to over come the lack to staying power
-killed rank 0 models go to reinforcements?

SPECIAL ABILITIES
-reworking this section
-most abilities will be either re-rolls or extra dice?
-additional range can be bought (+3 to range)

After a couple of weeks of games and rules changes going back and forth an updated PDF is now available.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6394483/Skirmish'd_Rules_v4_95.pdf

This current set has lead to a new set of major changes that will be coming in the next update - hopefully sooner than later, along with a game play video or two.