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So I'm trying to work on a fast-paced skirmish game, and I'm trying to condense the combat rolling system to make everything happen with a single D20 roll, which incorporates the targets armour, the shooters skill, and the weapons strength all in one.

The general premise is:

The units have (among others) Skill, Armour and HP statistics. in this example, both models have:

Skill: 2
Armour: 10
HP: 3

soldier 1 has a gun with strength 1 and damage 1
soldier 2 has a gun with strength 4 and damage 3

to shoot each other, you have to roll a D20 and exceed the target's armour. you roll a D20 and add the weapons strength and your skill. an unmodified roll of 20 on the D20 always succeeds and an unmodified roll of 1 always fails.

Soldier 1 has to roll 10+, on a D20+1+2. as such he has to roll a 7+ and will cause 1 damage (-1HP).
Soldier 2 has to roll 10+, on a D20+4+2. as such he has to roll a 4+ and will cause 3 damage (-3HP).

so if soldier 2 succeeds he'll kill soldier 1.

in this instance the second soldier is using a rocket launcher and the first a machine gun. armour values can go much higher (I'm using the same system for vehicles as infantry) so a tank might have armour 30, and require a skilled user of a powerful gun to cause damage. weapons mounted on vehicles will be much more powerful.

so a tank with armour 30 is shot by another tank with skill 3 and strength 12. you have to roll a 30+ on a D20+15, so need a 15+ to cause damage.

soldier 2 is then targeted by the tank, who needs a 10+ on a D20+15, so will succeed automatically unless he rolls a 1.

Does anyone know of a game which uses this mechanic already, and if so does it work? My aim is to make each turn as quick as possible as the game is part race and part skirmish, with different missions putting different emphasis on these elements. I don't want a racing game bogged down with roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save etc.

I also don't like the idea of "toughness" as, generally, if the bullet goes through your armour it hurts, so it's only your armour it has to overcome. the idea that a soldier can take a hit or two is reflected by him having multiple HP. The "Armour" stat is a bit abstract as it can also represent ability to dodge, or small size etc. anything which prevents you taking damage is in the armour stat.

Cheers all!

Okay, so what are you trying to achieve in the overall game? Are these models trying to secure an objective? Is it a matter of how many enemy you kill? Something else?

You might consider using cards instead of dice.

I would change the "Armour" stat to something like "Defense", to help people understand the fact it incorporates anything that would help prevent damage.

Thanks for the responses guys,

 Nurglitch wrote:
Okay, so what are you trying to achieve in the overall game? Are these models trying to secure an objective? Is it a matter of how many enemy you kill? Something else?

You might consider using cards instead of dice.

I'm still knocking together ideas to create an overall game at the moment. initially I wanted to produce a death-race game, and started building the fluff behind it. I then realised the fluff lent itself towards also having infantry, and brought it more toward a skirmish game built around vehicles, akin to gorkamorka but without the progressive campaign being so key. I have been developing the game now as a skirmishing racing game, with a variety of game types to work with - some will be racing games, with checkpoints to achieve in order. some will be objective based, but not like 40k - if you get to an objective you can move it, load it onto your vehicle and get out of there, for example, which I find more relevant than the 40k style "hold it forever" objectives, as this is gang/tribal warfare and not part of a bigger battle.

In truth I haven't fully developed any missions yet. The general premise is that it's a vehicle based skirmish game, but the vehicles are just tools - you're controlling the crew, not the vehicle. the driver is controlling the vehicle, the gunner the gun, etc.

The main aim is to smooth out the attacking so that, during racing scenarios, the game remains fast-paced and doesn't clog up with dice rolling every time a vehicle moves. Racing scenarios will have less points allowance than skirmishes, to keep it about racing. My aim is for it to be a fairly tactical game about cover and the like, as running across a battlefield screaming is, realistically, a good way to die very quickly. cover gives good benefits to survivability (increasing the defence, thanks for the rename recommendation ikeulhu) and you can go to ground, which doubles the effect.

I'm planning to try and develop the fast-paced combat, and then work missions around it in a manner that synergises well.

I'm currently working with the idea of individual models, but might expand to units if the system seems strong enough to support it. kind of the opposite of 40k going to killteam.

Okay, so this is going to sound weird, but have you consider Calvinballing it? I mean set up stuff and just make it up as you go?

If you are going to use both skill and strength as modifiers in one roll why even have them as separate values? An attack with skill 1 strength 3 is exactly the same as an attack with skill 3 and strength 1 so why not amalgamate skill and strength into a single "Attack" value?

IIRC Warmaster worked like that though with a d6 instead of a d20.

With that single d20 roll, you are basically recreating the D&D D20 system. Or maybe TORG.

Either way, you are mandating a table of modifiers, because that's what d20 is for. Unfortunately, that table easily gets out of control, because that's what newbie / amateur designers do.

So yes, you *can* do that, because any mechanic can be shoehorned into any given game. Whether that's the "best" solution remains to be seen, depending on what your game goals are.

You could also look at a streamlined Xd6 game that uses multiple (opposed) dice but more simply. It's also pretty fast, especially when everything is on cards.

Yeah, it pretty much sounds like the d20 system.

You have an "attack bonus" representing Skill and Strength Modifier (and Magic / weapon bonus), and if you exceed the target's Armour Class you then inflict damage.

So damage can be random (Short Sword d6, Long Sword d8, Bastard Sword d10) or a fixed value... fixed is faster.

It's relatively quick, though d20 may be overboard for non role-playing use. D10 is probably ok.

I have to ask first, why are you trying to condense the combat rolling system to make everything happen with one die?

If you are doing it to make less math and bookkeeping, usually condensing to one die means more math and bookkeeping which increases the amount of time between rolls.

Also, something to remember, generally, people love rolling dice. There isn't a lot of pleasure in rolling one die, but there is a lot of pleasure in rolling multiple dice. This is why people like dice. Multiple dice could be 2-3, it doesn't have to be a handful, but surveys and studies have proven people like rolling dices. Just rolling one doesn't have the same feeling. It also feels like all the luck is pinned on "one die roll", it doesn't matter if statistically, that isn't correct or accurate but when bad rolls happen, it is traditionally blamed on the die roll.

I am a bit archaic, but I do not like the "One Roll to Rule Them All" systems I have encountered. They ended up requiring too much figuring out the target number before you even roll.

Plus, as an opponent, I want to roll some dice too. I don;t want to stand there and just remove my little models, I want to have some chance to "resist" for lack of a better word.

That is why I prefer some sort of opposed roll when possible.

Thankyou all for your feedback on this!

 Nurglitch wrote:
Okay, so this is going to sound weird, but have you consider Calvinballing it? I mean set up stuff and just make it up as you go?

That's my next step, I just want to have some idea of what system I'm perfecting.

 SolarCross wrote:
If you are going to use both skill and strength as modifiers in one roll why even have them as separate values? An attack with skill 1 strength 3 is exactly the same as an attack with skill 3 and strength 1 so why not amalgamate skill and strength into a single "Attack" value?

IIRC Warmaster worked like that though with a d6 instead of a d20.

The two statistics are separate as you have the strength of the weapon and the skill of the wielder - so you could buy a good weapon for an unskilled guy and a good weapon for a skilled guy and it would have a different likelihood of success.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
With that single d20 roll, you are basically recreating the D&D D20 system. Or maybe TORG.

Either way, you are mandating a table of modifiers, because that's what d20 is for. Unfortunately, that table easily gets out of control, because that's what newbie / amateur designers do.

So yes, you *can* do that, because any mechanic can be shoehorned into any given game. Whether that's the "best" solution remains to be seen, depending on what your game goals are.

You could also look at a streamlined Xd6 game that uses multiple (opposed) dice but more simply. It's also pretty fast, especially when everything is on cards.

I see what you mean about a table of modifiers - I've already started to work out rules for cover, which adds t odefense, and going to ground which doubles the effect of cover. It's starting to seem a little complex, but I won't write it off until I've playtested it a bit!

 greatbigtree wrote:
Yeah, it pretty much sounds like the d20 system.

You have an "attack bonus" representing Skill and Strength Modifier (and Magic / weapon bonus), and if you exceed the target's Armour Class you then inflict damage.

So damage can be random (Short Sword d6, Long Sword d8, Bastard Sword d10) or a fixed value... fixed is faster.

It's relatively quick, though d20 may be overboard for non role-playing use. D10 is probably ok.

I'm going for fixed values of damage, again to streamline the game. I'm using the D20 as it allows for a greater scale - an infantryman might have armour 8, a tank armour 30, a light vehicle 15 etc. I am thinking that I need two values for each gun depending on shooting vehicles or infantry, as I've noticed that an unskilled trooped with an antitank rifle will be very effective against infantry, which is wrong.

 Dark Severance wrote:
I have to ask first, why are you trying to condense the combat rolling system to make everything happen with one die?

If you are doing it to make less math and bookkeeping, usually condensing to one die means more math and bookkeeping which increases the amount of time between rolls.

Also, something to remember, generally, people love rolling dice. There isn't a lot of pleasure in rolling one die, but there is a lot of pleasure in rolling multiple dice. This is why people like dice. Multiple dice could be 2-3, it doesn't have to be a handful, but surveys and studies have proven people like rolling dices. Just rolling one doesn't have the same feeling. It also feels like all the luck is pinned on "one die roll", it doesn't matter if statistically, that isn't correct or accurate but when bad rolls happen, it is traditionally blamed on the die roll.

I see what you're saying here... I might redesign to have multiple shots with the same mechanic. I'm also trying to keep the amount of modifiers as little as possible so that it doesn't take much bookkeeping to play. again, the playtesting will bring this to sharper clarity for me, but I'm starting to think that I have to do some major rethinking...

 Easy E wrote:
I am a bit archaic, but I do not like the "One Roll to Rule Them All" systems I have encountered. They ended up requiring too much figuring out the target number before you even roll.

Plus, as an opponent, I want to roll some dice too. I don;t want to stand there and just remove my little models, I want to have some chance to "resist" for lack of a better word.

That is why I prefer some sort of opposed roll when possible.

This has been in the back of my mind for some time now. I don't think that adding a defence roll would slow the game down too much - and if it was a comparison then both players can roll simultaneously. for example:

attacker rolls skill+strength+D20. Defender rolls Defence+D20. whoever rolls highest wins.

It'll need an overhaul to the strengths to make them a bit higher and give them a chance, as the numbers I've made up so far are not designed to overcome an added D20. it also allows for lucky shots, as the "a 1 loses, a 20 wins" mechanic will kick in and give people double the chance of hurting seriously powerful enemies. I'll probably put in a mechanic for multiple shots that 20's cancel out 1's, IE if the attacker rolls 3 shots, gets a 19 and two 20's and the defender rolls a 1, a 2 and a 19, the first shot uses a 20 and the 1, the second the 20 and the third goes against the 19 and fails.

I think I'll try the 2 profiles for vs vehicles and vs infantry, and then do a comparative roll so the defender feels included.

anti-tank weapons will basically have a big benefit vs vehicles, a deficit vs infantry but high damage, so if you do hit an infantry model, he'll probably turn to red mist.

I'm considering, to reduce bookkeeping and modifier tables, simply having cover give you 2D20 and pick the highest, and going to ground an extra one. certain exceptional cover (EG fortifications) might give another extra. but I don't want people bogged down in maths by adding them together or anything, so just pick the highest and use that.

Does that sound tenable?

Cheers again for all the feedback, it's helping!

Okay, think of it like this: Don't perfect your system and then test it. Instead, take some vague guidelines and use play to perfect it.

Also, beware the false granularity of the D20!

 some bloke wrote:
The two statistics are separate as you have the strength of the weapon and the skill of the wielder - so you could buy a good weapon for an unskilled guy and a good weapon for a skilled guy and it would have a different likelihood of success.

An alternative way to do this would be to give every profile a basic 'attack' value that takes into account the skill value you have in mind for them and whatever the strength of their basic gun is. Then instead of having upgrade weapons with different strength values just give them a bonus to the attack of whatever the difference in strengths was going to be. So it goes from:

Rifleman (skill 2)
with Combat rifle (strength 2)
with Missile Launcher (strength 4)

to:

Rifleman (attack 4)
with Missile Launcher (attack +2)

It's functionally the same but it feels less 'mathy' and might give a greater sense of flow mid game. I'd also throw some special rule keywords in there to give the weapons a bit more flavour. Hell, you could have options that just give a special rule and no modifier:

Rifleman (attack 4)
with Missile Launcher (+2, explosive)
with AT rifle (+1, penetrating)
with Medium Machine Gun (rapid fire)
with Heavy Machine Gun (+1, rapid fire, cumbersome)

I have to say though that this system as it is sounds very basic and not really that interesting. There are other things that you could aim for between this and "roll to hit, roll to wound, roll saves" (a system I also have no interest in playing). A point was raised above about some sort of defensive or reactive roll. What about, instead of having an armour stat, you assign each type of armour (or overall defence) a defensive dice? You'd have to fiddle around to find the best threshold for success but light armour could allow the defender to add a d4 result to the difficulty of the attack, then better dice with heavier armours. Cover could be represented by a temporary increase in dice type or even rolling multiple to ensure a higher result?

 Easy E wrote:
Also, beware the false granularity of the D20!

You'll have to explain that remark I'm afraid, I think I get the gist but I'd like to understand any mistakes I'm making!

 Riquende wrote:

Rifleman (attack 4)
with Missile Launcher (attack +2)

It's functionally the same but it feels less 'mathy' and might give a greater sense of flow mid game. I'd also throw some special rule keywords in there to give the weapons a bit more flavour. Hell, you could have options that just give a special rule and no modifier:

Rifleman (attack 4)
with Missile Launcher (+2, explosive)
with AT rifle (+1, penetrating)
with Medium Machine Gun (rapid fire)
with Heavy Machine Gun (+1, rapid fire, cumbersome)

I have to say I do like this idea. It would take a little tweaking to make it fit with the upgrades-cards system I was going for, and I hadn't planned initially to give anyone standard gear, but I can see that it would help to push units in a direction if they have a limited selection of weapons, so CC guys have shotguns and axes etc, snipers have rifles, that sort of thing. It'll encourage people to have more variety as well if not just anyone can run around with a rocket launcher. I can perhaps keep with the upgrade cards for vehicles (as they can reasonably mount most weapons) and give the infantry a small selection.

 Riquende wrote:

I have to say though that this system as it is sounds very basic and not really that interesting. There are other things that you could aim for between this and "roll to hit, roll to wound, roll saves" (a system I also have no interest in playing). A point was raised above about some sort of defensive or reactive roll. What about, instead of having an armour stat, you assign each type of armour (or overall defence) a defensive dice? You'd have to fiddle around to find the best threshold for success but light armour could allow the defender to add a d4 result to the difficulty of the attack, then better dice with heavier armours. Cover could be represented by a temporary increase in dice type or even rolling multiple to ensure a higher result?

As this is just one mechanic in the game, and as yet hasn't had special rules put into place to bring some flavour to proceedings, I won't take too much offence at that! I'd imagine most games have fairly boring combat if you only have the basic rules for it

I can see that having different dice for different armours is a way to go, or potentially multiple dice, which would bring the minimum roll above 1 and make it more necessary to have a big gun.

Having brainstormed the rules I'm realising I need to try and get rid of a lot of the maths, as it's only going to slow things down...

 Nurglitch wrote:
Okay, think of it like this: Don't perfect your system and then test it. Instead, take some vague guidelines and use play to perfect it.

I think this is the next stage, I just need to get some mock profiles knocked out to see how they perform!

Cheers everyone for the feedback!

@OP - you should go find the D&D 3E rules that were open-sourced, and use that as the foundation of your resolution engine. A lot of energy went into making that engine, and it is an excellent starting point for what you want to do. I believe they already have tables of modifiers for strength, skill (levels), size, range, etc.

On the question of multiple dice, yes, people like rolling multiples, to a point. Being obliged to count out and roll dozens of dice a la 40k is less satisfying, because it starts to become tedious. Up to what you can comfortably cup in your hand is nice, so a max of 5-7 dice is acceptable (I'd suggest a limit of 5, as it's a total that people can eyeball vs having to count).

On the question of luck, the multiple dice vs target and opposed success mechanics combine to produce a desirable feel. Multiple dice vs target generally has some success, and whiffing on 3+ dice is obviously "unlucky". Opposed success changes things from "success/fail" to "better/worse/luckier". When you win, you were clearly better than your opponent, but when you lose, you were unlucky, or your opponent was luckier.

Honestly, if the goal is to try to reduce everything to one die is to streamline and makes rolls happen faster then the best method is to simplify dice rolls, sort of how board games do it (Zombicide or XWing). The easiest method is to utilize custom dice, where certain sides represent 1 or 2 hits, along with other things (example Imperial Assault). The problem with that system is that it uses custom dice so if someone doesn't have those dice, it makes it harder to play. You can offset this by doing both, having custom dice and a simple sheet to translate 1=Fail, 2=Success, 3=2 Successes, 4=Defense Shield, etc or however you translate your sides for your dice.

Your base stats simply tell you to roll X amount of dice, modifiers add or subtract dice. So it is simple math, roll that amount of dice and find success or compare success to defense (if a head to head roll). There are a couple methods to do that way but you get the idea.

Although it is customary to make the attacker roll, you could kill two birds with one stone by making the defender roll against an attack value.

For example, I have Attack Skill 20. You have a defence skill of 10. Defender rolls d20 plus 10, and if higher, avoids damage.

This gives the defender the opportunity to "save" their dudes, while the attacker gets to make decisions, which gives both players something to do during each turn while keeping the rolling to a single roll.

Having the defender roll against a fixed attack value is an unusual reversal, as it assumes that the attacker succeeds and it's entirely up to the defender to survive the attack.

Of the alternatives discussed here, my preference ranks opposed success > 1d20 attack > 1d20 defense. Honestly, though, while it's an interesting exercise, it's not obvious what is gained over an opposed Xd6 v Yd6 system. A 1d20 system has lower granularity of results compared to something as simple as 2d6 v 1d6.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
@OP - you should go find the D&D 3E rules that were open-sourced, and use that as the foundation of your resolution engine. A lot of energy went into making that engine, and it is an excellent starting point for what you want to do. I believe they already have tables of modifiers for strength, skill (levels), size, range, etc.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have a look at it but I would like to avoid any tables, I want this to be a fast-paced game and I want to kep the mechanics as simple as I can whilst still making the decision of who to shoot and with whom somewhat more important.

 Dark Severance wrote:
Honestly, if the goal is to try to reduce everything to one die is to streamline and makes rolls happen faster then the best method is to simplify dice rolls, sort of how board games do it (Zombicide or XWing). The easiest method is to utilize custom dice, where certain sides represent 1 or 2 hits, along with other things (example Imperial Assault). The problem with that system is that it uses custom dice so if someone doesn't have those dice, it makes it harder to play. You can offset this by doing both, having custom dice and a simple sheet to translate 1=Fail, 2=Success, 3=2 Successes, 4=Defense Shield, etc or however you translate your sides for your dice.

Your base stats simply tell you to roll X amount of dice, modifiers add or subtract dice. So it is simple math, roll that amount of dice and find success or compare success to defense (if a head to head roll). There are a couple methods to do that way but you get the idea.

Thanks, I am now leaning toward multiple dice but in one roll head to head roll, more on that later.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Although it is customary to make the attacker roll, you could kill two birds with one stone by making the defender roll against an attack value.

For example, I have Attack Skill 20. You have a defence skill of 10. Defender rolls d20 plus 10, and if higher, avoids damage.

This gives the defender the opportunity to "save" their dudes, while the attacker gets to make decisions, which gives both players something to do during each turn while keeping the rolling to a single roll.

That's an interesting approach, and does give an element of realism I suppose, as the attack value would reflect how likely the attacker is to hit you and the defence roll would reflect the luck. I may playtest this...

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Having the defender roll against a fixed attack value is an unusual reversal, as it assumes that the attacker succeeds and it's entirely up to the defender to survive the attack.

Of the alternatives discussed here, my preference ranks opposed success > 1d20 attack > 1d20 defense. Honestly, though, while it's an interesting exercise, it's not obvious what is gained over an opposed Xd6 v Yd6 system. A 1d20 system has lower granularity of results compared to something as simple as 2d6 v 1d6.

I'm going to need someone to clarify what this "granularity" thing is, I'm assuming it's to do with the number of possible results?

So, having taken the feedback on board, the system I'll be playtesting to see if it's quick and fun enough is:


D20+attack vs D20+defence

Special rules mean you roll multiple D20 and pick the highest

EG
Machinegun, Range 24", Attack 3, anti-infantry

meaning this weapon rolls an extra D20 when targeting infantry, and picks the highest.

cover provides an extra D20 on defence rolls, going to ground provides another and lasts until you do anything else.

weapons like shotguns will have 2 profiles, 12" range standard and 4" range anti-infantry, to represent point blank range.

snipers will have 12"-48" range with anti-infantry and high attack, but have low attack at 12" range to represent the scope being a hindrance at such a range.


I'm sticking with the D20 system right now as I think it will allow the weapons to scale up more easily, and make machineguns pitiful against a tank but highly effective against infantry, as the tanks defence might be 18 whereas the infantry's armour may be 3.

The multiple dice and pick the highest approach should take a lot the maths out of it, as you don't have to add any dice together, only the highest to a single value.

Weapons have an AP cost and can be fired multiple times in a turn. no model can do the same action more than 2 times a turn, but some "fast" weapons can add 1 to this, eg a minigun.

I'll be trying to get some mock games thrown together this week and I'll get back to you on how it works.

Cheers all!

"Granularity" refers to how many possible results you can have, and how you can get there. In a 1d20 system, you have 20 possible ways to get 2 results (pass/fail). In a 2d6 v 1d6 system, you can get 3 results (double/pass/fail) out of potentially 216 different ways.

One point about opposed rolls... you can only resolve one attack at a time. Works for skirmish, though even then it's a bit of a slowdown.

But for a battle game... man that would drive me nuts pronto.

Unless you're making a single roll per unit, but most people seem to dislike that level of abstraction.

Fair enough. I was thinking there would be rolls per model as I'm accustomed to 40k and WMH, but if an Infantry Squad with Machineguns rolls d20+x for the entire unit, and d20+x+y for a squad with a Missile Launcher, I guess that makes sense.

Would it be d20+x+y-z , where z represents casualties to the unit?

In 40k, one could treat the to-wound and armor saves as opposed successes, with the number of dice to roll determined by the to-hit result as usual. That would be straight unit-on-unit combat, and the saves could be per-model, depending on whether they have invulnerable or other special saves.

I've wondered by Warhammer doesn't do armour like it does hitting and wounding. That whole interaction between attacker and target is something I like.

I have no idea, but I suspect a large part of it is inertia, so that the game feels like a GW game.

 greatbigtree wrote:
One point about opposed rolls... you can only resolve one attack at a time. Works for skirmish, though even then it's a bit of a slowdown.

But for a battle game... man that would drive me nuts pronto.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Fair enough. I was thinking there would be rolls per model as I'm accustomed to 40k and WMH, but if an Infantry Squad with Machineguns rolls d20+x for the entire unit, and d20+x+y for a squad with a Missile Launcher, I guess that makes sense.

Would it be d20+x+y-z , where z represents casualties to the unit?

I'm currently designing this as a skirmish game - essentially outriders or gangs encountering each other in the desolate wasteland of what once was society - and the initial playtests I've thrown together have a maximum of 8 models per team, and a minimum of 3.

I've chucked a few more mechanics together to make what I think is an interesting system, mocked up some profiles for models and attacks, and chucked a smattering of special rules in to make it more interesting. I've added a "skill" statistic which is the basic number of dice you roll for attacks, made rules for cover (+1 dice for defensive rolls) and taking cover (extra dice if you would have gotten cover). I've added reactions, so that small elite teams don't get wrecked by swarms, allowing you to take cover, run for cover or punch back if you're attacked, so if you've got 3 models vs 6, you can save Action Points to react with. I've also worked out an interesting system for damage which should take out any inherent unfairness of alternating action and make the game feel more simultaneous, provoke more decisions and a bit of gambling.

If this were to be adapted into a larger battle, I would adjust the damage system so that it's more of a "roll to damage, roll to save" business. I prefer the idea of skirmishes though, and it'll work well with the original plan of it being usable as a racing game!

I'm writing the provisional rules up properly now, ready for (finally!) playtesting.

I'm just going to note that there isn't any "inherent unfariness of alternating action". If you have 10 gobbos vs 3 Space Marines, the 3 SMs have the advantage, because they make 3 strong actions before 6 or 7 gobbos ever get to act. The general rule should be that the more numerous side always gets to act first.

Something neat I saw (Tactical Assault's Combat Cards) involved giving both sides an un-equal number of units but an equal number of actions, via cards. The cards could also be spent on the success of actions, triggerable in situations, and used to resolve artillery/airstrike scatter. Which was neat to see how it interacted with more, weaker units vs fewer, stronger units. It also features the ability to mitigate damage by retreating. The only problem is that essentially you need to be the first to play counter-play/ground-attack on your opponent's air pool or parking lot of artillery units. Then you can bomb your opponent with impunity.