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I really enjoy Regicide, the Warhammer Chess variant that came out some years ago. The interface was janky, and you could see where they had wasted money on animations and so on when they could have spent it on developing an interface more like Into the Breach. I also really enjoy Into the Breach, but wish there could be a more PvP version available. It hit me, looking at all the Titans I had printed up for my Titanomachina project, that I could blend the two together to implement the kind of game I want both to be, with my own branding on top as icing.

So what is Regicide? You could call it 'Warhammer Chess' and there' a mode available where you can play it as straight Chess, but the inclusion of an Initiative Phase where you can spend between 3 and 5 (maybe 6) initiative points to shoot, aim, take cover, throw grenades, heal pieces, etc changes the dynamic. No longer can your Queen captured an unsupported piece without being beaten to death by nearby enemy pieces.

I feel like it doesn't quite go far enough though, layering the Regicide bit over the Chess bit. Given how things like throwing frag grenades is limited to a single option per side, it seems like including movement in the initiative phase would be easy and sensible. There are plenty of situations where the gameplay could be improved by allowing units to attempt attacks first.

The other issue is the attacks. While it's not entirely opaque, there seems to be a chance to hit, which somehow translates into a chance at damage. Space Marines can take 8 points of damage, while Orks can take 12. Where a shooting Space Marine usually causes around 3pts of damage if they hit, then it's usually four hits from SM shooting to down an Ork, while it's two or three hits from Ork shooting to down a SM. That can be dealt with because there's this weird interaction going on where some of the damage is absorbed by points of armour, and SM have Krak grenades on their Assault Marines, allowing them to remove an Ork's 3pts of armour and then inflict four to five points of damage per shooting, slightly more for Devastator and Terminator Marines. The annoying part is where you miss, even with numbers like 95%.

Frankly it would be easier to just have stuff like Tactical Marines and Orks inflict one point of damage in shooting (or two if you really want to keep that armour mechanic) and between 2 or 3 depending on the other actions taken, for stuff like Assault, Devastator, and Terminator marines.

Rather like how Into the Breach works. However, it both adds a pushing mechanic, which is fantastic, more varied terrain (some destructible, some causing damage, etc), and a different style of gameplay/action-economy to suit its non-PvP style. Into the Breach also has a much better interface, possibly related to its 8-bit style art rather than the flashy/janky thing Regicide has going on.

Okay, in Into The Breach you play as a team of three Mechs, which are themselves divided into Prime, Brute, Artillery, and Science types (generally in terms of the equipment they have without needing additional power-ups). Typically a mech starts with 2-3 hit points, and causes 0-2 damage with whatever system it uses to attack. Sometimes mechs don't even have systems that cause damage, but do other things like push, pull, swap, or otherwise manipulate positions on the board, or even affect how the mechs related to board conditions (fire, smoke, holes, obstacles).

Notably most attacks push (or pull, or flip) the AI enemy bugs. Some attacks, typically artillery, can go over intervening mechs, bugs, and obstacles. Some attacks apply new conditions to squares on the board (I have a favourite custom squad I call the Environmental Disasters because of how they leave half the board on fire and hidden by lightening-filled smoke). There's a distinctly satisfying thing that happens when you push, pull, or otherwise lay out the enemy bugs for squishing.

It helps that pushing mechs into bugs (or bugs into bugs, mechs into mechs, bugs and mechs into obstacles, and bugs into mechs) causes damage that is accounted apart from damage caused by attacks. A mech that is suffering from acid (damage from attacks is doubled) will only suffer 1 point of damage if it is pushed into a nearby bug. However, a mech with the Armour trait (-1 damage to attacks) will still take 1 point of damage from being pushed into things, burned, etc.

Notably your mech gets one opportunity to move, and then one opportunity to use an onboard system like a weapon (or two for a given pilot if it doesn't move and has an expensive power-up). Rather like Regicide for that matter, where the four options that Regicide figures get somewhat reflect the two systems that each Into the Breach mech can mount.

Notably each mech gets its one action while in Regicide a figure can get 1-3 actions, but all draw from the same pool of action points. It definitely requires more record-keeping. I do prefer the idea of doing one action to cause one point of damage (and perhaps more depending on position), without the janky missing 4x in a row with 87% chance of doing something like with Regicide.

I think the easiest way to do it is to have each piece, or mech, have its own special ability card, and then a pool of general cards that can be played on any mech.

Interestingly this put me in mind of Warhammer 40k strategy cards, how there's three strategems for all armies, and then specific strategems for factions, and then specific strategems for sub-factions. Except instead of the cards adding something to the core rules, they'd be used to actuate the game.

It would help to track the information where these cards themselves form the limit on how many actions can be performed by a single mech.

Well, I love Into The Breach and chess, and while I've never tried Regicide I'm certainly interested in doing so now . A physical PvP game along those lines sounds like a very cool idea to me! Something I'd even be interested in testing early on (although I can see you're even earlier than that stage here, but just saying ).

My plan is to whip up some cards, plunk some chess pieces down on a board, and start playing. Using existing games like Regicide makes the testing easy, as you know it 'works,' and you just need to improve the interface.

The design part is to get a set of 54 cards together, each one with an action (left side), and a set of pieces that can do it (right side). Pieces plug into these actions with their own stats so a pawn is going to do a Walk action differently than a rook, for example. I should make a reference sheet too...

Reference sheets are always very much appreciated

Alright, I whipped up a reference sheet and some cards (PM sent). At some point when my Steam account isn't being monopolized I need to check out whatever other actions are available in Regicide and make up cards for them: various factions get access to different actions... In the meantime, this is a start.

Additionally, I think reducing the number of Walk, Take Cover, Close Combat, and Firefight cards to 6 is a good idea where players have 6 cards in hand maximum, and reduces the total to 44.

Okay, Space Marine 'Armory, or the odds and ends that aren't tied to any particular unit being on the board.

Nullzone (removes all shields from the board)
-Cost 1
-Cooldown 3
Assail (75% of pinning units, pinned units cannot take actions)
-Cost 2
-Cooldown 6
-Area 1
Artificer Armor
-Cost1
-Cooldown 4
-Duration 4
Shrouding (becomes untargetable, lasts until unit is damaged or attacks)
-Cost 1
-Cooldown 6
-Duration 2
No Matter the Odds (Toughness bonus for each adjacent enemy)
-Cost 1
-Cooldown 4
-Duration 3
-Area 2
Only In Death (Gain +2HP)
-Cost 1
-Cooldown 4
Angel of Death (Doubles cost of IP for actions of adjacent enemy until unit eliminated)
-Cost 2
-Cooldown 6
-Area 2
Iron Halo (shield)
-Cost 1
-Cooldown 5
Auspex (increases chance of Critical Hit on unit and adjacent allies)
-Cost 1
-Cooldown 6
-Duration 3
-Area 1
Chapter Banner (increases WS of unit and adjacent allies)
-Cost 1
-Cooldown 6
-Duration 3
-Area 1
Righteous Fury (+1 IP)
-Cost 0
-Cooldown 3
Narthecium (unit in square gains HP as long as it stays in the square)
-Cost 6
-Cooldown 6
-Duration 2

Ultramarines Captain has Know No Fear, allowing him to un-pin adjacent units at a cost of 1IP.

Note that Regicide runs on a system by which each player gets 3 Initiative Points a turn, and can save up to 2 for next turn (barring Righteous Fury). These IPs are spent on actions, so including Righteous Fury a side can do 6 actions in a turn, but much more usually 3. Hence the notion of a hand of 4-6 cards.

Playing the cards or picking up new cards is a simply resource mechanic that should do most of what the Chess Move/Initiative Action Phase did in Regicide without all the buggering about with tracking cooldown, IP, and IP cost.

Similarly all the mucking about with WS and BS, hit%, critical hits, and so on is exactly the sort of thing I would drop in favour of an Into the Breach style of Hits vs HP, especially since the ratio is usually 3 attacks to 1 kill, minus any shields or take cover or plus aim or whatever.

Okay, managed to convince my developer to have a crack at it, and we arrived at several conclusions:

1. The actions need to be simplified. Like, there should be an option to attack, rather than being separated into Close Combat/Firefight cards. It seems like there should be Attack cards, Move cards, and Special where individual pieces can do whatever weird thing they do (Artillery, Suppress, etc).

2. There needs to be fewer cards. Too much time was spent fishing for cards and not enough time spent doing stuff. When stuff happened it was fun, and when stuff was put off to fish for cards it was not. I think I'd reduce the deck to 24 cards each (8 Move, 8 Attack, 8 Special) and assign each piece a special action or two.

3. The symbols are nice and all on the cards, but kind of un-necessary, particularly with the direction noted in #2.

I had an amusing run on Into the Breach last night that reminded me that I should (a) build in more of the pushing functionality, and (b) build in more of the different shapes between 1 square and 9 squares.

It also occurred to me that there's a good reason why Regicide requires Chess moves, because it gives the game some required dynamism where a particularly good strategy is to pick off the guys that have to move forward. On the other hand, when you move, moving up a flank is a really good idea because then your opponent can't concentrate fire on your pieces. I think having a limited number of actions with 1/3 being moves is the way to go for now.