"Simplest FUN Generic Sci Fi Rules" Topic

Guys,

I am looking for fast fun pretty simple sci fi rules that can be used with existing models I have.

I just bought a copy of THW 5150 which looks like a very good set of rules but is perhaps a little more detailed than what I was really looking for on this occassion.

One option is to simplify it and get rid of a few of the table setc, but rather than mess up 5150 I am interested to hear what other rules are out there?

Ideally want to play with about 20-50 figures per side, playable within 3 hours, quick to learn and fun to play.

Andy

You may want to take a look at WarEngine, formerly known as Shockforce. It has the flexibility of an open troop builder.

The rules are free.

link

Fast and Dirty is a really good, simple ruleset: freewebs.com/weaselfierce

Also FUBAR, the one-page ruleset: link

Another vote for FUBAR and Fast and Dirty.

FUBAR will give you a game of the size you indicate in 1-2 hours. Fast and Dirty will give you about the same, but there is a bit more to learn. You can't go wrong with either.

USE ME SCI-FI from 15mm.co.uk is well worth a look for simple, generic fast play rules .

FUBAR and Forge of War both available from the same group at the link Twisted Metal gave you.

Andy, take a look at Firefight 2.0 from Alternative Armies. Pretty simple, playable in a small area, and generally doesn't use more than 12 figures per side.

Fubar

I just bought a copy of THW 5150 which looks like a very good set of rules but is perhaps a little more detailed than what I was really looking for on this occassion.

You'll only be using the In Sight test, Received fire, and the Knock Down Table 95% of the time. The rest are there when you need them and most of the times not even used during the game (Wanting to Charge, Being Charged and Rally are almost never used.)

FAD 4

Another vote for Fubar and USE ME.

Fubar is excellent. 5150 is also a great choice. It really isn't detailed and is very flexible.

Thanks,

John

Flying Lead, the Song of Blades and Heroes version for WW2/modern/cops and gangsters. Just substitute weapons ranges.

Andrew

Thanks guys,

Had a quick look at Fast and Dirty, but it is about 70+ pages and looks quite detailed. At that level of detail I would stay with 5150 I think.

FUBAR – I have printed off will have a read, I like the idea of 1 page rules, if not the font he has had to use to achieve it!

Ed – Thanks for the suggestion on 5150, forgetting about the tables that will not be used very often may well be all I need. I was only planning on using 1-2 vehicles very much APC types or light striders, I thought the stats for all the crew members was a little more detail than I wanted to go into, but I could just count all crew as Rep 4 and test generically against the vehicle I presume.

Andy
PS I will check out the other rules mentioned as well.

I really love FAD4; very detailed for force generation
Fubar seems a good choice for what you describe.
after a recent AAR , my interest in firefight 2.0(gridless)
seems to be on the rise…
I have always wanted to(but not gotten to yet) adapt future war commander to skirmish.
I really liked some of the features of forge of war also

The thing about 5150 and other THW books is that they do have a ton of charts. You hardly ever use most of them, they are there to help design scenarios and the like. It's these charts that make THW so wonderful for solo gamers. After a couple games you pretty much know the charts you will use by heart and hardly ever have to look at any chart while playing.

Jason
Stafford, VA

Another vote for FUBAR.

Thorlongus

There is a 28mm skirmish mod in the back of Future war commander, some of the guys at our club have tried it, and were well pleased.

phil

Another vote for Fubar and USE ME, but I do not like the front of either.

Am I the only person who has found Fubar a bit too simplistic, with more unanswered questions about the rules than actual rules? Jus' wonderin'. (Yes, I did play the rules but had to wing it most of the game.)

@CPBelt

They are a bit simple on the vehicle side…but they are intended to be modded to your taste. It's easy to work out armor facings, troop special abilities, and the like based on the logic that is already there.

I added said armor facings (armor on sides and top was 1 step lower), had ATGM's hit top armor. You could add point defense and screens too if you wanted. Each step slows the action down some but ups the detail. You just have to find that balance by tweaking it.

Panzer8 has a bunch of free to download rules sets which include one for SF. His rules are only two pages long. Ive tried a couple of the others and had fun. Take a look.

panzer8.weebly.com/rules.html

Al

Another vote for WarEngine

Hey CPBelt also try WarEngine the rules are free.

Panzer 8 rules are fun and really fast! I'm waiting for my copy of the USE ME rules ..but I like the appeal of simple rulesets…..more than 3-4 pages and I start to lose interest!!

We use Disposable Heroes for our scifi games. Works just fine and doesnt get any easier.

Andy – Yes, the crew do have different Reps if you want but the sweet thing is they only use one table by position and they all are on one sheet. So the driver takes a drive test if needed (almost never), the gunner when he fires, the loader to reload (most don't even have a loader)etc.
The key is find a set that works for you and play it a few times and you'll see how they get easier to play and games go quicker. Can't go wrong with any of the rules that have been mentioned.

Infinity isn't generic in the sense that there is a line of figures for it but the rules cover the basic types from unarmoured grunts all the way up to big (not huge) stompy robots so it can be used with a variety of different figures. It is the best sci-fi ruleset I've played for skirmish.

Now you might need to use less than the 20 models a side that you are looking for but that is the only place it falls down.

Completely agree on Infinity being the best sci-fi ruleset. The setting leaves me a bit cold, but the miniatures and rules are excellent (you can also download the rules, army lists and weapon charts directly from the site).

link

I agree Warengine is a nice system, Doug. BTW I used Fubar for a squad-based WWII game. Not sure if that was a problem or not for the rules.

From downloading and reading the rules my favourite so far are deffinitely FUBAR.

Of course I have not played them yet but they seem very clever and comprehensive for such an incredibably short set of rules…

Andy

Hey CP. Contrary to what some on the yahoo group think, I don't think Fubar is a good fit for WWII or moderns. I think it's awesome in a scifi setting. The modules just plug right in. But WWII just seemed to not look right.

Thanks,

John

A lot of people have thrown around 5150, but have you looked at Chain Reaction 3.0? It's just a new version of the THW game engine and it works really good. It's free so give it a look:

PDF link

Yup the WarEngine (shockforce) a great siimple system – free and they are still very active with creating a new updated version. Yahoo group has lots of activity though it has been quiet of late.

@CPBelt: I also wasnt very impressed with FUBAR when we tried it. We seemed to be rolling a lot of dice and nothing was happening. A fire-team would shoot, be lucky to achieve one hit, then that hit would either be saved or taken as a suppression. Then the suppressed figure stands up. Rinse and repeat.

Be patient, my brothers.
soon I will publish my new skirmish rules made to be fun and simple while at the same time complex and frustrating.
They will be the best rules ever, 214 pages with beautiful color pictures of my new range of miniatures throughout.
should be soon now, brothers as it is going to the publisher next week….title "black indian summer"
coolio
bloop bloop
sorry this post is like 4 days late

I also wasnt very impressed with FUBAR when we tried it. We seemed to be rolling a lot of dice and nothing was happening. A fire-team would shoot, be lucky to achieve one hit, then that hit would either be saved or taken as a suppression. Then the suppressed figure stands up. Rinse and repeat.

Lower each of your armor saves by one and consider raising the expertise of some of your units, and try to run the same scenario again. If you're fighting with sci-fi weapons, basic "flak" armor isn't going to be any more effective than a t-shirt.

That said… for anyone who enjoys games like Tomorrow's War or 5150, something like FUBAR probably isn't the ideal ruleset for you.

Chris

I love me some WarEngine. Hard to beat good AND free. Ganesha Games' "Flying Lead" and "Mutants and Death Ray Guns" are also hard to beat for head to head play. Pretty intuitive and open. You will not find your creativity shut down by a lack of a current "codex" and you can use whatever suits your fancy.

Savage Worlds basic RPG rules are great for skirmish and the core rule book is 9.99 USD at time of writting. So, hey, affordable miniatures rules and an RPG to go with.

I love pretty much all things THW. I just got the new 5150 and I can't wait to play. One thing many people don't understand is that THW product come alive in the PLAYING of the rules, not the reading. I've owned many rule sets rich in evocative fluff, background and art, which became a turgid and unplayable mess when the dice hit the table. THW are rather "spartan" in presentation, by comparison to the average "oooo shiny" dark future gaming out there, but they give one hell of a game and provide you with unmatched gaming opportunities in terms of solo play, or same side gaming; where you play with your mates, not against them, versus, for example, a slathering horde of xenomorphs. The game rules run, via those charts, all the bugs for you with the reaction system playing the part of a dice based "AI". Heck, you can even run a campaign, from squad level all the way through to company level, and take that planet back from the bugs a game at a time.

Playing a rule set is like hearing a song. Reading a rules set is like reading the sheet music for a song. Yet many people looking over a set of rules decide they are "music critics" based on reading what was to be PLAYED and experienced. I did this myself until I played out some encounters and got caught up in the unfolding story the dice were telling.

From the same stabel as FUBAR & Forge of War we now have 'In the Emperor's Name' – a W40K skirmish rule set that has the extra detail a skirmish game needs.

Worth a try as it is free :)

Since Im the author, I'd be happy to answer any questions on FAD4

Don't let page count scare you off. Check out the section labelled as "basic rules" and go from there :)

FUBAR

have not played it yet, but really like the rules for in the emperors name…very well done simple and elegant.
i really dont like 40k fluff at all!! yet with these rules, i have found myself making retinues and in 28mm ,no less.
what really adds the shine to these rules is the campaign system….wow….definitely worth downloading and playing
4 thumbs up.
have not seen a free set of rules this nice since FAD

Like ThorLongus, I started looking at "In the Emperor's Name." It looks pretty nice, even though I don't have any 40K figures/rules/etc.

I may adapt it to use some of my 15mm minis.

+1 for "In The Emperor's Name." Has some very clever mechanics like Torrent of Fire that allow a group of poorly armed troops concentrate fire on a Terminator and take it down…

FUBAR is kind of weird in that it assumes that submachine guns have greater fire power than assault rifles at longer ranges.

A rifle is 1 FP at 24" and 2 at 12" or less.

A submachine gun is 3 FP at 16".

Strange. I wonder if they meant SAW instead of sub machine gun?

No, they meant SMG. As to having greater firepower than assault rifles at longer range, SMGs have a greater volume of fire at close range than an assault rifle has at its longer range. The kinetic energy of the assault rifle's rounds, having traveled further, have less killing power than the shorter ranged higher fire volumed SMG. Sort of abstracted through FUBAR, but very logical.

By the way, another vote for FUBAR for "Simplest FUN Generic Sci-Fi rules".

Cheers,
Spartan 117

I don't understand.

The assault rifle's rounds have CLEARLY not traveled farther at 12" than the smg rounds have at 16" yet the SMG is FP3 at 16" and the AR is at FP2 an 12".

Is this FP supposed to model rate of fire or the muzzle energy of the rounds? Either way it doesn't really make any sense.

"Volume of fire" really makes no sense because many assault rifles have a very similar volume of fire to smg's.

An M-16 A2 (assault rifle) does 700-950 rounds per minute in cyclic fire.

The old M14 7.62mm battle rifle did 700-750 rounds per minute.

An MP5 (sub machine gun with a 225mm/8.9 inch barrel) does about 800 rounds per minute.

M16 uses a 30 round clip and an extended MP5 clip is 33 rounds. So they are throwing a similar number of rounds out. So volume of fire is not very different at close ranges.

As for kinetic energy, again, what?

Most sub machine guns use pistol ammo. The MP5 uses 9x19 parabellum "9mm luger" ammo which when loaded per NATO standards for military use fires a 7.2g pill that typically has a muzzle energy of around 637 joules as it is leaving the weapon. This is what will be "eroded" by the deceleration due to gravity and by atmospheric friction, and anything being fired though to hit the target. It has a maximum effective range of 200 meters.

The M16A2 has a 20 inch (508mm) long barrel. It fires 5.56x45mm NATO M885 rounds with a 4.2 gram pill with a typical muzzle energy of around 1790 joules. Newer MK262 rounds with a 5 gram pills yield a muzzle energy of 2000 joules. It has a maximum effective range of 550 meters for a point target ( person or animal) and 800 meters for an area target (like a vehicle or building)

If you use a an M4 carbine with a 14" barrel the M885 muzzle energy is still at 1600 joules. The MK262 with the heavier pill in a 13" barrel is listed at 1490 joules.

Since the SMG has a heavier bullet to throw and a shorter barrel than even the M4 carbine it should run out of energy faster than the M16's bullet. At no point should its bullet carry more energy than the rifle bullet since even its initial muzzle energy is lower and ballistics curves don't have any sudden changes in them. They decay evenly as a parabolic curve. At 85 joules or lower a bullet considered below the "lethal" threshold to be militarily useful enough to have shot it.

Both the M16A2 and the M4 rounds have a much higher muzzle energy than the 640 joules from the MP5 firing nato parabellum. Over twice as much, in the lowest case of the 13" barreled M4.

Rifle bullets tend to penetrate body armor better than hand gun bullets due to a smaller oncoming diameter that concentrates the impact into a smaller space. Usually armor-vests only reliably stop hand gun rounds.

This is why newer pistol/smg rounds were developed like the 4.6x30mm HK used by the PDW or MP7 to defeat body armor at close ranges with compact weapons like an SMG. But even the MP7 has a muzzle energy of around 470 joules and a pill weighing about 2 grams. It's got an effective range of about 200 meters.

So the FP of assault rifles and smg's at those ranges still doesn't make any sense really. At the same range (including point blank) the AR bullet ALWAYS has more energy and they put about the same amount of lead in the air at all ranges until the AR range exceeds the SMG range. At no point does the smg significantly outperform the AR except in being a lighter and shorter weapon.

Sorry for not making sense. Was tired after long day, not thinking well when I wrote that last night. I think CptKremmen is not worried about the specifics of weapons capabilities, just would like to find a rules set that can be played with a lot of ease and that's fun. FUBAR is that, easy and fun.

Cheers,
Spartan 117

Agree, FUBAR seems to be exactly what I am looking for :)

@palaeoemrus – Those are meant to be generic weapons classes, not the specific weapons that you're referring to. They can be anything from World War 2 through far future ray guns.

The assault rifle mechanic in question is a holdover from Warhammer 40,000. I always give my assault rifle equivalents 2FP at 24". The great thing about a game like FUBAR? If a little detail like weapon ranges and FPs don't make sense to you – change them!

Speaking as one of the developers… we just try to create fun ways to push little toy soldiers around a table. FUBAR is a great framework to do just that. Correct the little details to a way that makes sense to you, and just enjoy the game!

And if you do find a more effective way to represent specific modern weapons, why not have a go at making a force supplement for your vision of those types of forces?

Chris K.

" Agree, FUBAR seems to be exactly what I am looking for :) "

Er, you posted this thread 'looking for' a fun simple game that you already wrote a review of on the product review board back in April?

TMP link

M'kay. ;)