"Brainstorming another skirmish activation/action system" Topic

Just brainstorming an action/activation scheme for my game.

The game is a fantastical scifi skirmish, squad sized (5-14 models), where each model is an individual on its own base.

I'm pretty sure this isn't original, but it is a particular mixture of ideas that I haven't seen in the usual games I play. I'm trying to think of loopholes, or balance issues that I could avoid while using such a system.

The game uses alternating activations, where one player takes a turn to activate a model to take an action. Then the next player in turn order gets to do the same. This is done until all models have taken an action.

Models get one action per turn, from a simple list of actions:

Move – Average movement value is 6"
Shoot
Aim
Prepare*
Interact

Each model also gets a Reaction, which can be used to take any action whenever an enemy unit ends an action within LoS (line of sight), or within a 5"-12" reaction bubble regardless of LoS.

The Reaction can also be spent during that model's normal activation as a second action.

Effectively, every unit can have 2 actions on its turn if they sacrifice their Reaction.

On top of all this, you have Command Points that grant additional actions, but at a reduced effectiveness. For example, shooting is done at a penalty, and movement is done at a reduced rate.

Command points can also be used to allow another model to activate immediately after another, instead of another player taking a turn, you can activate 2 or more models at once.

Starship Troopers used some similar concepts tho it was IGOUGO.

Without knowing the rest of the rules hard to say if this would be an issue. On the face of it there's no reason it should be.

However, if you have forces of widely different sizes (say, ultra high quality 6 men versus 18 man rabble) then one side always gets to end the turn with lots and lots of actions. Could be an issue with 6 versus 10, again depending on how the rest of the game works.

When i run games like that instead of one at a time, it's equal proportions. So in the example above Side A activates one figure, then side B does 3, then 1 for a then 3 for B and so on.

SST definitely used a similar system. I think originally it was units got 2 actions by default, and unlimited reactions within 10", along with IGOUGO.

A later edition changed it to just 1 reaction, I think, not sure if that was official, but that was around the time SST was dying anyway. Battlefield Evolution and Victory Decision were offshoots of those changes.

Thanks for reminding me about the differing army sizes. It was one of the things I was specifically looking to address when using the alternating units method of activations.

Equal proportions activation is a very good solution, but I'm thinking it requires some recalculating every round as things get killed. I'll look into that more, but I kind of have a policy to never require players to do fractions too often. ;) I'm not sure why, but it's as bad as long chains of modifiers when designing more casual rules.

Another way I could balance it is through Command Points, where those high quality, small model count armies get more command points intrinsically. That high model count army might have too few CP.

Then instead of taking a normal turn, you spend a command point to just take any action, or a "Wait" action. And since CP would also be used when using the most powerful abilities, it becomes a trade off in waiting for the enemy to make a move, or hitting them with something powerful.

This type of system was written up about 30 years ago in the US Wargames Digest for WW2 Germans v Russians in 54mm.
It used a shuffled card deck to sequence the play.
Each figure was rated 4,5 or 6 cards in the deck based on experience. So a small group of veterans could fight a larger group of recruits.
When a figure's card came up, the figure could take any one action from a list. After a few games, we added the ability to hold a card as a reaction card. This slowed the game down as a lot as people kept their troops on the defensive behind cover. But it meant a section could all move simultaneously by waiting until all men held a card. A better system might be all move on the leader's card.
We added vehicles, mortars etc to the deck.
Each soldier had a separate figure for each pose e.g. running, standing, kneeling etc.
Overall, it was fun for a while but games got very defensive with the reaction card.

There really isn't an issue for different sized units, if you carry over the alternating activation sequence continuously, e.g. negating the need for "game turns".

Essentially, you just keep alternating until one force is victorious, or eliminated.

This all is a lot for me to think about.

I would actually be willing to try card activation, although that does require cards to be printed for each unit. I've turned around on the concept since playing Bolt Action and looking at future games like Mecha Front. However, and this is sad, but there's a real stigma and backlash from the more casual market against it, and I just don't have to funds to print cards on top of the miniatures. Although, I think my web developer friend could whip up something to print cards as part of the online army list creator.

The game becoming too defensive when including any kind of reaction or overwatch mechanics is a huge worry, but partially alleviated by the missions/scenarios. Like a lot of current rules sets, I'm hoping to emphasize objectives that don't require killing everything in sight. Whether that's enough to overcome those issues is for playtesting to decide.

On the flipside, what Mako suggests is doable, especially when you have reactions. Just allowing you to keep activating anything, turn after turn, until the game is won. It's close to the idea Infinity has, but they have a mechanic of Order Points used to create a turn end, as well as everyone being able to react at all times to effectively limit what one model can do in one turn.

Overall, I'm going to err a bit on the side of casual, or traditional, mechanics for this game.

Ambush! used a similar activation system. There were no reactions. It played really well especially for solo.

Just make a list of which units are represented by which playing cards, and use standard cards to test out the system.

Works easily, and many people still use that process now.

We used cheap plain index cards cut in half with the characters name hand-written on the card e.g. Hans got 4 cards in the deck. Steiner got 6. A pack of 100 should not cost much in a discount store.

For now, I've went with a system of delay counters. A player with 2 or more fewer units than his opponent.

You can spend a delay counter to pass your turn, instead of using a command point to do so.

Delay counters can also be used to help reserves arrive on the table more quickly, in case a player is in one of those missions where a number of your already small army is forced off the table and into reserves.

Of course, this can get a little clunky with 3+ player games where the players with smaller armies might have quite a number of delay counters between them.

I like the card system from a RPG called Torg , it has (in Torg's case) H or V (hero or villan) on the top , so each turn the villans could get the occasional drop on the hero , and there was a conditional modifier on the card , so the hero may get an extra action , or maybe it could be step on landmine in a wargame sense?

Or if the Initative is ranked in high initative going down , you could have the delay counter as above so they could react to maybe a model moving passed that wouldnt have in the moment they had there initative pass?

I come from a very RPG background cant you tell?

I actually had an idea for a very RPG like system using cards for another game. However, I was concerned about it being too clunky and it required valuable table space.

Basically, you set down a spread of 3 face up cards or so for each side out of a deck of cards for each unit. Then players alternated activating the left most card. However, if a card later in the spread that was face up had a higher initiative, it could try to go before the lower initiative unit, or delay.

Never got around to fleshing that idea out due to the need for a spread of cards, that seemed to take up more table space than necessary, much like games like relic knights have that giant spread of cards off to the side.