I'm glad you enjoyed reading them, ArmymenRGreat. One of my major goals with the rules is for them to produce games that tell a good story and are narrative-driven. If the games are fun to read about, hopefully I'm on the right track.
I'm still working on writing out everything in a usable format, and I still have some details to iron out before it is really ready for feedback. I intend to keep the thread updated as things progress. But if you're interested, I can summarize the basics.
Each unit has an Initiative characteristic, expressed as a die type (from D4 to D12, most are D6 to D10). In order to activate, a unit rolls this die and must equal or beat 3+. Some situational things can affect this target number or the die you roll, for example a leader nearby lets you roll the next higher up type of die.
You activate a unit at a time, each one carrying out all it's actions, until all have gone. Then the opponent goes. Though it could also work alternating activations or using an order dice kind of mechanic like in Bolt Action to randomize which side gets to activate a unit next.
When a unit activates it can move it's movement rate and shoot, or move double it's movement rate and not shoot. Regular humans currently move 5". If a model comes into base contact with a model in an enemy unit, the fight in combat.
To hit in combat, each attacking models rolls it's skill die (again from D4 to D12, most D6 to D10). The target number it is trying to equal or beat is the Defense characteristic of the target model. The most basic soldier has a skill of D6, and I'm still deciding between 3 and 4 for their defense. This process is basically the same for shooting, except the target number is increased by one for each 10" of range to the target.
For each hit you roll, the Strength die of the unit that caused the hit, trying to equal or beat the Toughness of the target. Regular armed human is Strength D6, Toughness 3. Toughness can be increased by wearing armor. I'm currently trying to decide if a shield should increase Toughness or Defense. Each success here causes a wound and in most cases removes a model (unless it is a monster or something that can take many wounds before expiring).
I'm currently limiting the number of models that can attack to 10 at most, for a couple of reasons. One is that rolling a lot more than that gets difficult, and the other is that I don't want huge units to be unstoppable. But I do want them to be possible to take, because I like the image of a huge horde of skeletons or zombies lumbering forth. So far I have been playing with units of around 10 anyway, but I'll need to figure out how to handle bigger units. I'm thinking about giving one higher die for the Skill roll if you outnumber the enemy more than 2:1 or something like that.
There are a couple of things that make the combat rolling more interesting. If the target number is impossible (say you are Skill D4 attacking something with a Defense of 5), you can combine two dice that score the maximum to get one result of one higher. So when rolling D4s, you take take two 4 rolls and combine them into one 5 to get a hit in the above case. So even something really bad can get a hit or wound in against something much better.
The other is that if your roll to hit is double the target Defense value, you score two hits. If triple, 3 hits, and so on. Same with the roll to wound, doubling the toughness causes two wounds. So an amazing character with D12 skill can get several hits and wounds with a good roll against average opponents.
Both sides in combat go at the same time, though some weapons or situations might make one side go first. After both sides have gone, the side that took more wounds rolls it's Initiative die type, looking for a 3+ in order to hold their ground. The target number is increased by one for each casualty they took above the number they caused. If they fail, they fall back Disordered. If already disordered they break and are removed from the game.
Units can also become disordered by shooting, so you can shoot at a unit to disorder it, then charge in and finish it off.
So that's the basics, leaving out terrain, characters in units, and special rules. Using different types of dice for different things takes a little getting used to for me, and I'm sure isn't to everyone's liking, but I have liked the results it has given so far. I have another game write-up I need to do that I will post here when ready.
adds more pro-painted monsters to his collection.
