Cyberwarfare is an integral part of modern warfare, with roots in electronic warfare in the 40s. Now, it's time to bring it to your tabletop wargame.
Tactical Hack is a cyberwarfare wargame supplement, designed to overlay on nearly any tabletop wargame system (in three years of playtest, we haven't found one where it doesn't work) and add cyber mission effects to the conflict.
Want to get into the nitty-gritty of bits and bytes flowing over complex network architectures? Then don't buy this. It's not about ones and zeroes. TH provides an operational-level challenge of selecting and provisioning attacks, partially hidden knowledge, operational deception, and counter-cyber-warfare risk. All achieved with one simple draw-action and one simple play-action while your opponent is playing their tabletop game-turn. What is not simple is the strategic challenge and the additional depth – it adds to the warfare environment.
The basic setup is for a contemporary, roughly equal force-on-force engagement, but the rules include methods that prepare the deck before the game in order to represent situations including disadvantaged forces, political constraint on cyber activity, better technology, manning a cyber force with thousands of conscripts, and other asymmetries common in the environment. You could represent anything from a "new" meaconing technology in WWI that only one side has to a massive concurrent cyber-battle from the future.
Get Ready to Hack & Hack Back!
There are already tons of venues where you can experience hands-on keyboard hacking. And the specifics have probably changed since you started reading this. Tactical Hack is about decision-making and risk-taking based on mission-effect focus.