Rules are very much in flux right now. Let's go through some of it, eh?

Rolling Dice

I lifted the original combat system for combat roles from the Gears of War board game by Corey Konieczka and Fantasy Flight games. I love Gears of War and have been playing through the franchise as I work on this game. The board game is brilliant.

I initially used this system because it seemed quicker than Warhammer's. However, calculating dice types and consulting tables in practice slowed everything down.

So, I'm trying something else and just going with a flat roll against a target's armor. Every die greater than that number is a hit.

Tracking Wounds

For now, I'm experimenting with getting rid of wounds and doing something similar to my beloved Space Weirdos. A model suffers a hit is "Downed" (turned on their side, cannot act, has no LOS). A model that is hit while downed is killed. This is, in part, so there is just less to track. Some models can still have wounds, but more on this later...

The Feel

My biggest concern for this game has been it doesn't feel DOOM enough. It's pretty good at feeling like Gears of War, but it's not quite DOOM. 

I was playing Metal Slug Tactics, and it does a cool thing where when you move a unit, they get "adrenaline" if they move a long distance. This can be used to power special abilities but adds a defensive boost. So, like DOOM, movement is key to staying alive.

So. I stole this idea.

And the test results have been very satisfying. It encourages you not just to get to a strong position but also to get to the NEXT strong position. And then the next one. Push forward combat.

Basically, when a model runs, it gets 1 Adrenaline. If they run their maximum distance (without repeating zones), they get 2. You can track handily with cute little green dice!

In testing, this makes the game feel a little more like the source material, where you must keep your models moving to keep them alive. It makes activation feel a little more chess-like in that you're looking for places to move to where you can get volume of fire on the opponent without crossing their fields of fire and, ideally, ending in cover.

The ability to spend Adrenaline to move when activated also lets you bend the restrictions of move and shoot/fight. Meaning it functions a little like momentum. If you go fast, you can use that to kinda cheat the system and get more out of a single activation.

Unit Builder

Adrenaline also ties into the long-promised unit-building tools:

If you look close here, you'll see the Diehard ability gives a model wound points. So you can still have some sort of tanky-ness on models, but it's reserved for a relatively small number of them. I expect lots of tinkering and fluctuations, especially in point costs. But I wanted to let you all know that things are moving along. Next up, I will talk about ways to make a board. If you look above, you can see little white dots on the Warcry board I have. I also have another project that involves some craft sand.

Who doesn't love craft sand?