More on Sci-Fi activation rules and modifications

The latter part of this week has been spent revisiting the activation and combat rule mechanisms of my Sci-Fi wargame rules. The focus of this post is on the activation. Over the last year I have tried a number of ideas from One Hour Wargames to Ganesha Game's Swatters with varying degrees of success. As with all my attempts there is often the moment where I think you think things have fallen into place. Whether or not they really have, is often another matter and determined by time and my changing tastes. Anyway this week was another of those moments.

A test game in progress - Necron ambush

The ideas behind the action point system used comes from Tank on Tank game rules, which are from Lock ’N Load Publishing as a downloadable set of rules. I did start using their activation approach proposed for solo wargaming. However, after a couple of games it was a tad too predictable for my tastes.

So this where I am up to...

The game is played in a series of turns. Each player taking turns at activating their units to move, shoot, assault, overwatch or promote leaders.

The action point system most likely will prevent a player from activating all their units.

During a turn a player rolls their allocated action dice. The number of action dice they roll is dependent upon the tactical ability of their army. For example: an elite force has 5 dice and an average force 4 dice.

A player rolls their action dice and providing any of them score a 4+ they can spend 1 action point. Any that did not score 4+ are removed for this turn. The player keeps rolling the remaining action dice and spending action points until they do not score 4+.  When they hand control over to the other player.

An action dice roll allows one action and the two dice scoring less than 4 are removed. You are always rolling for just 1 action point. However, the more dice with a 4+ increases the likelihood of more action points.

The second action dice roll allows another action point to be spent. In this case the Necrons continue the silent advance with all units moving within range of their leader (a Necron lord). The dice with as score of 2 is removed.

The third action dice roll was down to one dice and failed to score a 4+. End of the Necron's turn.

Action points are how a player orders their units to move, shoot, assault, overwatch or field promotions.  It costs 1 action point for most actions.

Action points can be used on unit actions in any order. For example, it is possible for some unit types to move as part of an action and on a following action point to shoot. There are limitation though, no unit may shoot twice and some slow lumbering units cannot move more than once.

When a leader is activated for movement, all units within 1 bound can also move freely. They do not have to end their movement with 1 bound of the leader. A leader when being activated for movement may remain stationary and the order units move.

In terms of an army makeup a player will most likely have more than one leader at their disposal. I have been using 1 leader for every 3-4 units.

So that is where I am now with my Sci-Fi activations. During the week I will post the shooting rule mechanism with their supporting fire approach to increase the likelihood of shooting effects.