Game Design #111: How to End a Game / Extraction Shooters / Losing the Least?

My game design musing at the moment as "how do you end a game" inspired by thinking about the different turns (6 vs 8 of Bloodbowl vs Bloodbowl 7s) and the 'hard limit' of sports games. An older 40K I recall (2nd ed?) had only 4 turns!?

This might be worth exploring as I have a few thoughts:

a) having a set length helps address the 'kill em all' problem where any cool objectives and missions can often just be ignored in favour of eliminating enemies. Indeed it is usually the best practice. If all enemies are dead... it's easy to succeed!  If one player is scurrying around the board trying to play the mission 'properly' he's often handicapping himself if the other player just ignores the mission goes for kills.

b) having a 'set length' where the game just ends "blam!" "time to pack up" works for a sports game like BB but is kinda lame for a wargame. 

I wonder what solutions there are? Perhaps an outside threat keeps ramping up i.e. maybe zombies spawn exponentially faster after x turn - so you can remain, but you'll probably get swarmed - be it a zombie, monster or drones (hello, ARC Raiders!) or maybe a radiation storm (Stalker) creates an attrition effect on your units.

c) having variable turn length can magnify a) - this is when you don't always get to move all your minis (boo) as something happens to hand the turn to your opponent. Perhaps you fail a test, like in Bloodbowl where you can fumble a ball or be knocked down or Song of Blades where you are trying for an extra move. Or maybe a card gets drawn (TFL) that just means its tea time and your guys down tools. Didn't the old DBA rules have you roll a d6 to see how many units you could activate? Variable activation is kinda the same thing.

....I prefer variable actions - I often use a 1+ action method in my homebrew rules; all minis get one guaranteed action - but may 'push it' and roll a dice to receive a 2nd action - better troops getting a better dice %.  That way I don't have lovely models I spent all that time painting standing around, having missed their go for half the game.

To summarise: 

If  a wargame turn length is indefinite, killing all enemies is guaranteed success. This invalidates most missions and scenarios and defaults them to "kill em first." 

The length of a wargame should also not be set at a predictable, fixed amount; 8 turns or whatever like Bloodbowl - it's not a sport - real battles don't have a shot clock. Otherwise you could perform a reckless play, leaving troops totally exposed, knowing "voila" you've seized the objective and the game ends - despite the fact your troops would be annihilated next turn, no commander would ever do this - only because you know there is no 'next turn' and the game magically ends - "freezing" everything in your (temporary) instant of success.

The "boom" game instantly ends freezing everything at a predictable time is also a bit lame, in a narrative sense. "OK it's turn 4 - pack up now boys!" I call this a "Christmas truce" or "Five o'clock Friday" - everyone suddenly stops firing and goes home. There's no uncertainty/tension of when the battle ends. It's like a footy game. 

The amount of turns before the game ends also should probably linked to movement speed and weapon range. E.g. you can't have a mission where the objective is "have more troops in the enemies half the map than they have in yours" if you have only 4 turns and your troops moving 4" can't even move to the 24" halfway in that time....

^Slightly connected to the above but I prefer games when the fight does not always occur straight from deployment, but the minis have a turn or so each to move into superior positions before firing cuts down their options. I.e. troops do not open fire and trade shots from their baselines on turn 1. Obviously terrain matters most here, but board size/effective combat range are also a factor.

So should game length be random? 

A quite common solution is for games to last a set length - say 4-5 turns, then each turn "dice" to see if the game continues. I.e. turn 5 you need 3+ on d6 to continue, on turn 6 you need 4+, on turn 7 you need 5+...

This adds some unpredictability to the mix to stop players trying to "game the buzzer."

However what if one player wants the game to last longer? Or perhaps one wants it to end now - while they hold their objectives.

...or (somewhat) controlled randomness? 

I like some predictability or control as to when a game ends. In my homebrew aerial wargames, there is a shared "munitions/ordinance pool" that all aircraft on a side share - usually marked on a 1m ruler. All aircraft contribute to the total pool; say 1pt each 2 missiles, or 600km of fuel. Jets with limited missiles (say only 2 AIM9s) use double the ordinance each time they fire to discourage them spamming them. So based on your rate of use you can predict/control when your whole force runs out of ordinance and needs to "bug out" based on who is using what weapons. While the resources are finite, you can choose to make the game last longer by not firing as many missiles or performing as many radical afterburner maneuvers. You could even fight on once you reach "bingo" fuel and ordinance, but with no missiles or way to recover radical maneuvers, you would be severely handicapped. Or you could burn through all your missiles early hoping to overwhelm your opponents, but risk crippling your options too early in the game. Risk vs reward.

There isn't necessarily a set game length, it's more resource allocation - when the resources are gone you may as well pack up and go home or unless you like fighting with a hand behind your back.

The time you start matters as much as the time you finish... 

How a game starts (for individual units) is obviously also linked to its length. If all troops don't all get plonked down on turn 1, but may trickle in  later.... ..this varies their game length, for that unit.

For example, in my homebrew 'Tankmunda' games, light vehicles start deployed on turn 1; scout vehicles can be deployed turn 1 AND be advanced an extra distance; but medium vehicles arrive later on turn 2 and heavies turn 3 (this can be modified by various rules/factors).

So heavy Tigers arriving turn 3 may find themselves facing medium Wolverines who have already deployed and set up in firing positions the previous turn; or much lighter Su-76s who have had 2 turns to maneuver to optimum position...

This means the amount of turns the individual units have on the field are also variable.  Depending on when they arrive, each individual unit can have a different "game length" - their time on the table. Again, you might be able control this - perhaps you could "Push It" with the Tiger and arrive on an earlier turn, but roll a dice and risk running out of fuel or having engine/track damage later in the game - aka risk vs reward. 

Extraction Shooters and... 

The concept of when the game ends and how you "win" in this time also links with my recent interest in the extraction shooter genre.

ARC Raiders seems to have pushed this into the mainstream but along with games like Hunt: Showdown (yay) and Tarkov (bleh) shares the concept of:

Explore the map.     Collect cool stuff(tm)    Leave with the stuff.    Don't die. 

Usually there is a time limit which is somewhat variable. In Hunt you have ~40min or so, or 5min once the bounty (the cool stuff) has been extracted by someone, to leave until your soul is sucked out. In ARC you have a varied time (depending on when matchmaker adds you to the game) to do your thing and leave before killer drones arrive and automatically end you.

In both you have to reach designated extraction zones (usually 3-5 or so) scattered about the map where you wait/perform an action, then extract.

The focus is performing the mission and avoiding dying at all. This is quite different to most shooters (and wargames) where losses are fine if you kill lots more enemy. A 30:10 KDR is good in a game Battlefield/CoD or a wargame - if a whole team did this you'll win 99% of the time. 

Any death in a extraction shooter, you 'lose.' (In Hunt your character is deleted!). "Winning" was not trading better with kills, it was getting the "cool thing" and not dying.

....extracting your minis

Most games you tend to retreat models off a (rear?) board edge. In LOTR, models who fail a morale roll (usually from having heavy losses) just evaporate.

Zone Raiders (along with BLKOUT I'd recommend for when "you have Infinity minis but don't want the vertical learning curve cliff of Infinity) already has an extraction mechanic:

A mini spends an action to place a grenade-like AoE "extraction" template on the ground which remains on the board until an enemy mini contacts it to remove it or a new template is placed.  This represents opening hatches, or using rope zip-lines to create an egress.

Further: Once 50% casualties are taken, models can also quickly "Bug Out" by simply removing any models further than 8" from opponents.

I thought this was to show how maze-like and vertical the planet-sized megacity (i.e. Blame) is; by zip-lines, rappelling off or disappearing into hatches or air vents. 

But it also allows forces to disengage quickly if the fight is not to their liking; you don't have to have your force slaughtered first (50% casualties - a common wargame breakpoint - counts as a slaughter when traditional military engagements average casualties closer to ~5%). 

It's worth considering: How do we remove our minis from the fight? What rules are in place?  How easy/difficult is this? When is it triggered/allowed?

....So should we have more/easier ways to extract minis?

Ultimately, we've come here to pew pew and push model soldiers around. Merely charging around collecting loot and extracting effortlessly and quickly with enemies that only casually threaten you sounds more like a racing game; like Mario Kart but with cool sci fi troopers. 

On the other hand, waiting til you've lost 50% of your force (painful if they are named skirmish characters with their own backstories) before you can march slowly out across your own baseline is a bit ridiculous.

A thought about violent sports games like Bloodbowl is killing your opponents is A way to win, but not THE way to win. Weirdly, it mirrors real battles more accurately then the average wargame - real battles usually end with a unit outmaneuvering/forcing back opponents/seizing key areas, NOT eradicating them with 50-100% losses. 

Incentives on winning vs killing...

ARC Raiders - at least  for the first 2 weeks or so - was interesting in that players could attack each other but often didn't. They realized they could "collect the cool thing", not fight, and leave. Or, they could choose to fight and hope the other person already had the cool thing... ...on their corpse. Mathematically, it made more sense to not fight, and collect the cool thing and extract. People being who they are, this pacifist math was soon put aside in favour of pew-pewing. 

Based on this, you could put pretty strong incentives into mission completing/extraction and people would still try to 'kill them all.'  Maybe as victory conditions you don't count kills, just cool things collected minus the units you lost. This would frame it more in "how many units will I risk to get that cool thing reward?" rather than "how can I trade kills most economically?"

Wargames need ways other than "kill them all" to be a viable strategy. Game turn length and the amount of turns is a vital tool in this. But players will default to 'kill em all/scrum in the middle' unless its explicitly made clear it is not optimal (and probably not always even then).

Collecting cool things from various locations (a la extraction shooters) can encourage units to spread out; and force tactical choices; but what if one player just focuses on killing his opponent and does his exploring and collecting when all his opponents are dead?  What can we do to prevent this?

I feel this topic is wandering all over the place (that's the problem with train of consciousness blog posts vs well-thought-out essays) but one final thought before the wife summons me to watch TV, on re-framing 'victory' by getting kills or objectives vs defeat via losses.

Victory is who loses the least?

There was this (PC) game called "Wargame; Airland Battle" where capturing bases (the cool thing) allowed you a stready stream of points to buy new toys aka tanks, troops, gunships (reward).  

However you didn't win the game by collecting points; you lost a game by losing points. 

Both sides had a set "loss point" (say 2000) after which they lost. So sides could be quite unbalanced; say NATO starts with 20 x powerful 100pt tanks, and Soviets have 40 x 50pt weaker tanks. In the course of the game, NATO pushes forward. They capture more bases, and get a bonus +2000pts. The Soviets only get a few bases and get a bonus +1000pts.

However, in the process NATO loses 20 x 100pt MBTs (-2000). Even though the Soviets lose more tanks - 30 x 50pt MBTs, the losses cost less (-1500).

Even though overall NATO ends with more points (2000 + 2000 - 2000 = 2000) vs Soviet (2000 + 1000 - 1500 = 1500) - and thus end with a stronger army - they lose.

Because only the losses (-2000 vs -1500) counted towards victory/defeat. Obviously, killing enemies is giving the enemies losses... but it's also the relative cost. 30 Soviet tanks are cheaper to lose than 20 NATO tanks. 

I found this very interesting for asymmetrical forces. You were always incentivized to push for more bases so you could get more points and thus cool units/toys to outgun/outflank - to better destroy (give losses to) your opponents aka "reward" but you also had an eye on your own "loss meter" - what you could afford to "risk" ....because that was what ultimately lost you the game.  

Capturing bases indirectly helped you win (bases -> points -> better weapons -> kill enemy better) but losing a unit directly made you lose (lose x units -> lose).  

Powerful tanks and toys cost more - and gave you more 'oomph' relative to your opponent - but using them also risked more - because losing a 200pt gunship was so much worse than a 10pt conscript squad.

It was interesting because of the mindset it created when I played: "What am I willing to lose to accomplish x" rather than my usual "how can I get this kill" like I do in most PC games... ...where leaderboards are by the most kills (heck deaths are usually disregarded).

While ultimately it was still "kill them, try not to die" it was how winning and losing was framed. Like an extraction shooter, the aim was "get the cool thing - if you can - and don't die." 

Eeek it's late. Off to watch Watchmen (Season 1)...  (I know I'm late to the party)

BB7s.... or something new? (Terrain Mat)

The gym mats have been doing a lot of heavy lifting around here lately.

This time, my son has been playing Bloodbowl 2 on Steam (against himself!) and showed an interest in the physical version. $220AUD for the core set. A store-brought BB7s field is another $97. No thanks - that's almost my entire 2026 gaming budget.

So off to the shed. This was a pretty quick job - about 30-40 minutes slicing up two camping mats, and another 30 or so painting it with dollar store craft paint.  Conveniently the average steel ruler is around 3.5cm - which is about the size of a BB square. 

 

 It ain't fancy - but it works. If I had to do it again I'd just have scored the mat lightly with a boxcutter for lines instead of using a pen to indent it first. Youtubers also make foam look more 'rock-y' by pressing aluminum foil onto it to give texture but I was on a timeline - to finish in an hour before my wife got back so we could go fishing. So no fancy stadiums, stands etc. I just had to do the same job as the $97 cardboard mat.

This is the 3rd terrain I've started this year already; the others are 28mm medieval ruins made of the same rubber, and 15mm MDF warehouse ruins for WW2 'tankmunda.'

I don't have the BB rules yet but it didn't phase my 10 year old who tends to use the 'rule of cool' with a LOTR-esque tiebreaking system (roll dice for melee, highest wins - heroes get 2-3 dice; missiles/guns hit on a 3+/4+/5+ and wounds occur on 3+/4+/5+ depending on how big/cool the gun/armour looks with heroes getting re-rolls as needed for cool factor). He grabbed some Dreadball minis and off he went.

I'll probably use the old Living Rulebook as: (a) I think it's pretty close to BB2016/a la the Steam BB2 videogame my son has been playing and (b) it won't cost me $88.

Dreadball vs Speedball 

Why resurrect Bloodbowl? Why not Dreadball? Frankly it's a much better game.  I also already have the field, rules and minis. However it's oddly flavourless and feels like basketball with 3 goals. I really wonder why they didn't lean into the old Speedball arcade game - you know, kinda soccer/handball/hockey game that was on the old Atari/SEGA etc?  As an interesting aside, it looks like they are bringing it back. Ice Cream! 

I feel Dreadball's 'doing its own thing' seemed unecessary i.e. the 3 goals is to allow more tactics/scoring choices/ways to catch up when behind, but didn't Speedball have the things on the side that added bonus points? as well scoring by injuring opponents; and power-ups like teleporting and electrified balls. So it's not like more closely copying Speedball wouldn't allow a lot of variety.

Speedball has pedigree, nostalgia and links to known sports as well as videogames like Deathrow or Skateball. Dreadball has none of those things. Another factor: here in Australia at least, poor quality Mantic minis are priced equivalent to far superior GW minis. It's a pity - as my head says "this is a solid, well-thought game" but my heart says "meh, who cares."

So I'm probably going to work on my own homebrew rules for Speedball just cos thinking about it has inspired me. It actually had (from memory) some pretty good mechanics like a stamina bar that depleted with hits and thus made you slower; and stat bars were simple - Stamina, Power and Skill? I also recall lob vs direct passes and being able to hurl the ball into opponents. There were also coins you could collect to purchase stats in between games; so it would work as a simple campaign/season. Jumping made it easier to catch but I think you could be smashed easier. Hmm I need to play a bit to do 'research.'

Why Bloodbowl 7s?

I just don't have 2 hrs to devote to a wargame any more. Blitz is probably a better game (less an exercise in risk mitigation) but it's mostly outside the well-equipped Bloodbowl ecosystem; and my son already knows the concepts through videogames. 

When a game ends - Game Design

Sports games have a hard limit - 8 turns per half in Blood Bowl, 7 each in Dreadball... and it had me thinking - how do we end games?  I'm pretty sure I've already explored how games start - usually just unimaginatively plonking down models a set distance from a baseline - but how they end/how victory is determined kinda links to my attempt to make an extraction-shooter wargame (aka ripoff Hunt: Showdown). As there is a few thoughts that might go together I might make its own post. 

Til then! 

2026 Goals

Here's my (very) belated 2026 goals. ....Happy New Year and all that.

I notice a lot of my 2025 goals were a bit to broad and vague, so I've decided to divide them up and make them specific:

Terrain is often a "barrier to play" and I've long wanted some medieval ruins/underground tomb cities. I've already made a start to one project with a 0$ dent in my budget. Some naval/air terrain on a smaller scale (1:100-1:300 or smaller) is another on my to-do list...

1. Terrain. 

Create 3 more terrain sets, but must be storable in A4 IKEA boxes. This can include bought /modified MDF terrain.  They must be to get projects off the ground i.e. like in 2025 I made a lot of sci fi terrain to enable games like Zone Raiders. Focus as usual on quick/easy "dad" terrain.

2. Minis

a) Assemble 50 models or two warbands of forces from spare sprues/currently unused minis i.e. samurai or 70 years war.

b) Buy minis for one existing project (i.e. Mordheim, BFG, etc) only after owned equivalents painted

c) Buy minis for one new system, project or rule set but only after equivalent minis painted 

3. Rules

a) Design and play-test one new home-brew system.

b) Buy one new rule book that works for existing minis/project. Review in blog.

c) Buy one new rule book that just looks cool. Review in blog.

d) Print out an existing old-school OOP rulebook or free indie set. Review in blog. 

e)  Revise and playtest 3 out of my many sets of homebrew rules in quirky topics like supercavitating subs, tank pirates, simple jet fighters etc. 

4. Blog

Two posts per month. 

People seem to like game design stuff but honestly I only do those if I have a topic I've been mulling over - so can't promise those. Although feel free to suggest topics in chat and if they interest me I'll explore them. I may do some home-brew rules where I photograph and 'think aloud' through a playtest game. I'd like to do a few rules reviews again. 

5. Paint

a) Continue to follow my rule: Paint equal or more existing minis before I get new purchases i.e. if I paint 101 minis, I can buy 100 new minis.

b) Paint up two unfinished projects i.e. samurai, Quar, Odyessy....  

....As a minimum, paint 100 minis equivalent to 28mm (a 15mm infantry counts as 1/3, a mounted 28mm counts as 2, etc).  

6. Budget

Spend around $350 as a baseline - ~$7 a week is a coffee so it's not an unreasonable amount for a hobby. I may increase my allowance if I exceed my painting or declutter goals, but 2025 I spent that much, mostly on MDF terrain ($150), Trench Crusade ($150) and printing out old rulebooks like Mordhiem and BFG ($50).

7. Downsize/Storage

Get rid of 4+ A4 IKEA boxes of rules, minis, old terrain etc. Ultimately, outgoings to exceed the physical size of incomings, so overall I have more shed space.

Camping Mat Foam (EVA) Terrain

For me in small-town Australia, the pink dense "terrain builder" foam (XPS?) is pretty rare or pricey.  I don't have a big enough vocab of swearwords to deal with sty-foam (EPS). However every junk shop sells camping/yoga mats made of regrettably thin but pleasantly tough and dense foam. At a local nerdfest I realised the cosplayers had outfits made using this+hot glue, so when cleaning out my shed I decided to procrastinate with a fun job be environmentally proactive by recycling some old mats I needed to chuck.

 

These are incomplete; they need painting and details added but since the local hardware store is out of $5 spray-paint and I decline to pay $10 a can, they will remain unfinished until further notice. You get the idea of what it will look like, though... I added PVA-d sand for a bit of grit/texture near the crumbly bits.

As I dislike reinventing the wheel, a quick google showed I was not original in this idea.  Here are some sites I used for inspiration. If anyone finds more info/guides on making stuff with this type of foam, I'd appreciate a link. I also got ideas by just googling 28mm medieval ruins and borrowing the ideas from store-bought 3D printed terrain.

The pink or blue XPS modelling foam is rare in my neck of the woods, but these camping mats are $10 for a dozen and are almost universally common. Each mat yielded a 12x12" square (for another project) and enough leftovers for a terrain piece or two.
 

I wanted medieval ruins as (despite hating hitpoints) I like the idea of a Necropolis/Idols of Torment netherworld/underworld battle of the dead (I don't have enough tattoos/like heavy metal enough to be fully into it) and also can use it for ruins for ME:SBG a la Osgiliath or even dwarf city ruins. I also wanted pieces sized to fit into a A4 IKEA box (I got carried and forgot though). 

As usual, speed > spending hours making some perfect display piece. I'm a dad with kids and a job, not a Youtuber.  

I sliced the mat into strips for the walls and scored vertical brick joins.

I laid them down on a base where I sketched my rough ideas and just  hot glued them.

It was actually pretty quick. Probably 45 minutes to an hour each for these bigger ones. I need to score bricks and paving stones and add grit/dust around the rubble.

The bottom one I got a bit carried away and exceeded my size limit, but the top one fits an A4 storage box and has a detachable top floor. I spent most of an afternoon and have enough terrain for a 4x4' board. The terrain is very tough and light and can be dropped (probably even thrown!) without harm.

I also designed them with gaming in mind so there are multiple entry points/passageways through the terrain i.e. the top levels have two access points.

I'll probably make some wall/and/corner sections to make more versatile layouts. Maybe some sarcophagi a la Balin for a crypt? A well to tip a skeleton into ("Fool of a Took!")? What else does a good underworld/medieval ruin need? Maybe a stable? I have some coffee stirrers for planking I plan to add in to connect up levels....

Well, I'm pretty satisfied with (a) the time it took (b) the tough, flexible nature of the terrain (c) the cost - nil so far. I'm sure I could do better with $200 of hot wire cutters, dremels and expensive xps, but this is getting rid of an untidy pile of matting under a table in my shed, so I'm calling this a win.

....Oops! Belated New Years post added....

Review of 2025 goals:

1. Build more terrain/game mats. Success! I have made sci fi boards, and am in the middle of "tankmunda" 15mm ruins and have built a dense Necromundaish sci fi board. Besides my current project.

2. Create Mordhiem warbands. Failed. I have some Frostgrave cultists and skaven but after printing out and re-reading the OG rules I lost enthusiasm. Have been testing solo/horde zombie rules to make my own Vermintide game though.

3. Finalize my tank skirmish rules based on post-apocalyptic 1930s where nomadic tank pirate gangs roam. Success?- I keep fiddling with them. My kids call this "Mortal Tanks." 

4. Collect any missing notable MESBG. Failed. +Expand into a similar system for cowboys or pirates for my kids... sort of? I'm making a cowboys vs undead based on Rail Wars. 

5. Paint my Battlefleet Gothic fleets. Failed. Too fiddly to do all the separate magnetizable options. Decision paralysis so... onto something else.

6. Do a 2025 update and playtest of all my ongoing homebrew rules. Failed. I did do tanks, mechs, weird west, not-Mordhiem, fighter submarines and space gunships a la The Expanse. The goal was a bit broad to be honest.

7. Paint 3 of my 15 unpainted projects.  Success! Battletech, 15mm Lawrence of Arabia & WW2 tanks. 

8. Find wargaming projects for my kids. Failed. I realize son likes playing, not painting so he doesn't get a vote. My daughter only paints sporadically. Did get her some 28mm heads to girl-ify my various warbands.  We tend to do more outdoorsy things - as they are 10 and 12.  I.e this holidays they learned to skateboard and skimboard. 

9. Allow myself one new system - Trench Crusade. Success? I bought it and regret it. The rules are interesting but flawed. I did keep to my "only one new commercial system" though which was the goal.

10. Start a new homebrew system. Success! That is easy. 

Hmm. 5/10? Not a good strike rate. I probably need to set smaller more specific goals....  

Mechs are Back

While I am still working on weird west rules and have setup for test games, THIS time the distraction was my son's fault - he found some random Alpha Strike boxes in a local hobby shop. He plays a lot of Mechwarrior Online/Battletech 5 with me on PC

So we painted them up and were off to the rules cupboard in the shed.  

I'm not a huge fan of Alpha Strike - which always seemed to miss the mark for me. For fast-play rules, it seemed to retain a LOT of complexity and modifiers while losing too much of the cinematic flavour of Battletech. 178 pages is probably not fast play or 'lite'. That said, Alpha Strike works out of the box.

Like 40K, it's obvious the universe and not the rules are the drawcard. Find 10 Alpha Strike players and you'll find 10 different house rules, so I'm not alone in the feeling the rules need to be 'fixed.'   Even the most basic stuff - one of the most common critical hits on the crit table is "nothing happens." FFS - I rolled box cars (3% chance) to get here and now I get to roll again just for a high chance of ... nothing? It's just bad design.  The issue is that 'fixing' things often messes with the balance. Changing and smoothing the dice rolls probably screws light mechs. Making deadlier crits might harm heavier mechs. 

For all its faults, Alpha Strike IS Battletech and comes ready-to-go with dry erase stat cards.

OG Battletech delivers, but is just so 80s gluggy I wouldn't inflict it on adult friends let alone a 10 year old. Recording 100s of hits - that's why I own a PC. 

Heavy Gear recently went through a 'simplification' which also missed the mark for me. It's just roll d6s against a number (say 4+) to count successes, but.... you can add or remove dice AND change the target (to say 3+ or 5+) AND sometimes extra dice that exceed the result can add to the result. Add that to the fact there might be (checks notes) 61 combat modifiers...  it's really not that simple either. On the upside, there is usually only a handful of hitpoints to record - albeit no heat rules if you wanted to use it for BT.

Both these games are (like Infinity) written by I presume frustrated RPGers who made a wargame. This is obvious when you compare how similar they are to a genuine RPG, Lancer. 

Lancer annoys me by using symbols instead of words (if you have 250+ pages of rules, there are ways to save word count besides replacing the word range with a weird line - like, say the 150 pages worth of fluff...). That's needless obscurity. It also seems overly fixated on elemental damage types (fire, electricity etc). But it is an unapologetic RPG, so.... *shrugs.* My copy was free so I suspect it is the older 1st edition.

While Lancer is squarely aimed at Gundam, it's got got all the mecha bells and whistles including heat, which is incurred by taking extra quick actions (shots, speed boosts etc). It's also better on recording than BT although that's a low bar to step over: basically you have say 8 HP but once they are gone you roll against a "crit" table which might kill your, stun you or remove weapons etc. If you have a hero mech you might have 3 crits i.e. you can repeat this process a few times, i.e. you get to take 8HP + a crit, and you only die on the 3rd one. Basically, potentially up to 24HP...  Whereas a "grunt" mech probably dies on the first crit (8HP) which is more cinematic - heroes last longer. However you could perhaps change it based on size rather than pilot, so a assault mech has 4 crits, a heavy 3, a medium 2, a light 1 etc etc.  These rules are some of the most interesting for ideas and I recommend adding it to your collection.

Steel Rifts. This uses dice to record hitpoints. I.e. a medium might have d6 armour and d6 structure. Like Alpha Strike, weapons have a power value. They roll on d6 and any 3 or less score a hit. This time there is only 5 combat modifiers, not Alpha Strike's 18. Each hit reduces the dice i.e. a 2 damage hit means you flip the armour d6 from the 6 side to the 4 side. It's very minimalist and is actually a wargame. The key rules could probably be fit on 3 pages. It's like the author knows how to explain things to others. I did find it a bit bland; but if you want to get your mechs out on the table this gets a recommendation. 

In comparison the others (BT, HG, Lancer) are more interested in the fluff: their approach seems to be if the rules clarity needs to be sacrificed in the name of fluff/backstory, so be it.

Clarity > Fluff 

Something I've been thinking of when fiddling with my Weird West adaption is what Savage Worlds (a RPG!) does right. It doesn't focus on the fluff, but the in-game effect.  For example, both fire damage and poison damage might have the same effect - i.e. a persistent status say causing an extra damage roll next turn.

They don't need separate rules "Poison" and "Fire". A single rule "Persistent Damage" or whatever. We've just halved the special rules. You can attach what flavour fluff you want to it elsewhere...

"The gunslinger fires deadly poisoned bullets that cause great suffering in her prey" you can stick this in the character description or whatever, but next to the weapon you just put "Persistent Damage".

"The flaming sword Belial cleaves undead in two, their pyres serving as a warning for their necromantic brethren" Again, the blurb can go elsewhere - but the weapon stats merely need to state Persistent Damage. Simples!

What does the weapon or item DO? What range? What damage? Anything special i.e. armour piercing? This should be as clear and succinct as possible, sharing rules with similar effects rather than making up uniquely named but identical rules for each weapon.

For example, in Alpha Strike, both the Energy and CASE abilities means ammo does not explode. 

In other words: It's the same rule. 

Let's make a single rule and call it "Safe Ammo." But because Alpha Strike is so wedded to its fluff, they use twice as many rules names than they need. 

 

Most RPG rules are laid out like a game of "hunt for the useful information"... 

I reckon for 95% of RPG authors, the 'rules' of actually playing in their imaginary world are an unfortunate necessity that gets in their way of spewing out more fluff.  Their motto: ...Never use one word when you can use ten; plus a paragraph of fluff...

....ok rant over, while I am in my rules cupboard...

Gamma Wolves. Another actual wargame. The same author as Steel Rifts - this one is a bit more complex. I love the post-apoc-mecha 'game world' which helped give me ideas for my homebrew post-apoc-WW2 tanks 'game world.' A bit heavier on recording. Pilots and mechs can accrue 'stress' which allow pseudo BT heat. It has more interesting mechanics - you can sacrifice shooting successes to aim for body parts; when hit, you get a free reactive short move; and there is the 'war clock' - a countdown caused by stress/ammo use etc that forces all mechs to withdraw- acts like whole force morale. I think I've seen this war clock mechanic in horror/zombie games - never mecha ones though! I like the idea and I've used something similar in my modern air combat games (where fuel/ordnance reserves are a big deal). 

I'd recommend Gamma Wolves as 'interesting' but I'd say Steel Rifts is slicker and quicker if you just want an excuse to push mechs around on the table.

Proof for the doubters: I'm actually still progressing on my weird west theme.....

Verdict: Well I continue to work on my homebrew rules, but despite my grouching I'm first bringing out the Alpha Strike quick-play rules: main reason is they came with printed dry-erase mecha cards all ready to go; but I have Steel Rifts on standby... 

Weird West Wargaming

 Probably inspired by playing Hunt:Showdown 1896 on PC, I've recently been on a wild west craze. My DVD pile includes such diverse titles as The Wild Bunch, Bone Tomahawk, Wild Wild West and Westworld. 

Naturally that spills over into my gaming, so I've been digging through my collection. On the tail end of the original Malifaux launch, I collected quite a few "normal" western miniatures to make my own weird west world. I've dug them out and note the somewhat chipped paint jobs and hasty natural sand bases. So that needs to be fixed.

I've also got some MDF western buildings (unpainted, unglued). Painting them seems a bit of a big job, and I'm wondering if there is a quick "finish" to put on it to darken it and make them look more... "woodlike". I'm pretty sure the MDF will soak up stuff like linseed oil (then swell/warp?) so a bit unsure where to go here.

So I'm procrastinating that while digging through my rulebooks. What will I use/adapt?

As usual my digital gaming tends to trend into analogue wargames..

Malifaux.

OK, the obvious one. I have good memories of the very varied range of missions/objectives Malifaux had; that gave goods variety and attempted away from "kill em all." It has a very detailed and interesting lore and it's a game that seems to have survived well over the ensuing years as while it's not A tier, there always seems to be some presence locally and online. But - it's not for me. The detailed stat cards, the hitpoints, the "named" characters, the 'gamey' special attacks, the ridiculously short shooting ranges of ~12" maximum. I don't view replacing dice with cards as anything desirable, though I recall it being good in trying to get the initiative. The art, fluff and missions are useful though. Zero inclination to play the rules or print out complicated cards for each unique character - but keep out for reference. 

 

 Yep, that IS a lot of text and rules for ONE character, Malifaux. Not what I need or want for homebrew gunfighting horror adventures.

Dracula's America

An inoffensive but kinda meh Osprey game. There is a single universal stat dice (d10 to d6) depending if you are a hero, vet or mook. As usual with these genius attempts to deal away with "complicated" stat lines, you instead end up with excessive special rules to differentiate your otherwise identical d8 hellhound monsters from your d8 human cowboys. I.e. instead of 4-5 common stats and a single unique special rule per model, you end up with 1 common stat and 4-5 unique rules...  The mechanics were meh, and pretty beer and pretzels but I do recall players playing a card from a hand to determine action order - kinda a bidding mechanic which I liked; and the ability to choose either taking 2 actions by one model or 1 action from two models - which was simple and kinda unique and interesting. It's not bad - and at least each model doesn't need 10 lines of text and unique actions like Malifaux and would be nice on a game night with newbies, but this one is going back in the cupboard.

Deadlands RPG

I actually dislike the Deadlands fluff - it just seems corny with "magic maze""ghost rock" and magic being powered by manitous. While it does have lots of stuff in it - mad inventors, undead, confederates, Indian spirits, monsters etc - reading through the books again has not changed my mind. It's just a mish-mash 'background' that tries to cram in too much random stuff and just hits the wrong notes for me - Carnevale for example has a much stronger, more consistent theme. However it IS powered by Savage Worlds RPG engine which is one of the few RPGs I tolerate (based as it is originally on a skirmish miniatures game). Back in the box - but it's given me an idea.

 

Empire of the Dead (EotD)

Not set in the wild west but the right era and theme, Empire of the Dead is a very Games Workshop+ game. This means an ex-GW writer who has tweaked the usual formula to make it slightly more modern. EotD unfortunately keeps IGOUGO rather than the standard upgrade to alternate activations, but does swap to d10 to allow more differentiation. Like Dracula's America, it would be easy/familiar to teach, and I recall some very light campaign rules. Pretty meh, though, so back in the box.

Legends of the Old West

If I'm going to get a GW-esque game, I might as well look at one modelled on their best.  Using the LoTR:SBG engine, this allows heroes to have "might" and "fate" to perform heroic deeds or cheat fate and miraculously survive; it also has a more detailed campaign system than any of the others so far. The LoTR engine is less suited to a shooting-heavy game, though, and while you could probably easily enough mock-up monsters off LoTR profiles the game is purely "historical" with no monsters included. I'll put it to one side though as my kids already know LoTR:SBG so it would be the easiest game of all to play and a points system means you can roughly balance encounters.

....so I'm going to do my own thing, I think, with Legends (+homebrew monsters) as a backup plan.

As usual, I dislike reinventing the wheel so I am going to steal/borrow from Savage World's core pulp rulebook. It already uses playing cards (so beloved of Western rule writers) for initiative, so it's already got the vibe, and it has access to miniature-esque combat aimed to handle very diverse heroes, monsters and magic - with robust magic, skills and traits I can borrow from if needed.

 

Why Savage Worlds?

It's a good introduction to the 'dice are the stat' system i.e.  characters have stats ranked from d4 (hopeless) to d12 (great) that roll against a fixed number - usually a 4+, with predicable +/-2 shifts for modifiers. It's certainly got the potential to be more complicated or gluggy than anything so far except Malifaux, but of course SW is merely a big toolbox for many genres and settings and I can easily strip it back towards its wild west skirmish wargaming roots. There's plenty of magic and monsters ready to go, as well as existing rules for lassos, Winchesters and six shooters. There's even a very rough guide to 'rating' miniatures combat-wise, to balance scenarios, and a levelling system where a dice stat is upgraded each round.

 

So how did Hunt: Showdown inspire this all...

Well, it's kinda a weird west PC extraction shooter (PUBG/Tarkov?) but you have to sneak/battle your way past undead and defeat and banish a demonic monster (PvE) for a bounty whilst dodging a dozen other human players trying to do the same (PvP) - who are happy to gank you and steal your bounty. I thought it had some good ideas for a wargame....

a) numerous wandering 'grunt' NPC zombies that only lock onto you at close range 

b) a range of hero NPC zombies with special attacks (one zombie has a beehive for a head, tentacled things lurk in the swamp creeks, giant spiders etc)

...so the environment/terrain is threatening- maybe allowing solo gaming

c) the aim is to kill/banish a NPC monster or collect clues to get xp/$ etc

d) heroes choose from a small selection of 'gear' - like dynamite stick, molotovs, medkit, dagger etc - allowing limited customisation which they can also find via exploring

e) heroes may choose to 'extract' any time (leave via board edge) with loot

......so you don't need to 'kill em all' to win/succeed, and success may just be leaving with cool stuff, alive

I thought there were some interesting ideas for a wargame, as well as there are levelling skill/traits I could easily duplicate with Savage Worlds. And it might be fun to GM this where players pilot a small team of cowboys each where they can team up to fight monsters or gun each other down....

Intercept Vector 2025 (Jet Aerial Wargaming)

 ....because I only have 6 projects on the go, I decided to revise one of my homebrew rules (as per my New Years resolutions)...

This is called "wo-crastination". It's procrastinating a job while doing another, similar job. Much more defensible than ordinary pro-crastination. 

Anyway the blog regulars know my eternal (hopeless) quest - fast playing jet rules that giver a feel of aerial combat. Where you can go "fwoooosh!" with your mouth while moving handfuls of models around. More Ace Combat and Top Gun than super strict sim. It's like Forza compared to iRacing.

Actually Blood Red Skies (Mantic) has attempted something like this for WW2 (and even uses a similar high/low energy system than what I do), but I don't enjoy the "throw handfuls of dice and only count 6s" - I feel it has stripped too much out. It also has lots of special rules in an attempt to differentiate the rather samey planes. It does, however, handle quite a few fighters.

Jet combat is a bit of a conundrum. There's a lot going on. A lot of natural complexity. Gravity/height, energy management, maneuvers, radar/EW, missiles, limited fuel/ammo, pilot skill. The fast paced nature of combat is also at odds with this. An Age of Sail 74-gunner may take a while to ponderously complete a move. I want to pick up a jet, swoop it across the table with pew pew noises, and plonk it down. I find space fighter games far easier cos I can handwavium away what I choose.  It's fair to say streamlining aerial wargames are a knotty problem.

 "We do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard we thought it would be easy"

Most aerial wargames (think Check Your Six as typical) track every minute throttle adjustment and stick movement in detail that would be considered insane micromanagement if you applied it to a ground skirmish wargame. In Top Gun, they call out general instructions like "break left!" and "evade!" not "move the throttle 3/4 forward and turn left at a precise 45d angle." Pilots should be following general instructions like those given by a wingman over radio not a godlike omniscient being guiding their every finger twitch. 

So what do we simplify/abstract?

Where I'm up to in 2025's version:

1. There is a detection phase where planes can roll to spot any in a short/360 arc (visual) or a longer/60d frontal cone (radar). Whether to bother to roll or not should be visually obvious in most cases. Any undetected jets are marked as such and treated as "stealth" in a conventional wargame i.e. you can't attack them or react to them and they get attack bonuses.

2. Starting with the highest energy plane/best pilot etc, players take turns activating jets. A jet can move normally for free, but attacking or a special maneuver (like a reversal) uses an action. Jets have 1 action unless they pass a pilot test to get a 2nd action. A failure stresses the pilot (like suppression). So only good pilots can reliably, say loop AND fire guns. A wingman can attempt to follow on and move directly after his buddy. Moves are pretty simple; like "turn up to 60d then move 2-6" - no charts or special tools are needed - it should be similar in complexity to moving an Infinity model or similar skirmish wargame.

3. Special maneuvers like Immelmans, yo-yos or scissors require a pilot test. Failure could stress the pilot and result in a more mundane maneuver, or even result in a spin. Planes are marked with high, normal or low energy. Energy is abstracting together altitude AND speed. Controversial I know - I wouldn't do this for a earlier era (WW2/Korea) game but with 1:1 thrust to weight ratios more common I feel altitude is less important now.   Most special maneuvers should allow you to trade energy for better position.

4. An enemy jet can react to a visible active jet IF they have more energy or equal energy and some advantage like a better pilot, on their tail etc. There is a contested Infinity-esque dice roll for this and many other actions. This makes energy state and detection pretty important.

5. Firing missiles is "shooting" and a dogfight is "melee." 

Missiles are pretty normal. Roll to lock (radar vs target EW), then roll to hit (missile accuracy vs flares/evasive) etc.

Dogfights are a bit more unusual. 

Basically you push the models together like a normal skirmish wargame, take into account relative energy/approach angle, roll a contested roll then mime how the results play out while swooshing your hands around with afterburner noises. The jets are likewise swooping and twisting around the general vicinity.

6. Energy is a resource to be spent/gained for positional advantage. There are three levels - high, medium and low energy. Violent maneuvers like reversals cost an energy level. A low energy plane that spends more energy can stall and crash. A dogfight bleeds energy for both combatants. Certain moves - like a slow steady climb - can regain energy. Jets with powerful thrust can regain it more easily. 

 

 This is an example. As you can see I use hex bases because (a) they are cheap and (b) handy to define relative positions/turns. Note the use of F-18s due to my recent watching of Top Gun: Maverick.

 

 The dogfight shows the end positions, but is assumed to include cool maneuvers around the general area of where the models met. 

It must be accompanied by lots of hand gestures and explaining "and the F-18 cuts onto his tail - fwooosh!" "Fox Two!" or "he fires the Vulcan - tracer spews towards the MiG!"

7. Finally there is a "fuel pool." Basically this is a slider (a 1m ruler for me) that tracks combined fuel/ammo expenditure for all jets - a token on each side for both forces. 

This is because I have noticed many air combats are broken off due to one side having expended fuel/ordinance.

How it works is each jet contributes to the combined pool; perhaps 1 each 200km range, 1 each 2 missiles or 1 each 500rds of ammo. Now whenever ANY jet regains energy or fires a weapon, it removes "fuel" from the pool. 

Certain jets cost more to spend from the pool - a jet with only 2 missiles "limited missiles", or 400km range "limited fuel", or only 250 rounds "limited ammo" uses TWO fuel each action. This means although you don't track individual fuel or ammo usage, you will be more sparing when firing missiles from say a F-5A with 2 AIM9s then a fully loaded F-15 - so it has the same effect.

The checklist:
(  ) Detection matters

(  ) Pilot Skill matters

(  ) Plane Stats matter/differentiate (thrust/top speed/agility/toughness/radar) 

(  ) Energy = resource to manage: Swaps height/speed for position/advantage/initiative.

(  ) Fuel/ammo matters

(  ) Speed and Simplicity - can handle 4-8 planes per side; similar to Necromunda/Infinity

(  ) Minimal recording and table clutter