d12Finity Playtest

I gave the rules a run through with my son. Some ignorant meatbags have disturbed a Necron tomb!

The rules passed my "can explain in 5min or less"

"You take turns moving one guy each. Each turn, your guy gets to move AND do a thing. The thing can be move again, shoot, climb, whatever. If you are hurt or pinned you don't get the free move. You can hold your move or shoot til later if you want - like to wait til someone pokes his head out. You can 'reposition' your model by moving it up to a base length and change facing and not count as moving - your model isn't frozen in place."

D: "You do stuff by rolling equal or less than your stat. 6 is normal. If you roll exactly the number, you get a bonus or automatically win. If you both need to roll against each other, put aside any dice that fail, then see who has the best dice. The winner does all his shooting etc - and if the loser survives, he can shoot back etc."

D" "If you are hit you roll against your Defence to save. Powerful guns make this Defence less i.e. a big sniper is -5, but most are -2. If you fail you die unless you are a big monster or a hero. If you survive you are suppressed and lose your free move next turn."

D:"You can set up 2 moves from your baseline, unless you are a scout - you get to move double after that - or an infiltrator - you can set up anywhere 6" away from and out of view of any enemies."

D:"If you die you tip over the model and get to test if an ally comes over to you and spends their action. If you pass a Phys test you get up, pinned; if you fail it dies and is removed. Necrons can do this themselves like a Terminator."

T: "How do I fight hand to hand?"

D: "You're a Tau. You don't." 

We then discussed the stats on my piece of paper. 

Minis were: 

4xFire Warrior 6" move, 6 Shoot, 6 (-1) Melee, 7 Defence, 6 Agility, 6 Physique, 6 Will.

2xPathfinder 7" move, 7 Shoot, 6 (-0) Melee, 6 Defence,  7 Agility, 6 Physique, 7 Will. Mark target, Scout

1xStealth Suit, 8" move, 7 Shoot, 6 (-0) Melee, 9 Defence, 5 Agility, 7 Physique, 7 Will. Infil, Stealth, Mark target, Tough (2 wounds)

=vs= 

3x respawning Necron Warriors 5" move, 6 Shoot, 6 (-2) Melee, 9 Defence, 5 Agility, 6 Physique, 6 Will. Regenerate.

This was all we referred to in the game, except to discuss climbing and falling rules. My son asked "what can I hurdle easily" I said "anything head height or less" and he asked "what can I climb" I said "stairs are normal, anything else needs you to spend your action climbing" He then said "at half speed?"

Weapons were:
Heavy Battle Rifle (Necron) -2 Damage, 18" effective range, Auto (2 shots in effective range)

Pulse Carbine (Tau) -2 Damage, 12" effective range, Auto (2 shots in effective range); +2 in CQB

Minigun/MMG (Tau); -2 Damage, 24" effective range, Cyclic (2 shots, +2 bonus shots if no move), -2 CQB

Railgun Sniper (Tau); -5 Damage, 24" effective range, heavy (no move+fire), -2 CQB

My son without being told guessed that the minigun and sniper would be -2 (bulky) if the short carbine was (+2) which showed it was at least inutitive. I kept most of the guns at -2 damage to be simple but my rules actually have the carbines at -1 damage and the minigun at -3... in hindsight my son would easily have remembered it. 

I also allowed everyone to be a medic (not a usual rule), which was intended to make the game less frustrating, but turned out to work really well, as my son often had tough decisions on whether to attack or go for a revive, as well as allowing everyone to attempt to shrug off a suppression (usually only for space marines - Know No Fear and all that.)

Victory Conditions:
My son had to go to each green marker, spend an action and roll under his Will (usually 6, 7 for scouts) to collect it. He could leave whenever he wanted.

GAME & COMMENTS

My son deployed his Pathfinders and Stealth Suit forward (scout, infiltrate) - probably too far forward for his sniper who got shot a hilarious amount of times. His first wound happened early, an attempt to snipe a Necron missing and being nailed in return with a lucky roll. He went down but not out. His -5 damage rifle was out of action most of the game and was sorely missed as the Necrons rolled 1-7 d12 saves vs the conventional weapons.

 Beyond effective range (18" for rifles, 12" for carbines) the shooting was pretty haphazard thanks to the -2 modifier and reduced RoF.

I was acting as a NPC so I merely advanced my 3 Necrons remorselessly forward, firing when they spotted a foe. The first fight developed on the left. The Necrons downed a Pathfinder, being suppressed but shrugging it off with good Will rolls.  The Stealth suit spooled up its burst cannon but merely suppressed the Necrons, taking a wound in return. My son did not roll well and this continued the whole night (lucky he saw the funny side). Maybe 'rolling low' mechanics is the way to go for me!

The Stealth Suit's burst autocannon fires 2 bursts of 2 shots; not 4 at a time; the most dice mismatch is thus 2 to 1; not 4 to 1 like Infinity. The other two shots can be saved and fired later or straight after the initial opposed roll. 

 

The luckless Pathfinder sniper passes a Phys roll and is revived for the first time. You can see the objective marker but the Tau are too busy staying alive to spend an action to attempt to collect it with a Will roll.

 

There are only three shooting modifiers; -2 long range, -2 cover, and -2 if being fired at from the rear 180.  We decided to add in a -3 "good" cover next game for where the model is snuggled up against the cover: to differentiate it from shots where the cover is technically in the way/obstructing some vision, but a long way from the model. 

My son said "how will anyone ever get in the rear 180?".....  just as my Necron strolled down the right flank and shot him in the back. The Necrons were repeatedly pinned but not downed. On the left you can see a Fire Warrior going in for a revive on the Pathfinder. The Stealth Suit is Tough and thus can take 2 hits (unlike all the other models which are downed with one shot) but it was overwhelmed.

At this point my son went from "I outnumber them 8 to 3, I'm gonna kill em all then collect tokens" to "What tokens can I grab before I leg it."

The luckless Tau sniper revived a second time with a crit (rolling exactly the target score required) so he got to leap up and act like normal. 

 

He rolled another crit (his Shoot is 7, he rolled a 7) vs the Necrons two hits (his Shoot is 6, rolled a 4 and a 3). Since his success was a crit (or higher) he applied his damage first, downing the Necron whose then did not get to 'shoot back,'

 My son's sniper at last downs a remorseless Necron who failed his save roll (Defence 9 -5 = needs 4 or less on d12)."Finally!"  Taking no chances, he shoots its twitching chassis to prevent it attempting to Regenerate.

However, shaken by his early losses, he is still determined to grab tokens and get out. I respawned my dead Necron back on my baseline to keep the pressure up.

Unfortunately he keeps rolling over his Will and failing to pick up tokens.

 

His luck isn't good. Here I am rolling a critical on my saving throw of 7 to resist two successful hits.

When he failed his fourth attempt to pick up a token (a 50/50 each time), he decided to retreat and fight another day. The remaining tokens were on my side of the board and nasty Necrons were in the way.

 The Tau sniper was downed again, but this time, callously left to his fate. "I'm sick of reviving him!"

 

The last Fire Warrior escaped of the table, leaving five colleagues behind, including one confirmed dead. Next game I'm going to bring them back... wearing their skins as Flayed Ones! Muwahahaha!

Thoughts: Would have been fair, but for some diabolical die rolling from wee lad and some inspired saves from my Necrons.  As I merely tinkered with existing lethality percentages and ranges from games like 40K and Infinity the game worked perfectly fine out of the box as you could predict. I had reduced the models base defence from 6 to 5 before this playtest and it was a good choice as the minis already seemed quite resilient.

In hindsight he would have brought another railgun sniper and sat it back of the board, as well as swapping to a plasma cannon for the Stealth Suit for more heavy hitting oomph. The carbine vs rifle was interesting (a carbine has 12" effective vs 18" rifle effective, but gains +2 in CQB i.e. 6") and he debated bringing more rifles for the extra shot between 12-18." 

My son easily grasped the rules, although he did not bother to use the scout Marker rule (spend an action to Mark all targets in LoS who are then +1 to be hit) mostly because his squishy scouts got downed so fast. Stealth (spend an action to avoid being shot at if outside 6") was likewise unused as his Stealth Suit heroically was thrown into the frontlines with its bullet hose gun to try to save some downed team mates rather than as a sneaky assassin.

The very few modifiers (-2 for long range, -2 rear 180, -2 cover) meant we rarely checked the rules. What could be climbed/jumped off was the biggest topic of discussion and something I probably need to expand on as the wee lad tried to climb on or over everything. 

My son also suggested some new rules:

 Evac: On my son's suggestion, I've decided to add a rule where a model can spend an action to place an 'evac token' out of enemy LoS. Any other model can move to it, and then spend their action, and pass an Agility roll to be removed from the battle. This represents ziplines, escape tunnels, etc and avoids laboriously retreating off the board. I like it as I can use a modified version to allow Necrons to phase out. I love any rule I can use for multiple circumstances.

Better cover: My son felt there should be 'better' cover; I counted ANY slight obstruction or intervening terrain but he thought when the mini is touching up against the cover or close (base length) it should be better. So that is -3 not -2. 

 Success!

+ It was fast playing, easy to remember, and fun. The kid reckons it would be easy to adapt to Ninjago/LEGO. "+1 defence for a helmet, +1 for a shield, +1 for armour..."

+ It was waaaaay easier than Infinity and more interactive while having the same "opposed roll" vibe, and "where do I cover/who has LoS to me." It was a lot less punishing though.

+ The "everyone is a medic" rule I put in to keep my son entertained I may keep permanently, as it created a lot of tension: "do I do xy or do I spend an action instead to try revive my team mates?"

~ The Necrons seemed so tough.... but it was only a 1-7 defence save on d12 - 58% - (between a 4+ and a 3+ save on a d6) so it was merely diabolical rolling on my son's behalf and some inspired saves on my own.

+ The d12 system worked fine. The "roll equal or under the stat; if you roll exactly the stat you get a crit" was pretty easy in practice as you just remove all the dice that fail; so you are only comparing the dice that passed: Who got as crit? If not, who was highest? Similar to Infinity's d20 but less swingy; and with a universal rule.  A crit (1 in 12) is rarer than a '6' on a d6 so it is more cinematic when it arrives. Also the larger range on the d12 allows more stats and modifiers to 'fit' on the dice.  I can do a single defence roll rather than a toughness roll, a cover save, then an armour save etc etc.

~ Modifying the original target number, not the dice roll seemed to work well. You do the (very few) modifiers, both declare the number you are after, then roll; then it's simply comparing numbers. You're not adding or subtracting from each dice.

+ We only looked at the stat cards a few times. Modifiers were easy and automatic.

The main fixes needed... 

- If one side is outnumbered you kinda get pummelled as you run out of actions and get dunked on without any way of responding. I'll probably fix this by allowing the lesser team "pass" tokens that they give to the opponent so they can choose when to skip their turn, and/or maybe a bonus action by allowing a previously activated model an action by passing a Will roll - but only when the opponent with greater numbers is acting unopposed.... 

- I'll need more robust and clear climbing and falling rules as my son is as much a monkey in a wargame as he is IRL. 

Hmmm - that's another New Year's resolution ticked off: "Post a homebrew playtest up on the blog."