Wednesday Night Game - Fantasy with House Rules

To give you a break from pictures of China, here are some of a game I had with my friend Andrew last night at his place. The rules used were created by Andrew and are a version of ones we used many years ago.

Basically, units activate one at a time, back and forth between players. They can activate once, twice or more, but each time, they do so with one less D6.

To activate, standard units roll 4 D6, heroes or specials 5 D6. A one is a "fail" and a 5 or 6 a "success" - it was quite simple to get a hang of but may be complicated to explain - lets try!

A unit rolls 4 D6b to activate.

If it rolls 1 3 4 and 6, it can move because 1 cancels out the 6 but does not exceed it. All dice count to a total of 14 inches - if cavalry, dragon etc, it can move 14 but infantry have a max move of 12

If the roll is 1 1 5 and 6 - the two 1 cancel out the 2 success, so its a failed move and the unit goes nowhere

If its 1 1 4 6 - there is one more fail than success - unit does not move AND takes a shock marker - when unit gets to total of 4 (or 5 for those rolling 5 D6), its removed from play

Combat works similarly although getting more 1's does not add any damage, they just counter any successes - so 1 1 5 6 would be no hits.

To charge, its a combination of both - so - roll 1 4 5 6 - unit can move because 2 success v 1 fail. The max move is 16 (or 12 for infantry) Assuming target is within range, the charger reaches them and causes 2 shock markers (from the 5 and 6) The unit attacked can take it and the owning player can choose to activate a different unit OR the attacked unit can attempt to resist - to do so roll 4 (or 5) D6 - any success cancels out the attacker - so if defender rolled 3 5 5 6, two of the success would cancel the attackers 5 and 6, and the third one would inflict a shock on the attacker!

The fact that you can choose the same unit three times in a row, then take break, then go back to it again on the fifth activation, often means some units sit around doing nothing half the game. Each time you activate consecutively, you go down a D6 PLUS you drop another D6 for each shock. So in the example above, the unit that originally charged, if it wanted to continue the melee, would be -1 D6 because it took an action in the previous turn plus -1 D6 for the shock - it would roll 2 D6 to continue the melee whereas the defender would roll 3 D6 - original 4 -1 for the first round of action.

Those are almost all the rules - if you rolled two or more 3's, it produced a Random Event generated by rolling 2 D6 and consulting a chart Andrew has created - attacking unit removes one shock, nearest hero retires 2 D6 inches etc. Rough ground hills etc you roll 1 less D6 for movement.

We played for close to three hours and Andrew came out on top. My force was trying to get units off Andrews table edge - one point for each that succeeded - Andrew gained points for any unit he destroyed. I think he ended up 2 or 3 ahead - I got thre units off but lost about 6 :(

Here are the images, all the figures are Andrews, painted by him - God knows what they all are, they are from a multitude of sources - kick starter board games etc!

First blood - my dragon dealt to a unit of winged something or others!

More weird creatures from Andrews force move forwards

Dragon in combat with two heroes, who combined to destroy it - boo!

Is this a Gruffalo???

The leading cavalry unit close to destruction (three shock markers) after combat with one of Andrews heroes

Two more strange looking creatures

Two units of undead infantry plus a giant spider

Andrews magic maker and side kick

My army looked a bit more conventional - apart from the deceased dragon!

This was where most of the action occurred

After I dispatched the magic maker, his side kick engaged a unit of cavalry to prevent them exiting Andrews table edge

Giant spider attacking a poor defenceless girl - ok she was magic maker and had already killed two or three of Andrews units - but she is still a girl!

The same position as the image three above - I got three units of infantry off I think but Andrew had killed the cavalry and the spider is just about to finish off my sorceress.

All good fun and really nice to play with rules that are so simple, you don't even need a quick reference sheet - of course, they could never be produced commercially, because they could not be stretched out to thirty or forty pages to justify paying $30 or $40!

More Chinese photos next time probably!