One Hour Skirmish Wargames in the Grim Dark Future

Sometimes an idea won't go away. So it was with my desire to capture the Grim Dark Future: Firefight experience in a system that I find infinitely more enjoyable as a solo venture.

Contemplating Alex's comment on that previous post, I realized I had gone too far in leaning into my attempt to 1:1 reproduce Kill Team / Grim Dark Future: Firefight vibes.

The better way to proceed would be to capture whatever it is that feels essential to me for that kind of game. 

At the top of that list is the power armor and handling those with and without, in a way that doesn't involve a million card draws. Related to this, it's important to me that my Sisters not have the same kind of power armor as Space Marines and similarly equipped factions.

This is followed by capturing the variety of weapons, again without over complicating.  And finally to allow room for "army traits".

FUBAR 40K pointed me in what I feel is the right direction here. 

Now, why not use FUBAR 40K? For one it's for a full-size game with multiple squads and vehicles per side, for another, I find FUBAR can take a long time with more than a few units per side- and if I treat each model as a unit, a game will take forever. I like my games to be done in 60 minutes or less.

FUBAR 40K relies on the FUBAR Core rules for armor - which is a 6-tier system (from none to battlesuit). Combining this with Defense values from Grim Dark Future: Firefight, I ended up with a 5-tier system:

• Unarmored humans (like Repentia) have Armor(0)
• Tyranid termagants (unarmored but have a chitinous shell) have Armor(1)
• Battle Sisters (power armor but not as big/bulky as Space Marines) and Necron warriors (living metal) sit in the middle with Armor(2)
• A typical Space Marine will have Armor(3)
• Space Marine Terminators (basically a battlesuit) have Armor(4) (this is the only one that gives me pause - that's a lot of cards).  

To keep it from getting crazy with card draws (which can greatly impact turn duration and thereby game duration), I am only drawing Armor cards against hits received, not for every shot received. So shooting and melee remain rules-as-written. Only if the target takes any hits do they draw their armor value to try to prevent the knock down. 

Essentially it's a saving throw.

Anyway, in OHSW format: 

Armor(X) - model draws X additional cards per hit received. Applies to both range and melee. In melee, if the hit is absorbed by armor, the model is pushed back 2"instead.

Each point of armor is 1 add'l point cost for the model. 

For weapons, rather than trying to convert stats from GDFF or KT into card draws, I decided to follow the FUBAR 40K approach and map them to existing weapons as much as possible. To keep things simple, armor penetration is ignored for everything except AP(4) (primarily plasma weapons, but not exclusively so). If armor penetration is 4, then I give it an AP(4) in OHSW - for use against vehicles. 

Each AP point is 1 add'l point for the model.

A terminator armed with energy fist and stormbolter is 11 points on its own (4 points for Armor(4), 2 points for the stormbolter-a 2 shot LMG, and 5 points for the energy fist - brute(1), AP(4)). So, a squad of five would be 55 points. For the same points, you'd get 14 termagants (they are 4 points based on how I stat them). That's pretty much the largest force I would field in OHSW.

For the first play-test, which took place last night, I fielded a squad of six Battle Sisters (including a squad leader) led by a Cannoness against nine termagants and two hive swarms. I should note, Battle Sisters have an army rule that I totally forgot to use, and the Tyranids do not ever have to check morale (that's their army rule).

The Sisters were trying to reach an abandoned radio station (middle of table) to call in a drop ship for extract. The Tyranids were just running rampant over the planet.  To successfully call in the drop ship, I borrowed the rules from the WWII scenario in the rulebook, a model could attempt to call the ship by spending an action. They draw one card, and and on a face-card, the call is successfully. A single model can try up to three times per turn, at a cost of 1, 3, and 5 points respectively.

Tyranids start up to 6" from their base line. Sisters start pretty much on their baseline (up to two bases deep).

The game was scheduled for six turns (I assumed there would be more deck churn than usual with the armor draws), but at the end of turn six I'd roll a die. On a six the game would end (either the drop ship would arrive if the call had been successful, or the Sisters would be overrun if not), otherwise the game would continue and I would check again after the next turn (a 5+ would end the game then, then a 4+, and so on, for a maximum of 11 turns).

 

In the event, the Sisters managed to successfully call for extract on turn 5, and at that point the had suffered no losses. That changed moments later and they were down 1. At the end of turn 6, the game continued, and then they were down 2, then 3, and then at the end of turn 7, they were down 4! Finally, at the end of turn 8 (mercifully short thanks to an early Joker), the two surviving Battle Sisters and the Cannoness were extracted. 

The rules worked well and I found the game quite enjoyable. It was much more to my liking than my previous attempt - it captured the vibe without a lot of overhead added to a relatively simple set of rules (unlike the previous iteration). 

The Battle Sisters were at high-risk in close combat (the squad leader and Canonness have swords that give a bonus in CC) and were better off staying back and shooting, whereas the Tyranids had their best chance by closing in, either to get their 2 shots with their bio borers (OHSW submachine guns) and to use their Brute(1) bonus for their talons - in melee, which felt right.

The points (from the book with my addition for armor) gave a reasonable balance at least between these two factions despite a difference in force size.  

Definitely something I'll be playing again.