Specific vs Generic: Ornaments & Bricks

The settings that really grab my attention have a way of drawing you in with little details. Servo skulls in Warhammer 40k. Carrion Priests in Spire. The noise of a TIE Fighter in Star Wars. Here it pays to be very specific, and if you get it right then the reader/viewer/player should feel their imagination racing to life around this one small piece of your world.

To counter that, a setting that's overloaded with specific elements can feel restrictive, intimidating, or tonally inconsistent within itself. Sometimes a world that's thoroughly planned out is less interesting than one with gaps. There are times when it pays to stay generic. We hardly need to know more about the' Empire and the Rebellion than their name to start to understand them. 

It's a bit like what I wrote about here, but more focused on the overall structure of a setting than the artwork. Let me apply an over-important theory to this.

Specific elements are your Ornaments. These are the things that give your world life and identity. In Electric Bastionland this could be any of the Failed Careers or Oddities. You aren't a Fighter or a Rogue, you're specifically an Avant Guardsman or a Counterfeit Taxidermist. 

Generic elements are your Bricks. These are basic pieces that aren't interesting on their own, but imagination unlocks their potential. In Electric Bastionland most weapons are Bricks. They have a damage die, maybe they're Bulky or do Blast damage, but that's about it. There's no list of fifty weapon types with subtly different mechanics here. The differences between a Sword (d6) and an Axe (d6) exist largely within your imagination. 

Really I was thinking of Lego with this analogy. Think of the Specific Ornament elements as those fancy pieces like a crocodile or set of wheels. They're designed to catch your eye and do a mostly specific thing. These are the pieces that might give you the idea to build a crocodile-car, but it's only the generic bricks that allow the idea to become a reality.

With Electric Bastionland most of the Ornaments are weird characters or objects, but they're held up by a bare-bones system and a vague approach to setting specifics. Bastion is a specific city, but beyond a few core principles it's actually more of an expansion on the generic idea of a city.

When the system and world are both so simple it's easy for me to give the Avant Guardsman a trained attack bear when all of the required mechanics fit neatly on a single line and I don't have to worry about the canonical impact. If I got fancy and designed a new specific sub-system for bear-training, and slipped in a paragraph about the impact of bear-training guardsmen on the city of Bastion as a whole... well you can see how things would get out of control after a while.

GRIMLITE is slightly different. As with so many other miniature games, it's very much designed to be an excuse to kitbash miniatures together and face them off against each other. Here it pays to be vague, but if I use nothing but generic lego bricks then why should anybody care? What's the point in me making this game for anybody but myself?

This is where the balance comes in. There are specific elements in there, but they're also functioning as bricks. Maybe this analogy is falling apart, but where a wargame tied to an official line of miniatures might want a very specific visual identity for their units, I want to keep things vague enough that you and I might both have very different miniatures representing the same unit, but both are equally valid.

This wouldn't be the case if I was overly specific, like this:

Argastes, Rust Priest (3+)

A lithe, brown-robed priest overrun by the nano-corrosion that he serves. His melted-face is hidden behind a skeletal mask and his legs replaced by a mass of iron tendrils.

Oxidiation Pistol (T1x5, one-handed: A sleek, glowing pistol with optic sights)

Shock Pick (T1x3, two handed, connected to Power Pack. Bears the symbol of his order, a half-corroded skull)

Ever-Server - Bipedal Rust-Acolyte and Scroll-Bearer: Once per battle ignore one wound as Ever-Server conjurs an immaterial shield from his texts.

Tactic: Invoke the Nano-Prism - All your units attempt a Free Recovery.

And equally, things quickly become entirely uninspiring when you get too generic, like this: 

Priest (3+)

Gun (T1x5)

Melee Weapon (T1x3)

Accessory: Once per battle ignore one wound.

Tactic: All your units attempt a Free Recovery.

So the actual entry looks like this, which I'm hoping gives enough inspiration to spark your imagination but doesn't tie you down to needing the exact miniature that I had in mind:

Argastes, Rust Priest (3+)

Oxidiser (T1x5)

Shock Pick (T1x3)

Assistant: Once per battle ignore one wound.

Tactic: Arise - All your units attempt a Free Recovery.

The Oxidiser is perhaps the best example here. The name conjures ideas around what the weapon could be, but it really doesn't limit how that weapon might look. I have it as a weird pistol, but you might model yours as a slender beam weapon or a chunky, experimental energy cannon.

It's a tough tightrope to walk, and I think every game should carefully consider how it balances its Specific and Generic elements.

GRIMLITE Demo and a Break

 For those that missed the stream, my solo run-through of GRIMLITE is now up on the YouTube Channel for viewing.

Also, don't be alarmed when I'm quiet for the next week, as I'm taking a break, returning on Monday 14th September. As such there won't be a Bastionland Broadcast next week, returning on Tuesday 15th with a new episode of Bastionspiration.

However, Bastionland Podcast will update in my absence, with a new Niche Explorer episode dropping on Monday as normal. 

Bastionland Podcast - Niche Explorer

The Bastionland Podcast is back for a second series! This series is dubbed Niche Explorer, and I'll be welcoming a new guest each week to dip into their particular niche of tabletop gaming.

For the first episode I was joined by Joseph McCullough of Frostgrave fame, where we talked about miniature wargaming and its relationship with RPGs. 

Enjoy!

Framing Weirdness

Bastionland has a lot of weird stuff. The closest thing to an introductory adventure has, among other things:

• Dirt and worm worshipping teenagers
• A hedgehog judge with other animals as servants
• Slugs piloting mechanical bodies
• A lonely whalebone mech

That's quite a lot of strangeness to throw at your players in game one, not even factoring in that the characters themselves might be a bunch of pretty weird individuals.

Some groups will lap this up, it can help some groups to consider how they present the weird elements. Remember that, at large, Bastionland is deliberately designed to be somewhat more mundane than a typical fantasy setting.

That is to say that for most residents of Bastionland, life doesn't look all that different to life today. Most people live in the city, they have a job they applied for, they buy food from the shops, they listen to their music collection and indulge in hobbies with their friends at the weekend.

This might seem like I'm stating the obvious, but in a more medieval-style world none of the above would be taken for granted by an average person. 

So I wanted to present a few tools for framing the weirder elements of your Bastionland if you're finding it a touch too much to take neat.

Dilution Reveals Flavour

Going hard on the whisky analogy here. Fancy drinkers will tell you to put a few drops of water into your whisky, even more if it's cask strength, which lets the flavour open up. Think of weirdness like your alcohol content here. It's got a lot of flavour, but too much and you only get the burn, or in this case weirdness-overload. 

Yes, you can make your entire Borough head to tail bonkers, but it might be tough to stomach. Sometimes reining it back in is the right way to go. 

I'm aware of the hypocrisy here, as I'm normally more of a "Go big! Subtlety is overrated" sort of GM, but it's really about reading your group. I'd still advise things like big, impactful consequences for actions, and strongly defined, memorable characters, but for your setting as a whole it's sometimes nice to have...

A Solid Foundation

Cities are already weird and confusing. Don't be afraid to just let Bastion be a city. Yeah, you can turn it up to 11, but it's a familiar song. 

If your campaign centres around an alien world where gravity is tidal and everybody is telepathic then you're on uncertain ground from day one. Rely on Bastionland's solid foundation of something that the players can relate to. Even if you don't want to go for the city route, Deep Country should hold elements that are familiar to anybody that's spent time in rural areas.

For this reason I wouldn't really advise a game set entirely in the Underground. For me it works as a new level of weirdness that you descend into, before returning to that solid foundation in Bastion or Deep Country. 

Weird Empathy

Incomprehensible alien intelligence can make for appealing antagonists, but I like to make even the weirdest characters relatable. Give them a good, strong drive or emotion that we can all sympathise with. To use the example of ABYSS in the Prison of the Worm Queen, he's lonely. The actions he takes are hopefully different to how we would react to loneliness, but the core is the same.

I don't go into too much detail in the actual document, but when I've run the game I do everything I can to make the players feel that loneliness. It might feel strange, like this is the "boss monster" right? If you make the players empathise too much won't they just refuse to fight it? Well, yeah. That happens quite often, and in my eyes it can lead to much more interesting situations than a fight.

Cloak of Mundanity

A common trick with modern-weird and alternate-history settings. Keep the surface level of everything relatively normal. Push the Mockeries and Aliens far into the background. Leave the machines in the Underground. Bastion is big and messy, but mostly has familiar elements.

It's definitely not how I'd run the game, especially for one-shots, but if you're still getting to grips with your idea of Bastionland, and your players are perhaps less exposed to weird fiction and fantasy it can be a good way to ease them into a longer campaign where they gradually discover the strange elements of the setting one by one. 

Small Decisions, Big Impact

Working on a miniatures game has been an interesting contrast to RPG design. It's a narrative-focused wargame, but the fact is miniature games rely a lot more on their rules than RPGs do.

With RPGs so much of the joy can come from situations outside of the rules. Even with a narrative wargame I don't feel like I can let go of the mechanical wheel quite so easily. As a result the mechanics in GRIMLITE feel like they're carrying a lot more weight than the mechanics in Electric Bastionland. You can tear through a good RPG session on pure GM and group cohesion alone, barely touching the game itself, but that just isn't possible on the miniatures table.

But I've quite enjoyed that. It lets me really focus in on every single rule in GRIMLITE, thinking about the impact it has on the game. Even more so, it lets me look at typical wargame rules that GRIMLITE doesn't include, and what effect their omission has on things.

I thought it might be interesting to look at some specific examples here. It's too early to judge GRIMLITE as a whole, but I've done enough test games now to get a grip on the impact of some of the individual parts.

Advancement through Trophies and (sometimes) Dying

In GRIMLITE there are two ways to improve your warband: getting trophies from killing Horrors or getting a lucky roll (1-in-3 chance) on your Casualty roll falling in battle. I considered having units gain experience through killing enemies, but much as with D&D I found that had undesirable consequences. Battles would be more about wiping out the enemy than actually chasing your objectives, and the first side to get a numerical advantage would be encouraged to grind away at the remaining enemies rather than focusing on the trophies.

This approach is very much the equivalent of "Gold for XP" that's so popular in OSR games, and I think it translates nicely over to this format too. You'll still want to kill your enemies, but you'll be doing it for strategic reasons instead of chasing abstract points.

Withdrawal or Slaughter

There are two possible triggers for the battle to end. Slaughter is easy, one side is wiped out. Withdrawal can be triggered by either side at the end of a Round if at least half of their remaining units are touching a table edge, with these units immediately leaving the board safely. 

After either trigger occurs, players perform one final Round, trying to sweep up the remaining Trophies.

Endgame always felt weird to me in wargames. I remember playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles and wondering what happens at the end of that last round. My heavy infantry that got so close to charging the enemy now just turn around and go home? Everybody agrees to stop shooting each other?

It's an abstraction of course, and a necessary one. It might be more realistic for battles to end on a whimper but it's more satisfying for a game to have a clear finish. I think the Final Round element here at least gives a bit of narrative sense to the whole thing, and on Husk 28 it's easy to imagine a dust storm sweeping in or more Horrors on the horizon to provide that time pressure. 

My goal here was to make Slaughter generally less common than Withdrawal. This is a wargame, and the two warbands should fight each other, but again I wanted to keep the focus on the objective, not a fight to the death. The opponents are rivals more than arch enemies, at least until grudges inevitably form.

So here if one warband takes losses it's relatively easy for the remaining members to form a retreat, but giving the other warband a full Round of uninterrupted action means Withdrawal isn't seen as an absolute solution for any battle that's going against you. 

No Stacking

Each type of roll you make has exactly one modifier that can ever be applied to it, and it's always plus or minus 1.

Shooting into Cover is -1.

Fighting a Downed target is +1

Recovery is +1 when an Ally is touching you.

Moving is +1 when you can see your Leader.

Resist is the exception here, currently having no modifier applied to it. I'm leaving that design space open but also I'm not going to put a rule here just for symmetry's sake. It's also arguably the most useful type of roll, so any modifier would have to be very carefully considered.

This was an outright goal early on (No Stacking, No Tracking) but as well as the desired effect of keeping things simple I think it also shines a spotlight on that particular modifier. Without dozens of little +1s to remember you know that when somebody is Downed you should get a melee fighter in there. You know that your Leader is best kept in sight of your units, and your Initiates are more survivable if kept in pairs to help each other back onto their feet. 

By honing in on a single modifier for each type of activity it makes those modifiers feel all the more important to exploit. 

No Weapon Ranges

As you'd expect, when you remove the range element from shooting it becomes all about line-of-sight. Precise range management gives way to getting into a position where you can duck in and out of cover while having a clear view of the battlefield. Makes everybody feel a bit more daring and active. Less incentive to sit still in that ideal firing spot. 

This certainly relies on a small board and dense terrain, but that's clear from the start of the document. I think with anything above 3x3ft you're going to run into weird niche situations where a unit gets just-about line of sight on an enemy 48 inches away and gets to fire their pistol across a football field.

Weapon Transparency

Barring the weapon mods, weapons are generally split into two types: one high-damage shot or several one-damage shots. In terms of raw damage potential the former are always more efficient, but you're putting all of your eggs in one basket. And maybe you just don't need that much damage.

If you're shooting an Initiate, they're resisting damage on 5+, so 3 damage will on-average kill them. This happens to be the damage score of a basic high-damage weapon. But even hitting this Initiate with a one-damage shot will likely Down them, and their chances of recovery are low, especially if they're on their own. Do you really NEED that full three damage or are you better using a 2x1 weapon that can reliably down these low-quality troops?

Meanwhile, against a Leader or other powerful target that's resisting on 3+ your 1 damage probably isn't going to do anything. Even if you hit with both your 2x1 shots you've only got just over a 50% chance of downing the target, and an 11% chance to kill them. 

Hit with that 1x3 Rifle instead and you've got a 70% chance of Downing them and around 33% chance to kill. A lot better, and even if you just Down the target you've got an opportunity to get a Melee fighter in to finish the job. 

So you might be looking at all those percentages and think "this isn't very transparent", but the key is that there are really only two types of weapon. Those that are good for killing grunts, and those that are good for killing high-powered targets. Not that each of these can't also perform the other task, but the specialisation is clear. You don't have to look a target and consider 3 or 4 ways in which they might be mechanically "tough". 

Are they hard to hit? High Toughness? High Armour? High Wounds? Have an invulnerable save? Some other bullshit? No, forget all that. You know that your rifle is good for toughies and your shotgun is good for grunts. Now get your attention back on the battlefield and out of the stat-blocks. 

Shoot Once, Fight Twice, Move Thrice

I wanted the game to feel mobile, so having three potentially long-distance movement actions in a turn was scary at first, but combined with the need to roll for Moves after your first I think it gives the game the desired mobility. It especially makes the Nimble skill feel impactful, a fact you'll appreciate after your first few attempts to get your QL5+ units to move where they need to be.

With Ranged having an innate advantage over Melee combat I wanted to give Melee some sort of advantage to even the scales. An easy fix is just making Melee weapons cheaper than their Ranged equivalents, but this isn't a game of finely balanced point costs. Shooting was already limited to once-per-turn, so allowing two Fight actions felt right. If you could charge in with your first action then getting to wail on your opponent twice felt nice and deadly, especially if you Down them with your first attack and get that juicy +1 on your second attack. My Exile Hounds (Nimble 5+ T2x1) were especially useful in my last game, darting around the battlefield somewhat reliably and proving especially useful for finishing off downed enemies, especially considering their cheap cost. 

There's plenty more work to do on GRIMLITE but I'm pretty happy with the core right now. Expect to hear more as I try and polish this up into something a bit more complete.

GRIMLITE Horrors in Action

With GRIMLITE's new focus on Horrors I wanted to do a quick battle report to show how they work in action and show how the rules work in a little more detail.

As such this might end up being quite a long post, so buckle up. 

So let's start from the beginning. Forget the Sample Warbands, we're making two from scratch.

SPLICER COVEN

The twisted and warped arm of humanity that believe we need to fundamentally change our biology in order to survive this new world. 

While the four factions were initially designed to cover broad modelling concepts (humans, mutants, cyborgs, aliens) and inspire kitbashing, they've picked up more mechanical identity along the way. Splicers have some really cheap Initiates they can hire to bulk out numbers and have some of the more interesting big-gun options for their Leaders and Initiates. As you'd expect they also have much more Skill flexibility than other factions, able to morph their form to whatever needs you have.

But back to reality, I'm going to base my purchases almost entirely on the models I want to bring to the table. I have a couple of Engineer guys that I'd like to bring to bear, so let's keep the Leader cheap to maximise the points we have to spend on them.

We'll keep our Leader relatively lean, a Host (3+) with a nice cheap Shotgun (2x1). We can choose any Skill, so we'll take Elusive to give them the best chance to grab Trophies without getting shot down. They bring the Polymorph tactic that, one per Round, lets us permanently change that Skill, so we can always adapt if things turn ugly.

That leaves us with 14pts, enough to take our two Engineers and give each of them a full 3pt weapon. We take one with a Grav Warper and one with a Storm Cannon. 

So we've got a very small warband with a fast, lightly armed but flexible leader and two heavy gunners. Lots of points tied up in very few models, so let's see how that works out on the table.

Lucida - Host (Elusive 3+) [6pts]

Shotgun (R2x1)
Tactic - Polymorph: Permanently swap one of your leader’s Skills for any other.

Neutron - Engineer (Precise 4+) [7pts]
Grav Warper (R1x5. On a hit, move the target)

Reaper - Engineer (Precise 4+) [7pts]
Storm Cannon (R3x1. Shoot Twice if you do nothing else this turn)

EXILE BAND

Well since I made an elite warband from the faction with the cheapest options, let's see if I can make a more numerous list from the most highly priced faction. The Exiles had the weakest identity for a while, initially trying to cover all bases as a stand-in for multiple alien forces. Now they're more focused on the warrior-hunter angle. They feel more like they don't belong back in the more civilised parts of the galaxy they once called home. My personal canon is that they all have dramatic superhero/villain names too, just to further inflate egos.

So despite aiming for a larger warband, Exiles are all pretty expensive but come with some very nice perks. Looking at the Leaders I like the sound of the Mercy tactic that the Veteran gets, so we'll take a Veteran kitted out with a nice fusion gun to take down any tough targets.

Now we know that we want numbers, so let's take two Hounds to pad things out. I've kept the unit names vague so that you've got maximum flexibility to interpret them to suit your models. When I wrote the Hounds I was picturing literal alien dogs, but it also works for any sort of mindless swarm, so we'll use a couple of these clawed monstrosities.

6pts remaining means we can grab an Agent. I've been wanting to try out the Synergy Rifle, so let's get a Predator armed with one of them.

So we have our Exile Band.

The Faceless - Veteran (Grim 3+) [8pts]

Fusion Gun (R3x1, Targets resist at QL5+)
Tactic - Mercy: One of your units makes a free Shoot/Fight action against a Downed Enemy.

The Inevitable - Predator (Elusive, Precise 4+) [6pts]
Synergy Rifle (R2x1, x2 Damage if an Ally can also see the target)

The Starved - 2 Hounds (Nimble 5+) [6pts]
Claws (T2x1)

Keen followers of GRIMLITE will notice some models here have previously been used for other factions. Well that's the beauty of not caring at all about canon. One week you're a Splicer that's been mutated too far from humanity, the next you're an Exiled predator, the next you're an irredeemable Horror only good for trophies. We make efficient use of every mini here! 

Likewise you'll see that The Faceless has a Whip that isn't reflected in her profile, but as every character can make a standard Touch attack (T1x1) we'll just assume that it's mostly for show and no more effective than just putting the boot in.

Now the fun part, selecting the Horrors. We won't be using any fancy battlefields or twists for this, just keeping things simple for now. Looking over my limited miniature options I'm drawn to these beauties that I found in my parents basement and finally painted after 25 years. 

They get some nasty claws and soporific pheromones that make them dangerous to be near. Any resemblance to certain Fiends from that other game is purely coincidental.

As they're worth 2 Trophies each we need another 2 Trophies worth of Horrors. We'll take 2 Enforcers to fill our the Horror Roster. 

Now these are obviously inspired by those old Necromunda scenarios I previously wrote about, where Adeptus Arbites would rain fire down on the gangs as they fought each other. But Rules-As-Written in GRIMLITE all Horrors are considered allies to each other. So really we have two options when faced with a team-up of vigilante Enforcers and inhuman Fiends.

• Apply narrative common-sense and say that they consider each other enemies.
• Apply narrative creativity and invent a reason for them to be allied.

So of course we'll take the second. These particular enforcers have trained the clawed fiends to hunt down their prey, like demonic police-dogs. We'll even deploy them in pairs, one enforcer and one fiend. 

For this battlefield I've kept things vertically limited to make it easier to capture what's happening in the overhead photographs. All surfaces are assumed to be climbable and all buildings are open-topped.

So we're ready to go!

ROUND ONE

I'll write Round One in some detail to give a feel of the flow of play and then keep things to the highlights for later rounds.

Splicers win the roll-off and get to act first. With so many big-guns they'd normally scramble for high-ground but this is a much more maze-like battlefield, so things are a touch trickier. Reaper uses his Move to get just-about line of sight to both a Fiend and an Enforcer, but they'd definitely both benefit from cover. 

Regardless, he fires his Storm cannon at the Enforcer. His QL is 4+ but the Cover knocks that down to 5+, rolling 3 attacks from his 3x1 weapon. He uses his Precise skill to reroll misses, ending up with just a single one-damage hit on the Enforcer. The Enforcer rolls to resist against their QL5+ and fails, they're Down!

Rolling on the Shock table the Enforcer scores a 2: Staggered. They move in a random direction before going down. A great opportunity to break out my vintage Scatter Die. The Enforcer slumps down next to the wall, but still not in a great position to avoid further fire. 

With his one remaining action, Reaper tries to move into a better fire position for next turn. They roll a 6 for their Move roll, meaning they reach their destination safely. Reaper is marked as Exhausted and play passes to the Exiles.

The Inevitable considers moving to fire at the now-exposed Reaper, but we should really get an ally to have eyes on them first to make most of the Synergy Rifle's special ability. Let's get our brave Leader up to a vantage point.

Our first move takes Faceless up to the ladder, then she'll roll for her second move to the top of the ladder. A 6 means she makes it and now has a final action to use. 

Does she do the honourable thing and attack the Horrors that both warbands are hunting? Or does she eliminate the competition first? Let's start off with good intentions and fire at the Fiend with her Fusion Gun (3x1, target resist at QL5+). She rolls two hits for one damage each. The Fiend resists at 5+ rather than their actual QL4+ because of the Fusion Gun's special rule. They resist one, leaving one wound remaining. They're Down.

The Shock roll is a 4: Last Gasp. With no ranged weapons unfortunately the Fiend won't get a chance to use that free retaliation against their attacker, and they go down as normal. 

The Faceless is now Exhausted and play passes back to the Splicers.

Moving back to this side of the table I'm afraid I can see a golden opportunity to mess with the Exiles, so let the cease-fire end here.

Neutron hops up onto an air-con unit allowing him to get a distant but clear shot on Faceless on her exposed high-ground. He unleashes the Grav Warper (R1x5. On a hit, move the target), scoring a hit. 

Before the Damage is resolved we get the chance to Move the target, so naturally we'll pull her down into the room with the Enforcer and Fiend. She'll suffer d6 damage from the fall (3) before we even get to the weapon damage. She manages to resist all of the fall damage, but only Resists 4 of the Grav Warper's damage, taking her Down. Not great, but could have been much worse.

She rolls her Shock, scoring a 4: Last Gasp. Would have been great to return fire but she's now been pulled out of sight of Neutron, so he cackles safely in the distance.

Getting quite cramped in that little room.

Neutron has one action left to tries to run towards the other main building. He succeeds and gets there safely. Back to the Exiles.

Well that scuppered my plan for the Synergy Rifle, but at least everybody is still alive. Let's try and get some help over to Faceless to help out when she Recovers. A Hound moves over to the barricade with their first Move, then succeeds on their second move to get near to their brave leader. They don't want to get too close to the Fiend, so they'll end their turn there.

Back to the Splicers for their final turn this Round.

Lucida is keeping her eyes on the prize. Killing your opponents is all good fun, but we're here for Trophies. She sprints up the left flank of the battlefield and fires her shotgun off at the remaining Enforcer. Both attacker hit, but the Enforcer Resists both. She ducks back into cover to avoid retaliation 

Back to the Exiles who have two units remaining. As the Splicers are all exhausted they'll get to act one after the other. There might be a chance to show some teamwork yet.

First the remaining Hound sprints up the allyeway, using their Nimble skill to get in charging-range of Reaper next turn, but also making themselves into a very easy target.

But... we have a plan! The Inevitable moves up to the stairway and hopes they can make their second move to get to the top. They make it, giving themselves a clear shot on Reaper AND as an Ally has eyes on the target the Synergy Rifle will do double damage (now 2x2).

Naturally, both rolls miss, but using the Precise skill we can reroll both. More bad rolling, but they score one hit at least, causing 2 Damage to Reaper. They roll to Resist, succeeding on both. A good plan, but the dice were against us here. 

With all of the units now exhausted we move to the Horrors.

Our downed Enforcer successfully recovers, scoring Focused (Shoot at QL2+ this turn) on their Trauma roll! Not good news for Faceless, who's the nearest target. He unloads his Flash Gun, scoring three hits for one damage each. Luckily she resists all three.

Now the downed Fiend also Recovers, but rolls 1 on their Trauma roll, Shaken (act at QL6+ this turn). Things are still looking bad for Faceless, as she's the nearest target again. Only one Tearing Claw (T2x2, x2 Damage on a 6) hits, but rolls a 6 for double damage, giving a total of 4 damage. She Resists all but one point of Damage, but as she's already Down that's enough to take her out of the battle. She's placed off-board as a casualty. With their final action the Fiend moves into contact with the Hound that came to rescue Faceless. Not going so well. 

On the other side of the board the Fiend can't see any targets, so moves randomly. It slithers out of the doorway and now has eyes on Lucida. It uses its second Move to make contact with her, and uses its final action to Fight. Just the one hit, but it's a 6 for double damage. Lucida fails to Resist two of the damage, so she's also taken out of the fight! Both sides have now lost their Leaders. With its final action the Fiend moves into contact with Neutron.

The Enforcer moves out of the other doorway, flanking Neutron and making his shot. Despite their Precise skill only one hit is scored, which Neutron Resists.

Oof. The Horrors are really living up to their name in this game.

ROUND 2

So both sides have lost their Leaders, and the Horrors are on a total rampage. Might be time to refocus on the main objective here rather than fighting each other. For now, at least.

We'll zoom out here to for the sake of brevity.

Splicers win the roll for first-turn. Reaper has an obscured shot on the Fiend that's now attacking Neutron, so he uses his Storm Cannon's ability to fire twice if he does nothing else this turn. First volley kills the Fiend dead! He uses the second volley to target the Enforcer, who's in cover but still eats two hits and fails to resist both. Double-kill from Reaper! Shows how quickly things can turn around in this game.

Exiles face another choice. With two Horrors down is it time to start eliminating the competition? Certainly it seems like Neutron is in too good a position where he is, surrounded by trophies. Inevitable runs down the flank but not quick enough to get a shot off this turn. 

Splicers have Neutron gather up some Trophies and duck into cover. He's in a good position to be able to withdraw safely later on. 

Exiles have a Hound in contact with a Fiend, so are able to Fight twice, killing the Fiend against the odds! Finally, a tactical retreat into cover before the Enforcer gets a chance to avenge his fallen pet. The second hound sweeps behind Reaper and unleashes more claws. The first attack takes Reaper down, staggering him back and preventing a follow-up attack. 

Horrors are reduced to a lone Enforcer now. They duck out of the building and line up a shot against one of the Hounds, taking them out in a single Flashgun blast. 

ROUND 3

Exiles win the roll off. The remaining Hound runs to collect the Trophies from the dead Fiend, also getting eyes on the remaining Enforcer.

Splicers have Reaper recover, staggering to his feet. His Trauma roll is Injured, so he will go Down at the end of this turn. He takes a precautionary shot against the Inevitable, scoring a single hit that's easily resisted, before ducking into cover and hitting the ground. 

Exiles have Inevitable use their Synergy Rifle, with the Hound acting as spotter. Just one hit on the Enforcer but it's enough to take them out of the fight. With their remaining action the Inevitable moves over to the Trophy, close but not able to pick it up yet.

Splicers have Neutron pick up the final Trophy and move to the edge of the board.

Horrors are all dead, so no action there.

The Splicers declare that they are Withdrawing from battle. Neutron is removed safely, as he's already on the edge of the board, taking three trophies with him. Nobody else is touching the table edge, so they all get one final Round to act before the battle ends.

ROUND 4

So this is really about the Exiles trying to secure the remaining Trophies without the Splicers interfering. Of course it never hurts to get a parting shot in on your rivals, as it might weaken their numbers for the next time you clash.

Exiles win the roll off. Inevitable grabs a trophy and moves into cover with the remaining Hound. Taking a shot at Reaper just isn't worth it here, as he'd be able to return fire with the full force of his Storm Cannon.

Splicers roll for Reaper to recover and fail. He stays face down in the dirt as the battle ends.

AFTERMATH

So both sides managed to secure three trophies, but took casualties. Let's deal with the bad news first.

CASUALTIES

Splicers took one casualty, but it was their leader Lucida. They roll on the casualty table and score a 4: MIA. Next time they fight the Exiles will get to deploy Lucida right in the heart of danger. Ouch.

Exiles lost their Leader and a Hound. The Hound rolls 6: Experience. They gain the Elusive skill which should help to keep them alive next time. Meanwhile, Lucida rolls a 2: Critical, she needs to pass a roll or else die permanently. Luckily she rolls a 6 and lives to fight again. 

TRADING

Now for the good stuff! Two trophies can be traded in for a d66 roll on the Trading table. Each side has enough to roll once, banking the spare Trophy for next time.

Splicers roll 25. They can recruit an Agent from another faction with 2pts of gear to fight with them for the next battle only. They could certainly use the numbers and a melee option, so they take a Welder Errant (4+) with an Electro Blade and Shield. Sounds like he's coming along for the next mission to rescue Lucida. 

 

Exiles roll a 16. On the next battle they can place a Bounty on one of their enemies, meaning they'll drop 3 Trophies when killed. The obvious thing is to put it on Lucida, but that feels a little too straightforward with her MIA result. Instead they'll put that Bounty on Reaper, as he was a little scary to face in this battle, so taking him out would be a nice goal.

THOUGHTS

Very happy with how this report went. The last time I played the Horrors were a touch flimsy, but here they struck a nice balance. They were still manageable to take out once the Warbands focused fire (with some lucky rolls) but on their own turns they were truly terrifying to deal with. 

Losing both Leaders so early meant I wasn't able to test the Tactics, but other than that it felt like I was able to cover a bit of everything. I still constantly forget to roll Trauma when a unit recovers. Feels like I'm so excited to get the unit back into action that I never remember to make the roll, even though it's often beneficial to the unit. Not sure how to hammer that into my brain.

Enjoying the long-term potential of these games, as the casualty and trading rolls really left some hooks in place for a follow up battle. The Splicers have a temporary recruit and a mission to rescue their Leader, and the Exiles have a bounty to claim on a dangerous opponent. Not to mention the prospect of facing a new batch of Horrors.

I hope that gives you an insight into how the game actually plays. As you can see it runs fast and somewhat swingy, which works for my narrative tastes but certainly throws in some unexpected results. Come to it prepared to be surprised.

GRIMLITE - Horrors of Husk 28

GRIMLITE now has a living document. Expect regular changes in there, so apologies to anybody that's actually trying to run a campaign with this thing.

My goal was to make a game let you spend almost no time thinking about the rules, instead being able to focus on what I affectionately call narrative bullshit. The wild things that happen in miniature wargames that stick in your memory.

Basically everything that goes against the idea of a chess-like pitched battle between two carefully balanced sides. I wanted to make sure that intent was clear from the start, so the default scenario needed to be something that exemplified that.

Coincidentally I've been revisiting Frostgrave this week, having mostly ignored it in the past. I'm surprised at how much philosophy it shares with GRIMLITE with its swingy combat and high-impact magic system. In particular I like the focus on gathering treasure, rather than trying to wipe out the opposing side (somewhat OSR in that respect) and the inclusion of a system for neutral monsters roaming the battlefield.

This took me back to my experience with Necromunda, and what I was trying to recapture with GRIMLITE. The games that I remember even after a 20 year hiatus are:

• Running a Purge where three of us all had gangs taking on hordes of whatever hive-monsters we had minis for. 
• A clash between two gangs that was interrupted by a squad of Arbites that would fire indiscriminately, but if you killed one you could potentially loot their high-end gear.
• Something involving frozen Chaos Warriors? I mainly remember them waking up and slaughtering a few gangers before the rest fled.

I can see why Frostgrave went in this direction. This is potent stuff.

I've also been working on the implied setting for GRIMLITE, a world I'm calling Husk 28. A forgotten moon of a broken planet. I liked the idea of a world that had been abandoned by the typical sci-fi corporation or empire, focusing on what happens to those left behind. The Husk, if you like. An exaggerated Dark Ages feel rather than anything too explosive. More post-abandonment than post-apocalypse.

So the idea of Horrors emerged from these thoughts. Neutral creatures that would roam the battlefield and protect the loot the Warbands were trying to seize. These were the things that the caretakers of the planet had previously protected its residents against, but they're gone now. 

This evolved into the idea of Trophies, so the Horrors are the loot. The scarier the Horror the bigger the potential reward for taking them down, provided the other side doesn't steal the spoils. 

Anybody that's played Frostgrave will see similarities here. It's like grabbing the Treasure system in one hand, the Creatures system in the other and smashing them into one blob. Now, go fight the blob and hope it doesn't eat you. 

This new focus on Horrors allowed me break up the more traditional Scenario structure I previously had in there. Now there are loose ideas for Battlefields and Twists that you can apply to have a battle with a more non-standard structure. Ambitious players can pull options from three different systems to create a unique combination each time. So you might have:

The Hells-Gate Compound

Horrors: 1 Devourer, 1 Hellion

Battlefield: Complex - A single sprawling complex of corridors and rooms.

Secure doors can be opened or closed with an action.

Twist: Relic - Both sides are hunting down a powerful weapon that can be used in battle and worth extra Trophies at the end of the game.

Which would feel quite different to:

Terrors in the Dark

Horrors: 1 Arachnid, 4 Vermin

Battlefield: The Shadow - An area of Husk permanently shadowed by the

broken planet.The Horrors here know how to use

the dark, and all attacks against them are at QL6+.

Twist: Mercs - A third Warband is on the board, with control passing back and forth between the players as the tide turns.

But even a relatively simple battle with a few horrors and a basic battlefield should still generate memorable drama. 

As with the RPGs I write, I don't want to create a canonical library of content here. I want players to feel empowered to design their own horrors and battlefields. For now I'm hoping I can do this through show don't tell but I suspect some more prescriptive guidance will appear in the doc later. So for now a look into how I've designed the content that's in there.

Break the Rules

Warbands all operate under pretty simple rules, so the Horrors can afford to be downright broken. I have the Colossus that basically ignores any low-powered weapons and the Witch who can mind-control Warband members. There's no way I'd put these abilities into Warbands themselves, but here it creates a puzzle for the players to solve and is sure to create memorable moments.

Hinder, Don't Invalidate

The key to keeping things interesting is to make them difficult but not impossible. If a battlefield makes Shooting impossible then it's probably going to feel like it's just punishing one warband more than the other, and there aren't many interesting ways to tackle it. However, in the Shadow battlefield all attacks are hindered, which means everybody is in the same terrible boat. 

Be Horrific

Remember these are Horrors. They should scare the players. If they're too soft then the game turns into a Piñata where players take turns showering the ground with trophies before scrabbling over the sweets within. Keep things scary and desperate.