Revisiting The Super Simple Skirmish Game – Dragon Temple vs Invaders

I realised I hadn’t played with the latest version of my Super Simple Skirmish rules since I posted about it last time and made adjustments.

A bit mad considering that was almost two years ago:

https://deathzap.co.uk/2022/09/24/revisiting-old-rules-super-simple-universal-skirmish-rules/

My warbands were as follows:

The Dragon Temple had:

A Hero (Monster M16), a Dragon (Monster M24), two Flamers (Gunslingers M11), two Tigermen (Warriors M10) and three Disciples (Warriors M6).

The Invaders had:

An Overlord (Monster M25), a Heavy Laser (Gunner M25), two Sneaks (Gunslingers M10), two Demon Dogs (Beasts M5) and four Soldiers (Soldiers M5).

All of my minis are from Irregular Miniatures.

Here are the rules in their latest form:

SUPER SIMPLE UNIVERSAL SKIRMISH RULES

WARBANDS AND FIGHTERS

Players gather a warband each, each warband is made up of fighters. Fighters have a class and one stat: Might. There are 10 available classes

Basic – Soldier, Warrior, Beast, Drone.

Special – Gunner, Berserker, Sniper, Gunslinger.

Rare – Monster, Mech.

The cost of a fighter is equal to their might value. A standard game is 100 points and you can have a maximum of 16 fighters. Additionally at least half of your total number of fighters must be made up of basic classes and you can have a maximum of 2 fighters with a rare class.

THE GAME BOARD AND DEPLOYMENT

Games are played on a 24”x24” board. Place a single Shrine in the centre of the playing area. Player’s roll off and the higher roller places another Shrine. Player’s then alternately place a shrine each anywhere on the board until there are five shrines. No shrine can be placed within 6” of another. The player that placed the last shrine chooses which starting edge they would like and deploys their fighters within 6” of that edge. Their opponent then takes the opposite edge and deploys their fighters within 6” of it.

FATE

Each player begins the game with 6 Fate tokens. A player can spend a fate token to reroll one of their own die rolls or increase the value rolled on one of their dice by 1. Each die can only be rerolled once but can be increased multiple times.

THE GAME

The game is played in rounds. Each round is broken up into two phases – Fate, Activations.

FATE PHASE

Each player gains 1 Fate token for each shrine that is within 3” of at least one of their fighters.

ACTIVATIONS PHASE

Players roll off and the higher roller takes the first activation. Player’s then alternately activate a single fighter each until all of the fighters in play have been activated once. When one player runs out of fighters to activate their opponent can activate all of their remaining fighters consecutively. When a fighter is activated they get D6 actions.

MOVEMENT

A fighter can move up to 2” per action spent on movement. Beasts and Drones can move 3” per action spent. Fighters cannot move through other fighters and should use terrain in a way that makes sense.

ATTACKS

All fighters can make melee attacks, only Soldiers, Drones, Gunners, Snipers, Gunslingers, Monsters and Mechs can make ranged attacks.

A fighter must attack their closest visible enemy, Snipers can attack any visible enemy.

A fighter can only attack one enemy per activation but can use multiple AP to roll multiple dice in a single attack. Gunners and Mechs can attack multiple enemies per activation provided they attack from closest to furthest and make at least one attack roll against each target.

To hit their target the fighter must pass an attack check, using their remaining Might. Compare the attacker’s remaining Might to the target’s remaining Might and roll 1D6 on the table below per action spent on the attack:

The Attacker’s Might is…

<1/2 = 6+

< = 5+

Equal = 4+

> = 3+

>2x = 2+

If one or more hits are achieved the target fighter’s Might is halved (rounding down halves) or they lose 1 Might per hit scored, whichever value is higher. When a fighter’s Might value is reduced to 0 they are killed and removed from play.

If the fighter was making a ranged attack and their target was not 100% visible to them then the target has cover, reduce the value on all of their dice rolled in the attack by 1. Snipers ignore cover.

Warriors, Beasts, Berserkers, Gunslingers and Monsters can charge, meaning they make a normal move and if they make it into base to base contact with an enemy and also make a melee attack in the same activation they can add 1 to their attack rolls.

Berserkers and Monsters add another 1 to their attack rolls.

Gunslingers add 1 to their attack rolls when making ranged attacks against enemies within 6”.

Regardless of any rules a natural 6 always counts as a hit and a natural 1 always fails.

DEFENDING

Warriors, Berserkers, Monsters and Mechs can defend as an action. Defending must be the last action the fighter performs this turn. A fighter will stay defending until they are next activated. When a fighter defends, enemies attacking them reduce their attack rolls by 1.

VICTORY

The game ends after the fourth round. Each player is awarded 1 Victory point per Fate Token they have and 2 per enemy fighter killed.

The player with the most Victory points wins.

As always a game sparks hobbying. I want to get some Alien Warriors or Berserkers to help them out in melee. The Dragon Temple could do with some archers, having the Disciples hold back objectives meant they couldn’t contribute to the fight at all.

I also remembered I bought and painted two big Trolls from Irregular to make a low model count Warband. In the current rules though they’ll have to be basic classes like a Warriors, but if I can buy a couple of Orc or Goblin archers to back them up, I’ll be able to run them as Soldiers and make my Trolls into Monsters!

In terms of rules I’d like to add a critical damage mechanic, so things can be a little less predictable, and maybe a few special rules to make each warband a little more unique.