Well, I think I'm willing to consider the Estalian Mage complete enough, so I think I'm delving into a new project that I've been working on for a year or two now. In short, its a Halo war game. I began this project before Reach came out, so there are some things to add later, after I work out the nitty-gritty. Hopefully I didn't scare away people who don't know much about Halo, because I value everyone's suggestions and curiosities. Warning, this could be a long read.
Basically, each player would get a certain amount of points to build an army with, using the races and ranks of the Halo universe. I plan on adding weapon and vehicle support later in the project. These points can be used to buy and upgrade units in the army. More powerful units (ie, a Hunter pair) would cost more than a weaker unit (ie, a single Grunt.) The units are unlikely to be balanced against each other, but the point is an overall balance between army by point system. Each unit type also has a special champion upgrade that can be purchased, but only one champion can be used in each battle. These champions are again, not necessarily balanced versus other champions, but are pretty powerful for their point costs. I was also considering allowing special, army wide perks that could be purchased with points as well, such as getting a better chance to act first, allowing for reinforcements, or some such.
For simplicity, the system uses d6 so far.
The players would roll to determine who goes first. They take turns moving one unit at a time. Units can be grouped together, but in that case they move at the slowest units pace. When units encounter one another, combat begins automatically. The units still move at their speed but can make an attack on their turn. Attacks are determined by an opposed d6 roll, with certain modifiers. A few units have a bonus to their defense roll, on account of reflexes. Ties are determined in the attacker's favor and a 6 is always a hit, in order to speed up combat. A succesfull attack deals the weapon's damage to the defending unit.
Jackal (Kig-Yar)
Base Cost: 3 points
Base Speed: Slow (8 squares) (or fast (16 squares), foresaking shield)
Base Health: 1 point plus 1 shield (Shield does not regenerate unless uninjured for two turns)
Base Weapon: Plasma Pistol (-1 attack, 1 damage)
Support Upgrade: Phalanx (Cost 4, Gets +1 Shield when adjacent to other Jackals)
This is a very basic Jackal unit. Let me walk you through the information.
Base Cost refers to how many points it takes to purchase and field a single Jackal.
Base Speed refers to how far it moves on its turn. Each square is assumed to be five feet. Units are assumed to be hustling while in combat, so the speeds might seem a bit high. The Jackal can forfeit its shield in order to move faster.
Base Health indicates that a single point of damage can kill the Jackal. However, Jackals (and certain other units) have a Shield that prevents one point of damage. By default, if the unit is not hit in the next turn, the shield regenerates. This does not apply to Jackals, and their Shield takes an extra turn to switch back on.
Base weapon indicates what the unit starts with, and its combat values. Range values and penalties will be applied later. Weapon special effects will be fleshed out when I implement a more comprehensive system for them. The plasma pistol is slightly inaccurate, causing a -1 penalty on attack rolls, and deals one point of damage each turn. Note that if that sounds high for a single shot, this represents about six seconds of exchanged gunfire.
Support Upgrade: For each Jackal unit, you can buy a support upgrade that increases its shield value when next to other Jackals. There are other types of upgrades (such as weapon and unit), but we'll work with those later.
So with that explanation, here is a Grunt Minor.
Grunt Minor
Base Cost: 2 points
Base Health: 1 point
Base Attack: Plasma Pistol (-1 attack, +1 damage)
Base Speed: Slow
Unit Upgrade: Suicide ability (Cost 6, +2 attack for 2 damage to adjacent units and 1 damage to units within 15 feet, consumes unit when used)
Lets pit 3 Jackals with Phalanx against 2 Suicide Grunts and 2 regular Grunts. Let's assume combat begins with everyone in range (same weapons) and the shields of the Jackals activated and adjacent. The player of the grunts is smart enough to concentrate his fire on each Jackal in turn.
Jackal 1 shoots at R. Grunt 1 and hits (2-1 vs 1), dealing one damage and killing it.
S. Grunt 1 moves closer and shoots at Jackal 1 and misses. (1-1 vs 5)
Jackal 2 shoots at R. Grunt 2 and misses (3-1 vs 3)
S. Grunt 2 shoots at Jackal 1 and hits (6-1 vs 5), dealing 1 point to the shield. The Jackal has one point of shield left.
Jackal 3 shoots at R. Grunt 2 and hits (6-1 vs 2), dealing 1 point and killing it.
R. Grunt 1 is dead.
R. Grunt 2 is dead.
Jackal 1 shoots at S. Grunt 1 and misses (3-1 vs 6)
S. Grunt 1 moves right up to the the jackal phalanx and activates Suicide. He hits all of them.(4+2 vs 1, 1+2 vs 2, 2+2 vs 1) Each Jackal takes 2 points of damage. This kills Jackal 1, and destroys the shield of Jackals 2 and 3.
Jackal 2 shoots at S. Grunt 2 and misses (5-1 vs 5).
S. Grunt 2 shoots at Jackal 2 and hits (6-1 vs 6), killing it.
Jackal 3 shoots at S. Grunt 2 and hits (5-1 vs 4), killing it.
Combat is designed to be relatively simple and swift(from what I've seen, that may be a 4 letter word in wargames). In the sample battle, a fight between 7 units was determined in two turns. This will naturally slow down with more expensive units and larger forces.
However, I never got into any wargames past a few 20 v 20 D&D battles (which were fun and only taught me the meaning of optimization before learning what it meant.) So I could really use some feedback and ideas. I have about 21 pages of Units typed up, so I have quite a bit of raw material to mold here.
