Kick the Can 3

Dumb systems

For most this part of the project will be a no no but hopefully I’ll be able to try the the remote idea mentioned in the updates.

This is for solo player and those who perfer to play big stompy robots and cant be bothered with the infantry thing. In this your player will be Knights and the infantry/armour that they face will played by a dumb initiaitive system.So let’s look at some of the ones I have experience with:

Pony Wars

This was a system brought out for the formentioned rules above, and revolved about players playing various U.S. Cavalry patrols in Indian country (in 15mm)The table(s) would ideally layed out as below with a fort and a number of Indian villages

Woods hills etc would be placed on the map to break up lines of site. Players would begin at the fort and would have various missions to retrieve indians , settlers etc from the varous table areas and be attacked by hostile indians who could appeat from either edges of table or any suitable area of concealment on the table (other than fort).

A card pack would be drawn from each move to either deploy player reinforcements, hostile reinforcement or random events etc,. In addition if a player went past a possible ambush point (moutain pass or cross a wood etc) a card would be drawn and if any

card had ambush on them they would be immediately bacon tree’ed.

On a hostile forces deployment a role would be made on a table would be consulted and would react on the result. Each move the same table would be used rolling on the relevant line which would have a list of possible situations depending if player forces were in sight or not, or if engaged on the result of engagement to again decide the non player forces reaction.

Above is a fairly simplified description but gives the gist.

Know it’s a system our group has considerable experience with having converted it for use in numerous genres, such as Starship Troopers and Hammers Slammers to mention two.

As a system it works well with opponants who have no centalised command as such such as bugs etc, or for situation where the opponent is marching to sound of guns such as responding to a sudden breakthrough.

Downside

Needs a lot of table space(though we have adapted it)

Doesn’t work well with opponents with centralised command systems,

Gears of War

This now out of print game for FF had a very innovative dumb system for running npcs and can play differently each time you try it.

Each npc type has a series of cards which are placed in a pack and played on the turn, on each card is that characters primary role that move and a secondary if that’s not possible. If that type of npc is not avail another card is drawn till and npc acts.

In addition the scenarios are in stages , on completing a stages the whole emphasis of the players game can change. Similar to some of the the data card ideas in GW.

Downside

This would take a lot of prep pre game to get it to run it , and probably a lot of changes to how the npc cards work with game experience.

You would pre-know what types of enemy units are likely to be involved, though to be honest this is likely in any of these type of games. Can be argued that the players intelligence sources have given them some idea of prospective forces. Though as you develop the game you will have extra unit cards which could become avail if you put in a stage where a random opposition could be drawn.

Minatgure Wargames

These had an interesting idea for solo play dumb games that had some innovating ideas. In a lot of systems as above, the random enemy has fixed entry points or possible hidden locations.

Using a random activiation system similar to Bolt Action , all the active player units are given a playing card/chit for activation, and either a activation packe  or bag is used for drawing activation. Added are a couple of cards/chits for enemy units, denoting arriving units. This can be varied to players choice or to match the no of player units avail and how tought the player(s) want to make it.

In addition a table is made with unit type , vehicle /walker/infantry etc along top and 1-10 on the side.

Depending on game table a no in cm’s /inchs is put in each box

You  put prospective forces in a box, put a playing card next to each. Then for npc reinforcements make a 2nd pack for prospective  reinforcements.

When a npc blank activation card is drawn, one of the above is randomly drawn, and then the diagram below is consulted

The drawn unit is placed at that distance approx from centre point, if it can be put in cover it is , if not as near to a peice of cover as possible to indicate an appearing target. They then activate immediately and in subsequent oves is added to the activation  pack/bag

Unit reaction once they appear was similar to the one mentioned in the Pony Wars system.

Played it a few times , the location of above needs to be amended if the players forces are moving from defined positions, as npc placement can be behind player forces.

Once you have drawn up the distance table and a table for reactions (I will post one) this doesn’t take much setting up and plays well based on the couple of times have run it( for Dredd and WW2 games).

Umpires

All but the Gears of Wars system do  work better with an unbiased umpire running the system though they are not necessary if you don’t have a willing sole to do it (usually Kevin on myself but we do like to play occasionally). Saying that to stop the players ganging up on Umpire ( there were some in one group I played with who were that childish) and to stop that 1 in a million chance ( and it does happen 9 in 10 times) of the umpires dice rolling being way better than the law of averages dictates( A doom game where the monster wiped out everyone in two moves , we didn’t even know dice had that many hits on them)so get players to do all the random die rolls and the ones for npc’s shooting then they can only blame themselves.