@royalpain621 quick review of your beta rules … lots of text ahead.

I thought typewriters had been banished 😉

I’d suggest looking at how game manuals tend to use font types. Fixed fonts like the one in your beta 0.02 versions are horrible for anything that people need to read. Using such a font to denote game-specific features or statistics would be ok.

// 0 story / history

The story is oddly specific and precise. Why mention uranium at all ?
Page 10 reads a bit like you’re trying to say the same thing twice.
Be careful with round numbers … if something happened exactly 25 years ago it suggests it is going to be relevant to the new story.
Why does it matter that destroying the portals took exactly 3 months (each?) ?
History is rarely an exact science.

Maps are useful … especially when describing the world and the place of the two leading nations.
Need not be detailed, but a simple sketch will do.

Maybe a short summary of key events ?
Lots of background info for stuff that doesn’t appear to be a feature in the game.
The use of orcs, elves, etc. suggests traditional fantasy, but the setting speaks of an immortal and demons.
Telling us that science has replaced magic doesn’t explain why magic still is used (the game is ‘magic+tech’)

// 1

You’re never going to be using helicopters in a 28mm scale game … (unless you’re GW and want to sell oversized vehicles ;-))

This is a platoon level game :
https://boardgamegeek.com/image/315660/eastern-front-panzer-grenadier-game

You’re not going to do that in 28 mm … 😉

Your initiative system is not *that* unique, so don’t emphasize it. Unless you’ve played games before you’re going to be confused as to why it is so ‘special’. Maybe focus on telling people that “it’s always your turn”(tm).

4 camps ?
And yet the demons have 3 variants ?
Where did this Mekale nation come from ?

// 3 setup
You’re already talking about points before the first rules are mentioned.
Most systems tend to introduce scenarios and maps after the basic rules have been explained and players are able to fight a simple battle that ends with one side left standing.

// 4 initiative & activation

If each squad rolling a dice ?
That is going to get cumbersome real fast and might not scale to large engagements.
How big is the average army in a game anyway ? 10 or 30 or 100 soldiers ? 5 squads ?

// 5 unit cards
IF this is what an average unit looks like then you’ve got very little room for introducing alternate squads as this appears to cover every possible variant already.
Close combat ? use Orks
Shooty ? use elves
Why are anthro / human hybrids mentioned ?
What are Felani and Dogma and why didn’t the story mention anything ?
The only hint this is setting has ‘magic’ are the names of some races and the mention of ‘combat witch’.

Layout definitely needs improvement.
Section (E) is likely your standard reference when doing anything in the game.

The entire card relies on knowing the mechanics of the game to use it, which makes it tricky to evaluate at this time.
Do all weapons fire ?
Are these per character in the unit ?
Can I mix races ? The Orcs feature suggets all of then need to be Ork. The Elves suggest I can have a maximum of 4 elves.
Why ? Where is the logic in that ?
Is there a narrative reason for not having an Elf-only squad ?

The use of bubbles to denote wounds is interesting, but I think it is making things too complicated.

What are fireteams in this context ? And what part of the unit belongs to which fireteam ?

oh … and it now mentions that distances are not metric ?
Such things need to be mentioned the moment you start explaining core mechanics.

// Final thoughts
Forget the elves and orcs. Refocus on Felani and Dogma. They might your Elf and Ork equivalents, but it would make your world a bit more unique. Maybe all non-human species are a bipedal beasts of some description ?
What are demons like ?
Remember that a lot of history is myth … so be vague until you’re ready to develop it into something that exists in ‘modern day’ Certau.

When I was working on the Lore for Deneb, one thing that really helped me was to write basically a Chronological from dawn of time to now “true” history, as close as I could get it. Emphasis on covering where all the races come from, the geo-political and ecological history of the world, and so on. All of that helped me really understand why things are the way they are “now” and meant I had plenty of material for adding factions and places later that wouldn’t feel tacked on, but were integral to the tapestry of the world.

However that document itself is pretty dry and boring, very long and full of details that don’t really have much value on their own. But that is a reference for myself, so when I am writing short-stories, summaries of a factions history, or even just lore on a unit card, I can go back and check what I’ve decided happened in history.

I think you have a strong start on having that kind of a history document, but I’d suggest moving that out of the core rules, and then writing a punchy short as you can bear summary to get people into the action and understanding the key players.

Regarding the rules, I agree with @limburger that it makes a lot of sense to cover how the core rules work ahead of going into scenarios or force construction. Just an opinion though!

The free version of DropBox I think comes with like 2GB of storage, and I think like 15GB on Google Drive for free, both of which are pretty good for that sort of thing.

@royalpain621 there is no way in heck ‘Courier’ is “easy on the inkt”. I think that is a myth from ancient times.

If there are savings to be had they’re likely when printing at the industrial level and not for us amateurs.
You can save a lot more inkt by only printing when you absolutely need it. This is the digital era after all 😉

Anyways …
I didn’t mean that you should limit orks within that squad. I think it’s much better to have a narrative/historic reason for such a mixed unit to exist. Players will pick whatever works if the point cost doesn’t make it impossible.

It’s usually best answered if there are is racial tension within the setting (classic elves hating dirty orks … ).
I think that as it was used as an example it would be best to keep things simple. Simple units have the added advantage that it makes it easier for players to understand their purpose. Maybe there’s an all-ork unit because these guys tend to be soo much better at close combat, whereas the elves preferred ranged weapons.

I’d suggest starting with a basic “kill everyhting” scenario, introduce the mimimal rules needed and expand bit by bit as you introduce scenarios that require such things as terrain types, reserves and objectives.
The starter sets for Infinity have an interesting set of ‘tutorial’ maps that each introduce an additional feature.
The recent ‘Elder Scrolls’ skirmish game also used a mini campaign format to teach rules & features step by step.

Also note … books that do this tend to be the ‘tutorial’ / ‘quick start’ variants.
The ‘traditional’ format is used by the main rulebook.

In a non-earth setting that had magic I would not expect an UH-60 Black hawk  especially given that the name is tied into Earth history (it is named after an Indian leader according to the Wiki).
Science itself is filled with all sorts of references to the inventors responsible for such things.

Everyone uses Orks and Elves … using your own races makes your game more unique and it prevents getting locked into stereotypes.

//

@davehawes I would advice against using Dropbox (and related services like OneDrive from MS), because they are designed to share documents.
They are not designed with version control in mind (it is a neat extra and not part of the design).

The biggest problem :
There is no real way to determine what the ‘master copy’ is.
I’ve seen people accidentaly delete files because they forgot which machine/account had the original and so dropbox thought it was meant to delete files instead of update …
You don’t want to learn such lessons the hard way.

There may be ways to circumvent that, but it won’t be easy and one wrong configuration could cause a ton of problems when you least expect it.

How’s it coming along @royalpain621 ?