[COMMERCIAL]Horizon Wars: Midnight Dark (6mm hardish SF) - OUT NOW!

[precinctomega]

Eight years since I first published Horizon Wars with Osprey Games, and after two subsequent games - Horizon Wars: Zero Dark and Horizon Wars: Infinite Dark - I've finally returned to where it all began.

Midnight Dark retains the core mechanics, scale and design principles of the original, but with more nuance in command and orders, and a lot more options for upgrades and customising your army.

If you have questions, do let me know and I'll do my best to answer them.

[fred]

Do tell us more!

I recognise the name - but don’t recall much in the way of detail of the original version - so would be good to share about size of game, mechanics, factions, style of game play etc etc

[precinctomega]

Ah... what can I tell you?

It's pitched at 6mm, but plays fine down to 3mm or up to 15mm although I feel the abstraction falls apart beyond 10mm.

Battle groups are formed from elements, with an element being a mech, a tank, an infantry unit (somewhere between a fire team and a platoon, depending on your taste). Turn are integrated. At the start of a turn, players generate a limited supply of orders that they allocate to elements (up to two each) and then elements are activated. An active element can perform up to two orders. Command elements can generate more orders during a turn.

Damage is tracked against elements' stats, with damage degrading stats. Damage and other things also cause elements to suffer fatigue. If an element's fatigue is greater than its total stats (allowing for damage) then the element is exhausted. Not destroyed, but unlikely to play much more of a part in the battle. Elements can be destroyed, but not easily.

Players have the same access to the same list of elements and uprgrades. All these cost points. Elements have a quality that can make them cheaper (green) or more expensive (veteran or elite).

Players can also add strategic assets to their battle group. These aren't represented by miniatures, but cover things like strategic air support, tactical sub-nuclear strikes, aircraft carriers, field hospitals and black ops.

The game can be played as a straight slug-fest, but it's best played with missions and a range are offered in the book, with some missions being symmetrical and other assymetrical, some favouring one kind of army and others another.

The book includes solo play rules (as do all of my games).

The distinctive mechanic of Horizon Wars is the normal role/counter-test combo. A normal role involves rolling a number of d12s and forming them into groups that equal or exceed a target number. A counter-test involves rolling a number of d12s and comparing the results to an opponent's normal role, with results that match the normal roll cancelling those out.

12s are critical and usual result in +1 success among other factors.

Have some pretty pictures:

[manic _miner]

 Nice pictures Robey.
 Great to see you still producing more material.
 I remember meeting you a few times at the small Wargames show Years ago.
 You had a Mech game at one of them using the plastic mech sets which you also had on sale.
 The next show at the same venue you were doing Blades of Songs and Heroes i think it was.

[fred]

Cool, sounds interesting.

What is the size of a typical game, in number of bases per side? Is it like Epic where a 100+ bases is perfectly playable?

[precinctomega]

Hi, manic! Great to see 4 A still soldering on!

I remember that. At the Star College in Cheltenham. The second game you remember was another of my designs that would eventually become my low fantasy pirate game, "Blood & A Black Flag" (also available from WGV! 😉)

Fred - I think the game's playability maxes out at around 20-25 elements per side. That would take you a good 4-5 hours.

[Easy E]

Nice looking pictures Robey. 

I had forgotten the counter-roll elements.  A nice touch to keep both players involved at all times.

[precinctomega]

FAQ & Errata 1.0 is out now!

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/469684/Horizon-Wars-Midnight-Dark-FAQ-10

[precinctomega]

In response to player requests, there is a stripped-down version of the rules now available for those who want to sample the waters before they commit to the whole thing:

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/475901/Midnight-Dark-Shakedown