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Author Topic: ALIENS boardgame  (Read 4678 times)

Offline Ajsalium

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ALIENS boardgame
« on: November 02, 2011, 09:13:16 PM »
This is a little project of mine, developing a boardgame based on the Aliens films.

For those of you that frequent the FoD I've got a thread there with these ideas. But since I've reached the stage of writing the rules, I will be copying the relevant bits here to get more inputs.
Note that the game is mostly inspired and based in the Doom boardgame by FFG. You may want to check its ruleset (click here) to better understand where I'm going, even though the setting is different and the combat system has been greatly changed and simplified.

· It's a game of one player controlling the xenomorphs and "directing" the game against 3-5 players controlling the light infantry marines.
· It's played on a modular board composed of rooms and corridors (Guncrawl paper scenery by Ebbles Miniatures, in my case), laid according to the map of the scenario created by the xeno player.
· The board is gridded. So movement and range is done counting squares.
· Said scenario determines not only the map, but also the goals for the marines, and everything that may be encountered, be it xenos, weapons, or ammo.
· The goal of the xeno player is to kill all of the marines. Anyway, "killed" marines won't be removed from play, but respawn (it is assumed they have "just" been impregnated...uck!).
· When playing with three marines, one is the sergeant, other the medic, and the last a grunt. If more marines are used, they are grunts, too.
· Xeno forces are drones, warriors, and the queen.
· Marine weapons are: contact taser for melee fighting, pulse SMG (for sergeant and medic) and pulse rifle (for grunts, it has a small grenade launcher), shotgun, smartgun, and flamer.
· Weapons have a maximum range at which they can be used. And that is divided (by two) in short range and long range. When shooting a target in the long range the attacker has a -1 penalty.
· Shotgun has the shortest range, 6 squares. But at short range it inflicts +1 damage whenever it hits.
· Smartgun has the longest range, 12 squares. And because of its auto-aiming system, all range is considered to be short range.
· Pulse SMG and rifle have a range of 10 squares. The rifle grunts use also has a small grenade launcher, with same range.
· Whenever a new section of the map is revealed, the xeno player will place "blip counters" to represent xenomorphs. The marines know there are enemies, but not how many of them. Once they come into line of sight, the blip is turned to see whether it was one, two or three xenos.
· Marines will find weapon crates and ammo crates, but the exact content will only be revealed when they get to it.
· Every turn two actions may be performed. Actions are: moving (up to the movement rating), attacking, or "interacting" (i.e. opening crates, activating machinery, registering corpses...).
· The sergeant can "give orders": he loses one or two of his actions but another marine gains that or those action(s).
· Marines will find first aid kits that allow to restore one point of health, or two if used by a medic.
· The xeno player gains "reinforcements" too, in the form of a deck that allows him to spawn more xenos, or have different effects. He begins game drawing as many cards as players (him included) plus two, and then must discard until he has only as many cards as players. Every turn he draws two cards, and again maximum size of hand is number of players.
· Xenos are sneaky buggers, so they can be deployed in line of sight of marines, and even in hand to hand combat!
· Xenos have acid blood. So when they are hit with a fireweapon they spill acid in all adjacent squares, causing one direct wound to any non-xeno miniature there.
· I want to include a homage to Doom, so there will be red, yellow and blue doors that can't be opened without the corresponding coloured key.
· There will be other keys, too, needed to open some lockers and crates. Unlike with the previous keys, these will never be needed to complete an scenario (but can be extremely useful).
· Combat is resolved by the attacker choosing the appropriate rating, MAR (Melee Attack Rating) or RAR (Ranged Attack Rating), rolling a standard d6, and adding both numbers. If the result is greater than the defender's DR (Defense Rating) defenders receive as many wounds as the difference.

One thing that bothers me are the combat rules. I wanted them to be simple, but have I made them too simple?
A slightly more complex alternative would be the following:
· Combat is resolved by the attacker choosing the appropriate rating, MAR (Melee Attack Rating) or RAR (Ranged Attack Rating), rolling a standard d6, and adding both numbers. If the result is equal or greater than the defender's DR (Defense Rating), defender is hit. Attacker rolls di(c)e for damage according to weapon, and substracts defender's AR (Armour Rating) from result. That is the number of wounds inflicted.
As you see this allows for more fine tuning of the weapons properties, differentiating the ease of shooting at aimed creature from the damage done. Also allows for differentiating the ability of a creature to avoid being hit from the ability to stand hits without suffering true damage.
But is this necessary, or are the ultra-simple rules good enough?

All suggestions, criticisms, etc. will be greatly appreciated.
Blog updated Jan 21st
ROLE 'N' ROLL

Tell the truth, do what's right, and face the consequences. -Me.

Offline Tom Reed

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Re: ALIENS boardgame
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2011, 09:21:00 PM »
Just a heads up, but do you know that Leading Edge games produced an Aliens Board Game years ago? I think it consisted of stand ups of the marines, civlians and xenos, and at least two boards. One was the reactor room and the other was the maze of ventilation ducts. A friend of mine made the reactor board into a miniatures game and was very successful running it at the local conventions.

You might try to find a copy of the rules somewhere and take a look at them.
Jane! Stop this crazy thing!

Offline sundayhero

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Re: ALIENS boardgame
« Reply #2 on: November 02, 2011, 10:00:16 PM »
First concerning the figures, Khurasan make a really nice 15mm aliens-like range. From aliens to colonial marines (and even the 4wheeled tank). 15mm are well detailed, reasonably priced, and allow also big scenery.

Concerning the rules, maybe you should use generic rules core, and make your own soup with it ? So you'll be sure that it's levelled and playtested a lot. I believe that several indy games are based on "famous" rulesets cores available.


The last thing important to me in a game with "repetitive" action, is the campaign mode you can play to attach all the missions in one big purpose too. With experience gain and stuff like that. In ALiens II, you can see that the colonial marines are, for most of them, hard boiled veterans. SOme of them aren't, but they learn and progress in the movie. It's explicit, and should be (in my humble opinion) integrated to the game.

Offline Cherno

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Re: ALIENS boardgame
« Reply #3 on: November 02, 2011, 11:16:57 PM »

Offline itchy

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Re: ALIENS boardgame
« Reply #4 on: November 05, 2011, 10:01:54 AM »
perhaps make some of the blips blanks or even lost civilians might add tension to some scenarios.

Offline Ajsalium

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Xeno Hunt boardgame
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2013, 07:21:02 PM »
(I'm bumping this because I have resumed work on this project, and once again I'd like to get some feedback.)

I was never too convinced with my rules for the player characters.
The special qualities of the officer and medics were balanced with a worse weapon, but it seemed a bit forced, honestly.
And I always feared that people would think that having up to three identical characters, the grunts, was nothing more than lazy rules.

So I'm changing that part. The grunts will be divided in different archetypes, so to speak, and too given their own special rules. That means the officer and medic won't need to be restricted in their weapon selection.
Each role will be offered three skills, from which two must be chosen before the game. (In a possible campaign mode, players would begin with only one skill, and then gain more sucessfully completing missions).

Officer, the guy in charge, with a tactical mind and the balls to lead his men in lethal missions.
 · You don't spend an action to select an order (see Doom rules). You can give that order to one of your men.
 · When shooting, you and comrades next to you gain 1 extra space for range and add 1 extra point of damage.
 · The xeno player can't use any of his cards during your turn.
Medic, the one that stitches his comrades back together and is never thanked enough.
 · You can use two actions (one full turn) to cure 1 hit point, to yourself or any comrade.
 · You start with 2 extra HPs.
 · A medikit cures 2 HPs instead of 1 when used by you.
Sniper, the one that prefer to take his time and kill from a safe distance.
 · You don't suffer penalty when firing at long range.
 · You can shoot through other minis (both comrades or xenos) and obstacles.
 · When shooting, you can choose to trace line of sight from any adjacent square.
Heavy, the big guy that carries the big weapons and packs a punch in close combat.
 · In close combat, you can knockback enemies (look Doom rules), and cannot be knocked back.
 · You begin game with 1 extra Armour Point.
 · When going for full attack (two attacks in one turn), you can move up to two squares and make 3 attacks.
Scout, the lithe guy that scuttles unseen and hackes security systems.
 · You have extra movement (MOV stat of 6 instead of the usual 5).
 · You have the ability to move through airducts (see Doom rules).
 · You can hack security doors and open them without the security key.

Is there any other role you can think of?
I've thought about a killer, the kind of guy that's little more than a psycho who enroles merely so he can kill. With skills that would make him a very efficient killer. But that's too grim and dark, not the mood I'm aiming for.
I'm leaning towards a grunt role. Yes, grunt, as before. A jack of all trades, so to speak. He would be given a very varied range of skills (basically, all skills that I can come up with that don't fit well in any of the other roles). Having more skills to choose from, players can customize the character to their heart's desires.

If there's anything you can think of, or see missing, please tell.

Offline Anpu

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Re: ALIENS boardgame
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2013, 08:44:54 AM »
There are a couple of variants as flashgames that are quite good. I will dig up a link when I am at my regular computer. I like your character variants and look forward to see more.

Offline Bergil

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Re: ALIENS boardgame
« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2013, 08:55:43 AM »
There are a couple of variants as flashgames that are quite good. I will dig up a link when I am at my regular computer. I like your character variants and look forward to see more.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/408816

There's one of 'em  ;)

Offline The_Beast

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Re: ALIENS boardgame
« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2013, 01:30:38 PM »
Just a heads up, but do you know that Leading Edge games produced an Aliens Board Game years ago? I think it consisted of stand ups of the marines, civlians and xenos, and at least two boards. One was the reactor room and the other was the maze of ventilation ducts. A friend of mine made the reactor board into a miniatures game and was very successful running it at the local conventions.

You might try to find a copy of the rules somewhere and take a look at them.

Sorry for the late reply. The LEG game had 'robotic' bugs; they were randomly dropped on the board, and followed specific rules of movement.

As the marines are all working together, taking turns to move, it was almost, and could certainly be played as, a solo game.

However, I made a board as well, and usually had nine players, one to each marine. As the marines also followed a strict order of who took their turn, determined by at the beginning of the game, planning and forethought was important. I just never let them do much table talk, by using a 'bonus bug' rule to keep them from more planning than 'run, run' 'SHOOT'...

Still popular enough that people bemoan me not breaking it out often.

Doug

Edit: Quite remarkable, as a marine could be killed or captured-to-cocoon before having a chance to play.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2013, 02:24:20 PM by The_Beast »

Offline Ajsalium

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Re: ALIENS boardgame
« Reply #9 on: August 08, 2013, 08:20:34 PM »
Ummhhh.... Time for more thread-o-mancy. ::)

Weird that I didn't post the "final" rules for the players. For the time being, and while I work a bit on the different types of aliens to be found, here they are:

Each role can be selected only once per extermination party, except for the grunt, which may be selected multiple times. Then two skills are selected at random for every player character.

• Officer, the guy in charge, with a tactical mind and the balls to lead his men in lethal missions.
 · You don't spend an action to select an order. You can give that order to one of your men.
 · When shooting, you and comrades adjacent to you gain 1 extra space for range and add 1 extra point of damage.
 · The xeno player can't use any of his cards during your turn.
 · Up to three times per game, you may cancel any card the xeno player is trying to use.
• Medic, the one that stitches his comrades back together and is never thanked enough.
 · You can use two actions (one full turn) to cure 1 Hit Point, to yourself or any comrade.
 · You start with 2 extra HPs.
 · A medikit cures 2 HPs instead of 1 when used by you (on yourself or a comrade).
 · You start the mission carrying two medikits.
• Sniper, the one that prefer to take his time and kill from a safe distance.
 · You don't suffer penalty when firing at long range.
 · You can shoot through other minis (both comrades or xenos) and obstacles.
 · When shooting, you can choose to trace line of sight from any adjacent square.
 · If you roll a 6 when shooting at long range, you kill automatically (headshot!).
• Heavy, the big guy that carries the big weapons and packs a punch in close combat.
 · In close combat, you can knockback enemies, and cannot be knocked back.
 · You begin game with 1 extra Armour Point.
 · When going for full attack (two attacks in one turn), you can make 3 attacks.
 · In close combat, you always make 1 extra point of damage (and will always make 1 damage point at least).
• Scout, the lithe guy that scuttles unseen and hackes security systems.
 · You have extra movement (MOV stat of 6 instead of the usual 5).
 · You have the ability to move through airducts.
 · You can hack security doors and open them with any security key.
 · When moving, you can move through xenos and obstacles (but must end movement in empty space).
• Lucky, the bastard with more lives than a cat and his own irish-leprechaun-grade lucky charm.
 · When a xeno is hurted next to you, you miracously dodge all its acid blood spills.
 · When opening a weapons crate, if you already have the weapon there, you may choose another you still don't have.
 · When you find ammo, if it's useless for you, you may choose any other kind of ammo instead.
 · When shooting, if you roll a 6 on the die, you add 1 extra point of damage (and will always make 1 damage point at least).
• Grunt, the standard trooper able to accomadate for any situation, a jack of all trades.
 · Once per game, you may cancel any card the xeno player is trying to use.
 · A medikit cures 2 HPs instead of 1 when you use it on yourself.
 · You can shoot through obstacles without penalties.
 · In close combat, you cannot be knocked back.
 · When moving, you can move through obstacles without penalties (but must end movement in empty space).
 · When a xeno is hurted next to you, you may dodge all its acid blood spills if you roll 4+ on a die.
 · You are immune to the watchful ability. In addition, xenos cannot be spawn within 4 spaces of you.
 · You can never run out of ammo for the pulse rifle.
 · When you have readied a dodge order, you gain the watchful ability.
 · Once per turn, when you kill a xeno you may immediately move up to 4 spaces and make 1 extra attack.
 · When going for full attack (two attacks in one turn), you can still move up to 2 spaces before each attack.
 · When you enter a new sector, the xeno player must turn the blips, revealing how many xenos there are.

Suggestions, as always, are welcomed. :)

Offline Dr.Falkenhayn

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Re: ALIENS boardgame
« Reply #10 on: August 09, 2013, 12:16:10 AM »
what about a Tech Guy (Hudson) who can hack Terminals (sentry Guns) seal Airlocks and Doors and that Stuff  :)
also a Grenadier could be handy when a bit of extra Boom is needed  lol

Offline Ajsalium

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Re: ALIENS boardgame
« Reply #11 on: August 09, 2013, 09:58:07 AM »
what about a Tech Guy (Hudson) who can hack Terminals (sentry Guns) seal Airlocks and Doors and that Stuff  :)

I tried to include that (I actually had Hudson in mind) in the scout, thus this skill:
Quote
· You can hack security doors and open them with any security key.

My idea is that the scout is also a hacker and a technician, given the setting; but I admit it doesn't show that well. I'll have to give it a couple more thoughts. :D

Offline Ajsalium

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Re: ALIENS boardgame
« Reply #12 on: August 11, 2013, 10:32:23 AM »
Time for a further update as I've done a little more work, this time regarding the aliens.

Egg: Eggs will be treated not as enemies, but as hazards. Whenever at the start of the alien player's turn there's a human standing in a square next to one occupied by an egg, it will open releasing a facehugger.
For the minis, I'll use the ones that adorn the base of the horrorclix alien queen.

Facehugger: These will too be treated as a hazard, even if they'll have some combat stats. When they're near a human, they'll jump and try to impregnate him. The human must choose whether to attack or defend. If he attacks and is succesful, the facehugger dies as it only has one hit point; but if the human fails, he dies. If he defends and is succesful, the facehugger misses and will scuttle away and keep pestering in later rounds; if the defense is a failure, defender dies. The decision will be tough because defending from the facehugger will always be easier than attacking it, as the facehugger has a poor Attack stat but a rather good Defense.
For the minis, I'll convert some HF head-crabs with a little bit of green stuff.

Drone: Your usual standard alien, as seen in the first movie. It lacks any ranged attack, but at close combat is a proper killing machine, with better combat stats than humans (they are superb attackers, and even though they fight without defending, their exoskeleton compensates that). It has the following special rules. Acid blood: whenever damaged by a firearm or grenade, it sprays acid in all adjacent squares; humans automatically lose one armour or one hit point (in that order). Blindsight and tail: because of those anatomical features, an alien is able to defend and attack perfectly well in 360 degress; thus, it cannot be flanked. Clinging to walls and ceilings: because of that ability, and alien doesn't need to jump over pits, pools of acid, or rubble; its movement is so unhingered and unrestricted. Sneaky bugger: an alien can remain absolutely motionless, so it may not be detected by the humans' movement detectors; meaning they can be deployed even in close combat during the alien player's turn.
The minis will be the horrorclix aliens. To help differentiate the main three types, these will be repainted with grey highlights.

Runner: A runner is what's born when a facehugger impregnates a four legged mammal, as seen on the film Alien3. It's slightly weaker than a drone, but otherwise shares all of its special rules (acid blood, cannot be flanked, unrestricted movement, sneaky). Also, it has a movement score of six squares (unlike the five squares for other aliens). And can move through airducts.
The minis will be horrorclix aliens, too. To help differentiate the main three types, these will be selected from the more crunched over poses, and repainted with brown highlights.

Warrior: The soldiers of the hive, mostly inspired by the designs from James Cameron's Aliens movie. Again, they have all the usual alien rules (acid blood, cannot be flanked, unrestricted movement, sneaky). In  top of that, their combat stats are better than those of a drone. Furthermore, they have the following special attack: acid spit, which can be shoot just up to two squares away, but if succesful will melt one point of armour or deal one point of damage. Yes, this attack is based on what was seen on the Alien Resurrection film.
Again, the minis will be horrorclix aliens. To help differentiate the main three types, these will be selected from the more standing tall poses, and I'll add some ridges to their head domes with some green stuff. They'll retain the bluish highlights.

Queen: A bitch, as we all know. Mother of all the aliens in a hive, with what seems true intelligence, and some means to communicate with his kindred. Rules wise, his combat stats are going to be fearsome, and it will take the combined efforts of all the human troopers to take one down. At least, she lacks the unhingered movement and sneaky abilites; but the acid blood and all-around fighting are still there. Not sure on how to handle the egg-sac, but it should be something the like of this: when attached to her egg-sac, a queen cannot move, but will release one egg per turn. She may de-attach from it at any time spending one action. I'll give the egg-sac a number of hit points in case the players want to destroy it (although they should really focus on the queen).
The mini for this is the horrorclix one. Or two, since I recently bought a second one...

**********

Praetorian: According to the expanded fluff, these are immature queens. They are bigger and stronger than any other alien, except for the queen, and like her they have a crested head. Their rules will be akin to the warrior ones, except better stats. They'll be restricted, though, in that they can't move far away from the queen (which also means that they will only appear in scenarios that include a queen).
To represent them on the board, I've eyed the "kulathian invaders" from Reaper. They'll need some conversion; namely, getting rid of the surplus arms, and removing the cthulhian mouth and replacing it with a standard alien mouth. I hope they'll be big enough; fingers crossed.

Newborn: Not exactly that seen on the Aliens Resurrection film, but based more on the hybrids from the Deadliest of the Species graphic novel. Except that mine will be artifically created hybrids of human and alien only (no predator dna). Similar in game terms to drones, but with human intelligence that allows them to open/close doors, manipulate things, and even use weapons...
The minis will be some "parasite adults" from the science fiction range of 1st Corps. One I'll convert sligthly to make it look more like the king linked above.

Predalien: I have absolutely no idea what mini I can use for the predalien, so even though I'd like to incorporate it to the game, the idea is still in the backburner so far.

 

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