Spectre operations beta rules playtest

[Mac]

If the number of painted miniatures is anything to go by, I have an abiding interest in post-war and near futures games set in Africa (I don't do present day conflicts, its too confronting). Clearly, I don't have enough figures though, because I signed up for the Spectre Miniatures Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1660604196/spectre-miniatures to get some more.

To go along with the cool miniatures, Spectre are producing some rules, currently in beta. Now these rules are quite close to a set I produced called "Combat Stress". However, I stopped developing these as I wanted to play the rules, not be responsible for writing them.



My hope is that the Spectre Operations, can fill a gap between Flying Lead (which can only handle a squad), and Battlefield Evolution. Anyway, Mr. Wong and I decided to give the rules a playtest



For reasons I will explain later, this report, is very short, but as far as we can judge from an early beta, the rules look pretty good.



Having said that, I have suggested a few ideas to the rule's authors that we tested out: these being:
1.Instead body armour making you a harder target, it subtracted one from the lethality roll
2.Instead of the shooter having to equal or exceed the defenders score to hit the shooter had to exceed the score (this made shooting elite troops harder)
3.Instead of a lethality roll of '1' being a 'lucky miss', we made it a 'light wound' causing two suppression
4.We didn't reduce suppression in the shooting phase. Actually we forgot, but this step seems redundant.
5.When Suppression exceeded command, a soldier panics. 'Panic' means they were moved by the opponent in his or her turn. A panicking soldier most both move 6" away from all enemy and end its move in cover, or else gain one more suppression.



At this stage there is only one scenario, which is for some militia to get a high value asset to safety while being pursued by some special forces. The battlefield is shown below.



More on my blog http://macslittlefriends.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/spectre-operations-beta-rules-playtest.html

[commissarmoody]

Thanks for sharing the report.

[Happy Wanderer]

Nice report Mr Walker.

How many figures can they (meant to) handle? The SF troopers were only 4 men strong which is kind of like Flying Lead.

Happy Wanderer

[Pentaro]

Thanks for the review. I liked the rules too, but hitting even an elite trooper looks too easy. I'll give them a try as soon as I can, I hope they're fun with professionals on both sides.

[juergen c. olk]

Nice playtesting report,you can never have to many rules.

[Dr Mathias]

Thanks for posting that, there's some gems in the text
Nice scenery and painting as well, makes it even better.

I backed the Spectre KS, couldn't resist, even though the thought of gaming modern Africa makes me feel dirty. I'll likely do the imaginations thing, working in a little Ghost in the Shell intrigue.

[carlos13th]

Thank you for sharing. Some very painting in there too.

[commissarmoody]

I backed the Spectre KS, couldn't resist, even though the thought of gaming modern Africa makes me feel dirty. I'll likely do the imaginations thing, working in a little Ghost in the Shell intrigue.

looking forward to seeing those games also 

[Cypher226]

looking forward to seeing those games also 

Me three. That's what I was thinking of doing when I was picking my packs from the pledge manager. I'm also thinking they might be good for Sinoan-backed African anti-Roman rebels in a Romanitas-style alternate present/near future

[commissarmoody]

Me three. That's what I was thinking of doing when I was picking my packs from the pledge manager. I'm also thinking they might be good for Sinoan-backed African anti-Roman rebels in a Romanitas-style alternate present/near future

Interesting concept. Is there any art showing what the Romans look like in the books? Or do they look current, with Roman names and titles on every thing?

[Mac]

Happy Wanderer, he had 4 figures while I had about 20, which wouldn't work in Flying Lead.
I have another test game with Al this afternoon where we will try  8 Rhodesian Light Infantry versus an unlimited horde of Zanla.

[Happy Wanderer]

...please to tell Mr Walker 

Happy W

[Spectre Miniatures]

Great to see some games being played!

We are currently testing the suggestions made by our backers - there have been some really useful comments and suggestions.

The beta rules are available for everyone to download on our KS page.
We are working with some other well known companies to adapt the rules to their ranges too, so keep your eyes peeled!