Horizon Wars: Zero Dark - 15-28mm SF Skirmish from Precinct Omega (Alpha Testing

[precinctomega]

I've just updated my alpha test rules for Zero Dark to version 0.2.3 and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to let the Lead Adventure crew know about them.  Honestly, I was a bit nervous about talking about them here until they were a bit more finished.  They're a long way from polished, but the full game is now taking on a clear shape.  Other than missions and campaigns, there's little to add - but a lot to fine-tune!

But in a world replete with sci-fi skirmish games, why bother with Zero Dark?

Well, what I hope makes it stand out from the crowd is that it offers you a variety of different play modes.

Solo Mode lets you play on your own against a dangerous and unpredictable enemy controlled by card flips, which also provide the game with its countdown.  Not completed your mission by the time the last card is flipped?  You lose.

Co-op Mode is a lot like Solo mode, but you team up with a partner, each of you controlling an agreed number of characters.

PvP Mode is traditional miniatures wargaming: two sides against each other.  But you can add an optional Red Force for additional chaos (representing vulnerable civilians caught in the cross-fire).  In addition, PvP can easily be played as team-versus-team in a more natural and fluid way to traditional miniatures wargames.  Just agree a number of characters for each player, and a number of upgrades for each team, and you're ready to go!

If you'd like to know more, sign up at the Precinct Omega beta testing forum:

http://precinctomega.freeforums.net/

You can download all the latest iterations of the alpha test rules there.  Hope you like what you see.  I'm certainly enjoying play-testing!

If you want to know the sort of gameplay, I put together a mission for my team, following a successful bank heist, to escape past an enemy perimeter force.  My team comprised a super-smart electronic warfare operative (EWOp), Cap, a heavy weapons expert, Shadey, and their leader, Agent Grace, a deadly sharpshooter and mistress of Gun-fu.  Their opponents were a mixture of human and synthetic enemies.

Shadey ran around to a flanking position, drawing curiosity from a nearby enemy out of his line of sight.  But Cap moved up stealthily and used his excellent skills to distract the threat to Shadey off in a different direction.  Grace pushed around to Cap's left, gesturing for him to use his hacking skill to give her a better shot at the enemy boss, who had his back to her.  But unfortunately for Cap, as he was manoeuvring for his hack, an eney Grunt spotted him, snapping off a poorly-aimed shot but alerting his colleagues to the presence of the team.

Deciding now was the best time, Shadey launched his anti-personnel rocket into the midst of the nearest knot of enemy, blowing three of them to bits and knocking several others to the floor.  This gave Cap the opening to tag the Boss, and Grace opened fire on the deadly leader.  The poor visibility was against her, however, and he refused to go down, instead calling on a nearby synthetic Grunt to deal with them.  Shadey hefted his light machine gun to lay down fire on the survivors of his rocket attack while Grace moved up, closing the distance to the Boss and keeping a nearby truck between her and the synthetic trying to hunt her down.  In a hail of lead she dropped the leader, just as Shadey killed off the final elite.  There were only Grunts between the team and their exit point, now!

But suddenly a heavy step crushed the asphalt behind them and Cap turned in horror to see that a massive enemy Defence Mech had appeared right at their backs.  He would be toast the second it noticed him unless...

Dominating a Defence Mech is no simple task.  It has a firewall level of 2 and was carrying a support token, too.  But if he did exactly the stupidest thing imaginable, and ran right at the mech...

The mech - a synthetic type rather than a piloted one - obviously taken aback by his assault, failed to react immediately and gave Cap enough time for one hack attempt.  He was rolling five d12, but he would need to roll 5+ on all of them to succeed...

Success!  The mech is dominated and now the team has its very ownmech to push into the enemy lines.  That should definitely distract them while the others head for the exit...

Regards,

Robey

[dijit]

I've downloaded it now and reading through it. It's really nice to see some purpose built solo rules!

[precinctomega]

The latest update to the alpha-test version - 0.2.4 - is up for download via the PO Beta-Testing Forum (yes, you have to register #sorrynotsorry).

Latest updates include:

1. Negative tests are gone.  Feedback from playtesting was a mix of dislike and confusion and it had some pretty swingy outcomes.  They been replaced by counter-tests which will be familiar to anyone who's played Horizon Wars as they are directly inspired by the Defence roll in that game.  Counter-tests differ from the Defence roll in that they also get critical success outcomes.  This should serve to barricade against the swingy results of negative tests.

2. Upgrades have introduced the Spook, amended the Leader slightly and clarified that synthetics are immune to stress.

3. Speaking of stress, that got a bit of an overhaul.  Grit is gone (should have gone last update!) and now replaced with stress.  Stress can make a character under- or over-perform.  Suffering stressful experiences while you're clear-headed and unwounded is likely to mean over-performing.  Suffering it whilst already stressed and/or wounded will have the opposite effect.  Really pleased with the stress testing of the, er, stess test.

There's still some work to do on the alpha-test edition, but it's looking like a really solid, interesting game for solo, co-op and PvP play.

An unexpected outcome from the solo play is... it's really quiet playing a miniatures game on your own.  I was slightly freaked out by the experience, only ever having played solo card games before.  I recommend playing solo with a suitably cyberpunk soundtrack and possible talking out loud a lot.

Now I have to get back to doing some Ragnarok hobbying and get that game finished, illustrated and published.

R.

[precinctomega]

A new battle report for Zero Dark, with photos and some mechanical explanation along the way:

http://www.precinctomega.co.uk/zero-dark-battle-report/

[von Lucky]

Looks interesting - will follow with some interest.

[YPU]

I have yet to get round to reading the rules, but I have high hopes for it. 

[precinctomega]

Thanks for your interest guys.  If you do get around to reading the rules, do please let me know about any errors or omissions that you spot.  I'm doing my best, but with only one pair of eyes it's very hard to be sure that I've ticked off every point or nailed every explanation.

[precinctomega]

I was really hoping to have the final alpha test version finished and ready to share this weekend gone.  Unfortunately a major family crisis has slowed progress down, somewhat.  However, I've put up a stop-gap update because a number of important changes and additions have been developed and as I've got a contingent of new alpha-testers joining, I thought they deserved the latest gen.

Important changes
Well, first of all I've split "characters" into "heroes" and "allies".  I nearly went with "extras", but that was too close to 7TV (which is great, btw!) for comfort and not completely accurate, either.  Heroes are your principle actors.  They are the ones you customize and build.  Allies, meanwhile, have fixed stats and abilities.  At the moment, there's a fairly narrow range of options for allies, but I see it being built on to add theme to campaigns and special missions.  We have remotes and emjays (embedded journalists) with rules, plus dogs.  I'm in two minds about retaining dogs.  They don't really fit with my bespoke setting, but they feature a lot in my sources of inspiration.  Suggestions for more allies are welcomed.

I'm really pleased with the emjays.  They are allies and you have to activate them like any character, but they can't complete objectives.  Why on Earth would you include them at all?  Well, they work as a buff unit.  If the active character makes a test within an emjay's LOS, the character gets a re-roll - this is supposed to represent the character trying harder because he or she is being filmed, plus the tendency of the emjay to film whatever's most interesting/important at any given moment.  There will be more rules that involve emjays in campaign rules and missions involving civpop.

I've also fine-tuned the Control Deck (formerly known as the AI deck, but I binned that to avoid confusion with AI characters!).  No iteration of the Control Deck hasn't worked, but they haven't all worked how I wanted them to.  The latest version has the Red Force moving around somewhat, but not too much, whilst equipping them with support tokens to make them more threatening, but not with too many!

Get the latest rules here:

http://precinctomega.freeforums.net/thread/9/zero-dark-alpha-rules-v0

[YPU]

I might be missing them, but is there any explanation of any form of scenario, and what primary targets are in the rules right now?

[precinctomega]

Nope.  At this point, that's up to you lot to work out for yourselves, as we're focussed on the actual rules.  There is a starter mini-campaign I'm working on that will be bundled in with the rules when they go beta.

[precinctomega]

A new battle report - and for YPU's benefit, I give some detail about the scenario set up and objectives for anyone inclined to re-create it.

http://www.precinctomega.co.uk/the-heist-a-zero-dark-battle-report/

R.

[Dave Knight]

Interesting

[YPU]

A new battle report - and for YPU's benefit, I give some detail about the scenario set up and objectives for anyone inclined to re-create it.

http://www.precinctomega.co.uk/the-heist-a-zero-dark-battle-report/

R.

Much appreciated, I always feel that victory conditions are one of those aspects of game rules that are under appreciated. Having good and interesting systems for that can make a simple game great, or turn a great game into a boring slogfest.

[precinctomega]

Although I feel like it's hardly necessary here on the LAF, if anyone is interested in miniatures options for Zero Dark, check out my Pinterest collection accordingly:

https://uk.pinterest.com/precinctomega/zero-dark-miniatures/