Grimdark Future: a Free and Lightweight Alternative to Games Workshop, by OnePageRules

[Music] [Music] hello everyone bill here from wilock's armory and this is a crash course in grimdark future grimdark future is one of several free lightweight wargaming rule systems from one page rules it was inspired by warhammer 40k by games workshop and you can use any model line for this game but i like to use theirs you'll enjoy this rule set if you're more a casual gamer not so much to the competitive scene really just looking for an excuse to set up all your models in your terrain and move them around and have a good time finish a game in two to three hours rather than five and have free material as opposed to buying books every two years if any of that sounds intriguing then i think you'll find something to like in this rule set it is revised with some frequency as of the making of this video i'm using version 2.10 of the rules but they do change so if you're watching this in the future and some of the points don't agree with what you see or the rules work differently that's why sometimes substantive changes are made all right enough talk and let's jump in and explore grimdark future the core mechanic [Music] roll to hit roll to defend remove casualties that's it in a nutshell every unit has a quality a defense and one or more weapons each weapon will tell you how many attacks it has or how many dice to roll consider this unit of battle brothers their assault rifles have one attack and since there are five models you'll be rolling five dice to hit hoping to meet or exceed their quality in this case their quality is a three up therefore ones and twos are misses i like to pick those out of the dice pile and place them aside and now the defending player picks up the remaining hits and tries to defend against them so supposing the target of this attack was this unit of 10 assault grunts their defense is a 5 up so the defending player rolls the dice any result of a 5 or 6 is a success anything less is a wound so in this case two wounds got through so the defending player removes two models from his unit and now later on when it comes time for that unit to attack it will be down by two models so that's less dice that they're gonna be rolling one important caveat a natural six on the die is always a success no matter what you're doing and the natural one on the die is always a failure no matter what you're doing everything else is a permutation on this fundamental mechanic unit special abilities weapon special abilities terrain conditions many things come into play that will tweak some step of the simple process that we just walked through it's almost never as plain vanilla as the example i just showed you and it can get really interesting so with that fundamental in place let's start from the beginning flow of the game the players will deploy their armies and then the game consists of four rounds in a round every unit on the table will activate once players take turns activating their units one unit at a time back and forth until all the units on the table have been activated and then the round ends it is helpful to use some sort of counter to mark a unit once it's been activated and then clear away all of those counters at the end of the round victory conditions can vary greatly and you can totally make up your own which i do regularly but the stock conditions from the core rules are whoever controls the most objective markers at the end of round four wins the game note that the round is shared and there are no phases in it very simply player one activates one of his units and then player two does the same and back and forth until the end of the round when a unit is activated that means it performs a movement action and then it performs its combat action which can be a shooting attack or a melee attack but not both models and units a unit consists of one or more models often big vehicles and monsters will only have one model in a unit infantry type units like groups of soldiers that sort of thing will usually have multiple models in a unit three or five or ten here's the battle brothers army list this is the menu from which you can build and customize your army all units have some things in common there's a number telling you how many models are in the unit all units have a quality value as we saw a moment ago this value describes how effective the unit is when attacking so lower is better they also have a defense value again lower is better because it's easier to roll they have weapons which we'll cover in the next segment and they have special abilities which are all laid out in the core rules there's a list of allowable upgrade packages and there's a point cost this cost is for the unit not per model so a unit of battle brothers consists of five models and it costs 150 points now as for weapons weapons have four pieces of information their range range is in units of inches you'll use a tape measure at the table to see if weapons are within range of the target enemy model if no range is listed that means it is a melee weapon and the unit must be in base contact with the enemy model in order to use it the number of dice to roll when attacking the notation of the form a and then a number in this case three attacks the armor-piercing value modifies the target's defense roll by that amount so for example a unit with a defense of three up that gets hit by a weapon with ap2 rolls the dice as usual but is not hoping for a 3 up but rather a 5 up if no ap is listed then the weapon doesn't have any armor piercing and last in the entry are any special abilities the weapon might have if none are listed then it has none there are only a few weapon special keywords they're very easy to memorize and they're found in the core rules movement when a unit is selected to be activated it then has four options hold which means don't move and you can fire all of your ranged weapons advance which means move up to 6 inches and fire all of your ranged weapons rush which means move up to 12 inches but you cannot fire any ranged weapons or charge move up to 12 inches and end up in base contact to initiate melee when moving an individual model ensure that no part of the model travels more than the intended distance an easy way to keep track of this is measure from the front of the rim or the back of the rim and move the model so that the front or back ends up six inches away or whatever distance you're doing also a key tenant of the game is unit coherency this is defined by each model being within two inches of another model and all models being within six inches of each other you must maintain unit coherency shooting if a unit makes a move that allows it to shoot that is hold or advance it can shoot all of its weapons at any target or targets that are within line of sight and within range for example these five battle brothers have just completed their advance move and their assault rifles have a range of 24 inches the three front most models are within 24 inches of their target but the back two are not those two will not roll any attack dice so let's attack the battle brothers have a quality of three up and three of them are shooting assault rifles are one die each so we roll three dice two hits one miss okay now the defending player rolls to defend the grunts have a defensive five up and the defending player rolls but both fail so that's two wounds that get through which means two grunts are removed from the board the defending player chooses which models are removed but cannot intentionally break unit coherency [Music] shooting at an enemy that is in cover means a penalty of one on all hit rolls being in cover means that the targeted unit is at least half in a terrain feature or at least half hidden by a terrain feature from the shooting model's actual point of view for example there are 10 assault grunts in this unit but only 5 of them are visible to the battle brothers firing at them this means for the battle brothers instead of hitting on threes which is their quality they are instead hitting on force but beyond that combat is resolved in exactly the same way also here's another example of the unit being in cover even though they can technically be seen by the shooting models they are in a piece of terrain and you just need to discuss with your opponent before the game what the standards will be for each piece of terrain and how you're gonna treat it obviously if none of the enemy unit can be seen then there is no line of sight and it cannot be shot at but consider using some common sense if only like 10 percent of a unit can be seen or just an appendage is sticking out be a good sportsman and don't count it as line of sight this is an unwritten thing and you know it when you see it if you get into a total logjam just roll a dice 5050 to see which way it goes when the shooting has been resolved the last thing to do is check for morale in our example the original size of the assault grunt unit was 10 10 models that can absorb one wound each so its starting strength is 10. now whenever it takes damage that brings it down to half or less of its starting size it needs to take a moral test in our examples so far the unit has only lost two models leaving eight which is obviously more than half of its starting strength so no morale test has been needed the activation is done and now it's the other player's turn but let's imagine that instead we're kind of deep into the game this unit has six models left the battle brothers shoot and kill three of them now they've been reduced to five or less so a morale test is needed a morale test is a single die roll trying to get the unit's quality in the case of these assault grunts they need a 5 up if the result is 5 or higher they succeed the activation ends and now it's the other player's turn but if the morale test was failed the unit becomes pinned put a marker of some sort next to it so you don't forget pinned means that the next time that unit is activated you will remove the pin token and do nothing else no movement no combat its turn is basically wasted trying to shrug off the battle shock also pinned units automatically fail any additional morale tests that they might take while they are pinned and if they end up in melee they can only hit on natural sixes regardless of their quality or any special abilities melee [Music] if a unit performed the charge action for its movement that means it ended its movement with at least one model in base contact with at least one model of an enemy unit after the charge is complete having made as much base contact is possible by moving each model in the unit up to 12 inches then the enemy shuffles in by moving each of their models by up to 3 inches in order to maximize base contact to the extent possible the enemy's three inch moves are complete the scrum is ready to go any models that are within two inches of an enemy model will be able to participate in the fight attacking in melee works exactly like shooting first the charging unit rolls a number of dice as stated by its melee weapon trying to achieve its quality any misses are removed and then the defending player tries to roll their defense any failures are wounds and those models get removed so far exactly the same now comes the difference after the defender removes their lost models the defending unit can choose to strike back if they want to if so this is done in the exact same manner the defender rolls to hit the charging unit rolls to defend and removes casualties then we handle morale which is also different in melee compared to shooting once the defender's counter-strike is done or if they chose not to strike back you compare which side inflicted more wounds whoever did is declared the winner of this melee the winner of the melee does not take a moral test in any case the loser of the melee must take a morale test as described earlier a single die role trying to get their quality however there are several different outcomes if the morale test is passed then we're all done the activation is over and it's the other player's turn but if the melee moral test was failed one of two things will happen if the unit is still greater than half its starting strength it is pinned but if it's at half or less of its starting strength then it is routed remove the rest of that unit from the battlefield after morale is taken care of the remaining attacking unit backs up all of its models by one inch so that there's no more base contact with the enemy if one of the units was totally wiped from the table then the surviving unit can immediately make a free move of up to three inches after that the activation ends and it's the other player's turn okay melee sounds complex and yes it is more complex than shooting but after one or two scrums you'll see it all makes perfect sense it's very easy to memorize how things work now one more consideration that i didn't bring up a moment ago is that in a single game round a unit could end up fighting in melee multiple times if that unit charges it'll fight in melee but then if it gets charged during the other player's turn it will again fight in melee if it strikes back and in fact this can happen any number of times so there is a rule that after a unit's first melee of the round that unit will only hit in melee on natural sixes from then on until the end of the round this sort of represents battle fatigue and this is why a unit that has been charged might choose not to counter attack and instead just take the beating because they might be saving up their full strength for a charge that they intend to do on their turn this is where the micro tactics and decision making can become very rich i've played a few battles that were almost totally melee oriented armies and it's a very different feel very different way of thinking compared to positioning your guns and letting loose building an army now that we understand the basic mechanics of the game we can talk about how to put an army together before the game the players agree on a point total i personally like to do 3000 to 4000 but a good total for starting out is 750. with the total in mind just start selecting units from the menu the point total is in the far right column and most units have some upgrade options listed in this column these letters correspond to the tables on the lower half of the page and are pretty self-explanatory also note that you can combine two of the same unit together into a double-sized unit but any upgrades you took that affect all models in the unit must be purchased for both halves so let's do an example i'll buy a unit of five battle brothers for 150 points they have access to packages a and e so in package a there are four headers available and you could choose any number of them combine any of them but i'm really at the moment only interested in the bottom one i'm going to take one assault rifle attachment particularly the plasma rifle so in my list on the left i'm going to change one of those models to having a plasma rifle and i'll change the point total adding 15 points to bring me up to 165. package e has three headers to it the first one upgrade all models with veteran infantry i think i'll take that so i'm going to add that to their special abilities over on my list and add 50 points pricey but worth it so that they're hitting on twos instead of threes the middle header uh don't see much there but in the third one i do want to replace one assault rifle for a laser cannon adding 45 points and bringing the total up to 260 for this unit now start a second unit of battle brothers five models 150 points again from package a i'm just going to take an assault rifle attachment for one of the brothers this time i think a flamethrower will do that's 15 points and from list e i'm just gonna take a plasma cannon to replace one of the assault rifles so i'll modify that over in my list and add on the points now i would like to combine these two units into a single 10 man unit the problem is i purchased an upgrade that affects all models recall that on the first unit i gave them veteran infantry and that upgrade specifically affects quote all models therefore i must purchase it for the other unit as well raising it from 195 to 245 points now i can combine them and treat them as a single 10 model unit that has a total cost of 505 points in my personal experience this is not a good idea in smaller games due to sheer cost and vulnerability but up above 2500 points or so designing double-sized units becomes quite fun with your army list ready assemble models from your collection to represent it i like to use citadel miniatures from games workshop but literally anything works even 2d card stock miniatures if that's all you can afford as long as they're reasonably sized any models are valid frequently asked questions what happens with a unit of a defense of 4 up gets hit by a weapon with ap4 answer it rolls defense on an 8 up which is obviously impossible but remember that a natural 6 is always a success what if a model has more than one melee weapon answer they can attack with all of them can a unit charge multiple target enemy units answer no can a unit shoot at multiple enemy units answer yes you may split fire among multiple targets if your unit has more than one type of weapon for example our unit of battle brothers earlier has to put all of their assault rifles into one single enemy unit but their rifle attachments the plasma cannon and the laser cannon could all be assigned to different targets if you want if a unit splits fire as just described are all of the targets declared before any rolling happens answer the rules are silent on this but i prefer to house rule that yes you must declare all shooting targets and then begin rolling to hit what is the difference between blast and deadly answer weapons with blast multiply their hits by x and deadly weapons multiply their wounds by x so a hit from a blast iii weapon requires the defender to roll three dice and each failure is one wound a hit from a deadly three weapon requires the defender to roll a single defense dice but if it fails then that hit becomes three wounds instead of one important note here that hit from the deadly weapon was assigned to a single model so all three wounds must go on that model any overkill is simply wasted so use your deadly weapons on big targets that can take more than one wound such as tanks and monsters those units will have the special ability tough which simply means that they can absorb x number of wounds before they're removed from the table what about vertical terrain distances answer the rules are silent on this but i prefer to house rule that any non-flying unit must include vertical distance in the measurement of their movement with one inch given for free for example this battle brother wants to rush up this cliff which is three inches high so that eats away two inches of his movement how do i read the upgrade headers answer pay close attention to the exact wording of the headers it matters very much if it says replace one assault rifle that means you can only upgrade one model in the unit with that feature if it says replace any assault rifle that means you can purchase it for as many models as you want paying that listed cost for each one and as we covered earlier if it says upgrade all models with then you do just that but note that the listed cost accounts for all the models so earlier when i bought veteran infantry i didn't pay 50 points five times i only paid it once because the header says that this upgrade affects all models in the unit can i shoot an enemy unit that is in melee answer any enemy unit that is in line of sight and range can be shot at after every melee the attacker is required to back up by one inch at the end of its activation there is no such thing as being tied up in melee in fact at the beginning of every unit's activation there should be no enemy base contact occurring anywhere on the table for either side resources onepagerrules.com has all the core rules and army lists free for download there are also several other games not just grimdark future if you join their patreon you gain access to some other goodies like the full-blown rulebooks 2d and 3d printable miniatures and the point calculator system that allows you to design your very own army list from scratch using the official formulas that were used to create the game there's an active forum it's the perfect place to post a question a battle report or talk about one page rules there is a subreddit for one page rules it's generally not as active as the forum is at least at the time of the making of this video but it's part of the community nonetheless there is also an active one-page rules discord i've produced many grimdark future battle reports there's a playlist for them on my channel and if you want to see the game in action in real time go ahead and watch a few of them lastly there's a link below to the word doc template for the army list format that i personally like to use this is by far the thing i get requested the most it's not official material it's just the way that i personally like to organize my list on paper to have at the table during the game so here you go well if you're a brand new war gamer hopefully that was helpful to get you jump started if you're not then hopefully you'll give this a run it is interesting how if it weren't for this game i wouldn't have dropped several thousand dollars on games workshop models so yes it's an indie design that on its face might compete with warhammer 40k but truth be told it's been very good for business for games workshop because it made me buy more models better to think of it as a co-optician anyway thank you for watching i'm weilock make things and play games you

Channel: Wyloch's Armory

Views: 56,683

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Id: zBnnX_1j3AQ

Length: 25min 40sec (1540 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 13 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Mcgribbilies]

It's great to have this video to send to a friend as a primer. I've given the elevator pitch a few times but this is a really concise way to show someone the nuts and bolts of the game.

[u/Krasserboiiii]

Cool gonna watch this soon