Panzer Strider (early version of rules)

 

 

 

 

A prelude

On a moon orbiting a dead planet is a nation of nobility and warfare. War is fought with Panzer Striders: biomechanical thirty foot tall armored monsters with supernatural abilities. The panzer striders and there pilots fight in conflict for the heart that dictates how they can live.

The Royals

The nobles are aristocrats that defend the nation of Radredol against the anarchist air pirates that are seen as terrorists in the eyes of most the population. They cling to and defend with honor the people and nation they see as there birthright.

The air pirates

The air pirates are the warn down oppressed that are fighting for freedom against the cruel family’s born to indulgence and pleasure. They honor the name Bartholomew Rainwater as the messiah that inspired the age of rebellion

Introduction

This is a game of mech combat in a science fantasy setting of battle and ambition. Of pirates and those of royal blood.

Any faction can fight any other faction it is assumed that the pirates will fight pirates when there ambitions do not align. And the nobles family’s will fight in petty conflicts for similar reasons.

You can design your own mechs and carrier then send them off to war. You need something to represent your forces. Model kits or LEGO are what I recommend. You will also need two sets of polyhedral dice and some paper for your character sheets. Last but not least: you will need a flat surface to play on. I also would recommend some books to use as terrain.

The game is won when you destroy or demobilize the opposing players carrier or they do the same to yours.

In the future I hope to introduce solo play and a campaign but for now let’s get to the game.

The rules of the game

Part one dice as stats

Dice in this game function as stats. There are no modifiers other than the addition of dice. You may not roll more than three dice for any given action. You have four stats Move, attack, Defense and Health points. Each stat will now be broken down.

Movement: you have a minimal of 2 movement and a maximum of 6. You gain movement by burning dice (note...not literally) or, sacrificing them during unit management phase in-between battles during a campaign or before your first battle while assembling a crew for your carrier.

Sacrificing dice, simple choose a dice from your attack or defense pool and permanently remove it from your attack or defense post than you gain a movement point. Though it must be said you must have a minimum of one dice in both attack and defense and you cannot sacrifice dice during the combat phase. Movement means you move 6 inches for every movement point (or on space on a chess board if using the variant rules.)

Health points: you can sacrifice dice to boost your health. If you sacrifice a dice you gain 6hp to one part of your choice and 2hp to every other part of your panzer strider. It must be emphasized this can only be done when creating a new unit or between the combat phase, never during a combat phase.

Attack dice and defense dice: Work very similar to each other. You have a pool of dice from you base attack dice, your bonus dice, and you weapon dice. Pick the ones you want to use, (you can only pick three from the pool and you must use all your dice till they max out at three. And if you four or more dice choose three then roll.) your opponent does the same if you are rolling attack they roll from there defense pool and vice versa.

Part two action sequence order.

Movement phase

Each player rolls a d6 the higher roll is the winner and the winner decides which will move first. The player that moves first moves up to half his units and must move at least one. Than the second player moves all of his unites or none if he chooses. Than the player who moved first moves the rest of his unites or no. Of his remaining units if he chooses.

Combat phase.

In the combat phase the players choose a unite and declare if they will attack or not during this turn. If they choose to attack they can use a awakening art, or any ranged weapons. They can also enter melee combat if they are within a two inch distance of the unit they are trying to enter melee combat with.

Each player takes turns attacking or declaring no action for the turn till every unit has moved or rested.

Ranged weapons.

If you have chosen a target you declare which unit are firing at then measure for distance. If out of range it is assumed the shot was taken and missed if within range both player roll the appropriate dice and the higher roll wins. Unless they roll the highest number you can on that dice (example d4 rolls a 4, or a d12 rolls a 12) if both roll the highest number on the dice than the higher number wins. Damage is fixed unless the defender rolls a 1 than they subtract 1 from what the attacker rolled and take the remaining number as damage (example: 1 vs a roll of 7 takes 6 damage.)

If the attack was an aimed shot (will say on the weapon sheet if it has the aim flair ) was successful the attacker declares what part they attacked and you calculate whether the part survived or was destroyed. Any weapons in a destroyed arm are lost.

If not aimed than roll a d6 and check table below to see what part was damaged

1 – abdomen

2 - left arm

3 – right arm

4 – left leg

5 - right leg

6 – head

Aimed attack, A shot is considered an aimed shot when you move half or less of your movement score. Example: Movement score of 3 (18 inches) you must movement nine inches or less for a shot to be considered an aimed shot (it doesn’t need to be declared but is recommended.)

A unit is lost when its head is destroyed or its abdomen or two, or more limbs are destroyed.

If a awakening art is used that panzer strider can not attack with melee or ranged weapons and if they are attacked during the awaking art they do not roll to defend. It is considered rolling a one so the opponent rolls the appropriate dice and damage is dealt and it is also considered a aimed attack.

Melee combat

If melee combat is declared. Measure to see if your unit is with two inches of the target if so than check facing if from the side turn the target towards the attacker. Check melee combat scores and roll appropriate dice. If attacked from behind than the attack is considered to be taking a aimed shot and damage is dealt from the rolled number subtracted by one. They both cannot move during the movement phase and during the combat phase cannot use ranged weapons. Combat continues till one of the unites is destroyed or they spend there combat phase to push away the unit they are engaged with. If pushed away you roll for a melee attack and if successful no damage is dealt but the defending unite is moved six inches away in any direction and cannot act for one movement phase or combat phase. It is to be understood that the unit is trying to stabilize its thrusters for these turn phases.

Awakening arts.

Is a psychic attack or a healing art. Using a type of psychic channeling the panzer strider can do amazing things.

It can take up to three turns (1 turn is both a movement and combat phase) for them to successfully to complete the awakening. And there is a chance that a units head will explode for the attempt.

To do a awaking art you declare it during the combat phase. And must lower every one of there dice. A d6 becomes a d4. A d12 becomes a d10. For the remainder of the battle. Than you roll a d20 a roll of 5 or higher is a success 4 or less and one of the units of the one that declared channeling is destroyed but the unit destroyed is chose by the opposing player.

If successful you still must wait the number of turns required for the art. There are three parts.

1 heal if successful the target unit is completely healed.

2 + d4 evade for all units for one turn

3 + d8 on all attacks for one turn

The carrier

Can move 10 inches.

HP 20

while is has no weapons in the beta will have rule for modification later.

Building a crew.

each crew starts with the base Hp: Head – 12, Abdomen - 15, Right Arm – 10, Left arm -10, Left leg – 8, Right leg – d8

Each crew starts with a movement of 1 (six inches) except the captain whose base movement is two.

You get 3 units as a base crew (including your captain). And four bonus dice to spend separate from the other modifiers. You can (or should) upgrade one stats to a d8 and a one bonus d4 to another stat these basic upgrades can not be done to the same stat. These are your base stats and do not count towards your bonus dice.

Your captain has the same modifiers as a d8 and a d4 (you can add a d4 for one stat and upgrade to a d8 for the other stat.) but he also gets a d12 you can add to a stat or sacrifice for health or movement.

You can spend one dice on each of your crew but must spend a minimum of two of your bonus dice on your captain. There is an activation cost where the first stat you modify for a unit has to be a boost (upgrade a polyhedral dice to the next highest: maxing out at d12) after that you can assign dice to a stat for health movement or as permanent bonus dice on attack or defense. After you are done assigning dice you can sell (if you have any left) your remaining unspent dice for 800 Zpoints each.

Zpoints

Are your currency for stores where you purchase weapons and equipment. You start with 1000 Zpoints for your starting weapons and ammo. It will not be enough for campaigns so be ready to put your pilots to work.

Melee weapons

Beam axe

Cost; 50 zpoints

Damage 8

Attack dice d8

Thunder mace

cost: 80 Zpoints

Attack dice d10

Damage 8

Dream saber

Cost: 100 Z points

Attack dice d12

Damage 12

One handed ranged weapon

Laser pistol

cost: 100 Z points

Attack dice d4

Damage 4

Range 10 inches

Phase Gatling

cost: 100 z points

Attack dice d6

Damage 6

range 8 inches

To handed heavy Weapons

Bazooka cost 60 Zpoints

Ammo cost 40 per shot

Damage 16. Attack dice a d10.

Range 10 inches

Beam blaster. Cost 80 Zpoints

An electric assault rifle. Single shot take one shot off the five shots it has per clip. Rapid fire take one clip can carry a maximum of five clips. Single shot 6 damage. Attack dice one d8. Rapid fire does ten damage but you attack dice is a d6

Range of 8

Laser sniper: cost 100 Zpoints.

Must let weapon cool down after each shot taken. Counts as an aimed shot. Damage 10. Attack dice is a d12

Range of 12

Captain traits

now that you have your units outfitted choose one trait from below for your captain and you can begin combat.

Heroic war cry

+ one d4 on any roll once per combat phases.

In the shadows

Captain is immune to aimed shots.

Cursed weapon

Whenever captain gets the killing shot on a unit he can fully heal one body part.

Madness dice

Can make opponent reroll one dice every other turn.

Live forever

Become immune to damage for one combat phase.

Teleport

takes one d4 of random location damage every time they teleport during the movement phase. Can teleport once per movement phase.

Terrain placement.

Each player has two pieces of larger terrain making a total of four and each player takes turns placing them on the other players' half of the field. I ideally this would be done after rolling the first initiative phase. when flying I would use paperback books as terrain. if a model is on one it counts as being in cloud coverage and remove the ability for the apossing player to take aimed shots at the Panzer Strider in cloud coverage. 

 

The future of this game.

The next big project for this game is a solo campaign mode. That will play like a choose your own adventure book with combat at critical phases in the narrative.

I need to re-balance this game so If you made it this far thank you, and please be constructive with your criticism.

And last but not least if you feel inspired or have already built some some quality LEGO mechs please send some photos, I am hopping to put out a free PDF on Board Game Geek and would like to add more images.