Rogue Stars Redcoat test Dominar Rigels Strong Kung Fu!

Redshirt Rules Test From Andrea.

Prologue. This may sound strange, but why are you wargaming these rules? Do you take it so seriously? Do you watch movies where a group of old codgers (like me!) take on a whole battalion and win? Where the hard working hero takes on all comers, who politely wait their turn, driven on by poorly dubbed leaders? Are you willing to field troops that with a hail of fire at point blank might, just might give the hero a pin, or a scratched elbow?

If “yes”, read on. I'm a veteran of many, many wonderful Ganesha games and the hardest thing to do is make a mook/cannon-fodder/redshirt game enjoyable. You need to have a plan in mind, here are my suggestions:

Play for comic relief in a campaign (the comic relief provided by the grave diggers in Macbeth). I did this below, the Grand Lord Sham, enraged at the destruction of his first gang, points at the nearest hero who failed to find a reason to not be there. Who's ordered to grab all the available minions and go! A side game to fill a gap or revitalise the pallet. Or just to use those figures-.

Play for effect. If you play with your opponent instead of against, expect your troops to do very, very badly- but they might roll a 20! Ham it up/play the roll rather than do the sensible thing.

Play for fun. I think choice of leader is most important. They must be bad enough, but strong enough to go against the hero and then die gloriously. I think I got it pretty right below. Sounds silly, but with a leader needing 12+ to activate there's lots of reactions for the other side and the initiative swaps very quick.

Work the plot, either dying gloriously or running away. We found adding the subtitles a real help!

When I volunteered to test these, I looked at my collection and there were 2 leading candidates that you will see again:

Demon chicken – ex-Splintered Light cave lizards, a lovely diminutive, fast, claws ankle biter fielded by an evil scientist straight out of the lab.

New recruits of Elvira's vampire family. Quickly processed new vampires raised and sent screaming against the foe.

Andrea's Redshirt rules. These may be utter crap (He says, not me!) because I didn't have any chance to try them on the table (as my kickstarter started today I am quite busy) but please try them with an open mind and let me know how they work for you. In the book, if these work, I plan to have a list of typical Redshirts so players who want to play by the book can fall back to the "official" profiles.
It's not written in the rules, but it is assumed that BOTH players agree to the use of Redshirts. They change the game considerably, but let you put more figures on the table if you want.
And remember, the shirts are red because blood won't show.

Redshirts (Optional Rule)
Redshirt are cheaper, cannon-fodder characters that may be added to a gang. They can represent a lot different things: immature aliens that defend their queen, juvenile delinquents that try to impress gang members, rookie cops, fanatic followers of a psionic cult, violent fans of a famous popstar, would-be adventurers who hope to learn the trade, untrained militias, servitor races of stronger aliens, common rioters joining a rebellion, and so on.

Redshirts are created with 8 to 29XP each, using equipment appropriate to their theme and role. Being a Redshirt is a -8XP trait. They do not gain XP in campaigns and should not be assigned equipment that they couldn't normally have.

Redshirts activate only when a character spends one action to perform the Order action. This lets TWO Redshirts perform one action each, without dicing for activation. A Redshirt may perform a single action and then he may not receive another Order until the Initiative has switched. I used a marker to indicate activated and reversed for a pin. I'd consider allowing one to make 2 actions, which would allow them to fight and shoot.

Redshirts have -4 on all rolls they perform: Shoot, Morale, Melee, everything is at -4 (they are normal persons, even though they may have training and equipment beyond the reach of average people).
There is very little book-keeping involved with Redshirts. Redshirts do not accumulate Stress.

The character using an Order to move two Redshirts receives 1 Stress token as normal, but the Redshirts need not be marked. If you are afraid you might lose track of which Redshirt has been activated, turn them so they face their baseline.

When a Redshirt gains one Pin token, he becomes Pinned. A Pinned Redshirt may not perform any action other than Running or Sprinting towards cover, until a character spends one action to Rally him (one action per Redshirt to be rallied). A Pinned Redshirt that takes another Pinned effect does not suffer any additional effects. I'd say that the retire is a free move or the compulsory next activation by its leader. I found that pinned & downed redshirts just got ignored by me.

When a Redshirt takes one wound, no matter in which part of the body, no matter the severity of the wound, the Redshirt goes OOA.

Redshirts do not roll Reactions. A character may use a successful reaction to perform an Order, thus activating up to two Redshirts that haven't performed their action already. We changed that, on change-over each could be re-activated by reaction.

When a character goes OOA, Redshirts roll Morale (at -4, like all the rolls they make). Any Redshirt failing a Morale roll is Pinned, or Panicking if he rolls a critical failure.

When Redshirts go OOA, characters do NOT roll Morale. They are more or less expected not to last too much.

If all the characters in a game go OOA or move off the table, any Redshirts still on the table automatically panic or surrender, as appropriate to the scenario.

Designer's note: Redshirts are useful for players who agree to field larger forces. We recommend that the number of normal characters plus Redshirts does not exceed a total of 10 figures per side. Players may agree to have only a couple of characters and more Redshirts for a quicker game that requires less book-keeping and dice rolling than usual. If so, I'd suggest that all such characters have leadership.

Players may also use Redshirts only in special occasions, for example in a final scenario that represents the culmination of gang warfare, where the gangs recruit all the riff-raff they can to bring more guns to the final battle. They are ideal for manning a barricade.

Dominar Rigel vs the Minions of the Ying Tong of Yam Sham Poo

The Plot Last time on the planet Neuvo Mars the force lead by the late Dr Syn Die failed in their Manhunt to capture said august being. So a new force is hastily assembled from those left behind and dispatched with the customary lack of preparation. They catch them on an Irradiated Wasteland studded with explosive radon just outside the previous location.

“I SAID remember where we parked!”

One of the reasons I chose this follow-on game is that I'd already introduced a couple of 22 points Minions, so I'm using them en masse here.

In order to test the rules as thoroughly as I can, the game will be played twice, with each side taking the activation first, as I think this could make the difference!  But it didn't.

Dread Yang Sham Poo

Lord Crun Ambidextrous, Civilian (Redshirt), Leader 1, Reactive, Weapon master 1, Martial arts 2 =18

Light combat armour, 2 force swords = 26 Total =44

Minion Civilian, Marksman1 Martial arts 2 = 0

Light combat armour, Heavy blaster rifle 22

Lord Crun 44

Minions 7x 22 = 154

Total 198

Dominar & bodyguards These stay as per the first game.

Dominar Rigel Amphibian, Diminutive, Fast 2, Leader 2, Reactive, Marksman1 = 34

Force shield, Sonic rifle =22

Oddjob Big, Amphibian, Heavyworlder, Marksman2, Reactive, Tough2 =37

Light combat armour, Plasma pistol Built-in flamer rifle torso 32

Jaws Big, Amphibian, Heavyworlder, Marksman2, Reactive, Tough2 Weaponmaster 1=40

Light combat armour, Plasma pistol, Sword, Plasma pistol Built-in flamer rifle torso 34

Total 199

The Games Yes 2! We swapped sides. I'm not going into too much detail. The explosive bits were diced for and had a marked effect on the terrain use.

Game 1 I has the lead.

Got them this far, then decided to hand over initiative as stress was building-

Dominar Rigel takes a shot, blows up the dump, downing 2 of mine.

Dominar using available cover

Seeing the centre free, Jaws moves in.

I blow up a dump, knocking both Oddjob & Jaws down.

Unusually, the Dominar comes to the aid of his bodyguard Jaws.

Getting up, Jaws starts reducing the Redcoats to ruin.

With most of his minions gone, Lord Crun makes an attempt on the Dominar, but he's bracketed. 

 Game 2 The Dominar takes the lead

A far more cautious advance this time.

Are we looking for droids?

The Dominar decides to take cover and seeks height.  then he shoots again-

Bang! 4 down and pinned.

Now the Dominar gets into deeper cover and waits--

Oddjob works his way down the flank, away from explosives-

Lord Crun starts to work down the flank

 These 2 on the flank just hang around-

Sneaking around Lord Crun is rushed by Oddjob.  A brief fight where Oddjob gains pins.

Jaws decides to go right around the building-

Oddjob gets away, with 4 pin markers-

 Lord Crun goes after Jaws, but then he spots the retiring Oddjob.  Oddjob uses his breath weapon but all the pins means he simply gives Crun 2 pins.  Crun fights back and he's up to 6 pins-

Oddjob is ineffective due to sress & pins, but he tries his breath weapon again- a1! Fortunatelly he's simply "out of ammo" (it can happen to any chap) rather than exploding.

Jaws charges in and Crun gets in a lucky headshot.  Dominar Rigel decides that survival is better than valour and makes a run for it.

The other test was this kids toy as a stress& pin counter- it works, you can get a good assesment 

at a glance.  We considered using poker chips, but I know I'd knock 'em over!

Early in game 1, I'm building up less stress that Tony's using reactions!

This was near the end of the game. Crun (left) hasgained stress & pins fighting Oddjob.  Oddjobs (right) is building up-  Jaws has one stress from being shot at, Dominar has moved once.