Imaginations in 42mm (21) - Debriefing the rules

In February, just before we entered the lockdown, we attended Warcon in Gent and ran a 42mm imaginations game there.

We used some homemade "toy soldier" rules, but I noticed I never debriefed them on our blog.

Flags of the various regiments in my two toy soldier armies.

There were two key ideas in the rules:

1. The timetrack. I discussed this mechanic before, so will not explain the concept again.
2. Delayed damege resolution: since units were activated at various intervals governed by the time track, I used the mechanic that once a unit was hit by fire, it simply got a marker. A unit amassed markers, until it was activated. Only then would all the damage markers be resolved. I thought this was a good way of introducing fog of war, and giving neither side the certainty of the outcome of specific firing actions.

So how did the full rules work?

The first sheet (shown below) simply shows the various actions a unit can perform when it is activated. A move and Double move cost a different number of action points (as shown on the timetrack), as do a fire and concentrated fire action. The fire actions also show the damage points inflicted on the target unit.

The second part of the first page contains damage resolution. When a unit is activated, simply roll a D6 for each damage marker to "save", then roll another D6 for each remaining marker and read out the results. The coloured bars correspond to coloured status markers placed next to each unit.

The second page lists soms "fun effects": what happens when the Commander in Chief is being hit, and some random events when you roll low on the D12 to determine your activation points for the turn.

So how did the rules work?

The time track mechanic worked really well. It needs some more tuning, but nothing too drastic.

However, the "delayed damage resolution" was not really fun. I underestimated the joy you get when you fire at the enemy, and immediately see the anage done, instead of waiting till the opponent activates that unit again. It resulted in units in the front line collecting lots of damage markers. We would simply "fire some more", just to add some more damage, just "to be sure".

So I will probably rewrite the rules such that damage is resolved immediately, with the "saving roll" incorporated in the "to hit" roll of the attacker.

I was planning to run a more extensive version at CRISIS in Antwerp this fall, but since CRISIS has been cancelled, it will take some time ...