After an extremely busy summer, my life has finally calmed enough that I can get back to my wargaming hobby. And it's a great time to do so. There are three rulesets that will be discussed over the next few posts. The first is a new free ruleset by Craig Cartmell (author of Forge of War) - called FUBAR. It's a great system - something of a hybrid between Forge of War and Ganesha Games' products, but with a few wrinkles of his own. FUBAR is a generic system, with many force lists and supplements being developed (including by me). But there are two things you really need to know about it:
2) The entire ruleset prints on a single page, as do each of the force supplements
Yes, you read that correctly. You can print off a single page, grab some six-sided dice, a handful of miniatures, and play a wargame. The game plays extremely well with about 4-10 fire teams or vehicles per side. I've played this two different ways so far. One way was a small skirmish using 40k miniatures (two Ork mobs vs about fifteen Space Marines) on a Cityfight table. The second and more common way I've been playing is Ambush Alley and Ganesha Games style... 15mm sci-fi on a 2' by 2', terrain-heavy playfield.
FUBAR uses just five statistics. Troops use three - armor save (if applicable), activation and expertise. Activation is exactly as it sounds... used to determine whether or not a unit can take actions in a game turn. Expertise is used to resolve all types of combat, and some scenario-specific rolls. Weapons also have just two stats - range and fire points. A sample unit might look like this:
Titan Marines (5) Medium Armor (5+ save), Activation 3+, Expertise 4+
4xAssault Rifles (Range 24", 2FP) and 1xMissile Launcher (Range 32", 3FP)
At the start of the turn, the Titan Marine player wins initiative. He rolls a D6 to activate his unit, and the result is 5. Since Titan Marines activate on a 3+, the roll is successful. The Titan Marines are 20" away from a unit of Scourge (3+ armor save). The Titan Marines can fire a total 11FP at this range, so they roll 11 dice against their Expertise. Every roll of 4+ (their expertise) is a success, and the Scourge will be hit unless they pass their armor saves. That's the basics of FUBAR combat. There are many more effects, such as suppression, cover effects, and some special rules for the Scourge's automated nature.
But those are the basics. Simple and fun. The entire point of FUBAR.
Chris
I downloaded it, it sounds REALLY interesting!
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