KR16 House Rules

[Rules Junkie Jim]

Lately I’ve been trying out a few alterations to the KR16 ruleset (http://angelbarracks.co.uk/rules.html), partly to try and address something in the rules that bugged me, and partly to try to accommodate armour in the modern or near future games that I generally use them for. So:

Shaken markers

In the rules as written, the first unsaved hit on a squad leads to a shaken marker being placed, the second a kill and the shaken is removed, and a third gets a shaken marker back on and so on. This is fast, easy to remember and means that multiple hits don’t wipe out squads in one turn. But it bothers me that a squads that get a pasting might take casualties but not be shaken, so I’m trying out the following, and I’m happy enough with the results so far…

Instead of shaken markers being removed, they are cummulative. So three unsaved hits will get you a casualty and two shaken markers. Each marker will have a -1 effect on command rolls, so a squad with 2 shakens will roll at -2.

This leaves a problem: how do you get rid of the damn things? Well, instead of performing a command roll, when activating a unit you can instead roll to remove shakens, with 4+ removing a marker, -1 for rooks, +1 for elite and +1 for units in cover. You roll separately for all pins in one activation. Alternatively, you can elect to retreat 6cm, which succeeds automatically (no roll required) and removes one marker. You can, if you want, decide to try and fight on with a bunch of shaken markers, but doing anything will become very difficult. I have to admit Ivan Sorensen’s rulesets, with their emphasis on bailing/retreat over casualties, were something of an influence here!

Armour and Anti-armour

To attempt to introduce a bit more granularity into the armour rules for modern vehicles I’m trying out the following:

For each armour class I’ve added a “hardened” category, so e.g. well protected IFVs such as the M2A2 would receive an extra benefit of removing a dice from the attackers dice pool, so an attack from a medium cannon would throw 5 dice instead of 6. I categorise T55s, T62s. M48s etc as standard medium armour, and also T72s and Chieftains, but as “hardened”. Third generation tanks I categorise as “heavy armour”, but the latest models such as Leopard II A5, M1A2 and Challenger 2 get “hardened” status.

I also (separately from the above) remove a dice from rocket launchers if they’re attacking vehicles with reactive or Chobham-type armour.

For tank guns that use especially punchy munitions, I give them an extra die.

For tanks with especially swanky computer enhanced targeting, another extra die (on top of the to-hit modifier in the rules).

So, a Chally 2 with all the bells and whistles and its heavy cannon might throw 10 D6 instead of the bog standard 8.

Finally…

Armour save 6+

Aside from civilian vehicles, also includes very lightly armoured vehicles such as some Humvees, which are immune to small arms fire and save from HMGs at 5+

OK, so that was probably quite rambling and reflective of the fact I’m a solo gamer… I’m still playing about with these and might change them further; the armour rules especially; I don’t play with many vehicles and haven’t decided if the modifiers are sufficient to make a difference. I might add a card-driven sequence for activation and see how it goes… I’m hooked on KR16, it’s great fun, pretty simple, and very very FREE!!

 

[Angel Barracks]

Yay a fan!!

What about some bonus for the shaken squad if they have not taken fire?
So a squad comes under fire and becomes shaken, a friendly squad then lays down fire at the attacker causing them to cease firing at the shaken squad, this would encourage them back into the action?

Also, shaken squads are not just having mental issues, they could be physical too.
So a shaken squad could indeed be struggling with what to do due to indecision/panic, but it could be that they know exactly what to do but are having other problems.
The shaken penalty could be that Steve has been wounded (he did fail his save to get the shaken marker after all) and they are dragging him around which makes aggressive orders (higher difficulty) harder to do, as it would endanger Steve further.
However when they lose a model the shaken marker is removed, this because Steve has now been killed and the squad no longer has to look out for him so they can concentrate on the firefight without the ‘burden’ of a wounded comrade.

A bit like saves, saves are not just about armour.
They incorporate ECM, agility, cloaking, super-fast speeds etc.
So a small drone that has ECM and incredible speed but no armour may have the same save a s a medium tank, because it is just as hard to damage.

Anyway, ignore or disregard anything here that makes your game less fun, thanks for playing and post some AARs!

😀

[Rules Junkie Jim]

I suppose it’s more horses for courses than making it more fun – for your typical “peow! peow!” sci fi games, I use KR16 as written, the shaken “issue” isn’t important to me in those games. But for my modern and post apoc. games, I suppose I wanted to introduce a mechanism that would encourage retreat or disengagement. I’d though about a “not under fire” bonus and might introduce it and see what happens, it certainly would make sense.

As for armour saves, my “need” to introduce more granularity is all the fault of Heroics and Ros. I was using one of their T55As and one of their T55am2s in a PA game and wanted to have a way of making the latter tougher.

I will have to get round to posting photos via a Flickr account or somesuch, even if my painting skills are naff compared to yours – I move at glacial speed, but I do move.

[Angel Barracks]

I am sure they will be lovely jubbly!
I will be ready!

😀

For tougher tanks, how about they ignore the first roll on the damage chart in each game?
First hit is free!

[Rules Junkie Jim]

Angel Barracks wrote:

I am sure they will be lovely jubbly!

As in look like they’ve been painted by Derek Trotter? More like Uncle Albert, I’m afraid!

Angel Barracks wrote:

First hit is free!

Actually, that sounds like a good way to deal with reactive armour…

[Author]

Posts