Here you are.
Comments welcome as always. Don’t worry about the expense of Forge Guard armour at the moment. I’ll explain why tomorrow.
New abilities to go with the above:
Big BOOM!
This works exactly the same way as BOOM! (see page 68 of the core rules) except that the effect of the explosion is a Massive Frag rather than merely a Frag.
Life Support
The model has an in-built automated Life Support system that does its best to keep them alive. If the model is injured, but not killed, by an attack then the Life Support automatically kicks into overdrive. The model is immediately returned to an undamaged state. This happens automatically and does not cost an action. This works once per battle.
Life Support cannot resurrect models that have been killed outright by a single attack. Also note that Life Support only works on the model itself and cannot be used on nearby models (unlike a medi-pack).
Operator
The Operator model can control models with the Remote ability.
When an Operator model is activated they must choose between taking actions as normal, or controlling one unactivated Remote from their own Strike Team. If they decide to control a Remote then the Operator does not move. Instead, their activation is transferred to the Remote which may take actions this Turn as if it was a normal model. The only limitation is that a Remote model cannot set Overwatch. If an Operator uses a Remote then both models are marked as activated.
An Operator may choose to control the same or different Remote models in each Turn.
Remote
The model cannot act without an Operator (see above).
A Remote is not counted as a model for purposes of working out how many activations a Strike Team has left.
Quirkworthy 
Hey Jake, here is my feedback after a quick read.
Brokkers: I was originally thinking I’d only really use forge guard in a FF force but I am really liking the rules for the brokker, they seem like really cool close range units and will definitely make it into my lists.(As a side note can knockback be a disadvantage at times? I.E. Don’t win the fight, shooty enemy is knockbacked it now has the opportunity to shoot me/run away?)
Operator: A neat/unique rule. Since an engineer/remote will be sharing an activation would it make sense for an operator to allow one remote to NOT take up a specialist slot?
Remotes: Both seem cool and unique, though the mining laser seems to be a much better deal than the boombot.
Forgeguard armor: Not really keen on the life support rule, I can see it being a bit fiddly to remember which models have used it. Also would it be thematic for these units to have slow?
Thanks for a very interesting read! Really looking forward to these guys.
Thanks Luke.
Knockback is a double-edged sword. It’s less of an issue once you get used to how it works and what that can do for you. It has hidden strengths in knocking people off tall things and out of cover 🙂
I’ve been considering whether this will be too restrictive on slots. So far my army builds look OK. It’s cost that’s the issue rather than points. FG are insanely hard to kill and cost a lot because of that. More on that tomorrow. I’m more concerned at present with people spamming too many bots than not having enough.
The mining laser is very shooty, but the Boombot makes a very big bang indeed. Not to be underestimated.
If you had 20 FG then it would be fiddly. As you won’t ever have lots I don’t think it’s a big issue. As I mentioned in response to the comment below, resource management is a very popular feature that I think works very well. The alternatives of making them armour 3, all really tough or making LS a dice roll are mostly too potent and, I would argue, not nearly as interesting to play.
I briefly considered giving the FG armoured models Slow, and that would make them cheaper. It’s still a possibility. However I’m not sure how playable they would be. What does anyone else think? This hasn’t been finally approved by Mantic yet either, so may get tweaked.
I think FG armoured models having Slow would be really characterful. And as you say if you dropped their points cost that could balance them out.
Giving them slow I think works well, if you imagine the weight of the armour he may have hydraulics to help him move which would potentially slow his movement. Sprinting in the size armour he would have would tire any1 after 2 cubes lol!
i´m with Davies, its not only characterful but also dropping their cost a bit would make them a bit more playable as right now there are going to be very few on the table relying more on the brokkr to do the job
The FG all have huge guns (as opposed to Plague 1st Gen), so it’ll be a heavy advance anyhow. Only thing is the FG with deliberate firing (ML) will likely be left out I guess. I’m concerned that with Slow, a game against Forge Fathers will revolve around not engaging the FG and pick off whatever else they have. Especially since lower cost lets FF bring more of them. If FG do not have slow, you kind of have… deal with them somehow, which might create a more fun game for both parts. That said, I haven’t played with 1st Gen yet, so I’ll be careful with having an opinion either way.
Knockback and Life Support are both super. Since you can choose where to knock, you’ll likely find advantageous positions to leave opponents in after a spanking.
If the FF player has taken a mix of Slow and normal models then it’s up to him to coordinate them, just as it is normally. getting the Strike Team to actually work as a team is a major part of being good at DZ.
I’m loving the concept of the Life Support systems, I’m just worried that it’ll end up a bit like ‘Running Interference’ with the Void Sirens in Dreadball. – Pretty much all my mates love the Void Sirens models, but end up using the Trontek 29’ers rules with Helder as the 2nd guard. Not because they think the VS rules are weak, they’re just not a fan of the book keeping tracking who hasn’t used ‘Running Interference’ yet.
That could just be us being weird and dull though. – Using the skills / team rosters never really took off to much.
On the other hand, maybe we just start using counters for it.
Most people I know enjoy resource management aspects of gaming, and this is more of that. Unfortunately, the downside of any resource management is that you need to somehow track whatever you’re managing. I’ve seen people do this by ticking boxes on on rosters or stat cards, adding counters when they’re used or taking them off when they’re gone or just remembering (though that’s not always reliable). Whether it’s tricky or not depends on how many you have to manage. If you only had one FG then that would be easy. If you had 4 then it would be less simple to remember, so using a roster might be the way to go. Whatever works for you.
The number of models in Deadzone who have Tough & Really Tough is getting a bit exhausting. The effectiveness of cards like Weak Spot & Headshot are greatly reduced by the this ability, not to mention weapons like missile launchers, which become oddly helpless against Really Tough models.
Tough is sort of a theme for FF, and I think I’d get some abuse if they didn’t have it. There are quite a few models with these skills overall, but then you’d expect nothing less for a range of elites. However, some forces don’t have it at all (Asterians, for example).
I’ve been looking at the high AP weapons and alternatives for them vs Tough, Really Tough and there was a recent suggestion that may be the basis for a workable development.
Good points. Under control 😉
Thanks, Jake. I don’t know if the answer is to pay 2 or 3 AP per level of Tough reduced or something else, but right now it seems too easy for significant models to shrug off the sight of a missile launcher or similar big gun.
Will the Hailstorm Forge Guard be troopers? From your introduction it sounds like the price will come down or be offset in some way – but if I get five of them in my starter I’d like to be able to put five of them on the table 🙂
Also the concept picture of the Forge Guard Missile Launcher has the weapon on his shoulder *and* a Hailstorm Rifle / Heat Hammer combo in his hands. It may be worth poking Mantic to check what will be on the model we receive given that concept art is subject to change (at the moment he doesn’t have a Hailstorm on his card).
I just noticed the Brokkr have Knockback. I anticipate hilarious chain bopping as enemy models are knocked from one cube to another – shuffled down a line until they are eliminated or miles away from where they started.
The starter contents I’ve got say 3 of them. KS deals will, probably, be different. Hailstorm FG are already Troopers.
I’ll check with the model for the missile guy.
I also like the idea of giving them slow to lower their points a bit. They would then be what you expect space dwarves to be: hard as nails and shooty as hell, but not speedy by any means.
If we take Kings of War as our baseline (and we should) the Speed difference between dwarves and humans is -20%. ‘Slow’ on the other hand represents a significant disadvantage in Deadzone, far greater than the difference between Speed 4 and Speed 5 in Kings of War.
DZ is based in the Warpath universe and doesn’t have to match KOW. In any case, marching about in blocks is a very different prospect to manoeuvring as individuals. You could easily argue that it’s not the race of the individual that dictates the movement of the block, but the difficulties in keeping dozens of individuals moving in time and keeping ranks. People in blocks have to move at a common speed (the slowest) – individuals don’t. If I suggest that there is more variation between humans than dwarfs then a 50% reduction in speed could be right (and DZ is less than that anyway). These creatures are, after all, made up 🙂
It’s an interesting starting point, but I don’t think it’s really relevant here.
Okay so I’ve confused you by typing the words “Kings of War”. Perhaps you feel ‘squads’ in Warpath suffer from the same limitations as ‘blocks’ in Kings of War but to be fair neither game uses Speed to represent stragglers, injuries or awkward unit shapes (eg one Ogre has a Speed of 6, six Ogres in a rectangle has a Speed of 6; a difference of 0% for marching together rather than moving as individuals).
I’ll put the comparison to Kings of War aside as I think it has led you down the wrong path.
Warpath: Humans, Orx, and *Brokkr* are Speed 5. The other Forgefather infantry are Speed 4. This difference is -20%. ‘Slow’ in Deadzone represents a significant disadvantage, far greater than the difference between Speed 4 and Speed 5 in Warpath.
To be fair your starting point is an established universe (Warpath and Dreadball) so whilst it’s true that these are ‘made up’ creatures I think we will be disappointed if common models perform in strikingly different ways between each of Mantic’s games.
When you designed the Forgefather team for Dreadball did you halve their functionality? Slow is too extreme for the flavour you are trying to capture.
Slow doesn’t halve their overall movement because the cards are an important part of that. There is also the issue of tactical movement styles and overall doctrine, which could make models that can physically move a certain way behave otherwise because of their training.
agree with Troy, dwarf are slow but not so much. probably there’s another way to
characterize them
Maybe no / few ‘Move’ cards in the battle deck would do it?
I like the idea of making the Forge Guard slow.
I feel like the phrasing “the Operator does not move” is slightly squiffy and the word “move” should be replaced with something else to make it clearer. (I’ll admit to being picky here and can’t, off the top of my head at 4am, come up with the exact word to replace it but I just think that could- by an unscrupulous gamer- be used to try and claim they can still shoot.)
A good point. Well worth being picky at this stage.
Changed to “does not act this Turn”, which I think is fairly clear.
I don’t like the idea of making the Forge Guard slow. movement in DZ are short and very important, slow to more than half the deck’s choice is a disadvantage too big.
after our first try on the FFs we just had 2 issues, 1 being tracking wich model had used its life suport (wich ended in a litle discusion as it was quite important at that point) the second one being the tenis game played by two brokkr using an enforcer as the ball… about 4 or 5 combats later the enforcer died of embarrassment
So Forge Guard Missile Launchers are blaze away capable? Like Mutant Chronicles fully automatic Southpaw Rocket Launchers? If so, this is awesome! Even the Autocannon has both options at this point.