Special thanks

Thank you so much, Daniel, for inspiring me to create my own game. I hope readers will also
check out Tactical Reload!

Thanks to the team at Western Tabletop, to Gorcin & Tyler.

Thanks to David & Mark for bringing me along the journey with VC on the Trail.

Thanks to Tabletopbattle & Baueda Wargames for introducing me to indie tabletop gaming.

Thanks to Nick, Lewis, David and Russ for helping develop the game.

Special thanks to J-Dawg.

Thanks to the retro fps video games of my childhood.

Finally, I want to thank you for taking the time to check out my very first game. Your
support and feedback mean the world to me, and I hope you’ll enjoy playing it as
much as I enjoyed creating it.

Jacob @WesternTabletop

Version 1.04 - 30/11/2023 - Page 2

 At a glance
Tabletop skirmish miniatures game emulating the theme and frantic combat of Classic FPS
arena deathmatch video games.

Up to four players. One unique character miniature per player, a deck of playing cards, tokens, terrain,
character sheet and many D6 dice!

Board Setup

● Place 6 numbered spawn points, weapon pickups, and terrain.

● Assign each player a card suit ♥ ♦ ♠ ♣, remove jokers, and shuffle cards.
● Roll for location and spawn character at the numbered point. Re-roll if contested.

Character Activation

● Draw a card matching your suit ♥ ♦ ♠ ♣ to activate your character.

● Activation allows one Action & Move equal to the card's value in inches.
● Actions: Attack, Jump (cross gaps, impassable terrain, ascend structures within Move
value), or Bunnyhop (Additional Move at half card value).
● Drawing Jack/Queen/King/Ace triggers a Powerup. Powerup buffs the character only.
Character does not perform an Actions.
● Jack: +2 Armour, Queen: +3 Armour, King: +3 HP, Ace: 4x damage next activation.

Combat

● Attack Select a weapon, measure distance to target within line of sight and roll attack dice
on the Character Sheet.
○ Rolls: 1, 2, 3 = fail, 4, 5 = hit once, 6 = critical hit, 2 damage . Remove spent ammo.
● Defend Check distance from the shooter. If you're within 6 inches, roll 1 defence die; between
6 and 12 inches, roll 2 dice; and over 12 inches, roll 3 dice. Additionally, if your character is in
any form of cover, add one extra defence die.
○ Rolls: 1, 2, 3 = fail, 4, 5 = block one damage result, 6 = block crits first, or 1 damage.

Game Progression

● Draw the next card and activate the next character.

● Pick up items by moving into base-to-base contact with item tokens. Add 3 ammo per token to
the Character Sheet on pickup. Token stays on board and cannot be consumed by the same
character until that character respawns.
● Dead Characters playing cards are shuffled back into the deck. Drop ammo at the characters
corpse and roll for respawn immediately.
● When out of activation cards, shuffle them back into the deck.

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 What do you need

● A deck of playing cards (without jokers)

● 4 character miniatures or tokens.
● Lots of D6 dice per player (for health, armour, ammo tracking, spawns, attacking, and
defending).
● Terrain (2D, 3D, whiteboard, etc.)
● Tokens for ammo types and spawns (print out included at the back).
○ 6 spawn points, marked 1 to 6.
○ 4 Shotgun ammo tokens
○ 3 Machinegun ammo tokens
○ 2 Rocket ammo tokens
○ 1 Plasma ammo tokens

Game board

● Place 6 spawn points labelled 1 to 6 on the 2x2 game board, roughly 12" apart.
● Scatter weapon tokens across the board, emphasising visibility and lack of cover.

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 Character sheet

Players spawn and respawn with Health D6 at 3 pips. Armour D6 at 1 pip. Shotgun D6 at
3 pips. Rest of the items are set to zero.

● Players can only hold a maximum of 6 pips of ammo per weapon.

● Reduce pips on Health, Armour, Ammo as you take damage and spend ammo.
● All items and ammo are lost on death. Place ammo counters on corpse. Respawn
and reset character sheet to starting pips. Shuffle playing cards back into playing
deck.

Note: I’ve used dice here to represent health and ammo. Feel free to replace this with
tokens or even a pen and paper for quick tracking!

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 Activation
● Draw a playing card from the deck and activate the character according to the
player’s suit ♥ ♦ ♠ ♣.
● If the card result is between 1-10, the player can move their character up to the card
value (in inches) and take an action in any order they wish.
● Powerups: Character does not Activate (No Move, no Action)
○ Jack Add two armor pips to suit’s ♥ ♦ ♠ ♣’s character sheet.
○ Queen Add three armor pips to suit’s ♥ ♦ ♠ ♣’s character sheet.
○ King Add three health pips to suit’s ♥ ♦♠ ♣’s character sheet.
○ Ace 4x Damage: For your next activation only, times your amount of your
attack dice by four for an attack.
● If you have played all possible activation cards in your suit, reshuffle your played
cards back into the playing deck.

Move

● Measure and move character miniature up to card value in inches.

● You can choose to take an action and then move, or move and then take an action.
● You can move some of the total move value, take an action, and then move up to
the remaining value.
● Characters can move across small pieces of chest-height cover, small 1" gaps, up
and down ladders, stairs, and similar terrain features.
● Impassable terrain features cannot be moved through directly, including tall building
walls, lakes of lava and slime, large voids, and high pieces of cover.

Items

● Characters can pick up items while moving by moving through item tokens. Each
pickup adds 3 ammo pips to the character sheet.
● Specific item tokens can only be picked up once per character per spawn.
○ For example, if a character has already consumed Machine Gun item token 1
this spawn, they can proceed to move through Machinegun token 2, 3, or 4
and add ammo pips to their character sheet.
● When a character is killed, they drop all ammo they were holding. Any player who
comes into base-to-base contact with the player’s corpse can collect the ammo,
which is instantly added to their character’s dashboard and removed from the table.
● The maximum ammo is 6 pips on a D6.

Actions

● Bunnyhop character can move again at half the played cards value.
● Attack opponent with an equipped weapon within line of sight.
● Jump within move value, no longer than 5". Includes scaling up or down terrain,
across larger gaps and voids.

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 Attack
Targeting

● To Attack an opponent, your character must be able to draw a straight line to the
opponent.
○ If the target character is unobscured, the target is considered out of cover.
○ If the target character is particularly obscured, the target is in cover.
○ If the target character is out of line of sight, the target cannot be targeted.
● If your character is in base-to-base contact with an opponent, you can opt to attack
with melee using 3 attack dice and not consume ammo.

Attack

● Select a weapon you have ammo for and remove ammo pips for attack.
● Roll that weapon’s corresponding attack dice.
● Rolls of 1, 2, and 3 fail and do not hit the target.
● Rolls of 4 and 5 are a success (one damage). A roll of 6 is critical (counts as two
damage).

Defend

Range Defence dice

Short up to 6” 1 defence dice

Medium 6-12” 2 defence dice

Long 12”+ 3 defence dice

If defender is obstructed by Add 1 defence dice.

terrain and in line of sight

● Calculate defence dice. Defender rolls defence dice.

● Rolls of 1, 2, and 3 fail. Defender takes damage. Remove armour pips first, then
health points.
● Rolls of 4 & 5 are a success and discard one damage. Roll of 6 discards Critical
damage result first, then regular damage.
● A character is killed by an attack that exceeds their health point value.
● When a character is killed, shuffle their activated cards back into the playing deck.
The character immediately rolls for a spawn point, rerolling contested spawns before
the next card is drawn.
● When a character is killed, they drop all ammo they were holding. Any character who
comes into base-to-base contact with this corpse can collect the ammo, which is
instantly added to their character’s dashboard and removed from the table.

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 Gametypes

FFA Deathmatch

● First character to 5 kills.

Team Deathmatch

● Colours together: ♥ Heart ♦ Diamonds Team Red ♠ Clubs ♣ Spades Team Black.
● First team to 10 kills.

One flag CTF

● Colours together: ♥ Heart ♦ Diamonds Team Red ♠ Clubs ♣ Spades Team Black.
● Split board in half. All players roll, combine each team’s results into a total. Highest
selects table half and sets up spawn points 1, 2, and 3 in their table half. Opponent’s
team sets up spawn points 4, 5, and 6 in their table half. Add flag capture point in
direct table center edge for both team’s table half.
● Team can only spawn in their spawn locations. Select which spawn, no roll required.
● Place flag marker in direct center of board.
● Characters can pick up the flag if their move comes into base contact with the flag.
Reduce move for flag carrier by 1".
● Drop flag on death. Anyone can pick it up.
● Capture the flag by moving to your team’s capture point to score. Best of three.

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Rocket Arena

● Remove Jack, Queen, King, and Ace from the playing card deck.
● Remove item pickup.
● Colours together: ♥ Heart ♦ Diamonds Team Red ♠ Clubs ♣ Spades Team Black.
● Split board into quarters. All players roll, combine each team’s results into a total.
Highest selects table quarter and sets up spawn points 1, 2, and 3 in their table
quarter. Opponent sets up spawn points 4, 5, and 6 in their table quarter, directly
opposite the winning side team.
● Team can only spawn in spawn locations in their table quarter. Select spawn, no roll
required.
● Losing roll side team deploys first miniature on chosen spawn point in their quarter,
then winning team, back and forth until complete.
● Player spawns with all weapons with 6 pips of ammo, 4 pips of armor, and 6 pips of
health.
● Game is set up into rounds. One life per player per round. Best of 3 rounds.
● Winner of each round is the team with a character alive with 1 pip of health left.

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 Gameplay mods
Secondary objectives

● Double kill, scoring two consecutive kills without dying +1VP

● Multi kill, scoring three consecutive kills without dying +1VP
● Humiliation, killing an opponent with melee +1VP

Instagib

● Remove item pickup.

● Remove powerup cards.
● Remove melee.
● Replace shotgun with Instagib rail gun, with infinite ammo.
● Change all characters to 1HP pip

Instagib rail gun profile

Weapon Range Attack Dice Defence Dice

Short up to 6” 1 3

Medium 6-12” 1 2

Long 12”+ 1 1

Deathmatch of Glory

● Split playing deck into each suit and hand suit deck to each player.
● Each player draws one card from their own deck - simultaneously.
○ Keep draw secret.
○ Decide your intended movement position
○ Simultaneously declare and reveal your card with your movement position.
■ W (Mostly Forward).
■ S (Mostly Backward).
■ A (Mostly Left).
■ D (Mostly Right).
○ All characters must Move at the same time, to their entire movement value.
○ All characters must take their Action at the same time, resolve one by one,
and only apply unsaved damage after all Actions are complete.

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 Changelog
Update 1.04 (30/11/23)

● Itch.io release
● Cleanup on Character Sheet Diagram with examples.

Update 1.03 (29/11/23)

● Updated at a glance section to include defence dice ranges, powerups.

● Character sheet now matches print outs.
● Completely overhauled At a Glance to include concise quick reference material.
● 2D printable tokens for ammo & spawn.
● 2D printable tokens for miniatures.
● Language pass across all rules.

Update 1.02 (27/11/23)

● Added To Do & Changelog.

● Nerfed Melee now 3 attack dice, better than shotgun, worse than machine gun.
● Nerfed Rocket splash from 5” to 3”
● Changed FFA to best of 5, from 6.
● Colourized weapon ammo on Character Sheet
● Pip diagram on Character Sheet
● Add Melee on Character Sheet
● Suit, Objective & Character Name on Character Sheet
● Cover added red colouring to ♥ ♦

To do
Itch.io

● Better screenshots.
● Better front page description.

Addons

● Resize printable addons to 28mm.

● 2D printable tiles
● 3D STL on 4 character miniatures.
● Bots/AI rules

Future

● Campaign supplement. Solo play a singeplayer level with demons/enemies.

○ Perhaps split deck into player (red) AI opponents (black) for activation
○ Design enemies & AI
○ Design objectives for singleplayer level, keys, switches, exit etc.

Version 1.04 - 30/11/2023 - Page 11

 Suit ♥ Objective _____ Character __________

Health Armour Shotgun Melee Machinegun Rocket Plasma

Spawn with 3 Spawn with 1 Spawn with 3 No ammo Do not spawn Do not spawn Do not spawn
pip pip pip needed with ammo with ammo with ammo

AMMO COST PER SHOT 1 Ammo No ammo 2 Ammo pips 1 Ammo pip 3 Ammo pips
needed

ATTACK DICE PER SHOT Roll 2 Dice Roll 3 Dice Roll 4 Dice Roll 4 Dice Roll 6 Dice
Must be base Roll 1 Dice for
to base contact each character
3” of target

Suit ♦ Objective _____ Character __________

Health Armour Shotgun Melee Machinegun Rocket Plasma

Spawn with 3 Spawn with 1 Spawn with 3 No ammo Do not spawn Do not spawn Do not spawn
pip pip pip needed with ammo with ammo with ammo

AMMO COST PER SHOT 1 Ammo No ammo 2 Ammo pips 1 Ammo pip 3 Ammo pips
needed

ATTACK DICE PER SHOT Roll 2 Dice Roll 3 Dice Roll 4 Dice Roll 4 Dice Roll 6 Dice
Must be base Roll 1 Dice for
to base contact each character
3” of target

Version 1.04 - 30/11/2023 - Page 12

 Suit ♠ Objective _____
Character __________

Health Armour Shotgun Melee Machinegun Rocket Plasma

Spawn with 3 Spawn with 1 Spawn with 3 No ammo Do not spawn Do not spawn Do not spawn
pip pip pip needed with ammo with ammo with ammo

AMMO COST PER SHOT 1 Ammo No ammo 2 Ammo pips 1 Ammo pip 3 Ammo pips
needed

ATTACK DICE PER SHOT Roll 2 Dice Roll 3 Dice Roll 4 Dice Roll 4 Dice Roll 6 Dice
Must be base Roll 1 Dice for
to base contact each character
3” of target

Suit ♣ Objective _____ Character __________

Health Armour Shotgun Melee Machinegun Rocket Plasma

Spawn with 3 Spawn with 1 Spawn with 3 No ammo Do not spawn Do not spawn Do not spawn
pip pip pip needed with ammo with ammo with ammo

AMMO COST PER SHOT 1 Ammo No ammo 2 Ammo pips 1 Ammo pip 3 Ammo pips
needed

ATTACK DICE PER SHOT Roll 2 Dice Roll 3 Dice Roll 4 Dice Roll 4 Dice Roll 6 Dice
Must be base Roll 1 Dice for
to base contact each character
3” of target

Version 1.04 - 30/11/2023 - Page 13

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