Welcome back to the secret war for humanity! Today we'll be covering a some of the core concepts of the game and a little more of the secret history of the setting. For those new to the hobby of miniature wargames, some of this will be a little bland, but stick with it and we'll be back to the fun nonsense before the bottom of the page.
Force S5 - Core Game Concepts
Miniatures Agnostic
There are no official miniatures for Force S5, you can use whatever you have to hand or build a team specially from models that take your fancy.
Dice
To play Force S5, you will need a couple of D20 dice sets (ones that include seven different dice for roleplaying games) per player and one extra D6 (six-sided die) for each member of a player's Team, with each player using a different colour of die. You will often need to roll a "D3", which is most easily achieved by rolling a D6 and count a result of 1-2 as "1", 3-4 as "2" and 5-6 as "3".
Measurement
Distances and ranges in Force S5 are made in Inches and denoted like X". Players can measure distances at any time and all distances between models are measured from edge of base to edge of base.
Dice Shifting
The mechanic of "shifting" dice is central to Force S5. For the purposes of the game, the hierarchy of dice is as follows: D3-D4-D6-D8-D10-D12-D20. A die can be shifted up (D4 to D6) and down (D12 to D10), though cannot be shifted higher than a D20. Should a die be shifted down from D3, it counts as 0, which has an important game function to be discussed later.
Activation
Force S5 does not proceed in turns where one player goes, then another, instead, one D6 per member of each Team (make sure to use different colours for each player) is placed inside an opaque bag or container and are pulled to determine play order. At the start of a turn, remove a die at random from the container, the player whose die it is rolls it as a D3, then nominates a model on their Team to take that many Actions (1-3). When the nominated model has completed their Actions, another die is pulled and the process repeated until every model on the table has Activated. Unless otherwise stated, each model may only be Activated once per turn.
Play Area and Terrain
Force S5 is intended to be played on an area no larger than 3'x3', though is best on a 2'x'2, as this speeds play. For longer games, or to include more than two players, try using larger tables. Force S5 also works well on Space Hulk or similar board sections to represent corridors or tunnels.
Success Threshold
When rolling dice in Force S5, players are looking to roll results of four and above (denoted as 4+), regardless of the size of the die. This means that a D4 has less chance of rolling a "Success" than a D20, and means that a D3 can never roll a Success.
Ok, that's enough of that for now, time for some story.
Alright, so when I was telling you that everything kicked off with the Philadelphia Experiment, that wasn't entirely true. Some species we consider to be 'alien' have been here a lot longer than that. The Reptilians for example, have been here actually longer than humans. Whilst we think of the Reptilians (aka Reptoids) as aliens, they're actually from Earth, and they're not Reptiles, they're dinosaurs. Well, they're what some dinosaurs evolved into after moving into underground caverns to survive. Some of the other stuff you may have heard about them is also true, at least in so far as they want to seize control of the surface again, masquerade as humans and enjoying drinking human blood, but that's more details for later. What's important now is that once humans started industrialising, the Reptilians really started messing with us, using manipulation and bribery to have us adopt a system they had devised to eventually have us destroy our civilisation. They called this nonsensical and destructive system "Capitalism" and sadly the plan worked and we adopted it like fools. Due to their long lives, the Reptilians are now watching their plan enter the end stages and are getting more bold about taking direct action.
And the Reptilians aren't the only "Cryptid" that's running around the planet as well. Wood Apes, aka Yeti, Sasquatch, Big Feet etc, are endemic to many heavily forested areas of the planet, keeping themselves hidden with their psychic trickery. Those poor bastards trying to hunt bigfoot for their low-budget documentary? Well they probably met one, had their minds blown, then erased. Why else would they keep going out to get zero evidence? As a species, the Wood Apes aren't truly friendly or hostile, but prefer to be left alone and work their own agendas. They will work with other groups when they feel like it, but you're never going to see a phalanx of armed Yeti marching down the California highway. There are others out there too, from epic threats like Mothman through to the more sinister Shadow People and Black Eyed Kids. What I'm saying is it's dangerous out there, so learn everything you can about these things before you try picking up a weapon and going into the darkness like some righteous avenger...
That's it for now, next time, a little more of both!
