So–we’ve had multiple requests to peek at Sinew’s rules. This is a sample of the first 14-16 pages. There are another 10-12 after this, followed by the complete Red/Blue orders of battle, summaries of unit capabilities, etc. Some of those components will get changed to charts/player aids.
We will post art/images once those are underway (obviously, we made sure the cover is good-to-go so we could take reservations)
THE BASICS
At the beginning of the game, the Red Team (representing
the country of Marada) conducted an attack from its
southwestern borders into Celtia, its neighboring country.
Celtia, with no military to defend itself, has requested
military assistance from Natoa (represented by the Blue
Team). Natoa has agreed to aid Celtia and will deploy a
theater army via air and sea to defend and restore Celtia’s
sovereign territory.
THE CHALLENGE
As you play, you’ll come to the realization that sustainment of your army is the key to
achieving victory.
For the Red Team, your army will move across the hostile country of Celtia. Your armies will
encounter hostile and unfamiliar territory as they navigate difficult terrain such as woods,
mountains, and rivers. The towns along your path are essential to victory since they will provide
essential supplies when captured.
For the Blue Team, your army will deploy a theater army via air and sea into an embattled
country. You have limited options for getting your army into the country, so your deployment will
be slow and tedious. You will encounter difficult terrain that hinders movement such as woods,
mountains, and rivers. The towns along your path will welcome you as liberators and provide
much-needed supplies.
Both armies will learn to prioritize their supply chain as they march across the battlefield.
Without much-needed supplies such as food, ammo, and fuel, they will lose momentum and
grind to a halt.
THE OBJECT
If you are the Red Team, you must capture the city of Tassle to win the game. If the Blue
Team controls Tassle and all Celtia’s towns for two consecutive turns, Blue Team wins.
Note: Capturing the city of Tassle includes the following 4 hexes: 2-2, 3-2, 3-3, and 4-2.
If you are the Blue Team, you must liberate all Celtia towns on the map. You must protect
the coastal city of Tassle
Order of Play:
1. Blue
2. Red
Players should move all their respective pieces to their side of the board prior to setup
and place them with the player’s unit cards. The unit cards (page 39) will serve as each
team’s home territory and will be placed off the map during gameplay.
1. Natoa is on the western side.
2. Marada is on the eastern side.
Blue Set Up: Blue starts with a Mission Control Center (MCC) in the Theater Asset Chart
(Figure 1).
Red Set Up:
UNIT
1-99 IN BDE (AB) Map Hex 24-22
2-99 IN BDE (AB) Map Hex 23-16
3-99 IN BDE (AB) Map Hex 20-4
Mission Control Center (MCC)
NOTE: The following has a series of graphics showing these steps to make learning easier.
Prior to deployment into Celtia, players must stage their units. Staging a
unit simulates all the training, preparation, and other critical activities a unit
must do prior to leaving its home country. Figure 4 shows the 5th Armor
Division is fully staged and ready to deploy. At the start of the game, every
unit not identified as deployed (or on the map) during setup will be staged.
During deployment, a unit moves from the unit card to a
SPOD, APOD, MSR-EP, or JLOTS and follows phase
6: Deployment Operations (Time Phased Force
Deployment (TPFD)) described in Chapter 2. Figure 5
shows the 5th Armored Division deploying its HQ and its
52nd Armor Brigade to SPOD1 and SPOD 2.
When a unit moves from Onward Movement, it will
deploy into the appropriate hex on the board as seen in
Figure 6. The 5th Armored Division HQ and its 52nd
Armor Brigade have arrived at SPOD1 and SPOD2.
Once a unit has entered the theater (the map area) the
player can place its sustainment and personnel status
on the corresponding card. The following colors
represent sustainment:
A. Yellow – Ammo
B. Brown – Food
C. Black – Oil/Fuel
Personnel status is represented by a white cube and slides along the tracker based on a unit’s
strength.
A player that controls a point of
debarkation (SPOD, APOD, or MSR
EP) may use it as a node for resupply
operations. Figure 7 shows SPOD 1
and SPOD 2 ready to resupply units
with ammo (1), food (4) and fuel (3). A
player must replenish the sustainment
nodes at the end of phase 3
(Sustainment Operations).
During the resupply phase, the Division HQ can provide food and fuel to
the armor brigade. The division sustainment brigade, since it is within
two spaces of SPOD 1, can be resupplied with food and fuel.
Note: SPODs, APODs, MRS-EP, JLOTS, IPDS, AD, and the city and
towns can be resupplied at no cost at the end of phase 3 (Sustainment
Operations). The player chooses the type of sustainment resupplied in
each node if it meets requirements per Sustainment Operations: Special
Resupply.
The unit cards also track the strength of a unit. Every unit has four levels of strength:
1. Fully capable
2. Capable (-1 to all attack and defense rolls)
3. Non-mission capable (-2 to all attack and defense rolls)
4. Destroyed (returned to unit card)
The four examples below (Figure 10 a-d) illustrate a Marada armor brigade attacking a Natoa
mechanized infantry brigade on three consecutive turns. For this example, both brigades
receive full resupply of ammo, food, and fuel between rounds. As the Marada armor brigade
attacked, it pushed the Natoa brigade back one spot with each win. After losing for the third
time, the Natoa brigade is destroyed and returned to its unit card (Figure 10d). Once a unit is
destroyed, it must enter the TPFD process again.
THE TURN
Each round consists of Six phases:
Phase 1: Planning
Phase 2: Movement and Combat Operations
Phase 3: Sustainment Operations
Phase 4: Personnel Replacement and Maintenance Operations
Phase 5: Out of Theater Replacements
Phase 6: Deployment Operations (Time Phased Force Deployment (TPFD))
● The turn order for phases 2 – 6: (1) Natoa (2) Marada
● After Marada finishes phase 6, there will be a victory check.
PHASE 1 – PLANNING
During this game, teams will have ten minutes to plan not only their combat operations but also
the sustainment of their forces. During this planning time, it is imperative that players identify
key terrain and ensure that sustainment locations are providing appropriate coverage to their
supported units.
Planning considerations:
1. Movement: Each unit has a movement (or “Move”) factor as indicated in Table 1 (Unit
Stats) below. This is the maximum
number of hexes per turn a unit may
move. You may move up to all your
units in a single turn but are not required
to. Units may move in any direction if it
is within their capabilities. Movement
factors cannot be saved from one turn to
the next. Units must move individually,
not as a group. Movement across
various terrain adds or subtracts from a
unit’s allowed movement per turn.
Note: There is no stacking of units on the same hex.
2. Combat: Each unit has an attack and defense factor as indicated in Table 1 (Unit Stats).
Battle will commence when opposing forces attempt to share the same hex or when
announced during a turn. A unit must be adjacent to the enemy to initiate combat.
3. Sustainment: Throughout the game each team will conduct sustainment operations that
include resupplying food, ammo, and fuel. Sustainment also includes sending wounded forces
to hospitals, repairing vehicles, and deploying forces into the theater.
Note: The game references the term Sight (Table 1) that indicates the visibility of a particular
unit to see an adversary. In most instances, the sight of the unit will not have an impact on the
game. See Alternate Rules (Games played in the blind) that showcase a unit’s sight.
PHASE 2 – Movement/Combat Ops
1. Movement: In the game, players will encounter
seven types of terrain that change the unit
movement stats. Table 2 (Unit Movement Modifiers)
shows how terrain affects the movement.
a. The city and towns will hamper the
movement of all vehicles. Note: Sustainment units
(not shown) fall under the same category as Mech
Infantry for movement through the city or towns.
b. Mountains are impassable by all vehicles,
including sustainment units.
c. Infantry can move unhindered in woods, clearings, and on a beach hex.
d. The beach will hamper the movement of all vehicles. Note: Sustainment units (not
shown) fall under the same category as Mech Infantry for movement on a beach hex.
e. All roads will provide a bonus to movement. Note: Sustainment units (not shown) fall
under the same category as Mech Infantry for movement over a road.
f.
Table 2: Unit Movement Modifiers
Infantry can conduct air assault or airborne operations to cross a river. All other units
must use a bridge to navigate across a river.
g. Airborne Infantry may redeploy out of theater or conduct airborne operations if on an
airport hex.
Airborne Deployment
Each nation has Airborne Infantry brigades that can attempt a
contested deployment anywhere on the map. Successful landing
will be determined by identifying the highest level of contested
airspace using Table 4: Unit Air Coverage, rolling two 6-sided dice,
and comparing the result to the appropriate row (identified using
Table 3) on Table 4: Airborne Success Matrix.
Note 1: An airborne unit rolls only one time to land, and it is against the highest level of
contested airspace. A failed landing in a brigade zone that pushes the Airborne brigade into
another zone does not require an additional roll.
Note 2: The dice roll is the number indicated in the matrix and higher (e.g., a contested
landing in a brigade area requires a total of 4 or higher for a full success).
1. Full Success: Airborne Infantry at full
strength and in a targeted location.
2. Success: The Airborne Infantry loses one
level of personnel status and must land in
the empty hex nearest the targeted
location (attacker’s choice).
Table 4: Airborne Success Matrix
3. Failure: Airborne Infantry loses two levels
of personnel status and must land in the empty hex nearest the targeted location
(attacker’s choice).
4. Catastrophic Failure: Airborne Infantry is destroyed and must be taken off board.
5. Returned to Base: The Airborne Infantry had a mechanical, weather, or other issue that
required it to abort the mission. It may be relocated to any airbase controlled by the
same team or be returned off board to its division card.
Air Assault Operations
Each nation has Air Assault (AA) Infantry brigades that can attempt a
contested air assault deployment anywhere on the map if it is within
range of its division HQ/DSB (identified by a helicopter in one corner
of the unit card). The range of an AA brigade is 18 hexes (round trip)
and may not go over mountain hexes. AA missions must go around
mountains. A division may deploy only one brigade per turn.
However, a separate AA brigade may be redeployed during that same
turn.
Successful landing will be determined by
identifying the highest level of contested
airspace using Table 5, rolling 2 x 6-sided
dice, and comparing it to the Air Assault
Success Matrix in Table 6.
The starting location for all AA movements is
the Division HQ/ DSB (the Marada and Natoa
8th Division DSBs) and all AA movement and
range calculations begin at this location.
Figure 12 shows the starting location for an AA
mission from hex.
Table 6: Air Assault Success Matrix
Note 1: An AA unit rolls only one time to land, and it is rolled against the highest level of
contested airspace. A failed landing in a contested zone that pushes the AA Infantry into
another zone does not require an additional roll.
Note 2: The dice roll is the number indicated in the matrix and higher (e.g. a contested landing
in a brigade area requires a 3 or higher for full success).
1. Full Success: Air Assault Infantry lands at full strength and in the targeted location.
2. Success: Air Assault Infantry loses one level of personnel status and must land in the
empty hex nearest the targeted location (attacker’s choice).
3. Failure: Air Assault Infantry loses two levels of personnel status and must land in the
empty hex nearest the targeted location (attacker’s choice).
4. Catastrophic Failure: Air Assault Infantry destroyed and must be taken off the board.
5. Returned to Base: The AA Infantry had a mechanical, weather, or other issue that
required it to abort the mission. It must return to its HQ area.
The Air Assault HQ may provide deployment of only one brigade at a time. After deploying an
Air Assault brigade, it may provide sustainment to any combat brigade within 2 hexes of the HQ.
Combat Operations: Combat is a key part of SoW
and pits the forces of Marada against the forces of
Natoa to drive sustainment actions. Each nation’s
military has advantages and disadvantages that could
sway the outcome.
The military units in the game are Infantry (IN),
Mechanized Infantry (Mech IN), Armor (AR), Division
Support Brigade (DSB), Corps Service Support Battalion
(CSSB), and Sustainment Brigade.
* Each army has Airborne Infantry and Air Assault Infantry
which use specialized movement for combat and non-combat
operation.
Figure 15: Illustrated moves/combat
Infantry Brigade Defense Bonus: Infantry brigades can support any unit in defense
(combat or sustainment) in an adjacent hex. The max modifier is +6 to defense (two supporting
infantry brigades).
In figure 16, two Marada Armor brigades are attacking
the Natoa Infantry brigade. The Marada Armor
brigades are attacking at 10 (two Armor brigades with
an attack of 5 each). The Infantry at hex 21-5 defends
at three but has two Infantry brigades in adjacent hexes
that are coming to its aid. The total defense in this
attack will be a 9 (3 from the unit being attacked + 3
from each of the two adjacent friendly units = 9).
Figure 16: Infantry defense bonus
At the end of the attack, regardless of the result, all units will expend ammo and food. If the
defending Infantry brigade loses, it will lose 1 personnel status and must retreat to an adjacent
empty hex closer to its nation’s edge of the board.
During the combat phase, the player identifies all combat moves within their turn (see Figure
11). A player may initiate more than one combat operation per turn, but each unit may only
participate in one attack.
Step 1: Identify your combat operation: Blue infantry in grid 13-16 attacks red infantry in 14-15.
Attack
Defense
Step 2: Identify your combat modifiers (see Table 3:
Combat Modifiers). There are seven possible combat
modifiers in the game: Corps Support, Theater Support,
City/Town, Mountains, Woods, Clearing, and Beach.
These modifiers can aid in attacks or defense.
Step 3: Calculate attack differential
Figure 12 example:
a. Blue Infantry Attack = 3 + 1 bonus for attacking in a
clearing
b. Red Infantry has Defense = 3
c. Attack Differential = +1
Step 4: Attacker rolls two 6-sided dice and
adds the Attack differential (Step 3c).
Step 5: If the result is:
Figure 12: Illustrated moves/combat
Step 4: Attacker rolls two 6-sided dice and
adds the Attack differential (Step 3c).
a. Less Than 2: The attacking unit is defeated, removed from the board, and placed into
the reorganization queue. (See Phase 4: Personnel Replacement and Maintenance
Operations)
b. 2-4: The attacking unit is defeated and must retreat one hex away from the defending
unit.
c. 5-9: Neither the attacker nor the defender wins. Both units remain in the locations where
they started the combat.
d. 10-12: The attacker wins, and the defending unit must retreat 1 hex away from the
attacking unit.
Note: If a unit cannot be displaced, it is destroyed and removed from the board.
PHASE 3 – Sustainment OPS
A large part of this game revolves around a player’s ability to maintain momentum with the
largest amount of combat force forward as possible. In this game, players will need to resupply
and reorganize their armies at the end of each round.
Components of Resupply:
1. Fuel/ Oil (O): Fuel is used by both Armor and Mechanized Infantry brigades to move.
Without fuel/oil, they will be unable to conduct movement.
2. Ammunition (A): Ammunition is used by all combat brigades. If a brigade runs out of
ammunition, it will be unable to attack or defend. If a brigade with no ammunition is attacked, it
loses one level of personnel, and the attack resolves as if the combat result = 12 (attacker
wins).
3. Food (F): Brigades require food, or they will lose one level of personnel strength.
4. Personnel (P): Each brigade has four levels of personnel.
a. Level 1: Full strength
b. Level 2: Moderately depleted (-1 to attack and defense)
c. Level 3: Depleted (-2 to attack and defense)
d. Level 4: Unit defeated (see Phase 4: Personnel Replacement and Maintenance
Operations)
Levels of Resupply:
1. Combat Brigades: Each combat brigade has a maximum level of supplies that it can
carry.
a. Armor and Mechanized Infantry brigade: three supply nodes (O, A, F).
b. Infantry brigade: two supply nodes (A, F).
c. The supply nodes represent brigade internal supply capabilities.
2. Division: There are three or four brigades in each division. The divisions can be Armor,
Mechanized Infantry, Infantry, Airborne Infantry, or Air Assault Infantry. Each division has one
Divisional Sustainment Battalion (DSB). The DSB also serves as the headquarters for the
division. The DSB has four slots for resupply and can carry any combination of fuel/oil,
ammunition, food, or personnel replacements.
3. Corps: There are three to four divisions in each corps. The corps can be a mixture of
Armor, Mechanized Infantry, Infantry, Airborne Infantry, or Air Assault Infantry divisions. Each
corps has one Sustainment Brigade (SBDE) and multiple Combat Sustainment Support
Battalions (CSSB). The SBDE has eight slots for resupply and can carry any combination of
fuel/oil, ammunition, food, or personnel replacements. The CSSB has six slots for resupply and
can carry any combination of fuel, ammunition, food, or personnel replacements.
4. Theater: There are three corps in the theater army. Each player will have a different
number of theater-level supply units based on national interest. The theater will have one
Sustainment Brigade (SBDE) and multiple Combat Sustainment Support Battalions (CSSB).
Special Resupply:
The theater and corps sustainment brigades have additional resupply capabilities.
1. Aerial Delivery: Natoa, once per round, may deliver supplies using its aerial delivery
system (ADS). The ADS can be delivered to a Natoa unit anywhere on the map. The ADS has
two slots for resupply and can carry any combination of ammunition and food. ADS do not cost
the theater any supplies. Once used, it is placed off the board for resupply by an offshore aerial
supply unit.
There are limitations of ADS.
a. ADS cannot be delivered in an air defense zone.
b. ADS delivered to a unit with an adjacent combat brigade must make a contested
delivery. Contested rules are below:
1) One adjacent combat brigade: Roll a 4 or higher for success.
2) Two adjacent combat brigades: Roll a 6 or higher for success.
3) Three of more combat brigades: Roll an 8 or higher for success.
2. Inland Petroleum Distribution System (IPDS):
During the game, Natoa may deploy its
IPDS anywhere along the shoreline (on a non-mountain, non-city hex in column 2 or 3) to
supply its forces for fuel/oil. The fuel/oil is being pumped off naval vessels just off the map. The
IPDS has four slots for resupply of only fuel/oil. Only a DSB, CSSB, or SBDE may receive
fuel/oil from the IPDS, and it must be on an adjacent hex. Using the IPDS does not cost the
theater any supplies. Once used, it is automatically resupplied with more fuel/oil.
3. Seaport of Debarkation (SPOD): A SPOD may be used to bring in units and supplies
from overseas. Only one unit or theater asset can be processed through the SPOD.
Additionally, an SPOD can provide any combination of eight food, ammo, fuel, or personnel
replacement. The SPOD usage must be identified during the sustainment operations phase.
4. Aerial Port of Debarkation (APOD): An APOD may be used to bring in infantry
brigades and resupply of any combination of eight food, ammo or personnel replacement. The
APOD usage must be identified during the sustainment operations phase.
5. City/Town: The city and towns provide supplies to whomever controls them.
a. City – Any combination of eight food or fuel
b. Town – Any combination of four food or fuel
A DSB, CSSB, or SBDE may be resupplied by a city or town. Using a city/town does not cost
the theater any supplies.
6. Main Supply Routes – Entry Points (MSR-EP): The Marada Army enters the map
along three MSR-EP that are connected (off-map) to national-level logistics and sustainment
centers. Any unit (combat or supply) in the MSR-EP circles may be resupplied to its maximum
level. Only one unit or theater asset can be processed through the MSR-EP at a time, and it
can provide any combination of eight food, ammo, fuel, or personnel replacement. MRS-EP
usage must be identified during the sustainment operations phase.
Conducting resupply operations:
Note: For illustration purposes the units in the figures
display sustainment and personnel status.
Resupplying combat units on the board is not
automatic. Each player must choose which combat
units to resupply and to not resupply each turn.
A combat unit must be within two spaces of a DSB to
be resupplied. (Figure 13)
1. IN BDE 16-15 – 1 space
2. IN BDE 16-16 – 2 spaces
3. IN BDE 17-15 – 2 spaces
Or within four spaces to a CSSB. (Figure 14)