Grimdark Future/Tactics

These are the general rules for Grimdark Future, One Page Rules' simplified and genericized edition of Warhammer 40,000.

Playing the Game

Grimdark Future is run via alternating activations, so one unit from your side is chosen to go, then the other side uses a unit and so on and so forth, with the first to go being a matter of who finishes first. Your actions are pretty much as follows. Absolutely everything in this game is dependent on d6, so you'll be needing tons of them in order to manage things.

• Hold: Stand and shoot
• Advance: Move up to 6" and shoot. Generally nothing is troubled by this unless they're Indirect.
• Rush: Move up to 12" but you can't shoot
• Charge: As above, but your unit is now in melee range.

Psychic Casting

Before attacking, a Psychic model can cast a single spell. To do so, they need to roll 1d6+the model's Psychic rating; if the roll exceeds the score listed on the spell, then it manifests.

An enemy psychic within 18" and LoS, however, can make the same test. If they exceed the value rolled for the test, the spell is blocked and cannot manifest.

Attacking

Unlike most wargames, Grimdark Future wraps up the morale, WS, and BS skills all in the Quality Stat. In regards to shooting and punching, you just need to roll equal to or over the quality listed in the model's statline in order to hit. The target then has to roll their Defense stat (adjusting for any AP the weapon has), with any roll better than or equal to the listed value negating the hit.

Melee has a second aspect to consider: combat resolution. After both sides of a combat make their moves, you need to evaluate the damage each side made. The winner is the one who obviously did the most damage and the loser needs to test for morale. However, if both sides dealt the same amount of damage, it's a draw and nobody tests morale.

• When you have a unit with multiple weapons, each weapon type (so all the assault rifles can hit one unit, while all the flamethrowers hit another one) can target another weapon.
• If you have a unit make the charge, the enemy unit can make a return strike. While this doesn't sound so good, note that if they haven't already attacked yet, then the attacks they make on their turn make all their attacks take a 6+ to hit. Do beware that this counter-charge isn't mandatory, so they can wait off to make it to their turns if they think that such a thing is possible.

Morale

Whenever a unit is either reduced to half-strength (either by models or by Tough wounds) or the loser in melee, they need to test morale. This is, again, dependent on a quality check.

If the unit fails this check, then the unit is is pinned (if the test was made outside of melee or if they are in melee but still above that half-wound count), making them only able to hit in melee on a nat 6 until they waste an entire turn doing nothing to remove the status, or routed and destroyed (if they were in melee and are below half-strength).

Special Rules

• Aircraft: Planes here must move 18"-36" each turn, but if they leave the table, then they waste their remaining movement to return to the field from any table edge. However, they're quite protected from most guns because all models without Anti-Air or Aircraft rules count as 12" further away than they really are and must take a -1 to hit them on top of all that.
• Ambush: Not all your models need to deploy on the outset. Units with this rule can instead hide out and then be deployed at the start of any round past the first, so long as they're beyond 9" of an enemy unit. Do beware that if both sides have ambush units, then you need to roll off to deploy them.
• Anti-Air: Negates all the penalties to shooting Aircraft.
• AP (X): When the enemy rolls defense against a weapon, they need to subtract X from the roll.
• Blast (X): When you score a hit with this, the number of hits is multiplied by X.
• Deadly (X): Like Blast, though this is only focused on a singular model. This is your counter to Tough units.
• Fast: Models can advance 9" and rush or charge 18".
• Fear: After resolving melee, you count as having dealt +d3 wounds. This makes melee a bit deadlier for you and at least might even out a slightly poor round.
• Fearless: Surprisingly does nothing to Fear. Instead, this adds +1 to the unit's morale check so you won't get trapped by pinning.
• Flying: Units with this rule can fly over any model or setpiece without penalty.
• Furious: When the unit makes a charge, they can add an additional attack on a single melee weapon.
• Hero: These are the only units that can attach to another unit. This allows the host unit to use the Hero's quality when rolling for morale while using their own defense, allowing for commander bunkers with shields.
• Immobile: C'mon, guess.
• Impact (X): When this unit makes a charge, they deal an instant X hits, which can be nice when your weapons are less effective.
• Indirect: This allows a weapon to ignore LoS when shooting, but they suffer a -1 penalty to hit if the unit moves.
• Poison: When this weapon rolls a nat 6 to hit, the hit deals triple the amount.
• Psychic (X): This unit can cast spells, as described above.
• Regeneration: When a unit fails their defense save, you can roll again for each wound taken. On a 5+, that wound is ignored. This is a good second layer of protection, especially for those with crap defense scores.
• Relentless: When a unit rolls a nat 6 to hit while shooting, they can roll a bonus attack. This can't be triggered on any of these new attacks.
• Rending: When a weapon with this rule rolls a nat 6 to hit, the attack now counts as having AP 4 and negates Regeneration saves, making this very deadly.
• Scout: A unit with this rule can move 12" (ignoring terrain) after setting up. As with Ambush, you need to roll off if the enemy has Scout units as well to determine who goes first.
• Slow: This unit can only advance 4" and rush or charge 8".
• Sniper: This weapon makes the unit count as having a 2+ quality when firing. This weapon can also fire at any model it wants, like a Hero or a heavy weapon you know will kill your tanks.
• Strider: The unit ignores difficult terrain.
• Tough (X): Rather than dying after failing a defense check, your unit instead loses one of their X wounds. Do beware that this will make a unit subject to Morale if they still lose half their wounds. All heroes will have at least Tough 3 and vehicles will have much higher.
• Transport (X): This model can carry up to X models. While models can embark by merely touching the transport, disembarking forces the unit to only move 6". If the transport dies with a unit inside, that cargo is immediately pinned and must take dangerous terrain. The survivors are then placed 6" from the former transport.

GF: Firefight

Firefight is essentially the equivalent to Kill Team, meaning that you're now dealing with singular models rather than full regiments. This subsequently means that there are significant changes to how the game's played. At a glance, this cuts off any vehicles/monsters/titans available to each armor as well as removing any incredibly expensive and/or powerful heroes.

• Models with Hero now let models within 12" use their quality for morale checks as long as the Hero isn't stunned.
• At any time a model suffers a wound (and when a unit with several models, usually disposable chaff, is down to its last unit), the model gains a Wound marker and rolls d6+the number of Wound markers including this new one: On a 6+ the model is outright killed, but below that the model is stunned, rendering them immobile and prone to be killed by the next attack.
  • Tough models ultimately delay the need to roll a wound check by a number of wounds by their Tough value. Once they suffer that many rules, then they're subject to the wound check and those wounds are added to any wound checks.
• Movement has a few more special tweaks to it.
  • If a model is stunned in melee, the one who stunned them can push that model 2" in any direction...including off a cliff of 2" or higher. If they fall, then they immediately suffer a hit with AP 1 +1 AP for every 3" they fell.
  • If a model decides to drop down 6+", roll a 1d6 + another d6 for every 3" they fall. If all die roll a 3+, they land on their feet, but anything less on any die means that they fall.
    • If they see an enemy model within 2" of the bottom of their drop, the model can instead land on an enemy. If they make their rolls, they drop right into the enemy's midst and immediately deal a number of hits equal to the number of die they just rolled.
  • A model can jump a gap at least 1" wide, but must roll 1d6 + another d6 for every 3" they leap across. If all die roll a 3+, they leap without issue, but if any of them fail, then the model falls instead.
    • Flying models can jump ravines without issue and can pass any Drop and Leap checks on a 2+.

Grimdark Future Tactics Articles
General:	General Tactics
Alien Hives:	Alien Hives - Soul-Snatcher Cults
Aliens:	Dwarf Guilds - Eternal Dynasty - Jackals - Orc Marauders Robot Legions - Saurian Starhost - TAO Coalition
Battle Brothers:	Battle Brothers - Custodian Brothers - Prime Brothers
Elves:	Dark Elf Raiders - Elven Jesters - High Elf Fleets
Havoc:	Havoc Brothers - Machine Cult Defilers - Wormhole Daemons
Humans:	Battle Sisters - Feudal Guard - Gangs of Hive City Human Defense Force - Human Inquisition - Infected Colonies Machine Cult - Titan Lords - Rebel Guerillas
Ratmen:	Ratmen Clans - Vile Rattus Cult