If Worlds Collide is a skirmish wargame set among shattered worlds and realities. There is no “true world” in a realm of infinite possibilities. The unyielding and cryptic cracks in reality pit the players against each other as understanding and control eludes them. As fissures occur, worlds start to bleed into one another, cultures and civilizations meet for the first time, and conflicts arise. But this is just a spark, not the final destination.
The game may be played with as little as 5-10 models per player; any and all levels of magic, technology and even different time periods can be played together. The focus of the game is on narrative and strategic gameplay with memorable and exciting moments. Most Missions are designed to be completed within 1.5 hours for two players.
The game may be played in any scale and with any measurement system. Distances are defined as unitless steps (eg: 23s or 23 steps), which can be scaled/converted to your choosing. For playing in 1:56 (standard 25/32mm) 1 step is equal to 1 inch, or 1 step is equal to 25mm.
- A tabletop or surface to play the game on. A 36s by 36s square, or ~1300 steps squared rectangle.
- Several pieces of terrain for blocking line-of-sight and creating an interesting play surface.
- A set of six sided dice of various colors.
- A set of miniatures to play with for each player. Individual miniature models are referred to as a unit.
- Stat sheets for each unit used and additional factions rules such as environment and tactics.
- A set of tokens to represent activation points, as well as other battlefield tokens
- A way to measure distance. Ruler/Measuring Tape.
Whenever rules are unclear, use your common sense and personal preference and move on! If any rules conflicts directly with another, apply the more specifically worded rule as a priority.
Each individual model is refered to as a Unit. Different Units may have different base sizes, and will be specified in their stat sheet. Valid base sizes range from 1 step to 4 steps, or anywhere in between. Some units may have different shaped bases, or no bases at all. When measuring distances, use the center of the model as a reference point.
Before you start playing, decide on a point limit with your opponent and build rosters that are equivalent in value. First time players should start with a 300 point limit and adjust from there. Our recommended starting factions are The Order of the Broken Mirror and The Crimson Castellan. Pit blood-thirst against cold calculations!
Decide on a mission. Refer to List of Missions. A good starting scenario would be First Contact. Terrain may introduce specific rules or features to the game board. A simple starting point would be adding a teleporter. Be very clear about what pieces of terrain carry special rules at the setup phase.
Decide on the set of tactics your faction is using this game. You may only select up to 6 tactics for any match.
Lay out the board and terrain and decide on deployment zones. Deployment zones are sections of the board where players initially place units. See the Mission details for guidance on setting up deployment zones as well as mission objectives.
Unless the mission specifies otherwise, both players deploy units simultaneously. Avoid looking at your opponents deployment zone until they are finished to avoid letting their deployment affect yours. Keep track of who finished deployment first.
Most games are played in 5 rounds, with specific win conditions determined by the mission objectives.
Each round happens in 3 phases:
- ENVIRONMENT PHASE Starting with the player that finished deploying first, alternate who rolls their environment effects for the current round.
- To randomly choose the effect for the current round: roll a six sided dice, and look up the Environment effect on the appropriate faction list. Keep this effect visible with a card or a sticky note for both players to reference.
- For more details, see the Environment Effects section.
- LOGISTICS PHASE Each player earns 2 AP (Activation Points) by default, and additional points based on their current leader(s) leadership score. Players with multiple leaders receive the points from each.
- You spend ONE AP each time you want to activate either one or multiple units together (see Formations below)
- Each unit may only be activated once per round.
- AP not used in a round are carried over to future rounds, for a maximum of 10 AP per player.
- AP can be used to perform other effects, such as some abilities, tactics, or adding a bonus to Knack Rolls (see below).
- ORDERS PHASE After gaining AP in the second phase, the player with the LOWEST value of accumulated points begins unit activations first. Resolve ties in AP with a dice roll.
- Players alternate activations until they either run out of units to activate, run out of AP, or decide to stop and save their points for later rounds.
- If a player decides to stop activating early, they are locked out from play until the next round begins.
- For more details, see the Activations section.
Each player will have a table of Environment effects listed on their faction page. In the Environment phase, one of these effects will be selected that affects both players.
Each environment entry will have:
- An active effect, which is enabled as soon as the round starts.
- A penalty for failing a tactic knack check. See Using Tactics below.
Both the active effect and the tactic failed penalty apply for both players that round, but the environmental effects will be designed to favor the faction the Environment effect originated from.
On an activation, the player may choose to activate a single unit, or multiple units as a Formation.
When activating a Formation of units, the units must be within base contact (with allowances for wide miniatures) of each other and have the same training. Training is a set of faction specific tags that decide what units can activate together in formation. Units within a formation do not have to be in base contact with every other unit, they just have to be one continuous group.
Units with the Support Training type can activate with any Formation, regardless of Training Type. These units generally provide buffs and other support to units.
Finally, if a unit with Leadership Training is a part of the Formation, you may ignore the Training requirements when building the Formation. The leader is able to coordinate any and all training types together as long as they form base contact.
At the beginning of each activation, before any movement, attacks or abilities, the player may choose a single tactic to use. Select a tactic from your faction sheet and roll the specified knack check, trying to meet or exceed the score for the tactic selected. See Knack Rolls below for additional details.
If successful, the effects apply to all units in the current activation. If the knack check is failed, all units in the current activation suffer the penalties listed on the current round's Environment Effect under Tactic Penalties.
After applying the boon or penalty, you may continue to take your unit(s) actions.
As part of the activation, the units(s) may move up to their full movement value, attack with all weapons, and use all their abilities.
Attacks and Movement cannot be broken up in multiple parts, but may be done in any order. Eg: Attack then Move, or Move then Attack.
Abilities can be used at any time during the turn, as long as they do not break up Attacks or Movement.
Instead of attacking with all weapons, the unit may choose to make an additional 4 steps of Movement.
When moving a formation, the units must start AND end their overall movement in base contact.
Units may move freely through friendly units, but not through enemy units. Terrain may also block movement, and must either be scaled vertically or circumvented around, both costing additional movement to get around the obstacle. Use common sense in terms of measuring micro-details, keep the game moving.
Activated units choose a target for EACH attack individially, prior to rolling. For simplicity and speed, players may choose to declare all attacks at once, or they can declare attacks in phases until they are all used up.
Each unit (if activating as a formation) as well as each weapon of a unit may be aimed at different targets if desired. NOTE: Some weapons have multiple attacks, and can be targeted at different enemy units.
Before rolling, you must declare intent clearly when specifying targets for attacks, don't just vaguely point in a direction while rolling dice. Pick specific units.
For each attack you are resolving, roll a separate knack check. See Knack Rolls.
Some weapons work differently than others. A weapon may have more than one type listed, which allows you some flexibility on which targeting feature or penalty to take.
Melee - This weapon may target adjacent units for attacks.
Near - This weapon may be used to target any units within line of sight, AND within 8 steps.
Ranged - This weapon may be used to target any units within line of sight, at any distance. However, while an enemy unit threatens it within melee, all ranged attacks using Ranged targeting are less accurate, requiring unmodified knack rolls of 6 to hit successfully.
Heavy - This deadly weapon is hard to move around and cumbersome to wield. May only be used for attacks if the unit has not moved that round, and prohibits the unit from moving if attacks are made with it.
If there are any obstacles that obscure the target from view, including other models that are not part of the activated formation (friend or foe), then the unit cannot be chosen as the target for a ranged or near attack. To determine if a unit is visible or obscured, draw an imaginary line from the center of the source unit to any point of the target unit. If a line exists that is un-interrupted, then the unit is visible.
If the target is partially obscured, that is: from the center of the source unit, there are lines that are interrupted and un-interrupted, then the target unit gains the benefit of cover. Units that are behind obscuring terrain can also be considered in cover. Agree with your opponent which terrain counts in this way. Exception: The unit making the ranged or near attack is touching the only terrain that would otherwise provide cover for the opponent (Same piece of cover can't be used for the bonus if both attacker and defender are touching it)
Cover provides an additional defense value of 1. That is, the value 1 is added to the score of the unit’s existing defense value in addition to any defenses the unit already has. In addition, units being attacked that are under the benefit of cover require the opponent to make their attack rolls with a -1 knack penalty.
For units larger than 1 step in size, they must have less than 1 step visible to count as being in cover.
Knack rolls are used for determining success for weapon attacks, abilities and tactics.
The player rolls a six sided die and applies any bonuses or penalties to the value. Values that are equal to or higher than the knack score for the effect being used result in success.
Before rolling, the player may choose to spend X Activation Points to gain a +X bonus to one of their Knack rolls. You cannot apply this bonus after seeing the die result.
Despite bonuses or penalties: die rolls of 1 always fail, and rolls of 6 always succeed.
For a regular attack. Damage is calculated individually, per attack.
Optionally, the player may choose to make a Focused Attack, in which case, they may choose to combine their attacks (per weapon) into 1 Attack, and gain bonus damage equal to the number of attacks lost: Eg: A 5 Attack 2 Damage weapon becomes a 1 Attack 6 Damage weapon.
For each successful attack or source of damage, take the damage value, apply all bonuses and then apply all penalties from the defense value of the unit taking damage, in that order.
Damage is modified in several ways:
Target Unit Defense Value - Subtracted from the incoming damage.
Target Unit Defense Type - Some units specify one or more Defense Types. These types are a protection against CRITICAL damage.
CRITICAL Attacks - If an attack bypasses ALL Defense Types a unit has, it is considered a CRITICAL attack and does double damage (doubling is applied before subtracting defense value, as this is a bonus to the attack). If the attack has any other damage bonuses, they are also doubled by the CRITICAL.
For example:
A Berserker is attacking a Scientist with an Axe (A3 D6). They roll three Knack Rolls, and two of them succeed, each successful roll means the attack goes through. The Scientist has a Defense Value of 1 and the Reactive Defense Type. Therefore, we subtract 1 from the incoming damage of 6, for a result of 5 health on the unit. This occurs twice, since two of the attacks succeeded. Defense value is always subtracted per attack, not as a whole.
If the Axe was able to bypass the Scientist's Reactive Defense Type OR the Scientist had no Defense Types listed, the attack would be CRITICAL, inflicting (12 - 1) damage for 11 health on the unit for each attack.
When a unit is reduced to zero health, it is removed from play, and replaced with a corpse or other token signifying the fallen unit. Some units drop different types of tokens on death, as specified on their stat sheet.
In addition to limiting the accuracy of ranged weapons, when an enemy unit is within melee range, your unit suffers from limited mobility. Activating a unit that has enemy units within melee range limits you to either attacking or moving, but not both. Ability use is unaffected.
Units may have any number of abilities they can use during an activation. The ability text will specify how it is to be used and any costs they incur.
Most abilities will require some form of knack check, which works identical to weapon attacks. Some abilities take the form of passive bonuses or require some sort of trigger, others are targeted effects.
Abilities may supersede the rules in some fashion.
Some abilities and effects cause tokens to be placed on the battlefield. These tokens are always 1 step in diameter, unless otherwise specified.
Some Tokens might be a bit more specialized, and would have wording to reflect that. For Example:
- May sometimes specify that they block line of sight and provide cover, just like other physical things on the battlefield.
- May sometimes be used as area effects, or keeping track of active debilitations or buffs to units. (providing a tactile way to track effects on the battlefield)
- May sometimes be picked up and carried by units or start out as being attached to a unit in some way.
- May be destroyed, typically by any one successful attack.
- Tactics Faction-wide abilities that can be used at the start of any activation. Failing the knack check results in environmental penalties.
- Health Number of hit points a unit has before it is defeated and removed from play.
- Defense Type(s) The defense types, specifying the type of defense that unit has. Protects against CRITICAL attacks.
- Defense Value A numerical value for the level of defense. Subtracted from damage inflicted.
- CRITICAL Attack When an attack bypasses all defense types of the target unit, it is considered a CRITICAL attack, doubling the damage inflicted.
- Move Distance the unit can move in one activation
- Knack The level of proficiency the unit has in wielding a weapon, ability or tactic. Defined as a number between 2 and 6. Roll a six sided dice, and add any bonuses or penalities. If you meet the knack score or higher, it's successful.
- Weapons A list of offensive capabilities the unit can use during an activation as attacks. Each Weapon has the following attributes:
- Attacks The number of attacks the unit may make with this weapon in one activation.
- Damage The amount of damage each attack with this weapon inflicts.
- Effective VS Type - The defense types that this weapon bypasses, in an attempt to get the CRITICAL attack bonus.
- Abilities A list of special tools and abilities the unit can use during an activation. Specific wording to describe the effect.
- Activation The time during which a unit is able to move, attack and use it's abilities.
- Cover +1 Defense Bonus against Ranged and Near attacks. -1 Knack roll for attacker.