This Quar's War - Clash of Rhyfles rules - are they any good??

Err yes. I think they're very interesting indeed. I need to stress the rules are still under development - the authors are open to any suggestions and are active in dealing with the inevitable questions and queries a game hitting the market will generate. The rules are however certainly complete and perfectly playable as they stand. Also I'm only three or four games in, but my initial reaction is very positive. 

The basic set up is a ten Quar squad a side on a 2x2 foot playing area, so very new player and user friendly. 

OK I walked into this expecting a fairly GW port like with gun toting anteaters dressed in WW1 attire. What I actually got was something very like a good, slick, historical Squad level skirmish wargame with gun toting anteaters dressed in WW1 attire.

I'll try and break this down, but as an overview there are really only 2 rules mechanics in place that overarch these rules. The first is a skill check against a target number rolled on 3D6, nothing overly new there, but with a really interesting fixed result overlay. The second is a 2 dice roll with 6s counting as success and 1s as fails. I'll come back to those in a bit.

Activation is an interesting blind card draw - your opponent draws a card with between 3-5 activations (which I'm calling "leaves" because the graphic on the card is a branch with 3-5 leaves on it). You know you have three, but when you use them you have to ask, "do I have a fourth?" etc. This does give you some really interesting things to think about. Do you plan for only three leaves or do you risk a move using four? Each leaf is an action for a trooper - most of these are very familiar, such as move, shoot etc. You can only take two actions per Quar, and only one of them can be a combat action. Some actions however take 2 leaves, such as throw grenade or aimed shot, so you can try and do something only to discover you don't have the leaves to spend. I'm calling what the rules call activations leaves because it can get confusing with activations triggering actions and some actions needing two activations and my head hurts. There are leaves on the card, I'm calling them leaves. When you've spent all your leaves you draw a card for your opponent and he gets to do his thing. The turn ends when you run out of cards, then you rinse and repeat. Like I said, interesting.

I should add there are ten cards but you shuffle then discard one at random and blind. The full mix is 3x3, 4x4 and 3x5, so if you are capable of counting you can sometimes get an inkling of what is going on but that is beyond me at the moment. 

So on your turn you get to move etc. Movement is a stat but basically it's 5". St Andy of the Chambers told me he thinks everything should move 6" as a base but 5" works here. You can sprint and all the usual stuff.

Shooting is that 3D6 skill test. You declare the shot, your target declares his response, which can be dive for cover, return fire, or do something else depending on the scenario. The target number is your skill which is usually about 12 minus \ plus any modifiers for range etc. Equal or less than the target number and your opponent goes down "Out of Action". Nothing overly novel except perhaps the return fire option - St Andy of the Chambers did this with his now mostly forgotten Starship Troopers rules back in the first sheet metal age of wargaming. Now the interesting part. There is a fixed result overlaying the results, so a 3-4 is always a hit, a result that missed but scores 13 or less results in a "Gobsmack" (pinned) and a 17 or 18 is a fumble at the shooters end. I love this because what we have here is something rather clever, a ranged attack mechanism that also includes a suppressive fire mechanism in the same resolution. No extra dice rolls, no declaration that you are shooting to suppress or anything. It's smooth and works.

There's more to it than that, Overwatch, etc but that's the bare bones.

Weapons have a couple of basic stats - range and snap fire mods. Range is defined by bands, and for each band you suffer a -1 to your target number so a 6" band has no negative at 1-6", -1 at 7-12" etc. Combine this with the shooting result overlay and you in effect have no max range for shooting cos bullets go a long way, they don't just stop at an arbitrary 24" or whatever.  Snap fire is used for reaction shots - a negative to bigger \ longer \ less handy weapons get bigger negatives. OK there are also a few weapons with fixed range like shotguns, but it all hangs together well, and by spending an extra "leaf" you can take an aimed shot which ignores range bands.      

All you Chain of Command players will see where this is leading. You want to move across that bit of open ground? Better use suppressive fire, smoke and, you know REAL TACTICS. OK you are using gun toting anteaters in WW1 attire (GTAWWA???), but to succeed you really have to think about small unit \ fire and movement stuff.

The other mechanism is the 6\1 roll - you use this for grenades etc but its a good and interesting system that will be applicable in other circumstances. Double 6 is the perfect result, double 1 it goes off in your hand, but with varying degrees between. 

There's also the "Pluck" system. This is basically a command point that you can use to modify some results or spend to take special actions. It's a nice system. If I had one criticism it would be the authors missed a trick here in not tying "pluck" to leaders and their command abilities \ ranges but maybe that can come in time?  

The other thing that made me take a step back was the squad organisation. Yup GTAWWA have squad organisations, and ignoring the designations they look rather familiar to my eye. The more traditional "Royalists" are using what is almost a straight port of a WW2 British Rifle Section, with gun group and rifle group, and the more revolutionary "Crusaders" are using a squad of three identical three Quar fireteams based around a heavy rifle, almost like a late USMC squad from WW2.

There are dangers of course in trying to squeeze too much new stuff in and losing the original focus, but so far the dev team have shown a deftness of touch that is very reassuring. There are no morale rules as such, but I hope theyre going to get added soon.

In case you missed it the background is lavish, deep and interesting. Oh and there is a simple campaign progression system that allows your Squad to play through a series of scenarios, improve and craft a tale to tell of heroism and glory. Which is nice. 

And the Quar themselves are adorable.

So overall I think these are a really interesting set of rules and well written. I mentioned Chain of Command before. Clash of Rhyfles shares none of the mechanisms but does somehow have that vibe, you know, its fun but challenging and grounded in real tactics.  I'd have no hesitation at all at recommending them. Do yourself a favour and give them a try.

Cheers!