Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week in the fourth article we looked at the core squad types and their functions. This week we will round out the core mechanisms and look at how checks work. This will be superficially familiar to many, but I promise there are some fun wrinkles in there.

Many actions in Firefight Tactical will come down to a dice roll. While some of these specific actions have their own small deviations, they primarily relate to five basic checks. These are Fire Checks, Morale Checks, Rally Checks, Bog Checks, and Melee Checks.

Checks and Balances

First let’s cover the standard checks rules. These rules apply to most checks in Firefight Tactical (Bog and Melee are weird). You begin by taking the base target. For Fire Checks this is the checking unit’s Firepower, while for Morale and Rally Checks it is the checking unit’s Morale. You then identify any modifiers which apply to the current situation and add them to the base target to arrive at the final target. Note that the total modification of the base target can never be more than +4 or less than -4.

Two dice are then rolled, summed, and compared to the final target. If the total is less than or equal to the target, the check succeeds. If the result is greater than the target the check fails. What happens will of course depend on the action. No matter what, rolling a total of 2 (snake eyes) is always a success and rolling a total of 12 (boxcars) is always a failure.

Where things get interesting is when doubles are rolled on the dice. Doubles generally mean that something special happens. If you succeed and roll doubles, something especially good happens, and if you fail and roll doubles something especially bad happens. Again, what that means depends on the specific action. Now with the basics out of the way, let’s look at the core checks.

Check Your Fire

The most common check in the game is the Fire Check. It is the root for all ranged aggressive actions, and is the model for many other checks such as Artillery Fire, Opportunity Fire, Anti-Tank Fire, Suppressing Fire, etc. To perform a basic Fire Check, you first choose a zone to target. The check will potentially affect all infantry units located in that zone. You then take the unit’s Firepower and identify all appropriate modifiers. For Fire Checks, the modifiers will most commonly be Terrain Effect Modifiers (TEM) and leadership bonuses from nearby leaders.

If the Fire Check is successful, all infantry in the target zone (leaders first) must pass a Morale Check or become pinned. If the Fire Check fails, nothing happens. If the check succeeds with doubles there is an automatic casualty reduction resolved in the target zone before they can even roll their Morale Check. If the check fails with doubles, the firing unit becomes disrupted. A disrupted unit cannot perform any aggressive action until they end a Game Turn with no dice on them. This represents them getting reorganized, their weapons cleared, etc. before they can resume firing.  

Let’s look at an example. An MG42 overseen by Sgt. Weber is firing on an American Recon Squad in Bocage. The base target is the MG42’s Firepower of 9. The Firepower is modified by -1 for the hindering Brush terrain their LoS traces through, -3 for the Bocage in the target zone, and +1 for Weber’s leadership. This makes the final target a 6. A 3 and a 1 are rolled, for a total of 4. The check is successful, and the American Recon Squad will have to make a Morale Check.

Sanity Check

The next most common check is the Morale Check. Any time an infantry unit is affected by a successful Fire Check it must perform a Morale Check. Armor Checks against Anti-Tank Fire resolve very similarly. To perform a Morale Check, take the checking unit’s Morale (surprised?) and appropriate modifiers. The most important modifier for a Morale Check is called the Fire Action Success Margin (FASM). This is the amount by which the Fire Check succeeded. In other words, the more accurate the Fire Check was, the harder it will be for the checking unit to retain composure. Other common modifiers are leadership bonuses from nearby leaders and the inverse (-2 becomes +2) of their location’s TEM if they are In Cover or already pinned down.

If the check is successful, nothing happens. If the check fails, the unit becomes pinned. If the checking unit was already pinned it routs instead. If the check fails and rolls doubles, the unit takes a casualty reduction in addition to the regular failure effect. If the check succeeds and rolls doubles, the unit resolves a Valor action.

Valor actions are a very special game effect where a unit goes hero mode and can immediately resolve ANY of the actions on its menu without assigning a die to it, EVEN if the unit is already exhausted. Valor actions are usually responsible for the most memorable and cinematic moments in a game of Firefight Tactical.

Let’s go back to that first example to cover the Morale Check. The American Recon Squad must now pass a Morale Check. Their only modifier here (because they are not In Cover) is the FASM of the Fire Check. The original target was a 6 and the firing player rolled a 4, so the FASM is 2. The Recon Squad’s Morale is their base target, so they take their Morale of 8, subtract 2 for the FASM to get a final target of 6. The player rolls a 9 (a 5 and a 4), so the check fails, and the Recon Squad becomes pinned.

Checking To See If You’re Okay

Rally Checks allow you to unpin your pinned units. They resolve similarly to Morale Checks, but with different potential modifiers. You again take the checking unit’s Morale, but you don’t have to worry about a FASM. Rally Checks generally benefit from the inverse of the checking unit’s TEM but they take penalties for proximity to the enemy. Each zone in unhindered LoS containing enemy is a penalty and each individual enemy that is adjacent to the checking unit is also a penalty. As a result, it is frequently preferrable to rout to a more defensive position first and then try to rally there.

If the check is successful, the unit flips back to its Good Order side from its pinned side. If the check fails then nothing happens. If the check succeeds with doubles, the unit resolves a Valor action as above. If the check fails with doubles the unit routs. Note however, that unlike routes due to a Morale Check, routes from a Rally Check cannot cause the unit to become eliminated. If it would, they stay pinned where they are instead.

Now let’s check back in on our Recon Squad. The unit is going to attempt to Rally. Their base target is their Morale again, which is now 7 on their pinned side. Because they are pinned, they benefit from the TEM of their terrain which will be +3. Further, they get +1 from Sgt. Mason’s leadership because they are in his Command Range. They do however take a -1, because they have unhindered LoS to the German Assault Squad in the Open Field. This brings their final target to 10. They roll exactly a 10 (two 5s). They successfully rally and flip back to their Good Order side. Even better, because they rolled doubles, they also resolve a Valor action. They choose to immediately fire on the Assault Squad approaching on their flank.

Rain Check

Now for something completely different, let’s talk about vehicles and bogging. Many kinds of terrain in the game have the potential to bog down vehicles. Those that do have a bog exponent. Each vehicle in turn has a bog exponent. The terrain’s exponent represents the potential for heavy vehicles to sink into mud or get hung up on debris. The vehicle’s exponent represents a mix of the weight and speed of the vehicle as well as how it distributes its weight.

Each time a vehicle moves into such terrain, the terrain’s exponent is added to the vehicle’s exponent to get the target number. Two dice are rolled and summed and then compared to the target number. If the check succeeds the movement continues as normal. If the check fails however, the vehicle becomes Bogged and must stop. Further, the Bogged vehicle must make a Bog Check each time they attempt to leave the zone until they succeed and discard the Bogged counter.

Now we can look at an example. A gutsy Sherman is advancing towards a suspected enemy position over some Ruins. It must immediately resolve a Bog Check because the terrain it moved into has a Bog Exponent. It adds its own exponent of 4 to the terrain’s exponent of 2 to get a target of 6. The player rolls and gets a 7 (a 3 and a 4). The tank becomes Bogged and must end its activation.

Gut Check

The final check to cover is the most bonkers one. Melee Checks resolve very differently than any other check in the game. Melee occurs at the end of Game Turns where there are enemy units collocated with friendly units. To resolve Melee, both players take a number of dice equal to the number of soldiers on the illustrations on their counters in the Melee. They take an additional die for each In Cover counter they control there (prepared position) and lose a die for each Disruption counter and pinned unit involved. There are some other rules bits if this is a close assault involving a vehicle but we can ignore that for now. Both players roll all of their dice simultaneously, discard all the rolled 6s (because Firefight Tactical) and then pair their dice against their opponent’s in ascending order. For each pairing where your die is lower than your opponent’s die or your opponent fails to pair with one of your dice, they take a casualty reduction. If any units survive, they remain where they are for the Melee Check at the end of the next Game Turn.

I saved the most exciting example for last. It is the end of a Game Turn and we have enemies collocated in a Building. We must resolve a Melee Check. The American player takes 6 dice (they’re rolling all red), one for each soldier on their two counters in the Melee. The German player takes 4 dice (they’re rolling all blue), one for each soldier on their two counters, minus one because one of their units is pinned. Both players simultaneously roll their dice and remove the 6s. The German got lucky. The dice are lined up in ascending order and then paired with their opponent’s dice. The German causes a reduction because their lowest die (a 1) is lower than the American’s lowest die (a 2). For the next lowest die the American causes a reduction to the Germans. The third lowest die is equal for both players, so no reduction occurs. The final American die is unpaired because the German has fewer dice, so this causes another reduction to the German.

The American reduces their Recon Squad to a Recon Half Squad. The German player reduces and eliminates their Sentry Half Squad and reduces their Support Squad to a Support Half Squad. Somehow the German still has infantry in the zone, so they remain locked in Melee going into the next Game Turn.

Check it Out

That concludes our tour of Checks in Firefight Tactical. With the core stuff at last covered we will be spending more time looking at units and scenarios in the future. Next week to celebrate 1 month of Firefight Fridays we will do something very special. Peter Evans (the game’s developer) and I will be recording ourselves playing through a scenario and uploading it to GMT’s YouTube channel. I will then be writing up an AAR for the next Firefight Friday to cover what happened and my thinking and strategy as we played through it. See you then!

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Previous Articles:

Firefight Friday #1: Dice Driven Gaming

Firefight Friday #2: Ordering from the Menu

Firefight Friday #3: Dynamic Battlefields

Firefight Friday #4: Variety of Infantry