Today, let’s take a look at character cards. First, it should be noted that wording and stats are subject to change prior to their initial playtesting release. You’ll also note that I’m changing some of the aesthetics (see below for an example).
You’ll find the Size and Energon stats near the top of the card.
Size will end up being important when it comes to game mechanics like throwing characters or terrain objects. A typical character (ie. Prowl) will have a size of 3. Minibots (ie. Bumblebee) will have a size of 2. The size stat will also display the character’s current mode.
Energon is a measure of Energon capacity. Characters will begin the game with 0 Energon cubes, but they’ll generate one cube at the beginning of each round. Characters will be able to spend Energon cubes for various reasons, the most common being to get additional actions during an activation. Most characters will have an Energon stat of 2, but exceptional characters (like Optimus Prime) will have a higher number.
Next, let’s take a look at Move, Melee Attack, and Ranged Attack.
Move is simply a measure of the distance (in inches) you can travel with a basic move action. As a general rule, most characters will be able to move further distances in their alt modes.
Melee Attack is a measure of a character’s proficiency in melee combat. In general, it shows you the number of dice they’ll roll when making that attack. As a reminder, the default expectation is that characters will be rolling d6’s, but different factors can either cause those dice to be upgraded to d8’s or even d10’s, or downgraded to d4’s.
Ranged Attack does the same for, you guessed it, a character’s proficiency in ranged combat.
I’ll go into further detail about combat in a later article. For now, though, I wanted the combat stats to have a fairly simple progression of bad (1) > average (2) > good (3).
We’ll wrap up the stats with Armor and Health. Armor will negate incoming damage, so an Armor value of 3 will prevent 3 points of damage from an attack. Certain factors (like Critical Hits) can bypass armor. Health, quite simply, is the amount of damage a character can suffer before being defeated.
A character’s ability box displays their unique abilities on the battlefield. My goal is to keep gameplay streamlined and fast, so most characters will have two abilities, but exceptional characters (like Optimus) may have more.
Some abilities will cross over between bot and alt modes. Generally, each type of alt mode will share an ability, however. In this case, most trucks, like Optimus and Ironhide, will have the Ram ability.
Finally, each character will be identified with a role beneath their name. Roles give a general overview of what a character is best at on the battlefield. As a Leader, Prime is capable of buffing his allies and giving them additional actions outside their own activations. The other roles in the initial release of characters are Brawler (Ironhide), Soldier (Prowl), and Scout (Bumblebee). Future articles will explore those roles and characters in additional detail.
Remember, you can keep posted about additional preview articles and information on the Facebook group and the website. Look out for a Discord server at some point in the future!
Wreck 'N Rule 