Heroscape Automated Battle Rules

Netherspirit has a look into the very cool Heroscape Automated Battle Rules. He writes:

Most of my gaming group has gone home or gotten internships and are no longer on campus. Which means its just my girlfriend and I and I get a little tired of playing Heroscape 1v1 with her, mostly because she kicks my butt most of the time! Also, there are times when she works late and I would like to play but can't.

Not anymore. Thanks to one of the members here at Heroscapers.com. Edge0001 has created the Heroscape Automated Battle Rules and was kind enough to share them with the community. This ruleset gives players, like myself, an opportunity to play cooperative games and even solo games.

There are a lot of different things going on in these rules, but once you get the hang of it you can play against an Automated army that is almost as good as a real player.

The Basic Components:
In order to automate the army you need to record some information about the army cards. Originally you would need to do this on post it notes or note cards but not anymore. There is a word doc that contains a template for the information There are 4 components to the automated army card:


Marching Orders
Sight Distance
Attack Type
Special Powers

Marching Orders are the most complicated part of the rules, but once you get the hang of them you can really customize the enemy army to be a formidable foe. There are 5 types of Marching Orders, these dictate the way a figure will move when there is no target for the figure. You have Sweep, the unit will "sweep" the board in a direction of your choosing. There is Meander, where the unit will just kind of randomly move about. There is Guard, where you can define a space and how far they are allowed to move from that space (great for when you are playing capture the flag type scenarios). The most complicated marching order is Patrol, it requires setting up waypoints for the automated units to move to. And finally Support, where a unit can be desingated to follow other units, this is great with units that give or receive bonuses.

Sight Distance is exactly that, its how far a figure can see when trying to get targets to attack or move towards. Units' sight distance is defaulted at 6, if a figure has a range or a special attack with a range greater than 6, that becomes their sight distance. This is used to determine if an automated unit can "target" one of your units, meaning that if they can see it they will move towards your figure and try to attack.

Attack type is only Melee or Missle. These will determine how a unit will move and attack a "target".

Finally Special Powers. There is a list of how each special power works in this new playing format. Here are some examples; Self Destruct - Roll a d20 to see if he uses the power (17+) only check to see if he uses it if he is adjacent to 2 or more figures. Carry - Only used with Hero figures and not Squads. Things like that.

This is just a basic run down of how things work, there are more detailed rules in the pdf which can be found in the thread listed below. Also in the file there are some scenarios to try out as well as a couple of variants and advanced add-ons to the rules.

All in all this is a greatly detailed ruleset for playing Solo games or cooperative games. They are a little overwhelming at first but after you give them a try you will love it.

The files can be downloaded by visiting our download section:

Heroscape Automated Battle Rules Download

To discuss these rules with the creator and other members visit this thread: Heroscape Automated Battle Rules Forum Thread