Tactical Assault Games » Combat Cards

Creative Ideas

ROLE PLAYING AID

It has been brought to our attention that both the Combat Cards & the Fantasy Cards can serve as useful aids in running role-playing campaigns - especially to resolve combats that do not directly involve the player characters, but may still have an important bearing on the campaign.

Who hasn't played in a role playing campaign where the heroes set out on a mission or quest along with a company of the king's guard or a platoon of colonial marines escorting them?

The extra troops are not there do the heroes' work for them, but rather to support the heroes in some important role - such as keeping the escape route open from marauding orcs while the heroes explore, or by holding the alien monstrosities at bay while the heroes search a wreck site.

Unfortunately, playing out a side battle that doesn't involve the heroes, at the level of detail that most role playing games do, may prove impractical and tedious - and result in too much precious game time being taken away from the action involving the characters.

Yet the success of these troops and their mission is important to the story line and will eventually affect the heroes, so some attention should be given to their struggle and its outcome.

That is where the Combat Cards & Fantasy Cards can really be a life saver. With the simplicity of generic unit types, the speed of play, and the ease of teaching the rules to newbies, they can be an efficient and effective way to resolve those important side battles - without taking too much time away from the main adventure.

The narrative nature of the Cards also allow game masters flexibility in determining how important aspect of the battle will mesh with the role playing action as well with the role playing system being used.

(Some examples being: How many rounds went by before that alien nasty broke through the marines' lines and went for the heroes? Has an Eliminated unit truly lost all of its "damage points" or is just unconscious and clinging to life?).

Combine the core games with the appropriate expansion sets, and the feel and flavor of just about any role playing system can be emulated on the Combat Cards or Fantasy Cards battlefield.

So the next time your heroes are about to set out with an escort in tow, give some thought to how the Combat Cards or the Fantasy Cards just might prove to be a real help to you the beleaguered game master...

Overview

The Tactical Assault: Combat Cards™ are a fun and innovative way to fight combined arms battles on the tabletop battlefield. The Combat Cards are designed to bring all of the detailed elements of land warfare – including the fog of war – to the tabletop in a narrative card-driven format that is easy to play yet full of challenges. To be successful you must be creative in your strategies, flexible in your tactics and attentive to the ever changing battlefield.

The key to the Combat Cards is the way in which they simulate every commander’s struggle with maximizing the use of their available assets in the face of the multitude of hazards, delays and other challenges on the battlefield. The Combat Cards integrate all of this in a fast and easy to use system that challenges players to balance the need for careful planning with a willingness to take risks and seize upon sudden opportunities.

The Combat Cards can be utilized for just about any modern historical period, starting with the 20th century, as well as any science fiction setting. They can be used with any scale of miniatures, any sized battlefield and for any size of battle – ranging from the smallest skirmish action all the way up to massive operational level maneuvers.

Designer Q&A…

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

We often get some really great questions from folks about various aspects of the Combat Cards or the Fantasy cards. We decided to start having the designer of the rules tackle a few of them here on the website…

Why a diceless miniatures game? Do you simply hate dice, or were there other reasons?

Well, while every gamer has had their fair share of bad dice days, it really wasn’t why the games ended up being card driven. The card mechanic just offered the best way to bring together all of the elements we were trying to achieve with the rules: (more…)

Category: Designer Q&A...

Tips & Tricks… Elevated Terrain

Monday, June 4th, 2012

When using elevated terrain in your battles it is usually necessary to mark each level of elevation (e.g. Low, Medium, High, etc.) so lines of sight, defensive benefits, etc. can be determined.

This is easy enough if your terrain is obvious like stepped hills (i.e. wedding cake style) or stark like buildings or rocky spires.

In those situations where the terrain is more gradually sloping, and thus lacks clear delineation, it can be somewhat challenging to determine where one elevation starts and another ends. (more…)

Category: Tips & Tricks...

Inspiration…

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Here are few pictures from a another recent playtest – this time for Set II of the Technology Cards. The battle was set somewhere in southern West Germany in the summer of 1982. With the UK distracted by the Falklands War, the Warsaw Pact decided to try and seize a little more industrialized territory for itself.

The battle was fought using 6mm Micro Armor (some of which was actually purchased in 1982…). Enjoy!