Stats, Checks & Rolls

Stats

Units in the game have a number of Stats. These represent that unit's ability to perform certain actions or reactions during a game. The following stats are better when they are lower:

• Melee
• Ranged
• Defence
• Agility
• Morale

This is because players need to roll equal to or above these values (when rolling a d20) for a unit to successfully perform that action.

The following stats are better when they are higher:

• Move
• Attacks
• Wounds
• Injury
• Pierce

For the first three, it should be obvious why that is the case based on their names. Meanwhile, Injury and Pierce are modifiers, meaning that they modify the result of other actions.

Refer to the following table for a high level description of each stat:

Stat	Abbreviation	Description
Move	Mov	How far a unit can move in inches under normal conditions.
Melee	Mel	How well a unit can attack in melee.
Ranged	Rgd	How well a unit can attack from ranged.
Defence	Def	How well a unit can prevent themselves taking a wound.
Agility	Agi	How well a unit can jump and climb. Agility also determines who can attack first in melee after the first round of combat.
Morale	Mrl	How well a unit can keep their composure under pressure. This represents a wide array of situations.
Attacks	Atk	The number of attacks the unit has in melee.
Wounds	Wnd	Number of hits a unit can take before they are Injured.
Injury	Inj	A modifier that is added to your Melee Check result when calculating Injury.
Pierce	Prc	A modifier that worsens enemy Defence Checks when attacking.

Stats with Dashes

Stats will sometimes have a dash (-) instead of a value. The meaning of this depends on the stat.

• For Ranged, this means that the unit cannot perform Ranged Attacks at all and cannot equip Ranged Weapons.
• For Defence, this means that a unit has no Defence and does not need to make Defence Checks when they occur.
  • However, modifiers that would improve Defence still do so. The first point of improvement changes the stat from a '-' to a '20' and then each point of improvement improves it as you would expect (19, 18... etc.).
• For Injury or Pierce, this is the equivalent of saying there is no modifier.
• For any other stat, the meaning will be stated as a Special Rule.

Stats Checks

As mentioned, you need to roll a d20 and be equal to or greater than your stat to pass. This is what is known as a 'Stat Check'. So for a Melee Check, a unit must roll equal to or greater than its Melee stat to pass it.

Stat Checks are a core part of the game and, along with good positioning, is the primary influence on the final result of a game.

Situational Checks

Often the game will call for Checks that don't refer to a specific stat. Instead, they will describe the situation to use the Check in. Ultimately, these are generally Stat Checks with a different name, helping players more easily describe what they are doing, to limit confusion during play.

The one exception to this rule are Cast Checks. While these Checks do not use a specific Stat, they do have a predetermined Difficulty (based on the Spell and other modifiers), which results in success or failure.

Other common examples of these Checks are 'Rout Checks', 'Plague Checks' and 'Ongoing Spell Checks'. These are simply Morale Checks, but their name describes the situation they are used in.

Checks vs Rolls

Throughout this rulebook you will see references to both 'Checks' and 'Rolls'. While similar in mechanics, Rolls differ from Checks. Instead of rolling and needing a certain result to determine whether something was a success or a failure, Rolls have you make a d20 roll and then consult a table for the result.

This can include 'Injury Rolls', 'Scar Rolls', 'Out-of-Sight Rolls', and 'Loot Rolls'. Whenever you read 'Roll', you know that you will need to consult a table to determine the outcome.

Injury Rolls vs Injury Checks

One of the common Rolls are 'Injury Rolls', as opposed to 'Injury Checks'. 'Injury Checks' are based on the Melee, Ranged, or Cast Check performed as part of a Melee, Ranged, or Cast Attack, whereas Injury Rolls are a straight d20 roll, modifiers are applied a table is consulted for the result. The section on Injury will go into more detail in how these work, specifically.

Advantage / Disadvantage

This game uses the concept of Advantage and Disadvantage. If you have Advantage on a Check or Roll, you roll 2d20 and take the higher of the two values. If you have Disadvantage, you roll 2d20 and take the lower of the two values.

Criticals

Critical Success During Checks

If a player rolls a '20' during a Check, the Check will always succeed, regardless of difficulty or other modifiers.

A Defence of '-' means that you do not make a roll at all, so you cannot succeed on such a Check, automatically failing without a roll.

Critical Hits During Attacks

If as part of any attack a unit rolls a natural 20 on the dice it becomes a Critical Hit! Treat this as if you had rolled two 20s (so your opponent will need to perform a Defence Check against each roll and will likely be Incapacitated if they fail either roll).

Critical Failures

Conversely, whenever a player rolls a '1' on a Check, the Check will always fail, regardless of modifiers.

Modifiers

Modifiers will appear throughout the game. They can take any form (for example, Defence modifiers or Cast Difficulty modifiers). In all cases, they simply improve (or worsen) the value of a dice roll, potentially enabling a unit to succeed (or fail) a Check when they otherwise wouldn't.

So a +3 Defence modifier would add +3 to the result of a d20 roll made as part of a Defence Check.

The following modifiers are a quite common and work a little differently to other modifiers.

Injury Modifiers

A positive Injury modifier will increase the Melee/Ranged roll you made by that amount for the purposes of injury only (not whether you hit or not). Likewise, a negative Injury modifier will decrease the Melee/Ranged roll you made by that amount for the purposes of injury. This will be explained in more detail in the Ranged and Melee Phase sections.

Injury modifiers in unit and Melee Weapon stat blocks are for Melee Combat only. Ranged Weapon Injury modifiers are for Ranged Combat only.

Pierce Modifiers

Every positive point of Pierce reduces the opponent’s Defence roll by 1 for the purpose of the upcoming Defence Check. Every negative point of Pierce improves the opponent’s Defence roll by 1.

This is the only modifier where a positive value worsens the check (and vice versa). +1 Pierce is the equivalent of saying 'a -1 Defence modifier for your opponent'.

Just like for Injury modifiers, Pierce modifiers in unit and Melee Weapon stat blocks are for Melee Combat only. Ranged Weapon Pierce modifiers are for Ranged Combat only.