Unity Field Agent: Unity Field Agents vs. Fringe Spacers

UNITY FIELD AGENT

This is one of my favorite games, though I might be biased as involved as I was in the play-testing.  The system is simple enough, but robust, and the card-activation system keeps you on your toes and offers interesting choices.

This is one of those "warband" sort of games, like Frostgrave or Kill Team, where you can track XP and such if you want to.  Or you can just work up a points-limit worth of figures and have a one-off game.


So, here's my setup:

No Aliens, at least.

There's a crashed pod, and some wreckage and craters and such.  The terrain is dense enough to get the job done.

Now, I draw six cards to add some randomness.

A full, er, straight. I don't know. There's an Ace, though.

Referencing the rules, the Queen and Three of Hearts bump the countdown clock (time limit) up from 8 "ticks" to 10.

Perfect score!

The Ace of Clubs adds some "interior" terrain.  I don't really have anything appropriate, so I take the backup option, which is to add a building to the table.

Screen doors seems like a weird choice, but whatever.

The King of Diamonds adds one objective to the game.  Since it's a face card, that means it's a one-time score.  Whoever controls it first scores the points.  I'm calling it a computer core that fell out of the ship.  It contains valuable data.

The brackets are just for show.

Finally, the Ten and the Four of Spades create some conditions for the battlefield.  In this case, muddy conditions make jammed weapons harder to fix, and there's dangerous terrain, too.  I guess there's bits of sharp metal and radioactive things scattered across the ground.  And actions taken while in or moving across terrain pieces has a one in six chance of damaging the character.

Let's meet our teams, shall we?

First, there's Captain Vorran's salvage team.  This is only four of the whole crew since I'm playing a small, 70 point game.  Vorran is a Veteran Leader.  Durand is a Veteran Sharpshooter.  Oakley is a Heavy Scum.  Grant is a Burner Psycho.  They wear armored spacesuits because they do a lot of salvage work in hostile environments and vacuum conditions.  They probably weren't responsible for the crashed pod.

Captain Vorran, Durand, Oakley and Grant

Then there's Agent M's Inquisition Team, come to stop anybody from looting the crash site.  This is also not the full team, just 70 points worth.  Agent M is a Veteran Senior Agent.  Agent Verdun is a Close Combat Junior Agent.  Montoya is a Tactical Trooper.

Agent M, Agent Verdun, and Montoya

Both sides roll 1d6 plus their scouting value to see who sets up first.  Vorran loses, and places his figures, then Agent M sets up on the other side of the table.

This doesn't seem safe.

So, who goes first?  We don't know!  That's what the action deck is for!  I'm only using a half deck, with Diamonds (for Agent M) and Clubs (for Captain Vorran).  I pull the top card from the deck and get:

Ace of Spades Clubs! [Guitar riff]

[EDIT: This is clearly the Ace of Clubs.  Me is dumb.]

The Ace of Spades Clubs!  As the first card of the round, an Ace would trigger a Random Event, if I was using them this game.  Spades Clubs means that Vorran gets to activate a character.  And an Ace is a special case.  It only grants one action, but it doesn't Exhaust the character and can be used on a character that has already been Exhausted.  Wanting to get a jump on that objective (and forgetting that objectives aren't checked until the deck shuffles) I have Grant charge forward.  That's all he can do, but he's still eligible for more actions.

Raaaaagh!

The next card is the Three of Diamonds.  This is Agent M's activation.  A "regular", numbered card grants the selected character two actions.  The trick is that, barring a special ability, those actions can't be the same.  So no move-move or combat-combat.  Montoya activates, moving into line of sight, and shoots at Grant.  He's in range (24 inches), and there's no cover or anything to make it a Bad Shot, so he needs to roll his Firing Skill of 4+.  He gets a 2 and misses.  He's marked as Exhausted.

"Dakka dakka!"  Dang!

A new card is drawn.  The King of Clubs!  It's Vorran's activation again.  A face card grants THREE actions, though they still can't be of the same type.  Since Grant is not yet Exhausted, he uses one action to get closer to Montoya, a second action to Aim (option to re-roll one die) and then fires his flamethrower at Montoya.

It's a stream weapon, so it's more useful for crowds, but it's still three dice.  Grant rolls two fives and a one, and re-rolls the one to get a three.  Stream weapons like the flamethrower hit on a 3+, regardless of the shooter's skill, so that's three hits!  Now Montoya rolls two dice for each hit.  One for Toughness and one for Severity.  The first die rolls 4 for Severity, but a 6 for Toughness.  With a 4+ Toughness, that's a save.  The second is only 2 Severity (1 Damage), and the 1 for Toughness fails.  Each point of damage means one less action for that character.  However, he doesn't have long to suffer, because the third hit is Severity 4 and also fails the Toughness save, "destroying" the character outright.

"AAAaaaiiiieeee!"  (You'll have to imagine the flames.)

This death triggers a Morale check for characters within 4 inches (Agents M and Verdun).  They roll two dice versus their Morale scores.  One failure means they have to take cover and receive a Shock token.  Two failures means they have to run away (temporarily) and receive two Shock tokens.  Shock tokens prevent characters from taking actions until they spend actions to make Recovery tests.

M and Verdun have really good Morale scores (3+ and 2+) and pass easily, despite the smell of roasted Montoya in the air.  Victory points for destroying an enemy is 1/5 of their point value, rounded up.

Agent M: 0VP
Capt. Vorran: 3VP

"Is it wrong that I'm hungry now?"

Six of Clubs is for Vorran's side, and seeing that Grant is no longer within 3 inches of the objective, Oakley Sprints forward toward it.  Sprinting is a Move action plus two extra inches, which just barely puts Oakley in range of the objective.  He also had to thread between two terrain pieces that not only would have slowed him down, but in this scenario would have risked injuring him, and he couldn't just "go around" because Sprinting is straight line only.  Without anybody left to shoot, and unable to duplicate actions, Oakley chooses to Watch, which is common.  Watching will allow him to react to later enemy actions.

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The Five of Diamonds is used to activate Verdun.  He's a little faster than Agent M, and I'm hoping for a face card to let M take advantage of his double-combat ability.  Verdun moves around the corner and approaches Grant, stopping behind the building so as not to be shot by the waiting Oakley.  Verdun is pretty confident of his safety.  Grant is Exhausted, and only an Ace will let him activate again this round, which we know was already played.  He pops off a shot with his man-stopper pistol, but a roll of 1 is certainly a miss!

Man-stopper pistols are great, if you can actually hit a man with them.

Agent M activates on the Four of Diamonds, and sets up beside Verdun.  His shot is on target, and Grant fails his save hard, and is "destroyed".  See?  I told you man-stopper pistols were nice!  Nobody's close enough to need to make a Morale check, though.

M shows Verdun how it's "dun".

Agent M: 3VP
Capt. Vorran: 3VP

The next card is Five of Clubs, and I decide to store it on Vorran with his Leader ability.  He can use it on his turn to heal himself, rally a nearby ally, or give them a bonus action.

Leaders gonna lead

The Jack of Clubs lets Durand Move, Aim, and Shoot at Agent M, who does not survive the attack.

Snipers gonna snipe

Agent M: 3VP
Capt. Vorran: 9VP

Finally, on the Seven of Clubs, Vorran moves forward and shoots at Verdun, but misses.  He then uses his stored Five of Clubs to order Durand to Watch.

"Hey, Durand!  Get ready!"

With all units activated, the round ends.  There are no particular victory conditions, so we advance the clock by one and reshuffle the deck.  This triggers the Objective check.  As Oakley is the only figure within three inches of the Objective, Vorran's team scores it, and the Objective is removed.  They also get +1 VP for controlling the Objective, per their faction ability.

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future.

I'm pretty sure the results are a forgone conclusion, but I'm going to play this out.

Agent M: 3VP
Capt. Vorran: 14VP

The first card for the round is the King of Diamonds.  Lucky!  Verdun's only chance here is to single-handedly murder the rest of Vorran's team.  Good luck!  With those two watchers covering his position, it's going to be risky, so he chooses to Dodge toward the enemy.  And it's a good thing, too.  He's slowed by two inches, but the incoming fire counts as Suppressing Fire only.

Suppressing Fire is a Bad Shot, so Durand's 3 misses, but Oakley scores a hit.  There's no Severity die.  If any of the Toughness saves versus Suppressing Fire fail, Verdun has to Take Cover, moving out of sight and gaining a Shock token.

Now, his second action can only be a Recovery action.  He needs to roll against his Morale of 2+, which he does easily, removing the Shock.  Kind of out of options, his last action is to Watch.

Yikes!

Oh no!  Such a waste!  An Ace of Diamonds was the only thing that would let Verdun act again this round, and here it is!  Unfortunately, one action just isn't enough to do anything with.  So, he'll just Watch again, replacing his current Watch.

Come on!  Where was that when I actually
NEEDED it?

The next card is the Joker.  This gives the side that last activated the choice to advance the clock if they want to.  Usually it's something you'd do if you were winning, and wanted to deny the enemy an opportunity to catch up.  Agent M's side (i.e. Verdun) advances the clock anyway.  Why not at this point?

JK LOL

Finally (and I do mean finally), Oakley goes on the Four of Clubs.  I figure he costs slightly less, so if Verdun manages to kill him, it's less points lost.  I needn't have worried, however.  Verdun just misses, and then catches all three shots from Oakley's rattle-gun.  First shot, too tough.  Second shot, too tough.  Third shot, too dead.

This is why we bring Oakley on these things.

And that's game!

Agent M: 3VP
Capt. Vorran: 19VP

This was actually a lot shorter than expected, but I usually play with more players, more figures, and a bigger table.  I also didn't use the "random events" deck, though I think there would have only been one random event in this session.  I also didn't get a chance to show off some of the features, like double-actions and bonus actions.  Double actions let you use the same action twice in an activation.  Bonus actions let that character use any card as a bonus action of the specified type.  So, "Bonus Brawl" would allow that character to keep punching even after he's been activated.

Again, I might be biased, but there's something about this game that I like.  The factions have different special abilities and different unit types to select from, both of which give a glimpse into the flavor of the setting.  It has warband campaign rules, which I like.  It has enough randomness in setup and special events to keep things fresh.  And the card activation system and the action constraints give it a lot of "game" without turning it into a boardgame instead of a minis game.

So there you go!

Unity Field Agent: Elite Edition

-Jason "Ludanto" Smith C;E