Combat & Melee

The viewers of the Worldspanner Factions omniverse love an exciting, close contest of skills and strategy. They also love bloodshed! Give the viewers what they crave...at your opponents’ expense.

Combat is not the primary goal of a Factions team, but it is an important aspect of victory.

Health and Wounds

Each hero has a certain amount of Health, shown in the upper right of their hero card.

When a target is damaged, use wound markers to record wounds.

Defeat

When a hero has as many wounds as Health, that hero is immediately defeated.

If the hero had loot, leave it with the hero card and place a defeat marker in the space. Heroes in the space can pick up the loot (p. 11).

If the hero only had gold, you can stack the gold in the space instead.

Turn the defeated hero card sideways. Remove all wounds. Remove any trackers placed because of the hero, unless specified otherwise. Place the hero’s figure on the Underpit area of the defeat placard. The hero and their special abilities are instantly out of play, null and void.

A hero is considered “defeated” when in the Pit or Underpit.

Heroes can be renewed from defeat by visiting Death’s Edge.

Defeat Weapons

A card with a skull in the upper right is discarded after causing the defeating attack on a hero. It is NOT lost when defeating a minion.

Melee vs Ranged Attack

Melee is hand-to-hand combat. Your target must be in an adjacent space.

Every hero has their own natural fists or claws. They don’t need a Melee card to make a melee attack - though having one is more fun.

Ranged attacks can hit targets that are spaces away, assuming terrain like buildings and walls are not in the way. Unlike melee, however, few heroes have a natural ranged attack. So, a hero usually must have a Ranged card to make a ranged attack.

Resolving Melee

During every Melee step, each hero on both teams can make one attack on one adjacent enemy.

Make these attacks in order of Wits, (╥), highest to lowest. This means a hero could be defeated before they get to attack.

If Wits are tied, the hero from the currently active team goes first.

To keep easy track of who has attacked, you should handle the different clusters of melee around the map separately, as directed by the active team.

Choose Weapon

Every hero has natural melee fists/claws. But you might have a Melee card that you want to use instead. The card must be revealed to use it. Turn the card face-up if not yet revealed. You can use only one weapon.

The natural melee attack is at the bottom left of the hero card, the area circled in yellow on Blackbeard. He has 3 Power and a Wound rating of 2 (shown by two hearts). Let’s use his fists in an attack...

Hit Challenge ╙ vs ═

Compare the attacker’s Melee (╙) rating against target’s Agility (═).

Blackbeard has 6 Melee vs Rizzik’s 8 Agility—the attacker is 2 worse (-2).

Draw a challenge card. Look at the blue Hit bar. If it is next to your number, you hit.

You draw a card and look at the “-2” row. The bar next to it is blue—a hit!

Damage Challenge ╘ vs ╧

If an attack hits, compare the weapon’s Power (╘) with the target’s Armor (╧).

3 Power vs. 2 Armor— Blackbeard’s fists are 1 better.

Draw a challenge card and look at the correct row. Increase or decrease the weapon’s Wound rating by the amount shown. This is the number of wounds caused.

└ Amaze causes +1 wound

┐ Pass causes the normal wound amount

╛ Squeak causes one less wound

╜ Fail two less wounds

╝ Fopp no wounds at all

You draw a card and look at the 1 row. It shows -1 wound. Blackbeard’s fists have a 2 Wound rating. So, the attack causes 1 wound to the target (2 Wound rating minus 1 for the Squeak).

Modifiers

Hit modifiers affect your Hit challenge. Damage modifiers affect your Damage challenge, NOT the number of wounds you cause.

+1 melee Hit effectively increases your Melee rating by 1, and +1 Damage increases your Power.