A FISTFUL OF KUNG FU Hong Kong Movie Wargame Rules O SPREY Andrea Sfiligoi WARGAMES © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com A FISTFUL OF KUNG FU HONG KONG MOVIE WARGAME RULES ANDREA SFILIGOI © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 4 TRAITS 24 What This Game Is All About 4 What You Need To Play 4 STUNTS 36 Models And Basing 4 Leaping And The Chi Leap 36 Game Length And Scale 4 Wall Walk And Back Flip 36 Protagonists And Extras 5 Wall-Bounce 36 Chi Level 5 Sliding Down Bannisters 36 Swinging 36 GETTING STARTED 6 Attack From Above 37 Casting – Select Your Characters 6 Jumping Down And Falling Damage 37 Determine Attacker And Defender 6 Breaking Stuff 38 Scenario Complications 7 Roll Initiative 7 TAOIST MAGIC 39 Sorcery 39 ACTIVATION 7 Mystical Challenges 39 Reactions 8 The Turnover 8 SAMPLE CHARACTER Actions 8 PROFILES 40 Free Actions 8 Police 40 Martial Artists 40 MOVEMENT 10 Ninja 41 Broken Ground 11 Triads And Tongs 41 Moving Around Corners 11 Yakuza 42 Moving Through Friends 12 Supernatural Creatures 42 Random Movement 12 Cyborgs And High-Tech Characters 43 Animals 44 HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT 13 Making A Hand-To-Hand Attack 13 SCENARIOS 45 Resolving Hand-To-Hand Combat 14 Plots 45 Leaving Hand-To-Hand Combat 18 Locations 47 Complications 55 GUN FU 19 Line Of Sight 19 APPENDIX 1: Range 19 MORE THAN TWO PLAYERS 49 Targeting Priority 19 Shooting And Hand-To-Hand Combat 19 APPENDIX 2: Making A Ranged Attack 20 Resolving Ranged Attacks 21 BUILDING A GANG 60 Trait Costs 61 USING CHI 22 Motivation 22 QUICK REFERENCE SHEET 62 MORALE 23 END OF THE GAME 23 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com INTRODUCTION WHAT THIS GAME IS ALL ABOUT A Fistful of Kung Fu is a set of skirmish rules reproducing on the tabletop the wild, extravagant action seen in Hong Kong movies, be they crime dramas, horror thrillers, urban martial-arts adventures or period wuxia with splendid costumes and impeccable fight choreography. We hope you’ll have as much fun playing this game as we had writing it and testing it. Good luck! WHAT YOU NEED TO PLAY To play this game, you’ll need: (cid:114)(cid:1) Three standard six-sided dice (d6) per player. (cid:114)(cid:1) Miniatures (about 6–15 per player, or more in larger games if you wish). (cid:114)(cid:1) Three measuring sticks – Short (7.5cm), Medium (12cm), and Long (18cm). (cid:114)(cid:1) A playing surface of at least 90x90cm (3’x3’). (cid:114)(cid:1) About four tokens per player to represent Chi. Glass beads or spare dice are perfect. (cid:114)(cid:1) All the scenic material you can put together – watch the films for inspiration! A Fistful of Kung Fu is a terrain-heavy game, and the scenery is as much a character as the miniatures. Characters manoeuvre around difficult going, exploit terrain features to their advantage and use everyday items as improvised weapons. Objects are thrown, fish tanks explode, cars burst into flames, sand is kicked in the opponents’ eyes, and innocent bystanders are caught up in the chaos of high- powered kung fu combat. (© North Star Military Figures) MODELS AND BASING The game can be played using any miniatures with a consistent scale and basing. All must be independently based. Facing is irrelevant. We use round bases (washers or coins) but squares or hexagons are just as viable. GAME LENGTH AND SCALE A satisfactory game can be played in under one hour, making it possible to play a short campaign in a long evening or over a weekend. The game is scalable: to play larger battles, simply increase the points total. The rules are written for two players but more can play (see Appendix 1). The ground scale is 1cm = 1 yard. One figure represents one person. A turn represents a few seconds of real time. All distances are measured with three sticks: Short (7.5cm), Medium (12cm), and Long (18cm). Players may measure distances at any time. The recommended playing area is 90x90cm (3’x3’). 4 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com PROTAGONISTS AND EXTRAS A character in the game is either a named Protagonist (the hero or villain of the piece), a nameless Extra, or a slightly more capable Bruiser. Protagonists are vastly superior – they generally possess many special abilities and are hard to defeat. While Extras fall by the dozen, Protagonists can shrug off a lot of punishment – as long as their player has Chi Points to spend. Lost Chi can be recovered and more can be gained during the game. A player has only one Protagonist. A gang will also have 5–14 Extras. These are the grunts, foot soldiers, and followers that support the Protagonist – low-level ninja, novice Shaolin monks, Hong Kong cops on the beat, acolytes of a Taoist sorcerer, minions of a hopping vampire, and so on. A gang may also have a single Bruiser. This is an Extra with better-than-average fighting skills, and represents a Protagonist’s right-hand man, bodyguard, or similar. Every character is described by a profile. Here is an example: Jack Liang 104 points Protagonist Q2 C4 Acrobat, Two Guns, Protected, Jumper NAME The character’s name or archetype (e.g. ‘Drunken Monkey Master’, ‘Heroic Cop’). Protagonists and Bruisers deserve to be given names! POINTS This is the cost of the character. More powerful characters cost more points. TYPE The character’s type – Protagonist, Bruiser, or Extra. QUALITY (Q) This is an overall indication of reaction speed, initiative, and morale of the character. The lower the number, the better. To determine whether a character manages to perform an action, roll against their Q value. For example, a monk climbing on a slippery roof may be required to pass a Q test to see if he makes it or if he loses his footing. The player rolls a die. If it is equal to or greater than the Q value, the character succeeds. Quality is also used for activation, to determine how many actions the character may perform in a turn. Protagonists are usually Q2+, Extras Q4+ and civilians Q5+. COMBAT (C) This value measures how well the character fights. Strength, martial training, agility, and weapon skill are all factored into this number. Protagonists are usually C4, Bruisers C3, Extras C2, and Civilians C0 or C1. TRAITS This catch-all category includes a character’s equipment, weapons, abilities, and powers. Beneficial Traits increase a character’s points cost, and detrimental ones decrease it. CHI LEVEL In addition to the character profiles, each gang will have a Chi Level – a measure of the inner strength and mystical energies available to its fighters. A gang receives 1 Chi Point per full 100 points. So a gang built to a total of 400 points would have 4 Chi Points, as would one built to 403 points. 5 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com (© North Star Military Figures) GETTING STARTED CASTING – SELECT YOUR CHARACTERS Select your characters with the following restrictions: (cid:114)(cid:1) The total points cost of your force must not exceed 400. A leeway of 10 points is acceptable, but the gang built on fewer points receives a +1 on the attacker/ defender roll. (cid:114)(cid:1) Your gang must have between 6 and 15 characters, either chosen from the sample characters provided, or built from scratch (see Appendix 2). (cid:114)(cid:1) The gang must contain 1 Protagonist and no more than 1 Bruiser. (cid:114)(cid:1) There are no limits on what types of characters may be included in a gang – police and gangsters may work together against a common foe, a Taoist sorcerer might recruit ninja, a Triad gang might resort to sending a hopping vampire against their cybernetically enhanced Yakuza enemies, etc. (cid:114)(cid:1) You have 4 Chi Points and a Chi Level of 4. The Chi Level may change in campaigns. Chi Points are spent and recovered during the game, but you may never have more Chi Points than your Chi Level. All Chi Points spent are recovered between games. Your Chi Level increases when you achieve a scenario objective or defeat a Protagonist. DETERMINE ATTACKER AND DEFENDER Both players roll a die, re-rolling ties. The gang built on fewer points gets a +1 on this roll. The high roller decides if he wants to be the attacker or the defender. The attacker determines the Plot of the scenario to be played, while the defender sets up the Location, laying out terrain (see the Scenarios section for more detailed information). After the defender has set up the terrain, the attacker deploys a character anywhere on the tabletop. The defender then does the same, placing a character anywhere, but at least 2x Medium away from any visible enemy. The first player then places a second character with the same restriction, and so on, with players alternating deployment until all characters have been placed. There is no obligation to deploy the Protagonist before the Extras, or vice-versa. If one player has more characters than the other, he deploys all of his remaining characters in one go after his opponent has deployed his final character. 6 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com SCENARIO COMPLICATIONS All scenarios will come with a Complication (and maybe an unexpected V.I.P. for good measure), which is determined once deployment is complete. See the Scenarios section for a full guide to introducing Complications and V.I.P.s to your game. ROLL INITIATIVE When all characters have been deployed, both players roll a die. The side built on fewer points adds +1. Re-roll any ties. The high roller is the acting player and takes the first turn, activating his characters in any order he wants. When his turn ends, his opponent becomes the acting player. A turn ends for one of the following reasons: (cid:114)(cid:1) The acting player has activated or attempted activation of all of his characters. (cid:114)(cid:1) The acting player rolls a turnover. (cid:114)(cid:1) The acting player decides to pass. Initiative is rolled ONLY on the first turn of the game. Players then alternate taking turns until the end of the battle. (by Jesse McGibney © Osprey Publishing Ltd.) ACTIVATION When it is your turn, nominate a single character that you want to activate. Roll one, two, or three dice for that character. You decide how many to roll. Every roll equal to or better than the character’s Q is a success. Every roll lower than his Q is a failure. The character may perform one action for every success rolled. There is no need to announce what you are going to do – just point at the character and roll the dice. You may change your mind between actions. For example, if you plan to fire multiple shots at a target, then take him down with your first shot, you can direct the remaining shots against other targets. When rolling for activation, a roll of 1 is always a failure, and a roll of 6 is always a success.  If you roll two or three 6s, you may perform one additional action. E.g. if you roll 3 dice against Q2 and score 6, 6, and 4, you may perform four actions. Depending on how many are rolled, failures can result in the opponent being given the opportunity to interrupt the action with his Protagonist, or in play passing to the opponent altogether. A character is never forced to act or react. A player may also decide to skip a turn altogether if he so wishes. The possible outcomes of an activation roll, and their consequences, are shown in the following table: 7 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com Dice Rolls Results The chosen character performs no action. Your opponent may immediately perform 1 Reaction with his Protagonist. 1 failure You may then nominate another character and roll to activate him. If all of your characters have already been activated, play passes to your opponent. The chosen character performs one action. 1 success You may then choose another character and roll to activate him. If all of your characters have already been activated, play passes to your opponent. Your opponent may immediately perform 1 Reaction with his Protagonist. You may then perform one action with the chosen character. 1 success, 1 failure You may then choose another character and roll to activate him. If all of your characters have already been activated, play passes to your opponent. Your opponent may immediately perform 2 Reactions with his Protagonist. 1 success, 2 failures You may then perform one action with the chosen character. Turnover – play passes to the opponent. The chosen character performs no action. 2 or 3 failures Your opponent may immediately perform 2 or 3 Reactions with his Protagonist. Turnover – play passes to the opponent. The chosen character performs two actions. 2 successes You may then choose another character and roll to activate him. If all of your characters have already been activated, play passes to your opponent. Your opponent may immediately perform 1 Reaction with his Protagonist. You may then perform two actions with the chosen character. 2 successes, 1 failure You may then choose another character and roll to activate him. If all of your characters have already been activated, play passes to your opponent. The chosen character performs three actions. 3 successes You may then choose another character and roll to activate him. If all of your characters have already been activated, play passes to your opponent. REACTIONS Reactions are short bursts of activity in which a Protagonist takes advantage of a hesitation in the opponents’ actions. Whenever you roll a failure when activating one of your characters, the opponent may try to react with his Protagonist during your turn. To react, a Protagonist must pass a Q test. A Reaction is faster than the action that generated it, and so takes place before the character who failed the roll gets a chance to act. The number of dice rolled in a Reaction is the same as the failures that caused the Reaction. E.g. you roll two failures, and your opponent reacts – he rolls two dice and performs one action per success.  A Protagonist may attempt any number of Reactions, until he fails one. When a Protagonist fails a Reaction roll, he may not react again until his next turn. Possible reactions include movement or performing a hand-to-hand or ranged attack. However, ranged attacks require one more action than usual during a Reaction.  E.g. intrepid investigator Jim Choo (Q2) is facing a Tong gang. It is the Tong’s turn. The Tong player attempts to activate a thug on a single die, and rolls a failure. Jim chooses to react, so he may roll a single die. He rolls a 3 – a success! Jim interrupts the Tong’s turn. He may perform a hand-to-hand attack but not a ranged attack, as a ranged attack would require two actions. Jim uses the action to jump behind an upturned table. After Jim’s Reaction is dealt with, the Tong turn continues. The Tong player rolls to activate another gang member, this time on three dice, and scores a success and two failures. Jim chooses to react again, rolling two dice and scoring two successes – enough for a ranged attack! Jim dispatches the thug with a shot from his Beretta before the criminal has a chance to act.  REACTIONS SUMMARY (cid:114)(cid:1) Performing a Reaction is never mandatory. (cid:114)(cid:1) A Reaction is rolled for on as many dice as were failed by the opponent. (cid:114)(cid:1) Reactions happen before the opponent’s actions, if any. 8 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com (cid:114)(cid:1) Only Protagonists react. Extras and Bruisers may never perform Reactions. (cid:114)(cid:1) If the Protagonist fails a Reaction, he may not react again until the next turn. (cid:114)(cid:1) Reactions happen only during the opponent’s turn. (cid:114)(cid:1) There is no such a thing as ‘reacting to a Reaction’. (cid:114)(cid:1) Most Traits can be used in Reactions. Exceptions will be noted in the Trait descriptions. (cid:114)(cid:1) Extras may never perform Reactions. (cid:114)(cid:1) Ranged attacks may be performed as Reactions, but require one additional action. THE TURNOVER If a character rolls two or more failures on an activation roll, in addition to any reactions caused, your turn ends and initiative passes to your opponent. This happens after the opponent has performed any Reactions and your character acts on its one success, if it had one. E.g. you activate a character and roll three dice. You roll one success and two failures. You cause a Reaction on two dice and a turnover. Things happens in this order: 1) the opponent may attempt a Reaction on two dice, 2) you perform one action with the character, 3) your turn ends and the initiative passes to the opponent.  You may ignore a Turnover by sacrificing 1 Chi Point.  ACTIONS An activated character may perform one, two, or three actions. Among other things, actions are used to move and to attack. An Extra may not perform more than one ranged or hand-to-hand attack per turn. All characters may spend additional actions on an attack (hand-to-hand or ranged) to make it more powerful, taking a few seconds to aim or putting all their strength into a punch. Extras and Bruisers may boost an attack by a maximum of one additional action, and Protagonists by any number of available actions. A character may spend his actions as follows: Action Cost Move one action per move Chi Jump one action, 1 Chi Point Unit with Short Move in difficult terrain two actions Hand-to-hand or ranged attack one action Hand-to-hand or ranged attack at +1 two actions Hand-to-hand or ranged attack at +2 three actions (Protagonists only) Hand-to-hand or ranged attack at +3 four actions (Protagonists only)* Hand-to-hand or ranged attack at +4 five actions (Protagonists only)* Hand-to-hand or ranged attack at +5 six actions (Protagonists only)* Stand up one action Use a Chi Trait zero or more actions (see description), 1 Chi Point Other actions As determined by scenario or player agreement * Due to focusing, Protagonists may roll up to 6 activation dice in certain circumstances. You may perform actions in any order. You may perform actions not explicitly prohibited by the rules as long as players agree. FREE ACTIONS A few actions may be performed by just spending a turn doing them, instead of rolling to activate a character. The player simply declares that ‘this character is performing a free action’. The character does not roll for activation and instead performs one action from the following list: 9 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com (cid:114)(cid:1) Focusing. (cid:114)(cid:1) Draw, unjam, or reload a firearm. (cid:114)(cid:1) Perform a Free Move. (cid:114)(cid:1) Miscellaneous action: pick up an object or wounded friend, open a lock, defuse a trap or bomb, copy data from a computer, open a puzzle box, search a room, or any other similar task. There are some restrictions: (cid:114)(cid:1) Focusing may only be performed by a Protagonist who is not in hand- to-hand combat. (cid:114)(cid:1) A Free Move may be performed only if there is no active, visible enemy within 2x Medium of the character. (cid:114)(cid:1) Miscellaneous actions may be performed in hand-to-hand combat, but any adjacent enemy receives a Free Hack at the character. If the Free Hack hits, in addition to any combat effects, the action is interrupted. FOCUSING Focusing allows the Protagonist to bank one activation die, allowing him to roll up to 4 activation dice on his next turn. He may focus and bank dice for 2 consecutive turns to roll up to 5 activation dice on the third turn, or focus for 3 turns to roll up to 6 activation dice on the fourth turn. However, if the Protagonist suffers a combat effect before activating, all his banked dice are lost. The Protagonist may also focus to recover 1 spent Chi Point. The Chi Point is recovered immediately at the end of the character’s action. No gang may recover more Chi Points than its Chi Level. If the gang has spent no Chi, the Protagonist may not recover Chi Points. FREE MOVES When a character has no active enemies within 2x Medium, it may perform a single non- combat move instead of dicing for activation. This Free Move represents a slow tactical advance. Think of the cop that keeps his head low and sneaks behind the counter in a restaurant firefight. As soon as the character’s movement brings him within 2x Medium of an active enemy, the character may not perform any more Free Moves. Civilians do not count as enemies. Bound, chained, Knocked Out, drugged, heavily intoxicated, and dead enemies do not count as ‘active’. The Free Move may bring the character closer than 2x Medium to an enemy, but not into contact. No other action may be performed during a Free Move. However, a Protagonist performing a Free Move may react as normal (see Reactions, above). MOVEMENT Most characters have Medium move. They can move from one end of a Medium stick to the other as one action. Movement is measured from any point of the character’s base to any point of the measuring stick. This means that a character may effectively move the length of one stick plus the width of his base. All characters have Medium move unless otherwise indicated on their profile. Limping models have Short Move. Long-legged or fast models, including most four-legged animals, have Long Move. The movement stick is the character’s maximum movement per action. A character may move less than this if desired, or not move at all. 10 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com