July - Rule of the Month - Civpop

I didn't manage to sustain the content I was providing back in 2021 in the face of having to also do a day job, look after my family, stay fit and not have a mental breakdown. The fact that so many of you have stuck around to support me anyway means the absolute world to me.

So have a draft preview of some more rules from Operation Kurgan, as spoilered earlier this week: civilian populations.

Civpop is only relevant in PvP missions, at the moment. In solo missions, they are probably making life a bit easy for the heroes. All the same, they might be fun to experiment with in home-grown solo missions and I'm sure they will eventually find their way into some solo mission content as I develop Operation Kurgan.

Something I discovered playing Horizon Wars: Zero Dark PvP - which I've really not done as often as I would like to - is that the Red Force can end up just being squashed between the two players who then rush to complete the mission and never really engage much with each other. Replacing the Red Force with a civpop forces players to engage with each other and just adds an interesting obstacle to that engagement.

A civpop follows all the same rules as the normal Red Force that you can find in Horizon Wars: Zero Dark in terms of deployment and activation method. However, what they do when they are activated is different. In addition, the Complications that they generate are also different.

Alert and Not Alert

Civpop activations vary depending on whether the civpop member is alert or not. Civpop become alert in the normal way for Red Force described in Horizon Wars: Zero Dark. It may be helpful to mark civpop as they become alert initially. But once all civpop members are alert they will remain so and markers can be removed.

Alert civpop behave as described below for their activation but double the distance they move.

Types of Civpop

Just like the Red Force, civpop comes in three types. These are VIPs (Bosses), Faces (Elites) and Locals (Grunts). For the purposes of these rules, we will refer to VIPs, Faces and Locals. But if you are using rules from another supplement, the terms are interchangeable and any reference to a Boss should be treated as referring to a VIP etc.

Activations

As with the Red Force, civpop members are activated based on the number and suit of the Control deck card that has just been flipped. Aces activate VIPs. Kings, Queens and Jacks activate Faces. And the number cards activate Locals. If you flip a card and there are none of the relevant type of civpop available to activate, then the card is promoted and you activate the next type of civpop. So if there are no Locals available, you activate a Face. If there are no Faces available, you activate a VIP. If no VIPs are available, you generate a Complication.

Clubs ♣

Clubs are “carry on” cards. The civpop moves 3” in the direction they are facing, staying at least 1” away from any obstacle, character or civpop with which they would come into contact.

Diamonds ♦

Diamonds are “trade” cards. The civpop will move 3” towards the nearest character and if they finish within 2” of a character, the character will lose a support token as the civpop distracts them trying to sell them something, promote a business, give them a flyer or similar.

Hearts ♥

Hearts are “rest” cards. The civpop moves 3” towards the nearest terrain item. If they finish in contact with a terrain item, they stop and turn to look directly away from the terrain item.

Spades ♠

Spades are “fight” cards. The civpop moves 3” towards the nearest other civpop or character. If they become engaged, then the civpop stops.

Crossfire

In the world of Horizon Wars, unlike some popular miniatures wargames, our protagonists are expected to have some consideration for the wellbeing of unarmed innocent civilians. In order to perform a Shoot action that draws LOS within 1” of a civpop or within 2” of an alert civpop, a character must use an action to perform an interact D(13) test. They may then use at least one bonus action to perform a Shoot action as part of the same activation. This means that if their action this turn was anything other than an interact D(13) test (including an interact test to do anything else) then they cannot draw LOS with 1” of a civpop or 2” of an alert civpop. If they are using non-lethal munitions, they may re-roll the test, but must accept the results of the second test, even if they are worse.

A character may not voluntarily become engaged with a civpop and must remain at least 1” away from them at all times. If a character is engaged with a civpop, they must fight them until either the civpop is down or dead or the civpop is activated again and moves away.

Depending on the mission you are playing there may be consequences if a civpop is made down or dead.

Civpop Complications

If a complication is generated for any reason, roll on the table below.

D12 Roll

Complication

1 - Immediately deploy three Locals

2 - Immediately deploy two Faces

3 - Immediately deploy one VIP

4-8 - Immediately deploy one Crowd

9 - Peace keeping - Immediately deploy three Grunts

10 - Peace enforcement - Immediately deploy two Elites

11 - Crime Scene - Immediately deploy one Boss

12 - Shutdown! - Immediately deploy one Defence Mech

Crowds

Crowds are a denser concentration of civpop, passing through an area, represented by a circular base 60mm wide. Crowds are not alert when they are deployed and, if activated, only ever perform a ♣ action. If a crowd becomes alert, immediately deploy three Locals, two Faces and one VIP using the position of the crowd as the deployment point, then generate a complication, then remove the crowd. The new civpop are alert.

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Of course, I now have to build some crowds for the purposes of illustrating the rules. So I need to go and look for someone who produces civilian miniatures at a reasonable price. Of course, you can use just a 60mm cardboard circle or stick cheap standees to a base if you like.