Rule of the Month - July 2021 - Spooks, Dotlight, the Persuaded State and Dependent

It's a four-for-one special on this month's Horizon Wars: Zero Dark Rule of the Month, because I felt like these four belonged together for reasons you'll hopefully see for yourselves.

SPOOKS

Spooks are a specialism in the Horizon Wars: Zero Dark rulebook. These rules are supplementary for this specialist.

Buy Time

At the start of a mission, a player with a Spook may declare that they are “buying time”. The Spook doesn’t draw their normal hand of cards.  Instead, the first Control Deck cards flipped in the mission, up to a number equal to the Spook’s D, are placed to one side instead of going into the discard pile. When the last card in the Control Deck is flipped, shuffle these cards and place them face down in place of the Control Deck. You may now continue to play until these cards are exhausted. At that point, the mission is over as normal.

In a Versus mission, either or both players, if they have a Spook, must secretly record whether or not they wish to buy time. If both players buy time, a number of cards equal to the sum of both Spooks’ D are put to one side instead of the discard pile and played at the end.

Priority Task

At the start of a mission, a player with a Spook may choose to give their Spook a priority task from the list below, along with extra equipment to help complete the task. Only one task may be selected. A different task or no task at all may be selected for each mission.

Success in a priority task confers an additional +5 XP to the Spook. Failure costs -1 XP. If the Spook has no XP to lose, then the deduction is made from the team’s XP.

Rescue

Randomly select a bogey, excluding any Nemesis or named bogey. That bogey is a secret double agent who doesn’t know that their cover has been blown. The Spook must identify themselves using a code phrase and then extract the agent.

The selected bogey must be persuaded by the Spook (see below).

If the persuaded bogey is within 4” of the Spook (or has exited the table without entering the dead state) at the end of the mission, the Spook gains an additional +2 XP.

For this mission, the Spook has +1 A.

Assassination

The Boss (or a randomly-selected Boss, if there is more than one on the table at the start of the mission) must die! More importantly, the Spook must verify their death.

If the Boss is placed into the dead state, they are only down. The Spook must be engaged with the down Boss and spend an automatic or bonus action to put the Boss into the dead state.

For this mission, the Spook gains +1 D.

Observation

The Spook has been tasked with collecting data on the Red Force.

The Spook must place at least five members of the Red Force into the targeted state. The states do not have to be simultaneous, but each bogey counts only once, even if placed into the targeted state multiple times. Bogeys placed into the targeted state by a hero other than the Spook do not count.

For this mission, the Spook gains the Dotlight gadget upgrade (see below).

Acquisition

In this mission, the Red Force’s deployment marker at the start of the mission represents a dead-drop containing vital intelligence. If the deployment marker would normally be removed, leave it in place. If it is an objective marker that moves, the dead-drop doesn’t move. The Spook must be engaged with the dead-drop and perform an interact (A(16)) to acquire the intelligence.

If the Spook completes the dead-drop interaction and isn’t lost at the end of the mission, the intelligence has been secured.

For this mission, the Spook gains +1 M.

PERSUADED

Certain conditions may render a given bogey susceptible to persuasion that, perhaps, they might switch sides and assist the heroes.

To place a bogey into the persuaded state, a hero must be engaged with the bogey and, in the ensuing CQB, the hero must use their A rather than their D. If the hero achieves more successes than the bogey, the bogey becomes persuaded and ceases to be a bogey, instead becoming an Ally of the hero who persuaded them with the following stats:

Some circumstances may dictate that a particular persuaded bogey has a different stat line as an Ally. Synthetic bogeys cannot be persuaded.

Note that the hero’s A test in CQB will never cause wounds to the bogey. However, the bogey’s successes will still cause the wounded state on the hero. If the hero is killed by this but achieves more successes than the bogey, the bogey is still persuaded but attaches to the next nearest hero who isn’t dead.

Dependent

More an impediment than an upgrade, some allies are poorly suited to the work of an X Team. This upgrade may be given to an Ally at no cost, who then counts as only half an upgrade.

The ally must attempt to remain within 4” of the hero for whom they are an ally at all times. If, for any reason, they are more than 4” away from their hero then either the ally or the hero must be activated next and they must end the activation within 4” of each other. If, at the end of this activation, the ally cannot get within 4” of their hero, the ally is treated as dead.

Dotlight

A Shoot action using a dotlight ignores AV and Def. One success on a shoot test with a dotlight will place the target in the targeted state. A second success will remove one support token from the target. If the target is already targeted, then two successes are required to remove one support token. Additional successes may be spent on bonus actions as normal.

NOTES

The Defence Mech patrons, this month, have got themselves the Catch the Pigeon Mpission of the Month, in which the team must track down and either capture (see May) or persuade an errant spy to please accompany them to a convivial interrogation.

A big part of that mission is timing and, of course, the rule for Spooks in the Horizon Wars: Zero Dark rulebook really come into their own when it comes to timing. But as persuading people was a big part of the mission, I wanted to make the rules for persuasion part of the Rule of the Month post. But then I thought that they aren't really very interesting on their own, without a reason to use them. So I thought "hey, the new rules for Spooks allow folks to persuade a random bogey". Then I realized that the rules for Persuasion also reference the rules for Dependent and the rules for Spooks also referenced the rules for Dotlights and I thought... heck, let's give them all of it!

I've always felt that Spooks don't get enough attention and that people maybe don't value their ability to manipulate the deck at the expense of all of those activations. So now you can give that ability up for a different one, and you can give your Spooks some free, one-off upgrades.

The Dotlight upgrade is one I'm particularly pleased with.

It really comes in handy when you want to dominate an enemy synthetic, but they keep getting those pesky support tokens. So now you can equip an ally with a Dotlight to help the EWOp get the edge. Also, teams without an EWOp now have a useful way to target the enemy and steal their support tokens.

The Dependent "upgrade" is a bit more complicated. I invented it initially just for persuaded bogeys, to make them a little harder to manage than just a free mid-game Ally. But I decided it could be an upgrade for people who wanted to, perhaps, take a few more allies - albeit, at a cost.

I don't expect it to be a super-popular option in the solo game, but in a Versus match-up, it could be a great option for a hero in the sniper role to have an EmJay just watching their every move and a CP Dog to protect them from enemy counter-attacks. And if you have to ditch them... well, they were only half an upgrade anyway.