Millennium 0.11 - Star Marines

Sorry to have been a bit quiet, recently.  No doubt some of you were relieved to have the pressure on your inboxes temporarily relieved.

Basically, as some of you noticed, I've been trying to do something resembling more videos.  And failing pretty badly.  I am going to get back on the multimedia horse eventually, with more videos and a monthly (at least) podcast for patreons.

But in the mean time, I'm consoling myself over my miserable failure by doing what I know I do well, which is writing more stuff for Zero Dark.  So find attached the most recent iteration of Zero Dark: Millennium.

Changes since last time:

1. Added Manipulators gadget to represent those minis with extra bionic limbs.

2. Added Magmar weapons (these need playtesting - can't decide if they're ultradeadly or ultrauseless).

3. Added FRICKIN STAR MARINES! - These are the headline act of this update.  Basically, in Versus mode, they're just a recommendation on how to put a big, armoured, prime-type of hero on a 30mm base into the team.  Apply salt to taste.  But they come to life a bit more in Solo or Co-op Mode where you can take one in your team, who gets a bunch of free upgrades, and suffer a bit of a boost to the Red Force in consequence; or you can take a whole team of Star Marines and get access to the Upgrade Packs, which describe specific types of senior Star Marine officers who only go into the field with specific personal missions.  So whatever mission you play, you also have to go after the secondary mission.  I'll leave it up to you to work out which upgrade pack describes which miniatures.

Now, I'm still writing missions for Millennium, so I've not spelled out the consequences to not achieving your secondary mission in detail.  But basically, if you're just playing a standalone mission, there are no consequences except a reduced sense of personal satisfaction at not achieving it.  That's solo gaming for you!

If you're playing an operation, though (and there will be a complete Millennium operation in the rules eventually), you will get two chances to snag the secondary objective, you lose the special hero and have to replace them.  So you have to achieve the secondary objective at least in every other mission to keep the special hero on your side.

Why would you want to?  Well, they each have four upgrades, but those upgrades only take up two upgrade slots.  So with the free upgrades (for which you don't have to run down the clock) they each have at least eight upgrades.