Basic Premise
In the distant
future, the emperor Injurius has decided to hold
gladatorial combat games in a manner similar to ancient Rome. Groups of
warriors enter an arena and fight for their lives. As warriors gain
battle experience by killing their opponents, they grow in skill and
ability, becoming more formidable. When you play Injurius
Games you’re controlling the gladiators in one of these
battles. This review will attempt to describe the game play at a
basic level (there is a lot more to the rules than I can cover here), so
that you can determine if this sounds like the right game for
you.
How it’s Played – At a High Level
I
played Injurius
Games at the last two Origins
conventions in Columbus, Ohio. My favorite variant is the
“keep what you kill” one, where you’re given one unpainted
miniature for each one of your opponents’ corresponding figures you kill
in the game.
Basic Injurius Games gameplay works
like this. Across a table, on which is configured a map with various
kinds of terrain, are groups of warriors, one for each player. There are
5 warriors in each group, every one with different weaponry and
abilities. There is the commander, who runs the show and spurs his men
on to victory. There is the sniper, able to inflict great damage from a
long distance, if he can hit you to inflict it (which isn’t easy). There
is the plasma gunner, able to shoot into areas and fire on enemies who
are hiding behind walls and the like. The mini gunner, whose weapon
fires fast and powerfully. Last, there is the lowly grunt, whose basic
skills make him useful, and whose grenades can make him deadly to groups
of his enemies.
At the beginning of the Injurius
Games, warriors are in their “starting boxes”. The
game master draws a card to decide which team is going to move, and
which warrior gets to move. The commander, if he hasn’t moved already,
can move on any of his team’s turns, in addition to the warrior who is
supposed to move that time around. The commander, when activated, gets a
certain number of “command points” he can use to improve his
(or his men’s) performance as needed during the game. This is the paper
equivalent of using his leadership skills to spur his men to fight
better.
Warriors who haven’t fought yet have the chance to do so
when their card comes up, or they can go into an “opportunity
fire” mode where they wait for an enemy to come into range. When
fire happens, the player doing the firing has to quickly calculate the
effects of “cover” from the terrain, bonuses due to battle
honors and power-ups, etc., to determine what it takes to hit the enemy.
The firing player rolls the dice to attempt to hit. If he does, the
player being fired upon rolls the dice to see if he manages to escape
damage from the fire. If not, the firing player rolls the amount of
damage dealt to his victim. A victim who receives too much damage dies
and is out of the game.
Also during Injurius Games
play is a chance that a “power up” will be placed on
the field. A power up is something like the same concept in a video
game. When a warrior steps on a randomly placed power up, he gains a
weapon, skill, or other improvement that makes him more formidable. That
is, unless he rolls a 12 and actually damages himself from then on. The
exact location of power ups is determined by a pair of die rolls that
determine where to place the item vertically and horizontally from the
rolling player(s).
When one warrior defeats another, he obtains a
battle honor. Battle honors, similar to power ups, enhance the warrior’s
stats, skills, and abilities. Needless to say, a warrior who has killed
even a few opponents in battle is likely to become quite formidable in a
hurry.
In the beginning rounds of the game, the teams on opposite
sides of the table are enemies in the Injurius Games.
Later, in the last turn, the game masters turn it into a free-for-all,
where anyone can shoot at the units of any other player. In the
“keep what you kill” games, this is where you’ll start
collecting (and losing) miniatures very quickly.
Injurius
Games Review
Injurius Games is a fun
combat game for anyone who doesn’t like extremely detailed combat rules
(like me). A game between 8 people, each with 5 warriors (one of each
type) will take about 4 hours to go through 6 turns. Smaller groups,
naturally, go faster.
The one element of Injurius
Games I find a bit annoying is the calculation of “to
hit” values on each shot. The calculation usually goes something
like this:
- Determine the base “to hit” value for
the weapon and distance.
- If the warrior is a “Hero”
level, subtract one from that “to hit” value.
- If the
warrior is a “Champion” level (like the commander), subtract
two from the “to hit” value.
- If the warrior moved
before firing, add one to the “to hit” value.
- If the
enemy unit is behind any cover, determine the amount and adjust “to
hit” upward accordingly.
- If your warrior is damaged,
determine if this affects “to hit” and adjust
accordingly.
Most of the time, in the “keep what you
kill” scenarios, the calculation ends up being this: “OK, I
need a 5 to hit you. But I moved to get into firing position, so I need
a 6. But I’m a hero, so that goes back to a 5. But you’re behind partial
cover, so it goes back up to a 6. But my battle honor makes it a 5
again.” So you go through all that math and end up back at the
start again. Personally, I think I’d adjust the Injurius
Games character sheets so that the Hero and Champion figures
were already included. If a character gets a promotion/demotion during
battle, then adjust that figure. I’d also adjust the sheets to assume a
character is moving when he shoots, and give him a bonus for being
stationary, rather than assume he’s stationary and penalize him for
moving. Then the long-winded above thing would become something more
like “I need a 5 to hit you while I’m moving, but my battle honor
makes that a 4, except that you’re behind partial cover, so it’s a
5.” Still longer than I would like, but it would be faster and
easier to sort out.
Aside from that, I find Injurius
Games to be well balanced, not unnecessarily complex,
reasonably fast paced, and above all, fun. Kids and adults alike can
enjoy it and grasp the rules.
Definitely recommended. See Red Shirt Games to buy your
copy and miniatures.
