14 days of delay, quite a bit, heh? We are sorry. Yes, we really wanted to have STORYon-BOARD on 31st of August. And yes, there was no damn chance to have it. Really. Those of you who follow us on Twitter (I strongly recom-mend that way of contact with us) know what was happening in our office in last weeks. Since 8 AM till 9PM day by day for whole damn Au-gust. In first days of September it was not eno-ugh so we had to be in office since 8AM till midnight. Oh, yes, making games is a fun and easy job, right? The good news - Robinson Crusoe is re-ady and is in print. The good news - we have new STORYon-BOARD for you. The good news - we are still in love with games. If this absolutely hardcore marathon of work on Robinson didn’t heal us, it means that nothing will do. We are incurable. I am happy to know that. Ignacy Trzewiczek

Winter

5 Die hard Merry

8 New cards, new stories

12 Why I needed

14 The art of Winter

Articles

16 Yes, you can

18 Poland has gamers

Neuroshima Tactics

18 Neuroshima tactics - introduction

Other

26 21 seconds with Moloch

Editor: Ignacy Trzewiczek Translation: Marcin ’Joker’ Karbowski, Danai ’Smoczyca’ Chondrokouki Front cover illustration: Sandra DuchiewiczDesign, layout and DTP: Maciej ’Scorn’ Mutwil

Portal Publishing, ul. Św. urbana 15, 44-100 gliwice, PolanDportal@wydawnictwoportal.pl, www.portalpublishing.eu

Pret-a-Porter nominated!Our last year’s release, Pret-a-Porter got nomi-nated for International Gamers Award in GENE-RAL STRATEGY – MUL-TI-PLAYER CATEGORY! Previously game got no-mination for Game of the Year in Poland. With this great feedback from re-viewers and gamers the big questions arises... Did you play Pret-a-Porter already? :) We strongly recommend this game. It was awkward theme, but is really really good.

Convoy licensed!Our this year’s release, Convoy, will be publi-shed soon by Z-Man Ga-mes and distributed worl-dwide. Our first small English print of the game will be available in Essen 2012 on both Portal’s and Z-Man’s booths. Convoy is two player card game

set in a world of Neuro-shima. It was covered de-eply in first issue of STO-RYonBOARD, please, check it out. Tom Vasel has reviewed Convoy on The Dice Tower http://www.youtube.com/wat-ch?v=Qkljkmx1hTM

Steel Police and Dan-cer soon to be available in USAfter long negotiations about future of Neuro-shima Hex in US we are happy to announce that Portal Publishing and Z--Man Games came to agreement and new ar-mies for the game - Steel Police and Dancer will be published by Z-Man in US and available worl-dwide. In Essen 2012 small print of English

edition of Steel Police and Dancer will be available on both Portal’s and Z-Man’s booths. Aftre Essen Z-Man’s will do bigger English print run of new armies.

Robinson Crusoe one of the hotness games of Sep-tember.This year’s release, Robin-son Crusoe is one of the top hot game on BGG in Sep-tember. We published vide blog about game, we sho-wed cover and board and you guys really like it. Next issue of STORYonBOARD will be dedicated to Robin-son, so more good stuff to

come!

ItwasMarch2011.Ifi-nally had rules for The New Era expansion. I had new cards and I was ready to test it. I came back from work, eat supper, say good night to kids and sat at the table with my wife, Merry. I needed to see how those new rules worked. We played. Merry was playing terribly. Chaos on the ta-ble. No good decisions. No strategy. It was terrible and yes, I really mean it. I was tired after work and I was disappointed with Merry’s

approach. At some point I just put my cards away and say: ‚OK, we stop. You are playing like moron. Thank you very much for such help!’ I was really disappointed that she didn’t want to help me with testing. Merry however didn’t say sor-ry. She reacted quite the opposite. She exploded. Yes, woman do that. ‚What?! I don’t care?! I fake that I am doing my best?!’ and it was just beggining... ‚I am playing here with you though you didn’t even care to explain me rules! I didn’t play 51st State,

remember? I don’t know what I am doing and I am despe-rately try to understand this damn icons! I don’t care?! Are you kidding me?!’ It always ends like that. Man is the one who is guilty. Man is to say ‚sorry’. So I did say sorry. I took my cards back. I spent 20 minutes explaining rules. We played again. Merry was playing really good. That very first night oftesting she felt in love with The New Era.***

illustrations: Sandra Duchiewicz

Since then Merry played countless games of The New Era. It can be more than 300 or 500 games. I have no idea. She is playing all the time. She was testing it with me. Then, when The New Era was balanced and I was really sick of it, she decided to findnewplayers.Andyes,shefoundthem. Are you going to visit Mr. and Mrs. Trzewiczek’s house? You will play The New Era. Merry will explain you rules and make you play it. Did you invite Mr. and Mrs. Trze-wiczek to your house for a nice evening? Yes, Merry will, ‚by accident’ have The New Era with her. She will explain you rules and make you play it. Are you on convention? Merry is there too? She will hunt you down and te-ach you and play with you The New Era. Boardgames club in Gliwice? Sure! Every single Monday she is there. Playing The New Era...

***

‚It has the same problem like Race for the Galaxy’ once she said. ‚You’ve just developed your state, you have great cards built, you want to finally start scoring big points, but the game suddenly ends. You have 12 cards in RftG, or 33 points here and that’s it. I want it last longer.’ She looked at me. ‚Could you...? Please.’ What a man can do? Can he resisit that look? So I designed ‚Winter’ expansion.

*** I changed pace of the game. Now it takes always six turns. Game is much more strategic now. You plan your actions for all following turns, you plan how to develop your state and you plan how many points you can make in that time.

It is so much satisfying. Or so much fru-strating when you see other player is developing better, having better plan, having their combos working so smoth... I moved Leader cards and Contact cards out ouf the deck and put them into Frozen City section – now it is no longer luck that decides whenever you have Leader or not. You just take him if you need. I changed production - now it follows play-ers needs, in every turn it changes a little bit, so players get additional workers, additional cards or resources. It gives them great possibilities to cre-ate new combos and develop their state. I played many times Winter and I am pro-ud of it. I tested it for few months and I believe it is great. But what is more, I saw Merry playing it hundred of times with people. She is die hard fan of 51st State line and every time she played Winter I saw in her eyes that this is it, this is the expansion that fans were waiting for. I am happy seeing that every time she plays Winter.

***

Writers sometimes, on the first page oftheir novel, write dedication. Something like: ‚For my beloved wife and kids’ or ‚For Jenny’ or whate-ver. Winter is not only dedicated to Merry. Win-ter is designed for her. What can I say. You, 51st State fans are lucky bastards. You have die hard fan of the game living with me. She will be forcing me to design new cards for next 20 years. Stay tunned.

illustrations: Mateusz Bielski, Sandra Duchiewicz, Michał Oracz

Winter expansion will de-but in Essen 2012. 50 new cards and plenty of new rules. If you download rulebook you will soon discover new mechanisms and new options, new strategies and possibilities. In this article I will not duplicate rulebook. I will not talk a lot about rules. I will talk about stories that are hidden be-hinde some of the new cards. I hope you will enjoy Winter if you know the story...

He is tough bastard. One of the most famous gunmans in the area. His land is growing.

Every small bandit and every small shithole wants to be part of his state. That is why every Gun Type Location is easier to incor-porate. That is why if you have close Gun Type Location (range 1) you just put it in your table. They want to work for you, they want to be part of Insane Max’s state...

They really believe in your state. They really care about your state. They really want your sta-te becoming bigger and bigger. So what they do? They go to the location you have previously signed a deal with and convince them to join you. ‚You should join us’ they say. ‚Not making deals with us. Be part of us. Be part of our gro-wing country...’ True patriots let you in-corporate a card that was a deal till now. It is good to have True patriots in country.

It is a common story in a postapo literature - rich pe-ople survived extermination of humankind and are woken up in their private hibernatory. This is sweet. They’ve just got outside and they see that area is quite dangerous... They are not prepa-red to live here. They were rich and now they are defenseless. So when you attach Hibernatory toyour state, you get free workers. They can not refuse you. They can not defend against you. They have to work for you. The problem? They are lazy, weak humans. They will die in a moment. That is why you got 4 workers for one use only. They all are gonna die soon. Then you will have to rebuilt this Location...

Have you heard about Murder Valley? Is long and full of danger. You go there and you probably won’t be back. Gladia-tor arenas, gun shops, you name it. So you probably are not sur-prised, that you are quite famous in the area, right? Stories about Murder Valley are the good ones.Everybody is talking about this place. That is exactly why, you get 2 VP every turn if you have true murder valley - i.e. you have at least 2 Gun Type Locations in your state...

This is one of my favorites cards in Winter. It lets you de-stroy your own cards. How crazy

it is? How sweet? You have a big old buldozer and you are making a mess. This is fun. I like the card because it works like drug, really. You got addicted to it. You start with demolishing one Location, then, next round you demolish one more, and then it starts, you can’t stop it. I saw so many play-ers who - being in need of reso-urces - started to destroy whole parts of their state. This is crazy. I love this card.

Another pub in 51st State line. I always try to design cards in such a way that Locations that let’s you exchange cards are pubs or taverns. This is the same. If you have this bar, you can exchange information. You discard a card (gossip about one Location) and you got 2 cards (informations about two other Locations). This is what you do in pubs - you talk with strangers, you ask them about their travel, you exchange infor-mation...

News from the front is a newspaper published in a world of Neuroshima. You know, if you have me-dia in you hands... So they write about your state. They spread a good word about you. They write about your power and your Loca-tions. They make you famous in the whole area. That is why News from the front lets you put VP token from Locations to your Base. Newspaper focus on you, on your HQ, not on particular Locations.

This is an organization from world of Neuroshima Role Playing Game. We put them here in 51st State universe, as they

work here just great. If you pro-duce gun, they will bless you. If you produce gun, they will loveyou. If you produce gun they will trumpet about your power. Bunch of freaks that have their altar bu-ilt from old machine guns...That is why you earn 2VP every time you produce Gun. Order of the gun is glorifying you.

You see a boat on the card. These are guys who travel a lot and can bring you whatever you need. You say what you need and they will bring it to you. Yes, suppliers. In a production phase they will give you anything that was produced on the tables of other players. You name it. You have it. It is good to have suppliers :)

This is one of the best (if not the best!) artwork in Winter. Huge monument and crowded square. It looks like something important is taking place right now in your city. Card works in a simple way - anytime you earn 2 or more VP, you got new wor-ker. It is a dream city, everybody hear about it, everybody wants to live here. New inhabitants go from very distance places to you. They heard about Dream city. Every time you got more famous and powerful, every time you get 2 VP new inhabitant de-cides to join your state...

These are 10 cards from Winter, 10 cards with new abili-ties and with great story behind. I hope you like them, I hope you will have fun putting them on the table and trying to imagine the world of 51st Sta-te...

In 2010 I designed 51st State. I was proud as a hell. It was a great game. I got gre-at reviews, I got few nominations for awards, I saw people playing it on many conventions and having great time with it!I believed I designed perfect card game. Year later I discovered that 51st State is not a perfect game. Year later I designed direct interaction rules for 51st State and that’s how The New Era hit the market. With direct agres-sion 51st State was just awesome. I believed I designed perfect card game. Year later I discovered that The New Era is not a perfect game. Year later I designed Frozen City and Production dice and thats how Winter hit the market. With Frozen City, Production dice 51st Statewasjustawesome.IbelievedIfinallydesi-gned perfect card game...

*

Leaders Leaders? Players who played 51st State were complaining about them a lot. They are powerfull and player who have them have huge advance. If you are draw a Leader you are in better position that your opponent. Many gamers compained. ‚Leaders suck.’, ‚Leaders are unbalanced.’, ‚I play without Le-aders!’ This is bad. OK, let’s take a moment to look at the problem. Leaders are bad or distrbution of Leaders is bad? I take all Contact cards and all Leaders put asi-de. I put them on special board called Frozen City. Eve-ry player can send ther a worker whenever he wants to have a new Leader. It is no longer random draw. It is no longer huge advance. Everybody can have Leader if he wants to. It is simple. It is obvious. Why it didn’t work that way since the vry beginnning? The question? Why I am such a moron? Why I needed three years to discover it?

Production Itisfirstround.YouplayMerchantsorMutantsandyou have – almost – no chance to attach Location. Incor-porating new Location cost you two irons, at the beginning you don’t have them. And no chance to have them. You playfirstroundandyouknowyouwillnotplayaLocation

illustrations: Sandra Duchiewicz

on the table. This is bad. It is last round, you have six or seven Loca-tions with Action icon. Each of them needs a Worker, but you produce only 3 workers. Pitty. You were developing for an hour and now you are stuck. Half of your Locations will not work. It sucks. This is bad. In 51st State production is constant – every single round you get 3 Workers and 1 Resource but players needs aren’t constant. At the be-ginning they need iron to build Locations, then they need redevelopement tokens to change Locations, then they need hell of a Workers to make many Actions... Why not make Production phase different in every round? Why not make Production phase follow players needs? Why not give them additional Iron at the beginning of the game and additional worker at the end? The question? Why I am such a moron? Why I needed three years to discover it?

*

Everyyear,whenIfinishmynewdesignIam 100% sure that this is a perfect game. I see no flaws.Iseenopointswhereitcouldbeimproved.Isee it as a brillant piece of work. And year after year I learn something new. Every year I discover new stuff. Every year it turns out that I can do better. Today I am happy to announce – without false modesty - that Winter is a perfect card game. But to be honest I have a hunch I may want to change this statement next year...

illustrations: Mateusz Bielski, Sandra Duchiewicz, Michał Oracz, Agnieszka Osipa, Tomasz Górnicki

Wearepreparingfinalfilesto

print Robinson Crusoe. We are orde-

ring wooden cubes, we are ordering

cards, we are preparing tens of to-

kens. We are doing all that stuff that

I really really hate. One mistake and

man, you are in serious trouble. Ro-

binson is a huge epic game. Reminds

me Stronghold. Reminds me August

2009...***

In August 2009, when we

were finishing work on Stronghold

every single day I was wondering

what mistake we will do. I wasn’t

wondering if we make mistake. I was

wondering what mistake it will be. Oh,

yes, I was sure that we will botch so-

mething. Nearly 150 tokens, nearly

100 cards, 60 pages long rulebook in

3 languages, more than 300 wooden

pieces. It was a big production with

‚FFG’ impetus. It was like ride on rol-

lercoaster. It was fast, exciting and it

had to end badly. In August 2009 I

had no doubts about that.

We were not FFG. In Portal

there was 3 guys. 3 guys making big-

gest game in their lives. 3 guys scared

as a hell. 3 guys that wanted to make

good worldwide impression. 3 guys

that tried to do ‚FFG production’.

We had no marketing depart-

ment and yet we were on #1 place on

The Hotness list on BGG for many we-

eks before Essen. We had no budget

for advertisement and yet we had mo-

vie trailer presenting Stronghold. We

had no copywriters and yet with our

GDJ series we were one of the most

discussed games before Essen fair.

Production of Stronghold

exceed our possibilities. Not twice. It

exceed it ten times. We were doing

our best. And yet every day we were

motivating each other to try harder. It

was our life time moment. Our biggest

game.

You, gamers, saw cover and

board of Stronghold, you read GDJ

stuff, you watched movie trailer, you

were participating with this whole

hype and buzz, and then, after Essen

you were nominating us for Interna-

tional Gamer Award or Golden Geek

but did you know that this whole fuss

was done just by 3 friends?

Production department in Por-

tal?Wholedepartment-MichałOracz.

Testing team? Oh, sure! Big

big team! Rafał Szyma and Ignacy

Trzewiczek (and bunch of our close

friends).

Marketing department? His

Majesty Storyteller Ignacy Trzewiczek

Artwork director? Michał

Oracz, again.

Game development team?

One Man Team - Ignacy Trzewiczek, again. Movietrailer?MichałOracz. Essen stand design? MichałOracz. Etc. Yes, it was crazy. But we did it. There was no mistake in Stronghold. We did one of the most famous and respected games of 2009. It was awesome.

*** Today Portal is twice as big. We have 3 guys responsible for Neu-roshima RPG and Neuroshima Tac-tics miniature game and 3 of us responsible only for boardgames. We grown, but still - in a fact - we are bunch of few friends do-ing their best to bring you best games possible. This year we will bring Robinson Crusoe. This year again we have to exceed our possibilities. This year aga-in we will do everything we can to stand next to FFG and other great publishers.

Have dreams. Have coura-ge to follow these dreams. Do your games. You don’t need to have big budget. You don’t need to have 20 people crew. You don’t need anything except passion and will to fight.Fightforyoursuccess.Itisatyourfingertips.

illustrations: Tomasz Jędruszek

illustrations: Kuba Jabłoński

I may be wrong in today’s post. I may have not right per-spective. But what the hell, this is my blog and I write here what I feel. And I feel and I think, that here in Poland we did a really good of a job and we enriched gaming hobby in past 5 years.

* From my perspective it all started in 2007, when Por-tal presented Neuroshima Hex in Essen. I remember words that Greg J. Schloesser said that year. It was: „I honestly don’t know much - OK, anything - about the gaming scene in Po-land but if Neuroshima Hex is any indication I am impressed.”

Poland was a blank point on the boardgames scene. No gamer known anything about Poland and Polish games. With Neuroshima Hex we had a really good entrance. Today Neuroshima Hex is worldwide known game, 138th place in BGG ranking, thousands of copies in gamers collections, six new armies published as expansions, more than 20 fan armiespublishedasaPDFfiles.There are US, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian (Polish of course)

editions, new editons are in pro-gress. This is great what Neuro-shima Hex achieved.

Two years later Portal published Stronghold, another great epic game that was widely

discussed, was nominated for International Gamers Award, for Golden Geek, for Game of the Year in Poland and then was licensed and published worldwide by Valley Games. Without false modesty I do believe that designing Stron-ghold was an important for many players. There wasn’t such a game before. We did a bunch of other games like 51st State or

Pret-a-Porter, but Poland is not only Portal...

* In 2010 Polish company - Rebel.pl - published K2, gre-at family game about climbing the second-highest mountain on Earth. It is a great board game, with easy rules and engaging ga-meplay. It was designed by my friend, Adam Kałuża, who lives20 miles away from me. This year Adam and his K2 was nomi-nated for Kennerspiel des Jahres. It is a huge success. Many play-ers now decided to try K2 and I

believe they will love it, they will try to climb and risk a hard path or easy one, and will have to de-cide when to attack the mountain and when to rest... Simple rules, great game play. I do believe that designing K2 by Adam was adding a small gem to our hob-by...

*If we talk about gems... There is a guy called Edrache, my friend from Poznan, who in March 2010 started a tremendeus project called Minimalistic posters. His geek list gathered 886 thumbs and this is not a surprise. It was a great stuff. He decided to de-sign posters for different board-games. His work was so great that Hans im Glück contacted Edrache and asked him to design 12 posters for their games. They published it in a form of calendar.

I was happy to have my games ‚postered’ by Edrache. Po-ster of Stronghold is hanging in passe-partout in my room. I love it. I have pleasure to know Edra-che and play with him my games. This 886 thumbs is qu-ite a few. Edrache introduced to

our hobby something that is interesting and new, so-mething that enriched our hobby.

* We have two war gamers who brought so-mething really special last few years. Robert Żak designed Strike ofthe Eagle - it was pu-blished first in Poland

and then licensed and published by Academy Games. I haven’t

played it yet, but the reviews are quite clear - this is a great war game. The same situation is with Conflict of Heroes: Price of Ho-nour - Poland 1939 co-designed byMichałOzonandpublishedbyAcademy Games. I haven’t play-ed it yet, but it is on my short list to play, already on my shelf, waiting for free evening. These are great games from Polish de-signers. I am eager to play them.

* And last but not least, my close friend Pancho. In 2000 when I was publishing RPG ma-

gazine Pancho was one of writers and he wrote a really great stuff for Warhammer RPG. When in 2010, ten years after he came to me, said that he founded Big Daddy’s Creations and asked for license for Neuroshima Hex for IOS I couldn’t refuse. We knew each other for a decade. But, I am lucky bastard. Big Daddy’s Creations did one of greatest apps for IOS. Neuroshima Hex is an example of best adaptation of board game for electronic de-vices. It was chosen as second best board game app by IGN magazine. They got iOS Game of the Year (GameShark), they got Best Card/Board game – runner up (TouchGen)... They did an awesome job. And then they did Caylus.

And now they do Eclipse. This is great crew from Po-land.

* In 3 weeks I do another edition of boardgame co-nvention in Gliwice. We will meet together. Pancho will bring me some screen shoots and stuff from

Stronghold for iPad. I am very excited about this release. I now they will do a wonderful job with this app. Michał Ozon will bringpre-production copy of CLASH: Jihad vs. McWorld. This is re-themed version of R.R.R. great abstract strategy game I brought from Essen two years ago and showed in Poland. Adam Kałuża will showCave, his new game about explo-ring caves. This is his great pas-sion and hobby and as far as I

heard, games is as good as K2. Once aga-

in Adam put his whole heart into this de-

sign.

I will show them my Robinson

Crusoe, another take for epic game with

strong theme. Like in 2009 with Stron-

ghold, this time I again spent almost

whole damn year working on it, and once

again I believe I was able to put into Ro-

binson’s box my passion, imagination, my

heart. This is great adventure co-op I was

dreaming about for years.

We will sit at the table, share our

ideas and designs, drink a beer or tea,

and have fun. We are a nice bunch of ga-

mers. This year we will have good stuff for

you. Again.

We continue with the pre-sentation of our skirmish warga-me – Neuroshima Tactics. This month you’ll learn about units characteristics, equipment and traits that make every model in the game an unique unit. We’ll

also present 7 NST command-ments – rules describing the es-sence of the game, principles you must follow if you want to have a chance to survive in the post--apocaliptic ruins.

Characteristics Each unit in the game has six Characteristics, which will tell you what it can and can’t do, what is its forte and its weak-ness. A regular walk-in guy will have a 10, 11 at most in most of

the Characteristics. If you see a 13, it means the guy-’s really good, and higher stats are reserved for true masters in their respective fields.Whenyouseeasixoreight, tough, you really sho-

uldn’t send the dude out to whe-re he might need that particular Characteristic...

Shooting (St) You test Shooting every time you use a gun or some other nifty invention ment to make your enemies bleed from a di-stance. You either can use a gun and defend yourself in a time of need, or stay at the shelter and leavefightingtotruewarriors.

Melee Combat (MC) You test Melee Combat

Excerpt fromenglish Rulebook

when you want to use a mache-te, crowbar or some other piece of junk to damage your enemy. Sometimes the creatures get too close to use a gun efficiently –of course, if you choose to wa-ste your ammo no one will stop you, but if you prefer to a good, old fashioned whooping, you co-ulduseyourrifleasamaceandpummel your enemies. It’s all up to you.

Throwing (Th) Every time you want to Throw a knife, or pass some kind of equipment to you Squad bud-dy that’s a tad to far, you roll a Throwing test. Throwing is im-portant, ‚cause it allows you to

kill enemies in a couple of addi-tional, nifty ways. Have you ever tried shooting down a dude hi-ding behind a thick, brick wall? That’s when Throwing comes in handy – just toss them a granade or two.

Constitution(Con) How well or how badly your soldier deals with Wounds is determined by his Constitution. Even when you are the most pre-cise sharpshooter, or a badass Moloch mincemeat machine, but when you get hurt, you get in trouble. Tough sons-of-a-gun can stomach a bullet or two and carry onwithfighting.Theunluckydu-des with low Constitution beco-me useless after one measly hit or a small pollution wave.

Agility (Agi) Roll an Agility test to avoid an enemy Attack, jump over a pit or climb over an obstacle. When you’re recruiting somebody to your team, have a close look at him – Agility is crucial for survi-val, and clutzes live very short, miserable lives on the Wastes.

Perception (Perc) Perception determines your observation skills – you need to have eyes at the back of your head to spot enemies sne-aking up on you from behind the rubble. The myth about Percep-tion being an useless dump is a bunch of baloney – clever, obse-rvant people tend to live longer than brain-dead quads.

Lack of Characteristic Some units, have a (-) instead of a digit in the Charac-teristic table. This means the unit does not have that Charac-teristic. As a result they can-not perform any Actions based on the given Characteristic. For example: the Rat is such a loser, that he wouldn’t be able to shoot a gun even if you were holding it for him. Maybe he’s an idiot, or a friggin’ hippie - in any case, there is no chance he’ll perform Action: Shooting, due to the dash in the Characteristic table.

Traits Each unit has its own Tra-it – a cool trick up his or hers sleeve. To name a couple, Mutts

have bodies grown in such a way, that they move on the rub-ble a lot faster than the rest of the others and Moloch’s Spiders are small and agile, which makes them hard to hit. Regardless of wether you lead a bunch of He-gemony junkies or a scout squad sent out by Moloch, you recruit a variety of freaks for your team, and the reason is they have so-mething they are wicked aweso-me at. Many Traits allow to bre-ak, ommit or change the general game rules – in such a case, the Trait rule comes before the gene-ral rule.

Equipment and ammunition In the Character Sheet you’llfind infoonwhat theunitcarries with him/herself: what

kind of weapons, how many bullets and also, what surprises s/he has in store for the losers who chose the enemy side. If you have a look at the Armybo-ok, you’ll see that each unit has its own ammunition marked on their Cha-racter She-

et.For example, a Squad of 4 Assault Troops will have 16 ro-unds in total. On the Character Sheet you mark not only every-thing the unit has by default, but also everything you’ve bought for them before the battle star-ted. Crap like a barbie doll head onastring,orfirstgirlfriends’to-oth don’t make the list – let your guys have a bit of privacy.

Worth This stat tells you two things: how many Army Points you will have to pay to include this unit in your Army List, and how many Victory Points the unit is worth. Problem is, Worth works like a two-edged sword – it’s awesome to have synced, well-trained soldiers armed with pre-war gizmos, with a surpri-sing Trait, that’ll make the ene-my goons cry like babies, but if you manage to get them killed, your opponent will get a lot more Victory Points than he would for a regular grunt. The amount of Vic-tory Points awarded for elimina-ted units depends on their Worth, not including the equipment they had.

Rank Rank defines how expe-rienced your soldiers are – you can virtually see the old, battle--hardened sweats look down on greenhorns with a condescen-ding smirk. In single-game mode you’ll hardly ever use this stat. Rank is something that comes in handy in Campaing mode – that’s when your soldiers will get eno-ugh experience to make the rank stars shine.

Squad Character Sheet Do you remember that squad units have common Cha-racteristics, ammo and some of the equipment,? You’ll need to mark a couple of things separa-tely, though – for example, who carries the Gambels, and who had his mug rearranged by Mutts. On the Character Sheet, there’s a separate grid for every unit in the Squad, so you have enough spa-ce to mark everything you need to remember about a particular unit. If the unit is out of Cohe-rence, you’ll also face the unple-asant necessity of assigning se-parate ammunition and equip to the poor dude.

Unit Wounds During the game you will also have to mark how many Wo-unds your unit has recieved. Each time something bad happens, and it gets banged up – you’ll have to mark it down. It’s one of the most important things, since a Wounded unit both moves slo-wer and i less effective . You can read more about the consequen-ces of being Wounded in another chapter.

Updating Character Sheets

The Character Sheet shoudl al-was be as up to date as possi-ble. You shot a round? The Trash Armor ended its faithful service? You got Wounded? Stole some-one’s gun? Acquired a Gambel? Lost a team member? Everything and all needs to be marked on the Character Sheet. The battle-fieldcanbeabloody,screamingmess, but the sheets need to be

as orderly as a clerk’s book. One look should be enough to get a hang of what’s going on. This will be utmostly important when Squad Coherence will be falling apart. After the Action phase ends and before the next starts, you’ll have very little time to get all of this organized.

7 commandments of Neuroshima Tactics

During the battle there-’s a lot going on. After a couple of sessions, you’ll probably get a hang of things, and will feel like a mutatedfishinthemurkywatersof Missisipi. But till then, you can aid yourself with this compilation of rules. It’s a bit repetitive and confusing, just like a drunk rats’ ramblings in a bar on the Wastes, especially if you take a look aro-und yourself. But rest assu-red - stick to it, and you’ll never end up in a deep, dark, irradiated hole.

1. Take care of your crew.You lead a team made up of men and women, mutts or machines. You are responsible for them. Take care of them, and they will give back to you. Take your time to read the armybook, and think which units, which features and what kind of equipment to pick in order to change your team into a deathmachine. During the battle try to be reasonable: the enemy wants to kill you out like ‚roaches, don’t make it easy for him. Do not put your men into weird, unnecessary or reckless situations.

2. Save ammoThe world is blasted to pieces. Food, water, fuel and ammo are

scarce. Each of your units has but a handfull of rounds to sho-ot - think long and hard before using them. If you can see that the odds aren’t in your favour, it might be better to retreat and findabettershootingspot.Andremember - scavenge! It’s well worth to search the bodies of your enemies. They usually have a bullet or two to spare

3. Take coverWe did mention NS Tactics is a stealth game, right? Well, here-’s the deal: if you sneak, your enemy has it tougher to pass his Attack rolls, and if you try hard enough, he might not see your troops at all. And the less of you he sees, the less Actions he’ll be able to take - that’s the way this

works. Sneaking is not just a ba-loney propaganda - it’s a hard, real tip, that will help you survi-ve.

4. There’s no „I” in „team”Think „team”. There will be many heroes and spec-ops in your army - and they all act on their own. But the real core of a group is a force - and it’s really worth to use them properly. A force is perfect for carrying out tactical manouvres - that’s what the Si-multaneous Activation is for. Add to it the shared ammo and equip perk, and you have a clear image of the situation. Think „team” - you can’t go wrong with it.5. Plan your traps

In Tactics you rarely get face to face with your enemy - those who do, die quickly. It’s all abo-ut arranging a situation in which you’ll be able to play your poten-tial to it’s fullest, and you’ll leave the other sucker no chances. Use a decoy and two executioners, then a flash attack to let himwaste his ammo, and then te-ach him the lesson he deserves. There are countless ways to fool your opponent - you just have to put them together into a deadly jigsaw.

6. React dynamicallyBy reacting we mean two things: firstly-look,what’sgoingononthebattlefield.Ifyoucanseethe

dude got to the gamble and you can’t stophimorget to itfirst,then make his life a hell while he tries to get away with it. If you’re attacked on one wing, get reinforcements before the other guy gets advantage. Secondly – take your Reactions into acco-unt. They allow you to take an Action of your choice in respon-se to what your adversary did. If you keep an eye on the Reac-tions, you’ll get a lot of chances while your enemy is still on the move. If you disregard this, your heroes will just stand with the-ir hands in their pockets and do squat. In this case, less is not more – more is more, and more is better!

7. Always fight to the endIn Tactics it’s quite important tofighttotheveryend,evenif the situation looks grim. The last round can change every-thing - the enemy might have afistfullofgambles,buthe’sgotten cocky and doesn’t care for covers. You can lay himlowinaflash!Undernocondition should you give up, don’t falter if you see even a tiny bit of hope. Only the toughtest ones will survive, the tough as nails bastards - that’s the rule that Neuro-shima lives and breaths.

See you next month!

Things aren’t peachy this time. Only three of our soldiers left in the trenches, the machi-nes attack in endless waves, and the most deadly of them all - the huge Mother, the brain of me-talic legions, towering over the wholebattlefield isunscratched.The only chance for survival is the magnetic bomb, which ne-eds to be attached directly to the Mother’s armour. The explosion will destroy the thinking robot, condemning the rest of the war-riors to follow their simple pro-grams, thus allowing the human wit to prevail and turn the tables. Unfortunately - for all this there-’s only 21 seconds - 21 seconds before the Mother orders the ma-chines to attack and it’s too late for anything. Rules: The map (11 by 11 squ-ares) depicts the situation: tren-ches, rocks, the position of ma-chines. After equpping the four soldiers, decide on which fieldeach of them is. There can only be one soldier on one field. Asoldier in the trenches cannot be attacked in any way, but he

can’t attack either. Each action (moving a field, using a med-pack, shooting, attacking with a sledgehammer) takes 1 second. In any given second you can undertake only one action - the soldiers cannot be acting at the same time - e.g. one runs whi-le the other shoots). You cannot move diagonally or through the squares occupied by machines (unless the machine is destroy-ed). The machines do not move, except for the ones that rota-te (the Mother and the Sniper). The firing range is the shortestdistance from the shooter to the target(includingthefieldthetar-get is on), and just as it was in the case of movement, you canot count the fields diagonally.Themachines react to the soldier’s actions according to precise ru-les. In each second, after the sol-dier acts, you need to check if any of the machines attacks or rota-tes. If more than one soldier is in range of the attack, the machine chooses the one that entered its range last. Each of the machine’s attacks has a given power - the amount of damage it inflicts. If

any of the soldiers recieves 5 po-ints of damage, the mission has failed. The machines do not block eachother’sfiring line.Toattachthe bomb to the Mother’s armour, the soldier must enter the fieldshe occupies. If he does so, the mission has been successfull. Equipment: Here’s what you got. You have 6 gambles, to buy all the necessary stuff for your soldiers. You already have the bomb. Each soldier can carry only one we-apon, one medipack and one ar-mour. Bomb (weapon) - neces-sary for destroying the Mother. The soldier carrying the bomb cannot have any other weapon. Rifle (weapon) - range: 3 fields,canbeusedonlyonce,in-flicts3pointsofdamage,price:1gamble. Armour - protects you from one Warrior attack, price: 1 gamble. Medipack - can be used only once, heals one point of da-mage, price: 2 gambles. Shovel - By spending 16 seconds, you can move a soldier

tothenextfield,whichbe-comes a new trench, price: 1 gamble. Machines: The Mother - The range of her vision has been mar-ked on the map (four possi-ble directions, to which she can be facing). At the be-ginning, she looks at the lo-wer part of the board. Eve-ry time a machine that was not in her field of vision is

destroyed, she will turn so that she can see it (always choosing the shortest possible route). The Mothercanonlyattackthefieldsadjacent to her, and her most po-werful weapon is in the front, we-aker ones on the sides, and none in theback.Thefields she’s fa-cing (3 of them) recieve 5 points ofdamage,thesides(twofieldson each sides) recieve 3 points of damage. Toughness: can be de-stroyed only by the bomb. Warriors - attack range: they can attack only adjacent fields (also diagonally). Attackinflicts1pointofdamage.Tough-ness: 3. Thrower - atack range: 4 fields. Attack inflicts 3 points ofdamage. It can attack each sol-dier only once. Toughness: 3. Sniper - attack range: 5 fields,it’stheonlymachinerely-ingontheMother’sfieldofview.If any soldier gets into the Mo-ther’s view range, the sniper tar-gets him and tracks from then on. If the target comes into its shooting range at any point of the game, the Sniper shoots. If the Mother notices another sol-dier, the Sniper abandons it’s previous target, and focuses on the new one. Toughness: 3.

Ward - attack range: 3 fields.Theattackinflicts2pointsof damage. Independent from Mother’s vision. It can shoot only three times. Toughness: 2. If you think you’ve foud the right answer, check once more all the rules to see if you haven’t omitted some important part.