COMMON QUESTIONS

FiveCore is a fairly distinct rules system with a very particular flavour.

In particular, it tends to play in a very different manner from more conventional games.
To help players transition, below you will find a number of short explanations, suggestions and
options to help get to grips with the game systems.
SWAPPING PARTS OUT
All game components are intended to be easily replaceable.
If you really like the turn sequence, but the combat rules don't work for you, feel free to replace
them with the firing mechanics of another rules set.
The basic engine is quite robust. Don't be afraid to tinker with it.
Each game system based on FiveCore includes suggestions for options to customize your gaming
experience.
THE TURN SEQUENCE
The turn sequence and the action dice roll accounts for the unpredictable nature of warfare.
Accounts of historical fire fights contain plenty of moments when the action bogs down in an
extended exchange of gunfire, where nothing much takes place.
Conversely, a daring move may bring an assault force into position right under the noses of their
enemy. History is replete with examples of surprise attacks, flanking forces that the enemy general
swore could never get there and daring attacks that managed to get up close before their opponents
had to react, but a conventional move/reaction fire mechanic can make this impossible, as every
potential move is met with a hail of fire.
As such, we need an option for these unexpected situations and the Scurry and Firefight turns make
that happen.
A big part of playing FiveCore well is to anticipate these, and always be in a position where you can
take advantage of them, when they occur.
Always try to think ahead: Where do you want to go? Do you have troops in positions where they
can do the most damage with a fire fight turn?
War is chaos, but a good commander excels during chaos.
*If you find the turn sequence too random, you may wish to use a D10 instead.
This will reduce the chance of special turns from 33% to 20%.
*If consecutive special turns make the game unbalanced, a simple option is to make the following
turn always be a standard turn, with no action roll made.
LARGE BATTLES
Most rules have a sweet spot: The game size and table size they function best at.
FiveCore is written to play on a very small table but increasing the size doesn't really affect things
too badly.
For the number of units, the general sweet spot is 5-15 individual pieces, whether they are

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individual soldiers in the skirmish rules, squads in Company Command or companies in Brigade
Commander.
The rules will function at larger sizes, but two things happen:
First, the number of figures that are doing nothing starts feeling a bit more noticeable. Moving 3
guys out of 9 seems reasonable. Moving 10 out of 30 can seem a little strange.
Second, the special turns become far too important.
The best answer is to run the game as a number of individual sub-forces. Take turns activating one
sub-force.
When a force activates, make the activation roll for the sub-force in question.
This also works well for multi-player games, especially as players tend to like to operate fairly
individually.
If you prefer to handle one side entirely, before moving to the next, roll the action dice at the same
time, then assign them.
For example, if I have 3 companies on the table, I roll 3 action dice and select a company to receive
each action die in turn.
Under such a system, it's common to assign some limitations on Scurry/Fire Fight reactions (or
even forego the reactions altogether), to prevent a single squad from causing the entire enemy
battalion to surge forward.
On denser, more populated tables, this is unlikely to be an issue.
INACTIVE FIGURES
In any given turn, a number of figures will be inactive.
When a figure is not specifically activated, we are not assuming that they are literally doing
nothing.
Units that have not received other orders are assuming to be taking cover and trying to control the
area around them, as represented by reaction fire.
In many ways, which figures you do not activate can be as important as the ones you do.
Pushing units into positions where they can control the area in front of them can help win battles, by
forcing every move your enemy makes to be taken at risk.
Of course, as the game unfolds, your units may be pushed back into terrain features or behind
obstacles where they cannot influence the battle.
In such a case, we can assume they are recovering from confusion, fatigue and temporary lapses of
discipline.
Such units will need an activation (representing a sternly worded admonishment from the overall
commander) before they will resume fighting efficiently.
DISPLACEMENT
The displacement rule causes a fair bit of confusion.
In future editions, it will get an extensive rewrite to make it clearer, but it is only intended to be
applied in meeting engagements or by moving forces, not to troops in a prepared position, prior to
the scenario.
What displacement represents is that as the overall commander, you won't have complete control

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over everything your unit does.

A soldier wanders off to check something out, a squad takes the wrong forest trail, a company
commander misreads the map and ends up in the wrong sector, a local subordinate believes a threat
is under way and deploys to meet it, the list goes on.
Essentially, displacement is the fog of war rule. Apply it when such would make sense.
In a scenario where you are organizing a hasty defence against a surprise attack, it might be
appropriate as you will have to trust your troops to carry out poorly detailed orders on the fly.
If you, as the battalion commander, has had time to walk the defensive perimeter and survey the
positions yourself, then everything will be where you intended it to be.
REACTION FIRE
A common question is why reaction fire does not use the normal firing dice of the unit in question.
There are many possible explanations you might apply, including how reaction fire represents a
fairly sporadic burst of fire and a few rifle shots can pin a squad down, as surely as a burst of
machine gun fire, depending on timing and luck.
The real answer is that it just works better that way.
Reaction fire as a mechanic works best when it is a risk to be factored in, but still worth risking.
As we don't declare reaction fire in the common sense, it's a consistent state as long as your figure
didn't fire, it needs to be scaled appropriately.
Additionally, making it a simple one die roll has the benefit that we don't have to track which unit is
doing what: If you are moving in sight of enemies, roll the die and apply the result.
It's one of the bigger abstractions in the game system, but frankly, it's one that I feel it is well worth
making.
FIRING
Fire in FiveCore systems is essentially a summary of what happened, particularly on the larger
scales.
If I fire at an enemy mechanized infantry unit in Brigade Commander and they are now pinned
down, I don't know exactly what caused that to occur.
Did a lucky burst of fire kill an officer, throwing the company into temporary disarray?
Did advance elements of the company come under fire, causing the unit to halt while evaluating the
situation?
Did a TOW knock out an APC, and the shock of the explosion has forced everybody to ground?
In the end, from my perspective as a brigade commander, the answer is not important. What is
important is the end result: The company is pinned down in place, which will influence my current
and their future tactical choices.
This is also why we don't go into detail with the exact location hit, temporary equipment damage on
vehicles and so forth.
In the end, firing on a target may do nothing, it may cause them to be temporarily pinned down,
they may retreat, they may be in a critical position or they may be combat ineffective.
The campaign rules can help determine what happened, in more detail, if it's important.

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COVER AND POSITION

The role of cover in the game is another reflection of the state-based philosophy of the game.
Troops are in a particular state, which determines their tactical role.
When it comes to terrain, our units can be in one of two roles: They can be avoiding contact or they
can be engaging the enemy.
The benefit of cover in the game (other than a small morale benefit) is that it allows the choice of
which state to be in.
A unit positioned in a ruined building will have the ability to avoid fire by ducking down. A unit
placed in the open lacks this.
This makes cover and use of it an active choice to make, rather than an assured status bonus.
Not getting a specific to-hit penalty (it's always a -2 isn't it?) can throw people off, because we see
our soldiers standing up, on a flat table surface.
In reality of course, they're hardly going to be so obvious.
This is one of those things thats easier to test in real life. Take a walk with a friend. Find a nice
field, tell your friend to walk out 100 paces and lie down. You'll be surprised at how hard they are to
see, especially if it's an uneven, natural field.
The rule for firing across obstacles is a frequent cause of confusion.
Many games prohibit firing across obstacles to units on the far side, however, in many cases, from a
models eye view, those figures would indeed be visible, if poorly.
As such, I felt it more satisfying to permit the shot but with Shock dice only, limiting it to longrange suppressing fire.
In essence, if the firing line crosses a terrain feature, to reach a target on the opposite side, you are
firing at poorly identified shapes. Enough to cause them to scatter, but unlikely to do permanent
damage.
Do note that this rule is applied only when firing ACROSS cover, never ever when firing INTO
cover.
ASSAULTS
Close combat is a drastic difference from ranged combat, since it is intended to be immediately
decisive.
In most cases, the losing unit is knocked out of the fight, which can be a serious concern when you
only have 8 or 9 units on the table.
As a games designer, I tend to hold to the view that assaults are a way to force a decision.
Two units can exchange fire relatively unscathed for an extended period of time but when one
moves on the other position, things will come to a head.
In the end, even if a unit survives a defeat relatively unharmed, odds are they will be too disrupted
to continue fighting in a coherent matter.
In this case, we're better off removing them from the table, than keeping them on there.
*If you wish to make assaults a bit less decisive, roll 2 Kill dice for the loser and apply the results.
If the loser survives, retreat them 12
THE NATURE OF A BATTLE
Every war game has it's own unique feel to it, enforced through the mechanics of the game engine.

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One of the particulars of FiveCore as an engine is that your figures tend to move around quite a bit.
Troops get pushed back out of positions and have to reclaim them.
This is one area where we are taking a bit of a larger view and condensing it into one table-top
battle.
When you read accounts of battles, you'll find troops being pushed back, regrouped and brought
forward, but it usually takes place over hours, instead of the relatively limited time we have on the
gaming table.
What the Bail mechanic does, is effectively create that experience but within the context of a single
tabletop encounter. Especially in the larger scales, a rash of Shock dice can force an entire flank to
retreat, leaving your central position vulnerable.
RANDOM FACTS AND TRIVIA
*The original idea for the system used the idea of moving only 1 in 3 figures, but coupled with a
more conventional to-hit and damage system.
*The very first thing written for FiveCore was the action die roll.
*Originally, FiveCore was intended as a cut-down introductory version of Five Men in Normandy.
Instead, it became the flagship product as people expressed interest in it as a generic system.
*The intention had always been to write a force-level morale system. When we were mostly
through play testing, I realized that I had completely forgotten about it.
*Medieval/Fantasy FiveCore is the most requested variant.
*The variant I want to write the most, but find the least likely to ever be finished, is a role playing
game using the mechanics.

Dennis Mrosewske (order #6864986)