Night of Man. The Tournament Game.

As I wrote last week, folks at The World Boardgame Championships enjoyed playing Night of Man. They also enjoyed telling me all the things that I should promote a little bit better. One of those things is the Night of Man skirmish game.

The skirmish game lets players generate their own, quick-playing tournament type scenario. Here’s how it works. In the designing the game I created army lists for both the Killers and Militia (There's one for the Feroxi in that expansion also). Both players choose 150 Purchase Points (PP) of units, based on the army list  you see below. Folks can agree to larger armies but 150 points makes for a good, competitive 45-minute game. 

Next, one player chooses three maps, the other places them together, side to side (not end to end). The two players alternate placing Stash Markers on the center row of the middle map (3 total markers). No stash marker may be within two squares of another, or on a Pond. These serve as victory point locations.             The player who did not place the maps chooses the side on which he will set up. The other player sets up on the opposite side.  Both players set up on the two rows closest to their map edge. The player who placed the maps sets up first.

You may spend 150 PP, but may purchase no more than 6 instances of a unit and no more than 1 of each character, which are the powerful units with a picture of a single entity, such as Iskara. Players buying a Walker get the construction points associate with the Walker. Unspent Purchase Points are added to a player’s victory point total. Players win by destroying the opposing forces, exiting units off the opposing edge of the board, and occupying Stash Markers. A player gets Victory Points (VPs) equal to a unit’s PP for destroying it, or VP equal to a unit’s PP for exiting it off the opposing player’s map edge, or 5 VPs per turn, per Stash Marker occupied. A game lasts 6 turns.

Honestly, I designed the skirmish game variant because I told the Kickstarter supporters I would. I wasn't that excited about it. Then Greg Porter and I started testing it, and it quickly became our favorite way to play Night of Man. With experienced players, games take less than 45 minutes, and the challenge of picking just the right forces to beat your opponent is great fun. Both of us developed numerous strategies, including swamping the enemy with Militia/M-113 combos, building powerful Walkers, and countering with the Kedamono Kaiju. The choices are damn near limitless.

  

If this sounds fun to you, check out the Night of Man page over at Flying Pig Games. There’s still time to pre-order. We’ll have the game at the printers this week. Honest.