Dark Age 101: A Rules Introductory

A hostile world, a bleak existence. Welcome to Samaria.  Mr. Black here, dear readers, and today we’re going to go over some of the fundamentals on How To Play Dark Age.

 Now, I know a lot of you may not even know what Dark Age is, and to those I emplore you to check out GentleBen’s look at it both Here and Here. While Ben covers a great deal of the background, lore, and aspects of army-building, I’m here today to go over some of the grittier aspects of the game and show you how it works, and why I fell in love with this game.

First, I will mention that it was the models that initially brought me in. The range is wide and has a faction that caters to most everyone out there, assuming, of course, that the base style is something you can get behind. For me, it was right up my ally.

Dark Age is a small-level alternating-action skirmish game, either side usually not fielding more than a dozen or so models, even at higher point games (of course, some factions can, and often will, field numbers double this, but they are not the majority). Game-play is based around a d20 system with easily factored Target Numbers which determine success or failure for each given more, for those of you who have played Infinity or Chainmail (90s version) then this mechanic will come natural to you, while the actual style of gameplay is something which Mordheim and Necromunda players can associate with.

Gameplay is fast and very brutal, the tagline for the game is “Everything Dies” and with good reason: No model in the game is impervious to damage, and even a lowly Dragyri Slave (weakest of the weak 10 point model) has a chance of taking down a Forsaken Saint (big badass leader of an entire army). Basically, as mentioned in the opening, the world is harsh and unforgiving, and even the “mightiest” of heroes cant just shrug off a knife planted into their gut!

PS (Psychology): The mental fortitude of a unit, and how likely they are to stick around once the situation gets real
HP (Health Points): A units health, duh! The thing to mention here is that 80% of the models in Dark Age have one health; an elite unit may have two, and a legendary general, savior of the people might be lucky enough to have three. As I said before, “Everything Dies” is their tagline for a reason- no one is exempt from dying!*
 PV (Point Value): This shows how many points the unit is for the purposes of army construction. The standard game of Dark Age ranges between 500-750, but larger games (1000+) really aren’t that much different. As you can see, the Fixer there is 75 points, which is the average for a lot of the “elite infantry/individuals”.

*It is worth noting here, however, some of the big nasty bio-engineered monsters from the Brood faction have more, an upwards of five/six, but they are an extreme rarity.

 This guy has six HP… I would also like to point out he is towering over a 50mm base…

Next up we have Special Abilities, which are, as the name would suggest, special, and are each outlined in the Force List book.

Lastly we have the AGs, or Attack Groups. Basically these show the attacks each unit possess, and are further broken down into the following:

AS (Assault): This value shows how good a unit is at making the particular attack its linked to.

How Combat Works: Basically, when you make an attack you will combine the attackers AS value with the DF of his target, which will create your Target Number. You must roll equal-to-or-under this value on a d20 in order to hit with the attack! Of course, certain other modifiers may come into play!

RF (Rate of Fire): Ranged attacks, and some particularly potent melee attacks, usually have a Rate of Fire, dictating how many times they game be used a turn.

PW (Power): This shows how much damage an attack actually deals.

How Damage Works: Once a hit has been scored the defender will need to make an Armor Save! To do this he looks at his AR value and subtracts the PW of the attacking weapon, this is the number he will need to roll equal-to-or-under to avoid being damaged by the attack. Our Fixer there, being one of the elite members of his army, has the luxury of two wounds- most other models are not so lucky!

RN (Range): Melee attacks list CA, Ranged Attacks will give a range. In true skirmish fashion most guns hover around the 12 inch mark, few going beyond that unless they are true long-range threats!

MAL (Malfunction): The dreaded MAL stat- The world is harsh and post-apocalyptic, getting things to work right is just hard sometimes! If a unit makes an attack and rolls their MAL value or higher something has gone wrong and they will suffer a hit from the Malfunctioning weapon! But hey, no risk no reward!

Bringing It All Together

So now that you know what it all means, how does it all go together? Well, rather simply, really. Each game-turn you and your opponent will take turns picking and activating units until each side had activated everything. When you select a unit to activate it may spend AP to move, make attacks, and activate Special Abilities.

Let’s say our friend the Fixer, for example, during his activation he could do the following:

-Make upwards of four melee attacks (at 1 AP each)

 -Move four inches (2 AP), make a Ranged Attack (1 AP), then move again (1 AP)

-Make a Melee Attack (assuming he had a target) (1 AP), move two inches (1 AP), Aim (1 AP), and then make a Ranged Attack (1 AP) for a total of 4 AP spent (aka his max amount).

Or any combination of the above, really.

Of course, that is just scratching the surface, but it covers the basics of the core mechanics and how they interact!

Some Interesting Game Notes

Here I’m going to list some interesting things about the game which I feel are worth mentioning:

1. At the beginning of each game-turn both players will roll a d20, the lowest one winning Initiative. This gives him two options: either pick one of his units and activate it first, or pick one of his opponents units and force that unit to activate. 

Example: Player A has a big nasty unit sitting in the rear, waiting to counter-charge anything that comes close to his front-line models. Player B wins Initiative and forces that model to activate first, removing any chance to activate it later in the turn, and thus counterattack.

2. A roll of a 1 is a Critical Success, and automatically wounds on an Attack and saves on an Armor Check!

 3. A roll of a 20 is a Critical Failure, and causes a loss of 1 AP (and probably a Malfunction) on an Attack. Worse yet, a 20 on an Armor Check results in an additional wound!

4. Target Priority exists! A unit making Ranged Attacks must target the closest enemy within eight inches, barring a Special Ability (like Crack Shot, which allows them to ignore this!)

5. Tournament play is scenario-based, meaning both sides will have a goal they much achieve, keeping games from being a mindless slaughterfest (not that that isn’t fun, of course!)

6. Dark Age’s yearly grand tournament, the Immortals, allows the winner to create their own custom model for the game (previous winners include the John Woe, Herald of the Heretic and Hoj, Warlord of Samaria models)

7. The game has a rich backstory, having almost ten years of stories and fiction to draw from.

8. The earlier art and models of the game come from Brom, noted gothic/general weird-stuff artist/painter

9. The CORE debut at Gencon 2012, which are a faction of big, pissed off, robots!

10. Few games ever end completely one-sided, it’s always a bloodbath. I’ve even had some games end where no model was left alive on the battlefield! 

~And that’s my basic rundown, dear readers. I do hope I have peaked your interest, and perhaps you’ll go out there and give Dark Age a try. I mean it fully when I say this is one of my favorite gaming systems I’ve seen in many a year…. Plus, as mentioned before, look at those Harpys! -Mr. Black

Author: Guest Columnist

This article was written by a Guest Columnist who requested anonymity.