Category:Core Gameplay

Sentinel Tactics is a super-powered tactical combat game for 2-6 players. Games last 30-60 minutes and are rated for people ages 13 and up! This overview of Sentinel Tactics will explain basic 3 v 3 skirmish using elements present in the first tactics game, Flame of Freedom. Other scenarios exist which alter the rules and change game objectives in fun and exciting ways. Consult the scenario books included with the game for more details.

Setup
At the beginning of the game, players construct a map using a combination of the 8, double-sided hex map tiles. Each team drafts their characters and places their tokens onto the map in a tile opposite the other team. Players alternate taking turns, each team taking odd or evens, until everyone has taken a turn and the round is complete. The team who drafted second takes the first turn. Before the first turn, everyone selects two power cards, putting them into play immediately. Each player roles for movement.

Power-Up
At the start of a turn - the Power-up phase - a player may put a power card in play or swap out a power card for another to a maximum of two cards, unless otherwise noted by a character’s innate powers. Some characters have companions or other abilities that allow them to place additional tokens on the map at this time.

Surge
Next comes the Surge phase, where any ability in play with “Surge” triggers a specific outcome.

Go Time
Then comes “Go Time”, where a player may take as many actions as are designated on the character’s panel. These include the four universal actions - move, sprint, aim, and dodge - as well as any innate actions or abilities in play due to power cards. Some cards do not use an action, like ongoing cards that trigger whenever something specific happens, or abilities that use health points instead of actions. Unless otherwise noted, each action can only be used once per turn.

To Be Continued
Finally, if the player has any ability or card with “To Be Continued”, it triggers. Then that player rolls new movement, flips their turn token over, and the turn ends.

Movement
At the beginning of the game, and at the conclusion of each turn, players roll for movement. Each character has a formula for determining movement on their panel. After rolling the dice, the player places the movement die on their character panel.

During a turn, a player can use an action to move up to that amount across the gameboard - taking into account elevation changes. To move between different elevation in terrain, a character’s movement must satisfy one plus the difference in elevation. Here are some examples of movement.

In addition to basic movement, sprinting allows any character to move two hex spaces in any direction, disregarding elevation. Some abilities even have built-in movement.

Finally, some characters have abilities that grant them and their allies “Mobility”. Any character with mobility disregards elevation altogether when they move.

Attacking and Defending
There are a variety of attack types in Sentinels Tactics - melee, ranged, area attacks, and hazard spaces. These are located on power cards, companion cards, or character panels. If a card does not designate its type, it is a ranged attack. In most cases, attacking costs an action… however some special attacks use tokens or a character’s health instead!

Each attack has a dice number associated with it. Assuming the character has line of site to the target (be it a hex or a vertex between hexes), that player rolls that many dice. At this point, remove any indicated auto-misses, check to see if the dice make range, and any remaining dice will hit their target and must be defended against. Making range during an attack means the attacker is that many spaces away from the target or fewer. If the attacker used an aim token - which must be declared before rolling - all dice that did not roll auto-misses are changed to the highest die, increasing the odds of a successful attack.

Each target has a defense number, and the defender rolls that many dice. Similar to aim, a defender may choose to use a dodge token before rolling, changing all of the dice rolled to the highest die, greatly increasing the odds of a successful defense.

At any time before the defense roll, an attacker may spend an attack+1 token to roll an additional die. Similarly, a defender may add another die to the defense roll with a defense+1 token.

Conversely, any player with an attack-1 token removes one die from their initial attack roll, and any player with a defense-1 token must remove one die during their initial defense roll. Attack-1 and defense-1 tokens never remove more than 1 token at a time from an attack or defense roll.

Some attacks, such as an area attack, hit multiple targets. In these cases, the attacker rolls the attack dice once, applying those dice against each target affected by the attack. The attacker also determines the order in which the defenders roll their defense. When attacking multiple targets with a single attack, the effects of an aim token can only affect one of those targets. Similarly, attack+1 tokens must be spent against a single target, but multiple attack+1 tokens can affect different targets - or they can all be assigned to a single foe.

Some characters and structures generate hazard spaces. When a character moves through or ends a turn within a hazard space, an attack triggers against them. If the hazard space is not being generated by a character, the attack roll is made by a player from the opposing team.

Line of Sight
Before an attack can successfully land, line of sight must be established. Adjacent targets always have line of sight. A special hex type - “Cover” - conceals a target from line of sight to all but those in adjacent hexes.

Line of sight is established between two hexes when a line can be drawn from a point on one hex to a point on another, where the terrain height of the first hex is not interrupted by a hex height higher than the second. Here are a few examples of successful line of sight… and here are some where line of sight cannot be established. When in doubt, consult a straightedge, piece of paper, etc.

Winning the Game
Teams battle, round after round, in an attempt to score three incapacitation on other team’s characters. After each incapacitation, a player must remove all their active power cards from the game. All is not lost, however; on the player’s next turn, they return to the battle, regain all their health, and may put one power card into play. The first team to successfully incapacitate the other 3 times wins the game immediately.