Most skirmish games are about firepower. Deadwake is about firepower and the slow collapse of your operatives’ minds under the weight of everything the battlefield is doing to them.

Deadwake Miniatures Combat Rules is a complete, standalone science-fiction skirmish wargame set in the post-apocalyptic universe of Deadwake. Command small squads through battles shaped not only by weapons, armor, and maneuver, but by Cognitive Static, psychological strain, unstable terrain, and the constant danger that an operative may survive physically while losing the integrity of the self.

Three Ways to Play

The rules support three connected styles of play:

• Standalone skirmish gaming: Build forces and fight complete tabletop battles without using the roleplaying game;
• Roleplaying combat resolution: Move characters from a Deadwake narrative campaign directly onto the tactical map, carrying their abilities, injuries, and psychological condition with them; and
• Hybrid campaign play: Allow narrative decisions to establish each battle and let the results of each skirmish reshape the story that follows.

The Resonance Roll

Movement, attacks, technical actions, psychic effects, and battlefield interactions use the unified Resonance Roll system. Build a pool of six-sided dice from the relevant attribute, roll, and count successes.

A result of six may generate Overload. The player can accept the ordinary result or channel the excess resonance for a greater effect, risking a secret Threadlock check and the possibility of Cognitive Blowback.

The War Inside the War

Every operative has two separate damage tracks:

• Vigor measures physical injury and endurance; and
• Cohesion measures psychological stability under fear, trauma, battlefield pressure, and exposure to the Static.

Witnessing the destruction of a nearby ally, suffering psychic feedback, encountering terror weapons, or entering a severe anomaly zone can damage Cohesion even when the operative remains physically unharmed. Operatives whose Cohesion breaks may become suppressed, lose actions, freeze, flee, or turn their weapons upon the nearest available target.

The Battlefield Fights Everyone

Deadwake battlefields are rated according to their Anomaly Severity Index. At lower levels, the Cognitive Static interferes with communication and coherent command. At higher levels, hallucinations, identity displacement, psychic echoes, Static storms, and reality failures become active tactical forces.

Locus Points offer dangerous temporary power. Psychic residue from destroyed operatives can make parts of the battlefield progressively less stable. The terrain is not merely where the battle occurs. It is a third participant.

Three Distinct Factions

• Consolidated Axiom Dynamics relies upon armored operatives, centralized targeting data, predictive models, and networked battlefield control;
• The Helios Foundation uses biological engineering, pheromonal control, psychological manipulation, and surgically precise violence; and
• Kenshin Industrial fields disciplined line troops and advanced combat machines built around honor, deliberate positioning, and decisive close combat.

Each faction has its own units, command structure, special abilities, tactical priorities, and vulnerabilities. They do not merely use different equipment. They approach the battlefield according to fundamentally different philosophies.

Inside This Book

• Complete standalone skirmish rules;
• Force-building and Requisition Value systems;
• Three complete faction rosters;
• Agent, vehicle, and advanced combat-unit rules;
• Vigor, Cohesion, Threadlock, Overload, and psychological-fracture mechanics;
• Battlefield anomalies, Cognitive Static, Locus Points, and environmental hazards;
• Nine ready-to-run scenarios;
• Branching narrative, escalation, and territory-control campaign structures;
• Advancement, scars, recovery, reputation, logistics, and political consequences; and
• Direct integration with the Deadwake roleplaying system.

What You Need to Play

This book contains the complete miniatures rules. Players will also need six-sided dice, measuring tools, suitable miniatures or markers, and tabletop terrain.

The Deadwake Role Playing Rules are not required for standalone miniatures play. They may be added when players want to connect tabletop battles to a continuing narrative campaign.

Book Details

• Author: Jon Compton
• Publisher: Canvas Temple Publishing, LLC
• Format: Paperback
• Length: 96 pages
• Dimensions: Approximately 7.44 × 9.69 inches
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1969445068
• ISBN-13: 9781969445064

The digital edition is sold separately through WargameVault. This listing is for the physical paperback edition.