DETERMINING IF A SHOT HITS

To work out if a shot scores a hit or not you first need to know how far away your target is. Use your range ruler to find out the distance between the unit's weapon and the target. f the weapon you are using has an ammunition counter then you must side it down for each shot you take. A real firing weapons have an ammunition counter as well as some virtual weapons. When you have run out of ammunition, the weapon can no longer be used.

In ROBOGEAR how far a weapon can shoot is broken down into three ranges short, medium and long. The closer the enemy unit is to your own the easier it is for you to hit it. Use a range ruler to find out what range category the target falls into. Because long range is twice the distance of medium range, you can put both range rulers end to end to create long range.

Once you know what range the enemy unit is at, look at the table below to see what number is needed for your unit to hit them with your shot. Declare the weapon you are firing with and roll a dice for your shot. If you get equal to, or higher than, the number needed on the table below then you score a hit. It is that simple.

When shooting, if a target is more than half obscured then it counts as being in cover and so is more difficult to hit. The number needed to hit a model in cover is 1 more than it is normally, so a trooper at short range who is in cover is hit only on a 5 or a 6. A trooper who is both in cover and at long range can only be hit on a 7, and as б is the highest number on the dice the trooper can only be hit by a sniper, who gets a +1 accuracy bonus to his dice roll.

WHAT THE WEAPONS DO

On the unit sheet you can see a box next to each shooting weapon with three numbers in them. This is DAMAGE CAPACTY of the weapon. These numbers show how powerful the weapon is the higher the numbers the more damage they cause to the enemy unit at that range. For every point of damage the weapon does, the target unit's armour is reduced by one. Move the slider 1 box down the ARMOUR SCALE. So, a weapon that does 4 damage will reduce a unit's armour by 4 points.

The reason why there are three numbers is that each weapon causes different amounts of damage at different ranges. With most weapons the closer you are to your enemy the more damage you will cause to it. But this not always the case, so read the unit card carefully.

If you look on the unit sheet for T-REX, you can see that its machinegun has a damage capacity of 7, 4 and 2. This means that at short range the gun will cause 7 damage, at medium range it will do 4 damage and at long range just 2 damage. Some weapons have 0 at certain ranges, meaning they are completely useless at that range.

For your units to do as well as possible always try to get them to fire at targets that are within the range that does most damage. But don't forget that the closer you get to your enemies the more damage your own units are likely to take from their shooting. As you play the game these numbers will begin to make more sense to you.