Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
credits
RULES
PIETRO TURRI
GRAPHICS & LAYOUT
PIETRO TURRI
BETA TESTING
TANA DEI GOBLIN FORLI CESENA
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
FILIPPO VINCENZI
UNITS ORIGINAL DESIGN
EUREKA MINIATURES
IMPACT! MINIATURES (JUGGERNAUT)
VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO
TANA DEI GOBLIN FORLI CESENA, EUREKA MINIATURES,
IMPACT! MINIATURES, BC STUDIO, MICIOSEGONE GAMES,
BAR CAOSSI, SIMONE POGGI, FILIPPO VINCENZI, GIOELE VISANI,
TANIA STRADAIOLI, RAFFAELLA RUFFILLI, CLAUDIO RODI,
ANDREA FABBRI, DANIELE RODI, FABRIZIO PASSATEMPI,
MASSIMO MASINI, FEDERICO PELUSO, SAVERIO SAMORI,
CLAUDIO TURRI, STEFANO SPIRITO, LUCA MARCHI
Additional materials about Pondemonium can be found in the official site:
www.miciosegoneags.altervista.org/pondemonium.html
For requests or direct communications:
punkkommando77@yahoo.it
Even if this game is clearly a fantasy battle game between human-like animals, it is important to remember that Pietro Turri and every involved subjects in this game production,
are absolutely against any kind of animal violence.
Introduction
Since the beginning of time, the Dark Frond Swamp was the theater of
battles between Frogs and Turtles.
While Turtles live in an empire based on labourers and industrial development, Frog are ruled by an evil King that focus the wellness of his
reign on war and conquests.
From ages Turtles were forced to rise the level of the military tactics to
defend borders from the brute force of the Frog army. Battle after battle, Turtle defenses weakened, giving Frogs a great opportunity.
Now the Frog King is coming, with new technological warfare machines.
The next assault could create a direct passage in the Turtle land.
The time is right, and unexpected. Turtles are not warned about Frog.
Will the heroic captain Cracked Shell be able to win even this desperate
battle?
- This rulebook.
- Pond battlefield.
- Units sheets.
- 12 Action cards.
- Some markers.
- 2 six-sided dices.
- Miniatures for Frogs and Turtles.
If in the site you downloaded this rulebook all those material was not available, you will be able to find everything you need for play at this link:
www.miciosegoneags.altervista.org/pondemonium.html
In this website you will be able to find even printable Pondemonium units,
but we suggest you to buy the original miniatures for a better experience.
WHERE TO BUY THE MINIATURES:
Pondemonium miniatures are produces by Eureka Miniatures and can be
found here: www.eurekamin.com.au
For american users: www.eurekaminusa.com
Official european distributor: www.fighting15sshop.co.uk
N.B.: The Juggernaut miniature is the only one that is NOT in Eureka range.
The unit is the Terrorpin of the american Impact! Miniatures:
www.impactminiatures.com
Deployment
Turtles always deploy first.
Turtles must deploy minimum 3 units on bridges connected with the main
island (max 2 units per bridge). Every other units must be placed in the main
island. Turtles can place units only in the main island and in bridges
connected with the main island.
Frogs always deploy seconds.
Frogs must deploy minimum 2 units on 3 different deployment zones.
Deployment zones are located in Pond corners.
Frogs must deploy every units in Pond corners.
Turtles
Army limit
Archer
12
Spearturtle
10
Piketurtle
12
Musketeer
14
18
Hussar musketeer
18
Captain of Hussars
22
Standard bearer
18
Musician
12
Sniper
18
Juggernaut
22
Captain
20
Army limit
Spearfrog
Pikefrog
10
lite spearfrog
10
lite pikefrog
12
Musketeer
12
Marauder
Hussar pikefrog
16
Hussar marauder
14
Hussar musketeer
18
18
Captain of Hussars
22
Standard bearer
12
Musician
10
Captain
20
Cannon
20
King
25
Frogs
Units cost
Before the beginning of the game, players must choose units secretly.
Turtles must take the Captain.
Frogs must take Captain or Hussar Captain or King (max. 2 of them. No Frog
player can have all the 3 units).
In the following table there are units costs. A standard match of Pandemonium
is from 150 to 200 points.
Game Turn
Every player begin the game with 5 action cards and 1 racial card.
Every action card have a number printed on it. The number is the action points
you can obtain playing it.
At the beginning of every turn both players choose a single card from the hand
and reveal it at the same time. The number printed on it is the number of action
points the player have in this turn, but the lower number play first.
In case of a tie the Frogs player win the initiative.
Ex: John plays a 5, Mick plays a 2. Micks start first but he has only
2 actions, John will be second; but will play with 5 actions.
When the player who has initiative consumed every action points, the opponent
turn will begin.
Once both players used every actions the turn ends and the played cards are
putted away in a discard pile. Every normal action cards will return to the game
quite soon. The racial cards are single use and will be played only a single time.
The racial card can be used instead of a normal action card but dont give at the
player action points, however allow the race to use the racial ability for free on
every unit on the battlefield.
Every Frog can use his Jump ability.
Every Turtle can use his Armor ability.
Using the racial card allow to take back every normal action card played before.
After that, the racial card is permanently discarded.
When a player play the racial card, he win automatically the initiative.
If the two racial cards are played at the same time, the Frogs win the initiative.
When a player play his last action card he took back every normal action cards
from his discard pile. Racial card is never considerated a card in hand. This
means that if you have only the Racial card left you can take every normal cards
from the discard pile like if you had none.
Exception is the racial ability that can be used only once per unit.
When a unit use the racial ability, that unit cant do any other action
until the next turn, so its important to use racial ability as
the last action/s of the turn.
Ex.: A frog can use two times the action Move and
than use the racial ability Jump. This will cost the
player 3 action points. The unit will not be able to do
anything else, becouse Jump is a racial ability and the
player will not be able to use the unit until his next
turn. The player can still use other actions to move
other units.
The white arrows are the allowed land movements that every units can
do.
The green arrows are jump movements that can be used only by Frogs
racial Jump ability. Jump can be used in white arrows too without problems.
BLOCKED BRIDGES:
Frogs can jump over the opponents, but only using the racial ability, so
this will be the last action of the turn for that unit.
During the match it is possible that a unit on a bridge will be surrounded (ex:
frog unit - turtle unit - frog unit). The rule of maximum units will be still valid
(two frogs and two turtle maximum) but will vary the combat resolution that
we will see later.
Only the units that in a bridge have base contact with enemy units are considerated engaged.
IMPORTANT: When frogs use the racial ability on a bridge, frogs can
only move on one islet connected with the bridge. A frog can never
jump on a leaf from a bridge.
If a unit reach with a movement an islet, that unit will be placed in the
center of the islet.
If a unit end his movement on an islet where there are enemy units, all
that units is considerated engaged (a single unit can engage all the enemy units on a terrain).
It is never allowed to enter in water voluntarily with a move action.
Move actions allow only to move on fields or bridges.
A bridge can have a maximum of two turtles and two frogs, while an
islet can have all the units that physically can stand in it, but at max five
for faction (excluding the deployment zones at the centre and at the
corners).
The second frog or turtle entering a bridge must position behind the
one already standing in the bridge. It is not possible to move over
friendly or unfriendly units.
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In islets it is possible to move freely if the friendly units are more than opponents units. When the majority is lost because of a move action or the death
of a unit, move actions will be forbidden.
IMPORTANT: Leaves can have only a single unit at the same time !
facING
With facing we intend the direction the unit is oriented. Facing is very
important in Pondemonium for using in the right way some abilities.
Units can see at 360. This mean units can attack range and melee at units
that are located behind them with no penalties, but for some special abilities
like Push it is really important a right facing placement.
Every unit that move toward the center of the Pond will be facing to the next
terrain closer to the center.
Every unit that move away from the center will be facing the next terrain
closer to the Pond corners.
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SHOOTING
Units that have range weapons (muskets, bows, etc ...) can shoot with a
cost of an action point during the player turn.
It is important to remember that shooting can be done only twice per
turn for every unit and that some kind of weapons like fire guns need a
reloading action between each range attack.
Range weapons can be of 2 different type: fire guns and bows.
Fire guns are much stronger, but need an action to reload.
After each shoot action, the weapon need an action to reload and will
be needed an action point to do it.
At the beginning of each turn, every fire gun are considerated loaded.
This means that for do 2 ranged attack with fire guns the player will
need 3 actions. For a single ranged attack 1 action will be enough.
Bows are weaker, but can shoot more with less action points (2 action
points allow 2 ranged attack) and have normally a longer range.
The range of distance weapons can be seen on the army sheet and it is
the maximum number of terrains the unit can reach with a shoot.
For example, a ranged weapon with range 3 can shoot to maximum 3
terrains of distance (counting the one where is the target). If there are
different combinations of terrains between the attacker and the target
the shortest route must be choosed.
The water is considerated a terrain for the range like any others.
This means that if it is a combinations of terrains like water-leaf-waterleaf the water must be counted twice and the shoot will be range 4 (one
per each type of land crossed).
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DAMAGE CALCULATION
Calculate combat damage in Pondemonium is done by the difference of
opponents successes.
Every weapon, range and melee, has a value that indicate how many
dices the attacking player must roll, and another value that indicate a
number you have to reach to obtain a success with that weapon.
The unit defending ever roll two dices for defense, both Frogs and Turtles, but the value to reach is different from unit to unit.
Over that, Turtles can use the racial ability to add one dice to the defense roll.
Once all the dices were rolled, you must compare attack and defense
successes, if attacker obtained more success than defender, he inflict
the difference as injuries.
If the defender obtained more success than attacker nothing happened.
The attack is blocked/dodged.
Range weapons can never be used for melee resolving at the end of the turn
unless the unit have the Rapid Fire ability (guns), the other units must use
their second weapon in melee (bite, punch....).
Normally every range units have a different melee value that is used for
close combat, is the weapon without the RANGE characteristic.
Priority for an archer or a musketeer that is engaged is disengaging itself.
Disengaging is more easy for Frogs.
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LINE OF SIGHT
RACIAL ABILITIES
In Pondemonium the line of sight is ever free. Field obstacles and other
units never block a range attack, but it is important to remember that
range attack has a range value and that normally a range attack cant be
used when engaged.
Turtles and Frogs are different not only for weapons and armour, but for
some abilities too. For one action point a unit can use the racial ability,
but remember that using that ability is ever the last action for that unit
in this turn.
reloading
At the beginning of each player turn, fire guns are always considerated
loaded, and the same is for melee phases with fire guns with Rapid Fire
ability. During the turn, every time a fire gun shoots it will be considerate unloaded and will be necessary to spend an action to use it again in
the same turn. Loading a weapon two times in the same turn is useless.
Reloading is useless if you played the lower action card (the one with
only two actions).
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DISENGAGING
An engaged unit can disengage only:
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PINCER MANEUVER
Every attacker/defender that is in surplus must be putted in an already created combination and will fight only if the other unit will be killed.
Once every combination is created, the player in turn decide what combat
want to resolve first, but every fighting must be resolved.
May happen that the are different units in a melee combat. The order and
the combination is ever decided by the player in turn. This is a really important advantage. For example, a Turtle fights with 3 Frogs. If the Turtle player
is in turn he can decide the unit the Turtle will fight with and the next unit in
case of elimination of the first one.
Only the units that are in base contact can attack/counterattack, the second,
third... rank units can only advance if the allied in front of them die.
Only units with the PHALANX ability can attack without the base contact (see
the ability section).
The player on turn is the Turtle Player. He can choose the unit that will
be attacked by the Turtle. Once the attack of the Turtle is resolved, if the
Frog is survived, the unit can attack the Turtle back.
In any case, the other Frog will be able to attack the Turtle.
In this case the Turtle player will try to attack the weaker Frog, hopping
to kill the unit using the advantage of the initiative.
If the player on turn is the Frog Player, he will choose the first unit that
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will attack the Turtle. If the Turtle will not be killed, the Turtle will counterattack as usual. The second Frog will attack the Turtle but there will
be no counterattack by the Turtle, so there will be no risk to the second
Frog to suffer damages.
If the attacker had more successes than defender, the difference will be
inflicted as damage (injuries).
The player on turn roll dices equal to the number indicated on the
equipped weapon of the unit and calculate the number of successes he
obtained. The opponent do the same for the armor value of his unit.
If the unit is killed (injuries reach the life points value) and there arent
other enemies in the queue the fight is over, otherwise the queue advance and there is a counterattack (see second phase).
If the unit survived there is a counterattack (see second phase).
After that, if there is another unit against this unit (3 units in a pincer
maneuver) there is another battle, but the defender will not have any
counterattack.
The number of units is the same so its the player on turn that will decide who will fight with. Unfortunately he must choose equally so the
choice is one and only one: 1 against 2 and 3 against 4.
Normally every unit will have a single melee attack, but only if the unit
will reach an opponent
Once actions and melee phases are over, the turn change and the player
with less initiative will do his turn.
Even in this situation the choice is only one: 1 against 2 and 3 against 4.
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When this second turn is over every player will play other cards.
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VICTORY
Frogs wins if at the end of melee phase of the Frog player turn, in the
Fort in the center of the pond the Frogs are twice the number of the
Turtles.
The Turtles wins if in any moment the 80% (rounded up) of Frogs army
is eliminated. You must count the number of units, not the cost of the
army.
ABILITIES
In this part of the rulebook were going to explain the unit abilities of
Pondemonium:
Chivalry: Chivalry ability allow a unit to move like if using racial ability
Jump, but the unit doesnt need to end the turn after the use of it. The
only limit of it is that Chivalry Units cant jump, move or stay on bridges.
This means that this kind of units must use only leaf to enter inside the
pond.
Reload: Units with this ability must use an action points after a range
attack to allow a second attack in the same turn.
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First Rank Phalanx: This ability allow Phalanx units to melee attack even
if in the second position of a line. It is not necessary to be in contact of
another units, but must be no more far than the second position of the
line. The attacks made with this ability are always after the regulars
attacks of the two first line units. The attacks resolution order is: active
player first line unit, opponent first line unit, active player first/second
phalanx units, opponent first/second phalanx units.
Example: A Turtle Archer is engaged melee with a Frog Marauder and a
Pikefrog is in the second position after the Frog Marauder.
The turn is of Turtles player and the Turtle doesnt do any damage to
the Frog Marauder. Its Frogs player time to counterattack. The Frog
Marauder had one success, and the Turtle block it with a successful
defense roll. Everything stand in the same way, but the Pikefrog in the
second line can use the ability to attack the Turtle Archer.
Second Rank Phalanx: This ability works like Phalanx First Rank but it allow to attack even from the third position of a line. This ability will work
even with 2 friendly units between the unit and the target. The attacks
made with this ability are always after the regulars attacks of the two
first line units.
The attacks made with this ability are always after the regulars
attacks of the two first line units. The attacks resolution order is: active
player first line unit, opponent first line unit, active player first/second
phalanx units, opponent first/second phalanx units.
Overwhelm: Attack roll successes are saved from the enemy with a malus of +1 applied on his armour save (a standard turtle save at 5+ instead of 4+)
Rapid Fire: The units with rapid fire ability can use the ranged weapons
even when engaged, both as range attack, both as melee attack.
(Rapid fire weapons are always loaded in melee phase)
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Push: When a unit with push ability inflict an injury (after the defense
roll) , can choose to move immediately the target unit to an adjacent
terrain behind her.
A push on a bridge will move the unit to the previous islet.
This will work only if there are no other units in the line behind the unit.
A unit pushed from an islet will be moved to one of the bridges in the
back of the unit. This will be possible only if the bridge have not reached
the maximum number of units (two units per faction). If the player that
make the push is the player with the initiative, the pushed unit lose his
counterattack phase.
Patriotism: When a unit with Patriotism enters in a terrain (islet or
bridge), every units of the same faction gain the chance to reroll one
dice after the dice rolls in the attack phase of the melee phase.
This bonus will last only for the same turn the unit with Patriotism
moved and will end at the end of the melee phase. A unit with Patriotism can move two times only if the first field is empty. Every time a unit
with Patriotism reach a field with friendly units the unit must stop and
will not be able to use any other type of movements (including the Jump
racial ability).
The unit can use an action point as movement without moving to reactivate the ability in the field the unit is.
Furious Charge: A unit with this ability will ever have the initiative and
will ever attack first, even in the opponent turn. If two units with Furious
Charge fight against each other the two attacks are resolved at the same
time. This means that it is possible for two units with this ability to kill
each other at the same time.
Adrenalinic Charge: When a unit with this ability enters an island, islet
or bridge field, every units of the same faction earn a reroll during the
armor roll to protect from injuries in melee combat.
This ability will last only until the end of the next melee phase at the end
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of the turn.
A unit with Adrenalinic Charge can move two times only if the first field
is empty. Every time a unit with Adrenalinic Charge reach a field with
friendly units the unit must stop and will not be able to use any other
type of movements (including the Jump racial ability).
The unit can use an action point as movement without moving to reactivate the ability in the field the unit is.
Rex Tremendae Maiestatis: The Frog King can be targeted by ranged
attack only when he is the only enemy unit in his terrain. If in the terrain
occupied by the King there are other enemies, the attacking player must
choose one of them as target.
Slow reload: A unit with this ability must use two action points to reload
a range weapon.
Amphibious: The units with this ability can cross short water areas, with
two movement actions a unit on a islet can reach a near islet.
This ability can be used only for move between two islets, and only if
the starting islet and the destination islet are divided by a straight line
that cross only water. Often this special movement can allows to avoid
bridges. This special movement cant start or end on bridges or leaves.
The units with the Amphibious ability cant pass or stay on the bridges.
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