If an alerted guard ends their action in a zone with an alarm, the alarm is sounded. All guards be- come alerted, and may move and attack freely.
More Guards
After each exchange, the Autarch player may place one guard in any zone if there are fewer guards than heroes. If the alarm has sounded, there is no limit to the number of guards and two guards are placed after each exchange instead of one.
Resolution
The heroes are successful when all the security challenges are completed and at least one hero makes it back Outside the House.
Skirmish
Skirmishes are small battles between the he- roes and a few opponents. Conquering many of the neutral regions requires battling off monsters of the wild, which is handled with Skirmish. Skirmish is also common for many of the Quest missions, as well as for handling regional threats.
The opposition for the heroes is a boss monster or a leader of some sort, sometimes accompanied by a number of minions. The heroes and opponents move around zones, using skills like Fighting and Marks- manship to inflict physical stress on each other until one side concedes. Zones in Skirmish aren’t very big: typically they’re on the scale of dining rooms, hallways, barns, and small forest clearings. As usual for zones, the exact scale is fairly abstract.
Challenges
Common themes for Skirmish challenge scenes include battling opponents (bandits, fire lizards, un- dead bears) and dealing with hardships in the envi- ronment (raging rivers, snowstorms, underground caverns). The most common skills used to resolve Skirmish challenges are Fighting, Marksmanship, and Survival. Many of the Conquest missions for neutral regions (see the Neutral Regions chapter), as well as the faction Quests, have example challenges listed. These are good sources to mine for inspiration.
Opposition
Either one leader (a boss monster) with a skill cap two higher than the mission difficulty, or a leader with a skill cap equal to the mission difficulty along with a number of minions equal to the number of heroes. The minions also have a skill cap equal to the mission difficulty. If the Skirmish mission is against a faction, one of the leaders from the faction may be chosen as opposition.
If using a single tough opponent, they can take the Big Bad General Opposition stunt without using up one of their stunt slots.
Creating Opposition
If opposition needs to be created, they should be given beneficial skills to help with Skirmish. Either Fighting or Athletics is critical to doing any damage. Athletics helps with moving around the battlefield, and Survival determines the action order. Finally, Physique improves the physical stress track, which is also help- ful during skirmish. Stealth can be useful for creating advantages, and Wits is useful in case the heroes have a sneaky character of their own.
Setup
The players collaboratively create a map where the conflict will take place, and place tokens (miniatures or markers of some sort) to represent the characters onto the zones.
Create the Map
Gather together 10 note cards to use for track- ing the zones where the conflict will take place. The Autarch player may write or draw aspects represent- ing physical obstacles on up to four of the note cards (rubble, shallow water, underbrush, cluttered room, etc).
The Autarch player and the spotlight player take turns placing the note cards onto the table. The Autar- ch player places a card first, choosing any desired note card, followed by the spotlight player, who also chooses any note card and places it adjacent to the card already on the table. Zones must be connected along one edge (not diagonal) to one or more other zones. After all zones have been placed, a note card is placed by the spotlight player, with the label Hero Start on it.
Place Characters
The Autarch player places all of the opposition on any desired zones, with the exception of the Hero Start zone, which must be free from opposition. Following that, the spotlight player places tokens to represent the heroes onto the Hero Start zone.
Aspect Burning
The Stronghold players may burn a free invoke (from a mission or campaign aspect) to allow a hero to start in a different zone (instead of the given starting
zone), add a new obstacle to a zone, or add a new zone to the map. Each of these costs one free invoke.
The Exchange
Turns are taken in order of the Survival skill. Stronghold players go first in the case of ties. Charac- ters may delay their action until later in the exchange, potentially forcing characters with lower Survival skills to go first.
Actions
When a character takes a turn, they may Create a Minor Advantage, Attack, or Overcome (usually used for movement).
Create Minor Advantage
Any character may attempt to create a minor ad- vantage during their turn, following the normal rules for Create Advantage in the Fate chapter. Remember that aspects which directly target specific characters should be actively opposed, rather than using the pas- sive mission difficulty. Otherwise, the difficulty is two lower than the mission difficulty.
Overcome
Players may use Overcome to remove minor advantages, provided they have a reasonable skill and means to do so. Using Wits to remove a Hiding in Shadows, Fighting to remove Flanked, etc. If the as- pect has free invokes, each one may be used to add +2 to the opposition. If the aspect is being taken advan- tage of by another character (for instance, the hiding or flanking character), the action is defended by the character using a relevant skill. Otherwise, the opposi- tion is passive, with a difficulty equal mission difficulty -2 (same as creating minor advantages).
Movement
Movement in Skirmish uses the Athletics skill, and works as described in the Conflicts chapter.
Attack
Characters may attack using Fighting or Marks- manship. Fighting is opposed by Fighting or Athletics and inflicts physical stress. Without stunts, Fighting may only target a character in the same zone.
Marksmanship inflicts physical stress and is opposed by Athletics. Marksmanship may target a character in the same zone or in any zone the firing character can see. The zone targeted using Marksman- ship must be in a straight line from where the firing characters zone is (counting diagonally along zones is fine). For each zone crossed to the target, add +1 to the target character’s opposition.
Remember that a character can’t inflict more stress than the value of the skill they use to attack with! (See the Fate chapter for more details).
Defend
The standard skills are available to defend with (Athletics defends against Fighting or Marksmanship, Fighting defends against Fighting). Defend doesn’t require an action to use, it is used when the character is attacked or when another character tries to remove an aspect they’re invested in maintaining.
Resolution
Skirmish continues until one side either gives up, or all of their characters are taken out. If the heroes give up or are all taken out, they have lost the mission. The heroes may give up after any exchange.
Warfare
Battles between armies for control of a region are fought using warfare. Warfare is bloody business. Casualties are common for the losing side as well as for the victor. Too many casualties cause a loss of stability.
While having competent military commanders is important, a variety of quality units are also neces- sary for martial success. The Stronghold must have the correct type of development prior to building units. The units are mustered during the stronghold upkeep phase. Resources are allocated on a per unit basis as they are for other developments. Units are a little like characters, with skills and stunts to use during the battle.
Each side places units under the command of chosen leaders. Zones, representing large areas of land, are created on note cards and a battlefield is construct- ed. The goal in warfare is to secure the defender’s stra-
tegic zone, occupying it with units so that it changes
hands.
Challenges
Challenges during warfare missions focus on the pain of military life and the struggle to secure strategic advantage. Morale issues, homesick soldiers, fatigue, reconnaissance, environmental hazards, and small battles with enemy forces are all potential challenge scenes.
Units
Units are large groups of fighting forces under the control of a leader. Although units are not characters, they are composed of similar elements: skills, aspects, and stunts. Units don’t have stress or consequences.
Commanders
As mentioned, units are assigned to a commander (a hero, faction leader, or lieutenant). Units do not spend or receive fate points of their own. Rather, the controlling commander spends fate points on behalf of the unit. Units do not get actions independent of their commander.