Justin’s Table Top Skirmish Game
An hour and a half tabletop skirmish game where characters battle it out to see what they’re going to become.
Tactical skirmish that fits in a weeknight.
I've spent years playing Marvel Crisis Protocol and I still love it. The dice, the terrain, the cinematic moment you throw a building at your arch enemy and they explode! That's the good stuff. But it's a two-to-three hour commitment, and I don't have two-to-three hours very often anymore.
This is my attempt to keep everything I love about that game and cut the runtime while adding my own style. Three hero characters, a support, and an artifact. Ten threat points instead of seventeen. Missions you draw instead of agonize over. Same eight-sided dice, same push-and-pull of spending power at exactly the right moment — just without the part where you look up and it's midnight.
This world is a blank canvas that's starting to fill itself in. The roster is original: a paint-splattered fox who fights with a sword in his mouth, a spearman who blinks across the board, and whatever else I can draw up in my sketchbook. It's weird on purpose.
• Current Stage - Theory-crafting the core rules
The hour I actually have
Every design decision gets measured against one question: does this get us to a finished game inside sixty minutes? Smaller squads and a lower threat target aren't just tweaks — they're the whole thesis.
Why I’m making this
Characters should feel
like characters
I don’t just want stat blocks with names. I want characters that feel fun, look awesome, and have a story that all translates into gameplay.
Quick Missions = more theory crafting
I love theory-crating (making teams, making stories, you name it) and making cool and fun teams set to specific themes, then tweaking them!
To keep that a central part of the game, I have a deck of mission and twist cards that you pull from so you can try out your team right away.
Original Characters
Every character design is something that I’ve come up with or is pulled from projects from me or my friends.
The Game Play Loop
How it plays
Build a Squad
Pick three heroes, then pick a support character and an item totaling ten threat. Optionally trade a point of threat for an extra tactics card.
Draw the mission
Flip a mission card and a twist card. You find out what you're fighting over at the same time your opponent does.
Alternate activations
One character acts, then one of theirs. Move, attack, or spend power on a special. Power banks between activations, so holding it is a real decision.
Context Sensitive Interactions - characters will interact with objectives differently based on their keywords
Both sides roll
Attacker rolls the attack, defender rolls their defense type. Crits generate, skulls are failures, blanks are blanks. Damage goes on the card until the character breaks.
Score and reset
Points come off the mission, the twist changes what matters, and the game ends when someone hits the target — usually around turn four.
The die
Crit Scores a hit and add in another dice for extra damage!
Hit One hit toward damage.
Block Cancels a hit on defense.
Wild Special triggers
Skull Negative on everything.
Blank Nothing. It just happens.
If you've played a Crisis Protocol game, you already know how to roll dice here. That's on purpose — the familiarity is what lets me spend the rules budget on the parts that are actually new.
Characters so far
The roster
The Fox
This little guy right here… brought to you in 3D!
The Ravens
A murder of ravens who have a penchant for shiny things. AKA flying thieves!
The Hand
Who is this mysterious giant hand and what does it have to do with this group of fighters?
Echo
He’s a half vampire, half bat, half ninja!
G-Man from Mars
He’s a g-man from the 1950’s and he travels through CRTV’s!
Blam blam he has a lazer.
Theo
A Traveler who… travels through time and space! Your classic mostly silent hero, well except for a quick bit of wit here and there.
The Hokorone
Like, Theo, but twisted and dark.
Is he a coffee?
Want in?
I need people to play. Seriously.
I need it a lot. If you play skirmish games, or you've designed one, or you just want to sit down and break something I made, I want to hear from you. Early playtesters get their name on whatever this becomes.