Faction Rosters#

Modern CQB uses six response factions and four hostile factions. All of them share the same stat engine, but they do not play the same way because they do not enter a room for the same reason. Some are trying to preserve evidence. Some are trying to hold a public line. Some are trying to survive long enough to hide ownership. Some just want the site to explode on schedule.

That distinction matters. In this game, doctrine should shape the first reveal, the first arrest attempt, and the first bad decision after the plan breaks.

Universal Response Roles#

Most response squads are built from the same core jobs. These are not rigid classes. They are the roles a six-person team needs if it wants to move through a site without becoming six separate problems.

• Lead: manages breach order, command decisions, and objective control.
• Shield: anchors hallways, protects civilians, and forces safer arrest windows.
• Breacher: opens the threshold fast and survives the first room better than most.
• Scout: mirrors doors, runs drones, checks angles, and turns unknown rooms into knowable ones.
• Marksman: controls corridors, stair mouths, and long interior sightlines.
• Medic-Tech: stabilizes casualties, secures evidence, and handles the equipment that keeps a mission from collapsing sideways.

Playable Response Factions#

NIS — Nybell Intelligence Service#

NIS exists for the kind of operation that is supposed to become a sealed file before sunrise. Its teams are precise, deniable, and more interested in what the room contains than in how dramatic the breach looked on camera.

• Mission voice: clandestine, surgical, deniable
• Doctrine: reveal first, strike second
• Table rule: once per round, after a room reveal, one operator gains +1 Attack die against a newly exposed target
• Preferred tools: door mirrors, signal jammers, secure-data pucks, quiet carbines

NFP — Nybell Federal Police#

NFP serves warrants, holds sieges, moves civilians, and carries the burden of being the force most likely to face public review afterward. It is the faction for players who want the legal and human consequences of the raid to matter as much as the firefight.

• Mission voice: warrant service, siege response, public accountability
• Doctrine: lawful pressure and controlled arrests
• Table rule: restrained suspects count as bonus score, and NFP ignores the first failed civilian panic test each mission
• Preferred tools: shields, restraint kits, commands, disciplined room-entry drills

SIB — Security Intelligence Bureau#

SIB does not think in terms of isolated criminals. It thinks in terms of networks. Its teams enter a site to seize devices, ledgers, relay chains, identities, and leverage. If the room is won but the data is gone, SIB considers that failure.

• Mission voice: counter-subversion, intelligence seizure, quiet fear
• Doctrine: isolate the network, keep the target alive
• Table rule: once per mission, convert one failed evidence Secure test into a success
• Preferred tools: biometric spoofs, signal control gear, masked entry kits, evidence locks

TRG — Tactical Response Group#

TRG is the hard-entry answer to a room that cannot be allowed time. Its operators think in wall composition, stair geometry, marina access, back-of-house corridors, and how quickly a locked site can become a lost one.

• Mission voice: brutal speed, hard-site assault, rescue under pressure
• Doctrine: collapse the strong point before it can stabilize
• Table rule: the first Breach action each round gains +1 Control die
• Preferred tools: breaching charges, shotguns, ropes, hardlight shields

Null Halo Cadre#

Null Halo is used when the state believes an ordinary entry team is not enough: altered zealots, relic failures, chemically unstable violence, and rooms where fear itself has become part of the hazard. It is effective, expensive, and politically dangerous.

• Mission voice: overwhelming force against exceptional threats
• Doctrine: shock, disorient, pin
• Table rule: flashed or freshly breached targets roll one fewer Guard die against Null Halo's first attack each round
• Preferred tools: shock batons, aggressive SMGs, breach hammers, heavy armor

Blue Mercy Contract#

Blue Mercy sits between rescue service, private medicine, and armed extraction. It is the faction for missions where keeping people alive matters while the room is still unresolved, and where care itself may be compromised by money, contracts, or elite access.

• Mission voice: extraction under fire, contract rescue, medical dominance
• Doctrine: keep people alive while the room is still hot
• Table rule: after a successful Secure or Arrest action, an adjacent ally may be stabilized for free
• Preferred tools: trauma stabilizers, smoke, micro drones, compact shields, extraction beacons

Hostile Factions#

The Marrow Wake#

The Marrow Wake is the offshore terror layer of the setting: planners, couriers, veteran cells, and sacrificial defenders who build rooms to buy time rather than comfort.

• Archetype: offshore terror network
• Posture: layered defense, deep anchor rooms, martyr traps
• Break condition: the planner is captured alive, the exfil route is cut, or the operation fails publicly
• Objective behavior: burn evidence, kill witnesses, and keep the timer alive

The Latchwork#

The Latchwork is the inland criminal mesh beneath Nybell's polished surface: row-house crews, chop garages, runner cells, debt families, and improvised strongholds that look lived in because they are.

• Archetype: urban gang web
• Posture: messy rooms, loud movement, improvised barricades
• Break condition: the leader drops, the room gets flanked, or the team proves it owns the whole site
• Objective behavior: protect cash, product, local status, and whoever still pays the block

The Followers#

The Followers are one of the major hidden cult powers of the modern setting. Their polished fronts include the Cut-Sign Chaplaincies, recovery ministries, executive grief specialists, retreat handlers, and ritual cells hidden inside care language. Most people inside the setting would not say, with confidence, that they have ever met a Follower at all.

• Archetype: hidden cult and relic network
• Posture: ritual center, decoys, emotionally disorienting rooms
• Break condition: the rite is interrupted, the focus is removed, or the room's false calm is broken
• Objective behavior: protect relic access, chosen vessels, archives, and obedience

The Charter Wardens#

The Charter Wardens are private sovereignty made tactical: executive protection teams, archive defenders, clinic muscle, corporate security specialists, and legal deniability with rifles.

• Archetype: private security and contract force
• Posture: disciplined angles, cameras, fallback doors, keycard chokepoints
• Break condition: comms collapse, leadership is isolated, or the legal cover story becomes impossible
• Objective behavior: preserve the client, the archive, and the ownership chain behind the site

Sample Profile Bands#

These values are deliberately tight. Modern CQB is not about massive stat gaps. It is about what happens when small advantages in angle, timing, cover, and nerve stack into disaster.

Roster Building#

The standard squad size is six figures. That is large enough to create meaningful roles and small enough that every loss hurts.

Build around:

• 1 Lead
• 1 Shield or Medic-Tech
• 1 Breacher
• 1 Scout
• 1 flex slot
• 1 faction signature slot

Larger missions can add one or two reserve operators, but the game feels sharpest when every figure has a room job. If the team can afford to waste a model, the site is probably too large or the mission is too forgiving.