Damage, Morale & Civilians#

Modern CQB should feel lethal without becoming a wound-tracking exercise. The point is pressure, not paperwork. Most figures can only absorb a little harm before the room changes around them. Suppression, panic, and bad positioning matter as much as raw injury.

Wounds#

Most figures have only 2 or 3 Wounds.

• losing 1 Wound makes the figure Wounded
• losing all remaining Wounds makes the figure Downed

Wounded figures:

• lose 1 Aim die
• lose 1 Control die
• continue acting unless another rule says otherwise

That small wound count is deliberate. The game wants players to respect exposure, not tank it.

Suppressed#

Suppression is the most common result in the game, and that is by design. Room-clearing is often decided by who loses confidence and momentum first, not by who racks up the highest body count.

Suppressed figures:

• lose 1 Move
• cannot start Overwatch
• clear Suppressed with Recover or at the end of their next Fire & Utility Phase if they did not take an attack action

If Wounds are how the game models physical damage, Suppression is how it models hesitation, shock, flinch, bad footing, loss of nerve, and the awful half-second where somebody stops behaving like they expected to.

Downed and Bleeding#

When a figure reaches 0 Wounds:

• place it Downed
• if the attack or trap inflicts Bleed, place a Bleeding token

At each End Phase, a Bleeding figure rolls 1 Guard die.

• on 6-8, the figure holds
• on 1-5, the figure worsens and may die if not stabilized

This keeps casualty management urgent without making it a separate mini-game.

Nerve Tests#

Roll Nerve when a figure or group suffers a shock that is more psychological than physical, or when the tactical reality of the room becomes impossible to ignore.

Common triggers include:

• being flashed
• seeing the leader fall
• taking fire from two sides
• losing the anchor room
• becoming isolated with no clear retreat
• being ordered to hold against a live breach

Standard Nerve checks require 1 success. Severe shock requires 2 successes.

Failing a Nerve test usually causes one of the following:

• Duck: immediately gain Suppressed
• Fall Back: move toward the nearest fallback route in the next move phase
• Surrender: drop the weapon if surrounded or hopelessly covered
• Panic: civilians run, freeze, or behave unpredictably

The exact outcome can be chosen by the mission, the faction, or common sense. A trained security team should not panic like a civilian, and a cult cell should not surrender like a tired gang lookout.

Civilian Rules#

Civilians are one of the reasons this game should never feel like a pure kill-box exercise. They complicate fire lanes, distort identification, carry evidence without knowing it, and turn a technically successful raid into a moral failure.

Civilians may:

• panic into hallways
• block lines of fire
• hide in the wrong room
• mistake responders for another armed threat
• carry or conceal critical evidence

Common panic triggers include:

• nearby breaching charges
• loud gunfire in the same room
• relic rites or other disorienting effects
• failed reassurance attempts

If civilians are on the board, the team should feel their presence every round. They are not props. They are the reason some shots should not be taken.

Evidence and Collateral Scoring#

Use the following baseline score model unless the mission says otherwise:

Capture-first campaigns should feel these differences immediately. A clean raid opens future missions. A reckless one narrows them.