Laser Tanks

Motorised Armoured Laser Quest

I made this game as a side project on and off for about a year or so. This is an ongoing Solo project

Work in Progress

Coming up with a concept

I've had the idea for a game like this for a while, making models of characters wearing laser tag/laser rush gear. I frequently visited a Laser quest centre in Eastbourne for my birthday while also going to a similar Laser Rush arena in Whitstable when visiting a relative. The one in whitstable is the one that this game took most of its inspiration from... mainly because I remember being able to play upwards of 15 games whenever I visited for an all-day-play.

Unfortunately due to circumstances during Covid they were forced to close. While a new place has sprung up in the exact same spot, I haven't had the chance to go back myself to find out what has changed.

Writing the rules

This game started with outlining a lot of the game rules.

I wanted to make a base game that players could use as a framework to play different game types to keep play interesting. Also the inspiration features multiple different game types and some of the special games are part of the charm

How the core game functions is therefore talked about before the various game modes. It is left open so anyone could come up with new game modes if they wanted to but the ones in the rules are re-creations of some of the games from those available from the lazer rush of my childhood and a couple additions, possible because of the change in medium

Core rules

Laser Tanks is played in rounds, each round involves every player acting with all their pieces.

To start a round, Shuffle and then flip the top card of the initiative pile. This card indicates which tank moves first that round

On a tank’s turn it has 4 AP to undertake actions. Each action has a cost linked to it. AP is not conserved between turns, tanks will always have 4 when you start a turn

Actions allow movement, shooting, aiming, helping, hiding and moving the initiative order around

Shooting

This can get a little tricky but is simple on the surface.

to land a hit, you must roll a 5 or higher... hard right? well not really.
Help and Aim allow you to improve your chance to hit.

Doesn't sound fair for the defending tank does it? Well
Hunkering down reduces the chance to hit you.

When hit, tanks lose access to their gun for a turn but are invulnerable to being shot by anyone else

Game types

Beyond the core rules there are 4 different ways to play based on the gamemodes from Lazer Rush

Solo Stun

A free-for-all limited round gamemode where all players are potential targets. Who can gain the most points by the end?

Team stun

A simple team game with a round limit. Which team can get the most points?

Zombies

The apocalypse is here! Can the survivors hold out while their defeated allies turn on them after being defeated?

Predator

Cat and mouse but both have laser guns. The predator is alone against an enemy team but has surprise and is much harder to hit. Which will prevail?

I've also included some other game types not found in the original pulled from other sources

Capture the flag

A team based game where the aim is to bring the enemy flag back to your side's base

laserdome

Each player has 3 lives, Last one standing wins

Breach and Clear

One team scatters Blips around the board while the other team has to clear the map while outnumbered

Hold the line

Almost like a reverse version of Breach and Clear where the defenders need to keep the enemy attackers outside the bases

As this game is designed for team gameplay there are more team games than free-for-all ones. Additionally if there are less players than the full amount players can control multiple tanks and all the modes involving blips revolve around 1 player playing multiple tanks.

Making/Compiling the bits

While Working on the rules, I was also making little polymer clay tanks... I made a lot of them. I will probably keep making more... I may have a problem...

I have a box of game bits I can use to put with a game, so I got some D6s and a box for putting smaller pieces in.

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