Fray | Champions of the Every-Verse | Preview Series #3
Fighting the Battle: Combat
By Mark Stogdill
Each Champion comes with a standard set of abilities for attack, defense and movement. On the Champion Card there is a list of special abilities that are unique to that Champion and are resolved during the active player’s turn, using resources gathered from rolling the battle dice. Thematically, this turns into Captain Redbeard the pirate using his flintlock pistol and rapier to both press the attack and defend himself at the same time. Mechanically, this leads to a one Axe, one Shield move that allows Redbeard to attack an enemy champion and improve his own save for the following round. Otherwise, you could store some of those resources and go for a more powerful attack in the following round or even do a combination of both.
Each Champion also has several unique abilities listed on their Champion card. Next to each ability there is either a set of Attack or Defense icon or a combination of both. This is the ‘cost’ to activating that ability. These abilities represent the powerful, and sometimes vicious or devious, things the Champions can do. Unique abilities can provide various bonuses to the Champion themselves or friendly Champions as well as additional attack penalties against their enemies.
Each Champion has 1 once per game ability and 2 unique abilities in Single Mode play. Champions gain 3 unique abilities in Team Mode. The last Team Mode ability the Brain Sandwich team likes to refer to internally as their ‘Ultimate Form’, as each one is very powerful and usually affects multiple Champions. When my Champion uses their last ability against an opponent I like to think of it as Goku from Dragon Ball Z going Super Saiyan. These abilities are only available in Team Mode since many times they are designed to resolve multiple effects against potentially more than one Champion.
When resolving an attack of any kind the player whose Champion is the target of the attack rolls a D6. If the score is equal to or greater than the Champion’s save value represented on their Champion card (including any modifiers) the Champion's armor deflects the attack, or they are able to safely dodge out of the way and no damage is taken. If the Champion is unsuccessful in their Save roll against the attack, the attacking player then rolls for damage. The damage die has the following damage values on it: 4, 6, 8 and Critical Hit (8 plus the Axe icon). The damaged player subtracts the value of the roll from their Champion’s Hit Points. A Critical Hit, in addition to doing 8 damage, also adds a -1 modifier to the affected Champions save for the remainder of the round. Champions start with 20 hit points each (though Hit Points can be modified through item cards). Once a Champion’s hit points are reduced to 0 the Champion has been killed and is removed from the Board for the remainder of the game. If a Champion has a Companion in play at the time of their tragic demise, then the Companion is also removed as if it had been slain.
Fray: Champions of the Every-verse is a winner take all game. A player wins once their opponents have no more champions left in play and they are the last ones standing. The Watcher’s run a brutal contest and it must always be decided in blood. Join us next time as we take a deep dive into the item cards, tokens and components that make up the game and discuss what each does and why.