Bot War · How to play
Learn Bot War in one turn
A miniature game inspired by the Saturday-morning cartoons of the 1980s: over-the-top villains, more-than-heroic heroes and a sprinkle of horror. If you've played any miniature game, you'll get it in about ten minutes. Mastering it takes longer.
Scale
10mm
Players
2 – 4
A game takes
About an hour
Force size
100 – 200 pts
Models per side
7 – 16
Table size
3ft × 3ft
The rules in five ideas
Everything you need for your first game
Five ideas run the whole game. Get these and you can play; the rulebook fills in the rest.
Swingy by design
The closer you get, the nastier the dice.
Bot War uses its own dice: D3-based, with blank faces that count as misses. They're built to be swingy, so a game can lurch back and forth every turn. That's where the tension comes from.
At long range you'll mostly chip away. Up close, big hits get likely. In a Close Attack most units don't walk away unscathed, and most don't walk away at all.
Nobody waits their turn
Activation order is set by your characters, not by whose turn it is.
Bot War isn't "my turn, your turn". Each character has a Strategy Rating that decides when it activates, whichever side it's on. Your opponent might activate two models, then you one, then them three.
You know every character's slot when you build your force, and the order shifts as characters are destroyed. Learning to work that order is the key to mastering the game.
Two actions, any order
Move, Close Attack, Ranged Attack or Super Ability: pick any two.
Every model or unit gets two Activations a turn, in any order and any mix. Move twice. Shoot, then move. Move, then shoot.
The order you pick matters, because every Activation costs Energy Points. Getting the most out of both is half the game.
Everything costs energy
No energy on a character means no actions, only a very basic defence.
Each character you take adds Energy Points to your pool. At the start of every turn, in the Power Up phase, you share that pool out across your characters for what you want them to do.
Energy also boosts attacks and defence, so your opponent can force you to burn it just to stay alive. Lose a character and your pool shrinks with it. Managing energy is the most important skill in Bot War.
Everyone has a trick
Huge power, real downsides. Every choice costs something.
Super Abilities define Bot War's characters, and often whole forces. An Overlords Kaiju's Adrenaline can push its attacks and hit points sky-high, or even bring it back from the dead.
Artillery lets a Bot transform into a tank and shell the enemy from long range, but it gives up its movement and Close Attack while it does. That trade-off is everywhere in Bot War.
And there's more
Everything else that makes it Bot War
Terrain
The table fights back
Terrain is fully interactive, not just scenery to hide behind.
Missions
Objectives that stick
Mission-based sticky objectives keep both players moving and fighting for ground.
Unit types
Change modes mid-game
Different unit types, and some characters can switch between them during a game.
Special rules
No two characters alike
A host of special rules gives every character its own personality on the table.
Faction Guides
Your army book
Faction Guides are the army books for each Bot War faction: the lore, the faction-wide rules and the stat card for every character.
The game is balanced around them, so grab the one for the faction you play.
The short version
Bot War is a game of constant choices.
At every point you're weighing the upside against the cost. That's what makes it fun.
About an hour
for a full game, including set-up, once you know the rules.
Two games a night
fit easily into a two-hour club night.
Up to four players
Strategy Rating handles four forces at once. Expect alliances to break and re-form.
Watch it played
How it basically works
Four short videos that walk through a game, step by step.
How it basically works, part 1
How it basically works, part 2
How it basically works, part 3
How it basically works, part 4
From the rulebook
Take a look inside
A few pages from the Bot War 3 rulebook. Click a page to enlarge it.
Ready to play?
Start with the starter set
The Bot War 3 Starter Set has two 80-point factions, dice, a tape measure, Energy Points and the rules. Everything for your first game, in one box.