Tally Ho! Mechanics

Tally Ho!

Tally Ho is a game idea that I started developing, probably nearly twenty years ago, but hasn’t come very far. The vision for the game is having small unit actions in the 1930s, normally using a small band of heroic adventurers versus nasty types.

I am aiming to use the blog to expand and explore upon the ideas behind the game and rules and then collate them before publishing them on the main website.

In terms of game mechanics, the main concept was less about realism, but much more about heroic actions in the style of film and television heroes.

Each figure in the game is an individual character and would be represented by a character card. The character would have characteristics that would allow them to carry out certain actions in the game.

Actions

Move
Aim a weapon
Fire a weapon
Hand-to-hand combat
Special

Action Points

Each character has a certain number of action points, these allow them to carry out an action.

Tally Ho!

Movement

All character have a standard move of 4”.

Characters can run 8”, but this reduces their accuracy when firing a weapon in their next action.

Characters carrying a heavy weapon can not run and can only move 3”

See below, but one idea is that wounded characters have their move reduced 1” for each wound they have.

Moving across an obstacle costs 2”.

Opening or closing a door costs 1”.

Firing a Weapon

All weapons have their own weapon data, that shows the range of those weapons and the score required to hit and wound.

To fire measure the range check the number required, throw a D10, you need to get equal to or under to hit and wound.

Dice throws are subject to the following modifiers:

Aimed Shot-2
Target in open-1
Wounded +2

Tally Ho!

Wounds

Each character has a number of wounds equivalent to their number of Action Points. If a character is wounded, you can either say it has no effect or reduce the number of actions.

An alternative that I am considering is you could say a wound reduces movement by 1″ and when using a weapon or hand to hand combat the character must add 2 to the dice.

Hand-to-Hand Combat

Once in base-to-base contact, a character must expend one Action Point to make a hand-to-hand attack, it costs no Action Points to defend.

Each character must roll a D10, subject to the following modifiers:

Wounded -2
Unarmed -2

Characters may have additional positive modifiers.

If the attacking character scores higher than the defending character, then the attacking character has caused one wound.

If they score is higher by, equal to or more than four, then they have caused two wounds.

If the scores are equal then the result is a draw.

If the defending player scores higher than the attacking player then it is also a draw, but if their score is higher by, equal to or more than four, then they have caused a wound on the attacking character.

Special Actions

Characters are able to take special actions, These can include scenario specific special actions.

Special actions take one action point.

Next steps

The next stage is to try out the rules in a game…

One thought on “Tally Ho! Mechanics”

Leave a Reply