Most skirmish games are about firepower.
Deadwake is about firepower and the slow collapse of your operatives' minds under the weight of everything the battlefield is doing to them.
The Deadwake Miniatures Combat Rules is a complete, standalone skirmish wargame set in the post-apocalyptic science fiction universe of Deadwake: 96 pages of fully developed tactical rules, three faction rosters built around radically different combat philosophies, nine ready-to-run scenarios, a complete campaign system, and a force-building framework, all built around one core truth: the operative who loses their nerve first loses the battle.
This is a game of small squads, hard choices, and a battlefield that fights everyone simultaneously.
Three Ways to Play:
Play it as a pure tactical wargame, completely standalone with no RPG required. Play it as the combat resolution layer of a full Deadwake narrative campaign, where the wounds your operatives take on the tabletop carry directly into the story sessions that follow. Or play it as a hybrid experience where narrative choices create the conditions for each skirmish and the outcome of each battle rewrites the next chapter of your campaign. One book, three complete experiences, all using the same rules.
The Resonance Roll: One Mechanic, Every Action
Every action on the battlefield, from an Audit Executioner advancing through difficult terrain to a Gen-hanced Warden performing Overwatch as a free action to a CAD operative flooding an enemy's systems with a Data Spike, is resolved with a single unified dice pool mechanic. Build a pool of d6s equal to your relevant attribute, roll, and count successes. A result of 6 generates Overload, giving you a choice: take the clean result, or channel the Overload for a powerful benefit and make a secret Threadlock check to see what the psychic feedback costs your operative. The same risk-reward tension that drives the RPG lives at the heart of every exchange on the tabletop.
The Cohesion System: The War Inside the War:
Every Agent on the battlefield has two health tracks. Vigor measures physical damage. Cohesion measures psychological stability, tracked separately and fluctuating constantly as the battle grinds on. Witnessing a squadmate destroyed within six inches costs Cohesion. Failing a Threadlock check when channeling Overload costs Cohesion. Taking fire from weapons with the Terror quality costs Cohesion. When Cohesion breaks, the consequences range from a unit becoming Suppressed and losing its offensive capability, to Faltering and losing actions, to suffering a Psychological Fracture where the Facilitator may force the unit to freeze completely or attack the nearest model, friendly or enemy.
This is not flavor. It is the game's central tactical problem. The faction that ignores its operatives' psychological stability pays for it.
The Psychic Battlefield: The Environment as a Third Player
Every battlefield in Deadwake has an Anomaly Severity Index rating, from ASI 0 in a sterile corporate Clean Network to ASI 5 at the epicenter of a psychic cataclysm where reality has stopped following its own rules. In an ASI 2 zone, every Agent makes a Threadlock check at the end of each Resolution Phase. At ASI 3, all Command actions become harder as the Static interferes with coherent thought. At ASI 4, a natural roll of 1 on any die triggers an immediate result on the Resolve Malfunction Table. At ASI 5, the Facilitator introduces Mass Hallucinations, Identity Scrambles, and Sensory Deprivation effects that can turn your own operatives against each other.
Locus Points pulse with concentrated psychic energy, damaging minds but offering devastating temporary abilities to Psy-Sensitive units willing to risk the exposure. Static Storms drift across the board on random vectors. Psychic Echoes left by destroyed operatives raise the local ASI and force Threadlock checks on anything that enters their radius. The terrain does not wait patiently for you to solve it. It participates.
Three Factions, Three Completely Different Games
Consolidated Axiom Dynamics fields armored Audit Executioners as its line infantry backbone, relentless soldiers trained to trust the Logic Engine's network over their own instincts, supported by unarmed Clarity Drones that broadcast targeting solutions across the battlefield. The CAD game is one of patient network warfare: keep the Oracle alive, maintain Data-Linked Targeting synergies, and let the Optimized Firing Solution re-rolls grind the enemy into a statistical inevitability. Destroy the Oracle and the entire machine loses its eyes. CAD operatives advance without movement penalties for difficult terrain, but their total reliance on a centralized data network makes them critically vulnerable to hacking and command disruption.
The Helios Foundation wages war through biological control and surgical precision. Pheromonal Control imposes a penalty to enemy Resolve Checks whenever two or more Bio-Engineered units are in proximity, turning the mere presence of a Helios force into a psychological hazard. The Neural Calming Protocol pacifies enemies who have already taken Cohesion damage, preventing them from attacking entirely. Pruner subfaction forces gain bonus damage against any target already suffering from a negative status effect, creating a brutal loop where the first suppression leads to the next and the next. The Gen-hanced Warden is Helios's elite vanguard: genetically augmented for superior reflexes, carrying a high-damage flechette rifle and a toxin-laced blade, ignoring partial cover bonuses with Heightened Senses, and performing Overwatch as a free action.
Kenshin Industrial fields the disciplined Ashigaru Line-Holder as its line infantry: exceptional soldiers who gain bonus Resilience when they hold their ground without moving, the living embodiment of a force built to anchor a position while its elites decide the battle. That elite is the Kensai-Class Battleframe, Kenshin's masterwork walker: a machine that moves with the grace of a martial artist, carrying a long-range Amaterasu Heavy Railcannon and a master-crafted Vibro-Katana, re-rolling failed melee attack dice with Living Blade, and answering any melee attack it survives with an immediate free counter-strike via The Perfect Strike reaction. The Kenshin game rewards operatives who fight without cover, bonusing melee attacks and Dodge reactions when no terrain protection is claimed, and punishes enemies who refuse a Formal Challenge or try to disengage from one.
Legendary and Prototype Units
Each faction includes optional Legendary and Prototype units that define extreme playstyles. Exec-Inquisitor Malix carries no weapons. His power is entirely psychological and informational: Logical Deconstruction forces a penalized Resolve Check on any enemy within line of sight with the player choosing the failure result on the table; The Inevitability Model aura prevents enemies within twelve inches from re-rolling any dice; and every successful Data Spike inflicts Cohesion Damage in addition to its normal effect. He is the most dangerous operative in the game and has never fired a shot.
Subject Alpha, the First Bloom, is Helios's perfected biological specimen: an unarmed prototype with Monofilament Claws that ignore armor entirely, Uncanny Grace that allows a free Dodge reaction without spending a reaction point, and Engineered for the Kill that grants a free Move action after every melee kill, making it a thing that does not stop once it starts moving toward you.
Todoroki Akane pilots the Akuma Battleframe, a custom red walker built for velocity and aggression: Twin Oni-Claw Chain-Katanas that deal bonus damage on critical success, Demon's Speed granting a free Move after every kill, Pragmatist's Strike adding damage when attacking an already-engaged enemy, and Relentless Assault allowing two Attack actions in a single activation.
Nine Scenarios, Each a Different Problem
Asset Recovery, Hold the Line, Assassination, The Conduit, Data Breach, Biohazard Retrieval, Scavenger's Gauntlet, and The Ghost Signal each present a distinct tactical challenge with specific deployment rules, victory conditions, special rules that reshape how the board behaves, and faction hooks that connect each mission to the broader political landscape of the Wake. The Biohazard Retrieval scenario introduces a live mutation table where Organic units caught in spreading spore zones can gain permanent biological effects for the remainder of the battle, and forces with opposite objectives converging on the same three objectives simultaneously.
A Complete Campaign System
Three campaign structures accommodate every style of play. The Branching Narrative Campaign makes every battle outcome a story fork. The Escalation Campaign grows from small recruit-level skirmishes to full engagements between veteran forces and Legendary units. The Persistent Territory Control campaign plays out on a strategic map where control of each territory affects resource income and unlocks special battlefield conditions.
Campaign play includes the full Scar and Insight advancement system, downtime and readiness rules, faction-specific recovery protocols unique to CAD, Helios, and Kenshin, Reputation and Standing tracking with full Ripple Effect consequences, Ideological Pressure and Doctrine Review for operatives who act against their faction's core philosophy, Campaign Complications, Asset Management and supply scarcity rules, Commander Progression traits, Strategic Reserves and Reinforcement protocols unique to each faction, Cross-Faction Intrigue mechanics, and a Political Landscape tracker for managing the cold war between powers.
The Requisition Value System
Every unit has a calculated Requisition Value derived from its core stats, wargear, and special abilities. Agree on an RV limit before the game and build your force from there. A 100 to 150 RV game is a tight skirmish between small elite squads. A 250-plus RV engagement is a full combined-arms battle where Legendary units and subfaction upgrades operate at full scale. An advanced tournament calculation system adds range modifiers and ability complexity ratings for competitive play where every point matters.
Designed to Connect
Every stat on a Deadwake character sheet translates directly to the tactical map with no conversion required. If your group also plays the RPG, the same operative who survived a Helios interrogation scene last session is on the table this session, carrying those wounds. The story does not stop when the models come out.
96 pages. A complete skirmish wargame. Three factions with distinct tactical identities. Nine scenarios. A campaign system with genuine political consequences. And a battlefield that is already working against everyone.
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