Button Wars
Rules of Play: Continued



Special Abilities:

Approximately one quarter of all buttons have some sort of special ability, in some cases, multiple special abilities. A ships special abilities are detailed on the ship’s ship card. While some buttons have one of a kind special abilties, some special abilities appear on enough buttons that we wanted to detail a few of them here.

Cloaking: This special ability allows a shio to mask its exact location and the obfuscate the exact model of the ship. While cloaking technology is not so potent as to completely hide a ship from enemy sensors, it can do a wonderful tool for confusing them. All cloaking special abilities also have a rating, typically only 1 to 3, but can be as hire as five.

A ship may start the game cloaked or it may cloak itself on any turn that it does not attack or use its dimension fold engines. Once a ship is cloaked, flip it upside down. Then, for each cloaking point, place one Sensor Ghost button on top or underneathe the cloaked button. You may hide the placement of sensor ghost buttons from the view of other players so they can not tell which button is the real ship and which are the sensor ghosts. If you do not own any Sensor Ghost buttons, you may use other buttons which can not possibly get mistaken for ships within your fleet. On future turns you may move the cloaked ship and all Sensor Ghost buttons together or move them off into other directions.

Sensor Ghosts are not subject to any limitations of movement or manueverability, though the cloaked ship itself is still limited by such factors. When hit by an enemy attack a Sensor Ghost button is removed from the table. When this happens the player with the cloaked vessel may place another sensor ghost button on top of the cloaked ship or any other sensor ghost buttons still in play. If a cloaked ship is hit by an enemy attack its instantly uncloaks and all sensor ghost buttons disappear.

Cloaked ship may not dimension fold while cloaked, nor may they do any sort of attack. A player may chose to have a cloaked ship uncloak at any time and have it attack or dimension fold in the same turn.

Shockwave: Shockwave is an energy based attack primarily designed as an anti-fighter defensive weapon. A shockwave attack will luanch a deadly ring of energy a certain radius in all directions from the outer edges of the button. Any ships, friends or foe, within range of the shockwave must roll for damage. Shockwave has several variable. Some ships can chose the distance the shockwave will travel before using it. Some can use shockwave in addition to their normal attack while others can not.

Mending: Mending is typically a mystical trait added to important ships, though a couple races have figured out how to duplicate the same effect with technology. At the end of every full game turn, any ships with Mending will heal a number of lost hit points equal to the level of their Mending rating.

Mine Laying: Certain ships are designed to be mine layers. A mine layer can place a mine anywhere directly off the rim of the ship. Mines places are placed 1/2 range (1/2 inch) away from the mine layer. The player using a mine layer must select a mine at random from the available mines (see below), then place it 1/2 range away from the mine layer. The mine layer positions the mines during the course of its movement for the turn. Any turn a mine layer places a mine it can not attack. If a mine layer is within the explosive radius of a mine when the mine is fist placed, the mine layer will not trigger the mine.

The Button Wars instruction book has a page with graphic circles on it uner the Mine Laying description. Players can photo copy that page and use the cut-out images as mines. Each mine icon has a circle radious listed on it. When a mine is placed, the player placing it may chose any radius from the available mine icons. These icons are placed face down, so all other players will not know what the detonation range is.  Once placed, any ship coming within the triggle radius of a mine will cause the mine to detonate. Unless otherwise stated, all mines have an attack level of 6.

When first chosing a mine, then placing it, make sure the mine is face down. Once a player has selected a mine he may look at it so as to know what the trigger radius is, though should not show it to any other players. The player which placed a mine may look at its under side after it has been placed. No other players may do this.

Extended Firing Range: This special ability allows the ship to fire its standard attack farther than 9 range. The range this special ability allows for is listed next to the specials name. (ie, Extended Firing Range: 12).

Rules cont. ----->   Battle Cards


2000 copyright, Guild of Blades Publishing Group