Introducing Battle Rules (2009)

The Battle Rules (2009) rulebook is a complete rewrite of the D&D Miniatures Game rule set, incorporating the past year of changes, clarifications, and errata and a smaller number of new changes in a single document. You can download the new rulebook here.

The differences between the rulebook released in the Starter Set (2008) rulebook and this latest rulebook include the following:

1-Square Rule: Removed this odd holdover from the previous ruleset. The situation it was intended to cover could never come up with any figure, on any map, with any positioning of figures, and caused significant confusion among new players as to what it really meant (absent “real” applications, many new players forced it into applying where it wasn’t meant to).

Alignment: Creature’s alignments are no longer keywords; instead, they are just triggers for powers and for warband building restrictions in the standard warband construction rules.

Arena: Added the new Arena format, which is a fast-paced fight to the death.

Aura: Added this new power type; auras are continuous powers that are temporarily nullified while the creature they are on is inactive.

Blasts: Blasts, which are faster to place and to determine the area for (since they don’t require a template), have been added. Small cones are now equivalent to blast 3 attacks and large cones are now equivalent to blast 5 attacks.

Blinded: Added this new standard condition.

Champion Powers: Added rule that a champion can use each of its champion powers once once per turn.

Charging: A creature can no longer take any actions after taking a charge action (instead of just being restricted from moving). With the introduction of minor actions (especially those that grant additional attacks), this alignment with the RPG’s rules was a necessity. Charging also now requires line of sight to a square in destination space in addition to the target of the charge.

Conditions: The effects of conditions now mirror the Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition game more closely. They’d always been intended to, but the previous rulebook was written before those conditions were finalized in the RPG. The ill-defined and always confusing “tier” of conditions has been removed, leaving each condition as a separate entity.

Confused: The Confused condition has been altered to give control to its owner more often, but to give increased flexibility to the opponent whenever he or she gets control of the affected creature.

Damage Sequence: The specific order in which to apply vulnerabilities, resistances, Weakened, bonus damage, etc. is now defined in the rules.

Dazed: Dazed now matches the RPG and is simplified (but more powerful) than its previous incarnation. In addition, the old Staggered condition is now the same as Dazed.

Defenses: Because it’s such a fundamental part of the Dungeons & Dragons game, a creature’s defenses have been split into the standard four defenses—armor class, fortitude, reflex, and will.

Dominated: Dominated has been added as a standard condition, and several powers which literally did Dominated in all but name have been rewritten to actually use Dominated. With a single rule-set to handle taking control of an opponent’s figures, edge-case interactions are much smoother and more understandable.

Double-Move: A creature no longer is required to “pause” in a legal ending position between two subsequent move actions.

Enervated: The name for the Enervated condition has changed to Weakened to match the condition’s name in the RPG.

Equipment: Rules for adding items to warbands have been added.

Huges: Huges are now allowed in standard 200-point games (although the normal 150-point single figure cost limit still applies). Along with this, squeezing has been made less onerous, allowing huges to better take part in both standard and epic games.

Immediate Actions/immediately: The term “immediate action” is now reserved specifically for things which are, in fact, actions. Other powers can interrupt the flow of the game, but aren’t themselves actions. The rules make this difference more clear both in the rules and in the rewritten card text.

Line X: The method for selecting squares affected by a line has changed to be simpler, more flexible, and faster to handle. Lines also now have an origin square, so that all close attacks handle line of sight, line of effect, and cover with the same rules.

Map Selection: During map selection, the player who does not select the map can now elect to have the other player choose a side and set up his or her figures first.

Minor Actions: Added the concept of minor actions, which are another kind of action a creature can use on its turn (in addition to attack actions and move actions).

Mount: Added the Mount rules into the core rules.

Movement Modes: The previous rules treated Flight, Burrow, and Phasing as something other than powers sometimes, and powers at other times, and made them optional (even though it never made sense to not use the movement mode, except when trying to argue your way out of having a penalty applied due to having that power). The rules now treat them as movement modes exclusively.

Ongoing Damage: Ongoing damage is now a type of damage applied as an effect, rather than a condition. In play, this changes very little, but it cleans up many interactions with ongoing damage and other effects.

Origin Squares: The rules for determining the origin of an attack or effect have been greatly simplified, with most rules shared between all kinds of attacks and effects, and for determining cover, line of effect, and line of sight from that origin.

Powers: While different types of powers—activated, continuous, and triggered powers—were implied to such a degree that the rules wouldn’t work without internally formalizing the differences, the rules now define the different types specifically. Along with new card text that clearly delineates powers into the different types, significant potential and actual confusion about specific powers’ interactions is cleared up.

Rechargeable Powers: Made a slight alteration to rechargeable powers to allow for rechargeable powers with less than or more than one initial use.

Staggered: The Staggered condition has been removed to simplify the list of “nearly, but not quite identical” conditions in the game. Figures which caused Staggered previously now cause Dazed.

Substituting Actions: Rewrote the rules for substituting actions to eliminate confusion on whether, for example, substituting a move action for an attack action counts as “taking an attack” (it does not).

Teleporters: When a creature uses a teleporter, it must now choose the nearest teleporter as its destination. While this doesn’t affect the Flooded Ruins map (as it has only two teleporters), it alters how Teleport Temple (which is now legal) and future maps work.

Temporary Hit Points: Removed the whole temporary hit points system. There are no stat cards released or planned for future release that use temporary hit points, and it consumed a lot of rules space.

Turn Sequence: The specific order in which things happen during a turn is now defined in the rules (for example, the order in which to apply start of turn effects, taking actions, etc.).

Walls: Although the underlying rules haven’t actually changed, the wall rules have been rewritten to more clearly define them as segments that exist atop squares, rather than as features of the squares themselves. This includes significant streamlining of the various special cases previously required for diagonal walls and cover, line of effect, and line of sight.