Editing Coup-De-Grace: Arena Design (section)

=Objectives and scenarios=

The default set-up of coup-de-grace is two teams fighting to the death. Once you've taken the other team out of action, you win. This section chanegs that idea with the concept of scenario goals and objectives.

Consider trying out the following example scenarios.

==Variant Rules relating to scenarios==

===Themed Warbands===

Works best for GM-designed scenarios and warbands. Theme the warbands to create more narrative cohesion: e.g. orcs versus dwarves.

Variants:
* "Alignment" - For team-pick, divide minis into good, evil and neutral. A player who has picked at least one good mini cannot pick any evil ones, and vice versa.
* "Preferred Allies" - For blind bidding, each mini you have adds +1 to the bid value of minis of its own race, and -1 to the bids of one opposed race. These modifiers affect who wins the auction, but not the cost to be paid if you win.

===Respawn===

In games where annihilating the opposition is not the objective, there may be the ability to "respawn". At the start of each round, as that warband's first activation, the warband may restore one out-of-action mini and place it in his starting area.

===Reinforcements===

This is the same as respawning, but rather than use out of action minis, the player may pick a mini from a shared "reserve pool" and bring this one into play in his starting area. This means that there'll be a new mini each turn! 

===Heroes===

Sometimes you want one or two models in a warband to stand out.
A mini can be treated as being "heroic" if the scenario directs this. This gives it +3 Hit Points, and it can use each of its held weapons ''twice'' each turn instead of once. Also, it halves the MA cost of any actions from these weapons.

===Mooks===

Equally, sometimes you want models to be represent faceless minions who are there for more competent warriors to cut down, and who are only dangerous en masse.
A mini can be treated as being a "mook" if the scenario directs this. This gives it -2 Hit Points, and any attack roll made by a mook that rolls an odd number automatically misses.

===In Media Res===

In this variant, remove start areas, and instead mark a number of squares in the Arena equal to the number of minis in play. These squares should be spread across the arena, but some of them should be clumped to be adjacent to each other.

Then, each player takes turns deploying a mini, and can deploy either one of his own minis or one of his opponent's!

This is a good way of creating a scenario that is already in the thick of the action, and gels well with otherwise simple scenario goals (such as fights to the death).

==Variant Objectives==

===Checkmate===

Each player nominates a single model as his "King". This model gains +3 Hit Points and has its status revealed to all players.

When a warband's King is taken out of action, it loses the game. Depending on the scenario other minis in the warband may be instantly taken out of action as well, or may remain in play for the player of that warband to have a chance to affect the ongoing outcome.

At any point that only one player has a King in play, that player wins the game.

Try this objective with the reinforcements rule as above.
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===Capture the Flag===

Each player has a "flag" placed on the board which their team must guard. Any model may spend 1 movement point to pick up a flag in an adjacent square. Doing so takes the place of whatever is in that mini's left hand. If the mini is downed or taken out of action, the flag drops in an adjacent square (dropping mini decides which one). A mini can voluntarily drop a flag in an adjacent square for 1 movement point.

When a warband brings an opposing team's flag back to a target area (maybe that team's starting area, or maybe a separate area to any players starting zone), that flag is removed from the game, and the warband wins the game. For 3+ multiplayer games, instead remove the warband whose flag is captured from the game, and continue till only one warband remains.

As variants consider the following:
* "Murderball": One flag only, which is "neutral" and in the centre of the board. First team to bring it home wins.
* "Defence and Attack": One flag per team, and the team's own flag starts in their starting zone.
* "Bomb run": Teams start with a neutral flag each, but the target is their opponent's starting zone.

Capture the flag works well with the respawn rule, and can be made more chaotic with the mook rules.

===Zone Capture===

The arena has three or more designated zones which count as target zones. At the start of each round, a zone which only contains minis of one warband is considered to be controlled by that warband. If at the start of any round, a warband is controlling a certain number of zones (say 2 out of 3) they win.

Zone Capture works well with respawn rules, though to stop things dragging out its often a good idea to have respawns be mooks.

Variants:
* "King of the Castle" - Instead of zones, have a single square be the target area. Grant a small buff to any model on this square. A player wins if a mini he controls occupies the target area for 5 turns in a row.
* "Endzone Attack" - Each player's starting area is a target zone. Leave off the respawn rule for this variant!

===Wave Defence===

The arena is set up so that one player, or the GM sends in successive waves of enemies. These turn up at regular intervals (e.g. every D6 turns).

The goal could be to survive a fixed number of waves with at least one model intact, or perhaps to survive as many turns as possible to beat a "survival high score".

Variants:
* "Tower Defence": Defending players play by points buy, and must spend half their points on buying traps, turrets, obstacles and the like from a GM provided list.
* "Us vs Them vs Us vs Them:" Two players play simultaneously on two boards, attacking on one, defending on the other. Winner is the one who survives with his defending team the longest.

===Killstreak===

The goal here is to make a certain number of kills to win the game. Use respawn rules and state how many kills are needed to win. 

Variants:
* "Escalation": Have starting forces be mooks, but respawn as standard forces, and then to respawn again as heroes. 
* "Master of Mayhem": Each mini tracks its own number of kills. To win, an individual mini needs five kills without dying itself.
* "Chosen One's Rampage": As per Master of Mayhem, but each player gets one uber-hero, that can never be killed! If reduced to 0 or less hit points, the mini is downed, but can never be reduced below 0 HP or taken out of action.
* "Style Bonus": With any variant, gain a bonus kill point for a kill made using various marked environmental effects (e.g. a spiked pit trap, a bonfire, etc.).