The Basics - Units

We're going to take a little break from posting fluff today to talk about some of the basics of gameplay in Dark Century. We'll take a glance at the various unit types, then we'll go over the different kinds of unit organization. Finally we'll touch on the two different types of bases, Squad and Character.

Unit Types

The first important concept to understand is the way Dark Century organizes models into units. There are two categories of units, Infantry and Vehicles, and within each category are several unit types:

Infantry	Vehicles
Leg - Your regular infantry, getting where they need to go by leg/tentacle/pseudopod.	Ground - Any vehicle that moves along the ground via wheels or treads.
Mounted - This covers your cavalry-type units, your bikers, or your fast-moving beasts.	Walker - Built like a vehicle, moves like infantry, it's a walker!
Jump - These guys can fly, whether it's thanks to wings, jet packs, or anti-grav belts. They move quick and ignore terrain.	Hover - A vehicle that floats and moves over terrain with no penalty, but can't quite fly high enough to leave the table altogether.
Artillery - These infantry are manning the big guns - as a result, they're pretty slow and awkward to maneuver.	Flyer - Starts the game completely off the board, then breezes through over the course of two turns, flying right over any terrain.

None of this is particularly groundbreaking, but it's important to note that I'm trying to be comprehensive right from the start. These rules will cover everything from the weediest little leg infantry unit to giant hulking mecha to fast-moving jet fighters, so it's important to start with a holistic approach rather than tack things on later.

Unit Organization

In Dark Century, we aren't so concerned about where every individual foot soldier is standing, or even whether they're still alive. Infantry models are almost always grouped together onto large bases, with somewhere between two and five models per base. Only an especially powerful or important infantry model would find itself alone on a base.

Units can be a single base, or can be made up of multiple bases that are linked together for the entire game. We call each base within a Unit a "Unit Element" or just an "Element". That's a generic term for the smallest piece of a unit, and it applies to vehicles too.

A very sparse squad of Anglian Rifles.

Vehicles are slightly different though, because not every vehicle actually needs a base, and most vehicle models that ARE on a base are usually based alone rather than in groups. Other than that, the same nomenclature applies: a vehicle Unit is either a single vehicle, or several separate vehicles that remain together for the entire game. In vehicle Units with multiple separate vehicles, each vehicle is still called a "Unit Element" to keep terms consistent. Hopefully this makes sense, if not, leave a comment!

Base Types

Finally we're going to look at the difference between the two different infantry base sizes in Dark Century. Bases come in two flavors: Squad and Character. The majority of your units are going to be on Squad bases, which are 32mm x 32mm in size. The Squad base represents a robust group of Infantry moving and fighting together, like a Rifle Section in a Rifle Squad.

The Character base is half the size of a Squad base, only 16mm x 32mm. Character bases usually have a single infantry model on them, representing (duh) a character. Character bases are less durable in game terms, but also can't be singled out by enemy fire so long as they're near a Squad base. Your leadership units are almost always on Character bases, which allows them to act independently but makes them more vulnerable to damage. It also makes it easy for you to tell at a glance which base is in charge in a cluster of infantry units. This is a crucial point, and really aids gameplay, as leadership and morale are absolutely critical in effectively controlling your troops in Dark Century.