Epic Toy Cool CombatTape Measure Tactics

Game overview

Epic Toy Cool Combat is a turn-based tactics game played in real life, on the floor, a table, a bed or the garden, with the toys you already own. Brick-built figures, action figures, robots, dinosaurs, tanks, teddy bears and cardboard creations all fight under one set of rules. All you need besides them is a tape measure and one die.

There are no stat cards. The model is the stat sheet: what a unit carries is what it can do, and the parts you can knock off it are its health. A hit sends the part flying across the table, and the unit can go and pick it back up.

It began as a way to give toy battles rules, so that distances and dice decide what happens instead of whoever narrates hardest. The turns borrow XCOM's clarity (three units, three actions each), and the "build anything" spirit comes from BrikWars and Mobile Frame Zero, the free wargames for construction toys. The aim is the depth of a good tactics game with none of the bookkeeping of a big tabletop wargame.

Controls and interface

The controls are your hands, and the interface is the table. Everything is measured in centimetres with full 360° freedom, up and down included, so there's no grid, no hexes and no board to buy.

A turn is short by design. You pick up to three of your units, and each gets three actions in any order and combination: move-move-move, move-attack-move, attack-attack-recover. The rest of your army waits. However large the armies get, nobody waits long for their turn.

Game layers

1. 01 · Moment-to-moment

   Measure, roll, knock it off

   

   Pull out the tape, see which range band the target is in, and roll. If it hits and the defender's dodge fails, the defender picks a part to lose, and the unit is pushed back along the line of the shot while the part flies twice as far.

   Then the question every turn turns on: chase the part you lost, cover a friend, or press the attack while the enemy is stripped bare?

2. 02 · Low metagame

   A battle with a mission

   Every battle has an objective, and the battle ends when it's done or failed. Most missions aren't about wiping out the other side:

   Mission	What it asks
   Take down the leader	Destroy one named unit: a commander, a hero, an ace, a hivemind
   Nemesis	Destroy a unit that comes back twice: it has three lives
   Guard or destroy	A reactor, pylon, radar, artifact or planetary gun that isn't part of either army
   Escort	A convoy, a civilian or a carried object that can't move itself; its protector moves it as an extra unit
   Delivery and assembly	Carry a number of objects to a place, or build something from parts scattered across the room
   Race and breakthrough	Reach a place first, or break through a blockade while the other side holds it
   Hold the prize	Keep a special object, or a hill, for a number of turns
   Wipe them out	The classic: the last side standing

   Sides start about three metres apart, beyond the reach of any weapon, so the opening turns are about positioning, like the first moves in chess. Ambushes and standoffs can start anywhere.

3. 03 · High metagame

   The war diary

   

   Battles can be one-offs, but they're meant to add up. The game is structured like a cartoon series: a season is a whole war, an episode is a campaign within it, and each battle is a scene. A war diary records every one of them: who fought, what happened, the coolest moment, who fell.

   The next scene isn't invented on the spot. A few decision sheets, driven by the die or by a vote, roll it up from what came before: where it picks up, the starting positions, how the forces compare, the main and side objectives, and special events, like a strong wind that pushes every unit ten centimetres to the left. Each episode continues from where the last one left off.

   Armies change as the war goes on. New units can join between battles, and the last unit destroyed in a battle retires for the rest of the season, its story written into the diary. Nothing un-happens. When a season ends, the next one picks up its threads.

4. 04 · Practical game flow

   Set up in minutes, pack up in one

   

   Bring your units already built. Make terrain out of whatever is in the room: books, cushions, boxes, the furniture itself. Show each other your units, roll or pick the scene, and start.

   A one-on-one duel fits in a short sitting, three against three is a relaxed evening, and nine against nine or more is a proper battle. Afterwards, snap the loose parts back on, the toys go back on the shelf, and the diary waits for the next scene, next week or next year.

Game modes

The same rules serve every table. Who's playing decides the mode:

The dice commander runs any army nobody is playing. At the start of each of its units' activations, roll the die and follow the result, moving its toys for it:

The commander always takes the likeliest shot its result allows, and activates the three units closest to the action. That's enough to make it unpredictable without making it stupid.

Four variants change the rules themselves, and mix with any mode:

• Kinetic Figure Fights: figures only, one shared reference card instead of any unit sheets, one tape measure and one die. The fastest way in.
• Hardcore: no dodge rolls. Faster and far more lethal.
• Floor is lava: rugs, cardboard and furniture are islands; a unit that starts its turn anywhere else loses a part.
• Paper health: for toys without removable parts. A small strip of paper with one square per part stands in for them, and hits cross squares off; recovering one takes the unit's whole turn. Dabs of putty stuck on as "armor" work too.

Features and mechanics

1. No stat cards

   What you see is what you have

   

   Every unit is described by its physical model. A long barrel is a long-range gun, a thruster pack means it's fast, a thick shield wall on one side is armor on that side. Other wargames define all this on a card; here the toy itself is the card, and everyone at the table can read it.

   So every weapon and ability must be visible and recognizable to the other players, who agree it's valid. That consent is the balance system, together with a simple rule of believability: cheap, fast, good, pick two. Something huge is powerful but heavy; something light is weak or short-ranged. Before the first battle, everyone shows their units (a photo and a few words can go in the diary) and checks that each side has at least one weapon that can hurt the other side's toughest unit.

   Units come in four sizes, judged by what they can do more than by their exact size:

   Size	What it is	Parts
   Figure	Anyone with two arms who can ride or pilot something; about 4 cm	3
   Steed	A horse, bike, small car, power armor, bear, small turret; 5 to 10 cm	5
   Vehicle	A tank, jet, mecha, dragon, gunship, a whole house; 10 to 20 cm	10
   Titan	A giant mecha, battleship, mobile fortress or kaiju; 20 cm and up	20

2. The heart of it

   Parts are health, and hits are physics

   A unit's health is the stuff attached to it: hats, helmets, held weapons, backpacks, armor plates, turrets, wings. Each size can carry a set number of these parts (above). One successful attack removes one part, and the defender chooses which, so they decide what they can live without.

   1. Roll to hitThe range band sets the chance.
   2. DodgeThe defender gets one roll for the whole attack.
   3. Lose a partThe defender picks it and takes it off.
   4. KnockbackThe unit slides back along the shot; the part flies twice as far.

   When the parts are gone, the next hit takes its propulsion: a figure loses its legs and crawls, a vehicle is laid on its side and can't move. The hit after that breaks its core, a head or a reactor, and it's out of the battle. A fully armed figure takes five hits; a titan takes twenty-two.

   Only things that come off easily count as parts. Arms and hands are never pulled off a figure; the weapon in the hand comes off instead. A toy whose weapon is built into its body gets an armor plate to stand in for that health, and it keeps the weapon until the end.

   

3. Healing is a place on the table

   Recover and deny

   

   Lost parts aren't gone. They lie where they landed, and a unit within reach of one (5 cm for a figure, 10 cm for a machine) can spend an action to recover it: an even chance, and on a success it snaps back on with everything it did. A unit can pick up a part an ally dropped, too, as long as it stays within its own size's part limit.

   Healing means walking out to where your helmet landed, possibly into the enemy's line of fire. And the enemy can deny it: attacking a loose part knocks it further away, so you spend more actions chasing it. Every lost part becomes a small objective of its own.

   Nobody touches, steals or uses anyone else's toys. Each god handles only their own creations.

4. Short turns, real choices

   Three units, three actions

   Each turn you activate up to three units, and each takes three actions in any combination. With a big army you choose which three matter most this turn; the rest stand ready. There are no overwatch or reaction rules: the turn is yours, then it's theirs.

   Every move is measured from the unit's centre, in any direction, up and down included. After moving, a unit chooses which way it faces, which matters for armor, weak points and front-firing weapons:

   Who	Per move action
   Figure	30 cm, or 15 cm when slow
   Steed, vehicle, titan	40 cm, or 20 cm when slow
   Jets	60 cm, mostly straight ahead (a 10 cm sidestep); turning in place costs an action
   Boost, jump or dash ability	50 cm (30 cm when slow); 100 cm for jets
   Crawling	10 cm, once the legs or wheels are gone

   A figure becomes slow by carrying a heavy (tier 3) weapon or bigger. A machine becomes slow by being built with heavy or super armor, unless it carries add-on thrusters, which are parts too: shoot them off and it slows down.

5. One die or a coin

   The chance ladder

   Every roll in the game is one of four steps on a single ladder, and each step works with a six-sided die or with coin flips, which give nearly the same odds:

   Chance	Die	Coins	Used for
   Sure	no roll	no flip	Melee, and attacks at close range (up to 10 cm)
   Likely	3 to 6	two flips, either heads	Medium range (up to 25 cm); everyday abilities like a boost or a jump
   Even	4 to 6	one flip, heads	Long range (up to 50 cm); recovering a part; strong abilities like a grapple or a tractor beam; dodging a blast
   Long shot	5 or 6	two flips, both heads	Far range (up to 1 m); dodging an attack; outrageous abilities like mind control

   Range bands double for weapons fired by vehicles and titans, and nothing reaches beyond 2 m, however big the gun. A visible targeting part (a scope, a radar dish, a sensor eye) moves a shot one step up the ladder, though never to Sure. Titans are one step easier to hit, because they're huge.

   The defender dodges once per attack, even when the weapon hits twice: one roll, and the whole attack misses or lands. It keeps turns quick and the odds easy to see.

6. Bigger hits harder, and pays for it

   The tier ladder

   Weapons come in six tiers, and armor in five classes. A weapon hurts any armor up to its own tier, and simply bounces off anything tougher: the defender doesn't even need to dodge. The tier also sets how far a hit knocks the target back, and how wide a blast is.

   Tier	Looks like	Hurts up to	Knockback and blast	The catch
   1 · Light	Pistols, knives, fists, rocks	Unarmored figures	7 cm	None: it attacks twice per action
   2 · Medium	Rifles, blasters, swords, flamethrowers	Armored figures	7 cm	Bounces off every machine's armor
   3 · Heavy	Bazookas, miniguns, big hammers, heavy machine guns	Light armor	10 cm	Makes a figure slow
   4 · Ultra	A figure's oversized railgun or buster sword; autocannons, laser cannons	Heavy armor	15 cm	Fires only to the front
   5 · Siege	Plasma cannons, vehicle railguns, big missiles	Super armor	25 cm	Vehicles and titans only
   6 · Superweapon	Mega rockets, doom cannons, anything absurd	Everything, two parts per hit, and the attacker picks them	40 cm	Makes its carrier slow, and fires only to the front

   Armor runs from unarmored and armored figures (a helmet or chest plate counts, until it's knocked off) through light armor (most steeds) and heavy armor (tanks, battle mechs) to super armor, a massive shield wall that covers one to three sides of a vehicle or titan. Figures and steeds carry weapons up to tier 4; vehicles and titans can mount anything.

   Vehicles can deploy with more than their ten parts, but the first hit on an overloaded vehicle makes it shed parts of its owner's choice down to nine. The urge to bolt armor onto every last surface is real; the game just doesn't let it last.

7. Where you stand matters

   Facing, weak points and super armor

   

   Every unit has six sides: front, back, left, right, top and bottom. A side with thrusters, exhausts, a jetpack or an open cockpit is a weak point, and counts as one armor class lower. An armored figure with a jetpack is unarmored from behind, so even a pistol can finish it there. Speed and armor can live on one unit, but never everywhere at once.

   Super armor works the other way: only siege weapons get through it, so a weaker weapon has to find a side it doesn't cover. Flanking a fortress with a squad of figures carrying bazookas is a plan, not a hope.

   Hand-held and turret weapons fire in any direction. Built-in weapons fire only to the front, and so do ultra weapons and superweapons. A unit chooses its facing for free after a move, but turning in place costs an action. That's the trade: a built-in weapon can never be knocked off, while a turret swivels but can be lost.

8. The fun stuff

   Specials, pets, pilots and rams

   • Blast, pierce and chain: a heavy or ultra weapon can have one of these, siege and superweapons can combine two. A blast hits everyone within its knockback distance of the target, allies and the shooter included, but its victims dodge at even odds. A piercing beam hits everything in a straight line, through walls. A chain bolt or ricochet must jump to one more unit within range, even a friend.
   • Thrown weapons: rocket fists, spears and axes can be thrown for a hit that takes two parts, but the weapon lands next to the target and has to be fetched back.
   • Pets and minions: a dog, a parrot, a swarm of bees or a little drone is a part, not a unit. It attacks in a straight line or around a corner, then comes home.
   • Pilots: most machines need a figure aboard to act, unless they show an antenna, an autopilot or are a creature with a mind of its own. A pilot in an open cockpit can be shot directly, at one step harder. A closed canopy saves them: when the machine is destroyed, the pilot pops out alive with whatever weapons were stowed aboard.
   • Slams and rams: every steed, vehicle and titan can slam something within reach, or ram it with a move. A steed can't ram a vehicle, a vehicle can't ram a titan; a titan can ram anything.
   • Abilities: boosters and wings move a unit further, grappling hooks and tractor beams move something else, aura bursts hit everything around it, and stranger powers move the terrain itself or take over an enemy for the rest of the turn (never to make it destroy itself).

9. Any table, any budget

   Any toy, any scale

   

   Construction toys make it easy to build units with parts that snap off and back on, but nothing in the rules needs them. Units can be crafted from clean scrap: cardboard, bottle caps, popsicle sticks, tin foil, fabric, putty, origami. A box with eyes drawn on it is a valid unit, as long as its parts come off and everyone agrees what they are.

   A starter squad (a figure or two and a small vehicle) is a single small set, and one tape measure, one die and a notebook cost a few coins. A collection can grow into a titan-led army, but the game works just as well at the smallest size, so try it small first: it's far too easy to spend more than you meant to.

   The same rules shrink too. At micro scale, where a person is a single small brick and a mecha fits in your palm (as in Mobile Frame Zero), halve every distance and the game fits on a coffee table.

Trivia

Before settling on Epic Toy Cool Combat, the design notes went through a list of other names: Toy God Battles, Toy God Wars, Battle Toy Gods, Brick God Combat, Combat Bricks, Epic Toy Battles. The battle gods made it into the lore anyway.

The overloaded-vehicle rule exists because of a well-known joke among military vehicle fans: the compulsion to cover a tank in more and more explosive reactive armor blocks until there's barely a tank left underneath. A parts-as-health system makes that very tempting.