Faith & Flintlocks - Gameplay Overview

Greetings future citizens of Grimwolden – and welcome to a brand-new series of insights delving into the mechanics and design of Faith & Flintlocks as a game.

Scouting around our website, you can get a full preview of the colourful creatures and miniatures you’ll be commanding on the tabletop.

But how on earth will F&F actually play, we hear you wonder…?

Never fear: read on to discover the essentials.

Getting Started

Standard games are designed to be 60 minutes long – which keeps things fun, action-packed and easy to organise with your friends.

No more scheduling nightmares, or sessions that push your patience to the limit!

Players simply need to set aside a 3’ x 3’ area (90cm x 90cm), grab their gangs of marauding miniatures, and have some six-sided dice at the ready.

Everything you need will be provided in the Faith & Flintlocks box – including a shiny, helpful rulebook, containing all the assorted instructions.

However, the basics are pretty simple to pick up. Here’s an overview of how F&F works at a glance.

Setting Up

First, place terrain on the board as agreed by both players – ensuring each piece is at least Range 2 from the board edge, and Range 1 from another terrain piece.

Next, we have the Roll Off! The winner chooses a corner – and places their ‘Home Token’, so that it touches two board edges. This is the gang’s starting point before they fan out, and head for their objectives.

The opponent then puts down their Home Token in the opposite corner.

Now it’s time for placement. Players take turns adding models within Range 1 of their Home Token, with the highest rolling player from before going first.

With that, action kicks off in the first Round – unless any sneaky ‘before game’ abilities come into play.

How Rounds work

Each Round, players Roll Off to see who will go first. This keeps you on your toes – as you can never be sure who will get the first activation!

Players take alternating turns – and Activate one model at a time.

There are three core actions each model can do – Move, Attack and Search.

Other Specialist Actions are available for characters, thanks to specific abilities or upgrades. Believe us – things can really get interesting with these!

Once all models have been activated, the Round is finished, and a new Round begins. That means it’s time to Roll Off again – seeing who will get the initiative this time.

Objectives – and Winning

Fighting is fun, and your characters are certainly ready for action. But combat alone is not how you win the game.

Instead, the victor is the player with the most points when the last round ends.

You get 2 points for each Relic you hold within Range 0-1 of your Home token, and 1 point for simply holding/having a Relic ‘in hand’.

If a tiebreaker is needed, the player with the highest total value of Loot (regardless of whether they used these Loot cards or not) wins.

When points and Loot are both tied, the game is a draw.

As you can see, the aim of the game is to collect more Relics – while your gang battles through or manoeuvres around anyone standing in their way.

Things are tactical, however. You need to weigh up how much you want to chase Relics vs stopping your opponent getting theirs, as well as the risk-reward ratio involved in getting Relics ‘home’.

Hopefully this gives you a snapshot of what F&F will play like in practice, and how fast-paced, entertaining and wonderfully chaotic it is designed to be!

Next time, we’ll be introducing you to the Searching and Fortune deck. Who knows what strange artifacts and fates your gang will stumble upon, in their quest for fame and glory.