Dice
Synaptik Tactics is a table top war game that uses not just one type of die, but rather three: a six sided die (called a d6), an eight sided die (called a d8), and a ten sided die (called a d10), When any dice would be rolled, they are collected into what is called a pool, with each dicepool having one or more of dice following the same rules.
When a player would roll a die, regardless of the type of die, a result of 5 or higher, sometimes called 5+, is required to generate one success. Each die roll will have their effects determined by the number of successes.
Sometimes a player will need to reroll some dice. A die can only ever be rerolled once regardless of the sources of the reroll. If multiple effects would cause any amount of dice to reroll at the same time, only reroll once and take the new result.
If a d3 is called to be rolled, roll a d6 and divide the result by 2, rounding up.
Measurement
Measurements are determined using inches, usually by using a ruler or tape measure of some sort. All numbers marked with (“) stand for a number of inches used to measure that value, such as movement and range. Measurements should be measured from the center of a unit’s base to the target location or center of the target unit.
If a unit moves within 1” of an enemy unit, they enter melee combat. This should only occur with a Charge order which will be explained in the Order section.
Movement and Terrain
Movement can happen when a unit activates, and a unit can move up to their Movement value. A movement path may curve unless otherwise stated by the rules of the unit themselves. When crossing over terrain pieces such as cover, subtract 2” of movement for every 1” of height of the intervening terrain. When a unit is finished moving, they must remain in the distance known as Unit Cohesion. A unit is considered within Cohesion when all models within the unit are within 1" of at least 2 other models of the same unit and no model is farther than 6" from any model within their unit. If the unit consists of only 2 models, they must remain within 1" of each other. A unit with only 1 model remaining is always in Cohesion. A unit which ends its movement while not within Cohesion, immediately gains a Disorder token (See Melee rules for more details on Disorder).
All terrain elements can combine together when measuring movement or shooting, such as shooting through multiple pieces of Light Cover each piece of Light Cover adds their extra dice to the defender's dice pool.
Light Cover: such as woods and other things not designed to stop bullets but gets in the way of line of sight enough to make shooting worse adds 1 die to the defenders defense pool for free. Units that stand between the target and the attacker also count as light cover.
Heavy Cover: such as a building or a barricade that is designed to be sturdy adds 2 dice to the defenders defense pool for free
Difficult Terrain: moving 1” counts as moving 2”
Impassable Terrain: Cannot move through it and blocks line of sight.
Ranged Combat
Ranged combat works by the attacking player first announcing which weapons from their units are firing at which target units. Each weapon profile will have three range profiles which give a range band (starting range to end range) that defines its most effective range (Hot Range), its moderate range (Standard Range), and its least effective range (Cold Range).
A unit must also draw line of sight to at least one model of the target unit. To draw line of sight, a model must be able to draw a straight line from their base to any point on the target's base that doesn't cross any Impassible terrain that is taller than 2", the model in question has line of sight.
Once the Range is determined for each model, the attacker rolls a number of dice (d10, d8, d6) equal to the attack value of the weapon profile. When attacking with multiples of a weapon profile, or in the case of the Firing Line order where additional attacks of a weapon profile, combine all attacks of the same weapon profile into a single die pool for the purposes of rolling attacks and saves.
A model may take a number of wounds equal to its Toughness value before it is removed from play.
Melee Combat
Melee attacks follow all the same rules as ranged combat in addition to a few new rules.
When a unit enters melee combat, the defender of the melee can choose to immediately activate in order to fire their ranged weapons at the incoming unit if they haven’t activated yet. If they do so, treat the range to target as 2”.
After the charging unit moves their models up to their charge range and at least one model ends with touching their base to a model of the other unit, each player can move their models up to 3" in order to get as many models to touch as possible. Each model that has an enemy model within 1" is considered in melee.
After this step, the attackers get to use their melee weapons against the defenders and then the defenders get to attack back. After which each unit is pushed 2” away from each other and the unit that suffered more Wounds gains a Disorder token. A unit with Disorder cannot use their ranged weapons until they remove their Disorder.
If the charged unit hasn't activated yet this turn, they may immediately pull their activation token and make a round of Ranged Attacks against the charging unit in response to being charged. This is performed as if the charging unit is 2" away for determining range.
Orders
During play each player takes turns removing a token from their Initiative Bag and giving a unit of the corresponding type one of the following orders.
Maneuver: the unit can move up to twice their movement score
Standard Orders: The unit can move up to their movement and then makes ranged attacks with its weapons
Charge: the unit moves up to twice their movement score and must enter melee combat with an enemy unit. If the unit does not, it becomes Disordered.
Regroup: the unit can move up to half of its movement and then remove all Disorder and Suppression tokens.
Firing Line: The unit makes ranged attacks with its weapons and then can pick a single weapon profile to get a second attack. If the unit has more than 10 models, you may pick an additional weapon profile (or the same one) to make an additional attack with for every multiple of 10, rounding up. If the unit is a unit with multiple wounds, for every 10 wounds on a single model, they can make an additional attack with a weapon profile.
Emplace: The unit makes one attack with each ranged weapon profile.
Initiative
On the first turn of combat, each player rolls 3 d8s and counts the number of successes. The player with the most number of successes can determine which player is considered to have Initiative for deployment. Each player places the tokens for any unit that would be deploying on turn 1 (see Delayed Deploy in the Special Rules section) into their respective initiative bag. Each token should have a distinct marking and/or color to denote which unit type (see Army Building rules for more details) but should be the same size and material so that when a player would pull one at random, it is truly random. Alternatively, players can use decks of cards as well as long as each unit type has a specific representation.
Starting with the player who has initiative, each player will pull at random one Activation Token from their Initiative Bag and deploy a unit of that type within their deployment zone as determined by the scenario of play in question. Once all units have been deployed, players will return their Activation Tokens into their respective bags.
Each turn will start with the player who finished pulling their Activation Tokens from the previous turn (on turn 1 you use the person who finished deploying first). That player will pull an Activation Token and give a unit with the same type as the Token an Order.