Unified patch notes and errata across the Operator Tactics line. Every balance patch, addition, and clarification, newest first. One source feeds this page, the print edition, and the weekly Unstable Signals patch notes.
// 13 ENTRIES · PRINT ED. 01 / 2026
ClarificationPlaytestCross-line errata2026-09-04
Daily-desk playtest errata
Twenty five fixes clearing the Cold Case and Raid Racers backlog, covering the investigation loop, the Evidence Chain, the Burn Counter, the Zone ladder, possession contests and the security drone.
Cold Case. Fourteen fixes. A session is now defined: three rounds, one investigation action per operator per round, which is what every clock printed in sessions was already counting. The source still sets the threshold, but the operator's rating now lands on the die at Good plus 1, Ordinary plus 0, Bad minus 1, and it sits outside the plus 2 stacking cap, so a printed stat line is worth something in the core loop. The Soft Lead is now a one tier threshold drop rather than a plus 1 on the die: under the old wording the plus 2 cap refused the spend to exactly the specialists built to use it, switching the whole soft lead economy off. Surplus Hard Tokens at Stage 5 buy the same currency, one tier off a climax roll. Stage 5 advances on 2 Hard Tokens like every other stage and the challenge it names is the climax itself. The Complications table has a trigger, roll at the end of any round the Burn Counter rose by 2 or more. Burn threshold shifts apply from the next action after the counter crosses. A Burn or clock trigger whose subject play has already resolved is void and is not replaced. The Cold Case natural 1 row replaces the core Fumble Table for CANVASS, PRESS and RUN. The Evidence Chain and the d6 Evidence table have a stated relationship: the Chain is the source list, the d6 table names what a token turns out to be. The two token cap attaches to the evidence, not to the row, so two routes to the same evidence share one allowance. Institutional contact is defined by a test, anyone whose position is defined by keeping, granting or enforcing a record, instead of a list of examples. And a new Reading a Case File Chain callout prints the capacity math, 8 tokens to reach Stage 5 at 2 per source, requires the GM to open a conditional source before a case becomes mathematically unwinnable, and standardises a source gate as a crew composition requirement that costs no action.
Raid Racers. Eleven fixes. At Locked In the Jumper boards the target for 1 action and no roll, which is what makes Locked In worth driving for, and the Early Board from Chase stays the priced exception with its Latch. A natural 6 Commit that reaches the top of the Zone ladder with an advance to spare banks it, as plus 1 on the next Race Roll or a free board, rather than wasting the best result on the die. The FIGHT rating now modifies all three possession contests, the Check, the contested Lift and the grab off a carrier, at Good plus 1, Ordinary plus 0, Bad minus 1: these are the only three rolls that decide who owns the package and they ignored the stat entirely. The Line Read natural 6 is bounded, it may place an obstacle or an opportunity but may not directly remove a rival's LINE, Zones or actions. The Race Complication table now reads natural 1 on any NON OPPOSED Race Roll, which makes it agree with the Block entry instead of contradicting it. Block gains a positional prerequisite, your own Zone or one adjacent, and a Burned sled may not Block at all. LINE has a printed gain and ceiling: a successful Race Roll restores 1, up to the starting 3. The security drone that delivers Ripper Contact, the sport's only mortal wound, finally has a profile covering activation, move, target selection and a reach roll. A Raid Surge result with no legal target is rerolled. And precedence for a natural 1 inside an event is stated once: an action's own natural 1 line replaces the core Fumble Table, and where an action prints none, a natural 1 is simply an automatic failure. The forced Security Pressure tick for being STUCK with no action left now clears the obstacle, so one bad Flow cannot cost 2 Pressure.
ClarificationPlaytestCross-line errata2026-09-01
Daily-desk playtest errata
Twenty one fixes in one day: eight approved balance and design calls across Iron Line, Raid Racers, Threat Response, Big Game Hunts and the solo core, ten Skirmish clarifications covering terrain, the Climax Table, melee, the Pressure Clock, stealth detection, grenades, the Medic and cover, and three approved Skirmish design calls on Breach Token generation, a new Deny spend and the Recon Drone.
Iron Line. Perilous terrain now charges one attack per full inch moved through it rather than one per movement point. Because retreating and shuffling cost a point per half inch and advancing costs a point per inch, the old wording made backing out of a hazard exactly twice as lethal as walking into it, which meant the correct answer to a void field was usually to charge through. It is now the same price in every direction.
Raid Racers. Vehicle layout is rebuilt so the sport's central engineering argument is felt by the drivers the fiction says care most about it. In your home terrain, front engine in tight and rear engine in open, you may reroll one failed Race Roll each round. In hostile terrain you take minus 1 as before. Neutral terrain applies neither. The old flat plus 1 in home terrain is retired: at a Good threshold of 2 plus it moved a number that was already on the floor.
Raid Racers, The Bright Signal. The Tunnel Run now opens at Alert Level 1 and cannot be driven back to 0, and the Alert Level Effects table's 0 row is deleted, so the scene no longer promises an elevated alert state and then contradicts itself. The sensor drones run on a schedule rather than as a punishment for failure: one drone activates every round regardless of how well the Jockey is driving, and the Jumper's non contact suppression breaks a lock and pushes that drone back 6 inches. The passenger seat now has a standing job.
Threat Response. Broken Wire scenario 2 is cut from a six turn clock to four. On a 2 foot board with the convoy moving 8 inches a turn and the bridge halving one of them, four was always the real window and the last two segments were decoration.
Big Game Hunts. All five generic specimen types now carry a baseline stat line, derived from the published territory specific entries, so a generated hunt is playable without inventing the target's combat profile. Each line notes that the tier table overwrites Flesh and Mortal Wounds, that the Heavy tier adds 1 to Armor Rating on top, and that a territory specific entry replaces the line entirely. Competition gained an arrival round and an objective track per rival plus a new Competition Clock: once a rival has contact with the specimen it marks one step per Threat Phase on a SITREP, a natural 1 erases a step and advances the specimen's alert state, and the final step is the Kill Steal. Kill tracks stop while you have the rival engaged, and capture tracks keep running unless you put down the model doing the work, which is what makes the two non lethal rivals playable.
Threat Response and Big Game Hunts. A side that fields exactly one model is now exempt from Priority Pressure. The rule is a tax on one model out of four or five, which a squad absorbs, but against a lone operator it took half that side's entire action economy for the round while the threat side spread the same penalty across a specimen and its competition. Losing priority still costs the solo side the initiative.
Skirmish. Ten clarifications from the desk's Crossfire game. Terrain gains an OVERHEAD row for a raised passable structure, a catwalk, overpass, pipe bridge, gantry or mezzanine: Elevation for a model on it, Light Cover for a model at ground level inside its footprint, and it blocks no line of sight. Climax result 3, Structural Collapse, is now a full paragraph. The trailing side chooses the piece when the players cannot agree, a piece that carries or blocks a scenario objective may not be chosen, the wreck is Difficult Terrain rather than Impassable and grants Light Cover without blocking line of sight, models on it drop to the ground beneath with no falling damage, and models trapped in the footprint are displaced to the nearest legal ground. The Breacher's Demolition check at one step harder is written out as minus 1 on the die at your own threshold, the same step convention the rest of the line already prints, and Demolition gains the casualty clause it never had. Melee now says which die carries the Mortal Wound, the winner's opposed die, because the opposed roll is the Fight, and the natural 1 clause is printed in the melee section instead of being imported from the core book. The Pressure Clock's three triggers each carry a frequency, and the contested objective trigger fires at most once per round however many objectives are contested. Active detection is an area sweep: name a point within 12 inches and line of sight, and every Stealthed model within 3 inches of it rolls TACT or is revealed. Grenades gain a throw range, the thrower's MOBI in inches, and the Infiltrator's concussion grenade finally has a profile, a blast that Pins instead of wounding. The Medic's Stabilize accepts an Edge reroll but not an Edge plus 1, because the bands are raw die results, and a Medic may Field Dress but not Stabilize herself. Wound penalties apply immediately, mid activation included, and a model cut to one action that has already acted takes no further action. Cover does not stack: apply the single best cover modifier only.
Threat Response. The same one step harder wording in Broken Wire, blocking the road with debris, is written out as minus 1 on the die and given the same casualty clause as the Skirmish version, so a rule the two books share does not drift apart.
Skirmish, second batch. Three approved design calls. Breach Tokens are now generated only by a Flesh Wound inflicted by an ENEMY ATTACK, a Shoot, a melee, a grenade or a demo charge belonging to the opposing player. Terrain, Climax results, falling and your own side's fire generate nothing, so a Structural Collapse no longer mints a handful of tokens for a player who did nothing to earn them. A hit landing on an operator already on the Mortal Wound track still generates one; a result that is itself a Mortal Wound does not. Breach Tokens also gain a third spend, DENY: cancel one no-roll ability that operator uses this activation, a Medic's Field Dress, an adjacent auto success Override, any class ability resolving without a die, declared when the ability is announced and before it resolves, once per operator activation. The Tech Specialist's Recon Drone is fully specified at last: placed within 8 inches of the Tech in line of sight, repositioned up to 8 inches for 1 action, airborne so it ignores difficult and impassable ground and never controls an objective, and destructible, a legal target at AR 1 with no wound track that any confirmed hit or any blast covering it removes. One drone per game. An ability that hard counters the Infiltrator has to be answerable.
ClarificationPlaytestCross-line errata2026-08-31
Daily-desk playtest errata
Forty five daily-desk playtest clarifications across Iron Line, Raid Racers, HVT, Threat Response and Big Game Hunts, including new vehicle rules, a new Raid Racers traversal mode, and a full stat line for solo enemies.
Iron Line. The four sample doctrine lists now print their true totals and the two keyword-cost-multiplier errors are corrected, with the multiplier stated to apply to weaknesses as well as strengths. Punishment now reads 'each unbroken enemy it was in contact with', dropping the self-contradictory 'unengaged'. Berserk inflicts 1 Strain, not the undefined D1. Grim terrain cascades onto both armies, since terrain is friendly to nobody. Neither Hardened nor Implacable reduces Perilous, Grim, Degraded or Self-Destructive Strain, and Flying moves over Rough and Perilous without triggering either. A Broken unit acts normally until the Scrap Phase removes it. Unit footprints gained a recommended size per class plus a rule for compulsory moves blocked by a friendly. Wheel is measured as the chord with the pivot corner fixed, with a worked example, and range from the centre of the front edge got one too. The Relay Beacon carries the Relay keyword, Command auras stack, a Relay needs sightlines like a gun, and an ability with no legal target does not spend its Signal. Solar Lance has a 12 inch range. Spore Shroud can target either side, keeps its target's Strain, counts nothing off the table at game end, and cannot be broadcast in the final round. The Breacher's demo charge is command detonated, and demolition of a named structure is now a real action.
Raid Racers. New Traversal Mode for events with no package and no target vehicle: a course of gates, Commit advances one and a natural 6 advances two, and the Zone ladder measures the sled's line rather than its distance. A natural 6 never carries a sled through an obstacle that has its own printed check; the second advance is banked as plus 1 on that check instead. New conversion table retiring Defense, ExoPlate and vehicle Heat, none of which exist in Operator Tactics: Defense N is a difficulty step on the acting model's own roll, 1d6 ExoPlate is 1 sled damage, and N Heat is N Security Pressure. In The Bright Signal, the dead cross reference to a Blockade Run scenario now points at Traversal Mode, Razborki's three incompatible impairment readings collapse to the Reliability roll, and every borrowed stat line is restated in the supplement's own currency.
HVT. A Wounded operator may be deployed when no Active operator is available, rolling at the degraded tier, and a challenge that must be resolved with nobody deployable fails the mission. Impossible is now playable as printed. The challenge card's archetype line is named as the source of your proficiency: on the Good line rates Good, on the Ordinary line rates Ordinary, and absent from both rates Bad. The printed variable threshold is now a modifier against the Ordinary 4 plus baseline rather than a floor, matching the solo book and the RPG core: a printed 5 plus is minus 1 on the die, a printed 3 plus is plus 1, and you always roll at your own threshold.
Threat Response. The Enemy Types table gained SHOOT, FIGHT and AR columns plus baseline GUTS, a 6 inch foot MOBI and default weapon ranges, which removes the largest source of referee invention in solo play. New Vehicles block: armour rating by hull class, 1 Durability per hit, 2 on a natural 6, 1 from a blast, and 0 Durability is disabled and stopped. New Mounted Models block covering shooting from a moving vehicle, shooting a driver through the hull, what dismounting costs, and whether occupants are hurt when their ride dies. Shooting into a melee that contains a friendly now works like Hostage Fire. Fumble results 3, 4 and 5 gained fallbacks so no natural 1 is a no-op. Solo melee applies FIGHT to the die and resolves a double natural 6 on modified totals with the attacker winning ties. Tempo rerolls only dice you rolled. SITREP now tells you to phrase every question so that Yes favours you. In Broken Wire scenario 2, the convoy deploys on the table so the Ambush Window has something to shoot, the roster is 400 points rather than an unbuyable 200, the collapsed bridge is a TACT check rather than a roll against MOBI, the mounted weapon deals 2 Flesh Wounds rather than an undefined plus 2 damage, the Escort Clock ticks once per firing activation, and the scenario finally names an extraction edge.
Big Game Hunts. Environmental Merge is a type trait of every Type-3 rather than a rolled ability, and a rolled ability that duplicates a type trait is rerolled. Type-3 specimens gained separate merged transit and surfaced movement values, so a Hunting Type-3 can patrol without becoming targetable. Duplicate anatomy rolls stand as paired sites. A specimen takes one action per activation and two at Frenzy, which was the most used number in the book and was never printed. The anatomy columns are renamed Called Hit and Uncalled Hit and now have a stated trigger, with calling a revealed target free and a miss doing nothing. The Type-3 natural 6 Read beats the general draw two, and the attachment point it reveals now has a rule that breaks the merge for D3 rounds. The two Read actions per hunt cap does not touch the solo Field Read. And a setup SITREP's severity rider lands as table state in the operator's favour rather than changing the binary.
ClarificationPlaytestCross-line errata2026-08-17
Daily-desk playtest errata
Twelve daily-desk playtest clarifications across Skirmish, the Acquisition Protocol mission Salvage Law, and the RPG core, including a new smoke rule, a new RESTRAINED status, and the melee split between the miniatures game and the RPG.
Skirmish. Smoke finally has a rule: one action, TACT 4+, a 3 inch cloud on a point in line of sight, and it BLOCKS line of sight rather than granting a cover modifier. Nothing is shot through it, into it, or out of it, movement and melee are unaffected, a failed throw scatters D6 inches with a natural 1 scattering toward the thrower, and the cloud is gone in the End Phase. FIGHT now modifies the opposed melee die, Good plus 1, Ordinary plus 0, Bad minus 1, stacking with the melee weapon bonus and the multiple-attacker bonus. Priority ties are rerolled. The melee pin is confirmed one-sided: only the loser is Locked, the winner may leave base contact at no cost with no disengagement roll and no free attack, and the loser's Locked status ends the moment the winner departs. Steady Aim gains a duration clause, the aim is held rather than spent so it survives the End Phase and applies to the next Shoot, cancelled by any movement or by being Locked. New Braced Aim: a Marksman reduced to one action by the Mortal Wound track may use a one-action Steady Aim that ignores cover but gains no plus 1, so the wound degrades him instead of disarming him.
Melee, Skirmish vs the RPG. The long-standing contradiction is settled as a deliberate split rather than one rule written two ways. Skirmish melee is an opposed roll with FIGHT on the die, both models roll, high wins, the attacker wins ties, and the loser is Locked. The RPG core, solo play and Big Game resolve a Fight as a threshold roll instead: the attacker's FIGHT plus the target's AR, no cover modifier, no range, a natural 6 is a Mortal Wound, and a miss costs nothing because the Fight is not opposed. Both the Skirmish reader and the rules wiki now name which melee belongs to which book.
Acquisition Protocol // Salvage Law. The guidance module release tool is now a roll rather than a GM mood: D6 at setup, on 4+ it is in the kit, or the team can buy it outright in prep by leaving other kit behind. Without it the release is a three-stage TACT task and each stage costs one hour of mission time against all three clocks, with a natural 1 on a stage counting as a noise event as well as a failure. The Flood Timer gains the weather generator its trigger line assumed: at the start of each beat roll a D6, and on a 6 rain is reported upstream and the clock advances one extra segment. New GM Notes paragraph reconciles the five-beat structure with the core round sequence: beats are narrative time measured in mission hours against the clocks, any contact drops into the standard round sequence and resolves there before beat time resumes, and one round counts as 2 minutes of mission time rounded up to the nearest ten minutes when marking clocks.
RPG core. New RESTRAINED status and a Taking Them Alive section. A non-lethal takedown against a target that is unaware, surprised or otherwise not fighting back is 1 action and a single Fight check at your own threshold plus the target's AR. Success removes them as Restrained, which counts as Out of Action for every scenario purpose but is not a casualty: it rolls nothing in downtime, it can be questioned, moved, carried or traded, and anyone who reaches it frees it with 1 action. A natural 1 means the target gets a shout off, the takedown fails, and the nearest enemy gets a free detection roll. Fumble Table results 1 and 2 now map onto non-combat actions in both the chapter table and the Quick Card: the tool in use seizes, 1 action to clear with no progress on that task this activation, or the tool is dropped at the same cost. Opposed Checks now state that losing a contest is not the same as collapsing, so a loser whose die still met their own threshold fails to get what they wanted but suffers no further consequence and a cover story that loses to a natural 6 is turned away rather than burned.
Additionv1.3Cross-line2026-07-19
Contact Markers and the Pressure Clock
The hidden-enemy subsystem from Skirmish Solo Mode is now a shared rule across the GM-run core game and solo play, with Intel Markers folded into the same token pool. Threat Markers are renamed Contact Markers. The Reinforcement Clock keeps its name and gains one shared rate across both lines.
Contact Markers. Enemy forces are built but not deployed. Markers stand in for unknowns and resolve on a D6 Contact Table when an operator gains line of sight. One marker per enemy to a maximum of six, plus dummies. Markers have no stats, take no actions, and never go to Overwatch.
Intel Markers are Contact Markers. One token type, one roll. Approaching a marker is now a gamble between information and contact. A floor of three Intel per mission, two in Small-format skirmish. This supersedes the Investigation and Intel Placement Generator and its 4 to 6 marker count; pre-built scenarios keep their own specified placements.
Reinforcement Clock. One rate across both lines: +1 per round once alerted, +1 more while a leader lives, wave arrives at 3 and resets, capped at 2 to 3 waves. Core adds a +2 band at Alert 3 to 4, which the three-state skirmish ladder has no equivalent for. Killing the leader slows the clock by 1 per round. This is not the Pressure Clock from Skirmish ch. 5, which both players track openly and which fires the scenario Climax Variable once at threshold 3. Different devices; a scenario can run both and they never interact.
The leader never rolls. Previously a skirmish leader could be revealed on a table result of 6 and also had a last-marker fallback. One rule now: the leader is placed on the last unrevealed marker, always. Any intel on their person comes off the body.
Drift by alert state. Unaware markers wander on a D6. Suspicious sends the nearest marker to investigate while the rest drift. Alert sends everything toward known positions. Core's Contact Table columns re-cut to 0 / 1 / 2+ so they break where the drift bands break.
New for the GM-run game: Cold Sites (three plausible locations for whatever the mission seeks, none decided in advance, rolled live at the table) and randomized Insertion callsigns.
Two Investigation and Intel secondary objectives restated for marker play. 'Leave no Intel unrecovered' becomes 'reveal every marker before extraction'; the Objective Zone secondary becomes 'recover the intel carried by the HVT'.
Insertion callsigns are DEADSTOCK, HOLLOWPOINT, GHOST RIDE, KILL SWITCH, LAST CALL and BAD PENNY, each with a mechanical hook tied to cover, deployment spacing, contamination or supply state. The old 'Unalert Movement' heading is now Patrol Drift, which describes the behavior rather than restating the alert state.
Adopted across the line. Skirmish Solo Mode gains the six numbered Approaches, Cold Sites and the insertion table, so both editions now run all four parts. Field Operations S08 Firewall and S09 Shadowfall convert from hard-coded enemy deployment to Contact Markers, and S08's scripted Round 3 Centurion becomes a Reinforcement Clock arrival. S03 Lost Relic of Azura replaces its secret pre-rolled relic location with live Cold Sites rolls, which also makes the scenario solo-legal. Big Game stops placing the specimen at setup and searches three candidate lairs, with a sign table for cold ones. Hex Crawl builds three Candidate Objective hexes instead of one fixed hex, composing with Intel Age.
Solo Rules section 20 split. Fog of war now defers to Contact Markers; patrol waypoints keep the section and lose the hidden-enemy language. A note added against stacking the Escalation Clock, Heat Track and Reinforcement Clock in one mission.
Two clocks, two names. The Reinforcement Clock is the new wave engine. The Pressure Clock is the existing Skirmish device that both players track openly and that fires the scenario Climax Variable once at threshold 3. They are unrelated, a scenario can run both, and every book that carries either now says which is which.
Propagated to the Skirmish and Iron Line reader and print PDF, Field Operations, Big Game, the Hex Crawl rules, the solo rules and slides, and the Ask knowledge base. The core book is unchanged.
ClarificationPlaytestCross-line errata2026-06-28
Daily-desk playtest errata
Sixteen daily-desk playtest clarifications across Skirmish, Threat Response, Raid Racers, and Big Game Hunts.
Skirmish. HVT escort handling defined: half MOBI is half the escort own MOBI per Move, a friendly operator may assume the escort with an adjacent TACT 4+, and an enemy cannot steal the HVT while a standing enemy escort is in base contact. Contacting or escorting the HVT breaks Ghost. Medic Stabilize is a flat d6 read against its printed bands, unmodified by OPINT. Wound penalties hit d6 rolls only and do not reduce MOBI distance. A natural 6 against a Heavy Plate target inflicts 2 Flesh Wounds for any shooter regardless of threshold, not a Mortal Wound. The Link-Up priority loophole is closed: if the priority loser leads with a Link-Up, one of the two linked operators gets no action this round.
Threat Response. Mission Builder Step 6 now cross-links the existing 20-row Objective Complications d20 table in the Roll Tables companion. A plus 1 or reroll spend cannot rescue a natural 1 and is not consumed. A single-MW HVT reaches Cornered on its first Mortal Wound and is removed by the next wound, with no Last Stand.
Raid Racers. Stealing a carried package is now a contested grab in base contact, FIGHT vs FIGHT, ties stay with the current carrier, no natural-6 Mortal Wound. The drone Security Pressure trigger is for non-opposed Race Rolls only, and losing an opposed Block costs Zone and LINE only. The break-clear Commit may be made from Locked In or Chase.
Big Game Hunts. A hit on a called anatomy target deals its normal wound plus the listed rider plus the payout step, while a miss applies only the Miss line. Handler Intel Tokens modify the Read action only, plus 1 to the die. The Harimau Awan first-descent feint is now a rule: against a Wounded target roll a D6, on 1 to 3 the first descent is a recon pass with the real strike on the second descent, on 4 to 6 it commits straight, and the operator may take one reactive Shoot at the descended cat. The Cloud Strike no-response clause blocks pre-strike reactions only; a surviving operator who returns fire with one reactive Shoot forces the specimen to retreat one full Threat Phase.
Additionv1.2Skirmish & Iron Line2026-06-23
Firing Arc (front 180°)
Both modes gain a forward firing arc. Shooting out of arc is allowed but penalized, so facing now matters for guns, not just movement.
Skirmish. Each operator has a front, read from the figure's eyeline or a base notch. A model shoots into its front 180° cleanly; a target behind that line takes Out of Arc, minus 1 to the die, stacking with cover and range. Facing changes free at the start or end of any move; no pivot-to-shoot without moving. Reactions obey the arc the same way.
Iron Line. A unit shoots into its front 180°, measured from its front edge, for free. A flank or rear target raises the shooting Target Number by 1, stacking with Cover. Wheel or Reform to bring a flank or rear target into arc for a clean shot. The arc gates shooting only; LoS, range, and Combat are unchanged.
Penalty model, not a hard block. A snapped out-of-arc shot is always possible, just worse, so the rule rewards facing without removing the option.
Propagated to the HTML reader, the combined print PDF, and both quick-start PDFs.
ClarificationPlaytestCross-line errata2026-06-22
Daily-desk playtest errata
Twenty rulings from two execution passes, across HVT, Skirmish, Raid Racers, Big Game, Threat Response, and the Dead Loop and False Signal modules.
Skirmish. Rapid Fire is capped at once per activation (no double Rapid Fire for four shots). Ghost breaks on any Interact attempt whether it succeeds or fails. Dead Drop: the plus 2 for discovering the enemy objective is earned only by a successful Call the Target on a still-hidden drop, and a new Carrier Down line drops the package at its last position for any friendly to recover, never the enemy's to score.
HVT. Per-variable Challenge crit notes now override the Section 4 defaults (a variable-1 nat-1 is a state change, not KIA; a variable-4 nat-6 recovers a state). Medic Health Restoration 3+ is a flat DC, unaffected by the medic's Wounded state. Attack Priority: the team means operators still alive, and a KIA vulnerability-match operator counts as absent so Fallback opens for the survivors.
Threat Response (Solo). A double natural 1 in an opposed Fight is status quo with no wound. Priority Check rerolls on a tie. New Precision / Restraint option: plus 1 difficulty to limit a side effect.
Raid Racers. New Vehicle Layout rule (a front or rear engine gives plus or minus 1 by Tight or Open terrain). Race Complication Pressure replaces the failed-roll drone Pressure and does not stack. Jumpers may take an Early Board (risky) out of a Chase via Latch.
Big Game. Resonance Drift base save is now a flat GUTS 4+ with no proficiency. Buran and Climax escalations use a harder flat DC 5+. A failed Approach against an already-Cornered specimen gives plus 1 to the first attack and no Tempo. Hunt 05 Template Regression gains a second Mortal Wound box (destroying it takes two MWs).
RPG, Dead Loop module. New Aberrants on the OT d6 Chassis section (Stalker, Pack, Corvid conversions) and a core-stat legend: TECH maps to TACT, PRES maps to OPINT, and the Dread PRES penalty falls on OPINT.
RPG, False Signal module. New d6 conversion box (Difficulty 12 is at-threshold, 16+ is minus 2; Perception and Investigation use OPINT, Concealment uses TACT) and Cael Morne's canonical OT Infiltrator stat line.
ClarificationPlaytestCross-line errata2026-06-15
Daily-desk playtest errata
Twenty-two rulings across the RPG core, Skirmish and Iron Line, Threat Response, Raid Racers, Big Game, and HVT.
RPG core. New Opposed Checks section (contested non-combat rolls: both roll at threshold, higher wins, a tie is status quo, a nat-6 or nat-1 is decisive). New Crews at a Checkpoint section (a designated lead makes one group check). OPINT now governs social engineering, cover, and false-identity work.
Skirmish and Iron Line. A Contact Ceiling unit cannot advance, carry, or score an extraction objective while constrained. Counter-melee from Locked (Fight without movement; Locked transfers on a win). Decapitation Strike Chassis means Commander-keyword units. Jamming Pulse's Fragile is renamed Pulse-Fragile with a glossary row.
Threat Response (Solo). Self-stabilize is legal at plus 1 difficulty. A Performance Token can be earned on yourself. Asset Location plus 2 covers an Extended Op check. New Extraction Failure (D6) table.
Raid Racers. Forcing through (plus 1 Pressure) frees the activation to advance. Carry penalty: minus 1 to Flow, Latch, and Bail, and minus 2 inches MOBI when carrying a person. New Extraction subsection. Odd minutes round on the clock. Block on an equal LINE is a stand-off.
Big Game. Live Capture gains a pulled-strike and an adapt-cap (a nat-6 no longer auto-voids a capture). Adaptive Hide absorbs the wound only, while the anatomy effect still lands. A pre-contact Alert advance does not open the Pursuit loop until after First Contact. The Pursuit window runs without re-rolling flee or fight. A pre-built Read reveals an operator's-choice anatomy target.
HVT. Each Medic Health Restoration attempt spends one use whether it succeeds or fails (the limit is two attempts, not two successful heals).
ClarificationPlaytestCross-line errata2026-06-08
Daily-desk playtest errata
Twelve rulings across Skirmish, Raid Racers, HVT, and Big Game.
Skirmish. New Stealth Objectives rule (control by presence, no Pressure-Clock contest while undetected). The shared Climax Table rerolls a result that cannot apply, and result 4 (Exfil Window) gains a no-carry fallback. New On the Mortal Wound track escalation (each further wound advances one MW box toward Out of Action). Tech Specialist Recon Drone detection mode. Dry Fire generalized to multi-shot actions.
Raid Racers. STUCK with no action left costs plus 1 Pressure once, and GRIP losses still stack. New Check Raid Action (FIGHT vs FIGHT to displace a rival Jumper). A contested Lift is possession only, with no nat-6 Mortal Wound.
HVT. Section 8 reconciled to threshold-to-hit: the 6 hits, 1 misses line is a crit and fumble clarifier with no self-KIA, and the to-hit ladder stays live.
Big Game. New Documentation (Data Recovery) subsystem (Record track, OPINT capture, retune-the-rig interference, win line). Shackleton gains a 5-segment THE RECORD track. A solo-DC-versus-proficiency clarifier is added. The games.md win note is softened.
ClarificationPlaytestCross-line errata2026-06-05
Daily-desk playtest errata
Seventeen rulings across Skirmish, Raid Racers, HVT, First Contact, Threat Response, and Big Game, plus engine-wide canon confirmations.
Skirmish. New shared Climax Table (D6) in the Scenarios section, with all six scenarios re-pointed to it. Skirmish has no generic Grunt, so the reinforcement result returns the trailing side's most recent loss.
Raid Racers. New minutes-to-rounds conversion: 2 minutes is 1 round, in Mission Seeds.
HVT. Counterattack D6 mapping (1-2, 3-4, 5-6 by listed order). A critical failure clears the challenge, and the operator is still KIA. Confrontation attacks read 6 hits, 1 misses, with no self-KIA.
RPG, First Contact. A Surprise Attack from undetected Stealth is a silent takedown of a Grunt or Line Elite, or 1 Mortal Wound versus a Heavy or HVT. Zone-movement and an extract rule are added for The Long Drink (extract means escorted Okafor reaches the Dock and leaves the board).
Threat Response (Solo). New Extended-Op occupied-objective rule (contested like Intel recovery when an enemy stands on the station). Mission-Builder fallback for The Full Picture.
Big Game. Canonical Alert ladder restated by wound position. Armor Rating defined: a specimen's AR is added to your Shoot or Fight threshold. Printed and solo DCs are the Ordinary baseline, and you roll at your own proficiency. New Tempo spend menu.
Engine-wide canon confirmations. A natural 6 on a Shoot or Fight is a Mortal Wound, not plus 1 wound. Armor Rating is a to-hit modifier (Good 2+ versus AR 2 is 4+). A printed DC is written for an Ordinary actor, so roll at your operator's own proficiency with modifiers on the die. Restated in the solo reader and the shared combat rules so every title inherits them.
Balancev1.1Iron Line2026-06-01
Iron Line post-playtest patch
A 3,000-point Signal Dominance playtest surfaced eight balance concerns. Core Order, Signal, and Integrity architecture is unchanged.
Initiative Seize. Seize now requires exceeding the round number, not meeting or beating it, and cannot be attempted on round 1. Round-1 seize was an auto-win on a 1+ and distorted every deployment.
Killzone Designation (Overwatch Surge, 6 Signal). Target must roll over Strain plus 2 on 2D6, previously straight over Strain. Closes the feed-Signal, auto-pass loop.
Jamming Pulse (Iron Curtain Pulse). Cost raised 2 to 3. Fragile from this Pulse is now prospective only and does not retroactively break pre-damaged units.
EW without a Relay. Pulses may still broadcast at plus 1 Signal from any friendly unit if no Relay is in play. Hacks and Surges still require a Relay. Losing your last Relay is a degradation, not a hard shutdown.
Processing Overload (Architect Algorithm). Penalty scales with timing: 4 Signal / 5 Interrupts if the Commander breaks rounds 1 to 3, 2 / 3 if later.
Artillery Rig. Cost raised 350 to 400. Allowed weakness list expanded with Self-Destructive, Short-Ranged, Degraded, Clumsy (+2).
Deadly Shots. The second Strain on a nat-6 bypasses Implacable but not Hardened.
Implacable cap. Now explicitly per-attacker-per-activation, not per-round. Surges, cascade, and movement Strain ignore the cap entirely.
Example army lists updated to reflect new Artillery Rig costs.
Balancev1.1Skirmish2026-06-01
Skirmish post-playtest patch
Three internal playtest games surfaced four corner-case exploits and one dead-end interaction. No change to the core D6 loop or any point cost.
Ghost / Interact. Interacting with a scenario objective now breaks Ghost. A Ghost-Infiltrator can no longer pick up an objective and extract through Stealth without counterplay.
Heavy Plate, ranged. A natural 6 against Heavy Plate now inflicts 2 Flesh Wounds, previously 1. The plate still holds against Mortal Wounds on ranged attacks.
Heavy Plate, melee. A natural 6 on the melee armor check against Heavy Plate now inflicts a Mortal Wound, and the Breacher's kit counts as Anti-Armor (treats Heavy Plate as AR 2 for melee armor checks).
Grenade, natural 6. A dead-center strike now inflicts a Mortal Wound to the named target only and Flesh Wounds to others in the blast, previously a Mortal Wound to all.
Stealth break list clarification. The general Stealth rules now also list interacting with a scenario objective as a break trigger, matching the Ghost patch.
SOURCE OF TRUTH: changelog/changelog.json · GENERATED BY build_changelog.py · DO NOT HAND-EDIT THIS FILE
