UNSTABLE SIGNALS
THEME: THE REQUISITION ISSUE
FILED: 2026-07-15
BROUGHT // FIELD REQUISITION // FOUR FILINGS // ONE MISSING ITEM
WHAT YOU BROUGHT
Four filings in this one, and a gap in the middle you can see from the street. The desk went dark between the twenty-eighth of June and the fourteenth of July. No excuse worth printing. What came back is a short week, and I am not going to pad it out with games nobody played.
Here is what the four have in common, and it took me until the second read to see it. Every one of them was decided by an item. Not a plan, not a roll. An item. Brine Quist went back into Sector 9 with a Tier 2 containment gel that nine previous crews did not have, and she is the first contractor to bring a live specimen out of that water. Rampart finally drew a medic on the third attempt at Colm Ashby and put him down in two turns, after two hunts of watching him walk away on one pip. Two operators at Tessellate cleared five gates on a hot streak against a man who only opens to a demolition charge, and neither of them could set one. A jumper on the Ring Road spent four rounds holding a case the faster, better funded crew never once touched.
Big Game is the only one of our games that says the quiet part out loud. It calls this Field Requisition and prints it as a ladder. Standard tier buys ammunition and bandages. Priority buys specialized ammo and containment gear. Black Ops buys Lumicite rounds, resonance shielding and Archive intel, and there is a hunt in that book where standard rounds cannot kill the thing at all, so the requisition stops being a bonus and becomes the contract. The other games never use the word. They all charge you for it anyway.
What I want out of this issue is small and a little boring. The fight starts before the fight. In Big Game it starts at step three of the between-hunts sequence, when you spend the tier you earned. In HVT it starts at the draw, and the draw does not care what you need. In Raid Race it starts the moment a jockey decides that owning the road is the same as owning the box, which it is not, and Obsidian Comet paid the full price for that one.
Adair has built a Clearance Bin out of two die-cast containers and a rattle can, so you can put the shortfall on the table and make people pay retail for it. Solveng has the ladder and what BAFO is actually buying with it. Marlow has seven things to do about all of the above. And the mail this fortnight is heavy with the same question in four accents: when do I spend the thing I only get to spend once.
Read the gap in this issue as part of the record. Weeks go quiet. The ledger stays open.
Nine crews failed this contract before Quist, and the thing that separated the tenth run from the other nine was settled on paper before anybody rolled. She named the missing item in her own after-action report a month ago, earned the Priority payout that unlocks it, and spent the requisition on a Tier 2 containment gel instead of on anything that shoots. It is the cleanest demonstration the desk has filed of the between-hunts sequence doing real work, because the hunt was won at step three and the dice spent the evening confirming it.
Two failed hunts named the missing card and the third pull finally dealt it. Carry a Recover option or you are betting the whole confrontation on nobody getting hurt, and Ashby had already won that bet twice.
HVT DOWN // 0 HP // T2Read the target's vulnerability line before you commit to a draw. A Vulnerability Match rolls that skill at 2 plus. A rifle and a keyboard against a demolition lock roll the fallback, and one pip is exactly what that gap is worth.
HVT SURVIVES // 1 HP // T3Owning the road is not owning the box. Locked In only means your jumper is allowed to board, so if the hands never reach the case the whole zone track is decoration.
DUST CHOIR EXTRACTS // T5This week on the table, the rules moved. Everything the desk changed or confirmed, logged in one place.
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.
// QUILL ADAIR // TWO CONTAINERS AND A RATTLE CAN
The Clearance Bin is a black-market medical vendor that works out of shipping containers in port cities, and it sells suppression meds, surgical tools and genetic templates of a provenance nobody asks about. Painted on every container, in the same two words every time: NO RETURNS. I have wanted one on a table since I first read the entry, and this issue finally gave me the excuse.
The reason to build it is not the joke. It is that a resupply point on the board turns a shortfall into a decision. Most tables handle a missing item by telling somebody they are out of luck. A Clearance Bin lets you tell them the price instead, and the price is that they have to cross the open face of the thing to pay it.
Everything here came off a shelf or out of a bin. The bodies are two of the cheap 1/64 die-cast containers that turn up in gashapon capsules and pound-shop truck sets. They are roughly 55mm long, which is exactly the wrong scale if you measure it and exactly the right scale if you look at it next to a 32mm base. Nobody at the table has ever measured one.
The build is a stack with an offset. Lower container gets its door end cut off at about two thirds depth, and you keep that offcut because it becomes the counter front. Upper container sits back by roughly a container width so the roof overhangs the counter and gives you an awning that reads from across the room. Pin the two together with a straightened paperclip through the roof, because glue alone will not survive being picked up by the awning, and somebody will pick it up by the awning.
The stock is a pill blister sheet glued behind the counter. At arm's length the domes read as vials and nobody looks closer. Tea-strainer mesh makes the roll-down grille on the far bay. The pipework is sprue offcuts, and the only rule with sprue is that it has to bend somewhere, because straight sprue reads as sprue.
Stencil the words crooked. A vendor who has repainted the same two words onto four different containers over nine years does not line them up, and a crooked stencil is the single detail that makes people believe the rest of it.
On the table it gives hard cover on three sides and an open face, which is the whole point. A model using the Bin has to give up the cover to use the counter. The silhouette reads as a shop rather than a bunker, so nobody defaults to treating it as a gun position, and it sits happily in a relay yard, a dock, a transfer shed or the back of a raid course without a repaint.
- 2x die-cast 1/64 shipping containers, 20ft pattern, roughly 55mm
- 1x pill blister sheet, backing removed, for the counter stock
- 2mm basswood strip or coffee stirrers for the counter frame
- Sprue offcuts, bent, for the exterior pipe run
- Tea-strainer mesh for the roll-down grille
- 0.5mm styrene card for the counter top and the base
- Straightened paperclip for the roof pin
- Masking tape cut as a stencil, or a vinyl offcut if you have a cutter
- Steel wool, thin rust wash, one rattle can of grey primer
- Cut the door end off the lower container at two thirds depth. Keep the offcut, it becomes the counter front.
- Set the upper container back by one container width and pin it through the roof with the paperclip. Test the overhang by lifting the model by the awning before you glue anything.
- Frame the counter at 25mm with the basswood, cap it with styrene, and glue the blister sheet behind it so the domes sit in shadow.
- Run the bent sprue up the closed flank and add the mesh grille to the far bay. Keep the open face clear of clutter.
- Prime grey, stencil NO RETURNS crooked, rust wash the lower third, then dry-brush edges only.
- Base it wide enough that a 32mm base fits fully behind the counter with room to stand a second model beside it.
FAILURE POINT. The awning. Every version of this I have built wanted a thinner, taller overhang than the material will carry, and the first one snapped in the box on the way to a game. Overbuild it, pin it, and accept that it looks slightly heavy. Slightly heavy survives transport.
BAFO does not pay hunters in money. Not at the bottom of the ladder, where most contractors live. It pays in Field Requisitions, which is access: equipment, ammunition and specialized gear, released at the requisition tier you earned on the last contract. Cash only enters the conversation at Priority tier and above, and by then you are already inside the system that keeps you there.
The ladder is short and it is honest about what each rung buys. Standard tier gets you a Tier 1 requisition, which is standard gear, ammunition and medical supplies. Priority gets Tier 2, which is specialized ammunition and containment equipment. Black Ops gets Tier 3, which is Lumicite-infused rounds, prototype detection gear, resonance shielding and Archive-level intel. Rare, and it wants a Senior Operative rank before the Bureau will even discuss it.
Read that ladder as a leash and you have understood BAFO. The Bureau withholds information on a need-to-know basis, pays in the tools required to survive the work it is about to hand you, and does not discuss failed contracts. A failure does not appear in your file. Three consecutive failures end the relationship with no formal notification. BAFO simply stops calling.
So the Bureau never has to threaten anybody. It just controls the shelf. A contractor who fails once is running the same kit into a harder specimen. A contractor who fails twice is running that kit against something that has learned. The third failure is not a punishment handed down, it is the arithmetic finishing.
Here is where it lands on the table, and it is the part most solo players skip. The between-hunts sequence is seven steps, and step three is Field Requisition: spend the payout on equipment from the tier you earned. Step four is the Field Dossier update, one player-written line of field notes. Those two steps are the whole feedback loop of a Big Game career, and they are the easiest two to hand-wave when you are keen to set up the next hunt.
Do not hand-wave them. Mara Quist came out of Sector 9 in June with nothing, wrote the shortfall into her own dossier line, took the Priority payout from a different contract, and spent it on the containment gel. Nine crews before her went in with what the last hunt left them holding. One went in with what the last hunt taught her to buy.
The rule of thumb: at the end of every hunt, write one line naming the item you wished you had, and read that line before you spend the requisition. It costs ten seconds and it is the only mechanism in the game that turns a loss into equipment.
READ THE TARGET BEFORE YOU READ YOUR HAND
In HVT the target card names its vulnerability, and an operator whose archetype matches rolls that skill at 2 plus. Combat specialists get their own 2 plus regardless, so a Commando is never dead weight. A hacker against a demolition lock is. Look at the HVT first, then look at what the draw gave you, then decide whether you are running a kill or a delaying action.
SPEND STEP THREE
The between-hunts sequence puts Field Requisition at step three for a reason. Banking a payout tier so it is there later is the solo equivalent of never using your one-use item. You will not get a cleaner moment. Spend the tier on the gap the last hunt exposed and go into the next one carrying the answer instead of the question.
WRITE THE MISSING ITEM DOWN
Step four of the same sequence asks for one player-written line of field notes. Use it for the thing you did not have. Not the story, the item. Reading that line back before you spend a requisition is the difference between a career that compounds and eleven unrelated hunts in a row.
INTEL TOKENS BUY READS, NOTHING ELSE
A Handler Intel Token adds 1 to the die on a Read action and does nothing anywhere else, so hoarding them for a bad combat roll is throwing them away. Spend them on the Read that routes you, early, while the routing still has options attached. A Field Read is the Read only.
TIME THE MEDIC, DO NOT REACT WITH IT
The HVT medic has two Health Restoration attempts per mission, D6 at 3 plus, taken before the operator roll on any challenge. Players habitually save both for after somebody goes down. Use one before the gate you actually need cleared, so the operator who has to pass it is Active when they roll rather than degraded and hoping.
ZONE IS NOT POSSESSION
In Raid Race the zone track measures the jockey, not the package. Locked In only means the jumper is permitted to board. If you have owned the road for three rounds and nobody has laid hands on the case, you are losing and the sheet is lying to you. An Early Board out of Chase is a Latch on FIGHT, and it exists precisely for that situation.
PUT THE SHORTFALL ON THE TABLE
When a crew arrives without the tool the mission wants, the weak GM move is to say so and move on. Better: place a vendor, a cache or a wrecked supply pallet somewhere that costs real exposure to reach, and let them buy the fix at a price. A shortfall the players can pay for is a scene. A shortfall they can only be told about is a lecture.
Noor Habicht hunts solo, keeps a chained Big Game career on index cards, and is on her twenty-second contract with the same operator alive throughout. She is commercial stock and answers to Shelf Life, which she picked herself. We spoke over a bad connection out of a transit hostel in the Java Scatter.
Twenty-two hunts on one operator. What is the trick?
Not dying is mostly bookkeeping. People think a career operator survives because they roll well. They survive because the kit they carry into hunt twelve was chosen in hunt eleven, by somebody who had just been frightened and was paying attention.
You keep the dossier on index cards. Why not a notebook?
Because a card is one hunt and it fits in front of me. Seven lines on the front, per the hunt card format, and on the back I write two things: what killed me nearly, and what I did not have. Then when I spend the requisition I lay out the last three cards and read the backs. Three cards is enough to see a pattern. A notebook is where patterns go to hide.
Do you always spend the payout straight away?
Always. I used to save. Saving felt clever. What actually happens is you go into the next contract with last contract's answer and no new one, and then Heat goes up and the specimen has learned and you are behind two ways at once. Nobody has ever finished a hunt thinking, thank god I banked that.
Hardest habit to break in a new solo player?
Reading the anatomy targets early. They sit face down at the back of the hunt for a reason. People peek, then they play the fight they already know the ending of, and then they wonder why the hunt felt flat. You have to earn the read. That is the whole loop.
Hot take.
Three consecutive failures ending your relationship with the Bureau is the best rule in the book and most people never reach it, because they quietly restart the career the moment it gets grim. Play the third failure. Let BAFO stop calling. Then run a hunter with no contracts and see what that world looks like from underneath. It is a better game than the one you were losing.
Table ritual?
I set the requisition out physically. Actual bits of card on the desk for the gel, the rounds, the shielding, whatever I bought. If I did not spend it, the space is empty and I have to look at the empty space all night. Works better than any note I have ever written to myself.
How do you decide which window to spend a one-use item on when every turn looks like the right one?// SAVING IT FOR NOTHING // JAVA SCATTER
Every turn looks right because you are asking the wrong question. Do not ask whether this is the best moment. Ask whether the situation you are saving it for is one you can still reach. A one-use item spent on a decent turn beats the same item in your pocket at the end of the game, every time, and the end of the game arrives faster than anybody plans for. If you want a rule you can say out loud at the table: spend it the second turn you notice yourself thinking about spending it. The noticing is the signal.
Is it ever correct to take the Early Board out of a Chase, or is that always the panic move?// JUMP EARLY JUMP OFTEN // ALTO CITO
It is correct exactly when the alternative is arriving late and clean. Read Out of Reach in this issue. Obsidian Comet held the road all afternoon and never once put hands on the case, and a Latch out of Chase was available the entire time. The Early Board is a risk you take when your zone position is good and your possession is nothing. It is a panic move when you take it because you are Trailing and impatient, since you cannot board from Trailing anyway. Good position, no package: jump. Bad position, no package: fix the position.
My group rerolls everything with Edge and the games feel weightless. Are we using rerolls wrong?// WEIGHTLESS // NEW GENEVA
You are using them correctly and spending them thoughtlessly, which is a different complaint. A reroll is a requisition item that happens to live in your pocket instead of on a card. If your table burns them on the first bad roll of the night, the last third of every game is dice with no cushion, and that is where the weightlessness comes from: not too much safety, too much of it too early. Try this for a session. Nobody spends a reroll before the halfway turn without saying out loud what they are protecting. You will spend half as many and remember twice as many.
What's a good first conversion for someone who has never cut a mini?// NEVER CUT A MINI // NEW GENEVA
Do not cut a mini. Cut terrain. Adair's Clearance Bin in this issue is two die-cast containers and a saw, and if you ruin one you are out pocket change instead of a model you painted. Terrain teaches you the actual skills, which are cutting straight, gluing square and being patient with filler, and it teaches them on something nobody inspects at arm's length. When you do go to a model, start by swapping a head or a weapon arm on a figure you already own two of. Nobody's first cut should be on a model that has to be finished.