I'm sure there is a really neat game here. The mechanics sound clever and the flow of the hunt sounds really fun, but sadly the layout of the rules is so bad, I gave up before I could find out. As a fellow game designer, making your ruleset understandable to others is oftentimes harder than creating the game itself.

Building a Hunter and pact is by no means straight forward and the rules for doing so are scattered all over the place. For just one example, the weapon sets section makes mention of a difference between "Guild rank abilities" and "two dice bonus". What is this two-dice bonus and why is it nowhere specified in the prior guild section, or here? The author has assumed you know what this means. To find what this means, you have to reference the "playing the game" rules in chapter 2. Assuming your reader has remembered a key rule for building out your group from a prior chapter is bad layout design, and makes for a frustrating experience.

Quite a unique system for skirmish-level combat. Unique does not necessarily mean good, however Brent seems to have a knack for creating not just unique, but more importantly deep, games. Other systems may appear deep on their surface by bolting on complexity, obscuring an otherwise uninteresting game, like having 30 different weapons with only minute differences between them, or a massive book of spells where only a couple are actually useful. Rogue Planet succeeds in avoiding this (in my opinion) pitfall. There is very little "waste".

What makes this such a deep game is that the mechanics provide oodles of decision points. Every step of the game has at least one interesting decision point. Should I be the active or reactive player this turn? My enemy can only target my closest model (most of the time), so how do I position? Which pawns do I take and which do I lose first? I have a consecutive action limit, so how do I best spend my limited action points to best put me in a winning position, and how is the enemy player going to react to my actions? There's definitely a mind game going on as you try to goad a reactive player into using his actions how you want him to. These are just a taste of the decisions one will have to make in the course of a game. Very good.

There are a couple things I felt are "wonky" or missed opportunities, like a lack of AOE attacks, which would have been a nice way to make a player think twice about using a leader's Command ability. And unless I'm playing the rules wrong, Throw seems to be the auto-choice for a Heavy unit against another Medium or Heavy as the damage potential for a collision is much higher than the standard melee attack, without a significant difference in modifiers needed to pass the skill check. The rules are not clear on whether collision damage overrules the regular damage rules for armor.

Overall, bravo to Brent for such a fun game. I think it's criminal that this game is not more popular compared to other, less-than-stellar popular offerings.

Phenomenal game. I love the flexibility and toolbox feel. I can finely control the amount of complexity from game to game depending on what I'm looking for or who I'm playing with. Being a dad with young kids, I need a game that plays quickly, has a small footprint, and has a quick time-to-table. FiveCore passes all three with flying colors.

The biggest threat to my gaming is prep time. If I have to build a bunch of unit profiles before I can even get started playing, odds are, it isn’t going to happen. With Fivecore, I don't have to stat up or build my forces to get started. If I’m really pressed for time, I can just grab some minis, use the weapon that the model most resembles, make a couple rolls on the Mission and Deployment tables, and off I go.

The biggest downsides are the production quality and the rules layout, both of which fall down when compared to a similarly priced product like Gruntz. Despite the simplicity of the core system, my first few games had me jumping back and forth through the rulebook looking for clarifications. Certain rules interactions (or lack of explanation) confused me, such as Hidden and LOS, or Speculative Fire and Peeking. Without an index, it is hard to locate exactly what I needed.

If you can power through some initial confusion (any wargame of sufficient complexity will have growing pains), are willing to make some judgement calls (this is not a tournament game), and deal with the lack of an index, you will be rewarded with a unique, interesting, and incredibly flexible skirmish game.