by RockyMountainNavy, 16 May 2025
Do you ever wonder how a U.S. Special Forces team might stand up against, say, a pack of werewolves? Or how do you call for a fire mission against…trolls? Well, if you are adventurous in your miniatures wargame play and want to discover those answers for yourself then you should play Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame from Lead Designer Ivan Sørensen for Mödiphiüs Entertainment.
“Dragonslayer 6 this is One-Alpha…contact. We have one-five hostiles approaching at 500 meters. Looks like them little mining buggers with pointy ears. Looks like at least one leader. Aw geez…where did these little ones get that Giant?”
“One-Alpha, this is Slayer 6. You are anchoring the left flank. They cannot get around you.”
“Dragon 6 from One-Alpha. Roger. ‘Thou shall not pass!'”
Welcome to Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame, an exciting adventure pitting heavy firepower against monsters and magic of a fantasy world. Of course, things get complicated when the person manning the machine gun is also a were-tiger. (Forgotten Ruin, p. 6)
Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame is based on the first novel in the Forgotten Ruin series written by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole. In the novel, a group of US Army Rangers is sent into the future to save humanity but end up fighting foes seemingly straight from fantasy adventures.
Taking that fantastical-mixed-with-modern setting, Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame presents a set of skirmish-scale miniatures rules—mixed with some lite roleplaying game (RPG) elements—for fighting battles based on those situations in what Mödiphiūs calls an “Adventure Wargame.” Søresen and Mödiphiūs describes Adventure Wargaming this way:
Traditionally, a wargame is a military affair between armies of troops facing each other in a pitched battle. Both forces are usually picked from an army list and, once you are done playing, they go back in the box (or on the shelf) and the next time you play is unconnected from the last. At Nordic Weasel Games and Mödiphiūs Entertainment, we use the term ‘adventure wargaming’ to describe a very different beast.
First, it is player-friendly: You can pick whatever figures you would like to use; you can play on a compact gaming space (3×3 feet is recommended) and the game is played in a modest amount of time… .
It is oriented towards solo gaming…though inviting a friend for cooperative play is easy as well.
More importantly, the game is played as an open-ended campaign… .
…
As you play, the games will link together to create an overarching story where seemingly random events start to connect. … (Forgotten Ruin, pp. 6-7)
Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame is the latest title in a series of games from Mödiphiūs called the “Five X” series of solo adventure wargames. My previous experience with Five X adventure wargames comes from my play of Five Parsecs From Home: Solo Adventure Wargaming. Others may be familiar with the fantasy-setting version called Five Leagues from the Borderlands.
Although Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame is based on a book, the game is not simply a gamified novel. As noted in the introduction: “This game can be thought of as an alternate story, taking place side by side with the book series, following a platoon with a set of original characters (yours!) that must survive in this world” (Forgotten Ruin, p. 8)
The Five X System
All Five X games use a similar game engine for play. The game is played in a series of Campaign Turns that can cover from a few days to several weeks. Second, combat encounters are played in series of Battle Rounds. Finally, there is always a Mission for each Campaign Turn that is fought out in the course of those Battle Rounds. Within each Mission one usually has Objectives to accomplish in order to defeat the enemy. One can also find Investigations on the battlefield that may unveil further dangers or unlock some kind of reward.
Roll Call
Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame recommends creation of a squad consisting of two fire teams (4 persons each) and a squad leader. Creating a soldier starts with a basic profile of Reaction, Speed, Combat Skill, Toughness, and Wits based on the rank of the character. The solder generation process has elements of roleplaying games but, for the most part, you are more ‘sketching’ a personality than you are generating a RPG-like character. That said, three of your squad start as ‘known personalities’ which have two character traits such as “aggressive” or “skeptical.” They may also receive a single knack such as “Flexible” all of which have an impact to play. Known personalities may, at the player’s discretion, also have a minor personality aspect that does not affect gameplay but might contribute narratively to the stories created in play. Equipment is chosen and your squad is now ready for action!
[I chose one of the Fire Team Leaders to be a ‘known personality.’ Starting profile is Reaction 3 / Speed 5” / Combat Skill +0 / Toughness 3/ Wits +1. Rolling d100 on the Character Trait table twice I get ‘Brave’ and ‘Independent Minded.’ I chose to roll for a Minor Personality Aspect and get ‘Constantly quotes that one movie’ (“Thou shall not pass!”). I also note that Fire Team Leader Ricks starts with a single Luck point and is carrying a shotgun (swapped from an assault rifle). BTW…it took longer to type all that than it did to create the soldier.]
The character squad creation rules in Forgotten Ruin do not call for a backstory of each soldier but the underlying assumption from the rules is that one will almost certainly create some sort of character story, if not at first then undoubtedly as the campaign progresses.
Battle Manual
The combat rules in Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame are simple making them easy to learn and play. At heart, the combat system is a set of low-complexity, skirmish-scale, miniatures wargame rules. Ranges and movement are measured in inches with a 3’ x 3’ table recommended. Line of sight and cover are easy to figure out; worst case is you get behind your figure and see what you can see!
A Battle Round in Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame consists of six phases: Reaction Roll, Quick Actions, Enemy Actions, Slow Actions, Aggression Phase, and End Phase.
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- Reaction Rolls are a single d6 for each soldier plus a bonus d6 for each figure with Leadership; player decides how to assign the die results.
- If the Reaction Roll assigned is equal to or less than the soldier’s Reaction score they will act in the Quick Action Phase.
- If the Reaction Roll assigned is greater than the Reaction score they will act in the Slow Actions Phase.
- The Aggression Phase is where the enemy adds replacements, reinforcements, or (more likely) ‘levels up’ in some thematic way.
When it is time for a soldier to activate in Forgotten Ruin, there are several different actions they can take. The table on page 36 is a bit misleading as figures can also Move though it is not listed.
Combat is, of course, an important action (and part of the story) in Forgotten Ruin. Fire combat sees you roll a d6, add Combat Skill and any other modifiers, and try to beat a Target Number. For example, a target in the open has a to-hit number of 4+. Rolling a natural 6 is a Great Hit and gets a bonus damage roll. Hand-to-Hand Combat is a matter of comparing soldier skills (with a few possible modifiers) and rolling (again) a d6 with low scorer taking a hit. Once hit a damage roll is needed with armor awarding a saving through. That sounds like a lot of dice chucking but I usually have the attacker roll a black and red die together with the black die the to-hit roll and the red the damage roll. There are also rules for Fire Support and Leadership. Some soldiers in Forgotten Ruin have Luck which is a kind of metagame currency that allows soldiers to break the rules in some manner.
[Ricks is hiding behind a building corner. As he peeks around he sees a group of three skeleton armed with swords nearby (6”). The previous Reaction Roll puts Ricks in the Quick Actions category so he Fires at the skeletons. The target is in the open and Ricks has Skill +0 so the to-hit number is 4+. The die roll is a natural 6 (Great Hit) which gains one additional damage roll. The first Damage roll is [2] with +1 for the Shotgun damage rating for a final of 3. Skeletons have no saving roll so any hit is a casualty so one skeleton is removed from play. The Great Hit bonus damage roll is also a [2] with the +1 damage bonus for another 3…a second skeleton is removed.]
Up to this point the rules in Forgotten Ruin sound (and look) pretty much like any other rules-lite modern skirmish wargame. The next section, Spells, reminds players that there is also a strong fantasy element to the setting. The rules are, like combat, simple. In fact, there is this note for “Experienced Wizards”:
Note for Experienced Wizards
Unlike some fantasy games, there is no memorization system or limited-use spell slots. This helps move the game along, especially when multiple spell-casters may be in the squad (Forgotten Ruin, p. 50).
When casting a spell in Forgotten Ruin, the Reaction Roll is the Spell Power. Different spells require different power needs. Spells are limited in range and can be resisted.
[Ricks wondered what the old man in the faded robes was going to do in a firefight. He understood that the guy was technically a Chief Warrant Officer but had been on this side of the portal so long—‘exposed’ they called it—that he was…becoming different. After watching him wave his staff and seeing the boulder lift and bowl down that pack of werewolves he reconsidered. Later, over drinks, the wizened CWO would say he summoned ‘Upheaval.’ To Ricks, well, he just became ‘Chief Rock’ after that.]
AI Dragons
Unlike some other Five X games, the enemies in Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame act in a very simplistic manner without the need for a formal AI or other bot system. While the enemy may at first look to be simply mooks or mobs of creatures there actually is a hierarchy of badness. Your primary opponents will be mobs of between five and eight fantastical creatures. Though each are described in terms of Speed, Combat Skill, Toughness, and Resistance much like soldiers, each different enemy type has a special ability that thematically breaks—or bends—the rules in some manner. Each mob may also be led by a more dangerous Champion, or even a Sorcerer Champion. As your campaign progresses, some of those Champions you defeat may become even more dangerous Villains.
[From out of the woods Ricks watched a new mob of five Skeletons Archers emerge. He grimaced; Skels were fragile and often one good hit was all took to turn one into a pile of bones. But these were archers so getting up close was likely to be…challenging. What Ricks saw next made even him involuntarily gulp. Where did they get a scorpion that big? How many hits will it take to knock that out? And that poison tail looked so big…]
Monsters in Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame are solitary creatures who, according to the rules, “would love nothing more than to eat, stomp on, or maul your soldiers. If you are unfortunate enough to encounter the same monster again in your campaign, each time it will become tougher and meaner.
[Sword vs Shotgun?]
[The designer of Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame is transparent about the ‘abstractions’ made in the game. Weapons ranges are reduced to keep them on the table; some weapons require a loader in real life but not in the game; the firepower gap between medieval and modern weapons is much (much!) greater than the weapons stats show. Many weapons are simplified into classes of arms, not a specific model. Some simple ammo limit rules are available too. While some grognards may gripe at the abstractions, the design choices were made in the name of playability, of which Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame has in spades.]
Here there be dragons
The Campaign rules for Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame is where the game really starts deviating from a ‘normal’ set of skirmish battle rules. As the rulebook explains in Chapter 3: Campaigns, “The campaign is played in a series of campaign turns during which you will fight a mission and then determine any outcomes from your action, such as experience, injuries, and rewards (Forgotten Ruin, p. 64). Playing through a campaign turn is very much like running an RPG campaign with each turn representative of a RPG session complete with a feature battle.
For a campaign in Forgotten Ruin one first has to develop a map. It need not be complicated but it will be used throughout the rest of the adventure. The player will also have to decide if the campaign will be High or Low Magic. The campaign is composed of 12 regular sessions turns plus a Boss final battle. A recommended campaign flow with some missions not using enemy Aggression rules or ones calling for a Special Mission is provided. As a general rule the player can expect to see the quantity—and event the quality—of the opposition grow as the campaign progresses.
Recalling that Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame is, at heart, a solo campaign experience, a 12-step Campaign Sequence is provided. Though this process sounds formulaic the reality is that there are many choices to be made in the different steps and enough variety or range of results that each turn in a campaign (and across campaigns) will almost certainly be unique. Individual battles will take place in different areas with different terrain and objectives or investigations. The soldiers available will vary as will the opposition. Personally speaking, in all my times playing Five Parsecs from Home I never felt the game to be repetitive; in Forgotten Ruin there are seemingly more variables that make it even less likely that any battle will ever be identical (or even highly similar to) another.
[Ricks looked at the map and laughed for just a moment. No Battlebook worked without the ‘net so here it was back to paper. Or parchment in this case. Now they were at the edge of a forest. Spy had told them there were two oblisks just beyond the edge of the forest that needed to be ‘petted’—opened and contents retrieved. Higher HQ must be expecting a bit of some extra ‘opposition’ because extra ammo was issued. As his fire team neared the site one of his grunts, Lee, started getting a bit squirrelly; he had been this side of the portal so long he actually knew some magic spells but now whispered that ’the Force’ felt a bit stronger here and we all needed to avoid spellcasters. Yeah, that and poisoned arrows too. That was when Ricks saw the first mob of skeletons conveniently between the forest edge and the first oblisk. Worse yet, there was a leader amongst them too that had a dark cloud around them. He glanced at Lee and saw—no kidding—an aura about him.]
While the battle is certainly the centerpiece of a campaign turn in Forgotten Ruin, another adventure part of the story is the aftermath of battle. The post battle resolution process again draws on RPG game mechanisms. One of the more interesting resolution steps is Check for Villain Creation. If, in the course of a battle, you killed an enemy champion, there is a chance that a defeated champion ’takes it personally’ and becomes a Villain to your adventure. There is also a version of an RPG campaign Loot rule in Forgotten Ruin conveniently named…Loot. Your Navy SEAL wanted that Trident for real, yes? Here is your chance…
Once you complete a campaign—having fought that final battle—in Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame the adventure need not stop. Veterans in one campaign can become the core cadre of your squad in the next.
Unforgettable Forgotten Ruin
Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame is not only a follow on to Five Parsecs from Home bringing modern and fantasy settings together in a single unified ruleset, but it is also an enjoyable development of the Five X System. While some elements of rules in Forgotten Ruin may be retrofitted to Five Parsecs from Home, the way I see it is that both sets stand on their own with each optimized towards the setting in supports. Whether you are a fan of the Forgotten Ruin book series or not, as long as you are a solo wargamer or a solo RPG player looking for an easy to learn, easy to play, quick moving, non-repetitive campaign, then Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame will almost certainly deliver hours of delightful story telling entertainment for you.
“Dragonslayer 6 to all Slayer elements…mission complete…over and out.”
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