Time Line Battle v1

This game is © 2025 David Hammerle. All Rights Reserved. You are granted permission to download and play for non-commercial, personal use only. No redistribution or commercial exploitation is permitted. For any other use, please contact davehammerlecoder@gmail.com.

This game involves an odd time travel mechanic where players deploy units at different points in time (different 'Days') along a timeline. The timeline is then resolved again from beginning to end after each deployment. It is also the first game I made that places units in an ordering from front to back, with damage mostly applied to the front-most units first. I made this game before I figured out how to print cards and sleeve them, so there isn't a PDF for the cards. Instead it just uses normal playing cards, mapping each rank of playing card (A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K) to a card for the game.

• Time Line Battle v1 Rules and Card List.txt (the info on this webpage)

 Player Count:

• This game is for 2 players, but it might work for more than 2 players with either teams or free-for-all. If you try to play it with more than 2 players, a few rules tweaks might be required. Divide the damage from the Obliterator's special ability by the number of enemies each player has and multiply it by the number of allies each player has plus one. Units controlled by allied players should be considered friendly Units and allies.

 Ordering:

• Each player's Units that are currently in play have an ordering from Front to Rear, defined by the cards' playing card rank.
• So the Obliterator (A) always goes in Front and the Strike Craft (10) will always go at the Rear and the rest of the Units will go in between according to their playing card ranks (A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).
• Most attacks will hit the enemy's Front Unit, but some hit a specific target, a Rear Unit, or multiple Units at once.

 Timelines:

• The game will consist of multiple Timelines, which will be played one after the other.
• The first Timeline will start from Day 0 and every Timeline will end with Day 0.
• Each subsequent Timeline will start with the Day before the Day that the previous Timeline started with.
• So, for example, the 3rd Timeline will consist of the Days -2, -1, and 0, in that order.

 Winning:

• If, at the end of a Timeline, one player has been completely wiped out and has no more Units left, the game ends.
• Also, if neither player is actually making progress towards wiping out the other, the game ends.
• The player with the most VP wins.

 Cards in Hand:

• Each player starts with a deck with 2 of each of the cards in the card list.
• Players then always maintain 5 cards in hand.
• After playing a card or whenever else the player has fewer than that many cards in hand, the player draws cards back up to the card limit.
• Each time a player plays a card, the player may also put a card on the bottom of their deck, allowing the player to cycle through cards more quickly if the player wants to.
• If a player runs out of cards in their deck, the player reshuffles any discarded cards and uses that as their deck.

 Phase 1: Restore Units:

• At the beginning of each Timeline after the 1st, all Units that have been Deployed so far come back to life because we have gone back in time to the beginning of Day 1.
• Similarly, all non-Unit cards like Beam Turret, Heavy Armor, and Temporal Bomb are unflipped and can be reused in this Timeline.

 Phase 2: Deploy Units:

• At the start of the 1st Timeline, each player Deploys 2 Units.
• At the start of each Timeline after the 1st, each player Deploys an additional Unit for each of their Units, Beam Turrets, and Heavy Armors that survived through to the end of the previous Timeline.
• You should physically space out the Units you deploy into a different location on the table for each Day so you know which Day each Unit was deployed into.
• This means that you won't really be able to place your Units in a line indicating Front-most, Rear-most, and the ordering in between.

 Phase 3: Proceed Through Days:

• Proceed through all the Days so far, starting with the Day Units were Deployed into towards the beginning of this Timeline.
• The last Day to resolve will be Day 0 and then the Timeline ends.

 Phase 4: Gain VP:

• Each player gains 1 VP per Unit that survived through the end of the Timeline.
• This number also determines how many Units can be Deployed for the next Timeline.

 Turn Order:

• Pick a random player at the start of the game to be the first Start Player.
• At the end of each Day, the Start Player marker moves to the next player to the left.

 Phase 1: New Units Spawn:

• Each Day, ignore Units that were Deployed into future Days.
• Next, Units that were Deployed into the current Day come into existence (they time traveled back from the future to this Day).

 Phase 3: Battle:

• Next battle happens incl. damage being dealt and Units dying.

 Phase 4: No Healing:

• Units don't heal from damage that didn't manage to kill them at the end of the Day, only at the end of the Timeline.
• You may want to use pennies to indicate Damage taken for each living Unit that was damaged, and possibly nickels could be used to indicate 5 damage each.

 Phase 5: Add Level Indicators:

• Each surviving Unit gains a Level and it might be a good idea to signify this by putting a quarter or some other indicator on the Unit.
• Each time a Unit survives a Day, the Unit gains a Level.
• Each Unit starts at Level 0.
• When a new timeline starts, all Units go back to Level 0.
• When you see the letter L by itself or with a number before it (e.g. 2L) in the card list, this should be replaced by the Level of the Unit multiplied by the number, if there is a number.
• For example, if a Unit type's description reads "13 + 2L HP", then at Level 0 the Unit type has 13 HP, at Level 1 the Unit type has 15 HP, at Level 2 the Unit type has 17 HP, etc. If a Unit type's description includes L followed by a number followed by a ':', then the Unit type has the ability that comes after the ':' if it is that number Level or higher.

 Phase 1: Target Temporal Bombs:

• Temporal bombs must be targeted and take effect and then should be flipped over, indicating that they have been used.
• They may target any enemy Unit in the current or any future Day, killing it, possibly before it comes into existence.
• They must be targeted during the Day that they were Deployed into.

 Phase 2: Obliterators Attack:

• Any Obliterator Units deal Damage, potentially killing enemies before they can deal Damage during the current Day.

 Phase 3: Players Make Decisions:

• Players take turns making all necessary decisions for the current Day according to the current player turn order.
• In particular, players must determine friendly Units to target with all Beam Turret and Heavy Armor cards Deployed into the current Day.
• They may target Units in the current Day or any future Day, but not Units that were Deployed to previous Days.
• This is also when the player must decide if any Blitz Troops they own should attack the enemy Front or Rear.

 Phase 3: Add Up Damage:

• Figure out how much damage all other Units will do, including to Rear enemies.

 Phase 4: Apply Damage and Units Die:

• Apply all damage simultaneously.
• Killed Units are flipped over for this Timeline but will be back alive in the next Timeline in the same Day they were Deployed into.
• Killed Units still deal Damage during this Day.
• Any damage to the Front beyond what is needed to kill the Front-most enemy trickles forward to the next Front-most enemy, and then the next Front-most enemy after that, etc.
• Any damage to the Rear beyond what is needed to kill the Rear-most enemy trickles forward to the next Rear-most enemy, and then the next Rear-most enemy after that, etc.

 A Obliterator - 10 HP, 1 Damage, 6 Damage to all enemies if survived last round
 2 Mammoth Tank - 13 + 2L HP, 5 Damage
 3 Generator Tank - 11 + 2L HP, 2 Damage, +1 Damage to all allies
 4 Sheild Tank - 10 + 2L HP, 3 Damage, prevent first 3 + L damage to lowest number Unit owned by the same player
 5 Laser Assembly - 10 HP, 4 + L Damage, attacks highest number enemy instead of lowest
 6 Tech Troops - 8 + 2L HP, 2 + 3L Damage
 7 Blitz Troops - 8 - L HP, 4 + 2L Damage, L3: may attack highest or lowest number enemy
 8 Recon Drone - 7 HP, 3 + 2L Damage, L3: prevent first 5 damage to lowest number ally
 9 Operations Craft - 9 HP, 2 + L Damage, L3: +1 Damage to all allies
 10 Strike Craft - 6 HP, 4 + 3L Damage, L3: immune to Damage targetting highest number Unit
 J Beam Turret - choose a friendly Unit, +50% Damage for chosen Unit, chosen Unit attacks highest instead of lowest number enemy
 Q Heavy Armor - choose a friendly Unit, +8 HP to chosen Unit
 K Temporal Bomb - choose an enemy Unit, chosen Unit is destroyed

I used normal playing cards for this game rather than trying to create physical cards for it. Each normal playing card rank corresponds to a specific Unit, as shown in the card list.

You may also want to use coins to indicate various things. For example, you could put a dime on each Unit for each Level it has gained for each Day it has survived in the current Timeline. And you could use pennies to indicate damage so far, along with nickels to count as 5 damage each.