Incursion: The Board Game

Incursion is a fast-paced game of light strategy and chance, for 2-4 players. It was inspired by the minigame of a videogame, and born out of an ADHD avoidance spiral, like all great things are. But first, credit where credit is due.

Incursion was inspired by Sea of Stars’ Wheels. If you haven’t played Sea of Stars yet, go do it. It’s a gorgeous and captivating retro RPG, available on every platform. Responsibilities will be neglected by playing, so be prepared to be sucked in. One of the best parts of the video game though, is Wheels, a minigame you can play within the game. Extremely fast-paced and steampunk-esque, you square off against a single opponent and try to defeat their Crown with your fighters, before they defeat you. It’s fun, fast, and addicting.

Its only issue is that you can only play it within the game, against their computer characters. Basically saying, the only issue was that I wanted MORE Wheels, and I wanted to play it with friends…

And so Incursion was born! First, addressing the name change: Wheels is named after the Cryptex-type wheels you spin to gain energy and XP, and because every action you take is followed by very endearing steampunk-mechanical motion and sound effects. Since I built mine as a board game, it doesn’t have that… Incursion seemed like a more appropriate title.

Incursion consists of fighters that defend your Crown while attacking the others. Each player will select two fighters, and each fighter can take actions by gaining energy levels, and can level up by gaining XP. Each fighter has different abilities, and attacks or defends in different ways (strategy!), and every action you can take is decided by dice rolls (chance)!

But first, the fighter figurines. Using my crafty Canva Pro subscription, I created eight fighter stands. Each stand outlines the attacks/moves that the fighter can make, the damage done, and the fighter’s level. Each fighter has three levels, and there are eight fighters total (two more than the original game). I bought three packs of eight figurines each from eBay, modified them slightly to represent each fighter class, and then went crazy with the spray paint. Similar to the game, first-level fighters are copper, second-level silver, third gold. The result was honestly fantastic. To represent XP, I painted 48 washers gold. These can be added to each fighter’s base to keep track of XP gained.

Here’s one of my main additions to the original game: the Necromancer and the Commoner. Two brand new fighters. Where all other fighters can only attack a single other player at once, Necromancer attacks all Crowns directly, at once. This comes at a high cost though, as it sacrifices its Crown’s health to do so. The Commoner provides a fun little twist as well. With its actions, it steals XP from another fighter, and sacrifices itself to defend the Crown directly for a certain number of turns (not rounds). This means two things: the Commoner is the only fighter that defends the Crown directly (even from Assassin, bomb, etc) but, as it uses its own body to defend it, you cannot gain energy for it during the turns it is defending. Let the games begin!

I adapted the fighter’s energy level next. This one posed a challenge. Wheels’ original energy points are beautifully animated by a mechanical rod that is pushed down. When it reaches the bottom, the attacks are activated automatically and emerge from the board, as if the whole thing is powered by gears. There was no way I would be able to achieve this on the board game-adapted version. I don’t have the technical skill, or brain cells, or patience, to make something so complex. I thought about printing out small cards and stacking those up, but I wanted something more substantial and tactile. So I went with mechanically simple but effective. I hot-glued two Jenga blocks together, and added small wooden studs that corresponded with the needed energy points. I then spray painted small washers, green for the Left fighter, Blue for the Right fighter. As you gain energy, you place the washers on the studs and when you’re about to attack, you slam it down on the table and shout the name of the attack you’re doing. Fireball! The result was mechanically simple, effective, and chaotically fun.

The Bulwark (a fancy name for a wall) was simple to adapt, I repurposed an old Jenga set that hadn’t been used in years. Some hot glue, brown spray paint and voila! Five levels of Bulwark, with the last level being a small flag of your team’s color. Unfortunately, you can still see the Jenga logo on the side of some blocks. No, it isn’t sponsored by Jenga. It’s just a prototype, chill your judgment.

The rolling mechanics posed another interesting challenge. Wheel’s rolling is done by five spinning wheels (hence the name), in a Cryptex-type device. I couldn’t achieve that level of sophistication, not cheaply or easily. Instead, I calculated the general probability of each option (it’s not a perfect match with Wheels, but this was before I discovered the wiki), and bought five blank 20-sided dice. On each face of the dice, I painted the options: Left/Green energy, Right/Blue energy, Bulwark build, and included the XP as yellow background. I also added my own +2 on a roll of your choosing. Instead of every player rolling at once, like in Wheels, each player takes turn rolling and acting. Only the Assassin and Priest can act out of their turn, once they gain enough energy (see instructions below).

What else, what else…

Right! My other biggest addition/deviation from Wheels was to make it up to four players. To achieve this, I created two new fighters, The Necromancer and the Commoner. This allowed every player to have a unique fighter for every game, and the two new fighters added some interesting game dynamics. To choose fighters, every player rolls a d6. Highest number chooses one fighter first, and then next highest, until you reach the lowest. The order is then reversed, so the lowest player chooses again, and then goes back to highest (similar to Settlers of Catan). Two-player games have 10 Crown points (like the original Wheels), three-player games have 12 Crown points, four player games have 15.

I also created an outline of a player mat, to make organizing it easier.

And finally, here are the rules and guidelines I created for the boardgame:

And finally finally, here is the link to all the designs, in case you’d like to make your own version of the boardgame!

Incursion: The Board Game – Designs