A Fistful of Kung Fu is a 28 mm miniatures skirmish game that puts Hong Kong fighting films in the game world. Yes this game allows you to do cart wheel kicks! The system offers an array of unique mechanics that can easily be adapted to the D6 systems. We’ll get into that in a little bit.
The Book
Published by Osprey Publishing
Written by Andrea Sfiligoi
It is a bout 70 pages. It follows an easy to follow path that teaches an experienced player how to play in only minutes. There are plenty of charts and easy ti follow diagrams inserted where they belong.
The Game
A Fistful of Kung Fu introduces that skirmish wargamer several new mechanics. The two most important are Quality Q and Chi..
Quality Q is an attribute that basically combines everything physical (strength, and agility for example). You use this to make a variety of checks in game, like combat or acrobatics. Q is also the base for morale checks.
Chi is an ability that comes into play by spending it. It can be used for a wide variety of things.
Ignoring turnover (remaining the aggressor)
Reduce a combat effect
+1 to a single combat roll
Chi Leap
Chi abilities
Motivate extras
Before you start playing you must build a force which is also different from most wargames. In A Fistful of Kung Fu your gang is structured with one protagonist, a first student (mini boss in video games), and minions (kobolds). Your protagonist is a real bad dude. When you create your force you also make your protagonist. He is a lot more expensive than the rest of your team, because he is what your team is really about. While designing him you select several extra skills and chi abilities.
Your first student is just a few notches down from the protagonist so don’t get too cocky with him.
When you finish building a force you will have a gang of 10 to 15 mini’s.
Once your forces are built, the defender will deploy terrain. The attacker will deploy his protagonist. This will alternate until all models are deployed. Then initiative is rolled. The active player will activate all of his models until there is a “turnover”. Turnover is basically the reflection of the two gangs struggling for the upper hand. When one gang fails a check the mechanics might dictate the possibility that the active player can loose initiative. I love this mechanic. It isn’t the simple I go you go method, nor is it the alternate activations system; but it can be both. It does an excellent job of grasping the chaotic spirit of combat.
Combat works pretty much like it does in any other game, except that you can use more than one action at a time. Each player rolls a d6 for the model and adds the C (combat ) score to it, The difference between the two gives the victor an amount points to spend on the effects table. As you might imagine outnumbering can be quite beneficial. Outnumbering grants the larger force a +1 to the roll, a protagonist can’t be outnumbered by a force without a protagonist.
When we played we had a blast. Of course it helps if one player rolls dice well and the other poorly. I managed to pull off feats like disarming, and killing minions with single blows. It didn’t seem fair. But my opponent’s protagonist was a one tough dude. It took me forever to take him down. Especially since he excelled at gun fu. He managed to shoot most of my minions. Heck in the end he nearly killed my model as well. But I ended the game with a combination of aerial techniques worthy of any movie.
A Fistful of Kung Fu is a pleasant surprise that offers a wide variety of game mechanics that are simple to learn. With the crazy activation sequence you always have something to do and never have to leave the table because your’e waiting for your turn.
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