Yes, it’s time for yet another Knight Night Fight Night, our SEVENTH of the event at Drawbridge games. We’ve had Deathmatch. We’ve had Tag Teams, both big and minis. And we’ve had six great nights of silly titanic fun together. So it’s time for our seventh. And this time, it’s Battle Bots (or Robot Wars for those of you with refined UK-media tastes). Prepare for arenas of death with moving conveyor belts, pushing and throwing opponents, and other fun surprises.

The event will be Thursday, September 24th. Setup at 6:30pm, dice start at 7:00pm.

Event Rules

Each player brings one titanic walker model–and this time it’s robots only (sorry Gargantuan Squiggoth). Generally that means either an Imperial or Chaos Knight (see the list at the bottom for other allowable models from other forces). We’ll have two arenas of death, indicated by the wooden rails around the tables. The last standing two models from each arena are then placed into a final four-way.

Every round of combat all participant Knights in the ring are dealt a playing card, and play turns will run in that order: lowest numbers first, with suit order high-to-low in reverse-alpha to break numerical ties, so Spades > Hearts > Diamonds > Clubs, with Aces low. The active Knight will move, shoot, can charge and fight. Note that models attacked won’t swing back (there’s no ordinary combat phase).

Note that there will also be arena hazards in this version of Knight Night, which will get their own turn order card for when they run. In particular there will be conveyor belts that will move models around the table, as well as other hazards.

The goal is to incapacitate opposing Knight models by taking all of their wounds–resulting in them being destroyed. Being Battle Bots, there’s no spot to hide and heal up in this arena, so our usual “Recover in the Corner” action will not be used.

“Re-roll Chip”: Every Knight gets one re-roll chip. Every Tag Team who put up a promo (posted on the Drawbridge Events Facebook page and/or Discord) gets a second re-roll chip per player participating in that promo. The player with the best promo (judged by Enrico) gets a third re-roll chip. Re-roll chips can be exchanged or traded as you wish during the game with other players. They can be spent to re-roll any one d6 roll (including the check to see if a model comes out of recovery state–see below). That also applies to opponents’ d6 rolls, so you can save it to use for yourself or use it to antagonize an opponent who rolls that lucky 6 to recover. Note that no one will have command points to keep things simple, this is a sort of replacement for that. And no one will have their Detachment or Army Rule abilities, again in the interest of keeping things simple.

“Disposal Zones”: In Battle Bots, the goal is often to move an enemy model into one of the “crusher’ or “disposal” zones. Whenever a model is reduced to 0 wounds, they go into “recovery state”. Ideally lay them on their side (or indicate with a die if the model doesn’t lay down easily). Models in recovery state can be moved by other models–you move recovery state models by pushing their latent hulks across the arena floor. Every inch you move them counts as double. For instance, if you have a move of 12″, and you walk 4″ to reach the recovery state model, your remaining 8″ of movement means you can push it 4″. Models with an open power fist or claw on the model can “throw” a recovery state model instead by charging it. They automatically throw it 3d6 inches in any direction away from the throwing model (the throwing player chooses the direction, roll for distance after choosing direction). Charge movement itself cannot push recovery state models. If at the end of a round (before cards are dealt), a recovery state model is in a disposal zone on one of the boards, it is destroyed.

However, sometimes a bot just needed a push to get it going again–the damage just knocked something a bit loose and good hard “bonk” makes them right as rain, if a little dented. Any time that your model in recovery state is pushed or thrown by an opponent’s model, there’s a chance that you might snap out of it and start moving again. Roll a d6 after the opponent that pushed you finishes their turn (move and shoot). If you roll a 6 on that roll, you get up with half your wounds remaining. If you (or another player) spends their re-roll chip in advance of the roll, you get a +3 bonus (returning to the game on a 3 or better). You then get to immediately take your turn in the round if you didn’t already get a turn that round (as if you had the card right after the model whose push jostled you awake). If you were thrown by an opponent you get a +1 on the d6 roll as well (as that landing is a hard bump).

Painting Requirements: All models participating in Knight Night must be painted to a tabletop standard and based. Part of this hobby is, well, the hobby, so I want to encourage people to paint and get models finished for events. There will be additional chances at prizes for those who paint up a new Knight or larger model for the event.

Knight Options and Choices

Knight Options: Players can choose any non-character Knight from the Imperial Knights or Chaos Knights codex with gear allowable from the data sheet (no relics or warlord traits). No army rules, detachment rules, or upgrades that aren’t part of the basic datasheet entry for the Knight will be used. These are vanilla versions of the data sheets, folks.

When is a Knight not a Knight: We’re not able to allow in every Xenos and Chaos faction, but applications to field other types are allowable if they’re comparable in stature to a Knight (note they may not be comparable in points).

• Stormsurge
• Wraithknight
• Gorkanaut
• Morkanaut
• Stompa
• Lord of Skulls

Go Big: The following is a list of allowed “go big” options. The drawback of a “go big” choice is that you’ll be much more likely to be standing on a conveyor belt.

• Warhound Titan
• Reaver Titan
• Warlord Titan
• Revenant Titan
• Phantom Titan
• Ta’unar Supremacy Armor

Huge thanks to Topher and Rico for helping with the ideas and execution for this event!