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Loadout and Setup

Before the first round, players roll initiative and assign weapon and shield cards into the hand slots of the loadout section on their player mat.

Loadout

• The player mat has a loadout section holding weapon and shield cards. Weapons and shields are cards, not separate components.
• Loadout is organized by body slot. Which slot a weapon or shield occupies determines the arcs it covers — see Combat and Facing.

Loadout slots

The loadout is a fan of cards on the left side of the mat. Cards overlap like a hand you're paying down:

• The leftmost card is the left hand.
• The rightmost card is the right hand.
• Cards in the middle are whatever the fighter has ready — spares, or future slots.

(An earlier draft had a reserved Head slot; dropped to keep the loadout simple.)

Pre-round setup

1. Roll for initiative.
2. Assign weapons and shields into hand slots (loadout).

Load-out changes during play

• Visiting an edge hex lets a fighter change their load-out (swap weapon/shield cards in hand slots), with the help of their support team — see Board and Movement.
• Exactly what can be swapped, and whether it costs seconds, is unresolved — see Open Questions.

Example play-mat

Drawn from the design notes (not AI-generated): the loadout is a fan of cards on the left (leftmost = left hand, rightmost = right hand, middle = whatever's ready); the burn-down track is the main area — three full card slots (3 → 2 → 1) with an expiry zone — the water debt pile, tallied at end of round. Nothing else is on the mat; water and prestige are tracked off-mat (method TBD).

Weight

Weight is intended to be a factor in the loadout and weapon system, but is not yet designed. It likely interacts with movement cost (seconds?) and/or initiative. This needs resolving before the loadout rules are final — see Open Questions.