Miniature Monday - Williams Sharpens His Claws

In this week's article, we share another miniature from the Trinity: Battleground box set. Williams is a noble Psion who fights for the survival of humanity, though his muscular armor and clawed hand might make him look more like an Aberrant at first glance.

Though still a work-in-progress, you can see how well our scanner captures his defining details. Like Gomorrah, Williams was another miniature who was released both as a resin miniature in the Trinity: Battleground box set, and as a metal miniature packaged with a pair of other Psions. Williams was one of the stronger Psions included in the box set, able to give Aberrants a run for their money in close combat. His Psi Powers were formidable and allowed him to deal damage while closing with the enemy. His Heatburn power allowed him to hurl flames at enemies from across the battlefield, while Liquefy let him melt objects and terrain into liquid slag. His most devastating power was Plasma Control, which caused massive damage over a huge area, but cost nearly all of his Psi points to use. Williams relied entirely on his powers for ranged combat, and his only weapon was a razor sharp Claw. This Claw was Psi-Formatted, allowing him to spend Psi points to make it more accurate, and thus more likely to shred his opponents. He wore a Bioweave Vest for protection, a heavy form of armour that took the appearance of corded muscles covering his body. Pushing his close combat prowess even further, his Melee and Might skills made him more accurate and even harder hitting. Any Aberrant who thought themselves a Psion couldn't match them in a fight were in for a deadly surprise.

We've discussed how to create characters for Trinity: Battleground and shared stats for a few of the game's miniatures, but until now we haven't discussed the rules in any depth. While the full rules will have to wait for the game's re-release, we'll can provide an overview of them here. Trinity: Battleground was based on a modified version of White Wolf's (and now Onyx Path's) Storyteller System. This meant that anyone who'd played a Storyteller RPG was already familiar with the basic rules, and that characters from the Trinity RPG could be used in the wargame without any major changes. For those who had never played a Storyteller game, the core mechanic was quite simple. Whenever a character made an attack, tried to navigate an obstacle, or performed another task with a chance of failure, the player picked up a number of ten-sided dice (or d10s) based on the character's relevant attributes. The number of dice could be increased or decreased by bonuses or penalties, to provide a final dice pool. The player than rolled those dice, and any die that rolled a 7 or higher scored a success, with 10s scoring two successes. The character succeeded as long as the number of successes equalled the task's difficulty, with successes over that number sometimes providing a benefit (such as increasing damage on an attack roll). The vast majority of rolls in Trinity: Battleground are performed the same way.

Where Trinity: Battleground differed from Storyteller games, as well as many other miniature games, was its action system. At the start of each turn, players assigned their characters actions to perform using facedown counters. The Action Phase then proceeded through a segment dedicated to each of those actions in sequence: Routing, Take Cover, Charge, Evasive Maneuver, and Move and Shoot, with players alternating activating their miniatures in each segment. This is similar to some other wargames, but what made Trinity: Battleground different was that miniatures only activated once each turn, in the segment dedicated to their assigned action. This, combined with the actions being concealed until a character activated, kept each player guessing what their opponent was going to do each turn. To add even more strategy and uncertainty, a special action called Ambush could be activated at any time, throwing off even carefully laid plans. Once a model activated, it gained a number of APs determined by its tier, which it could spend to move, make attacks, use Psi Powers, or perform other actions. These APs and the ways a unit could spend were modified by his assigned action. For example, an Ambushing character received half his usual AP, but could take his action at any time. By contrast, a Charging character doubled his AP for movement and received a free attack at a bonus if he reached an enemy, but could not make any other attacks or use Psi powers that turn. Once a model  used all his AP, his activation ended and the next model activated.

Trinity: Battleground's unique action system gave players a wealth of strategic options each round, and made for fast-paced and cinematic gameplay. It is our pleasure to bring the game back to life and share those exciting moments with a whole new generation of players.

Stay tuned for another, shorter article next time, where we reveal another miniature.