New Laws of Motion
(and Combat) in 'Imperium'
By Doug McNair
April 2006

To spice up games of Imperium: Third Millennium, players may agree before starting play to use these variant rules governing movement and combat.

11.31 A Lesser Mass Must Yield to a Greater Mass (or, Bigger is Badder).

If one or more moving fleets enter a system containing one or more enemy fleets, the moving fleets can attempt to split and bypass the enemy fleets, leaving some ships behind to fight the enemy.

To do this, the moving fleet(s) must include at least one scout ship, and the scout ship(s) must roll to detect the composition of the enemy forces in the system using the Stealth Scouting rule (17.2 — in this case, the moving fleet(s) do not have to contain only scout ships).

If the roll fails, all moving fleets must stop and fight the enemy normally. If the roll succeeds, the enemy player reveals how many capital warships and light warships he has in the system. If the moving player has the ships available, he can split off a number of capital and light warships from his fleet(s) equal to the number of enemy capital and light warships in the system. He can substitute light warships for capital warships and vice versa if desired, with an exchange rate of 1 capital = 3 light.

The split-off ships must be formed into a separate fleet (an unused fleet counter must be available for this purpose) and must stay in the system to fight the enemy ships. All remaining moving ships may bypass the enemy fleets and keep moving if they have jumps remaining in the current segment. (Battle cruisers count as capital ships if that variant is also in use.)

Fear the enemy’s ray guns.

13.31 Laser Beam Intensity Varies Inversely with Atmospheric Density (or, Barren Rocks are Beam Bait)

When using the Variant Planetary Combat rules posted on this website, beams may fire in addition to torpedoes during steps 2 and 3 of Invasion Combat (13.3) if the planet being invaded is Type X.

In Step 2, defending fighters conduct beam fire before torpedo fire, rolling one die for each beam factor fired and hitting on each roll of 5 or 6. Then in Step 3, surviving escorts plus any attack transports (AT) in the invasion fleet conduct beam fire before torpedo fire. They add up all their beam factors, divide by three, and roll a number of dice equal to the result. Every 6 rolled is a hit, which the attacker can allocate among the defending fighters and Planetary Defense Systems as desired.

17.11 Navigational Uncertainty Varies Directly with Speed (or, “Danger, Will Robinson!”)

Fleets moving off the jump routes can move in the second, third and fourth action segments of turns — but doing so carries risk. To do so, the owning player activates the fleet and rolls two dice before moving it. He adds to the roll a number equal to the distance in hexes between the fleet and the closest friendly outpost or world, and subtracts from the roll the number of scout ships in the fleet. For example, if he rolls a 5, the closest friendly outpost or world is 7 hexes away, and there are two scout ships in the fleet, then the modified roll would be 5 + 7 – 2 = 10.

Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how hugely, mind-bogglingly. . . .

If the modified roll is 10 or less, the owning player may move the fleet one hex, into whichever adjacent hex he wishes. If the modified roll is 11 or 12, the fleet moves in a random direction: The owning player specifies which hex adjacent to the fleet’s current hex corresponds to a roll of 1, then rolls one die. If the roll is 1 he moves the fleet into that hex; if not he counts clockwise from 1 around the fleet’s hex until he reaches the number rolled, and moves the fleet to that hex.

If the modified roll is 13 or more the fleet is lost in space. Remove its counter from the board, record its last reported location, and set all counters in the fleet aside. Roll two dice at the end of every subsequent action segment. On a roll of 12, the fleet reappears — put it on the map in the system closest to its last reported location. Be sure to make a maintenance roll (14.1) for each currently lost ship in the close-out segment of every turn (no Resources may be spent on lost ships).

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