Spectre Operations

What is Spectre Operations

Spectre Operations is the modern warfare skirmish game from Spectre Miniatures, a Nottingham studio that makes 28mm special forces, insurgents, criminals, police and more. Spectre calls it “ultramodern wargaming.”

The pitch is range. You can lead combined forces against a near-peer opponent, run a special forces raid on a high value target, or sneak in covertly to gather intelligence. The book covers infantry, vehicles, air support, drones, electronic warfare and even AI, with night fighting, detailed covert rules, and a campaign with linked scenarios.

The rules were started in 2013 alongside the first sculpts, and a free PDF went out around the 2014 Kickstarter. Rick Priestley proofread that draft and offered advice. The first printed book came out in 2016, and V2, a big rewrite, followed in early 2019. A third version, previewed in 2023, rebuilt the system with new stats and a new way of shooting. The current book is the Revised Edition (2025), which borrows the layout and wording of the free Quick Play guide and trims steps out of each turn.

Early on, Spectre took points values out of the game to push the narrative side. The studio says that call “has continued to be controversial.” You build forces with force builders instead.

How it plays

d10s throughout. Spectre picked the d10 so modifiers have a real effect and modern weapons can be told apart.
Four stats. Fighters have Movement, Ballistics, Awareness and Cool, and trained and untrained fighters act and react differently.
Momentum. Your force generates Momentum and spends it on Actions: manoeuvre, engage, breach, snap fire and more. Spending more on one Action gets you further or more shots, at a penalty to distance or accuracy. You can move then shoot, shoot then move, or move, shoot and move again.
Element against Element. A squad shoots at a squad, not model at model. The target’s owner picks the casualties, except against Marksmen, who pick their own.
Situational Awareness. An Element under Accurate Fire tests to see if it gets out of the way. The tests are hard to pass, and harder against suppressed weapons.
Stress. Taking fire builds Stress, and Rally and Regroup Actions pull an Element back together.
Escalations. Commanders and specialists with long-range comms can call for Escalations, which add dice to Engagements.

How to start

Read the free Quick Play Rules. The PDF is free, or $3 with a printed booklet. It covers manoeuvre, engagement and reactions.
Get the rulebook. Spectre Operations: Revised Edition is $54, and the physical book includes the PDF. The $3 Quick Reference Guide is a printed A5 card of what you’ll look up most.
Or get the Starter Set. The Revised Edition Starter Set is $130. It has the book and Quick Reference Guide, a starter scenario, an Insurgent Fighter Element and a Task Force CQB Element, printed scenery, 8 d10s and 12 20mm bases. A $127 digital version swaps the figures and scenery for STLs. Sets are built to order and can take up to 4 weeks to ship.
Grab the free extras. Spectre’s Additional Rules page has Solo and Non-Player Element rules for solo or co-op play, plus force builders for Law Enforcement, Criminal Elements and the Russian Army.

The rest of the family

These all run on the Spectre Operations engine.

Frontlines ($30) adds a new vehicle combat system with over 50 vehicle profiles, helicopters, mounted elements, trench and drone warfare, and actions like Advisors, Warning Shots and Rules of Engagement. It needs the core book.
Spectre: Outbreak ($15) is a horror expansion that brings an undead apocalypse to the core rules. It adds Hunger and Infection systems, civilian survivors, and flowchart zombie behaviour, so solo and two-player games need no zombie player. It needs the core book to play in full.
Spectre: Out of Time ($51) takes the engine back to three eras: Medieval (1066 to 1500), Colonial (1775 to 1865) and World War II (1939 to 1945). It’s a 140+ page book that adds Orders and Formations, is built for 5 to 50 models a side, and is miniatures agnostic.

All prices are from Spectre’s rules store in USD.