The Doomed

What is The Doomed

The Doomed is a skirmish game of “apocalyptic horror hunting” by Chris McDowall, published by Osprey Games. Small bands of hunters go after Horrors, monsters that “defy logic, science, and nature,” in a bleak sci-fi world. Rival bands compete for prestige, so they’re as much a threat to each other as the thing they’re hunting.

The setting is a world the Company abandoned. The people left behind are the doomed, stuck with technology they don’t fully understand. You build your band from one of four factions: the Inheritor Courts, the Martyr Retinues, the Reborn Covens, and the Exiled Bands. McDowall wrote each one loose enough that you can probably put a band together from sci-fi minis you already own.

It came out on 3 August 2023 in the UK and 8 August in the US. The book is 176 pages, with art by Helge C. Balzer and miniatures by Ana Polanšćak.

How it plays

One stat. Every unit has a Quality, the number it needs on a d6 to do almost anything. Your Leader is 3+, and the rest of the band is 4+ or 5+.
No measuring. Ranged weapons shoot the length of the board, and units move any distance in a straight line. Line of sight is what matters, on a small board packed with scenery.
No stacking. Every roll gets one modifier at most. There are four in the whole game.
No tracking. A downed model gets laid on its side, and effects resolve right away. No “pinned” or “poisoned” tokens.
The Shock Table. A wounded unit rolls 2d6 on it. Results run from Crawl, which lets it slip into cover, to Vengeance, where an ally shoots back at the attacker.
Horror plus Conflict. A scenario is the Horror being hunted plus a Conflict, which sets up the table and adds a secondary objective between the bands. Each Horror is tied to the world by three Nexuses, and all three have to go before it can be put down.

In a campaign, bands earn Renown to improve and Prestige for landing the killing blow or taking objectives. The first band to 10 Prestige triggers its Climax scenario. Meanwhile the five Dooms (Hunger, Hatred, Domination, Oblivion, and Ruin) grow stronger, and if one fills up, you get a Doom Climax instead.

How to start

Get the book. $24.50 for the PDF or ebook, $35 for the hardback, from Osprey.
Pick a faction and kitbash a band. Three to eight models. McDowall’s own line: “bring that kitbash attitude with you.”
Build a Horror too. McDowall wants players kitbashing “their own warbands and horrors.”
Pack a small board with terrain. With no measuring, dense scenery is what makes positioning work.

Want to read more from the designer? Osprey ran a three-part blog series with McDowall on the world, the mechanics, and kitbashing.