WHAT YOU NEED

Notice how the above photo gallery for the rules looks a bit sparse? That's not an accident. FUBAR is truly a one-page game and it can be played with just a handful of models per side. Typically a player might field a few squads or fireteams, though larger platoon sized forces scale up easily without slowing the game down too much. There is no prescribed table size, but a 4'x4' surface works well for most games, ultimately depending on your scenario. Any figure scale can be used, and the rules adapt just as easily to 15mm as they do to 28mm or larger. All that’s required beyond miniatures is a small pool of six-sided dice, a tape measure, and some basic terrain.

HOW IT PLAYS

The core of FUBAR is its activation mechanic where players take turns activating one unit at a time, rolling against that unit’s Activation characteristic. As long as you keep passing, your turn continues. The moment you fail, your turn ends immediately and your opponent takes over. This tends to cause “Elite” forces to retain the initiative more often, while less-seasoned troops tend to play more reactively. Once a unit activates, it may choose from a menu of actions ranging from walking to running, to aimed fire. A status for "On Guard" allows a unit to withhold its fire and react during a future enemy turn.

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Units only have 3 characteristics representative of their training and/or experience:

• Their Activation rating - what they need to roll on a d6 to activate that turn

• Their Expertise rating - what they need to roll on a d6 to hit enemy targets during shooting, close combat, or other battlefield tasks

• Their Suppress rating - how much damage they can take before they become “Suppressed”, making them unable to act

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The Suppression mechanic in FUBAR is especially slick. More experienced troops can take multiple Suppressions before suffering casualties, allowing for the kind of asymmetric encounters seen in modern Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond. In addition to the unit characteristics, there is a range of generic weapon and body armor types to choose from, depending on the era. Basic vehicle rules are included, allowing for easy inclusion of trucks, APCs, even tanks.

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All the game rules summarized above fit onto a single page! That's right. FUBAR is a true "one page" game. Such a concise game lends itself well to adaptation and "house rules." One of the biggest benefits of FUBAR is how agnostic it is, allowing play for anything from World War II to Star Wars battles. Community members have modified the game extensively to cover a wide range of genres and settings, so most of the work is already done for new players. Many variants for FUBAR can be found on the official game blog. The boys at Little Wars TV have their own expanded "2 page" version of FUBAR offered below, which mostly just expands the font size into something easier to read, but does include a few of their own tweaks. 

FUBAR is mainly driven by scenario or themed play, so a conventional “points” system is not available. Players will need to create their own scenarios or find and adapt others online. This may seem inconvenient to newer wargamers, but it ultimately offers more flexibility in what miniatures you can put on the table. 

FINAL Note

Despite fitting on a single page, FUBAR delivers a quick, straightforward ruleset with just enough tactical depth to stay engaging. It’s an excellent pick-up-and-play game when you’re short on time, and it can be adapted for more in-depth scenarios once you’ve spent more time with the system and learned its quirks.

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There's more than enough here to appeal to novice players and veteran gamers alike, making FUBAR a Librarian's Choice selection on the Wargame Library.