Combat Reference

Attack dice, cover, reload, suppression and special attacks.

Declare an attack

Spend one Action, choose one Hostile card in your Weapon’s permitted range, select the Weapon and allowed firing mode, and apply legal modifiers. The Weapon must have usable ammunition or its required unexpended use. Match Action-card requirements to Weapon keywords: a Ranged bonus does not automatically improve a Thrown grenade.

A d10 showing 0 counts as 10. Use the Weapon’s hit threshold for the current range; a dash or absent permitted range does not license an attack there. You may use the same or a different Weapon, and target the same or a different Hostile card, with each Attack.

Fire modes

Choose the mode freely for each attack; the number after it on the card is the number of d10s.

Ordinary attacks

Roll the firing mode’s number of d10 attack dice and one d6 Defeat Cover die. Apply attack modifiers to each attack die and Penetration/cover modifiers where specified. Thresholds are inclusive: equal to the required number succeeds.

At least one modified attack die meets the hit threshold?	Modified cover die meets Cover?	Ordinary result
Yes	Yes	One EKIA
Yes	No	One Suppress
No	Yes	One Suppress
No	No	No effect

Ordinary attacks produce at most one EKIA or one Suppress even if several dice hit. Squad Soldiers use their printed attack chart and normally one Ranged attack die plus one cover die.

Reticles and XP

Each reticle represents one Hostile on the card and holds at most one EKIA or Suppress. An EKIA may replace an existing Suppress. Extra Suppress has no effect when every reticle already has EKIA/Suppress. The card is eliminated only when all reticles are EKIA, not when all are merely suppressed.

The Soldier dealing the final EKIA receives the card’s printed XP. Return its targeting counter to the cup and discard the Hostile card.

Reload is a separate check

Before adding modifiers, compare every raw attack die with the Weapon’s Reload number. If any is at or below it, flip the top Ammo counter to Empty. Resolve the attack normally: hitting and running out of ammo can happen together.

Reloading later costs one Action to remove the Empty Ammo counter and reveal the next available loaded counter. A Weapon with Empty top Ammo or no Ammo cannot attack until usable ammunition is available. Read Single Shot and other printed exceptions separately.

Explosion and Spray

These attacks are exceptions to the single-result limit. Roll the printed attack dice with one shared cover die, then resolve each attack die independently against the targeted card. Each can produce an EKIA, Suppress or no effect according to the ordinary two-check relationship. Excess results do not spill onto another Hostile card.

Objective targets can apply their own explosion-hit rules. Do not treat every named structure as a normal multi-reticle Hostile; read Objective targets.

Thrown attacks

A Thrown attack always has Range 0. After throwing a Weapon you cannot use it again until that Hostile card is eliminated and you are still in its Location.

Suppressed Weapons

When a Weapon with the Suppressed keyword inflicts an EKIA, it also places a Suppress on that Hostile card where a reticle remains available. This keyword describes reduced weapon noise; it does not mean the firing Soldier is suppressed or cannot act.

Hostile attacks

Use the attack-chart column for reticles that have neither EKIA nor Suppress. If none remain, the Hostile normally cannot attack. Other keywords can remain active despite full suppression if their definition says so.

Roll the Hostile’s d10 attack and d6 against the targeted Soldier’s Terrain Cover. Without Body Armor, an attack indicating Wounds plus defeated Terrain Cover inflicts those Wounds; exactly one success gives Suppress; neither gives no effect.

Body Armor

If Terrain Cover is defeated and the Soldier has applicable Body Armor, roll the d20 Body Location and the separate d6 Defeat Body Armor die. An unprotected location defeats armor automatically; at a protected location compare that die with its printed Armor Cover. Terrain and Body Armor protection do not apply to non-Hostile effects such as Environment or Events.

The Universal p. 47 detailed examples give a Suppress when the attack indicates Wounds but either terrain or armor prevents the wound. They also give Suppress when the attack misses but both protections are defeated. If the attack misses and protection succeeds, there is no effect. Its abbreviated “count successful dice” summary is inconsistent with some detailed examples; use the detailed outcome instructions and your applicable Armor card rather than a blanket success-count shortcut.

Hostile movement and suppression

Any Suppress counter prevents that Hostile card moving during Close Range. It can still attack with remaining unsuppressed reticles if already in range. Fully suppressed is different from partially suppressed. At the end of the Hostile turn remove one Suppress per card, not every Suppress.

Hand-to-hand and melee editions

The March 2021 Universal reference requires being at Range 0 and paying the Location’s hand-to-hand engagement Actions before attacking that engaged Hostile. Engagement is distinct from spending an Action to perform the attack. Its modes use the Weapon/unarmed reference’s dice, hit, Penetration and Stumble values; a raw Stumble result gives the Soldier a Suppress even if another attack die hits. Place your Hand to Hand counter on the engaged card. Engage only one Hostile card at a time; eliminating it returns the Soldier to Range 0 freely. You may set Actions aside across turns to save up for an expensive engagement, but they are lost if the Soldier performs any other Action meanwhile.

The rules exclude hand-to-hand against Squad Soldiers, Structures, Aircraft and Vehicles; apply the stated Range-0 fallback for a Hostile directed to engage such a target. The 2023 Upgrade Kit includes melee updates, so these March 2021 procedures are a dated reference. Use the corrected melee cards and rules appropriate to your collection; the New Recruit Manual deliberately omits this subsystem and cannot establish the later changes.

The 15th-edition Keyword Reference is dated February 2023 and uses Striking for a range within Range 0. Its Stumble entry also describes a separate one-Action recovery before further hand-to-hand attacks. This differs from the March 2021 Stumble-as-Suppress procedure above. Do not mix the two procedures into a supposed single complete melee rule; use one applicable edition’s full combat reference and corrected cards.

Sources

Universal Rulebook, pp. 40–48, 50–51; Keywords Reference, applicable Weapon/Hostile entries; DVG upgrade FAQ.