More Cyberpunk Espionage and Mayhem
Hardwired:Hostile Takeover is the latest iteration of the Hardwired tabletop game. Currently in development, it’s a player versus player version that pits the elite security forces of rival corporations in a deadly competition to dominate the market.
CORPORATE WAR
Rather than Agents facing waves of increasingly dangerous H-SEC (Hostile Security), those same specialized, cyber-augmented operators now command small forces of Tactical squads and Heavy Support Units whose objective is to carve a path through their opponent’s territory and take over their headquarters.
TACTICS AND STRATEGY
The battles fought on the table top are tracked on a gridded campaign map as players decide to advance or defend urban sectors, commit resources and reinforcements, and engage in WBOM strategies (War By Other Means) to supplement their ‘direct kinetic engagements’.
FORM YOUR OWN CORPORATION
An Open Miniature game, HW:HT allows you to use any and all those random, cool sci fi miniatures you have to create your own corporate force. Like the idea of a Bio-Med megacorp with a penchant for clone troops and genetically engineered bioforms? Go for it. Or a bleeding edge hi-tech zaibatsu that relies on cyber-augmented soldiers and heavy combat drones? Sure. Mix-n-match your miniatures to suit your style of play and preferred aesthetic. (or you could hunt down the exact figs and heavy assets you want to create an utterly unique corporate fighting force) Your corporation – your call.
STAY IN THE FIGHT
Rather than a single ‘winner take all’ victory condition, each HW:HT mission has a variable number of primary and secondary objectives, each of which will contribute to a player’s resource pool. This resource pool in turn allows them to add reinforcements and WBOM strategies to subsequent missions. They must be spent wisely; do you deploy new Heavy Assets to defend against a counter-attack in the very next game? Or save them for an all-out assault on a critical district deep in your rival’s territory? No pressure: it’s just the survival of a massive multi-national conglomerate worth billions of NuYuan at stake.
SOLID. SIMPLE. FUN.
This might sound complicated, but HW:HT remains focused on solid, easy rules that frame the game, then get out of the way. Whether at the tactical, tabletop level or the larger campaign aspect, the emphasis is still on minimal book keeping and smooth game flow. Like its cousins Hardwired and Nightwatch, Hardwired: Hostile Takeover will be a game to build stories on. A scaffold, not a strait jacket.
Read the book in an afternoon, assemble your miniatures and terrain, and run your first mission that night. Put those miniatures to work and seize the future by any means necessary.
More info to follow but that’s it for now. Thanks for stopping by.
Stay well and game hard.
HARDWIRED: HOSTILE TAKEOVER. COMING Q1, 2021
STALKER7 
Really looking forward to this one.
Cheers,
Pete.
Thanks Pete.
I am a little concerned covid restrictions will still be in effect when it’s released tho. Kinda hard to run a PvP game when you can’t get together.
Hi! Are you planning to do an “omnibus”, an edition (preferably print) with all the Hardwired rules in it? As your series expands, this becomes more and more desirable!
Hi Matt.
Thanks for contacting me.
Great idea but there are no plans for an omnibus at this time. Perhaps much later but I have too much on my plate already right now.
Have a good holiday.
Will there still be an option to play SOLO or COOP?
The Hardwired core book and TSTE are Solo/Co-op games. The mechanism is built in. HW: HT is the dedicated head-to-head variant. Solo in HT means you’d play both sides, the same way a person plays chess against themself.
Got it. Since this will involve slightly larger scale battles, would you consider adding vehicle rules? I’d love to include some futuristic gunships or cyber tanks.
HW:HT is about corporate warfare in the midst of dense urban sprawl, so use of heavy military vehicles would definitely draw the ire of national leaders and international censure. The game does have light vehicles like grav-bikes, exo-armor, and large remote-piloted drones (termed Heavy Support Units) so it’s a step up from an infantry slog. But it remains a step below all-out combined arms battles.