FREE USMC Wargame "Down Range" by Capt. Nicholas Royer

[Lowenstaat]

Today, I ran across this short video of Capt. Nicholas Royer, a modeling simulation officer with II Marine Expeditionary Force, describing his table top wargame called Down Range.

I dug a little deeper and found this article on Military.com from a couple months ago.

'There's a New War Game for 'Nerds with a Drive for Violence.' It's Spreading Across the Marine Corps.' March 12, 2025, by Drew F. Lawrence

Surprisingly, I found the actual Down Range website with free online and downloadable game rules, quick start rules, unit guides for the Pacific and EUCOM, reference unit cards, and download models for 3-D printing.

Down Range: A fast-paced wargame for small units and modern concepts

From the website:

What is Down Range?
Down Range is a fast-paced tactical wargame intended for anyone interested in learning the basics of modern tactics, with a heavy emphasis on allowing players to learn through intuition and gameplay experience.

The game mechanics are designed to be simple, easy to pick up, and grow in complexity - you can start in the first chapter and reasonably work through a simple scenario just with that. Each chapter introduces mechanics of greater complexity.

Down Range includes flexible, accessible mechanics that allow players to explore:

• Smart employment of direct-fire, indirect-fire, automatic, and explosive weapons
• The entire "kill chain" to deliver fires on target, from observation to targeting to the judicious application of high explosive
• Command decision-making and ensuring an effective, resilient command and communication concept for one's forces
• The role of unmanned systems, electronic warfare, and cognitive influences on the battlefield

When in doubt, the intent is always to allow players freedom of action. Remember that "possible" and "smart" are not synonyms; wherever possible, players should feel free to bend, reinterpret, or break rules in service of their goals in playing, whether for entertainment or education.

Finally, I found an interview video with Captain Nicholas Royer explaining the games design.