If you’re involved with the miniatures gaming hobby, you probably played with toy soldiers or action figures when you were a kid. Maybe you re-enacted scenes from movies or television shows, or maybe you used your toys to create your own stories, but chances are you did more than just have them fight mindless battles.
7TV, published by Crooked Dice Game Design Studio, started out as an attempt to bring the tone and aesthetic of 1970s spy-fi television to the skirmish game tabletop. Specifically, the game called to mind ‘70s British classics like The Avengers, Space: 1999, Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who, and the Roger Moore era of James Bond, which often blurred the lines between spy thriller and science fiction, always with a healthy dose of camp. And like those often silly but always entertaining shows, 7TV tries to balance the action with charm and style.
In the years since its initial release, 7TV has expanded to include multiple genres such as 1930s pulp, 1980s style post-apocalypse, and heroic fantasy, but it has always stuck to its roots as a game that is really about cheesy, low-budget television and the profound amount of affection it inspires.
Are We Fighting Battles, or Directing an Action Set Piece?
The idea that this is a television show is worked directly into the game’s structure. Each player brings a cast of models to the table, composed of a certain number of ratings (in lieu of squad points). Models are divided into stars, costars and extras, with each generating “plot points” each turn that are spent on character activations and other in-game effects. Characters are gifted with Special Effects that give them unique abilities during play and add flavor to the game.
The real personality of 7TV comes from the Script Deck, a stack of cards that acts as a variable timer fot the game, and also imposes plot twists, global game effects designed to keep the players on their toes. Script cards are grouped by Act One, Act Two, and Finale, with appropriately escalating effects, and the total number of cards used is determined by the size of the table. Normally one card is drawn at the end of each player’s turn, but a player always has the option to flip over two cards. Only resolving one but giving both players extra plot points to fuel their in-game actions. This gives players an interesting decision to make every turn, and also varies the game length, making things that much more unpredictable.
To be clear, 7TV is still a skirmish game in the broad sense. It is normally a head-to-head game in which each player controls a force of models with the goal of defeating the other side, whether that is by eliminating opposing characters or collecting objectives. The script deck, along with prop cards that add extra in-game abilities to certain characters, just adds an extra layer of incident (and a good deal of humor) that feeds the game’s narrative and keeps it from being too dry or competitive.
Players activate their models by spending plot points, which are generated based on the number of stars, costars, and extras in your cast. Stars and costars generate more plot points than extras, but extras make up for this by adding sheer numbers – you could field a cast of all stars and costars, but that will give you fewer models to work with. Plot points are also used to activate some character abilities, and to add dice to attack and defense rolls, which gives players a lot of meaningful decisions to make each round. It’s not just a case of activating every unit in turn, you’ll be called upon to make a lot of strategic choices throughout the game.
What’s the Story?
The 7TV Core Rules provide six “open play” scenarios that set up a variety of basic, objective-based games such as rescuing a captive, escaping from the other player’s territory, or racing to be the first to collect a macguffin (objective token) and hold onto it until the end of the game. But the real strength of 7TV is in Narrative Episodes, scenarios which provide not just game objectives but also specific casts and board setups, allowing a much more story-based approach to the game. Casts are often asymmetrical, with one side having more ratings worth of characters but perhaps a more difficult objective, in line with the story the game wants to tell.
The Core Rules include three such episodes, depicting a James Bond-style spy thriller, a pulp adventure, and a historical fantasy featuring Robin Hood and his band of outlaws facing off against a demon-summoning sorcerer right out of a Hammer horror film. Additionally, Crooked Dice publishes a range of Feature Packs that detail multi-part campaigns across a wide variety of genres, everything from Lovecraftian horror to heroic fantasy to small towns menaced by supernatural forces. In addition to new character profiles and game scenarios, feature packs will usually include bespoke script cards to make the game’s countdown mechanic more specific to the story being told.
A Cast of Thousands
7TV is miniatures-agnostic, meaning that players are invited to use whatever models they have on hand that might work for the specific genre and scenario being played. Of course, Crooked Dice offer an ever-growing range of extremely characterful miniatures, many of them specifically designed for particular feature packs, but it’s up to the player to source whatever models and terrain they want to use. It means that 7TV definitely isn’t a “right out of the box” game, but it does lean into the DIY customization that so many of us enjoy about this hobby.
My wife and I played through the 7TV Dracula Feature Pack a while back, and I will say that I had almost as much fun getting everything together for the game as we did actually playing. We used as many “official” Crooked Dice models as we could, but looking at the list of required characters for each scenario and figuring out what models I might already have and what I would need to get, made it infinitely more enjoyable than just opening a box and playing a game with what’s included. I especially enjoyed building the terrain for each chapter of the story.
Welcome to the Colonies
For the past few years, Crooked Dice has been working with Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, England to provide students with hands-on game design experience. The program has resulted in several expansions for 7TV, including the Pulp and Fantasy boxed sets, and the Dracula and Night Terrors feature packs.
This year, they’ll be releasing the latest (and sadly, final) fruit of that collaboration: Colony 87, a fully fleshed-out science fiction setting that will add a host of new elements such as non-player characters and campaign play. Colony 87 is expected to hit crowdfunding in the fall, followed by a full retail release in early 2026.
Where to Start?
If you’re more interested in creating a narrative than just fighting out a battle, 7TV just might be for you. The game doesn’t have a “starter set” per se – the Core Rules are more of a toolbox that gives you what you need to build games around whatever characters and stories you want to play with.
If it sounds like something you might want to check out, you can download the first four chapters of the Core Rules (which includes all the information you need to play the game) for free from Crooked-Dice.co.uk. If you like what you see, the full rules will let you start creating your own casts and scenarios, or you can go straight to one of the Feature Packs if you’d prefer a more guided game experience, remembering that you’ll still need to populate your game with miniatures and terrain, whether it’s from from Crooked Dice’s extensive range of models, your own collection, or elsewhere.
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