Campaign Completes on August 19th, 2025 For more information or to back this project you can do it here
A Project by Jamison Banks
Carapace: A Game of Memory And Ruin is a solo wargame about sacred machines, fractured memory, and what we choose to become after being reborn in fire.
Carapace is a solo tabletop skirmish game. Players control Combat Wings comprised of ancient war machines trying to recover their original purpose and memories. Piloted by a Cantor, a sacred steward who speaks for you, together you battle across ruined reliquaries, drift-wrecked strongholds, and memory-haunted warfronts. This is a game of reclamation and survival. You won’t just win missions, you’ll regain parts of yourself and your world doing it. Victory is temporary, but identity is everything. Tell the story of your carapaces, one battle at a time.
Featuring:
- Solo or Co-op focus — Built for solo fun or with friends.
- Fast, brutal skirmish gameplay — Each battle lasts under an hour, with deadly precision and tactical depth.
- Campaign persistence — Every choice, every injury, every echo remains. You don’t reset between missions, you build on it and evolve.
- Memory mechanics — The Spiral Lattice records your legacy, but it can fracture. What you discover… changes you.
- Designed with purpose — This is a handcrafted passion project born out of love for mecha (Japanese and Western). Miniatures are front and center to the gameplay experience.
Full Rules Package:
- Core Rules (Full Color PDF, Printed zine, or both)
Streamlined rules for movement, combat, damage, and campaign progression. Includes solo/co-op mechanics, mission generation rules, and narrative campaigns. Also includes multiple tables for naming your units, Cantors, missions, and more. - 7 core mission types + 3 narrative campaign arcs
Construct missions as a tactical puzzle with help from the Core Rules. Engage shifting threats, environmental challenges, and Drift triggers that corrupt or change the battlefield. And your units. - 8 Weapon Systems + 3 default Carapace Loadouts
From plasma lances to relic cannons, weapons are modular: swap limbs, change equipment, reconfigure your Carapace between missions and across campaigns. The rules also contain blank Carapace unit sheets for you to construct your own machines, as well as 3 default units for reference (Virelance, Keldrath, and Thaumatarch) plus enemy units. - Enemy Forces & AI Behavior Tables
Full rules for hostile units, procedural behavior chart, and escalation mechanics. The Quickstart gave basic behaviors, but the Core rules offers the complete experience. Also extra rules to create and shape your own enemy AI. - Lore Primer: The Fracture Gospel
A short but powerful look into the world of Carapace, its sacred warfare, its forgotten saints, and the Aeonic memory your units fight to preserve.
