# Paranoia: Five Clones From Alpha Complex tags: #game/wargame/paranoia-five-clones ![[Paranoia - Five Clones from Alpha Complex (cover).jpg]] **Publisher:** Modiphius Entertainment **Designer:** Ivan Sorensen (Nordic Weasel Games) **Release:** Early 2026 ## Summary Alpha Complex hands you a squad of Troubleshooters, a stack of spare clones, and a standing order to trust your teammates — which is how you know the mission is already doomed. **Paranoia: Five Clones From Alpha Complex** takes Ivan Sorensen's procedurally generated Five X engine, the same bones as **[[Five Leagues From the Borderlands]]** and its cousins, and drops it into the one setting where "cooperative miniatures wargame" is a contradiction big enough to build a game around. The Computer calls it cooperative. The box, more honestly, calls it the Uncooperative Miniatures Game. The Computer has tasked you with hunting mutants, terrorists, and traitors. The irony, of course, is that the players _are_ the mutants and traitors. So you cooperate — in the sense that a crab trap cooperates — completing the mission while quietly engineering your teammates' unfortunate accidents. It is a procedural generator for anxiety, backstabbing, and bureaucracy, and no amount of requisition forms will save you. ## Core Mechanics The mechanics are of particular interest, as they adapt a survival-focused solo engine into a competitive "bucket of crabs" scenario. ### The D6 Engine The game utilizes the core Five X engine, which is built entirely around standard six-sided dice (**d6**). - **Resolution:** Most actions are resolved by rolling a d6 and adding a relevant skill modifier (usually +0, +1, or +2). Meeting or beating a Target Number (often 6) results in success. - **The Reaction System:** Unlike the rigid "I go, You go" turns of lesser wargames, the turn sequence often relies on a Reaction roll (d6 vs Initiative/Reaction stat) to determine which specific models can act before the enemy AI triggers. - **Combat:** Combat is fast and lethal. A typical attack involves rolling to Hit (d6 + Combat Skill). If successful, the attacker rolls to Wound (d6 + Weapon Damage) against the target's Toughness. Armor saves offer a final, often futile, hope of survival. ### The "Paranoia" Twist Where _Five Parsecs_ focuses on long-term campaign survival, _Five Clones_ focuses on attrition and betrayal. - **The Clone Stack:** Characters do not simply "die." Each player has a stack of **six lives** (one active clone + five replacements). When a clone is vaporized, the next one is deployed, often with a fresh loadout but the same memories. - **Treason & Objectives:** The game uses a procedural Mission Generator (tables upon tables of random misery) to set the stage. However, players have conflicting Secret Society objectives. Mechanics are included for "accidental" friendly fire and reporting other players to The Computer to gain status. - **Mutant Powers:** A d6 table-driven system for 50 different Mutant Powers allows players to warp reality, usually at the cost of being branded a traitor if witnessed. - **The AI:** The enemies (bots, aliens, or High Programmers) are controlled by a flowchart behavior system (AI), meaning no Game Master is required. This leaves the players free to focus their cognitive cycles on betraying one another. ## Editions and Lineage _Paranoia: Five Clones From Alpha Complex_ is a standalone title released in 2026. It is not an edition of the Tabletop RPG (TTRPG), but rather a spinoff wargame. - **The Five X engine:** It's the newest member of Ivan Sorensen's **Five X** family, built on the **Five Leagues From the Borderlands** 3rd-edition adventure-wargame chassis and re-skinned onto Alpha Complex (the family's other sci-fi sibling, **[[Five Parsecs From Home]]**, shares the same bones). The mechanical shift goes from a "crew survival" loop to a "clone attrition" loop; the economy of scavenging for ship parts and warband resources becomes an economy of clearance levels and requisition forms. - **Relation to** _**[[Paranoia]]**_ **RPG:** It draws thematically from the current _Paranoia: Perfect Edition_ (and previous editions like _XP_), utilizing the same lore, clearance levels (Red, Orange, Yellow, etc.), and satirical tone. However, it replaces the RPG's narrative-heavy, GM-fiat mechanics with hard wargame rules. You cannot talk your way out of a dice roll here, though you can certainly blame the dice on communist sabotage. ## References - [Official product page - Modiphius](https://modiphius.net/products/paranoia-five-clones-from-alpha-complex-book) - [Designer's announcement - Nordic Weasel Games blog](https://nordicweasel.posthaven.com/five-clones-from-alpha-complex) - [News and overview - OnTableTop (Beasts of War)](https://www.beastsofwar.com/modiphius/paranoia-rpg-wargaming-new-rules-minis/) - [Community discussion - Reddit r/ParanoiaRPG](https://www.reddit.com/r/ParanoiaRPG/comments/1ookw9l/paranoia_miniatures_game_from_modiphius_paranoia/) - [Retail listing and release data - Game Nerdz](https://www.gamenerdz.com/paranoia-five-clones-from-alpha-complex-hardcover)