TTK in tabletop skirmish games: Carnevale

18 Jun, 2026

I recently played a game of Carnevale having not played it for a couple of years. This is TTCombat’s fantasy skirmish game set in Venice, where gangs rule the streets, the Vatican tries to monopolise powerful magical forces, and the rich aristocrats shoot the citizens on the streets for entertainment.

The game features a movement system that must have been inspired by the Assassin’s Creed games. You can run across the Venetian rooftops, jump down onto enemy gangers, or dive into the canal to grapple with fish monsters.

After the game, I discussed with C about how the game felt compared to the other skirmish games we had played since. We didn't play a typical game¹, but something felt a bit off about Carnevale, and I think it was the Time to Kill.

Time to Kill, or TTK, is a term often used in shooter games to describe how quickly you can kill enemies/other players. A low TTK makes for a fast paced, twitch shooter game (such as Call of Duty, or Insurgency), and a high TTK (Halo², mech games) slows the game down, increasing the focus on accuracy and tactical gameplay.

I have not seen anyone apply the same concept to miniature games, but I think that there is some merit to looking at games through this lens. I am going to look at the skirmish games that I have played recently through this idea of TTK, starting with this post on Carnevale.

Carnevale (High TTK)

At least in the game we played, the TTK in Carnevale is very high. Characters have around 10HP, and each attack can take two or three from that. There are characters that are better at killing things, and there are ways to increase the lethality of attacks (jumping down from buildings is a particularly potent one), but as a whole, engagements between characters can last several rounds before someone drops dead.

The high TTK discourages players from going all in on killing, but this works well for the game. It is rare for objectives in Carnevale to be only about killing enemies. There is a whole deck of agendas, which are (sometimes secret) objectives for each player. These include tasks such as throwing three different characters into the canal, surviving six inches of falling, or having your leader in hand-to-hand combat with two enemies simultaneously. There are some agendas that require killing, but they are usually obtainable, such as killing three enemy characters with your Hero characters, or drowning three different opponents.

As well as the objectives, the game has a big emphasis on movement and terrain. Characters can climb, jump, swim and dive around the map. Using this movement, you can avoid combat when you don't want it. Characters are never locked in combat, although they do risk taking a hit when they move away.

There are some attacks which affect characters without needing to kill them, such as knock back or stun. There are also other combat moves you can do; grappling and drowning. Grappling allows you to throw characters (friend and foe!) around the map, whilst drowning is an effective way to hurt high armoured characters. Even drowning takes two or three rounds of attacks to kill a character.

The high TTK can still feel frustrating at times. The high hit points of the characters make almost every character into bullet sponges, characters that can take numerous hits before going down. Sometimes you just want to kill your friend's big scary werewolf, but that is easier said than done in Carnevale. It is much more effective to throw the werewolf into the canal and run off in the other direction.

For Carnevale the high TTK encourages players to engage with the mechanics which make the game unique. You can use the movement systems to avoid the slog of hand to hand combat, and the objectives don't require you to wipe out your opponents.

I will link all of the other posts on TTK in skirmish games when they are posted. If you have any thoughts or feedback on the idea of TTK in skirmish games, email me and let me know!

Quack

#skirmish games #ttk