jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
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Post by jacar on Nov 25, 2014 12:34:49 GMT -6
Playing the Battle of Five Armies with chainmail could be expensive at the 1:20 scale, especially with the forces of evil and all the wargs they should get. Several years ago I played in a game of "The Sword and the Flame" which had one side with limited troops vs an angry Dervish army of unlimited troops. The idea was for the Colonial forces to move an ancient artifact to a truck and withdraw it before the army gets overrun by the dervishes. The same logic could be applied to BoFA, especially since Tolkien described the evil forces as "innumerable."
Based some on the text and mostly on the Tolkien gateway, here is the forces of good.
Dwarves Balin 4th level heavy infantry 25 figures in 1 regiment. Fights as heavy infantry. Shield, hand weapon and mail coat. 1 regiment
Men Bard 4th level heavy infantry 15 men with sword shield and bow. Heavy infantry. Defends as light infantry on any turn they use their bow. 1 Regiment
Elves Thranduil 4th level heavy infantry 60 Elves. These can be armed with spear or bow as the player likes but it is decided at the beginning of the game. Up to half may be bowmen. Spearmen attack/defend as heavy infantry. Bowmen attack as heavy infantry and defend as light infantry. 2 or 3 regiments 20-30 figures each.
Characters Gandalf perhaps not a wizard but a sorcerer. He is still Gandalf the Gray after all! Armed with Glamdring Thorin and company. 4th level warrior. Armed with Orchrist Beorn Werebear. Eagles are the end game and need not be represented. See objectives below.
Goblin horde 150 Goblin light infantry. Melee weapons. 6 regiments of 25 each. 24 wargs. Medium cavalry. 2 regiments of 12 each.
This is the starting goblin force. When a regiment is eliminated, on the following turn, a new regiment of the same type enters anywhere along the evil side board edge. When 6 regiments are eliminated, Bolg shows up with his body guard. One regiment will be replaced by Bolg's unit.
Bog 4th level heavy infantry 25 Elite Heavy infantry
The object is for the forces of evil to destroy the forces of good, thereby taking all the loot for themselves. Forces of good must survive a set number of turns, at which point, the eagles arrive and win the day. I'd set the number of turns at 20. But that might be too lengthy.
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Post by cooper on Nov 25, 2014 15:55:43 GMT -6
Are you talking about bard having 15 figures of men (at 1:20) or are you talking about bard with 15 men at 1:1? Because if you're talking about 1:20 scale, then the hero unit is not counted except to grant +1 to all dice throws for the figures and to rally troops. Bard is not 4 figures of men by himself. Heroes only come into actual play at 1:1 scale.
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
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Post by jacar on Nov 25, 2014 18:02:48 GMT -6
The are mentioning mass combat types here.
They are talking about morale here. No mention of combat.
Fantasy combat table stuff...
Regular troops. No distinction as to what scale. I have no doubt that they attack 4 times in MtM combat but there is no reason to believe that they don't attack 4 times in massed combat as well.
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Post by cooper on Nov 25, 2014 19:40:30 GMT -6
The remaining relevant material for heroes and super heroes is under the "army commander" and "leader" rules in man to man. As the former are the "fantastic" versions of the latter.
Listen, if you want Bard to decimate 160 orcs per minute with his sword go right ahead. But don't pretend it makes any sense or that wargamers in 1972 wouldn't laugh in a game designers face for doing.
its been answered well enough on these boards already. Either use the search function or do a more critical reading of the source material.
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
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Post by jacar on Nov 25, 2014 21:50:58 GMT -6
Which is more absurd? Bard dealing 160 casualties per turn or the fact that an entire battle (massed combat) only lasts 6-7 minutes?
In the first issue of Dragon Magazine, there is a scenario for the BoFA. An example line: Bolg Fights as 4 Heavy Foot Defends as 4 heavy Foot. It is rather clear what is meant here. I reckon we can agree to disagree. I don't know what else to tell you.
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Post by cooper on Nov 25, 2014 22:25:11 GMT -6
6-7 minutes seems more than reasonable for full on melee. boxing rounds only last 3 minutes for a reason. The fantasy supplement was a supplement to CHAINMAIL. Heroes and superheroes are leaders/army commanders for fantasy groups. You can play the way you want to interpret the text, or you can play the way the text was obviously intended. Wizards fireballs for example could only target other fantastic forces/dragons as they refer to the catapult rules which were for use in man to man combat section under sieges. It's very clear as long as one lifts the scales from their eyes.
Is the text confusing? Yes. Upon first readings did I make some of the same mistakes you are making? Yes, but let reason and common sense be your guide through poorly worded sections. It's not the holy bible and the words are not inerrant.
A player with a hero would be a fool to ever have that hero do a side mission at 1:1 scale (say defending a gate like Aragorn gimli and legolas at Minas Tirith) because their destruction capabilites at 1:20 scale would be unmatched. The three of them could devastate whole armies. Which is fine if you're doing Peter Jacksons lord of the rings I suppose...
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Post by Starbeard on Nov 28, 2014 10:04:49 GMT -6
To be fair, Volume III in OD&D does mention exactly how 1:1 scale heroes can participate in massed 1:20 battles without over-inflating their capabilities, so if you choose to include that as a legitimate CM rule then there isn't an issue with mixing 1:1 and 1:20.
As for the length of turns, I think Jacar was talking about battles, not bouts. An actual bout between two units making contact, at least one of which has actively committed itself to pressing into the other rather than simply holding the line, will certainly resolve itself within several minutes, but an entire battle would certainly take much longer to play out.
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Post by derv on Nov 28, 2014 10:39:38 GMT -6
To be fair, Volume III in OD&D does mention exactly how 1:1 scale heroes can participate in massed 1:20 battles without over-inflating their capabilities, so if you choose to include that as a legitimate CM rule then there isn't an issue with mixing 1:1 and 1:20. Starbeard, I'm curious how you see this working in play? Different people interpret this section of U&WA in different ways. I have wrestled with its practical application and what it seems to be suggesting and am always curious how others feel about it.
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Post by Starbeard on Nov 28, 2014 11:35:20 GMT -6
To be fair, Volume III in OD&D does mention exactly how 1:1 scale heroes can participate in massed 1:20 battles without over-inflating their capabilities, so if you choose to include that as a legitimate CM rule then there isn't an issue with mixing 1:1 and 1:20. Starbeard, I'm curious how you see this working in play? Different people interpret this section of U&WA in different ways. I have wrestled with its practical application and what it seems to be suggesting and am always curious how others feel about it. This should be taken with a massive grain of salt, since to my recollection I've only played a mass CM battle in OD&D once. With that said, this is how I interpreted the text: Single 'fantastic' creatures, including levelled characters or multi-HD monsters, fight each other using the Man-to-Man rules. When fighting massed 20:1 troops, they do so using 20:1 rules but all hits scored are dealt on the one figure they're contacting. So, if a level 3 Swordsman fights as 3 Men and has 3HD (and is armed as a Heavy Foot), then he'll attack as 3 Heavy Foot & defend/take hits as 3 Heavy Foot, but all attacks he makes, and all attacks against him, can only be against a single model, not the whole unit, Warhammer-style. If he dealt 3 hits to a figure of massed spearmen, then he just killed that figure 3 times over, they don't spill over. This worked pretty well for the one battle, even though it certainly amplifies the powers of individual heroic characters. That level 3 Swordsman can reasonably expect to take on a couple of figures of basic troops before dying, but in 1:1 mode he'd get creamed if he tried battling 20-40 enemies by himself. Still, it makes them vulnerable enough to basic enemy troops that it's desirable to keep them in reserve, to bolster the unit as a commander (as cooper has really eloquently pointed out), or to clean up shop once victory is clear. I suppose the other option would be to simply give single characters but 1 hit die, which would amplify that feeling of vulnerability even more, but would negate any difference in the survivability between a level 1 character and a level 100 character. The other caveat to this is that the battle only included PC/NPC characters leading units of basic troops (mostly humans, with some elves & goblins). If giants and wights and all that were also added to the mix, both as singular heroic characters and as massed units, then I imagine there would have been instances where we'd have to stop and think about just how to handle the zooming in and out of 1:1 mode.
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Post by derv on Nov 28, 2014 12:00:08 GMT -6
Single 'fantastic' creatures, including levelled characters or multi-HD monsters, fight each other using the Man-to-Man rules. When fighting massed 20:1 troops, they do so using 20:1 rules but all hits scored are dealt on the one figure they're contacting. So, if a level 3 Swordsman fights as 3 Men and has 3HD (and is armed as a Heavy Foot), then he'll attack as 3 Heavy Foot & defend/take hits as 3 Heavy Foot, but all attacks he makes, and all attacks against him, can only be against a single model, not the whole unit, Warhammer-style. If he dealt 3 hits to a figure of massed spearmen, then he just killed that figure 3 times over, they don't spill over. In this situation are you saying you would use the mass combat tables with your 3rd level Swordsman being equal to 3 HF and your 1:20 spearmen being equal to 20 HF? Essentially, 1 die, 6 kills for the Swordsman and 10 die, 6 kills for the spearmen (with each kill= 1 hit of damage)?
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
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Post by jacar on Nov 28, 2014 16:24:18 GMT -6
To be fair, Volume III in OD&D does mention exactly how 1:1 scale heroes can participate in massed 1:20 battles without over-inflating their capabilities, so if you choose to include that as a legitimate CM rule then there isn't an issue with mixing 1:1 and 1:20. As for the length of turns, I think Jacar was talking about battles, not bouts. An actual bout between two units making contact, at least one of which has actively committed itself to pressing into the other rather than simply holding the line, will certainly resolve itself within several minutes, but an entire battle would certainly take much longer to play out. I am indeed talking of big battles and not skirmishes/MtM. I do think a battle turn should be 10 minutes...though I understand that it is, in fact, only a single minute. Like I said, an entire battle will be completed in just 6-7 minutes. A battle like "The Plains of Abraham" lasted about 15 minutes and that was largely because it was decided by a single English musket volley followed by the ensuing bayonet charge. This is with more modern and deadly weapons. Other more period appropriate battles lasted considerably longer. It is estimated that most Dark Age and Medieval battles lasted at least an hour or two. Not constant fighting to be sure but the fighting would have taken much longer. Folks are shocked about the firepower that can be brought to bear by a single hero or fantastic creature. Is it REALLY a lot? Take Cooper's interpretation of the rules. A hero adds +1 to each die or dice a unit rolls. If it truly means ALL dice then a unit will be able to add +1 to all dice it rolls in combat. This will usually mean it will score a hit on a 5 or 6 instead of a 6 against targets of equal or better standing. Less so against lesser targets. A straight up example: 20 HF vs other HF. We will assume they are lined up in 2 ranks. That would me 10 men would fight. Instead of hitting on 6+ they hit on 5+ with 10 dice when a hero is present. That works out to an expected value of 10/3 or 3.3333 casualties. Now lets assume the Hero just adds 4 dice. We will also assume the hero is HF. So now from the same example the damage the unit does is 14/6 (10 for the front rank at 6+ and 4 for the Hero) for a to total of just 2.3333 hits. The unit scores 10/6 or 1.6667 hits. The hero just .6667 ( from 4/6) hits. So, first off, I don't really see a hero being all that tough...especially against a unit of a like class. The worries about a hero inflicting multiple figures per turn are pretty well unfounded, especially when you consider the passage in U&WA. A hero usually won't score more than 1 hit anyway. Possible to score 4 but not likely by a long shot. Even 2 hits have a significantly small chance of occurring.
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Post by cooper on Nov 28, 2014 17:30:24 GMT -6
except CHAINMAIL is a skirmish war-game. Real armies field thousands of men per side (battle of hastings had between 14-25k total men). CM works best at no more than really 300 men per side, which can help explain why men and giankin in 0d&d are found in platoons of 30-300.
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
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Post by jacar on Nov 28, 2014 17:34:33 GMT -6
except CHAINMAIL is a skirmish war-game. Real armies field thousands of men per side (battle of hastings had between 17-25k men at the battle). CM works best at no more than really 300 men per side, which can help explain why men and giankin in 0d&d are found in platoons of 30-300. You can talk semantics and split hairs as you like but it really does not add to the conversation. Massed battlles=1:20 scale. Skirmish=MtM. Just in case you really didn't understand.
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Post by cooper on Nov 28, 2014 17:39:07 GMT -6
Uh. Except you are using self referential nomenclature exclusive to CHAINMAIL. In comparison to the war-games that came before that most often dealt with Napoleonic battles, CHAINMAIL is considered a skirmish game and due to the miniature size explicitly stated for it's running combined with the 1:20 scale the 1 minute turn is fitting with the verisimilitude. In fact Matthew had a very nice post a long while ago that showed that the 1 minute combat turn worked very well with the historic movement rates of troops moving at 12" = 120 yards in one minute.
The old war gammers were not joking around with size of miniatures and length of time within turns. This is not D&D where the suspension of disbelief is allowed for dungeon movement. So before you start throwing words like "understand" around, I suggest you do a little more reading. When you change the length of time of the turn without adjusting movement and miniature size you are playing with aspects of the game and the importance of which you don't quite yet understand.
So perhaps dealing with miniature size, time, and movement isn't "adding to the conversation" for you, but for war gamers, these things matter and they aren't "semantics" or "splitting hairs". This is not D&D where people are allowed to make post-hoc rationalizations of time and length of combat unrelated to concrete miniature size or verisimilitude. The 1 minute turn is primarily about realistic movement as informed by scale and miniature size, which is of course difficult for those coming from D&D to take seriously given the unserious nature of D&D's movement rates.
scale matters!
And every old grognard with a long flowing beard resting in a plot of dirt in a cemetery just rolled over in his grave. So the question is, ok fine. Now what are you going to do with scale and movement?
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
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Post by jacar on Nov 28, 2014 18:13:25 GMT -6
Scale is ultimately window dressing. If you doubt this then why is Warhammer Fantasy Battles so successful?
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Post by cooper on Nov 28, 2014 18:19:53 GMT -6
Ultimately you are attempting to make a change in length of time for turns based on what you perceive to be a flaw in realism by destroying something else (movement) which is based on realism.
Certainly you recognize the irony.
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Post by derv on Nov 28, 2014 18:39:37 GMT -6
Scale definately has it's limits and even the staunchest of wargamers will admit this as they play on a table of limited space where mountains and buildings do not come close to realistic scale.
On the flip side, scale is important as a mechanic that regulates actions within a game. Attempts at reasonable time and ground scale seems important as it brings balance to what is possible in a turn.
My feeling is that it isn't so much the scale in Chainmail, but possibly the combat and morale resolutions that causes the disconnect. In other words, movement rates are fine for the time scale, but melee is resolved too rapidly. It is the nature of the Chainmail turn sequence. But if you extend the time scale, your troops are going to be lolly-gagging across the field. There really isn't a good solution without changing the turn sequence.
Off subject, but changing the turn sequence is actually what D&D ended up doing IMHO.
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Post by Starbeard on Nov 28, 2014 19:13:08 GMT -6
Scale definately has it's limits and even the staunchest of wargamers will admit this as they play on a table of limited space where mountains and buildings do not come close to realistic scale. On the flip side, scale is important as a mechanic that regulates actions within a game. Attempts at reasonable time and ground scale seems important as it brings balance to what is possible in a turn. My feeling is that it isn't so much the scale in Chainmail, but possibly the combat and morale resolutions that causes the disconnect. In other words, movement rates are fine for the time scale, but melee is resolved too rapidly. It is the nature of the Chainmail turn sequence. But if you extend the time scale, your troops are going to be lolly-gagging across the field. There really isn't a good solution without changing the turn sequence. Off subject, but changing the turn sequence is actually what D&D ended up doing IMHO. Agreed. Without bothering to relocate the primary sources again, I know the 120yd-per-minute dictum is heavily grounded in a small set of 18th-century and Napoleonic military science experiments and data journals. Those experiments have been well-covered in the wargaming community since at least Grant's rules. However, what they don't take into account is the added time it takes to do anything other than a Prussian style alternating move & fire down the regiment line, straight ahead. In battle there would almost inevitably be a significant time delay between issuing orders, having those orders received, and then having those orders successfully executed. Even in example of Abraham, while the actual critical engagement took only 15 minutes, it was preceded by a few hours of tactical manoeuvring. It's quite difficult to come up with turn scales that reflect that aspect, especially in premodern warfare where two lines could be within spear-poking range for a good hour or two before one side finally commits to an engagement, and in the past 15 years especially it's been common for wargame designers to sidestep the whole issue of time by ignoring time scale entirely and calling a sliding, relative, abstract, or whatever. I'm not sure what my opinion is, though.
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Post by Starbeard on Nov 28, 2014 19:21:00 GMT -6
Single 'fantastic' creatures, including levelled characters or multi-HD monsters, fight each other using the Man-to-Man rules. When fighting massed 20:1 troops, they do so using 20:1 rules but all hits scored are dealt on the one figure they're contacting. So, if a level 3 Swordsman fights as 3 Men and has 3HD (and is armed as a Heavy Foot), then he'll attack as 3 Heavy Foot & defend/take hits as 3 Heavy Foot, but all attacks he makes, and all attacks against him, can only be against a single model, not the whole unit, Warhammer-style. If he dealt 3 hits to a figure of massed spearmen, then he just killed that figure 3 times over, they don't spill over. In this situation are you saying you would use the mass combat tables with your 3rd level Swordsman being equal to 3 HF and your 1:20 spearmen being equal to 20 HF? Essentially, 1 die, 6 kills for the Swordsman and 10 die, 6 kills for the spearmen (with each kill= 1 hit of damage)? I'm saying that the entire combat would be handled as a 20:1 melee between a single HF figure and a single figure that counts as 3HF. The Fantasy Supplement describes creatures as fighting as a certain troop type, which is a 20:1 thing, rather than as a weapon+armour combination, which is a 1:1 thing, so from that I assumed that it was entirely appropriate to have fantastical figures attacking on the 20:1 tables. I know there are other ways to interpret the Fantasy Supplement now, but at the time it seemed the most straight forward way to handle a smallish huge battle in OD&D, and it worked pretty well. However, the other thing is that there were no magic-flinging characters involved, so I admit I never put any thought into how magic would fit into a battle that had mixed scales. How have you interpreted the rule, derv? I'm always interested in getting insight, especially now that I'm getting back into running OD&D.
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
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Post by jacar on Nov 28, 2014 20:10:41 GMT -6
Ultimately you are attempting to make a change in length of time for turns based on what you perceive to be a flaw in realism by destroying something else (movement) which is based on realism. Certainly you recognize the irony. Ultimately I am attempting nothing of the sort. I am following the guidance of Gary Gygax and making my own rulings, changing those things that don't seem right to me. Nothing ironic about that. I post here to share my ideas. If folks wish to share there own ideas in a respectful way then great!
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Post by derv on Nov 28, 2014 20:20:42 GMT -6
How have you interpreted the rule, derv? I'm always interested in getting insight, especially now that I'm getting back into running OD&D. I have found it to be a troubling comment within U&WA. On the one hand, it seems to be clear that it is talking about mixing scale. But, it is not overly clear in how to apply the rule (specifically when you are talking about OD&D PC's). Then you have conflicting accounts of Gary saying the Fantasy Supplement was only meant for 1:1 while there are other examples of him actually playing Chainmail with mixed scale. Compound it with people that have strong opinions about it both ways and you do not end up with alot of clarity on the subject. There is an entire thread here that basically tracks my journey with Chainmail: Chainmail FlannelgraphThere is some heated debate at times, but I considered it all in good fun. There is even some links later in the thread where I carried some of my frustration over into a discussion on Delta's blog. I came to my own conclusions about the Fantasy Supplement, but the botom line is that I think people should play it the way they want. It is a game after all
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
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Post by jacar on Nov 28, 2014 20:29:46 GMT -6
My feeling too. It is the old chestnut that has yet to be cracked. Getting one guy to move in an instant is a lot easier than moving a formation of 400 men in the same time. The formation will almost certainly move slower than just one man but not overly so. Once it gets started the formation can move rapidly toward its target. It would also be harder for the formation to switch directions or change its orders. The lone man could essentially be recalled in an instant. You don't actually have to leave 1975 to find that Derv. The 10 minute turn is definitely imperfect but is a more believable solution than a 1 minute turn. Again, its all window dressing anyway. It is a good way to track how far a dungeon party has traveled so you can tell them that everyone is tired and needs to rest. Time keeping works much better for campaigns than for actual combat. The 1 minute melee round also does not work well either. Most people can move rapidly across a large room, say 150 feet long...probably in seconds. If you are an unencumbered human, you will fall short after a minute by 30 feet. I recognize the necessity of a 1 minute melee round as it governs who will arrive as reinforcements as nearby characters/bad guys get to move a portion of their move per minute.
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Post by derv on Nov 28, 2014 20:50:04 GMT -6
You don't actually have to leave 1975 to find that Derv. Melee is fast and furious. There are ten rounds of combat per turn. Recently there has been some discussion on the boards about the OD&D 10 minute exploration turn being seperate and distinct from the melee turn. That the OD&D melee turn is actually a 1 minute Chainmail turn with up to ten 6-10 second rounds.
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
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Post by jacar on Nov 28, 2014 21:18:19 GMT -6
Looking at Delta's blog here. It has lots of stuff where Gygax claims that Heroes were only played at 1:1 scale...and yet CMFS has statistics associating Heroes with mass combat figures rather than coming out and saying they are equipped with armor and weapons.
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Post by Red Baron on Nov 28, 2014 21:49:39 GMT -6
It is a good way to track how far a dungeon party has traveled so you can tell them that everyone is tired and needs to rest. Time keeping works much better for campaigns than for actual combat. The difference between having one round per minute or six rounds per minute, or ten rounds per minute, might seem like a pointless distinction to make. And in a typical wargame this may be the case. However, in d&d, the length of combat can affect the overall length of the dungeon exploration game. What if a party has only 30 minutes of torchlight left and is 20 minutes from the exit when a wandering monster shows up? Suddenly the difference between a two minute combat an a twenty minute combat makes quite a big deal of difference to the exploration game. Rounds are the length they are for a reason. That reason might be that "gary pulled some number out his butt and fiddled with them 'till they worked well", but that doesn't change the fact that they really do work quite nicely.
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Post by Starbeard on Nov 29, 2014 5:07:27 GMT -6
Looking at Delta's blog here. It has lots of stuff where Gygax claims that Heroes were only played at 1:1 scale...and yet CMFS has statistics associating Heroes with mass combat figures rather than coming out and saying they are equipped with armor and weapons. Yeah, the FS unit statistics are all expressed in mass combat terms, not 1:1, which seems entirely contradictory. I believe there's also a quote by Ernie Gygax about his father really enjoying using catapults in mass CM battles, in a way that implies that he used the full 2"-3.5" blast radius in mass battles. Maybe it was in the Dead Games Society interview.
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
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Post by jacar on Nov 29, 2014 6:38:59 GMT -6
Yeah, the FS unit statistics are all expressed in mass combat terms, not 1:1, which seems entirely contradictory. I believe there's also a quote by Ernie Gygax about his father really enjoying using catapults in mass CM battles, in a way that implies that he used the full 2"-3.5" blast radius in mass battles. Maybe it was in the Dead Games Society interview.To muddy the waters further, there is the Moat house game which, while having few painted miniatures, there is a fabulously painted moat house. They used a scale of 1:10 and it seems that one character is 1 character. A treant (singular) knocks off about 40 militia...20 in one turn. He seems to be expressing losses in game scale so in 3 turns, the militia lost 4 figures. Bat Rep hereThe other interesting thing is that the heroes did not move with bodies of men but rather worked on their own. They also did not use combat resolution or any morale rules...or so it would seem according to the battle report.
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Post by derv on Nov 29, 2014 6:56:27 GMT -6
To muddy the waters further, there is the Moat house game which, while having few painted miniatures, there is a fabulously painted moat house. They used a scale of 1:10 and it seems that one character is 1 character. A treant (singular) knocks off about 40 militia...20 in one turn. He seems to be expressing losses in game scale so in 3 turns, the militia lost 4 figures. Bat Rep hereThe other interesting thing is that the heroes did not move with bodies of men but rather worked on their own. They also did not use combat resolution or any morale rules...or so it would seem according to the battle report. All these things were discussed in the thread I linked to above. In addition, the original Battle of Five Armies Chainmail scenario found in Dragon #1 was discussed. It also seems to be presented for mixed scales. Still, there is no common consensus on how people were actually playing Chainmail with the Fantasy Supplement.
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Post by Starbeard on Nov 29, 2014 8:37:10 GMT -6
To muddy the waters further, there is the Moat house game which, while having few painted miniatures, there is a fabulously painted moat house. They used a scale of 1:10 and it seems that one character is 1 character. A treant (singular) knocks off about 40 militia...20 in one turn. He seems to be expressing losses in game scale so in 3 turns, the militia lost 4 figures. Bat Rep hereThe other interesting thing is that the heroes did not move with bodies of men but rather worked on their own. They also did not use combat resolution or any morale rules...or so it would seem according to the battle report. All these things were discussed in the thread I linked to above. In addition, the original Battle of Five Armies Chainmail scenario found in Dragon #1 was discussed. It also seems to be presented for mixed scales. Still, there is no common consensus on how people were actually playing Chainmail with the Fantasy Supplement. Very true. Just like OD&D, or any miniatures wargame of the pre-WRG era, really, CM was written at a time when rules ambiguities just weren't as disconcerting as they are now. There was no common consensus for how people played CM, and there wasn't even a consensus on how the same people played CM over time, or possibly even from scenario to scenario; hence the references to how Gygax spoke about CM/D&D and how he actually played them not always lining up neatly. Nowadays we'd consider that a methodological problem. Back then I don't think it really was. To get back to your scenario, jacar, I like the scenario idea. Even before getting to the bottom I realised where your were going with the wave survival scenario: using the arrival of the eagles as the winning condition is a nice touch. Now, with all the talk about using multiple scales, how would you use the characters in this scenario? Especially Gandalf, since he's got access to spells.
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jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
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Post by jacar on Nov 30, 2014 7:33:58 GMT -6
Glad you like it so far.
For Hero types specifically you can do 1 of three ideas. 1) Take the book literally. The hero adds +1 to all dice rolled for any unit they are attached to. They also fight as 4 men of their type (4HF in this case) but without the +1. To me the 4 extra dice and the +1 added to combat is a double bonus. Probably a little powerful.
2) The hero functions more like an army general. So it adds +1 to each die/dice a unit gets to roll. Not bad but other than heroic combat, the hero is just an army officer.
3) The hero fights as 4 men (HF) and adds +1 to any MORALE die/dice the unit rolls. I like this option the best as I like heroic combat ala Aragorn, Conan and Elric. I like to see the heroes wade in.
So #3 for me.
As for the Wizards, Gandalf shall be a Sorcerer as mentioned above. He will have 5 spells. I'll probably limit the number of fireballs and lightning bolts he can use as spells and count them as actual spells of complexity 3.
*Note My previous post on the matter disappeared or I somehow managed not to post it. So excuse the double post if it somehow appears again.
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