Appendix A: help needed

[DungeonDevil]

After re-re-reading CM, I simply could not fathom the procedure for mass combat and how to understand the table of Appendix A. I was hoping that the resident experts who have put CM thoroughly through its paces would be inclined to render assistance.

The rules state that you get to roll a 'certain number of dice' but it doesn't say how many.

The business with '-x dice per man' or '-1 die per x men' befuddles me. HELPS!

And am I the only one pulling out his remaining hair over the post melee morale system?! It's so bleeding complicated, I cannot imagine going through that multiple times per session.

If some examples could be provided which would illustrate a sample mass combat I be grateful.

Now, the man-to-man stuff is pretty clear to me so far, so it's not all a total loss.

[Finarvyn]

You might look at my "Ringmail Variant" thread:
odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=chainmail&action=display&thread=2141

What I did therein (around the 4th post down) is explain the number of dice rolled. Essentially I tried to get rid of those pesky fractions and let the computer calculate and round the numbers for me.

Let me know if it doesn't make sense and I'll try to re-create my thinking on it. I played some OD&D about 1.5 years ago using this system and details are sort of vague in my brain at the moment...

[DungeonDevil]

I've spent 15 min. or so reading through the link, but I confess I'm now 2x as confused. :?
Am I to understand the "-" in the Appen. A as simply a dash and not a subtraction sign?

If that's the case then I'll reexamine the example from the book:

10 HH attack 20 HF.
HH get 3 dice/man, thus 30 dice () on each roll there is a 33.3% chance to make a kill.
HF get only 1 die/4 men, thus only 5 dice (), on each roll there is only a 16.67% chance to make a kill.

Do I finally have this right?

[cooper]

10HH roll 10d6/5-6

Every 5 or 6 they roll means 3 HF are killed.

The HF roll 20d6/6

For every fourth 6's rolled 1 unit of HH are killed.

Simple, yes?

[DungeonDevil]

I'm simply incapable of understanding the semantics of these expressions. Perhaps it's a language issue. However, I speak fluent Wargamerese. After years of parsing Phil Barker's sentences in WRG books, scrutinising wargaming rules is second nature.

"-3 dice per man", "-1 die per four men".

What are we subtracting three dice from?
Whose men are we referring to? The attacker or defender?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I assume "die/dice" here really mean "hit".

[cooper]

Firstly it's not "minus" 3 die. The minus isn't a "minus" it's an elipses. Ignore the "minus" signs.

When heavy foot attacks heavy horse, the HF is rather ineffectual. Therefore only "1 die per four men" (units) counts for damage purposes.

Heavy foot rolls 20 dice, but only 1 die per every four men count. You do not reduce fractions (although I suppose you can if your fractions reduce to even numbers)

Heavy horse on the other hand are very effective vs. Heavy foot, so every 1 hit counts as 3 hits, or you could roll 30d6 for the horse.

So in addition to the way I wrote in my previous post, you could also write;

HH: 30d6/5-6
HF: 5d6/6

Obviously the 200 horsemen are much more lethal in this exchange than the 400 footman.

[Deleted]

The correct way would be 10 HH get 30 dice any 5 or 6 = 1 kill, 20 HF get 5 dice any 6 = 1 kill.

[DungeonDevil]

Is it common in CM for players to have to roll as many as 30 dice? :shock:

[aldarron]

Jan 31, 2011 19:45:54 GMT -6 DungeonDevil said:

Is it common in CM for players to have to roll as many as 30 dice? :shock:

Yes. and in Arsonian D&D too, although "common" is probably a bit too strong a word, depending on the forces involved and the tactical situation, handfulls of dice often get rolled.

[DungeonDevil]

And I thought WEG's Star Wars RPG was the limit when it came to buckets of dice!

Thanks, all, for the help. It is much appreciated! This has been a sticking-point for me for the past decade, and it's wonderful to be able to implement the rules instead of pulling out my hair and putting the book back on the shelf.

[kesher]

I had the exact same problem, mistaking the ellipses for minus signs---it was a ray of light when I read a different post on this particular board a couple of years ago explaining the same thing!

[DungeonDevil]

Okay, here's a quirky question: Has anyone ever thought of interpolating a Medium Foot class, and if so, how would the progression go? I'm seriously thinking of converting the much more complex troop categories from WRG's Ancients rules (3000 BC to 1485 AD, 6th edition) to the simpler CM classes, and having a Medium Foot/Inf class may make the conversions a tad easier. What do you think? Is that getting too picky?

[cooper]

You could do a "fights as heavy foot/defends as light foot" or visa versa.

[Finarvyn]

Feb 2, 2011 0:53:50 GMT -6 cooper said:

You could do a "fights as heavy foot/defends as light foot" or visa versa.

Good point. That's how some of the monsters are written up in Chainmail, so it should work just fine for other figures.

I ran an "OD&D" game with Chainmail combat once using the mass tables, and I let characters choose armor first and then I told them their defensive rating from that. I allowed their class to determine offensive rating. Worked pretty well.

[Finarvyn]

Jan 31, 2011 22:27:31 GMT -6 DungeonDevil said:

And I thought WEG's Star Wars RPG was the limit when it came to buckets of dice!

Apparently, you've never played Tunnels & Trolls.

I bought several bricks'o'dice full of d6's just for my T&T game becasue we needed so many!

[DungeonDevil]

Feb 2, 2011 9:47:26 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Jan 31, 2011 22:27:31 GMT -6 DungeonDevil said:

And I thought WEG's Star Wars RPG was the limit when it came to buckets of dice!

Apparently, you've never played Tunnels & Trolls.

I bought several bricks'o'dice full of d6's just for my T&T game becasue we needed so many!

Never played it, 'though I'm aware that it has a strong following.

You could do a "fights as heavy foot/defends as light foot" or visa versa.

Excellent idea! Thanks.

[DungeonDevil]

How do those experienced Chainmailers interpret the little footnote on pikes/halberds? Does it mean +1 hit/fig?

[cooper]

Knowing Gygax's love for halbards. Knowing that CHAINMAIL references--on more than one occasion how awesome and fearsome swiss pikemen were. Also knowing that pikes and polearms were especially useful on the battlefield when in formation and that they were also particularly good against mounted foes, I will say that it was a full die added.


pole arm rule increase "-x die per man" by 1 when in a tight formation of at least 10 units.
swiss pike rule "fight as 50% larger force in addition to pole arm rule"
open formation rule when not in formation, pole arms fight as light foot.

Let's take normal heavy foot pikemen vs. heavy horse. Normally, the pikemen would be 1d:4m (1 die per 4 men) when attacking HH, but as they are pike they are 1d:3m. Pikes are great in formation.

Swiss pikemen were even more fearsome, in fact they are the only foot troops that cause morale checks as if they were mounted! [pg. 18] they "fight as armored foot with additional die for weapons [this refers to the pole arm rule above] in addition to this, they are treated as being 1/2 stronger than they actually are "for every 2 men treat as if they are 3" [I'm paraphrasing here]

So 10 swiss pikemen fight as 15 armored foot. Example: normal armored foot deals 10d6/4-6 kills vs. Light Foot, pikemen/halbarders deal 20d6/4-6 kills vs. Light Foot and swiss pikemen deal 30d6/4-6.

For comparison 10 HH would roll 40d6/5-6 vs. LF


The down side is, when they are not in formation they fight as Light Foot (which gives us the rule in Ad&d in the DMG that polearms are meant for formation fighting and not useful in a dungeon.

[DungeonDevil]

Thanks for the thorough response!

[Sean Michael Kelly]

Jan 31, 2011 15:56:55 GMT -6 cooper said:

Firstly it's not "minus" 3 die. The minus isn't a "minus" it's an elipses. Ignore the "minus" sign.

I JUST figured this out last night and it felt like cracking the Rosetta Stone... wish I read this topic earlier!!

[DungeonDevil]

I'm relieved to know that I wasn't the only one to be flustered by those blasted, infernal minuses! In retrospect it was a very poor formating decision by Gygax/Perren.

[Sean Michael Kelly]

Right now, the boys and I are setting up toy soldiers on our "gaming table" to test/figure it all out.... looking forward to learning the"Original" OD&D style! Last night my 10yr old son and I played "jousting" by randomizing the offense/defense modes and simply rolled dice to determine our targets and defense stances. We both had a blast and finally figured out what to do with the toy mounted knights we had..... :-)