Man to Man and Fantasy Supplement

[Deleted]

In the CHAINMAIL battle report thread, Matthew said,

"I used to think that meant he only used the man-to-man rules with the FS, but that makes no sense of the way it is written."

We used the Man to Man rules with the Fantasy Supplement all the time. What would you like to know?

("We" being the LGTSA, that is.)

[Matthew]

Nice. Some items that have occurred to me:

Morale Ratings: Does this refer to post melee, stability tests or resistance to cavalry charge?

Weapons: How do you determine the weapons used by the various units and their equivalents? [e.g. what does a giant attack as?]

Armour: How do you determine their armour? [e.g. if a unit of heavy foot attack a troll, what armour do you reference on the man-to-man tables?]

[Deleted]

Morale ratings are for all purposes, though many of the bigger monsters never check morale. But they cause morale effects, so they have a morale rating.

Giants usually were considered to have 2 handed swords, trolls had battle axes, ogres the same, I think.

True Trolls attack and defend as Armored Foot against normal men, so they were considered plate armor. Heavy foot equivalent was chainmail, or if the figure had a shield, chain and shield. Giants attack as Heavy foot, so 2 handed sword or halberd. They defend as Armored Foot, plate armor.

Does that help?

[Matthew]

That is pretty much what we have done when using the "man-to-man" combat system, which is to say extrapolate as best we can based on the ratings of the fantasy units for what appears to be the 1:10/1:20 system [i.e. light foot/heavy foot/armoured foot/light horse/medium horse/heavy horse]. I suppose ogres, trolls and other bipeds were less of a big deal for us than dragons that attack as four heavy horse (daggers, swords, two-handed swords, or something else?).

I am still not sure about those morale ratings, though, I think you may have misunderstood my question. No way a hero needs 20+ on 2d6 to stand against cavalry. Thinking about it now, they have to be the values for calculating post combat morale.

How do you deal with the mass combat dice rolling? Paired dice of different colours?

[Deleted]

Lots of 2d6, one set at a time.

The morale rating is for post melee morale, and some monsters cause morale checks, right.

Attack as heavy horse, we used lance. Four attacks with a lance are pretty darn fierce.

[Matthew]

Right you are. In subsequent rounds do you change from lance to sword/ mace (depending on the armour being faced)? What about the horse trampling effect, do you include that [i.e. 8 flail attacks in subsequent rounds]? Do you use the rules for weapon length and extra attacks?

[Deleted]

1) No
2) No
3) No

[Matthew]

I suppose that I had better ask out of interest whether or not you do any of those three for regular heavy cavalry versus infantry?

[Deleted]

1) Yes
2) Yes

Using Lance for giants all the time made them ultra badass. I figure it reflects that they are just so freaking big, not that they're charging, which is why a lance is so deadly. The heavy horse could keep the lance and use it as a spear after charging, but spears kind of suck.

3) No. That comes under the "Pain in the Tonker" category, like fatigue rules.

[Matthew]

Right, I was thinking more about dragons than giants to be honest, though. I could see using the horse attacks with such creatures (not that I am inclined towards the horse rules myself, the bonus to hit foot troops and penalty for them to hit horse troops is sufficient for me).

[Deleted]

We've used the horse fighting rules a few times, and it turns heavy horse especially into freakin' Cuisinarts.

Lance is just plain deadly, and then to follow it up with sword/flail/flail per figure the next round... well, the good news is your foot troops don't need to check morale...

[Matthew]

Well, to be fair in the 1:20 or 1:10 rules cavalry completely stomp infantry into the dirt. I do think dropping the horse attack rules from the man-to-man combat system would potentially make for a better game with more competitive foot troops.

[Matthew]

Noticed today that stability morale checks seem to come once mêlée has ended, rather than at the end of each mêlée round, as I had thought. How do you play stability morale checks, or how were they meant to be played? I am not sure that I like the idea of units ignoring stability until the combat is over.