Brief Chainmail battle report on my blog

[jmccann]

Here:

consimnet.blogspot.com/2013/08/chainmail-scenario-at-2013-dragonflight.html

is a brief report of the combination Chainmail/ Labyrinth Lord game I ran at the Seattle Dragonflight convention last week. Not entirely successful, but I learned a lot and I think people enjoyed it despite the problems.

[cooper]

Nice report. Some things to think about beginning to keep track of (if you aren't already).

1) making sure you are allowing multiple rounds of combat per turn.
2) rules on how charging forces must continue charge movement even if it means moving though/past opposing forces.
3) rules on sweeping formations around to flank opposing forces (see #1 and #2 above)

There are some others. I'll link to in an edit in just a moment.

Here's my morale walkthrough

Make sure you're up to date on how rounds work

When formulating your armies, you can consider using the XP value of the leader as the amount of Gold able to be spent on outfitting said army subtracting the cost of a castle etc. This way you aren't "making up" what magic items, fantastic henchmen et al law or chaos will have. For example if your army leader is 7th level, then he should have about 64,000gp to buy an army with (say 640pts). This is where the FFC by arneson comes in handy in showing how to outfit a lord/wizard/high priest fairly.

For example, your Baron Athelstand on the side of Law should be limited in number of heroes based on his available # of henchmen based on his charisma. Each of these henchman heroes should be leading a unit (and providing a morale+leader bonus detailed in the man-to-man rules). Any magic items a character has should be subtracted from the army commanders GP total (based on the XP value provided in the DMG). Fantastic units cost 100gp per HD per individual (including heroic/henchmen forces).

Adding such book keeping makes outfitting an army much more organic and less arbitrary--the DMG is quite invaluable for this since this is where gygax put all of his Arneson FFC stuff.

For example leader.

Naed AC 10; MV 12'; Magic-user/7; hp 15; # AT 1; dmg 1d6; S. 6 D. 9 C. 12 I. 13 W. 11. Ch. 8; AL C; XP 45,000; dagger+2, potion of invisibility, robes of extension I; lang. common, chaotic, elf, goblin, dwarf; spells 4/3/2/1
Spell books:
Book 1: *charm person, *spider climb, *message, *read magic, push
book 2: *continual light, *melf’s acid arrow
book 3: clairvoyance, *protection from normal missiles, *fly
book 4: *enchanted weapon

Gross worth: 50,000xp
Net Worth after purchasing all below 5,500gp+2,500gp in magic items.

One time costs

Alchemy lab: 1k (price taken from DMG magic item creation section)

Monthly Costs

2 crossbowmen: 16gp
1 alchemist 300gp
1 alchemy lab 100gp
personal upkeep 1% of xp: 500gp
henchman: apprentice level 3 mu 300gp
henchman ogre 400gp

Total: 1,566gp per month


Annual gross Income (as determined from magic potion creation section of DMG)

potion and scroll making (clairvoyance): 7,500gp from thirty potions, 18,000gp from thirty scrolls assuming 50% productivity (50% of the time would be spent adventuring, making contacts with vendors, quests, finding ingredients etc. A totally unscrupulous magician, could harvest organs from humans which would increase productivity, lower costs and probably double income of the clairvoyance potions and scrolls (q.v. reagants for clairvoyance potions in the DMG...)


annual net income

+6,708 gp per year (up to 32, 208gp for full time work). With an outlay of 20,000gp Naed could begin to invest in his own library and employ a sage with which to lower spell creation costs as well as to source components for new potions depending on the sages specialty. If Naed could clear a hex and attract settlers, or charm the leader of a humanoid village, he could expect another +2,500gp per year in revenue from a typical village of vassals.

So with about 7000gp per year in income, if Naed needed to go to war he could hire a 70 point army or up to 320 points if he spent an entire year crafting potions.

Here's an example I set up for Keep on the Borderlands and between a drow city and greyhawk city

Here's Naed the 7th level mu, but at 10th level and after having purchased a tower and outfitted a small force of men.

[jmccann]

Thanks. I'll take a look at your links. I would like to start up an ongoing campaign and will probably base it largely on the FFC material.

[Deleted]

Nice little report.

Did you use the Man to Man or 1:20 combat resolution?

But yeah, a charge of heavy knights is pretty much going to shatter anything much weaker unless they're outnumbered around 4:1 or more.

[jmccann]

We used the mass-battle rules. We just winged it for the Labyrinth Lord stuff - really spells were the only thing that were important.

[scalydemon]

It was good to meet you jmccann and give Chainmail a try. One of those bucket list games for me for sure.

I think you can learn a lot more by actually getting a game out and giving it a go playing it - than just reading through the rules multiple times. This exercise seems to prove that point

[waysoftheearth]

A slight tangent, but worth remarking upon this:

Aug 18, 2013 18:43:04 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

a charge of heavy knights is pretty much going to shatter anything much weaker unless they're outnumbered around 4:1 or more.

I haven't played Chainmail specifically, but of historical wargames in general I think @gronanofsimmerya 's observation would be true for open terrain only. Knights (or other mounted troops) shouldn't expect to do well against pike or spear infantry, or against any reliable foot that are positioned uphill, or in difficult ground, and mounted troops would expose themselves to genuine risk if charging densely formed missile troops, especially the superior sorts.

[Red Baron]

Aug 19, 2013 17:13:27 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

A slight tangent, but worth remarking upon this:

Aug 18, 2013 18:43:04 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

a charge of heavy knights is pretty much going to shatter anything much weaker unless they're outnumbered around 4:1 or more.

I haven't played Chainmail specifically, but of historical wargames in general I think @gronanofsimmerya 's observation would be true for open terrain only. Knights (or other mounted troops) shouldn't expect to do well against pike or spear infantry, or against any reliable foot that are positioned uphill, or in difficult ground, and mounted troops would expose themselves to genuine risk if charging densely formed missile troops, especially the superior sorts.

Ever played Medieval 2: Total War? A unit of heavy cavalry charging downhill would mow down anything short of pikes.

Example
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuEbhv6A4Q0

[waysoftheearth]

Aug 19, 2013 17:38:56 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Ever played Medieval 2: Total War? A unit of heavy cavalry charging downhill would mow down anything short of pikes.

Example
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuEbhv6A4Q0

I agree that's entirely plausible Red Baron, but I meant to imply the situation when the foot are positioned uphill, and the mounted are positioned downhill of them

[Red Baron]

Aug 19, 2013 17:54:39 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

Aug 19, 2013 17:38:56 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Ever played Medieval 2: Total War? A unit of heavy cavalry charging downhill would mow down anything short of pikes.

Example
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuEbhv6A4Q0

I agree that's entirely plausible Red Baron, but I meant to imply the situation when the foot are positioned uphill, and the mounted are positioned downhill of them

Ah. I missed your meaning.

That's where that "bold knights must charge nearby units" rule comes into play and you realize you're about to have a lot of dead horses on your hands.

[Deleted]

Aug 19, 2013 17:54:39 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

Aug 19, 2013 17:38:56 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Ever played Medieval 2: Total War? A unit of heavy cavalry charging downhill would mow down anything short of pikes.

Example
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuEbhv6A4Q0

I agree that's entirely plausible Red Baron, but I meant to imply the situation when the foot are positioned uphill, and the mounted are positioned downhill of them

True, but the photos he showed of the battlefield showed a wide flat narrow place to hem the Orcs in nicely.

[Red Baron]

Not sure if this applies to the orcs in the scenario, but the ad&d monster manual says that 50% of orcs carry polearms or spears. Chainmail says they attack and defend as heavy foot.

So the orcs should hold up better than I had initially thought, but I've played enough total war that I can't get the images of heavy spearmen flying into the air and get trampled underfoot as a unit of horsemen a third the size hit them head on.

[waysoftheearth]

I wonder how it might have gone if the sides were well balanced?

Seems that the forces of law were mostly mounted while the chaotics were mostly afoot.

Therefore, the chaotics might have done well to deploy some "bait" right up the back between the arms of the hills, with their main strength positioned on either hill waiting to swoop down. In that scenario, the knights would probably have been forced to dismount in order to assault the hills, but even then they would be disadvantaged fighting their way uphill.

On the other side, the lawfuls wouldn't want to fall for such an obvious trap, so they would have done well to deploy most of their strength to one flank (say, left of picture) leaving a few fast moving sweepers to delay/block the chaotic on the other flank from rejoining the battle. The lawfuls could focus much of their strength on that one enemy flank. Even if they had to scale a hill dismounted (which they probably would have to), concentrating on one hill would be preferable to attacking both hills at once, or getting crushed between them.

Overall, seems like it should have been a hard ask for the lawfuls... but the battle report says the chaotics got smashed. Partly due to poor balance, perhaps, but also due to poor deployment I reckon


Great fun jmccann, looking forward to hearing about what happens next!

[Red Baron]

I would grab another player for the session take the role of the evil high priest. The chaotics would probably have done better and the battle would have more unexpected twists if they had a commander that was trying to crush the heroes. Intelligent evil is scary evil.

[jmccann]

Aug 20, 2013 6:12:10 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

I wonder how it might have gone if the sides were well balanced?

Seems that the forces of law were mostly mounted while the chaotics were mostly afoot.

Therefore, the chaotics might have done well to deploy some "bait" right up the back between the arms of the hills, with their main strength positioned on either hill waiting to swoop down. In that scenario, the knights would probably have been forced to dismount in order to assault the hills, but even then they would be disadvantaged fighting their way uphill.

On the other side, the lawfuls wouldn't want to fall for such an obvious trap, so they would have done well to deploy most of their strength to one flank (say, left of picture) leaving a few fast moving sweepers to delay/block the chaotic on the other flank from rejoining the battle. The lawfuls could focus much of their strength on that one enemy flank. Even if they had to scale a hill dismounted (which they probably would have to), concentrating on one hill would be preferable to attacking both hills at once, or getting crushed between them.

Overall, seems like it should have been a hard ask for the lawfuls... but the battle report says the chaotics got smashed. Partly due to poor balance, perhaps, but also due to poor deployment I reckon


Great fun jmccann, looking forward to hearing about what happens next!

The mounted Chaotic forces held up well. There will be more foot, more medium cavalry and more missile troops and a wider valley.

In the scenario the parts of the hills facing the center were impassable cliffs so what you are describing is a little off.

Also, don't forget this is not just a military scenario and the bad guys have enough spells and whatnot to take out a couple of the heroes of Law. In fact that happened although it is not reflected in the battle report. The baddy got away w/ the loot and now there is a chase.

[jmccann]

Aug 20, 2013 7:36:46 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

I would grab another player for the session take the role of the evil high priest. The chaotics would probably have done better and the battle would have more unexpected twists if they had a commander that was trying to crush the heroes. Intelligent evil is scary evil.

Who you calling unintelligent ??

I thought about having one of the players take the side of Chaos but decided against it. If I expand this into a campaign I will probably have some players taking the part of Chaos but I want to have something to do.

[Deleted]

The point values in Chainmail actually work pretty well to balance a scenario.

[waysoftheearth]

Aug 20, 2013 8:05:10 GMT -6 jmccann said:

In the scenario the parts of the hills facing the center were impassable cliffs so what you are describing is a little off.

Doh! Curses to inconvenient terrain

[Red Baron]

Aug 20, 2013 8:07:40 GMT -6 jmccann said:

Aug 20, 2013 7:36:46 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

I would grab another player for the session take the role of the evil high priest. The chaotics would probably have done better and the battle would have more unexpected twists if they had a commander that was trying to crush the heroes. Intelligent evil is scary evil.

Who you calling unintelligent ??

I thought about having one of the players take the side of Chaos but decided against it. If I expand this into a campaign I will probably have some players taking the part of Chaos but I want to have something to do.

I didn't mean to imply that. A judge would have an interest in the chaotic forces loosing so that the adventure could progress to the final showdown/ horseback chase/ whatever. Otherwise he doesn't get to use all that material he painstakingly dreamed up.He feels if he plays to well he'll kill the heroes. 

Players make unexpected blunders and shrewd tactical moves in a way that judges tend not too. I feel it makes for a more interesting game and a seemingly more intelligent enemy to have a player commanding as the EHP.

[jmccann]

Aug 20, 2013 17:34:21 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Aug 20, 2013 8:07:40 GMT -6 jmccann said:

Who you calling unintelligent ??

I thought about having one of the players take the side of Chaos but decided against it. If I expand this into a campaign I will probably have some players taking the part of Chaos but I want to have something to do.

I didn't mean to imply that. A judge would have an interest in the chaotic forces loosing so that the adventure could progress to the final showdown/ horseback chase/ whatever. Otherwise he doesn't get to use all that material he painstakingly dreamed up.He feels if he plays to well he'll kill the heroes. 

Players make unexpected blunders and shrewd tactical moves in a way that judges tend not too. I feel it makes for a more interesting game and a seemingly more intelligent enemy to have a player commanding as the EHP.

Don't worry, I did not REALLY think you wuz callin me stoopid.

You are right about me not trying to wipe out the players. I definitely was not trying to wipe out the players, as an independent player would have tried to do. It would be even harder to balance the overall scenario under those circumstances. Even if there were an independent player though, there was not enough threat from the Chaos forces, and the botched terrain design (too narrow valley) ended up making the Chaos side entirely too brittle.