Role of armour in skirmish games

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

In large battles with formations I think there is no question about the role of armour, but in skirmish games I think this is harder to model.
Most rules make armour a major benefit to a character without any real draw-backs.  But if you have a few adventurers running around in the wilderness, would they really be armoured and jugging big shields?  In irregular warfare we know Greek Hoplites were at a distinct disadvantage.
How do games/should games model the advantages and disadvantages of armour?

For Sellswords and Spellslingers shield and armour almost unbalance the game.  Characters without are at such a disadvantage you would wonder why anyone would not wear armour.
For this set of rules I wonder about encumberance affecting activation rolls - this seems the easiest solution.
Any other ideas welcome.

[Nordic1980s]

Attachment shows how Mordheim ruleset added helmets and bucklers into a traditional Warhammer game, to make it feel more skirmish-level appropriate.

Disadvantages of armour ought to be cost and lessening of dexterity and acrobatics skills. A full plate armour ought not be cheap in game world points systems or necessarily easily available in low power games. Imagine a Robin Hood like skirmish scenario where bandits plan to beat a lone black knight, with his gear of sword and armour being the major prize.  Disadvantages to dexterity and such could be modelled in several ways. Here are few examples.

Say one side has a flanking force that arrives at some table side edge. If they were heavily armoured forces carrying longs swords, halbers, pikes, standards, flags and whatnot, a referee could say they make noice (or make noice on given change of dice roll) and tell the opposing player their arrival edge one turn before they show up. Whereas if they were lightly equipped rangers/elves/fairies, they would make no noice and would turn up just like that at either table side edge at player's decision.

Imagine a battlefield, where there are some derelict castle ruins on an edge of a foggy swamp or marsh. In such an unclear environment combatants could hear each other before seeing. Now imagine how cloak-clad skirmishers could at a distance look like a guardsman going on a duty, or how they could try to cross swampy grounds with no clanking of metal, unlike more burdened troops, thus opening new movement possibilities. A referee could ask the skirmish force player where he wants to move his models and allow for sudden appearance of wall-scaling raiders that appeared from the mists. Naturally, the referee could force dice rolls to spice things up Hollywood style, so as not to give too much advantage to lightly armoured side. A heavily armoured guardsman on top of a wall could have for example 1 in 6 change in hearing their arrival, or 2 in 6 if the model figure is not wearing an ear covering helmet.

As for battlefield movement, it should be hard for armoured side to catch up lighter forces by running. In modern times this is very hard with all the flak vests, helmets and gear (that change into an instant sauna the moment you start running) and it's rather hard to catch up lightly clad scouts/guerillas by running in the forest while carrying such a gear (LRRP versus flak-wearing infantry grunts.). Plus, the lightly armed forces often tend to be of runner stock of humans, whereas the armoured forces would spend the days at the training grounds practising sword fighting, formation marching, guard duties and such. One way to model this could be to give a comparative disadvantage to armoured or burdened troops when moving in dense terrain, or in terrain with a plenty of vertical changes. (In an open terrain the difference in movement speeds is likely not that much over the first couple of hundred of metres. Please see more here and here.)

In 25/28mm scale battlefields it's difficult to represent long term movement differences, as practically all models could in real life run from one end of the battlefield to another in tens of seconds, or even less. Even armoured persons could use all of their invidual power levels to run like a mad for such distances on a good road or level ground. If playing out a campaign, a referee could give relative advantage to the more lightly burdened force based on the battlefield location. For example if battle takes in forest, an unburdened force (no war machines, no armoured foot knights carrying heavy sacks of loot or supplies) could be given chance to deploy their forces more freely (forward deployment, flanking) than the other force containing burdened forces (war machines present, armoured forces carrying loot or supplies). On a level and open battlefield, like an agricultural field, there would be less of a comparative advantage and both kind of forces could be deployed similarily.

[DS615]

In my rules, Armor gives a bonus to damage defense roll, and a corosponding penalty to the to-hit roll.
There are only movement penalties for heavy armor.

It models things just fine without being bogged down in nonsense minutae.

[Faust23]

In my Brink of Battle, Epic Heroes, Scrappers, and now The Sword Marches skirmish games.....Armor WORKS.

It's one of the most consistently useful things. Sure, there's stuff that negates it at times, but its worth its weight in gold.

[Pendrake]

For Sellswords and Spellslingers shield and armour almost unbalance the game.  Characters without are at such a disadvantage you would wonder why anyone would not wear armour.

For this set of rules I wonder about encumberance affecting activation rolls - this seems the easiest solution.

Any other ideas welcome.

I would hate tracking a gradual accumulating encumbrance value.

I recall a scene from the movie version of Henry V. One of the Dukes (wearing heavy armor with Henry’s Coat Arms) gets surrounded, attacked, apprehended, and ultimately butchered by surly, unarmored, thuggish, French peasantry.

Try a game mechanic balancing Armor against Numbers ...?

[Hobgoblin]

Hmm ... I think armour should be a major advantage. A fifteenth-century man-at-arms in full plate would take a fair bit of killing. And until you get to that stage, a shield should be a massive advantage over not having one.

Song of Blades does this pretty well, I think, and very simply. Heavily armoured characters are often represented by a higher combat (C) stat (e.g. 4), as well as the Heavy Armour rule. That makes them highly resistant to missiles and most attacks, but force of numbers will very quickly whittle those advantages away. So a C4 knight with Heavy Armour will be on negative C if he's surrounded by five C1 or C2 peasants.

Another interesting approach is that taken by The Black Hack, where armour gives you a pool of extra hit points. Once those are gone, you start taking wounds. It's abstract - representing fatigue and damage to armour - but quite effective. The armour points regenerate after an hour-long rest, so in most skirmish games, they'd just be gone.

[Nordic1980s]

Hmm ... I think armour should be a major advantage. A fifteenth-century man-at-arms in full plate would take a fair bit of killing. And until you get to that stage, a shield should be a massive advantage over not having one.

This. That in the classic Warhammer style of games a full plate armour clad knight equipped with a shield has a puny 4,5,6 on D6 roll save is farce, let alone that a large shield gives only a 1 in 6 save on D6 roll. On a setting with no gunpowder weapons, methinks a full plate and shield ought to give 2,3,4,5,6 save on D6. Save modifiers can be used to reflect expectionally hard blows from large sized weapons or enemy attacks, or hits from armour piercing arrow heads as shot from bows and crossbows.

One other thing Warhammer rules get wrong is the assumed additional protection offered by cavalry mounts to their riders. Like wtf the game design studio were thinking of. A skirmish game ruleset ought to have no such odd ideas, also in rule systems where mount and the rider are considered one model by rules. Horse barding armour could be modelled in a non-linear fashion like the Mordheim helmets described above: they are considered only if enemy chooses to attack the mount instead of rider, or if the mount runs into a trap, barricade, flames or such.

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

I am not saying armour does not have a major benefit, but that only the benefits of armour are modeled, not the disadvantages.  I am also meaning for small skirmish games and possibly more "adventure" games. 
I agree that plate armour is very effective and often archery against plate armoured opponents is too powerful.  But running around a forest in armour has its disadvantages: poor vision caused by helmets, fatigue, slower speed, shields catching on things.

In the Sellswords system I am thinking more of armour affects the activation roll (from 8+ to 9+) if heavy (reflecting slower movement and impaired vision of a heavy helm) and otherwise all armour types, to some degree, making terrain rolls more difficult (1 worse for lighter armour and two worse for heavy).  I don't think armour should prevent spell casting, but may also reduce how effective this is.  Elven or dwarven armour would mitigate some of these problems and someone untrained in the use of armour might have extra penalties.  The actual defensive nature is not affected.

I am not paricularly interested in plate armour as I prefer an early-medieval vibe. 

[Hobgoblin]

I am not saying armour does not have a major benefit, but that only the benefits of armour are modeled, not the disadvantages.  I am also meaning for small skirmish games and possibly more "adventure" games. 

I think you've put your finger on it here with "adventure games".  To my mind, armour in RPGs should have massive advantages in combat but massive disadvantages out of combat. A while back, I posted some ideas on those advantages and disadvantages here here and here.

So, rather than penalising activations, I'd look to penalise non-combat actions like jumping, crossing obstacles and climbing. And swimming, of course! If you set up a table with sufficient non-combat challenges, you might well get the balance you want.

As an example, you might have an objective placed on a pinnacle of rock - a wyvern's egg, perhaps. Armoured characters would face severe disadvantages in getting up there (and a greater chance of falling and dying). They could, of course, take a round or two to shed their armour (1 round for light, 2 rounds for heavy), which slows them down and allows competitors to get an edge - or monsters to catch them.

That's what I try to do in RPGs - which, perhaps, is why almost everyone in those games wants to be the Deft/thief class!

[Elk101]

Hobgoblin, this is exactly my preferred approach. The steel clad human tanks might be hard to damage in close combat, but if they find themselves having to outrun something bigger and nastier, they're going to wish they were that ranger 100m ahead.

[The Bibliophile]

This thread is rich in great ideas on how to help balance armor in some of these games. Thanks, gents!

[Dentatus]

So we're defining 'skirmish' as a handful of individuals each with unique weapon and ability sets. But not an RPG-level of detail. Yes?

In the spirit of keeping the game flowing and minimizing book-keeping/tracking encumbrance and such, the obvious solution would be to decrease the model's Movement rate (or Agility. Climbing. Swimming, certainly) if equipped with heavy armor. I always thought the trade off was Speed; skirmishers, recon, scout models/units refrain in order to move fast, seize key locations, and generally stay out of reach of heavier units. 

As far as Activation or Initiative goes, I seriously doubt a soldier moving into combat would become less alert because of Armor type.

I do know there's a couple of historical records that show a trained knight in full armor was actually far more agile than expected. So I do assign/presume a level of competence here.

We're playing the RPG 'Symbaroum' at the moment and while Armor soaks damage (heavier = more) each type/level has an Impediment factor which affects Quickness. (Dexterity) So even there, it's pretty much the Armor  v Speed trade. 

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

In SS&SS I found a reduction in the activation is too detrimental.  Lately I have just had armour affect terrain rolls/ climbing/ swimming.  I did try changing the armour mechanics so that it did potentially reduce damage.  I am currently using a minimally modified Frostgrave/ Rangers of Shadow Deep melee mechanic rather than the Sellswords one.  This gives faster combat but has an inbuilt effect of armour reducing damage. Whe  I get home from my holiday I will try this some more but it seems to work well for me.

I have read a little about Symbaroum. I would love to have you write a thread about this

[Dentatus]

There's not much to say really. Put aside the cool, dark, brooding aesthetic, Symbaroum is a pretty streamlined game that translates well to the table top.

Then again, as one approaching RPGs from a war gaming angle, my adventures tend combat-heavy. Not so much social or puzzle-oriented. It varies to some degree, but everyone knows swords are coming out at some point.

[jetengine]

Another thought to balance heavy armour.

Noise.

If you have any "Sneak around" scenarios or "Hide" options in your game then your big clanking dude in light-catching armour is going to be at a significant disadvantage.