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Author Topic: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles  (Read 8630 times)

Offline Seb

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[Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« on: November 19, 2019, 08:00:09 PM »
Hi,

I hope my post will be ok here.

Battle Havoc! is easy to learn and play fantasy wargame where each player commands an army and lead it to the victory on the battlefields. Thanks to alternative activation, all players are involved continuously in action.

Each unit represents up to a few hundreds of men, and the game doesn’t have any particular scale, as players can choose to play with either 28mm, 15mm or smaller miniatures.

Play big battles with just a few miniatures!

Below you will find all you need to start your adventure with Battle Havoc!

https://www.seb-games.com/games/battle-havoc/

The new release includes:
1) Battle Havoc! - Primer - core rules to play Battle Havoc!
2) Basic Armylists including Kingdoms of Dwarves, Greenskins Tribes, Condottiere's League and Realm of The Dead.
3) Minor Artefact
4) Game Tokens

I hope you will enjoy the game!

I really appreciate your feedback. Do you have a question regarding rules? Did you spot a typo or just want to say hi – feel free to drop me a line using the form on the website.

Cheers,
Sebastian


Offline fred

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2019, 10:06:45 PM »
Hi Seb

Thanks for sharing these. I’ve only had a quick read through so far, but there are lots of interesting bits - and lots of similar ideas to our group’s home brew fantasy rules.

A couple of initial questions - how do you find the 4+ to activate for Silver units works in practice - it feels quite a low chance to activate, let alone a 5+ for Bronze units. I quite like some friction in games so that not all units activate, but prefer a 10-20% chance of failure, not 50%+. So it would be good to see how you find this.

Charges - if you can’t reach an enemy due to a low dice roll, does the charging unit move as far as it can, or stay where it started?

Do you have thoughts around spell casters, flying creatures etc?


Offline Seb

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2019, 10:32:13 AM »
Hi Fred,

Thanks for your time  :)

Yes, some players are not so convinced, and see this as a to random. I do have an alternative rule - you take a test only if the unit has a confusion point.  I still need to playtest it, to see the effects on the gameplay.

Charges - my omission, sorry for that, you move your normal rate towards the target.

Yes, I do. My aim for Primer was to cover all the rules you need to play on four pages :D. I have core spells cards almost ready, similar to Minor Artefacts cards. They should be available in December; I need to playtest them a bit before that.

I'm working on a "full rulebook" with other rules, like campaigns, more items and spells but I still want to keep the core rules as easy to enter as possible and free to download.

I hope the above is useful to you.

Cheers,
Seba

Offline fred

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2019, 08:43:23 PM »
Thanks for the extra info.

It is good to know this is the introductory or core rules - with more elements to come.

I think I (and most of the guys I play with) would find the activation chance too low. Swapping to only needing to test when units are confused is a big change, I’d perhaps just go for +1 on the activations, so silver units are on a 3+.  Or allow a commander multiple attempts to activate a unit - as each one costs a command dice.

There seems to be a lot of outcomes to combat
Loss of vitality
Drive backs
Confusion & Panic
Auto kills

I think I would question if all of these are needed? How much do they add to the game?





Offline Seb

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2019, 09:46:48 AM »
No problemo.

Interesting point. So far, from all playtest no one was talking about combat outcome. There where some question why there is no difference between a sword and axe, or hammer and morningstar.

The concept behind was to keep the number of dice rolls in moderate quantity but to have different outcomes, so the game is not just plain "blocks pushing", and it adds a bit of "drama" to the combat :D

Cheers,
Seba

Offline fred

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2019, 05:36:14 PM »
Interesting- for the scale of the game I really don’t think those type of weapon differences come into it. You have key weapon differences which feel right for the representative scale.

As to the different combat outcomes - it might be much less noticeable when playing vs when reading the rules. I’ll have to try to find some time to play through a few turns.

Offline Seb

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2019, 10:05:03 AM »
Yes, please, and I hope you will enjoy the game. And please let us know :D

Offline fred

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #7 on: November 24, 2019, 03:25:41 PM »
Battle Havoc - a run through game

I had a first (solo) run through of Battle Havoc last night - overall it was an enjoyable game. I got a few things wrong, partly through habit of the way our group's 10mm rules play, and partly because it was a first game. The main thing I got wrong throughout the game was the Panic test, I'd mis-read this as a unit Panicking when its Confusion level equalled its Quality level, but it is when it exceeds it - this meant a few units were breaking a earlier than they should of.

I played Greenskin Tribes vs Condottiere League (who will get called Orcs and Empire for easy of typing...)
The two armies were approximately 180 pts a side, which was based on picking an Orc army pointing, then picking an Empire one. The Orcs were all hand-to-hand units, whereas the Empire had a lot of shooting.

The Orc plan was run forward and hit them. The Empire went with a shooty centre, with the intent to advance on the flanks.

The battle lines, Orcs on the left, Empire on the right


The first Orc turn was a disaster, the first Commander rolled two 1s out of his 3 rolls, including an order to himself to Regroup to remove the confusion. He then failed his Quality test to try to remove confusion. I also discovered that I hadn't positioned my commanders very well - as the Commander needs LoS to the troops, it really does mean he needs to lead from behind, mine were position a bit too much to the sides, so were struggling to see the troops they needed to order. On the far side the commander managed to get the Goblin Wolf riders moving, but also got a 1! There were a number of failed orders too.

The Empire troops did better, getting their missile cavalry moving (closest to the camera) and the knights into a position to attack anything coming down the middle. On the far side a couple of units of infantry advanced seeing the Orcs were going nowhere. Then the Empire guns opened up. The cavalry fired first, driving the wolf riders back, so far back the second unit of cavalry didn't have a target!. The Ribauldequin (aka Organ Gun) fired a very powerful volley causing lots of wounds and drive back, with the canons adding to the wolf riders woes.

The end of Turn 1


One Orc commander was Panicked and left the battle - the wolf riders used initiative moves to charge in. Probably not the best as they were all damaged from shooting - but otherwise they were going to be stuck being shot at. I then correctly remembered to rotate activating commanders between the sides. The Orcs pushed forward their infantry, which was then charged by the knights. The Empire gun line waited on the hill. The snow trolls got moving off their hill. And on the fire side the Empire commander managed to move another unit out of the wood, but failed to move himself forward. The Orcs still failed a number of orders and managed to roll more 1s.

Empire shooting was less effective mainly due to most targets being in combat. Most of the combats went to the Empire troops - with the heavy cavalry causing a lot of wounds, and confusion to the Orcs infantry.

The Empire missile cavalry won their fight against the Goblin wolf riders pushing them back, into the other Empire cavalry stand - it wasn't clear what should happen here - but as they were already panicked - it wasn't likely to be good.



The end of the second turn

Offline fred

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #8 on: November 24, 2019, 03:38:43 PM »
The next turn the Panicked orc units had to fall back, allowing the Empire cavalry to make further charges



But the snow trolls were able to counter charge, giving a two on one against the knights. But the Orcs nearest the camera were double teamed by Empire cavalry.

The Empire cavalry kept routing units - as infantry loosing to cavalry in the open is an auto kill. In the centre the snow trolls held up that unit of knights. The gun line had no targets. And the Orc command continued to struggle.



The knights charged the static goblin spearmen - mainly to see how it went - not sure I would have normally chosen this, as the missile cavalry could have shot them up a bit to start with.


This led to the next in line unit of goblin spears being able to flank the knights, who in turn were charged by the missile cavalry, who in turn were charged by the third unit of goblin spears - all under reaction moves.



Not really sure if this is right - but it seemed to the logical outcome of alternating reaction moves.
The static goblins (who got double attacks for their spears) held their own. But the missile cavalry managed to drive back their attacking goblins - which panicked them (this was the point I realised I was doing the confusion to panic rule wrong).

At this point I called the game as the orcs were getting battered across the table, having lost 7 units and 2 commanders without killing anything!!

Offline fred

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #9 on: November 24, 2019, 03:57:36 PM »
Thoughts and Questions

I like the overall concept of the rules, the use of Vitality and Class as the two core stats for units works well - and I used different coloured dice to represent this on the units (I was intending to use white dice for silver, red for bronze and green for gold, but there were so many Silver units, I had to use white this scheme for the orcs, but Green for silver and Whte for gold for the Empire troops - but it would be easy enough to get a few more mini dice to represent these directly. I'd also be tempted to put dice frames on all my bases - I only do it on some at the minute.

I like the use of confusion and hits.

LoS - not clear if this is meant to be a corridor the width of the base - or just from any spot on the front edge, to any spot on the enemy base. I played the latter, but does mean you can shoot more easily, but also allows orders to be given more easily.

In Terrain there is no mention of Trees or Buildings. Nor is there any mention of the effects of height on LoS.

I assumed Hero's have to be ordered to move / regroup etc?

I don't think I had to roll for any charge distances.

Interpenetration - is this allowed? I assumed not. But if it isn't it can be hard to move Heroes forward.

Shooting - vitality loss, do you check for each 1/3 of Vitality lost in a turn? e.g. if you have 6 vitality, and suffer 4 damage do you test once or twice? Also is this always 1/3 of starting vitality, or current?

Fall back moves - if these are blocked what happens

Rout moves - if these are blocked what happens? Also not sure these are really needed as the unit will be removed at the end of the command phase if not rallied.

When wining a combat and charging, I think that a second round of combat isn't fort, it just locks the units in for the next turn?


Army List Questions
Hand Weapon - does this need specifying if not it would tidy up the lists a bit? Can Artillery fight in Combat? Similarly in the Armour column the word armour is redundant on each line, it could just say Heavy rather than Heavy Amor

Ribauldequin - this is insanely good, I think it should be range 24cm, not 48cm. It perhaps should also need to take a quality check to avoid becoming confused each time it shoots.

Canon - these are poor, perhaps should have the Blast rule?

Type - on the lists they are Individuals, but in the rules Heroes.

Crusher - how does this work in a 2v1 combat, where only one enemy has been charged?

Leader - mentions Order Poll I think this should be Command Pool

Movement - I'd like this on the army lists it makes it easier to reference them, then the fast rule could be dropped.

Greenskins
Goblin Archers - should they have cowardly too?
Goblins - are these correctly vitality 8?
Pole-Arms - I think I would call this Long Spears, to me pole-arms are bills and halberds etc i.e. weapons for hacking and hitting as much as prodding. Whereas in the rules this weapon class seems to be spears and pikes.


Sorry there is a lot here - but they are mainly just tiding up things and I enjoyed the rules so felt it was worth typing all of this up!



« Last Edit: November 24, 2019, 04:18:38 PM by fred »

Offline Seb

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #10 on: November 25, 2019, 02:57:19 PM »
Awesome!

I'm glad you did the game :D

I'm working on FAQ and Errata for rules, but I will try to answer all the questions:

Quote
LoS - not clear if this is meant to be a corridor the width of the base - or just from any spot on the front edge, to any spot on the enemy base. I played the latter, but does mean you can shoot more easily, but also allows orders to be given more easily.
This is a bit unclean. But yes, you were correct. To be precise, you should measure it from the centre point of your front base to the centre point of the closes enemy base edge. This way, players can use a slightly different base sizes.

Quote
I assumed Hero's have to be ordered to move/regroup etc?
Nope, my fault. When activated, Hero can issue an order to other units (by spending his orders). But you are allowed to move your Hero for free at the beginning or at the end of his activation.

Quote
I don't think I had to roll for any charge distances.
If you can charge enemy unit that is within your movement range there is no need to for that. The extra dice simply allow your unit to charge on longer distance but with the risk of not reaching the target.

Quote
Shooting - vitality loss, do you check for each 1/3 of Vitality lost in a turn? e.g. if you have 6 vitality, and suffer 4 damage do you test once or twice? Also is this always 1/3 of starting vitality, or current?
Every time you lose 1/3 of your current Vitality

Quote
Fall back moves - if these are blocked what happens
Rout moves - if these are blocked what happens?
The unit receives one extra Coifusion Point if the falling back unit is Panicked it's destroyed and removed from the game.

Quote
Also not sure these are really needed as the unit will be removed at the end of the command phase if not rallied.
Yes, but if the unit is railed is not "back in action" instantly - if that made sense? The unit panicked run away a bit, but the commander managed to put them all together

Army lists
Hand Weapon - it's just to make clear that the unit can take part in Combat Phase. So in case of artillery, if there is no hand weapon it can't take part in combat and is destroyed if is attacked. (I believe there is an omission in rules, my mistake) 
The "armour" - I prefer Heavy Armour, Light Armour as there are rules for light troops etc. This is repeated to make it clear and avoid possible confusion.

Quote
Type
Leader
Yes, that's the typos. Thanks for spotting them
 
Ribauldequin - this how it works in the first draft of rules, and I think I will get back to the original version with limited range.

Goblin Archers - oddly enough nope, it was one of the first units I created 
Goblins - yes, but from playtesting it still need a bit of tweaking
Pole-Arms - hmm, yes there is a question of definition :D I was looking for sort of a broad definition.

I hope I addressed your question. I think I will also write a Rules Commentary articles, to put some light on the reason behind some of the rules. For example, the Regiment rules were intended to be used in big battles, like the one you played. Standard size battle is about 50-75pt :D, nothing wrong with 180, just my personal preference.

I got a few questions to you if you don't mind answer:
  • What was the table size?
  • Did you use full measurements or did you half them?
  • Did you use Army Cohesion rules[/il]
Once again, big thank you for giving it a try and for the feedback.

Cheers,
Seb

Offline fred

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #11 on: November 25, 2019, 07:21:17 PM »
Hi Seb, thanks for all the answers, they clear up bits. I think a few could easily be updated in the rules to make them that little bit clearer, without the need for a FAQ.

The unit receives one extra Coifusion Point if the falling back unit is Panicked it's destroyed and removed from the game.
Yes, but if the unit is railed is not "back in action" instantly - if that made sense? The unit panicked run away a bit, but the commander managed to put them all together
OK - that makes sense. I think I was hopeless at regrouping my troops.


Hand Weapon - it's just to make clear that the unit can take part in Combat Phase. So in case of artillery, if there is no hand weapon it can't take part in combat and is destroyed if is attacked. (I believe there is an omission in rules, my mistake) 
Yes I think that needs making explicit - I think the rules say that if Artillery loose combat they are destroyed. But it sounds like they should automatically loose combat.



I hope I addressed your question. I think I will also write a Rules Commentary articles, to put some light on the reason behind some of the rules. For example, the Regiment rules were intended to be used in big battles, like the one you played. Standard size battle is about 50-75pt :D, nothing wrong with 180, just my personal preference.
I used the regiment rules, they are very useful, and are good in forcing you to keep like units together. It would be an idea to give an indication of a standard battle size - I did look for this when there was a recommended table size. My choice of battle was arbitrary from putting down figures for one force - and giving me a few different troops to try.

What constitutes a big battle vs a small one is pretty subjective!

This is a big battle with our 10mm rules - this was an all day game.



This is more of typical evening's game




I got a few questions to you if you don't mind answer:
  • What was the table size?
  • Did you use full measurements or did you half them?
  • Did you use Army Cohesion rules[/il]

Table size - about 4'x3' although I deployed in a bit so probably 3'x3' effectively

Full size measurements - they are close enough to what I am used to from Warmaster or our Home brew rules

I didn't use Army Cohesion - to be honest this was the one bit of the rules I didn't really understand.
e.g. Crashing enemy unit?
What is the difference between destroyed and fled?
If a friendly unit looses combat and is destroyed , how many ACP are lost, 1, 2 or 3?
If this was a hero do you loose an extra 1 ACP?

A couple of other things:
The rules mention designate a hero as the overall commander - but I can't see where this matters in the rules?
Monsters - it would be good to have at least one example monster on one of the four army lists.


Once again, big thank you for giving it a try and for the feedback.
Glad it was useful  :)

Offline frank xerox

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #12 on: November 26, 2019, 11:56:41 AM »
10mm looks good - Id assumed this would be small unit skirmish with larger scale figures, but I like the mass battle look and it sounds like the mechanics work well with that. I think I'll give this a bash with my warmaster stuff - mostly historicals but what the hell and itll push me to finish those orcs.


Offline Seb

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #13 on: November 26, 2019, 05:18:59 PM »
Hi Frank Xerox,

10mm looks good - Id assumed this would be small unit skirmish with larger scale figures, but I like the mass battle look and it sounds like the mechanics work well with that. I think I'll give this a bash with my warmaster stuff - mostly historicals but what the hell and itll push me to finish those orcs.

Go for it :D, and yes 10mm work nicely.

I myself use 28mm, but I have some 10mm and 15mm minis on my workbench. I always wanted the game to fit in different scales, and allow it to be played pretty small table :D

Fred,
Quote
It would be an idea to give an indication of a standard battle size - I did look for this when there was a recommended table size. My choice of battle was arbitrary from putting down figures for one force - and giving me a few different troops to try.

I put this info at the end as this is where are rules about deployment etc. But yeah, adding a sentence at the beginning will be probably a good idea.

Quote
I didn't use Army Cohesion - to be honest this was the one bit of the rules I didn't really understand.
e.g. Crashing enemy unit?
What is the difference between destroyed and fled?
If a friendly unit looses combat and is destroyed , how many ACP are lost, 1, 2 or 3?
If this was a hero do you loose an extra 1 ACP?

If the unit is removed from the game because is Panicked at the end of the Command Phase or leave the battlefield because of Reaction Move in those cases the unit is treaded as a Fled not Destroyed.

The lost of APC - If a unit is Destroyed, you reduce APC only by 2 points (they do not cumulate). So when you lose a Hero is a -1APC.
But I will give it a good look and maybe rewrite it to make it more clear.

Quote
A couple of other things:
The rules mention designate a hero as the overall commander - but I can't see where this matters in the rules?
Monsters - it would be good to have at least one example monster on one of the four army lists.

Overall commander is something for advance rules - stuff like multiplayer games, scenarios etc. But I wanted to highlight this, so gamers are aware of it.

Monster yes, they are going to be a topic of the upcoming minis series of articles, I just need to finish painting them :D

And last but not least.

Your big games look aweeessoommeee :D

Cheers,
Seb

Offline fred

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Re: [Commercial] Battle Havoc! - new rules for fantasy battles
« Reply #14 on: November 26, 2019, 06:56:56 PM »
10mm looks good - Id assumed this would be small unit skirmish with larger scale figures, but I like the mass battle look and it sounds like the mechanics work well with that. I think I'll give this a bash with my warmaster stuff - mostly historicals but what the hell and itll push me to finish those orcs.

Hey Frank, 10mm always looks good. Give the rules a go with your historical Warmaster stuff - you can easily match units to he army lists. I did some swapping around on the Greenskins list, just to fit more with what I thought the stats represented rather than the names.

Monster yes, they are going to be a topic of the upcoming minis series of articles, I just need to finish painting them :D

And last but not least.

Your big games look aweeessoommeee :D

Cheers,
Seb

Thanks Seb - a big 10mm game always looks good - and a small 10mm game can look pretty big!

Good to hear you have some updates on the way