First Game Played, Initial Thoughts

[Tordenskjold]

Managed to have my first actual game of IHMN a few days ago and loved it. The rules are extremely simple, making for little need to look things up more than once and ran very smooth. Me and my opponent were both first time players and we ran a 200 point game in about 1,5 hours (although we did stop by turn 6). We played the bad jack scenario pitting a crew of undead hounds and other Frankstein inspired constructs against my turks (based on the british rifle company) with a berserk golem gone wrong in the middle. We both had fun and agreed that IHMN makes a fun and fast game for club playing as the rules are simple and intuitive. We did end up in some weird situations though, some of which I have questions about:

Pluck penalties: In IHMN how you move and position your models and in which order you shoot counts for a lot – but even when using volley fire, concentrating your fire or using heavy weapons it seems the pluck roll will always mean that you are very dependent on luck when trying to put down enemy models. This also goes for melee, we had two or three pluck 5+ models w/combat knives facing 2-3 pluck 6+ models with clubs and the fight lasted for several turns with no casualties. When attacking the Monster in the scenario it was even worse, two models with 2+ spent 6 turns just hitting each other, making their pluck rolls and repeating. Are there are mechanisms for reducing pluck that could speed up fights a little? We simply stopped the game in turn 6 after a lucky hit killed the Bad Jack and all other models were engaged in melee (this was after the mentioned 2-3 rounds of bloodless close combat). It seems like weapons with a pluck penalty (like poisoned weapons) are very much the no-brainer choice when it comes to fighting.

Shooting in melee: Can a ranged mystical power like Spitfire be used in melee? We went with yes, under section 3.3.8 in IHMN a mystical power can be counted as a shooting attack, and under 3.3.4 it says that one handed ranged weapons can be used in melee. Is Spitfire (and other shooting based mystical powers) considered a one handed ranged weapon?

Armour: Armour Values seem awfully high, my Turkish riflemen (SV +2, Military Rifles +3) Had a very hard time hitting running targets (-3 penalty) with even an armour value of the basic 7. And AV 9 brigandine meant that they were themselves almost never hit in melee (requiring a 7+ roll from opponents with FV +2). My captain with SRC breastplate (AV 12) seemed basically invincible.

[Craig]

Glad to hear you enjoyed your first game 

So onto your questions:
Pluck penalties:
As you say the main way to affect pluck is to use weapons with pluck penalties. If you have an enemy with a serious Pluck save, then either lock him down with a similar figure, or outnumber him. The more saves a figure must take the more chance they'll fail. Honestly though, if you are playing a scenario with set objectives this becomes less of a problem than when you just face off and try to annihilate each other.

Shooting in melee:
On the Mystical Powers table is a column that tells you in which phase a power may be used. Spitfire is a Shooting Phase power.

Armour:
Its funny that I hear this question a lot, but on the other hand I have people saying that their troops get hit too often and that armour is not good enough 
The penalties for shooting while moving and shooting at moving targets are based on Charles and my shooting experience. He is a very competent practical shooter and even he can't hit a small barn if running.
Your Turkish Riflemen are getting a +5 to shooting against a modified target number of 10, so even though the enemy is running they'll hit 50% of the time, which is pretty good shooting actually.
If you are having problems hitting someone's armour you need to volley fire or mob them, or make sure you have a heavy weapon in your company. I can assure you a machine gun makes short work of brigandine and even makes those in SRC breastplates dive for cover. The alternative is to have one or two weapons that ignore armour such as flamethrowers and arc weapons.

All these tactics and more will become obvious once you've played a few more games. We went over the rules many times during the design phase trying to ensure that there were tactics and equipment to deal with each of these.

[Tordenskjold]

Thanks for the quick answers, there's just one thing I'm still not clear on:

Shooting in melee:
On the Mystical Powers table is a column that tells you in which phase a power may be used. Spitfire is a Shooting Phase power.

So could you potentionally use a ranged Power in the shooting phase in melee? Ex. my spellcaster is engaged w. a pistol armed anachist, in the melee phase the anarchist can use his pistol as a melee weapon (because it's a one-handed ranged weapon). Can my spellcaster use Spitfire in the shooting phase, shooting the anarchist even though they are both engaged in melee?

[Craig]

So could you potentionally use a ranged Power in the shooting phase in melee? Ex. my spellcaster is engaged w. a pistol armed anachist, in the melee phase the anarchist can use his pistol as a melee weapon (because it's a one-handed ranged weapon). Can my spellcaster use Spitfire in the shooting phase, shooting the anarchist even though they are both engaged in melee?

I would say no, as using a mystical power is a bit more involved than just blasting away with a pistol. However, in your games you can rule this to be an exception as long as your opponents agree

[seldon]

We had our first game the other day and though we were skeptical of these penalties at first we realized that they work quite well...

Let me ask a question though.. in the rules for shooting the example says that the best thing to do is to shoot at someone that hasn't moved YET ... but in reality that would mean someone that hasn't move, since in fact all movement happens BEFORE the shooting..

The example brings this point up together with "remember that you activate one at a time" to mention the alternatives of shooting at someone who hasn't moved yet or who will not move this turn but in fact this distinction does not exist due to the turn sequence ( move, shoot )...

Is this maybe a line from an earlier version of the rules with a different turn sequence or are we doing something wrong ?

thanks
Francisco

[seldon]

oops... strike that.. just found the errata !!!!

Good to see good support for this set of rules.. it makes a big difference !!!

cheers
Francisco

[Craig]

oops... strike that.. just found the errata !!!!

Good to see good support for this set of rules.. it makes a big difference !!!

cheers
Francisco

It's alright Francisco I forget the errata all the time. Something that drives Charles to distraction