Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Hobgoblin on 30 April 2016, 01:19:08 PM
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Surveying my Shelves of Shame (as my wife calls them), I realise that I've painted up several hundred miniatures since my return to gaming 18 months ago. While the kids and I (and some semi-regular adult opponents) have been enjoying SBH, OGAM and Dragon Rampant, it occurs to me that we have plenty of troops for a massed-battle game.
The question that raises is "what game?". I used to like Hordes of the Things, which was a revelation after the turgidities of Warhammer. But the basing was always a bit tight, and I want to use our skirmish miniatures on movement trays (ones with round holes for the bases).
I also want something where there's complete freedom to design units as you see fit. So Kings of War holds few attractions. But Mayhem looks intriguing. I gather it can also be played in a relatively tight space.
Does anyone have much experience of it? Does it work as an SBH/DRish mass-battle game? Any other pointers - or alternatives?
Thanks in advance!
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Warband
http://www.pendraken.co.uk/Warband-Fantasy-NEW-c36/ (http://www.pendraken.co.uk/Warband-Fantasy-NEW-c36/)
http://www.wargamevault.com/product_info.php?products_id=144517&site=¤cy=GBP&products_id=144517 (http://www.wargamevault.com/product_info.php?products_id=144517&site=¤cy=GBP&products_id=144517)
A review by Dan Mersey: http://s1096.photobucket.com/user/MattofMunslow/media/warband%20review_zpswhic8hzn.jpeg.html (http://s1096.photobucket.com/user/MattofMunslow/media/warband%20review_zpswhic8hzn.jpeg.html)
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Thanks for the links. How does Warband work in terms of base sizes (for 28mm) and profiles? Apologies if that info is in the review you linked to - I'm confined to my phone at the moment and can't read it properly on that.
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There's a FAQ over at Pendraken.
http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,11265.0.html (http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,11265.0.html)
If its 28mm you're planning this might inspire you...a recent Warband tournament in 28mm with 120mm x 60mm bases.
http://stenicplus.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/paw-2016-warband-tournament.html (http://stenicplus.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/paw-2016-warband-tournament.html)
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yfJQpH9Xc8I/VrkhPR7TxiI/AAAAAAAABXs/tN2aH06v8PA/s1600/DSC01569.JPG)
:)
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I also want something where there's complete freedom to design units as you see fit. So Kings of War holds few attractions. But Mayhem looks intriguing. I gather it can also be played in a relatively tight space.
Does anyone have much experience of it? Does it work as an SBH/DRish mass-battle game? Any other pointers - or alternatives?
I've often waxed lyrical about it, but to be honest I only got my first game of it fairly recently. See a quick write-up here:
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=86858.0
Good thing it lived up to my expectations, and then unveiled a few more subtle wrinkles. And that was only the small intro game!
First question first: in a way I'd say it's a little more SBHish, in that you create a minimal statline (Mayhem units have three stats: Movement, CQ [Combat Quality], and BAR [Ballistic Armour/Avoidance Rating]) and bolster it with a range of different unit types, traits, weapons and so on. Compared to Dragon Rampant's generic profiles and fewer additional abilities.
What else? 'Traditional' RPG polyhedral dice, from d4 to d20, are an integral part of the game in some of it's mechanics. For example, each of those three starting stats is a polydie type/value, and you have to juggle risk vs. reward in each die roll by choosing whether to actually roll it (a 'danger roll', gaining a result from 1 to potentially 20) or to use the default value of the stat. (half of the die type's total) IMO this can be especially prominent in opposed rolls for combat and shooting damage, where a unit with a better die value obviously has a better chance of rolling a better result. Does the other side risk the roll, or take the default and hope the stronger unit rolls worse than that?
There are also situations, mostly in combat, where the dice can be modified - turned into a better die, have one or more dice added to the roll, or both. These are brought about by different unit types, traits, weapons ;) unit positioning, supporting units, etc.
I've seen folk almost immediately turned off by the mention of polydice. I'm not sure why. They're not expensive and this isn't a bucket 'o' dice game. In fact the tactical possibilities with them, presented by this game and hinted at above, are why I glommed onto it. Despite already having a bucket 'o' citadel d6s, I ran off and made a few orders at EM4.
There's also Command and Control in the form of Command Points (action points) and the Overdrive mechanic. A pool of the former is generated at the start of your turn, with the type and number of dice rolled dependent on the army's overall leadership stat, number of heroes in the army, and other factors. Then the latter takes it all away from you. lol It's not as simple as allocating an action to one unit, then another unit, then another, 'til you're done. You can perform as many actions as you want with any unit, even go back to previously activated units; but there's an increasing penalty for each subsequent action a single unit takes, and that can quickly eat into your CP pool. Not to mention all the other little tolls scattered about.
Heroes play a further part in C&C by their proximity to activating units, and their ability to join units. That's what made me originally think it had impressions of Warmaster in it, along with HoTT; but after playing it the next thing I usually added became truer: "it is it's own game, though".
And all that's the other big chunk of tacticality and resource management that made me stick to it.
It's IGOUGO, which is less fashionable these days, and I can see why. But to be frank, Command Point pools in Mayhem can be small enough that one decent Overdrive could snuff out most of your turn*, and bring it reasonably closer to alternate activation anyway. IIRC, at least your turn isn't knackered by one bad initiative roll or command blunder. ;)
*In fact, going back to the rulebook just now made me realise that, in the example of 'too much Overdrive' I wanted to use (Rat Ogres vs. Phoenix Guard in my writeup), we were playing with CP pools that were far too large, anyway! I think it still applies though: the rat ogres were charged so far ahead of the rest of the skaven army, that if they'd survived the initial round of combat, there wouldn't be enough CPs left in the turn to move the clanrats up in support.
Basing is on squares. Suggestions are 40mm squares for 10mm minis (two Warmaster bases, suits me) 50mm for 15mm, and 60mm for 28mm. Horde units can be the same, double, or quadruple the size. Skirmishers are half. Heroes and generals are on circles.
That 28mm suggestion bothered me right from the start, though mostly for aesthetic reasons. Nine infantry on a base sounded more like a HoTT idea of a unit, to say nothing of how many cavalry or 'monstrous infantry' you could squeeze on there. I thought of bumping it up a little - 16 figures on an 80mm base isn't huge either, but more like an older Warhammer unit, or a KoW regiment, for which plenty of folk use movement trays. Me, I'm almost off the idea of 28mm mass battles, but I may base some 12-strong DR units on 40mm squares, and it wouldn't be very difficult to bunch those up with one other...
The other problem was 28mm units that wouldn't fit on a 60mm base - the likes of larger war machines and chariots. Though I have it from Brent himself that multiples of the base size (e.g. 60x120mm, similar to a doubled Horde unit) would be fine. I'd just have to dig through the LAF archives to find it.
But TL;DR: I think the rule of thumb is 'whatever base size you want, as long as they're squares and all the same size'.
I think I'm done for now. Not too sure what to add, except that those high elves all arrayed for Warband look flippin' brilliant.
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Many thanks, Vermis - and thanks, Luddite, for the Warband info.
The SBHish aspect sounds right up my street. I can see an advantage in greater differentiation than DR allows in a game with many more units (although I think the DR possibilities are ample for most games).
Polyhedral dice are also an attraction! I have unearthed a great many from where they were buried deep aeons ago. I like the sound of the danger/default decisions.
I don't really mind HOTT-style units; I'll probably experiment with card squares and blue tack first before ordering a batch of fancy bases that will allow round-based figures to slot in. There might even be some mathematical masterstroke that would facilitate basing for DR, Mayhem AND Dragon Rampant ...
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Well, I bought and downloaded the Mayhem PDF and gave it a quick read-through this lunchtime.
It look good. The thing that struck me first of all is that it passes the "Isengard Uruk-hai" test. Can you have fast-moving, heavily armoured, undersized infantry armed with short swords, shields and longbows? Yes, you can. Hooray! So that's a plus to start with.
At first glance, I wasn't entirely convinced by some of the weapon categories. It seems odd to group armour-piercing weapons such as warhammers with blunt weapons like wooden clubs and have them all ignore heavy armour. But that's easily fixed by just using the category for armour-piercing weapons (warhammers, poleaxes and the like). It also seems a bit RPGish in privileging swords over polearms (historically, swords tended to be a sidearm for use when the main weapon was lost), but that's a minor quibble.
I'm still getting my head around the total command points for a side, but that should come into focus soon enough!
For unit bases, I suspect I'll start off with blue tack and a batch of plain wooden coasters to start with, with an eye on some specialist movement trays for later.
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There's a LotR booklet for Warband you might find useful.
http://luddite1811.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/warband-meets-lord-of-rings.html (http://luddite1811.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/warband-meets-lord-of-rings.html)
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Many thanks for that link, Luddite. I had a good read through. One or two things raised an eyebrow - Orc shamans?!? Uruks and "great orcs"? Non-Uruk orcs making up the bulk of Saruman's armies? - but they look interesting and generally well done. I may well investigate Warband further down the line.
As for Mayhem, I had another read through the rules last night and taught my son the danger/default rule in preparation for a massed battle this weekend (if the weather proves sufficiently foul). I also had a good think about basing. I'm going to order a large batch of 10 x 10 cm square wooden coasters to use as bases and (for now) just place (or perhaps blue-tack) miniatures onto them. It'll look quite abstract, but I don't really mind that in massed-battle games, especially where one miniature is standing for tens if not hundreds.
lso, 10 x 10 cm gives plenty of room for flexibility with units. One coaster would hold 16 round-based infantry, which looks quite good (and removes the 'abstract' visual aspect, as you can't really see the base), but it also looks fine with nine more spaced-out figures. That also gives room for the placement of heroes within units. And I'll be able to get away with fewer largish infantry (lizardmen and so on).
For cavalry, eight gives a nicely jam-packed heavy-cavalry look, whereas six looks fine for light cavalry. For ogres and trolls, I can get four 40mm square or round-based figures on, or three 50mm round-based ones. And almost all of our big monsters will fit on a 10 x 10 base in a pleasing way. I'm going to assemble the units base by base from tomorrow, once the coasters are here.
Given the big base sizes, I'm eyeing the big mat on our study floor as a potential battlefield. Moving the long table we have down the middle of it will demarcate the area and create a physical barrier against unwanted feet. I'm getting a nice RL Stevenson/HG Wells vibe from this ...
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It look good. The thing that struck me first of all is that it passes the "Isengard Uruk-hai" test. Can you have fast-moving, heavily armoured, undersized infantry armed with short swords, shields and longbows? Yes, you can. Hooray! So that's a plus to start with.
:D For me it was the ability to have a proper ogre/halfling buddy army, without having to shoehorn goblin stats in.
At first glance, I wasn't entirely convinced by some of the weapon categories. It seems odd to group armour-piercing weapons such as warhammers with blunt weapons like wooden clubs and have them all ignore heavy armour. But that's easily fixed by just using the category for armour-piercing weapons (warhammers, poleaxes and the like). It also seems a bit RPGish in privileging swords over polearms (historically, swords tended to be a sidearm for use when the main weapon was lost), but that's a minor quibble.
Emphasis mine. You hit the nail on the head, IMO - blurb at the Bombshell site and elsewhere indicates that it's for RPG players to get in an occassional mass battle during their campaigns. Meaning no offence to Brent, but some of the weapon categories do need a little 'counts as' shimmying sometimes. My confusion was what to do about halberds, even though I have two fantasy armies that use them.
Given the big base sizes, I'm eyeing the big mat on our study floor as a potential battlefield. Moving the long table we have down the middle of it will demarcate the area and create a physical barrier against unwanted feet. I'm getting a nice RL Stevenson/HG Wells vibe from this ...
Nice. :)
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I've been having the excact same quarries about Halberds :D
Mayhem is one of those game-systems that, in my opinion, just looks and reads superior, but which I've never gotten around to playing. I have 1 ½ army (in 15mm and 10mm) sitting in my cupboard just waiting for me to get around to.
There's a lot about it to love, from jsut reading the rulebook, but I wont 100% endorse it until I get a chance to actually play it.
When you get around to it, I hope you intend to post some thoughts and/or a battle report. :)
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Great minds/fools seldom ... Yes, halberds were my immediate concern (I've been steadily assembling some of the old Fantasy Tribe orc halberdiers and now have enough for a full base). "Great weapons" is the obvious starting point (two-handed swords and halberds occupying the same "ecological" niche in Renaissance warfare), but a halberd is a bit different from a Danish axe.
The weapon that gets left out of wargames - especially fantasy ones - too often is the poleaxe. Not the same as a halberd - much shorter - but the go-to can-opener for dealing with fully armoured men-at-arms. I'm tempted to class poleaxes (and lucerne hammers) as "blunt weapons" that ignore heavy armour, which would allow two sets of Perry foot knights to have at each other in a reasonably bloody fashion. But then again, the poleaxe is a direct descendant of the Danish axe and would be just as lethal as that was against unarmored foes.
Of course, the game is so admirably flexible that there are lots of workarounds. Halberdiers could be treated as spearmen, for example, but designed so that they use a D10 instead of a D12 to start with (or whatever), which would make them a bit more offensive all round, but still give them a polearmish resistance to cavalry.
And for poleaxes, given that they were the knightly weapon of choice in the 15th century, perhaps their wielders could just be "tooled up" to use a D8 or something to reflect knightly training, better armour and all-round braying confidence.
The other immediate weapon-related problem is that almost all of my orcish hordes are variously armed. I'll eventually have a full stand of halberdiers, but most of the others mix swords, axes, clubs and god knows what else. I'll probably try out most infantry stands as effectively unarmed to start with.
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When you get around to it, I hope you intend to post some thoughts and/or a battle report. :)
I certainly shall! I hope to post a few shots of assembled units (unapologetically mounted on wooden coasters) tonight.
The plan is to squeeze a game in on Friday evening or over the weekend. Hills will be created in the traditional way - large atlases with books on top, perhaps covered with a green cloth. Perhaps. We might manage felt patches for rough ground.
I've gone so far as to download the Armies of Mayhem/Battle Chest files, more to look at sample profiles than anything else. That might be one thing that the rules are missing. But, on the other hand, I really like the complete freedom to stat up forces so that they reflect the figures.
On the GW thread, Nord made some interesting points about missing the species-specific profiles of Warhammer when playing Dragon Rampant. I don't, really, but I take his point. That was Warhammer's great innovation, even if the miniatures eventually lost touch with the stat-lines (I gather orcs were Strength 3 to the end - even though Citadel orcs have had arms the size of men's waists for well over a decade).
While I think DR has plenty of room for differentiated units for a large-scale skirmish, it's nice to be able to tinker with the profiles more when you might have dozens of units on the table (or floor, in our case). And the horde rules look really nice - a great way to handle large numbers of small orcs or whatever without having to just settle for "really bad infantry".
In fact, the more I think about it, the more the horde rule is what's missing from many games to simulate the "few stood against many" aspect that characterises so many literary fantasy battles.
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Mayhem is one of those game-systems that, in my opinion, just looks and reads superior, but which I've never gotten around to playing. I have 1 ½ army (in 15mm and 10mm) sitting in my cupboard just waiting for me to get around to.
That's alright - that was me a while ago. lol
I've been having the excact same quarries about Halberds :D
Yes, halberds were my immediate concern (I've been steadily assembling some of the old Fantasy Tribe orc halberdiers and now have enough for a full base). "Great weapons" is the obvious starting point (two-handed swords and halberds occupying the same "ecological" niche in Renaissance warfare), but a halberd is a bit different from a Danish axe.
Again, some time ago I asked Brent about it and he suggested applying both the Great weapon and Spear rules to the unit, using only a single one for each scrap. It's fair enough, though I think the problem in creating that swiss army knife profile is that the points cost starts inflating further than a single, purpose-built weapon rule. Maybe it's worth it? Dunno yet.
The weapon that gets left out of wargames - especially fantasy ones - too often is the poleaxe. Not the same as a halberd - much shorter - but the go-to can-opener for dealing with fully armoured men-at-arms. I'm tempted to class poleaxes (and lucerne hammers) as "blunt weapons" that ignore heavy armour, which would allow two sets of Perry foot knights to have at each other in a reasonably bloody fashion. But then again, the poleaxe is a direct descendant of the Danish axe and would be just as lethal as that was against unarmored foes.
I had to go look up the difference between a poleaxe and a halberd after my last post. I don't know if I was left any the wiser. ;D But I never let that stop me from embarassing myself. In the vein of Brent's halberd suggestion, for effectiveness against both armoured and unarmoured opponents: both Blunt and Sword? I guess it would have some effect against both armoured infantry and cavalry, but more against unarmoured infantry than unarmoured cavalry, as might befit a shorter pokeaxe vs. a longer halberd.
Of course, the game is so admirably flexible that there are lots of workarounds. Halberdiers could be treated as spearmen, for example, but designed so that they use a D10 instead of a D12 to start with (or whatever), which would make them a bit more offensive all round, but still give them a polearmish resistance to cavalry.
And for poleaxes, given that they were the knightly weapon of choice in the 15th century, perhaps their wielders could just be "tooled up" to use a D8 or something to reflect knightly training, better armour and all-round braying confidence.
Emphasis mine. True, true! The weapon rules add interesting wrinkles against certain opponents, but the basic statline can handle a lot itself. Your two examples are pretty much what I did with my Phoenix Guard (elite armoured halberdiers) in my intro game. I can and will use an individual profile, but for that game I treated them as the magic third spearman unit, to receive the free Elite upgrade.
The other immediate weapon-related problem is that almost all of my orcish hordes are variously armed. I'll eventually have a full stand of halberdiers, but most of the others mix swords, axes, clubs and god knows what else. I'll probably try out most infantry stands as effectively unarmed to start with.
Sounds like a job for that Horde rule. ;)
Hills will be created in the traditional way - large atlases
Sounds appropriate!
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That's alright - that was me a while ago. lol
Again, some time ago I asked Brent about it and he suggested applying both the Great weapon and Spear rules to the unit, using only a single one for each scrap. It's fair enough, though I think the problem in creating that swiss army knife profile is that the points cost starts inflating further than a single, purpose-built weapon rule. Maybe it's worth it? Dunno yet.
If memory serves, that's exactly how Andrea does halberds in the Tales of Blades and Heroes RPG - you can choose which rule to use in a given round of combat.
I had to go look up the difference between a poleaxe and a halberd after my last post. I don't know if I was left any the wiser. ;D But I never let that stop me from embarassing myself.
As with so many things, the taxonomy is largely retrospectively imposed! Basically, a poleaxe (etymologically, a head-axe) is a long-handled axe that typically has a spike at the end and two out of three head choices: a hammer, an axe blade or a thick, armour punching spike. Quite a few poleaxes don't actually have an axe head, but have a hammer and a spike instead (as with the "Lucerne hammer" or "bec de corbin").
A halberd is typically longer (poleaxes can be as short as four feet), with a hooked blade at the back and an axe head at the front, as well as a long point at the end. The head's usually a single piece of metal, in contrast to the poleaxe's more elaborate construction. And a halberd typically has a much bigger axe blade than a poleaxe - when the latter has an axe blade at all.
The reason for the differences is that a poleaxe was designed to deal with plate armour - hence the punching spike, small axe blade (for concentrating force) and small hammer head. It was a knightly weapon and was also used in duels. Basically, when plate armour becomes sufficiently good that men-at-arms abandon the shield, they start using the poleaxe as their main battlefield weapon. They were widely used during the Wars of the Roses, for example.
Halberds are (typically) a less expensive and more proletarian weapon, and came into vogue when gunpowder had begun to end the dominance of plate armour. They have bigger axe heads for cutting lightly armoured or unarmored foes, and they also have an anti-cavalry function with the hooked fluke at the back.
That said, the distinction between a poleaxe and a halberd is loose and blurry, and there are certainly overlaps. This article (http://myarmoury.com/feature_spot_poleaxe.html) is pretty good; the example A927 it shows from the Wallace Collection is also classed as a halberd, I believe. The fighting style of the two weapons was pretty much the same, but they were designed to tackle different sorts of enemy.
The weapon rules add interesting wrinkles against certain opponents, but the basic statline can handle a lot itself. Your two examples are pretty much what I did with my Phoenix Guard (elite armoured halberdiers) in my intro game. I can and will use an individual profile, but for that game I treated them as the magic third spearman unit, to receive the free Elite upgrade.
That's a very neat way of doing it! In fact, that possibly does the job entirely - you get a unit that has the advantages against cavalry and is a bit more all-round aggressive.
Another thing that leapt out from the rules, to my delight, was the Beast designation. Combining that with Fast Cavalry is a really good way of doing wolf riders in the Tolkien vein - they're fast and mobile, and they (literally) startle the horses.
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Looking forward to your game report. I tried a couple of sessions of Mayhem with the Battle of Five armies figures (10mm) and never really got my head round it - seemed very unbalanced, but I was pitching wolf riders vs dwarfs and men, so probably set myself an uphill task to start with.
On the base thing, there are many options. I have recently settled on mounting my figures on 2p coins (if you are not UK these are about 28mm diameter (I think). Then I buy 2p move trays, plenty of companies do them, my personal favourite is warbases. I bought some squares, with mayhem in mind, but shunt them together for rectangular action. Picture paints a thousand etc. These are about 60mm square. The holes in the bottom are for magnets (and modern 2p coins are just that, which is nice). I am mainly playing DR and Fantastic Saga with my figures, but have the option to go back to squares at some point, and if nothing else the magnet trays are handy for transporting figures round to a mate's house. And they look pretty too.
(http://i.imgur.com/EKxBprU.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/jMNBbnE.jpg)
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Those look terrific! Brilliant paintwork as ever.
I've been looking at the Warbases site, but I want to get a feel for the game before I order permanent bases. In particular, I want to be sure of the correct base size. I'm very relaxed about figure scale; as with HOTT, I have no problem with three or four men representing hundreds. The main concern is that if I go with too small a "footprint", many of our big monsters will be too big for the game.
The other thing I want to see is how the game goes down with my regular opponents (the kids!). If it proves to be an occasional thing, wth the skirmish preference prevailing, then we'll probably just continue with temporary measures. But if it takes off, I'll look at Warbases with renewed interest.
So, for now, I'm going with the dirt-cheap option of plain wooden coasters, which can be recycled into all manner of terrain projects if I do decide to get a more sophisticated basing option.
I put together the basis of a couple of armies last night - both on paper and on the coasters. I'm going with masses of low-quality infantry for the goblin side, with archers and some fast-cavalry/beast support. The combined lizard men/beastmen force will have far fewer units of high-quality infantry, plus a dragon, a wyvern and a dinosaur. They're also getting a ratman horde - on a normal-sized base. We'll use heroic units rather than free-floating heroes, with the exception of the generals.
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Whoops - double post. See below!
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Well, we had a brief run-through tonight, with roughly 250-crown forces on a very large "table". Too large, in fact, for the hour or so we had before bedtimes, so that we only fought a couple of engagements on either flank. Some wolfriders launched a successful raid up the left, peppering a ratman horde with sufficient arrows that the enraged rodents could only rush to their destruction in the ensuing melee. And on the opposite flank, a dragon made short work of some heavier orcish cavalry and was setting about the orcish infantry, who were saved by the bell.
We'll play again over the weekend, probably testing out a smaller battlefield. Despite the big bases we're using, the relatively small increments of movement mean that even a 36" width won't prove too restrictive. But it was terrific fun to play on the floor.
I love the command-point and overdrive systems. The overdrive aspect gives a much better battlefield flavour than some similar games, with impetuous or specialist units getting far ahead of the main action very quickly.
This being our first game, there was a lot of flicking through the rules for things like damage points and attrition, but we handled the horde correctly, I think; a massive differential on the opposed shooting roll left it taking something like 10D6 for the 13 test when it then lost the subsequent combat round against the wolfriders. But I expect the complexities to disentangle with further play.
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Looks good!
I think I'll base up a unit or two of my 15mm guys bought for the game. If I can decide on a base size as well :D
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Watching with interest. o_o
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Looks great. :D I'm glad the rules are to your liking.
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We played another game yesterday morning (during a thick haar and before the sunshine made indoor activities unthinkable). This time we used a table. Its three-foot width didn't seem to present any problem, even with the 10cm "footprint".
This time, we got many more of the rules into play - advances and charges; flank and rear attacks; and both damage and attrition. The game ended early (though just in time for lunch) after my son's dragon incinerated the disordered unit into which he'd chased my general.
I was particularly pleased with how the dragon played out. He made short work of two archer units, but I was able to pose a fair threat to him with some orcish infantry and a rear charge by wolfriders. By the end of the game, he was carrying two damage tokens and only escaped destruction from his wounds by the slimmest margin before he finished off the general; he rolled 12 (6, 5, 1) on two "exploding" D6 when attempting the charge. One more attack might well have done for him. If only I had rallied the disordered orcish unit rather than worrying about my disordered heavy cavalry on the other side of the board ...
What I like about all that was that while the dragon was (in all ways) a monster, he was vulnerable too. A rampaging dragon close to your lines is a grave threat to your options, given the extra command points needed to attack him (the terror rule), but if you concentrate your efforts, you can probably rid yourself of him. In this case, the fact that he had a wyvern as his wingman didn't help the orcish efforts ...
I also liked how the horde rules played out. It's a great way to play effective low-quality infantry: they just keep on coming!
Our 9-man units on coasters worked pretty well. The space between the models allows for the accumulation of disorder tokens, and we were able to remove two figures to accommodate mounted heroes when they joined units. So I'm tempted to just paint them green and brown and continue to use blue tack to "base" units. On the other hand, smaller movement trays (60 x 60 with four figures a piece, like Nord's above) would allow really huge games.
I've been thinking about garrisonable terrain elements, which should be the same size as a unit's base. My sister gave my son these plaster buildings (with an eye to gaming) after a stint working in Tunisia. They're much smaller scale, but that doesn't matter in a game with a large figure scale. We're thinking about assembling them on coasters to create modular ruins with space for a few figures inside, so that garrisoning can be clearly shown. But that will necessitate a final decision on base sizes. One thing I must do is check what the actual dimensions of specific Warbase options are.
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I must admit I dragged out my copy of the rules after this post, my interest in them has been re-ignited. It's slowly coming back to me, there's a lot to like in the ideas. Anybody tell me if there is a difference between beatback and drive back, they sound identical apart from which unit type they belong to?
One mental test I always have is, how are racial differences emulated? So, for example, if I want to play Warhammer style Elves vs Dwarves, I would hope that the elves are elite, medium armoured, fast. That's doable I think, by relaxing the number of elite units allowed and appropriate choice of dice type for stats. But dwarfs? Is there a stubborn type rule? Could I emulate the old grumblers rule - this is rhetorical since there is no unit psychology in the game.
This latter point is one that concerns me a little. Units fight to the death, there's no push/flee/chasing, etc. I played a game of Kings of War the other day and it was quite a tedious affair really - units skirmished a bit, cavalry danced around a little, then the melee units met in the middle of the board, grind each other down for a couple of turns, until eventually one accumulates enough damage and routs. It was a very static slugfest. I felt that there was no real tactics involved, it was almost predictable from turn one how it would play out. Warhammer had many faults, but predictability was never one of them.
Anyway, it's my intention to stat up some elves and dwarfs, play a couple of test games and then maybe get my mates involved, see if they like it. But not this week. Summer has arrived early, it might be the best we get for the whole year!
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I must admit I dragged out my copy of the rules after this post, my interest in them has been re-ignited. It's slowly coming back to me, there's a lot to like in the ideas. Anybody tell me if there is a difference between beatback and drive back, they sound identical apart from which unit type they belong to?
I was puzzled by that, but then found this:
http://www.taccmd.tacticalwargames.net/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=25927&start=75 (http://www.taccmd.tacticalwargames.net/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=25927&start=75)
So although the effects are identical, the difference is that some units interact differently with each rule. If you made your dwarfs disciplined, they'd refuse to be driven back by volley fire or cavalry charges, but could be pushed back by behemoths. That could be made clearer in the rules, but it does seem a nice distinction.
One mental test I always have is, how are racial differences emulated? So, for example, if I want to play Warhammer style Elves vs Dwarves, I would hope that the elves are elite, medium armoured, fast. That's doable I think, by relaxing the number of elite units allowed and appropriate choice of dice type for stats. But dwarfs? Is there a stubborn type rule? Could I emulate the old grumblers rule - this is rhetorical since there is no unit psychology in the game.
I think disciplined gives you some of that (I don't recall an "old grumblers" rule, but then my Warhammer started with 2nd and stopped with 3rd! ;) ). And then there are various other rules: shieldwall, fearless, drilled, steadfast. Combinations of those could give you a fair range of better-than-average troops.
This latter point is one that concerns me a little. Units fight to the death, there's no push/flee/chasing, etc. I played a game of Kings of War the other day and it was quite a tedious affair really - units skirmished a bit, cavalry danced around a little, then the melee units met in the middle of the board, grind each other down for a couple of turns, until eventually one accumulates enough damage and routs. It was a very static slugfest. I felt that there was no real tactics involved, it was almost predictable from turn one how it would play out. Warhammer had many faults, but predictability was never one of them.
I think Mayhem has the potential to be the opposite of a static slugfest. The "beat back" and "drive back" rules can have wildly unpredictable results. For instance, a D8 cavalry unit rolling a 2 against a D12 infantry unit rolling 12 would cause a 10" driveback (and quite possibly a fair bit of chaos along the way). But the distance could be anything between 1" and 10". So there's real potential to have massive disorder - indeed, mayhem - on the tabletop.
Anyway, it's my intention to stat up some elves and dwarfs, play a couple of test games and then maybe get my mates involved, see if they like it. But not this week. Summer has arrived early, it might be the best we get for the whole year!
Yes indeed!
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I suppose a further clarification is that "drive back" is a cavalry/chariot rule, whereas "beat back" is an infantry rule. The latter will be useful to distinguish largeish infantry, of which I have lots: the older Citadel ogres, smallish trolls, big lizardmen, etc.. These creatures are probably not full behemoths (i.e. they wouldn't use the "damage" rules), but they're bigger and more fearsome than human-sized creatures.
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One mental test I always have is, how are racial differences emulated? So, for example, if I want to play Warhammer style Elves vs Dwarves, I would hope that the elves are elite, medium armoured, fast. That's doable I think, by relaxing the number of elite units allowed and appropriate choice of dice type for stats.
One more point on this: as the "elite" upgrade is just an improvement on a basic unit statline, there's nothing to stop you giving all your units a good basic statline (and then claiming the free "elite of the elite" for one of them). So, you could give all your elvish infantry a D8, D8, D8 basic profile and then have a really deadly elite unit with D8, D6, D6. The only thing that you'd potentially miss out on is the extra die for elite shooters (but you could still get that for one unit and have a low die in the basic profile).
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even with the 10cm "footprint".
Just wondering why you settled on a 10cm base?
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A few reasons:
- I wanted to get a few games in with minimal preparation. 10 x 10 coasters were cheaply and quickly available.
- All of our larger monsters (barring a scratch-built Godzilla!) fit on a 10 x 10 base. My son's tyrannosaur (which he painted, with a little help) is mounted on a base exactly 10 cm long. Anything much smaller, and quite a few of our bigger beasts would be ineligible for play. And I have a few other big monsters to lug out of decades-long storage and into paintwork ...
- I wanted to get a decent number of miniatures onto each base - at least eight (as for OGAM) and preferably with the potential for twelve (as in Dragon Rampant). The recommended 60 x 60 would be too small, and even 80 x 80 would be too small for a DR unit. The coasters allow for sixteen miniatures, but look OK with nine.
- We have some likely horde candidates based on 20 x 20mm squares: 10 x 10 cm allows 25 to be squeezed onto base, which looks suitably hordish even compared with 16 on round bases. See below!
- Our cavalry are largely mounted on 25 x 50mm bases, so we can get eight heavy cavalry or six more widely spaced light cavalry onto a base, which looks better than two or three per base.
- Skirmishers should be based on a base of half the width and depth of a conventional base, and 5 x 5 cm allows a reasonable amount of miniatures. 3 x 3 would essentially be a single miniature - as would 4 x 4, for the most part.
- For scenic elements - keeps, strongholds, ruins, etc. - 10 x 10 seemed the smallest size that would reasonably yield something we could also use in Song of Blades and Heroes, OGAM or DR. Or indeed prove "garrisonable" by allowing space for miniatures to be placed in the elements.
- As the study floor is always available for gaming, space isn't an issue. Accidents - and the frailty of the miniatures - may be.
So the guiding principle is "What will allow us maximum use of our current miniatures and maximum crossover with other games?".
All that said, it's under review! I like the idea of having proper movement trays with round holes that fit the bases, but I'd rather get plenty of games in before making any decision.
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You missed another really good reason for using coasters. They are readily available around the house. If you need lots, a visit to the local charity shop should yield a handful for a few pennies.
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You missed another really good reason for using coasters. They are readily available around the house. If you need lots, a visit to the local charity shop should yield a handful for a few pennies.
Yes, indeed - so long as they're the same size!
A few more thoughts on the game:
The weapon designations really do suffer from excessive RPGishness. Blowpipes are as long-ranged and deadly as short bows, which seems wildly off (imagine a group of armoured men-at-arms being peppered with blowpipes darts ...). Two-handed weapons suffer from the typical RPG "initiative penalty" - you need an extra command point to get their benefits. This has always struck me as absurd: a poleaxe or a two-handed sword is no heavier than the combination of sword and shield - and typically lighter and more wieldy. For reasons of game balance, RPGs have tended to penalise double-handed weapons, when - historically - they were typically the supreme weapons of the battlefield by dint of reach and ease of use. This was especially the case when armour improved and shields dwindled in importance. The elevation of swords - a "soft counter" against infantry - and the power of axes (ignoring shields) seem greatly overdone, as does the "ignore armour" effect of blunt weapons. Much of this reminds me of the Dragon Warriors RPG - another outstanding game whose weapon rules are distinctly dodgy.
But all that said, the weapons rules could work well if their designations are ignored. The swords rule, for example, could cover two-handed weapons like poleaxes or Danish axes. "Blunt" might work well for huge weapons wielded by ogres and other oversized infantry - where the weapons are so big that armour makes little difference. Or they could simply be used as generic upgrades with model-specific explanations. In short, they don't impair the game at all, but need a little work on the rationalisation.
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Actually, reading this I thought - elves! The elves could easily have these weapon upgrades, while others could not. Need to think about it of course. As always, rules are there to be adapted, not slavishly followed.
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Actually, reading this I thought - elves! The elves could easily have these weapon upgrades, while others could not. Need to think about it of course. As always, rules are there to be adapted, not slavishly followed.
Couldn't agree more.
Yes, if you wanted Tolkien-style superhuman elves, something like "swords" would give you an infantry unit that was just that little bit better against other infantry units. And if you started to stack up the psychology-related rules, you could get an expensive but genuinely elite unit that would give ground to no one.
Thinking a bit more about it, I reckon the "great weapons" rule would work quite well for any kind of exceptionally aggressive infantry who need a bit of psyching up first - berserkers (could be easily combined with the "berserk" rule), religious fanatics, druids or dervishes ("First say your prayers!") and tribal warriors of whatever species (maybe they have to do a war-dance or utter unspeakable war-cries first!). The extra command point would thus be justified by the "psyching up" and would produce a particularly fierce onslaught.
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I have to say, you've almost convinced me to try 10cm bases too.
So although the effects are identical, the difference is that some units interact differently with each rule. If you made your dwarfs disciplined, they'd refuse to be driven back by volley fire or cavalry charges, but could be pushed back by behemoths. That could be made clearer in the rules, but it does seem a nice distinction.
I think Mayhem has the potential to be the opposite of a static slugfest. The "beat back" and "drive back" rules can have wildly unpredictable results. For instance, a D8 cavalry unit rolling a 2 against a D12 infantry unit rolling 12 would cause a 10" driveback (and quite possibly a fair bit of chaos along the way). But the distance could be anything between 1" and 10". So there's real potential to have massive disorder - indeed, mayhem - on the tabletop.
I suppose a further clarification is that "drive back" is a cavalry/chariot rule, whereas "beat back" is an infantry rule. The latter will be useful to distinguish largeish infantry
But all that said, the weapons rules could work well if their designations are ignored... In short, they don't impair the game at all, but need a little work on the rationalisation.
Yes, yes and yes. :)
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And I was only asking coz all my 28mm fantasy troops are on 5cm squares (don't ask, just blame Redzed), so 10cm units would work perfectly for me 😎
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How do you guys find the combat resolution? It's always struck me as a little bit too simple. Roll dice, lowest wins, loser is damaged. One more loss and the loser is destroyed. It's a bit cut and dry, though I realise there is a possibility of rallying. I have to say that I might be tempted to extend the damage mechanic to all units, not just the behemoth. Give every unit a "resilience" score (like the behemoth is 13) and then apply the damage rules. It just adds an extra layer that I feel is missing and a little more uncertainty. The way it stands as written, it's tempting to charge a unit, hopefully win, get the loser disordered, then immediately follow up with another attack (admittedly at higher command cost) to potentially destroy the unit in one turn. Thoughts?
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And I was only asking coz all my 28mm fantasy troops are on 5cm squares (don't ask, just blame Redzed), so 10cm units would work perfectly for me 😎
You could easily use the 5cm squares as standard units - that's the recommended basing for 15mm, but it would make no difference if the figures were 28s. But if you do go with 10cm, a single 5cm square is a ready-based unit of skirmishers.
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How do you guys find the combat resolution? It's always struck me as a little bit too simple. Roll dice, lowest wins, loser is damaged. One more loss and the loser is destroyed. It's a bit cut and dry, though I realise there is a possibility of rallying. I have to say that I might be tempted to extend the damage mechanic to all units, not just the behemoth. Give every unit a "resilience" score (like the behemoth is 13) and then apply the damage rules. It just adds an extra layer that I feel is missing and a little more uncertainty. The way it stands as written, it's tempting to charge a unit, hopefully win, get the loser disordered, then immediately follow up with another attack (admittedly at higher command cost) to potentially destroy the unit in one turn. Thoughts?
I think the thing here is that command points are so important that spending them on rallies (when the unit can't do anything else that turn) often seems wasteful. We were playing with D10 a side. Now, with three heroes on one side and three plus a standard on the other, we typically had at least seven points a turn at the start of the game. But that doesn't go far - especially when you're paying a premium for the fast-moving troops that have got out of command range and are trying to do rapid or aggressive manoeuvres (like attacking twice in a turn!). And as the game wore on and heroes were slain, we were sometimes down to three or four command points a turn. At that point, the decision to rally or not becomes a crucial one: you won't do much more that turn if you do. If all units could soak up more punishment, then I think some of that risk/reward decision-making would be taken out of the game.
And if your opponent is spending lots of his points on aggressive charges by the same units, his formations are going to break up and his flanks and rear are going to be exposed. Plus, there's always the chance that you'll just roll a 1 when he attacks.
The other thing is that it's easy to spend more command points than you realise. We were using draughtsmen to keep track of the points, stacking them by each unit as we spent them. It's easy to think that you've got plenty in reserve when you've still got a handful of them - but equally easy to find that you've just got three left - enough to move a single unit twice or move three singly. With the short move ranges, that cuts down your options pretty quickly. In that context, rallying becomes a real luxury - and that in itself adds a degree of unpredictability to the game.
As an illustration, our last game turned on my decision to rally a hard-hitting heavy cavalry unit rather than a disordered infantry unit close to my general. I was banking on the cavalry's ability to cause chaos in the enemy line and the enemy dragon's inability to get to my general. But some lucky danger-dice moves proved that last gamble very wrong indeed.
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Rallying a unit keeps it alive, so though it's true that it cannot do anything, it has saved itself from almost certain death. Keeping it in the game, while inactive for a turn, could be crucial.
Anyway, this is all theorising on my part, I will play a few games first to see how things pan out, before making any house rules. It was just the thought of an elite unit dying to a lucky 1 roll from a crappy enemy unit that had me thinking. I'm not overly keen on games that are too heavily influenced by random dice rolling.
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And if your opponent is spending lots of his points on aggressive charges by the same units, his formations are going to break up and his flanks and rear are going to be exposed. Plus, there's always the chance that you'll just roll a 1 when he attacks.
I'd have to think about it a bit more, so this might sound a bit simplistic, but my initial thought was something vaguely like Hobgoblin's here: what's your unit doing out on it's own, unprotected and at a disadvantage? ;)
Part of what I like about Mayhem is that there seems to be more interplay between units, counters, command points, and other various rules; going a bit further than 'infantry in the middle, cav on the flanks', and what may be described as line-up-and-grind games like Warhammer (I still twitch at the concept of mathhammer and MEQs) or even Kings of War. (As you mentioned earlier, Nord) Which means there are more tactical decisions to make, and I think makes Mayhem one of those 'easy to learn, hard to master' games. Apparent disadvantages may have solutions or workarounds that aren't immediately apparent themselves, or derived from the basic statline.
A rule I wasn't entirely happy with was the unit support rule, which ties into your concern about quick combat resolution. At a glance I imagined it to be like Hail Caesar's support rule, where friendly units only have to be in contact with your unit to provide a boost. Instead, supporting units have to be fully in contact with the opposing unit. Meaning you have to wait until your turn to move up supporting units, in response to one of your units being charged, which leaves the charged unit a little vulnerable for a while.
But there are ways the enemy charge can be blunted. Maybe your unit has a suitable counter against it. Maybe your unit's readied. Maybe you can use missile fire to soften or drive back the enemy unit. Your units that are ready to support are still a threat that can deter the charge, and maybe they have suitable counters too. They'll have to be dealt with too, maybe simultaneously, which could mean a bit of shuffling around to arrange several charges, using up vital command points, even ending their turn before it can happen, or as it happens (don't forget that - if I read it correctly - most units still have to pay to initiate melee after charging*), possibly giving you a chance to shuffle around and enact your own plans for assault or defence. The practicalities might differ from the theory, but it's all very cat-and-mouse, IMO. Not just as simple as one unit giving another a one-two punch.
* Gets me wondering if there are situations where you might want to charge or engage but not initiate melee right away. Apart from use of the swarm rule, that is. Maybe a weaker unit charging into a flank or rear arc? The charged unit can get a bonus for initiating melee itself, but will need to spend extra to attack towards that arc - while the charger retains the flank bonus, or perhaps supports a stronger frontal assault - or to reform and then attack - which could disrupt it's advance and expose a flank or rear to another angle and a potentially stronger attack. Is that enough to outweigh the obvious flank + initiate double-whammy?
It was just the thought of an elite unit dying to a lucky 1 roll from a crappy enemy unit that had me thinking. I'm not overly keen on games that are too heavily influenced by random dice rolling.
I thought about something like that myself, but realised that this is where the polydice mechanic kicks in to affect that random factor: it's more difficult for a crappy CQ d12 unit to roll a 1 than a buffed up CQ d6 or d8 unit. Certainly not impossible, but less likely. :)
I mentioned the first melee in my first game - rat ogres vs. phoenix guard, mutually wiped out by rolls of 1. But apart from the sheer entertainment value, I didn't mind so much because I had the idea that elite units (or the sudden disappearance thereof) weren't as critical as in, say, Warhammer. (A game where certain elite units became so powerful, they had to tack 'horde' and 'steadfast' rules onto the blocks of basic infantry just to let them stick around) Useful, certainly, but within the wider game of manoeuvre, denial and focus.
Ditto for lucky 1 rolls, which I feel are just that - lucky. Randomness that can send a chunk of your favourite models for an early bath, but that isn't inherently important to winning the game; especially when you can reduce it by focusing your counters and accumulators (more, better dice = more 1s, natch) and trying to deny your opponent theirs.
(Sounds nice anyway, don'it?)
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Rallying a unit keeps it alive, so though it's true that it cannot do anything, it has saved itself from almost certain death. Keeping it in the game, while inactive for a turn, could be crucial.
Yes, absolutely. But rallying costs at least 2 Cp (unless you have a musician), and if you have more than one disordered unit - or a severely disordered unit with more than one counter - you're going to be spending quite a chunk of your Cps for that turn. So it's often worth the risk ("just one more turn ...").
Anyway, this is all theorising on my part, I will play a few games first to see how things pan out, before making any house rules. It was just the thought of an elite unit dying to a lucky 1 roll from a crappy enemy unit that had me thinking. I'm not overly keen on games that are too heavily influenced by random dice rolling.
I do quite like the idea that an elite unit could succumb to terrible luck now and then. One way to model an elite unit with real staying power, though, would be to use the horde rule. You wouldn't get weapon upgrades, but you could balance that by using a very strong starting profile. That gives you a relentless unit that has to be cut to pieces before it can be defeated. You could easily use that to represent fanatical warrior-monks or a fearless elven warband, if you used sufficiently strong stats.
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A rule I wasn't entirely happy with was the unit support rule, which ties into your concern about quick combat resolution. At a glance I imagined it to be like Hail Caesar's support rule, where friendly units only have to be in contact with your unit to provide a boost. Instead, supporting units have to be fully in contact with the opposing unit. Meaning you have to wait until your turn to move up supporting units, in response to one of your units being charged, which leaves the charged unit a little vulnerable for a while.
I was also looking for a HOTT-style rule here.
But there are ways the enemy charge can be blunted. Maybe your unit has a suitable counter against it. Maybe your unit's readied. Maybe you can use missile fire to soften or drive back the enemy unit. Your units that are ready to support are still a threat that can deter the charge, and maybe they have suitable counters too. They'll have to be dealt with too, maybe simultaneously, which could mean a bit of shuffling around to arrange several charges, using up vital command points, even ending their turn before it can happen, or as it happens (don't forget that - if I read it correctly - most units still have to pay to initiate melee after charging*), possibly giving you a chance to shuffle around and enact your own plans for assault or defence. The practicalities might differ from the theory, but it's all very cat-and-mouse, IMO. Not just as simple as one unit giving another a one-two punch.
* Gets me wondering if there are situations where you might want to charge or engage but not initiate melee right away. Apart from use of the swarm rule, that is. Maybe a weaker unit charging into a flank or rear arc? The charged unit can get a bonus for initiating melee itself, but will need to spend extra to attack towards that arc - while the charger retains the flank bonus, or perhaps supports a stronger frontal assault - or to reform and then attack - which could disrupt it's advance and expose a flank or rear to another angle and a potentially stronger attack. Is that enough to outweigh the obvious flank + initiate double-whammy?
As I read it, you do get a free attack ("impact") when you charge a unit. Units with the impact rule (e.g. cavalry) get a free attack whether or not they charge (so they can default into combat and still benefit from it). Infantry and other units have to take a gamble (unless they're very close), as they could still roll snake eyes and be left stranded to get the benefit. So, even if you're just 2.5" from the enemy, a roll of 1,1 or 1,2 will rob you of your attack when you could have defaulted in (assuming D6 infantry movement) and then paid for an attack. If that happens, you can't charge again that turn and would have to pay 2 Cp to engage and 3 Cp to attack - thus spending 6 Cp on a single unit. So the risk/reward balance is still there.
I thought about something like that myself, but realised that this is where the polydice mechanic kicks in to affect that random factor: it's more difficult for a crappy CQ d12 unit to roll a 1 than a buffed up CQ d6 or d8 unit. Certainly not impossible, but less likely. :)
I mentioned the first melee in my first game - rat ogres vs. phoenix guard, mutually wiped out by rolls of 1. But apart from the sheer entertainment value, I didn't mind so much because I had the idea that elite units (or the sudden disappearance thereof) weren't as critical as in, say, Warhammer. (A game where certain elite units became so powerful, they had to tack 'horde' and 'steadfast' rules onto the blocks of basic infantry just to let them stick around) Useful, certainly, but within the wider game of manoeuvre, denial and focus.
Ditto for lucky 1 rolls, which I feel are just that - lucky. Randomness that can send a chunk of your favourite models for an early bath, but that isn't inherently important to winning the game; especially when you can reduce it by focusing your counters and accumulators (more, better dice = more 1s, natch) and trying to deny your opponent theirs.
(Sounds nice anyway, don'it?)
I think that's right. Mayhem allows something that Warhammer seldom did - for your humble archers to throw down their bows and snatch up their cudgels and power in for an unlikely but tide-turning attack. That sort of thing did happen in real battles, so I like a game that allows the possibility of such things.
By the way, my enjoyment of Mayhem has got me thinking about Havoc. Does anyone have any experience of that game?
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I'm not surprised if I got impact wrong. I have trouble figuring out some of the wording. Under the description of charges it says a unit may attempt a charge even if it doesn't have the impact ability. It almost implies (or, I infer) that charges don't necessarily lead to impacts.
And it's not helped by having to look at unit designations for the full impact rule, and the fact it's listed as a sub-heading under the cavalry designation, because only cavalry has the basic impact ability, which makes the charge+impact rule look like the result of heavy cavalry's momentum, with no explicit note that this is actually the cavalry-specific version of impact (engagement needed but no charge)...
(http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/sansanotp/61112866/5108/5108_900.jpg)
TL;DR: I'd prefer if the impact rule was described in full under the charge heading - or under it's own heading, with notes in the charge and cavalry headings describing their individual impact situations.
I haven't bought or read Havoc, though I have been meaning to,
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I'm not surprised if I got impact wrong. I have trouble figuring out some of the wording. Under the description of charges it says a unit may attempt a charge even if it doesn't have the impact ability. It almost implies (or, I infer) that charges don't necessarily lead to impacts.
And it's not helped by having to look at unit designations for the full impact rule, and the fact it's listed as a sub-heading under the cavalry designation, because only cavalry has the basic impact ability, which makes the charge+impact rule look like the result of heavy cavalry's momentum, with no explicit note that this is actually the cavalry-specific version of impact (engagement needed but no charge)...
TL;DR: I'd prefer if the impact rule was described in full under the charge heading - or under it's own heading, with notes in the charge and cavalry headings describing their individual impact situations.
Yup, the various special rules are somewhat scattered. I'd say that there are three minor problems with the game as it stands:
1. A lack of ease of reference. It would help if Beat Back, Drive Back and Push Back were all listed and costed in the TAG section, for example. (The Stronghold supplement does add a cost for Beat Back.)
2. The weapon designations, as discussed above (easily fixed: use the traits, ignore the descriptions).
3. "Time to table". This, to me, is a key element of any tabletop game. How quickly can you move from deciding to play to actually playing? That's one of the things that makes SBH such a brilliant game: after a few games, you can put two or more roughly balanced warbands down on the table in a couple of minutes without even bothering to look at the points costs. And if you use the builders, it's almost as quick. Dragon Rampant, with its more limited customisation, is really quick too. In contrast, Mayhem does take a bit of preparation. That said, keeping a list of standard units and their stats helps to overcome this. It would have been nice if the book had a few sample units in the way that SBH does - not restrictive lists, but ideas for possible profiles. The Battlechest and Armies of Mayhem files for the BattleScribe app do offer this (although you have to create an army to view the stats), but it'd be better - and less fiddly - to have all the profiles laid out in PDF or print somewhere.
I haven't bought or read Havoc, though I have been meaning to,
I cracked yesterday and ordered print versions of both Havoc and Rogue Planet. I suspect both fall foul of point 3, but I'm planning to use them in carefully prepared games for a bit of variety.
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Well, Havoc and Rogue Planet arrived at the end of the day yesterday, and I gave both a quick skim last night. Very interesting - but Havoc in particular will take a bit of digestion (the book's about 250 pages long!).
First thoughts:
- Rogue Planet appears much closer to Mayhem in mechanics.
- Rogue Planet (and Mayhem) are much more slickly produced than Havoc, which could have done with a bit of a proofread (for occasional stray or missing apostrophes and some uncertainty with dashes in particular). It's a nice-looking book, with black and white illustrations from out-of-copyright sources, although some files were obviously fairly low resolution. In contrast, Rogue Planet is nicely edited (at first glance).
- That's not to say Havoc isn't well written: it is (never confuse the writing with the editing!), and it wins extra points from me for quoting Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary here and there (sample: "Cannon noun: an instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries."). It's also quirky and lively, which I like.
- As with Mayhem, there are loud echoes of RPGs in Havoc. The size of the rulebook is one. The troop types - and more specifically the weapon types - are another. So, we get the same "devastating but ponderous" depiction of "great weapons" as in Mayhem. Interestingly, in Havoc all polearms are explicitly classed as spears.
- Minor quibbles aside, one thing that looks interesting about Havoc is that once the rules are mastered, "time to table" looks to be pretty short. Forces are built from a list of 22 standard profiles (spearman, dual wielder, light cavalry, infantryman, behemoth, etc.). Not up Nord's street, I'd imagine! But - and this is a big but - there's plenty of room to flavour war bands through the use of the "named" - non-standard characters. So, an orcish warband could be augmented with named characters such as "the Brutal", "the Butcher" and "the Executioner". An elfin force, on the other hand, might get "the Bard", "the Fencer" and "the Champion". Some profiles also have options, so there's great potential for customisation.
- Where both systems look attractive is in the range of possibilities and the disruption of the conventional turn sequence. In Havoc, the "cut scenes" are intriguing - allowing for extra actions by "named" characters.
- It'll take some reading to get either game going. The turn sequence for both is, at first glance, relatively complicated. But I look forward to getting to grips with both.
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I've been reading through Havoc a bit more and am really champing at the bit for a game now (this weekend!). If anyone's played it, I'd love to hear their thoughts.
A few more thoughts on it, from what I've read.
First, it strikes me that this is very much a game rather than a simulation (even of things that never happened). I've got no problem with that; indeed, it reminds me in many respects of Ganesha's Battlesworn, which is a terrific game but with much less of a simulatory feel than the same company's Song of Blade and Heroes. Havoc looks like it'll be terrific, tactical fun.
On the other hand, it has got quite a lot of effective "simulation" built into the rules. Cavalry look to be properly devastating with the impact rule, and the "volley fire" rule for groups of archers has a spine-tingling "death of Boromir/end of Throne of Blood" feel to it. So perhaps there's a tension there, because there are areas where there's an obvious simulatory void: heavy infantry for example - there's no obvious way to model a late-medieval foot knight or man-at-arms in full plate. You could, I suppose, read "shield" as "heavy armour" in the "melee and shield" description, which would give you a basic distinction between light infantry (skirmishers) and heavy infantry (shield or armour). Still, I don't think that will give you the appropriate feel of near-invulnerable plate-armoured men-at-arms. There's no equivalent of Battlesworn's "multi-classing", which allows you to field a foot knight as a Tank/Brute.
No matter! What the game does do, as I discovered tonight while trying to work out a couple of initial army lists for the weekend, is encourage you to dig out interesting miniatures that will fill the roles that the game does cater for. So, I've just gone through my goblins to find suitable hand-weapon-only skirmishers - and they very much look the part. And I also noticed a couple of Bob Olley black orcs that I painted up a while back that will do perfectly for "the Executioner" (complete with severed head!) and "the Brutal".
And that, I think and hope, is where these rules will shine: by encouraging the digging out of miniatures suitable for the various swashbuckling roles among the "Named". So, while some miniatures will be excluded by the logic of the game (are those Tom Meier troglodytes quite big enough to be Behemoths? Possibly not, if their reach is supposed to be 3"), others will fit into place nicely (and those trogs could always be "Brutals" or "Butchers").
There's interesting conversion potential too. I don't have a "Regulator" (a firearm-toting light cavalryman), but I do have some duplicate orcs on boars who might be converted to carry flintlocks ...
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We played our first game of Havoc on Saturday. This was an 1,100-point-a-side affair.
The forces were as follows:
Lizardmen
Two heavy cavalry (cold-one riders)
Six melee and shield (lizardmen)
Two spear and shield (lizardmen)
Four archers (small lizardmen)
Three great weapon (lizardmen)
One behemoth (dragon lizard)
One giant (T-rex)
One dual wielder 'The Berserker' (scimitar monster)
Goblins
Five fast cavalry (bow-armed wolfriders)
Ten archers (orcs)
Eight skirmishers (small orcs)
1 'The Brutal' (bugbear)
Our evening game was curtailed by post-judo fatigue and the impending arrival of dinner, but we played it through to a fairly safe conclusion (the lizardmen were pretty much in control by the time we stopped). It was a bit more fiddly than our standard games (SBH, DR, Battlesworn), but I think much of that was down to first-time syndrome and unfamiliar abbreviations (especially for my son, who hasn't read the rules).
I enjoyed it, though, and we'll certainly be giving it another go soon. My son has made this conditional, though: he really liked the way the heavy cavalry played out, so he'll play a game of Havoc for every additional cold-one rider I paint up. I'm almost finished the first, so we'll get another game in this week. Otherwise, here are my thoughts from our first run-through:
Compared with SBH, missile troops are much more powerful. Concentrated fire is achieved much more easily than in SBH, and it seemed even more devastating (not least because you can fire twice a turn). I suspect SBH is more realistic here (given the small numbers of archers involved), but the deadliness of archery in Havoc certainly gives the game an entirely different dimension. The long ranges add to this. We didn't try out volley fire, but that looks like another interesting dimension.
The rules for cavalry are great! My son was delighted by the way his cold-one riders were able to ride down whole packs of goblins in single sweeping movements. We've achieved something similar in Advanced SoBH by using Dashing, Running Blow and Trample, but the slightly larger scale of Havoc means that larger numbers of fearsome mounted warriors can be deployed.
That scale is something we enjoyed about the game. I think Havoc fills a niche of its own, between the 5-15 figures per side of SBH and the 30-60 of DR/LR. We've played enjoyable games of SBH with many more figures on one side, but those benefited from being deliberately asymmetrical (i.e. five elven archers against a huge horde of monsters). But what Havoc offers is something nice between the "every man an individual" aspect of SoBH and the "units only" approach of Dragon Rampant. SBH (especially ASBH) offers much more detail per model, and the option of a completely varied warband with no two members alike, but Havoc neatly occupies a slot between that and the unit proflies of DR/LR.
In that regard, the flexibility of units and individuals in Havoc is great! You can move your forces forward in formation, but then send one or more soldiers off to occupy a vantage point/call in volley fire/guard the rear. That gives it a very different feel to DR.
We didn't really use the standard melee system at all, as all of our close combats were resolved by impact or "combined assault manoeuvres". So that's something to explore more next time.
My concerns about the lack of certain troop types have abated a bit. I think it'll be quite easy to rationalise using the available profiles for different types of soldier. In this regard, I think Battlesworn, with its "Fighter/Brute/Tank" offers a useful pointer. The concern then will be clear identification during the game.
The giant rules are absolutely terrific! Our giant (a T-rex) destroyed most of a wolfrider unit by seizing a hapless orc archer in his jaws and sending the wretch headlong into the nearby cavalry, taking three of them out in the process. It makes huge amounts of sense to give giants the "fling" and "smash" ranged attacks ("smash" took care of most of the other orc archers).
Although there are no morale rules, various parts of the game create appropriate morale effects. Most obviously, troops need to seek the safety of their peers to function as units. But there are other factors too. In our game, the sole surviving archer had good reason to flee the giant. Not only was he in danger, but he posed a grave danger to his fellows, as he could be plucked from the earth and sent hurtling into their ranks. That made it well worth using an activation to have him flee.
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Back to Mayhem. I was thinking this over and decided that, given the quality of the game, it was well worth creating some dedicated forces on square bases. And that led me to 15mm and 5cm square bases. The 10cm coasters will serve as bases for scenic elements - with each containing either several "garrisonable" elements or (more usually) a single one in a corner or the centre.
I had a hunt through the leadpile and discovered ... not much in the way of viable 15mm stuff. I have a unit or two of the lovely old AD&D Battlemaster elves and a command group of dwarves, and some superb - but sadly riderless - goblin wolves. But from small acorns ...
That led me to thinking about what I could do for the bigger troop types - monsters and behemoths and so on. Our first armies will, inevitably, be based around lizardmen and goblins (though I'm much keener on variety rather than "factions"). I then espied some Caesar 20mm lizardmen that I got a while ago for my son to paint. He's based and painted a few, but the rest will make perfect giant lizardmen/troglodytes for 15mm. They actually stand about 30mm high when standing straight - but most are crouching down, so look convincing fighting 15mm troops. We'll use three or four per base. Happily, most have clubs or maces and look suitably "giants".
And then we have a few Magister Militum dinosaurs that my son bought at Claymore last year. Perfect for some impressive monsters for the lizardmen.
Trolls/ogres? Some heavily armoured Mantic orcs will make convincing "war trolls" in the Peter Jackson mode - especially if equipped with hammers and clubs. Two to a base. I'm going to see if the Wargames Factory orcs might work as ogres.
And a couple of Reaper bones orcs with very wide stances (thus almost unusable for 28mm) will fit in nicely as fire giants (or whatever).
I also think that some GW gnoblars might do as trolls. Some are just too comic and pathetic-looking, but the ones that have clubs and nasty-looking faces could work as Bauer-ish trolls.
That leaves me with plenty of "specials" and so just some bases of infantry and cavalry to bulk things out. Looking at 15mm prices, I reckon that I can have a couple of playable (if behemoth-heavy) armies with expenditure limited to twenty or thirty quid.
On using 28mm as giants/ogres/trolls: I reckon that there are a few useful principles here. First, you want bludgeoning-type weapons if at all possible. And not too big - I think it almost helps if they look relatively small for the creatures wielding them (but still very big compared with a 15mm figure). Second, heads, in general, shouldn't be too big either. The gnoblar-trolls might work, but I've always thought that GW orcs are hopeless as 15mm trolls. The Mantic ones, on the other hand, work better because their heads are proportionately small, which gives them an ogreish look. Shields are generally a bad thing - I think the Reaper orc will work, because his shield (a spiked sheet of metal) is so peculiar and outlandish (and his tiny head helps too). But there's something about shields that generally suggests a man-sized creature.
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Nice. :) I have to say I'm fairly faction-ish in my thinking, but I'm looking forward to the variety.
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Nice. :) I have to say I'm fairly faction-ish in my thinking, but I'm looking forward to the variety.
I've been thinking for some time of posting a new topic entitled "Down with 'factions'!". I've really got to now, haven't I? ;)
Here are some of the first 15s for Mayhem. I haven't quite decided on basing yet - these giant lizardmen could go either three to a base or four. I'm leaning towards three, out of laziness and also because it looks a little more "behemoth" and less "outsized rank and file". But I'm not quite sure yet. I blue tacked a whole load of these 1:72 lizardmen to bases and they looked pretty good four to a base en masse. I'll get a few more painted before I make any final decision.
One of the things I'm looking forward to in playing Mayhem with 15s is the possibility of a having (for example) the entire centre of a lizardman army composed of giant lizardmen, with smaller troops on the wings and in reserve. I've got enough of these Caesar beasties for four or five bases, and perhaps one more of missile troops.
I had another look at the gnoblars as trolls. I think they'll work pretty well - there are enough heads that are more fearsome than goofy. And there are a fair few that have bludgeons and cudgels and no obvious scale "tells". But what struck me in particular is that, with their forward-leaning stances, they (a) look as if they're stooping to fight human-sized foes and (b) will fit together nicely when crammed onto a base. One of the nice things about Mayhem is that there's complete freedom in unit creation. So it's perfectly possible to use large creatures to make a "horde" - essentially a relentless, hard-to-kill infantry unit. Normally, one would give such a unit a very low-grade "combat quality" stat - D20 or something. But by giving the horde d10 or even d8, you could make a pretty fearsome horde of loathsome trolls. So a backed base or two of gnoblars is on the list ...
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I've been thinking for some time of posting a new topic entitled "Down with 'factions'!". I've really got to now, haven't I? ;)
Well, yeah!
Despite my last post, I have to agree about the freedom to break away from rigid factions, to put in unusual units, and also to represent 'set' units in a way that might be thought to be more appropriate. (I'll have more to say/rant about that in a faction topic, if you start one) I have BOFA wood elves temporarily mixed in with Warmaster high elves, standing in for spearmen and archers in a Mayhem army, but they don't 'feel' particularly out of place.
I'm leaning towards three, out of laziness and also because it looks a little more "behemoth" and less "outsized rank and file". But I'm not quite sure yet. I blue tacked a whole load of these 1:72 lizardmen to bases and they looked pretty good four to a base en masse.
Looking at them, I'd agree with the three-to-a-base reasoning. Though if you like the four-to-a-base look, maybe the different poses make them look 'warband-y' enough?
The lizardman army plans sound interesting and, again, agreed about the possibilities of hordes. (They do seem to be automatically thought of in terms of 'dregs' like orcs, zombies, ratmen...) And lest I forget, you've made me especially curious about Havoc again.
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Well, being a fan of polyhedral dice (StarGrunt II) for war games and RPGs in the past I decided to download the Mayhem PDFs to give it a trial compared to RRtK (Rally 'Round the King) rules.