War of the Sundered Realms - A fantasy wargame of mass battles

[Giger]

This is just a quick post to invite you to check out my new fantasy mass battle rule set called "War of the Sundered Realms".  It's a quick and simple rule set which means you don't need to spend all your game time with your head buried in a book, instead you'll be thinking of new ways to out wit your opponent and beat them to a bloody pulp!

The rules and army lists are available to download from the following website:

https://warofthesunderedrealms.blogspot.com/

There's also a Facebook group where you can share any feedback or pictures of battles you've had:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/301766394437946/?source_id=112018243927217

Thanks

[Polkovnik]

I've had a read through of the rules. Are you looking for feedback on them ?

If you want people to play you should probably get some photos and battle reports on your blog.

[Giger]

Indeed I am looking for feedback and potentially doing a video as well.

[Golgotha]

Always great to see new rules especially when they are free - thank you. Will give 'em a bash. A practical example of how combat works would be good.

[Polkovnik]

Indeed I am looking for feedback and potentially doing a video as well.

OK , here's some feedback from my read through. I hope it is useful for you.

Formations - these don't seem to have any effect on combat. You would expect that if a small unit (a cohort) fights a large unit (a battalion) in line, the battalion shouldn't be able to fight with it's full power.

Melee - I think it is a problem that the defending unit can choose to attack and this means neither side gets to roll saving throws based on their defence stat. This means that a unit with worse defence should choose to attack when charged, and the defence stat of the attacking unit becomes irrelevant. So if a heavily armoured unit charges an unarmored unit their armour is suddenly worthless.

Regroup - combat always result in one unit moving away, so there is no ongoing combat, which seems strange for mass battle rules.

Morale - no morale effect for nearby friendly units routing or generals being killed, which again seems strange in a mass battle.

Playing a game - why five turns ? Surely battles should go on until one side is defeated. Armies don't just stop fighting after a certain time limit.

Some other things you might normally expect to see in mass battle rules (which you may have made a conscious decision to leave out for simplicity):
Effect for different weapons (although you do have some combat bonuses to certain units in the army lists), unit special abilities, special rules for different troop types.

Some of the points values in the army lists look a bit off. For example, a cohort of dwarf hearthguard is 135 points and has power 10, so gets 10 attacks (at 4+ on d8) and takes 10 hits to wipe it out. A battalion of mountain goblins is 90 points and has power 30, so gets 30 attacks (needing 7+ on a d8) and 30 hits to kill it. The goblins are less points but much better in combat.
If the dwarfs charge the goblins, the defence value does not get used (as mentioned above under Melee), so the likelihood is the dwarfs will do around 6 hits on the goblins (hardly affecting them with their power 30) and the goblins will do around 8 hits on the dwarfs, virtually wiping them out (and a bad roll on the morale test will finish them off). Another round of combat and the dwarfs will be dead.

A suggestion when working out points values is play through some one unit vs one unit combats (either actually rolling the dice or working out expected number of hits based on probability - you can even do this on a spreadsheet). The results should give you some idea of the relative combat effectiveness of different units.

[Giger]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to cover the points you've mentioned below.  One thing to note is that the rules have been designed to be simple, very casual friendly and any complexity should come from trying to out wit your opponent (much like chess).

OK , here's some feedback from my read through. I hope it is useful for you.

Formations - these don't seem to have any effect on combat. You would expect that if a small unit (a cohort) fights a large unit (a battalion) in line, the battalion shouldn't be able to fight with it's full power.
Though formations don't effect the Power of a unit (again this is for simplicity) they play a key role in out maneuvering your enemy.  A formation change at the right moment can stop a charge from reaching them or block access to a vital unit or objective.  The downside is of course this can expose your flanks or rear facing which will effect their Defense.

Melee - I think it is a problem that the defending unit can choose to attack and this means neither side gets to roll saving throws based on their defence stat. This means that a unit with worse defence should choose to attack when charged, and the defence stat of the attacking unit becomes irrelevant. So if a heavily armoured unit charges an unarmored unit their armour is suddenly worthless.
A unit can only choose to Attack when being charged if it hasn't already activated and if it has been charged in its front facing so it becomes a question of selecting when a unit should be charged and by who.  There was a question of should units then defend the damage they received but personally I liked the bloodiness of the combat when this occurred.

Regroup - combat always result in one unit moving away, so there is no ongoing combat, which seems strange for mass battle rules.
This is to allow what are in effect counter charges.  A unit which was charged this turn and chose to defend can then charge that unit who can now only defend as they have already activated.  Also as you can pass through or pivot through an enemy unit you are in effect locked in combat (but with the option to move backwards or sideways to potentially allow another unit a charge.

Morale - no morale effect for nearby friendly units routing or generals being killed, which again seems strange in a mass battle.
I did consider a morale test for all units once their leader has been defeated but once again for simplicity sake I left this out (though it still might make a return)

Playing a game - why five turns ? Surely battles should go on until one side is defeated. Armies don't just stop fighting after a certain time limit.
Most games have some form of time or turn limit so that a play session can be judged correctly for all involved.
 We found five turns was enough to achieve a satisfying result with the provided the scenarios.

Some other things you might normally expect to see in mass battle rules (which you may have made a conscious decision to leave out for simplicity):
Effect for different weapons (although you do have some combat bonuses to certain units in the army lists), unit special abilities, special rules for different troop types.
Indeed, I wanted to avoid a list or pages of special rules so anything like this is noted in the units entry in the army list, this also means everything you need to field a unit is right there without referring elsewhere.

Some of the points values in the army lists look a bit off. For example, a cohort of dwarf hearthguard is 135 points and has power 10, so gets 10 attacks (at 4+ on d8) and takes 10 hits to wipe it out. A battalion of mountain goblins is 90 points and has power 30, so gets 30 attacks (needing 7+ on a d8) and 30 hits to kill it. The goblins are less points but much better in combat.
If the dwarfs charge the goblins, the defence value does not get used (as mentioned above under Melee), so the likelihood is the dwarfs will do around 6 hits on the goblins (hardly affecting them with their power 30) and the goblins will do around 8 hits on the dwarfs, virtually wiping them out (and a bad roll on the morale test will finish them off). Another round of combat and the dwarfs will be dead.
The points definitely need some adjusting and only with a lot of play testing but we've found that generally they're in a decent place.  A goblin battalion for instance will take damage very easily and with such a low morale will take more damage during the morale phase where as the Dwarves are exceedingly hardly.  However at the end of the day should a small unit of Dwarves really charge into a mass of vicious Goblins and expect to live?  Now if they wait till they are preoccupied (activated) or perhaps attack from a flank or rear you've got a very different situation (on top of this you can have a character accompany them to add some weight to the fight).

A suggestion when working out points values is play through some one unit vs one unit combats (either actually rolling the dice or working out expected number of hits based on probability - you can even do this on a spreadsheet). The results should give you some idea of the relative combat effectiveness of different units.

We have sat down and crunched some numbers like this but battlefield positioning plays such a key role in how a unit acts only actual game play has given us a real idea if a unit is over costed.  I'll actually be taking the Dwarves out for a battle this weekend so I'll see how well the Hearthguard perform.

[Giger]

Always great to see new rules especially when they are free - thank you. Will give 'em a bash. A practical example of how combat works would be good.

I'm going to try an film a short video this weekend, this is totally new to me so I'll see how it turns out!

[jon_1066]

Nice presentation

Is there a typo on page 8 Morale?  It states a double 8 always fails but doesn't cause casualties if it is less than the power but morale tests cause casualties if greater than morale.

Some thoughts I had.

Should you put a limit on power - ie how many dice you can roll in combat?  Lets take that Goblin unit with 30 power.  First off rolling 30 dice will be a pain and secondly not all of them are going to be able to get stuck in but will be milling around at the back.  By introducing a limit it gives an additional factor in unit construction - ie no loss of combat power due to a small number of casualties.

As a stylistic thing ideally you want to have high rolls good and low bad or vice versa the same throughout the system.  At the minute you have morale tests where high is bad and combat where high is good. 

Negative modifiers are counter intuitive as being good as well.  So rolling high is good but a negative modifier is applied to the target which is confusing.  Applying them to the result is more normal.  ie die roll modifiers rather than target number modifiers.

[Giger]

Is there a typo on page 8 Morale?  It states a double 8 always fails but doesn't cause casualties if it is less than the power but morale tests cause casualties if greater than morale.

Thank you, that's a throw back to an older system and should read Morale now so I'll edit that.

With how much Power a unit has, 30 is currently the highest (and probably will be the max limit) and you'll find it quickly diminishes with damage inflicted.  I do like to roll a bucket full of dice but knew that it can get silly (I've seen 80+ dice being rolled in 40k) so placed a limit of 30 on myself as something that can be rolled in one go - though I do have big hands

For the modifiers I wanted the stat to be changed rather than the roll so that when you roll the dice what you see is what you get.  We found this easy, though I know it's not generally the norm, as the score required is worked out before the roll then it's just a case of totaling up the dice.

[Polkovnik]

  First off rolling 30 dice will be a pain

And I think this will also be a barrier to people trying out the rules, as I don't expect most gamers will have a large number of D8s to hand.

You could scale all of the Power stats down to say a third of what they currently are. This would mean less dice to roll (so quicker combat resolution) and less hits to track, without affecting the probable combat outcomes (although the moral rules would also need adjusting to reflect the lower number of hits suffered).

[Polkovnik]

Most games have some form of time or turn limit so that a play session can be judged correctly for all involved.

Most games that you have played maybe. Most historical games do not have such a time limit, as historical battles did not finish after a set time. I don't see why fantasy should be any different.

A goblin battalion for instance will take damage very easily and with such a low morale will take more damage during the morale phase where as the Dwarves are exceedingly hardly.

They both have the same morale value.

at the end of the day should a small unit of Dwarves really charge into a mass of vicious Goblins and expect to live?

If the dwarves cost 135 points and the goblins cost 90 points then yes, I would expect the dwarves to be able to charge the goblins and have a good chance of winning.
The goblins are also much faster (move 7 compared to 4) so have a good chance of having a positional advantage (e.g. charging the dwarves when the dwarves have already activated).

[jon_1066]

Regards power the point is to prevent the goblins or whoever from being overpowered when in a large band but still giving them staying power.  eg putting a limit of 18 dice on power means the goblin unit still packs less of a punch than a smaller dwarf unit say but can absorb casualties without losing power whereas the smaller dwarf unit will lose power as they lose casualties.  This also makes thematic sense with regards the rear ranks.  A large body of troops doesn't get active people attacking from the rear ranks but they can replace casualties in the front ranks that are fighting.

It basically gives you the option to have units that are a glass hammer (can dish out damage but can't take much) and those that are a tank (can absorb damage but can't dish out much). 

I would still advise to change the high rolls are both good and bad system you have.  If you make low rolls good for combat the odds, etc stay exactly the same.  It would also make your stats more intuitive as high stats for melee would transfer to low ones.  eg goblins would be a 2 rather than a 7, needing a 2 or 1 to hit.  The modifiers would also work intuitively on the target score as a negative modifier would be bad and positive good.

[Giger]

And I think this will also be a barrier to people trying out the rules, as I don't expect most gamers will have a large number of D8s to hand.

You could scale all of the Power stats down to say a third of what they currently are. This would mean less dice to roll (so quicker combat resolution) and less hits to track, without affecting the probable combat outcomes (although the moral rules would also need adjusting to reflect the lower number of hits suffered).

That's fair enough, though I've noticed other recent fantasy games using D12s and D10s which I why I thought it wouldn't be much of issue (I originally was going to go with D6s but that's something that has always bothered me).  Also I have a ton of D8s from playing Deadzone though I bought a whole bunch of nice looking D8s, enough for two armies, off eBay along with counters for activations at very little cost.

[jon_1066]

Another suggestion would be to link the morale test result to the result of combat like in Lion Rampant.  eg if a unit fails its morale test then it must withdraw.  This allows a defensive feature to be captured without having to completely destroy the unit defending it - eg a wall or rampart.

[Giger]

Another suggestion would be to link the morale test result to the result of combat like in Lion Rampant.  eg if a unit fails its morale test then it must withdraw.  This allows a defensive feature to be captured without having to completely destroy the unit defending it - eg a wall or rampart.

I did look at possibly having a routing mechanic but in the end went with the extra damage caused as it was quick and easy to do (in game play terms) within the system already there.  To have a system were a unit flees would generally mean they would then have to rally etc. and I opted against this in the end due to the added "complexity" it would bring.