Removing stands in Warmaster + Blitzkrieg/Cold War/Future War Commander series

[ntdars]

Hey all, wanted some feedback from the hivemind here;

My group has been interested in Warmaster historicals for some time, along with the "Commander" series based off the Warmaster system.

One thing that has been troubling for us to get over for a while is that the only way to actually "remove" stands who have been killed is by focusing all firepower/attacks on them in a single turn, as in the Warmaster system you remove any outstanding wounds at the end of a turn.

Wanted to know people's thoughts on this mechanic and how it affects gameplay. We do understand the upside in the Commander series as inflicting a large amount of hits on a unit may Suppress it or affect it's future actions (so by design you might want to shoot to suppress, which is great) - but also, it might encourage players to just dump a TON of attacks into a unit to more or less erase them from the board.

Do you guys enjoy this mechanic? I'm unsure if it exists in the Black Powder system as well.

[frank xerox]

Didn't really enjoy CWC in the couple of games I've played but not really found it an issue in historicals because of the melee mechanism - you might not kill a stand in the first round of melee but if you win and push them back you get advantages that means you probably will and they've not had time to rally off hits

[SJWi]

Hi, a long time since I played an early version of Blitzkrieg Commander. To be honest the mechanism you mention was one of the reasons we dropped them. They have a loyal following so some people obviously are happy with how it plays.

[fred]

It is very much linked to the multiple order system

There are optional rules around leaving hits on between turns, but the game then becomes much more deadly. Or just to take off 1 or 2 hits at the end of a turn.

I blow hot and cold with BKC, I’ve had some good games, especially when you get into the flow of the period and the game. But other times it can feel very mechanistic - I did use the phrase ‘dice pools hunting other dice pools’ to describe the way tank combat could end up, especially by players who understood the odds.

[Ninefingers]

When playing CWC, our club always uses the persistant hits option rather than taking them off at the end of the turn. Otherwise, you're there all night trying to take out a few Chieftains even with a hoard of T72s...

[ntdars]

When playing CWC, our club always uses the persistant hits option rather than taking them off at the end of the turn. Otherwise, you're there all night trying to take out a few Chieftains even with a hoard of T72s...

Do you double the hitpoints/wounds of each model? I imagine stuff might get wiped off the table pretty fast that way

[Etranger]

As a house rule, just don't wipe off the hits at the end of each turn, and let them accumulate. That's how we play it (& we beta-tested the latest version of BKC-IV using that rule, where it's an option). It makes the game quite a bit bloodier.

The other way to look at it is that "shooting everything" at one base and then removing it if destroyed is an abstraction, & mimics the ad-hoc reorganisation that all units go through when they take casualties.

[sultanbev]

The introduction of a fire priority rule as used in Spearhead/Modern Spearhead would stop the massing of dice onto one target effect.

[Ninefingers]

Do you double the hitpoints/wounds of each model? I imagine stuff might get wiped off the table pretty fast that way

Nope. But if you've got a lot of stuff then it doesn't matter! WARPAC stuff tends to take 1-2 turns to take out, NATO maybe a turn or two later unless the Soviets really focus their shooting.

[ntdars]

Thank you for the feedback everyone. One thing we're worried about that was mentioned in the thread a few times is that letting wounds accumulate over the game does make it much more bloody. This is a bit of a concern to us, as we're coming from systems like Force On Force, where models aren't typically being killed left and right, but instead are being wounded slowly and losing effectiveness etc.

It seems like it was a core concept of the Commander series to put more emphasis on Suppression anyway, so if possible we'd like to keep that feel. Our group discussed a possible house-rule that would fix this problem for us, and were wanting to hear your thoughts.

As you all know, once a unit is Hit, they roll for saves. Any unsaved hits tally onto their "wounds" or "hits" which disappear at the end of the round. In addition, you roll a dice for each unsaved wound looking for a result that is equal to or above the value that was needed to hit the unit originally - on a single success the unit is suppressed.

Our fix;

• We use the cumulative hits optional rule, so wounds persist throughout the rounds.
• The shooter rolls to hit as normal, and the defender rolls for saves as normal.
• Unsaved hits do not automatically apply a wound - instead, roll for Suppression as normal. On the result of a 5 or a 6, the unit THEN takes a Wound as well as becoming suppressed. If the unit is in Heavy Cover, then they are only wounded on a 6.

Example; Player shoots 5 dice at their opponent, needing 3's to hit - all five are successes. The defender rolls their cover save and negates 3 hits. The attacker rolls for suppression AND wounds with the two unsaved hits, the results are 2 and 5. The 2 is ignored as normal since they required a 3 to hit initially, but the 5 causes a Wound AND the unit becomes suppressed. (If the unit were in Hard Cover which is providing them a sort of body cover, shots become less lethal, so they would need a 6 to inflict a Wound instead).

What this accomplishes;

• No added dice rolls
• Allows Wounds to persist through the rounds without being too lethal
• Has no impact on normal Suppression mechanics

Would love to hear your guys thoughts - we'll be playtesting this method next week!

[fred]

Worth a try, but I suspect that units in heavy cover will be un-killable, needing 6s to hit getting a save, then needing a 6 to wound.

A key bit with BKC is that the scale of the game is big - you aren’t thinking about individuals you are thinking about platoons at the lowest level and battalions overall. You need some abstraction to allow for lots of units on the table.

I’d perhaps suggest allowing hits to be removed at the end of the turn but only to a limited amount if you are worried stuff will get killed too quickly.

[sultanbev]

I think someone on the Pendraken forum recently posted the idea of leaving the hits on, but allowing units to recover 1 per turn, or a limited number per turn, but you roll for each hit at the end of the turn, a single D6 recovers the wound on a say 5-6 for green troops, 4-6 for average, 3-6 for elite/veteran types - partly in an attempt to represent different troop qualities - veterans would regroup and tend to wounded, repair damage, etc, quicker than raw troops.