"Erin" by Alternative Armies

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

Received a copy of this yesterday. I've only just started to get into it but I must say I like the aspects of the combat system already - and already I'm thinking how I'll adapt it!  

Basically there is a roll to hit - "Cause wound" it's called. It is a target number that is rolled on 2D6 with the objective of getting equal or higher. It successful the target makes a roll to survive. Also with 2D6. So far it is the basic roll to hit/wound and then save system common to many games. Now is where it gets cool. If the defender has a shield he can force the attacker to re-roll one of his dice (presumably the higher one) and the second result becomes his to hit roll, which may well now be a miss. Secondly, if the attack still hits and the defender is wearing armour he can force the attacker to re-roll the other die. Note that this may not be the highest die as the re-rolled shield die could actually be a better roll than the initial roll. If either of the re-rolled dice is a '6' then either the shield or the armour is damaged and doesn't count until repaired or replaced.

I think it's a cool little system. But, of course, I'm already tinkering...

For one thing, the system doesn't take into account different types of armour or shields. My idea is to vary the die type to account for this. So the basic attack is made using 2D6. The shield parry re-rolls a D6 as normal, or perhaps allows a re-roll with a D8 if it is a large shield. The Armour Die re-roll is with a D6 for "light" armour, a D8 for "medium" and a D10 for "heavy" armour. A roll of '6', '8' or '10' still causes damage to the shield or armour as before. 

Edit: Ahhh, I see a flaw in my tinkering. The roll would have to be reversed if I wanted to use different die types as indicated. Hmmm... 

I've also got some ideas regarding wounds...  

Howard

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Well, it doesn't give you as many gradations, but normal armor/shield could force a re-roll of D6, while heavy armor or a large shield could force a re-roll of D4.  If you really wanted super-heavy armor, you could bump it down to a D3.