Project: Adapting Warhammer rules for historical and Westeros purposes

[Charlie_]

Hi all.

I have recently decided to take the bold step and get back into wargaming! Years ago I was a Warhammer Fantasy player, but gave it up. I've always waned to get back into it one day, but a few things stood in my way or put me off:
1 - Setting / world. I like the WFB world as a sandbox type setting, but my vision of it is much more low-fantasy, realistic style, and in recent years I've seen it get too crazy and over the top for my liking. Medieval historical gaming appeals to me, but I don't want to just recreate Agincourt etc.
2 - Rules. Again, I like the core WFB rules, but don't like how it is continually shifting with every new edition and with every new army book, the emphasis changing every time, never settling on one fully balanced and flawless edition. Cursed to be eternally flawed and unbalanced.
3 - Scale. I want a massed battle game, not skirmish. But it must be scaleable to some degree, something that works equally well with with 50 or 500 models on the table. I do want individual models, not unit bases.
4 - Cost. This is the most important one. Games Workshop have (but maybe don't any more) made the best models, but they are just too damn pricey. To collect those massed ranks of high elven infantry will simply not happen (especially as I'd be wanting to find all the old 90s metal models, picking them up off ebay one by one).

But two things have recently happened that have shown me the way back!!!!!

1 - Perry Miniatures. My preferred era of medieval warfare is 15th century, and Perry Miniatures have a pretty much complete range of VERY high quality plastic kits to cover this era. Those 5 boxes are all I need, and they are seriously affordable!
2 - George R R Martin. I discovered the world of A Song Of Ice And Fire through the Game Of Thrones TV Show, and quickly realised it was EXACTLY what I want in a fantasy setting - a detailed, realistic, believable low fantasy setting closely based on the real world. I have since read all the books and am absolutely hooked.

So what I'm gonna do is get back into wargaming via Westeros, using Perry Miniatures for my own vision of Martin's world, and using my own simplifed / rearranged WFB rules.

With the WFB rules, my view is that by removing all the fantasy elements such as magic, monsters, flying creatures, epic heroes, plus chariots and war machines, we have a very good core rules system, made much more manageable when its essentially just human infantry and cavalry fighting other human infantry and cavalry. Without all the crazy, random, overpowered stuff with broken rules popping up everywhere we can actually focus on stategy.

So I've been working these past few weeks on my own take on the WFB rules, adapted for medieval historical warfare, and subsequently to be used for battles in Westeros too. Using all 8 editions of WFB and the Warhammer Ancients rules as source material.

Would people here be interested in this? Discussing ideas for adapting the WFB rules? Both little tweaks and drastic rethinks. I'd love to have some people to bounce ideas off! : )

[Arlequín]

My only gripe with WFB/WAB was that it was a large skirmish game masquerading as a mass battle rule set. Not that it wasn't still fun to play anyway despite that.

If you are looking for a mass battle set in a similar vein, but is actually what it says on the tin, might I suggest Kings of War as your starting point? Mantic even intend producing historical lists for them.

 

[Lowtardog]

Warhammer ancient battles would be the way to go, you will be able to pick up the rules on ebay. Also the wab forum has lots of army lists you can tinker with

[Nord]

Count me in, I have a similar view on the game. I think 8th edition is possibly the best set of rules, clearer and more streamlined than previous versions. You might want to reintroduce some extra movement rules, the current set you can pretty much just do whatever you like, which might not match your views on ranked up units moving.

I'm not that sure on the scaleability. The rules were obviously designed with fairly big units in mind, since every phase became very potent. There are far more casualties in this version than previously, which requires biggish units. Small units die in one phase and are probably better handled in a game like Lion Rampant (or rather the upcoming Dragon Rampant, if it's up to snuff).

Anyway, feel free to bounce round some ideas, it would be interesting to see what you are thinking.

[Charlie_]

Warhammer ancient battles would be the way to go, you will be able to pick up the rules on ebay. Also the wab forum has lots of army lists you can tinker with

I've been looking at the WAB rules and am liking some of the ideas and concepts they have, though at the same time a lot of the special rules seem to get rather messy quickly. But I'll definitely be using it as a source, and I'll check out the army lists on the wab forum, thanks for the tip.

Count me in, I have a similar view on the game. I think 8th edition is possibly the best set of rules, clearer and more streamlined than previous versions. You might want to reintroduce some extra movement rules, the current set you can pretty much just do whatever you like, which might not match your views on ranked up units moving.

I'm not that sure on the scaleability. The rules were obviously designed with fairly big units in mind, since every phase became very potent. There are far more casualties in this version than previously, which requires biggish units. Small units die in one phase and are probably better handled in a game like Lion Rampant (or rather the upcoming Dragon Rampant, if it's up to snuff).

Anyway, feel free to bounce round some ideas, it would be interesting to see what you are thinking.

I like a lot of elements of 8th, but I don't like how it's so lethal and everything dies so quickly. In most evenly matched combats there should be just a few kills on each side each turn, rather than whole ranks being slaughtered (unevenly matched combats is a different thing of course).

I would like to see lots of blocks of infantry on the table, but it shouldn't have to be single huge units. 100 spearmen sounds awesome, but I'd rather see 4 blocks of 25 than one huge block of 100, for instance! I don't like the steadfast and horde rules at all (which both encourage these huge blocks).

One thing I want to do is cut down on all the special rules and make the base statistics more important, especially WS. Having a high WS should be enough to really make a unit stand out. In WFB 8th, it really doesn't mean much when everything that unit is facing will be having always strikes first, re-rolls, impact hits, stomp hits, and things like that. So many layers of special rules, with every army book introducing new ones to make the army competitive with the old ones, which in turns just clogs up the system with more special rules and makes the old stuff seem weak. The ridiculous Age of Sigmar rules GW has just brought out really takes the biscuit - the statline is pretty much non-existent, so what makes each of the old WFB units unique (they have had to quickly churn out all these rules to make the old units still playable) are special rules for every single one, most of which seem to revolve around... re-rolls. And more re-rolls. Just loads and loads of dice rolling. There is no consistency - I think I saw on the warseer forums somebody listed all the different rules for shields that are out there now, as each unit has DIFFERENT shield rules! Ridiculous.

So let me put this first idea past you, a small tweak which I think will have an interesting impact. And that's the close combat 'to hit' chart (WS v WS). As it stands, you cannot get more than a 3+ or less than a 5+. I propose it should be redone to look more like the 'to wound' chart. Consider that most human warriors will have a WS of 3 or 4.... As it is now WS3 still hits WS4 on 4+. Let's make that 5+. Suddenly this one point increase in WS becomes much more important, with no need for special rules to make the elite troops stand out. And now a warrior with WS5 (which should just be characters) hits the WS3 guy on 2+, and is only hit back on a 6+! Makes having WS5 or higher suddenly really make you something special, whilst in WFB it doesn't make that much difference. Such a skilled swordsman should be hard to kill, not because he is particularly tough, but just because it's so hard for the average soldier to get through his defences and land a blow.
But keep in mind that most units will have a WS of 3 or 4, with 5 reserved for certain characters, and 2 for peasant levies.
I hope that made sense!

[Captain Blood]

1 - Perry Miniatures. My preferred era of medieval warfare is 15th century, and Perry Miniatures have a pretty much complete range of VERY high quality plastic kits to cover this era. Those 5 boxes are all I need, and they are seriously affordable!
2 - George R R Martin. I discovered the world of A Song Of Ice And Fire through the Game Of Thrones TV Show, and quickly realised it was EXACTLY what I want in a fantasy setting - a detailed, realistic, believable low fantasy setting closely based on the real world. I have since read all the books and am absolutely hooked.

So what I'm gonna do is get back into wargaming via Westeros, using Perry Miniatures for my own vision of Martin's world, and using my own simplifed / rearranged WFB rules.

Good man - sounds like a plan! 

I've played a few games with various of the Warhammer historical rules (derived more or less from the WFB / LOTR rules), but I never played Warhammer as such. But I'll be following this with interest, as I'm gradually swelling my own Game of Thrones collection with a view to having some games with it in the not too distant future... 

[Nord]

There's a balance to be struck between simplicity and flavour. The simpler the rules, the less different the sides are. That's not to say that special rules are good, just that they help differentiate the different races. Now this might not be important in a low fantasy setting where everybody is human, but in the Warhammer world some of the special rules do help to make the races what they are. However, I agree that AOS has gone completely the wrong direction.

I guess your WS idea works well, though it might limit you if you, at some future stage, want to introduce more levels. Personally I find the roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save, to be ponderous. In War of the Ring, there's just one roll, attack vs defence, where attack is an amalgamation of the traditional WS and S, while defence is more an amalgamation of T and armour save. Similar in Lion Rampant, though this is a fixed value, better troops need lower numbers to roll (3 is best, 6 is worst). There's a similar system in Saga, though here it's reversed so that better troops require higher numbers to be hit and then there's a standard save roll (which of course can be varied by special rules!).

In isolation, it's hard to comment on the WS change, without knowing what happens next in the melee sequence.

[Charlie_]

Personally I find the roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save, to be ponderous. In War of the Ring, there's just one roll, attack vs defence, where attack is an amalgamation of the traditional WS and S, while defence is more an amalgamation of T and armour save.

I will be definitely keeping the WFB combat system (roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save). I like it! Combined with the M WS BS S T W I A LD statistic line, and simple rules for different weapons and armour, it helps each type of warrior being different, which as you'e pointed out is going to be even more important when it's just humans v humans. Though I'll want to keep this as streamlined as possible by having little to no special rules which can lead to lots of confusing cross-referencing from different books etc.... I think with just an Attack and a Defence characteristic to compare, all the human troops will start to be very similar.

Also, I find the careful selection of an army one of the most satisfying parts of the hobby, weighing up all the different weapon options and statistic bonuses that can be purchased using a point system to come up with your own personal, customised army.

[Arlequín]

There's a similar system in Saga, though here it's reversed so that better troops require higher numbers to be hit and then there's a standard save roll (which of course can be varied by special rules!).

To me this is eminently logical. A shooter's skill varies little; give him a target and he will hit it consistently according to his ability, so a unit's skill is the average of the ability of the men in it. The variable is how well a target is protected against his weapon.

For example we could say one particular archer consistently hits the bull (or as near as makes no odds) eight times out of ten. That is reduced by covering the target with varying and successive types of protection and then ultimately by moving the target while he shoots. There is actually no hit roll required, that does not change... he consistently 'hits' the target the same amount of times, whatever it is. What would constitute a 'save roll' represents the actual variable.

For me too then a roll 'to hit', 'to wound' and to 'save' is two more dice rolls than are really needed, for shooting at least. Melee is substantially different however.

[Nord]

We are discussing weapon skills/melee, not shooting at the moment.

[Major_Gilbear]

Mostly mentioned already, but...

1) Warhammer Ancient Battles sounds like what you may be after. In a nutshell, it's a stripped-down WHFB for playing historical massed battles. It's out of print now, but they are easy/cheap enough to come by second hand.

2) Kings of War. Massed battles, streamlined rules, but still offers plenty of tactics/manoeuvring. Magic (in terms of spells) takes a minor role and can just be omitted without fuss. Heroes might need a tweak to improve their command benefits but reduce their own direct combat capabilities (although they do not appear to be too overpowered as they are).

3) Actual Warhammer FB, with a few mods. You might want to consider which edition you want for this...

• 6E hobbled heroes, magic, and magic items quite a lot (and is therefore probably the "least" fantastical edition I think).
• 7E was often considered the most "competitive" as a ruleset, but there was a lot of imbalance between different forces (plus, elite armies like Daemons did well as multiple-small-unit forces rather than proper massed battles).
• 8E had the best internal balance I think, but massive "deathstar" units, hugely destructive magic, and a mixed bag of gigantic monstrous creatures/infantry/cavalry may not be suitable for what you have in mind.

For this route, I would probably consider 6E (easy to strip down) or 8E (capping unit sizes and monsters would avoid deathstars and remove the requirement for much of the magic). For 8E, you may need to re-do some of the point-values as well (to reflect that against smaller units shooting will be more effective than it is normally).

So let me put this first idea past you, a small tweak which I think will have an interesting impact. And that's the close combat 'to hit' chart (WS v WS).

I think older editions used to be like that! (at least, if my dodgy memory serves... 4E or 5E?)

IIRC, the reason it was "flattened" was to stop a very small high-WS unit holding up a huge brick of troops who couldn't roll enough dice to have a reasonable chance of scoring some sixes and ending the combat. In other words, it helped to avoid an extreme element of "herohammer", whilst still permitting heroes to be powerful enough to be attractive choices. In other words, it helped to discourage an army of small elite units that their opponent had little hope of stopping without lots of elites/shooting/magic/heroes of their own.

[Charlie_]

For me too then a roll 'to hit', 'to wound' and to 'save' is two more dice rolls than are really needed, for shooting at least.

If we are talking about shooting, that is something to think about for sure. I'm making sure to include 'volley fire' rules for massed units with longbows - to keep it very simple, every rank in such a unit can shoot assuming they are in range. And for volley fire, when the archers are not actually targeting individual enemies, it could well make sense to do away with the 'to hit' roll. However I will be keeping it. In this case the Ballistic Skill stat isn't used for actual sharp-shooting, but rather archer discipline, experience and teamwork. So a unit with BS4 is more likely to have all their arrows hit simply because they know what they are doing, being proffessional, experienced archers. A unit with BS3 is less likely to have so many arrows hit because they are not quite as professional, and more arrows are likely to fall short, or they are not able to get so many arrows in the air.
Ballistic Skill should be considered a more abstact statistic, I guess, as opposed to representing the chances of hitting that bullseye. The BS4 archer unit simply will have more arrows hit the enemy statistically - whether this is because they are better shots, more professional & disciplined, or FASTER shots, well that's up for you to decide!
30 archers with BS3 shoot an enemy unit with volley fire. 15 'hits' on average, whatever that means.
30 archers with BS4 (the real pros) do the same, 20 'hits' on average. Perhaps their higher BS means they can just get more arrows in the air in the same ammount of time?
Note that rank and file archers will only ever really have a BS of 3 or 4. 5 and above is reserved for characters, and would likely never be bothered with.

For this route, I would probably consider 6E (easy to strip down) or 8E (capping unit sizes and monsters would avoid deathstars and remove the requirement for much of the magic). For 8E, you may need to re-do some of the point-values as well (to reflect that against smaller units shooting will be more effective than it is normally).
I think older editions used to be like that! (at least, if my dodgy memory serves... 4E or 5E?)

IIRC, the reason it was "flattened" was to stop a very small high-WS unit holding up a huge brick of troops who couldn't roll enough dice to have a reasonable chance of scoring some sixes and ending the combat. In other words, it helped to avoid an extreme element of "herohammer", whilst still permitting heroes to be powerful enough to be attractive choices. In other words, it helped to discourage an army of small elite units that their opponent had little hope of stopping without lots of elites/shooting/magic/heroes of their own.

I'm using 6th edition as the starting point, definitely. 8th edition made infantry more important, but in a clumsy, ultimately broken way. I will not be using the Horde or Steadfast rules!
8th is also too "lethal" for my liking. Multiple ranks of supporting attacks mean people die in droves. I would prefer a more protracted combat with less casualties each turn (unless its obviously very one-sided, heavy cavalry charging archers for instance, in which case it should be over quickly).

In regards to the combat 'to hit' chart...
I've got scans of all the WFB rulebooks from 1st to 8th edition, and have compared them all. It seems the 'flattened' chart was introduced in 4th edition. In 3rd edition and before, you could indeed have a 2+ or 6+ to hit, BUT it's a bit lopsided and confusing, i.e. WS3 hits WS3 on 5+, and you only get 2+ if you have more than double WS than your opponent.
An important point is that WS stats in WFB vary hugely, because we have elves, epic heroes, daemons, vampires etc involved on one end of the spectrum, and goblins on the other.
In the historical game, with just humans, WS won't vary so much. As I said earlier, WS5 and above will be just characters. So the idea of a super elite unit being invulnerable to hordes of lesser troops, as you described, won't happen so often.

Another thing I'm thinking about....
Parts of the stat-line will NEVER vary except with characters, and I'm wondering if a few of them could actually be abolished as part of the cleaning-up process.
Movement - Isn't really necessary. All you need to know is infantry move 4, cavalry move 8, and barded cavalry move 7. I know W40k doesn't have a movement statistic. You could have a character upgraded to M5, but it ain't really necessary, and instead of that you could introduce a special character skill to be purchased like equipment instead (I've got a very small number of them already, such as "quick shot").
Wounds - It is so tempting to get rid of this. With no monsters, the rank and file are ALL gonna have 1 wound, no doubt about it. Characters start with 1 wound, but you can buy extra ones for them up to a reccomended maximum of 3. But I've never really understood the reasoning behind having both a Wounds and Toughness statistic. And however good they are, all characters should die just as easily as the rank and file when hit with an axe. The only real reason I can think of to justify multiple-wound characters is the 'hero' factor - heroic characters who just won't go down, taking wounds that would stop a lesser man and still fighting. But if I want this to be realistic, such a concept shouldn't exist really. If I abolish the Wounds characteristic, the Toughness one becomes more important, and we can have characters with Toughness 5 when you want to represent someone like Gregor Clegane for instance. One wounding hit will take him out, but it will be noticeably tougher to actually score that wounding hit.
Attacks - Again, I think having an Attacks statistic higher than 1 should be for characters only. And so then it is tempting to abolish it for the same reasons as above, as characters are just men like everyone else. But then again I'm more inclined to keep this one, as I think you should be able to have some characters who can kill more than one of the enemy in one round (but again, this should not be the norm).

[Major_Gilbear]

Well, if the stat-lines are all going to be flattened, I don't really see the point of having a huge chart.

Instead, I'd have a smaller chart that runs on WS difference from 0-3+. Simpler to remember, and if you need to represent a legendary swordsman or such, you can just give him an ability that grants his attacks a flat +1 bonus or whatever (so even against an opponent with the same WS as him, he'll still be striking at +1 to his dice rolls to reflect his skill).

For heroes, there are other reasons for their having wounds and much higher stats; they are usually recipients of magic items. Nobody wants to spend 100pts on a magic weapon for an average guy who dies to one normal hit - you'd often as not never even get to use the item (which many people would find somewhat deflating). If you don't have magic items, and if your characters are just there for command purposes, then an average statline might work well enough.

If all your factions are humans, I suppose you could lose the Move stat.

Then again, if all your factions are human, you're banning magic, magic items, monsters, and high-level characters... Well, most of the changes to the mechanics would be moot. I mean, you've already "solved" most of the issues by restricting the other options instead. For example, if you can't take a human with WS lower than 3 or higher than 5, then the rest of the WS chart is irrelevant anyway.

[Charlie_]

Well, if the stat-lines are all going to be flattened, I don't really see the point of having a huge chart.

Instead, I'd have a smaller chart that runs on WS difference from 0-3+. Simpler to remember, and if you need to represent a legendary swordsman or such, you can just give him an ability that grants his attacks a flat +1 bonus or whatever (so even against an opponent with the same WS as him, he'll still be striking at +1 to his dice rolls to reflect his skill).

For heroes, there are other reasons for their having wounds and much higher stats; they are usually recipients of magic items. Nobody wants to spend 100pts on a magic weapon for an average guy who dies to one normal hit - you'd often as not never even get to use the item (which many people would find somewhat deflating). If you don't have magic items, and if your characters are just there for command purposes, then an average statline might work well enough.

If all your factions are humans, I suppose you could lose the Move stat.

Then again, if all your factions are human, you're banning magic, magic items, monsters, and high-level characters... Well, most of the changes to the mechanics would be moot. I mean, you've already "solved" most of the issues by restricting the other options instead. For example, if you can't take a human with WS lower than 3 or higher than 5, then the rest of the WS chart is irrelevant anyway.

Aha, very interesting, I will think about this for sure...
At the very least smaller charts will make things look simpler on paper!
Perhaps WS and BS should be between 1 and 5 rather than 1 and 10? Again, not really gonna have much effect on how things run, other than make it look much simpler on paper, but that's very important I think!

There will be no magic items of course, but I could work on a short list of special abilities to be purchased in the same way, just for added customisation with your characters (and to be simply not used if decided it makes things too complicated). Little things like increasing their combat prowess beyond the afore-mentioned reduced stat ranges, letting them shoot twice in a turn, extra command abilities, etc.....

Note - Expanding things beyond human v human combat for fantasy purposes and eras other than medieval could be done in simple little supplements, and kept away from the core rules. One little supplement for 'monsters' (be they elephants or dragons) which could introduce the Wounds stat for these big creatures, and maybe weaken their fighting prowess as they take wounds.... A supplement for sieges, including all rules for artillery (I'm steering clear of artillery myself for the foreseeable future). A supplement for magic (much reduced in power and randomness compared to the WFB rules - a wizard should assist the army, not break the game).

[Charlie_]

Well how about this, then? Things are looking much more streamlined now!

WS 3 should be the average, representing the typical soldier skilled at arms and used to battle.

WS 4 should be for elite soldiers.

WS 5 should be for exceptionally skilled swordsmen, just characters. Think Jaime Lannister or Barristan Selmy.

WS 2 is for untrained soldiers, raw recruits, peasants, etc.

WS 1 is for civilians who have never held a sword before (and won't really ever appear)

______________
I was playing around with drawing up some stats for ASOIAF characters just for fun a while ago, and when it came to Jaime, Barristan, Ser Loras Tyrell etc I was scratching my head over it. Who is the better swordsman? Who is faster? Who is stronger? But using the above system, they are all WS5, and that's all that matters.