Tell me about Mayhem! (first steps into 15s)

[Nord]

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.

[Hobgoblin]

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.

[Hobgoblin]

Whoops - double post. See below!

[Hobgoblin]

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.

[affun]

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 

[Conquistador]

Watching with interest.   

[Vermis]

Looks great. I'm glad the rules are to your liking.

[Hobgoblin]

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.

[Nord]

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!

[Hobgoblin]

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

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!

[Hobgoblin]

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.

[Hobgoblin]

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).

[squeaky]

even with the 10cm "footprint".

Just wondering why you settled on a 10cm base?

[Hobgoblin]

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.

[Nord]

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.