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

[Hobgoblin]

I've been reading through Havoc a bit more and am really champing at the bit for a game now (this weekend!). If anyone's played it, I'd love to hear their thoughts.

A few more thoughts on it, from what I've read.

First, it strikes me that this is very much a game rather than a simulation (even of things that never happened). I've got no problem with that; indeed, it reminds me in many respects of Ganesha's Battlesworn, which is a terrific game but with much less of a simulatory feel than the same company's Song of Blade and Heroes. Havoc looks like it'll be terrific, tactical fun.

On the other hand, it has got quite a lot of effective "simulation" built into the rules. Cavalry look to be properly devastating with the impact rule, and the "volley fire" rule for groups of archers has a spine-tingling "death of Boromir/end of Throne of Blood" feel to it. So perhaps there's a tension there, because there are areas where there's an obvious simulatory void: heavy infantry for example - there's no obvious way to model a late-medieval foot knight or man-at-arms in full plate. You could, I suppose, read "shield" as "heavy armour" in the "melee and shield" description, which would give you a basic distinction between light infantry (skirmishers) and heavy infantry (shield or armour). Still, I don't think that will give you the appropriate feel of near-invulnerable plate-armoured men-at-arms. There's no equivalent of Battlesworn's "multi-classing", which allows you to field a foot knight as a Tank/Brute.

No matter! What the game does do, as I discovered tonight while trying to work out a couple of initial army lists for the weekend, is encourage you to dig out interesting miniatures that will fill the roles that the game does cater for. So, I've just gone through my goblins to find suitable hand-weapon-only skirmishers - and they very much look the part. And I also noticed a couple of Bob Olley black orcs that I painted up a while back that will do perfectly for "the Executioner" (complete with severed head!) and "the Brutal".

And that, I think and hope, is where these rules will shine: by encouraging the digging out of miniatures suitable for the various swashbuckling roles among the "Named". So, while some miniatures will be excluded by the logic of the game (are those Tom Meier troglodytes quite big enough to be Behemoths? Possibly not, if their reach is supposed to be 3"), others will fit into place nicely (and those trogs could always be "Brutals" or "Butchers").

There's interesting conversion potential too. I don't have a "Regulator" (a firearm-toting light cavalryman), but I do have some duplicate orcs on boars who might be converted to carry flintlocks ...

[Hobgoblin]

We played our first game of Havoc on Saturday. This was an 1,100-point-a-side affair.

The forces were as follows:

Lizardmen
Two heavy cavalry (cold-one riders)
Six melee and shield (lizardmen)
Two spear and shield (lizardmen)
Four archers (small lizardmen)
Three great weapon (lizardmen)
One behemoth (dragon lizard)
One giant (T-rex)
One dual wielder 'The Berserker' (scimitar monster)

Goblins
Five fast cavalry (bow-armed wolfriders)
Ten archers (orcs)
Eight skirmishers (small orcs)
1 'The Brutal' (bugbear)

Our evening game was curtailed by post-judo fatigue and the impending arrival of dinner, but we played it through to a fairly safe conclusion (the lizardmen were pretty much in control by the time we stopped). It was a bit more fiddly than our standard games (SBH, DR, Battlesworn), but I think much of that was down to first-time syndrome and unfamiliar abbreviations (especially for my son, who hasn't read the rules).

I enjoyed it, though, and we'll certainly be giving it another go soon. My son has made this conditional, though: he really liked the way the heavy cavalry played out, so he'll play a game of Havoc for every additional cold-one rider I paint up. I'm almost finished the first, so we'll get another game in this week. Otherwise, here are my thoughts from our first run-through:

Compared with SBH, missile troops are much more powerful. Concentrated fire is achieved much more easily than in SBH, and it seemed even more devastating (not least because you can fire twice a turn). I suspect SBH is more realistic here (given the small numbers of archers involved), but the deadliness of archery in Havoc certainly gives the game an entirely different dimension. The long ranges add to this. We didn't try out volley fire, but that looks like another interesting dimension.

The rules for cavalry are great! My son was delighted by the way his cold-one riders were able to ride down whole packs of goblins in single sweeping movements. We've achieved something similar in Advanced SoBH by using Dashing, Running Blow and Trample, but the slightly larger scale of Havoc means that larger numbers of fearsome mounted warriors can be deployed.

That scale is something we enjoyed about the game. I think Havoc fills a niche of its own, between the 5-15 figures per side of SBH and the 30-60 of DR/LR. We've played enjoyable games of SBH with many more figures on one side, but those benefited from being deliberately asymmetrical (i.e. five elven archers against a huge horde of monsters). But what Havoc offers is something nice between the "every man an individual" aspect of SoBH and the "units only" approach of Dragon Rampant. SBH (especially ASBH) offers much more detail per model, and the option of a completely varied warband with no two members alike, but Havoc neatly occupies a slot between that and the unit proflies of DR/LR.

In that regard, the flexibility of units and individuals in Havoc is great! You can move your forces forward in formation, but then send one or more soldiers off to occupy a vantage point/call in volley fire/guard the rear. That gives it a very different feel to DR.

We didn't really use the standard melee system at all, as all of our close combats were resolved by impact or "combined assault manoeuvres". So that's something to explore more next time.

My concerns about the lack of certain troop types have abated a bit. I think it'll be quite easy to rationalise using the available profiles for different types of soldier. In this regard, I think Battlesworn, with its "Fighter/Brute/Tank" offers a useful pointer. The concern then will be clear identification during the game.

The giant rules are absolutely terrific! Our giant (a T-rex) destroyed most of a wolfrider unit by seizing a hapless orc archer in his jaws and sending the wretch headlong into the nearby cavalry, taking three of them out in the process. It makes huge amounts of sense to give giants the "fling" and "smash" ranged attacks ("smash" took care of most of the other orc archers).

Although there are no morale rules, various parts of the game create appropriate morale effects. Most obviously, troops need to seek the safety of their peers to function as units. But there are other factors too. In our game, the sole surviving archer had good reason to flee the giant. Not only was he in danger, but he posed a grave danger to his fellows, as he could be plucked from the earth and sent hurtling into their ranks. That made it well worth using an activation to have him flee.

[Hobgoblin]

Back to Mayhem. I was thinking this over and decided that, given the quality of the game, it was well worth creating some dedicated forces on square bases. And that led me to 15mm and 5cm square bases. The 10cm coasters will serve as bases for scenic elements - with each containing either several "garrisonable" elements or (more usually) a single one in a corner or the centre.

I had a hunt through the leadpile and discovered ... not much in the way of viable 15mm stuff. I have a unit or two of the lovely old AD&D Battlemaster elves and a command group of dwarves, and some superb - but sadly riderless - goblin wolves. But from small acorns ...

That led me to thinking about what I could do for the bigger troop types - monsters and behemoths and so on. Our first armies will, inevitably, be based around lizardmen and goblins (though I'm much keener on variety rather than "factions"). I then espied some Caesar 20mm lizardmen that I got a while ago for my son to paint. He's based and painted a few, but the rest will make perfect giant lizardmen/troglodytes for 15mm. They actually stand about 30mm high when standing straight - but most are crouching down, so look convincing fighting 15mm troops. We'll use three or four per base. Happily, most have clubs or maces and look suitably "giants".

And then we have a few Magister Militum dinosaurs that my son bought at Claymore last year. Perfect for some impressive monsters for the lizardmen.

Trolls/ogres? Some heavily armoured Mantic orcs will make convincing "war trolls" in the Peter Jackson mode - especially if equipped with hammers and clubs. Two to a base. I'm going to see if the Wargames Factory orcs might work as ogres.

And a couple of Reaper bones orcs with very wide stances (thus almost unusable for 28mm) will fit in nicely as fire giants (or whatever).

I also think that some GW gnoblars might do as trolls. Some are just too comic and pathetic-looking, but the ones that have clubs and nasty-looking faces could work as Bauer-ish trolls.

That leaves me with plenty of "specials" and so just some bases of infantry and cavalry to bulk things out. Looking at 15mm prices, I reckon that I can have a couple of playable (if behemoth-heavy) armies with expenditure limited to twenty or thirty quid.

On using 28mm as giants/ogres/trolls: I reckon that there are a few useful principles here. First, you want bludgeoning-type weapons if at all possible. And not too big - I think it almost helps if they look relatively small for the creatures wielding them (but still very big compared with a 15mm figure). Second, heads, in general, shouldn't be too big either. The gnoblar-trolls might work, but I've always thought that GW orcs are hopeless as 15mm trolls. The Mantic ones, on the other hand, work better because their heads are proportionately small, which gives them an ogreish look.  Shields are generally a bad thing - I think the Reaper orc will work, because his shield (a spiked sheet of metal) is so peculiar and outlandish (and his tiny head helps too). But there's something about shields that generally suggests a man-sized creature.

[Vermis]

Nice. I have to say I'm fairly faction-ish in my thinking, but I'm looking forward to the variety.

[Hobgoblin]

Nice. I have to say I'm fairly faction-ish in my thinking, but I'm looking forward to the variety.

I've been thinking for some time of posting a new topic entitled "Down with 'factions'!". I've really got to now, haven't I? 

Here are some of the first 15s for Mayhem. I haven't quite decided on basing yet - these giant lizardmen could go either three to a base or four. I'm leaning towards three, out of laziness and also because it looks a little more "behemoth" and less "outsized rank and file". But I'm not quite sure yet. I blue tacked a whole load of these 1:72 lizardmen to bases and they looked pretty good four to a base en masse. I'll get a few more painted before I make any final decision.

One of the things I'm looking forward to in playing Mayhem with 15s is the possibility of a having (for example) the entire centre of a lizardman army composed of giant lizardmen, with smaller troops on the wings and in reserve. I've got enough of these Caesar beasties for four or five bases, and perhaps one more of missile troops.

I had another look at the gnoblars as trolls. I think they'll work pretty well - there are enough heads that are more fearsome than goofy. And there are a fair few that have bludgeons and cudgels and no obvious scale "tells". But what struck me in particular is that, with their forward-leaning stances, they (a) look as if they're stooping to fight human-sized foes and (b) will fit together nicely when crammed onto a base. One of the nice things about Mayhem is that there's complete freedom in unit creation. So it's perfectly possible to use large creatures to make a "horde" - essentially a relentless, hard-to-kill infantry unit. Normally, one would give such a unit a very low-grade "combat quality" stat - D20 or something. But by giving the horde d10 or even d8, you could make a pretty fearsome horde of loathsome trolls. So a backed base or two of gnoblars is on the list ...

[Vermis]

I've been thinking for some time of posting a new topic entitled "Down with 'factions'!". I've really got to now, haven't I? 

Well, yeah!

Despite my last post, I have to agree about the freedom to break away from rigid factions, to put in unusual units, and also to represent 'set' units in a way that might be thought to be more appropriate. (I'll have more to say/rant about that in a faction topic, if you start one) I have BOFA wood elves temporarily mixed in with Warmaster high elves, standing in for spearmen and archers in a Mayhem army, but they don't 'feel' particularly out of place.

I'm leaning towards three, out of laziness and also because it looks a little more "behemoth" and less "outsized rank and file". But I'm not quite sure yet. I blue tacked a whole load of these 1:72 lizardmen to bases and they looked pretty good four to a base en masse.

Looking at them, I'd agree with the three-to-a-base reasoning. Though if you like the four-to-a-base look, maybe the different poses make them look 'warband-y' enough?

The lizardman army plans sound interesting and, again, agreed about the possibilities of hordes. (They do seem to be automatically thought of in terms of 'dregs' like orcs, zombies, ratmen...) And lest I forget, you've made me especially curious about Havoc again.

[Conquistador]

Well, being a fan of polyhedral dice (StarGrunt II) for war games and RPGs in the past I decided to download the Mayhem PDFs to give it a trial compared to RRtK (Rally 'Round the King) rules.