NT Skirmish: Empire v. Chaos Marauders, p.2

Again, this is a scenario from Neil Thomas' "One-Hour Wargames", #17 Encounter, but without the random entry of figures / units.  In that sense it is a bit like #4 Take the High Ground, also.  Both sides want to secure the hill in the center of the board. There's no time limit since I want to fight this to the bitter end and test the rules. Obviously, if one side breaks, that will determine the battle. With checks at 25 and 50%, I figure it won't take long. 

Therefore, the terrain objective mainly determines who is obligated to attack - whoever occupies the terrain first will be able to take the defense as they'll have the objective in hand. If the only objective is to kill the enemy, one ends up needing a time limit or else players will get cagey and drag things out. Generally, I like scenarios that encourage players to fight decisively to win. While war is made up mostly of less decisive encounters, they are not usually as exciting for gaming.

Below, the board at game start. Objective is center hill with ruins. Whoever wins first Initiative roll chooses side from which to enter - the opposing side enters on the opposite side. Already an interesting decision - one side has lots of shooting, the other none.


Below, turn 1. Marauders win Initiative, choose to enter from South edge. Mounted move about 20" straight on while the foot Marauders move 12" [figs may move double movement in a straight line - no other actions permitted]. Empire concede the ruin and move 12" on together. If they lose the next Initiative roll, the Marauders could charge before any shots are fired, so a continuous line anchored on the wood is a good choice for them. note how the initiative forces players to think about the next turn - winning or losing Initiative can make a big difference for a shooty army - shots, or no shots!

Above, green dice is empire and white marauders. They lose 5 to 3, with the marauders choosing the first move and therefore their entry side, as well as moving first. Being covered by the hill and in the ruins, can gain them a 4+ cover save [CS4+], effectively halving empire hits! Each takes their turn 1 Action phase, indicated by the large dice, Marauders first. Upon reflection, should've put the arqubusiers next to the woods, followed by the spearmen, then the mounted. When the others moved forward, the arquebusiers were isolated.

Below, turn 2. Marauders win Initiative again, 5-2, and decide to dodge to the East while their foot moves up. Everyone is in cover, awaiting the moment to strike together. the foot has a 6" charge, the mounted 12". I've already learned the danger of unsupported charges!

Above, Empire shooting is disappointing. Spearmen move double straight ahead. Pistoleers move 6" and fire. Top four dice all misses for the Arquebusiers. Bottom dice are only two hits from the Pistoleers, both of which bounce off rocks thanks to a 5 and 6. 

Note that I rolled one too many dice for the arqubusiers, anyway! The outrider with revolver shoots twice if he stands so I messed that up also. Everyone can move half and shoot if they are "loaded". All muskets and such take one full  turn to "Reload". Thus they are best employed in pairs, one shooting while the other is reloading.

Below, turn 3. Empire wins Initiative [IN], 6-3. They choose to reload everyone. The spearmen should've repositioned, at least. The Marauders move into charge range.

Below Turn 4. Empire Action Phase Begins. Empire wins IN again, 6-4. They keep it and shoot, of course! Had they lost the Marauders would've charged in and they'd get no shot. Outrider [blue dice] gets one hit on Marauder hero, causes two wounds with a '6' one of which is saved [white 6] and one is not [white 2]. One Pistoleer hits on '6' rolls '6' to wound, and one is saved with white '5'. Two wounds marked with red dice. Three Arquebusiers miss, needing 5s and rolling 4-4-1. Disappointing considering that melee favors the marauders over the empire.


Below, Turn 4 Empire Action Phase continues. Note - the big green dice indicates Empire turn 4 Action phase, while marauders have yet to go, so the white dice is on 3. 
Empire spearmen move against the marauder foot. There are 2 spearmen v. 2 marauders. I decided that the one marauder supporting but blocked by the pillars couldn't support - normally he'd contribute one dice. The Empire win both fights, 6-3 and 4-3, taking the highest single dice rolls - if tied, go to the next highest, etc. If still tied, it's a 'push'.

Above. Right spearman inflicts two wounds on a '5', the '1' is 'no wound' on the NT chart - so a glancing blow. The marauder rolls a '4' and '3' and misses both saves, needing a '6', so he's dead [note model on side]. The left spearman's dice are on the bottom. He inflicts three wounds but the marauder rolls two 6s and one 2 so survives with one wound! [red dice] Amazing blow to the Empire, b/c they need any luck they can get in melee.

Below, Turn 4, Marauder Action Phase. Unsurprisingly, the marauder force decides not to await being shot at any longer. They close into melee with everything they have. Two foot marauders attack the spearmen while two others join the hero in attacking a pistoleer. The veteran takes the hellhound and attacks the arquebusiers. 

The Pistoleer has two dice and is supported by the outrider [blue dice] and has a high of '5' from the outrider. The Hero has four dice and two support dice from the foot marauders [black dice], and wins rolling a '6'. Those six dice rolled come up 6-6-5-2-1-1 for six wounds, 2 each for 6-6-5. The Pistoleer only saves three and dies three times over.

Above and below, Turn 3 continues. The marauder veteran and hellhound quickly dispatch an arqubusier [above]. The marauder foot kill one spearman [below. This means that the Empire has lost three soldiers, putting them over 25%. They need to check morale, and every figure who fails retreats a full move. Everyone in the Empire force has a '5' except for the Veteran Outrider who has a '4'. As a leader, the Empire veteran outrider rolls first - if he passes, everyone within 6" can use his morale which is one better. The spearman and pistoleer run on a '1', while the two arqubusiers stand on 5s!  More fool they...

Above, below, Turn 5. Empire wins Initiative, and brings its soldiers back into the fight. If they'd lost Initiative and been badly outnumbered, they could've been encircled. As it is, they were able to gather into some sense of a battle line and face the oncoming marauders. The two marauder foot can't move fast enough to help in the fight - this turn. Looks grim! But the Empire do ok in the resulting melees, killing a dog and putting the marauders over 25%. Unfortunately, they lost the second spearmen to the supported Hero, and also have to check - and everyone who departs is gone for good!

Above, turn 5 Morale Phase. Empire lose both arqubusiers. Marauder hero and veteran rally back on the ruins with one foot marauder. With only two mounted left, can the empire beat back six marauders??

Below, the dead pile up as Turn 5 ends!

Below, Turn 6 begins with both sides four dead...but the Empire have lost two who fled!

Below, turn 6. The Marauders win IN 3-2. They take it and close in as far as they can. Note that the 1" recoil from Melee, with a full move flee for the 25% morale check failure means they can't get closer than 1" to the enemy upon moving back the full move, which is what they did. While both the Hero and the Veteran have two wounds, and one foot marauder one wound, they are all still functioning. The spreading around of wounds is making this turn look tough for the Empire - if they can only kill the mounted, they will certainly win as neither of them have any wounds. The Empire reload in their Action Phase, hoping to win IN Turn 7.


Below, Turn 7. Alas, it is not to be. The Marauders win IN and immediately close with everything they have. They kill both the pistoleer and the outrider Veteran, who die with loaded weapons. But had they closed last turn, they would've died with unloaded weapons, anyway, so I feel I made the right choice.

Conclusions. 

I think the rules work pretty well. This was the 4th or 5th time I played this, and maybe the only one the marauders won altho most of the games were close. My play quality had something to do with the results, of course! Don't want to blame the rules.

I think the rules could be streamlined farther. The question is will the sacrifices be worth it, or does the little detail here and there add to the game? I think there's a satisfying mechanistic feel to roll to hit - roll cover save - roll wounds - roll armor saves. It is a bit time consuming, however. Still, this isn't meant to be a large-battle game, it's for smaller skirmish forces of 10-15 figs. If you've something really crummy like Goblins, maybe 20 figures. I will need to make a playtest with the smallest and largest forces to see how they match up.

I also feel like the game needs a simply fall-back mechanism for situations with terrain and such that aren't covered in the rules. For example, rather than make lots of rules for ladders, high walls, climbing, jumping, etc, I'd rather just have a single "and all the other stuff" mechanism.

Some more playtests are in order, but I think these are 90% there and I'll have to post them this week. Open to suggestions, as always!

The character of Melkor, Sauron and...

Reading the Lord of the Rings makes for some thoughtful moments, as to what is _behind_ the comments of characters like Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, et al.  This lead me - along with some confusion about Middle Earth geography - to my old copy of Fonstad's "The Atlas of Middle Earth". In addition to the atlas aspect, there is a summary of events in Tolkein's legendary history.

On p.1 she summarizes "Iluvatar sent the Valar to order the world, preparing Arda for the coming of his Children - Elves and Men. Melkor, brother of Manwe, being arrogant in his own strength and power sought to mar all the works of the other Vala. Thus, Arda began in battle and turmoil: the Valar, building; Melkor, destroying."

Oddly, above this opening sequence about the nature of strife in Middle Earth, she quotes Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning..." Aside from it being a creation story, I'm uncertain what prompted Fonstad to make the Genesis reference although there are some similarities between Tolkein's mythology and the story of God's creation. In any event, the strife of the Elder Days is attributed to the arrogance and destructiveness of one of the lesser gods. Sauron, it may be remembered, is a lieutenant of Melkor [aka Morgoth].

The Wiki reference says this about Melkor:

Melkor (Quenya;IPA: "He Who Arises In Might"), later known predominantly as Morgoth,^[1] was the first Dark Lord and the primordial source of evil in Eä.

Originally the most powerful of the Ainur created by Eru Iluvatar, Melkor rebelled against his creator out of pride and sought to corrupt Arda, becoming Morgoth. After committing many evils in the First Age, such as the theft of the Silmarils and the destruction of the Two Lamps, Morgoth was defeated by the Host of Valinor in the War of Wrath.  http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Melkor

This explanation seems to pit Melkor against his maker.  The feeling I get is that Tolkein attributes the strife of middle earth to the strife of the "lesser gods", or the strife between them, perhaps. These lesser gods act upon creation and pursue their ends in it which sometimes clash out of purposeful intent, similar to the Greco-Roman pantheon of pagan gods. They also have freedom to create, act, interfere, etc., in a very open way, raising or leveling mountains, besieging Melkor's fortress, fighting battles openly, etc.  Literally, Tolkein's gods walk the earth and fight openly.

There's more responsibility put upon us, God's children, then Iluvatar's children - elves and men, for the evil in the world. Satan certainly pursues lies and murder as his trade. Jesus says the devil "...was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for his is a liar and the father of lies." [Jn 8:44]. Yet it is Eve, and Adam, who disobey God's command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, albeit swayed by "the serpent" and his arguments, that bring about the fall. The devil doesn't appear and destroy the tree, oppress the children, and wage war openly and in bloody medieval fashion!  Satan fights his war across the spiritual realm of humanity's souls.

Of this world, Jesus says, "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." [Jn 3:19-21].While the fallen angel and his minions do battle against God, humans have the responsibility to live by the truth and come into the light, revealing truth lived through God. Here we are not just victims of violent gods and their battles - we are the responsible party in the struggle for and against God.

The John quote also gives good insight as to why Sauron and all the evil-doers love to work in darkness. They do not want to step into the light that illuminates and exposes their deeds for the evil that they are. There are so many darkness descriptions in LOTR that they can't be covered here.

Someone, somewhere, has certainly made detailed analysis of the theology of Tolkein's pagan / Saxon / mythological world. While I can't present such depth to you, it is always interesting to see how a pursuit like gaming [and movie-watching now] can be thought-provoking about the creation in which we live.

NT Skirmish: not RAW but half-baked? Empire v. Chaos

So after several fights and re-fights with these forces, including tinkering with point values, small rule changes, and closely reading LOTR SBG mechanics, I arrived at the below skirmish battle that I feel is worth presenting.

One issue that came up consistently with the IGO-UGO aspect of NT's RAW skirmish rules is that because the players alternate full rounds of Move-Shoot-Melee, even though melee is simultaneous and both fight in it, unrealistic things were happening with match-ups.

In a player's half of the turn, since all figures are dead or retreat out of melee except in the very occasional "push" resulting from a tie, most figures are free to act again. They then pick ideal match-ups including very calculated outnumbering to get the results needed. As there are no Zone of Control / ZoC rules in NT's rules, one can literally walk a millimeter in front of an enemy figure that stands there while you pass before him and melee someone else, or retreat to shoot, whatever. As there are no support rules you can concentrate melee dice against an figure that is on the flank or edge of even a close formation. All this needs to be remedied.

So I took the Control Zone and Turn Sequence from LOTR SBG which I always liked anyway. The mechanics rather painlessly solve all the issues with the least amount of rules for the tactical interest. The NT RAW turn sequence is:

• I Move, I Shoot, I Melee [we both fight]
• You Move, You Shoot, You Melee [we both fight].

The LOTR SBG turn sequence is:

• We roll off for Priority [Initiative].  The Priority winner acts first in each phase:
• We Move, the side with Priority moves first.
• We Shoot, the side with Priority shoots first.
• We Fight, the side with Priority decides the match-ups and order in which the fights are resolved.

Courage [morale] is rolled at the start of the side's Move after they've reached their morale point, which is usually 50%.

The LOTR SBG sequence allows for some interesting tactics with the moving first or second, shooting first or second aspect.  I always liked it. Pretty much my only problem with the game is its complexity which gets pushed up pretty quickly.

The Turn sequence I adopted for this demo battle is:

• We roll for Initiative. The winner decides to keep Initiative and act first or give it to the opposition and act second. this allows you to counter-move against your enemy's actions, for example.
• We Take Actions. the side with Initiative first. Actions include moving, shooting, reload, etc.
• We fight Melee. the side with Initiative decides the match-ups and order of resolution.
• We take Morale checks if we've reached 25% [fail - move back a full move] or 50% [fail - removed from game] that turn. This is simultaneous.

So this is basically the LOTR turn sequence with shooting / moving merged into one action phase. I like this b/c it allows you to shoot and then charge to contact, or retreat and shoot to cover yourself, etc. There are some interesting possibilities with taking the Morale Checks in Initiative order or something, will have to think about that.

I also wanted to make the game a bit faster, and retain the simplicity of rolling on the Wound Chart with the same amount of dice as the winning side rolled for the Melee. This resulted in my reducing the melee and wound numbers for Soldiers to '1', which then rise to '2' for Veterans, '3' for Heroes and '4' for Mighty Heroes. The final points and other values are below with the forces and points for this skirmish. The grey parts are areas I'm still tinkering with - upgrading figures in a category or two [how much does it cost?] and the future use of Might Points [which I plan to be simply a re-roll].

Building Fantasy Skirmish Forces. Each army is <550 points.

Class	Movement	Shooting	Melee	Wounds	Morale	Points	Might
1 Levy	5”	6+	1 die	1	6+	10	0
2 Soldier	6”	5+	1 die	1	5+	20	0
3 Veteran	6”	4+	2 dice	2	4+	40	1
4 Hero	6”	3+	3 dice	3	3+	60	2
5 Mighty Hero	6”	2+	4 dice	4	2+	75	3
Upgrades	+/-1” = 3	+/-1 = 5	+/-1 = 5	+/-1 = 5	+/-1 = 3

CHARACTER	Move		Shooting		Melee Dice		Wounds		Morale		Point Cost
Pistoleer Cpt.	Revolver, longsword [melee weapon], Heavy Armor [AS 4+], Leader
Veteran	12”	4+		3		2		4+		110
Pistoleer	Pistols, [Pistol, melee weapon], Medium Armor [AS 5+]
Soldier	12”	4+		2		1		5+		70
Arquebusier	Arquebus [Musket, melee weapon], Dodger [AS 6+]
Soldier	6”	5+		1		1		5+		40
Spearman	Spear [melee weapon, Long], Light Armor, Shield [AS 5+ / 6+]
Soldier	6”	--		2		1		5+		45

Total                                                                                                                                460

ABOVE. Classic GW sculpts from the 90s. Outrider, two pistoleers [partial conversions] with three arqubusiers and two spearmen. I painted all the riders, Fernando the foot.

CHARACTER	Move		Shooting		Melee Dice		Wounds		Morale		Point Cost
Marauder Chief	Flail, Sword [melee weapon, Dual-Handed], Throwing Axe [pistol], Medium Armor [AS 5+], Leader
Hero	12”	--		4		4		3+		125
Marauder Mtd.	Flail, Longknife [melee weapon, Dual-Handed],  Throwing Axe [pistol], Light Armor [AS 6+]
Veteran	12”	--		3		3		4+		85
Hellhound	Claws and fangs [melee weapon], Dodge [AS 6+]
Soldier	12”	--		2		1		5+		50
Marauder	Flail, Longknife [melee weapon],  Light Armor [AS 6+]
Soldier	6”	--		2		2		5+		40

Total                                                                                                                                460 

Above. More classic GW sculpts. Metal Hellhound, two Marauder horse [the white is the Hero on a stolen Wood Elf mount!], five classic metal marauders. All painted by others.

In any event, the above changes along with adding a 1" zoc [cancelled if the enemy is contacting the figure] are the biggest changes I made. Most of the rest were small chrome changes.

Thus we have a classic confrontation between a Chaos Marauder force and an Empire force.  The Chaos have superior melee and wounds, representing their bloodthirsty nature. The Empire has superior shooting - all but the spear can shoot. The Chaos force has nothing but throwing axes [which I forgot to use, anyway]. On to the scenario...

I picked a scenario from Neil Thomas one Hour Wargames. Both forces represent a small part of a much larger army. There is a strategic hill with a ruin atop it alongside the main road. The Empire wants to seize is as a firing position from which to rain a hail of lead upon the enemy as the main battle develops over the next few days - with their firepower this is a significant advantage. The Marauders - with little shooting - want to prevent this. Whoever breaks the other force or holds the hill at the end of the battle wins.


Above. The battlefield. Note that skirmish terrain needs to be a lot busier than battle terrain. The 3' square board has 5 of the 9 square foot spaces filled, with a wood, two hills ]one with ruins] and two ruins along with the road. The Spanish moss looks like bushes so counts as cover.

The forces may enter from any side - the winner of the first Initiative roll will decide which side they will enter from and the opposing side will be the one opposite. The main considerations would be terrain that covers the approach of the Chaos force from Empire shooting.

Next post: A Desperate and Vicious Little Affair...