Mass Combat

[marcum uth mather]

does anyone have a system they like for mass combat? the war card suck as tatics are out the window entierley. i was thinking that the use uf fiqures with extra states might help.. let me elaberate. lets say you have a unite of pike men. lets say your average pike man is a 1st level fighter. lets also say he is wering chain mail. so i role a 8 for hit points and a 15 dor defence. now lets say ther is 200 of them. so take 200x8 gives you 1600. so now you have a unit of pikemen when a nother unit of infrantry to take damedge you devide thewre number by 4, giquring they all cant hit at once. now they face a unit with the same states. they rolle a group to hit of 17, higth enough to hit. i divide the unit by 4 and get 50. they rolle a 6 for damdge. 6x50 is 300. so 300 hit point are gone frome the groupe or 300/8 rounded down is 250 men dead from the other group. this is just a thought and i am still trying to work out the kinks so any input is welcome

[Mark_Aurel]

Cry Havoc from Malhavoc rocks.

http://www.montecook.com/mpress_Havoc.html

[geeman]

At 05:21 PM 8/28/2003 +0200, marcum uth mather wrote:



>does anyone have a system they like for mass combat? the war card suck as

>tatics are out the window entierley.



I wrote up a system of mass combat to replace the warcard system that uses

"chits" in place of cards, as well as stats that are based on the equipment

spent on the units, their training and experience. Combat resolution was

done by rolling simple attack dice which determined hits. In playtesting

it I found it worked surprisingly well. It`s rather a long document,

however, and part of a much larger work, but if folks are interested in

seeing it I can edit it into a single document.



At present, however, there are several basic changes I want to make to

it. The draft has tables for most types of weapons and armor in D&D 3e and

extrapolates their stats into units of 100 soldiers, and I`d like to

streamline that. I also want to revise the section on mounts and monstrous

units... but I`m afraid most of that revision is on the back burner for the

time being. The system is at least better than warcards even without the

revisions....



As a matter of fact, I`ve been thinking that the best way to do mass combat

is to turn companies of soldiers into a sort of template system. That is,

you take one soldier and then apply bonuses, HD, BAB, etc. to his stats (as

well as increase his size) by noting the number of soldiers in a unit. The

numbers would mimic the EL system in some ways. It would look kind of like

this:



# BAB HD Damage Size

4 +1 x1 +1 2x3

9 +2 x2 +2 3x3

16 +3 x3 +3 4x4

25 +4 x4 +4 5x5



Etc.



That way combat could be conducted using the standard D&D combat

system. Things like equipment, training, etc. would still need to be

addressed, but it would be a lot easier than dropping into an entirely

different combat resolution system.



Gary

[Osprey]

I posted in the Playtest section a month or two back that I had developed a battlesystem off of the existing BRCS war card system, but using miniatures, varied terrain, and more units (12 per army on the board at once). I've playtested it twice now (and revised it once in between), and found it works fairly well. I don't have a website, but would be happy to email it (a Word attachment) to you.

Osprey

osprey424@yahoo.com

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----

From: "marcum uth mather" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 10:21 AM





> does anyone have a system they like for mass combat? the war

> card suck as tatics are out the window entierley.



Eh? Why can`t you use tactics? I use the warcards exclusivly, and I have

no problem implimenting any medieval tactic.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[marcum uth mather]

what do you mean you have no problem? the units are very one dimensinal, as in formations they can use. also the battle map use of seiges is whay to simplistic.

[Osprey]

Eh? Why can`t you use tactics? I use the warcards exclusivly, and I have
no problem implimenting any medieval tactic.


How about the fact that archers always have a range of 1 space, meaning they can never be protected by infantry. How does this simulate realistic medieval battlefields? Medieval archers (esp. longbowmen) fired in massed arcs, right over the heads of their defenders. For example, English foot knights protected the longbowmen from charging knights at the battle of Crecy (1412?).

How do the war cards allow that if only 1 unit may occupy a given space on the 3x5 field?

What about the realistically devestating effects of flanking and surrounding units?

Why is artillery more deadly (in damage AND accuracy)against infantry than a unit of longbowmen, with twice the range to boot? Because they cost more GB to muster?

How can mobile units like scouts and cavalry take advantage of their high mobility in such a small area?

Only 5 units at a time? Even medieval commanders had better abilities of unit coordination than that.

These were the major issues I was dealing with when trying to revise the war card rules.

Osprey

[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Osprey wrote:



> These were the major issues I was dealing with when trying to revise

> the war card rules.



I agree completely. The first change to make IMO is to go for a much

bigger map (I use hex grids, at least 20x30); then multiply all ranges and

movement factors by three, and have attacks affecting entire squares on

the old map have a one-hex blast radius, and without stacking things go

swimmingly. You can also get into lots more interesting detail with the

terrain this way.





Ryan Caveney

[DanMcSorley]

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, Mark_Aurel wrote:

> Cry Havoc from Malhavoc rocks.

>

> http://www.montecook.com/mpress_Havoc.html



And, since it`s about to be a long weekend and I expect to get some work

done on this, I`ll throw out that I`m the one that has taken on revising

the BRCS war combat system chapter, and I`ll be basing it on this. War

card type bodies (units of 200 men, etc) will remain as administrative

units for mustering, upkeep, provincial movement, etc, but the battle

system written for Cry Havoc uses units of X men, on a square grid like

regular D&D, where each square is 50` by 50`, and X is going to be 10, 20,

or 50, depending on how many men you have to deal with on a side.



I`m going to be generating a whole lot of stats for all the basic war card

units using the Cry Havoc format; that will be the lion`s share of the

work, I`m betting, though it`s fairly repetetive so I`ll be able to

automate a lot of it.



The best part of this in my mind is that, given a bunch of pregenerated

stats like we`ll have, you don`t really need to learn more than a couple

new rules to run a big battle. It operates using mostly the 3e tactical

rules that people already know. There`s a bit of scaling up and a couple

statistical tricks, but it`s pretty transparent.



--

Daniel McSorley

[ryancaveney]

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, marcum uth mather wrote:



> lets say your average pike man is a 1st level fighter. lets also say

> he is wering chain mail. so i role a 8 for hit points and a 15 dor

> defence. now lets say ther is 200 of them. so take 200x8 gives you

> 1600. so now you have a unit of pikemen when a nother unit of

> infrantry to take damedge you devide thewre number by 4, giquring they

> all cant hit at once. now they face a unit with the same states. they

> rolle a group to hit of 17, higth enough to hit. i divide the unit by

> 4 and get 50. they rolle a 6 for damdge. 6x50 is 300. so 300 hit point

> are gone frome the groupe or 300/8 rounded down is 250 men dead from

> the other group.



This is not a bad plan at all; in fact, it`s pretty much the way the old

AD&D BattleSystem mass combat rules work, and it`s pretty much the way

lots of computer wargames do it. If you can find BattleSystem on ebay or

suchlike (I`ve seen it quite recently), I`d recommend it -- I think you`d

like the way it works, and it already handles spells, monsters, magic

items and such.



A couple of caveats: when you roll for damage, remember that d8 x 200 is a

vastly differently-shaped probability distribution than 200d8. Rather

than rolling one die and multiplying by the number of men, saying that

such a large group *always* rolls the average works much better. If you

want some turn-to-turn variation, I`d suggest something like a bell-shaped

curve to pick a percentage difference from the mean, say 2 x (4d6-14) to

generate a number from -20 to +20, but clustered sharply around 0.

Attacks should probably be simultaneous.



Also, remember this rule: large units essentially *never* die to the last

man. At some point, once they`ve watched enough of their buddies fall,

the survivors will just turn and run for it. One fairly simple way to

model this is to make units take a "morale save" at the end of every turn,

modified by their training and what portion of their number they`ve lost.



Third, if unit sizes are very different, not only can only the front rank

attack, but also only so much of the front rank of a big unit can actually

get close to the front rank of a small unit.





Ryan Caveney

[geeman]

One of the things I found I missed in battle resolution rules was

facing. 3e did away with facing for the most part, and the warcard system

never employed it, but when it comes to large scale combat in which units

can take on formation, and tactical advantages are such that one wants to

flank or otherwise take advantage of battlefield maneuver and positioning

when portraying large scale battles. When I put facing into the version of

the large scale combat system that I use I found it worked surprisingly

easily and simply with the rest of the system. I used square figures on a

typical 1" grid to represent units with an arrow on them indicating facing,

and gave units a +1 or +2 bonus to their attack rolls when striking from

the flank or the rear. In fact, it worked so well that I wonder if the

decision to remove facing from the standard, individual combat of 3e was

all that great a decision. My plan is to experiment with facing in

individual combat to see if putting it back into the game will be a problem.



Gary

[zukie51262]

In the past what i have done and at times still due is this

300 battle harden knights say 4 hit dice vs
300 pesents who are attacking the castle because they dont like the king eating there cows (watever). 1 or maybe 1/2 HD

Use the Fighters table for the to hits so the Knights are +4 to hit and the pesents are 0. Common sense tells us that the knights use long swords (mostly not all the time) and were heavy armor therfore ac ia 16 or even 18 while the pesents are using pitch forks and no armor ac 10.

The pesents win Initative and they strike with a natural 20 takes one Hit die away from the knights so now there 3 hit die (+3 to hit). The knights strike back with a hit and the pesents eaither disband or are killed (0HD)

For me this allows the armies to level based on xp they ern in battle and there is no limit (of course there arent that many battles and the xp is not that much). and not a lot of paper work and easy to follow.

Now if its a major battle then i recoment war cards because that is more organized then my system

[kgauck]

Now I understand. We are *not* talking about the warcards, we are talking

about pages 63-72 in the rulebook. There is a world of difference. Looking

over these pages I see I haven`t been here 1997. And for good reason.

Apparently I have homebrewed the warcards rules into a new combat system

unrecognizable to the rules.



Most military units have a base attack score, or an attack and defence

score, and our warcards provide ranged attack, melee attack, and defence.

Very nice. The cards are shaped like military formations. In a sense I

just used the printed materials on the cards and have them interact in a

free-form way.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Osprey wrote:



> How about the fact that archers always have a range of 1 space,

> meaning they can _never_ be protected by infantry.

> How do the war cards allow that if only 1 unit may occupy a given

> space on the 3x5 field?

>

> Only 5 units at a time? Even medieval commanders had better abilities

> of unit coordination than that.



These are not problems of the original rules` warcard system -- they are

problems introduced only in the 3e conversion draft, perhaps influenced by

the Sierra computer game (which prohibited stacking and limited armies to

15 units each).



In the original rules, there is no stacking limit. This is the only thing

which makes the 3x5 map from being utterly ridiculous. If, as the BRCS

would have it, there is to be no stacking allowed, the map must be made

vastly larger. Ideally, with no stacking the map for each battle should

be sized so that the larger army when drawn up in one long line (which was

the standard practice from the dawn of recorded history up through World

War One) only spans about half to two-thirds of its full width, and there

is enough depth for the smaller army to worry about being completely

surrounded in a big circle. In the original rules, there is also no total

unit limit -- you can have as many units on the field as you can afford.



In the original warcard rules, with enough GB you can stack dozens of

units of infantry and dozens of units of archers in one space. As the

enemy moves troops in to engage, the archers can shoot them, and any

surviving attackers can be engaged one-on-one by the infantry. Only if

more surviving attackers than defending infantry remain in the space after

resolving missile fire will any archers at all be engaged in melee combat.

As the battle continues in subsequent rounds, unengaged archers in the

space can continue to missile fire at the attackers engaging their

infantry guards. This handles Agincourt and the like just fine.



The main trouble with this system is there is little disincentive to

stacking your entire army in one space and having the two sides go at each

other in two giant mobs, in which case you don`t really need a map at all.

Cavalry formations, however, appreciate the slightly larger map area,

because they are allowed to withdraw from advancing foot soldiers, and can

charge not only in the first round of battle, but any time they are

unengaged and can move at least one area. This does provide a real

incentive not to stack -- an infantry army can never chase down a cavalry

army unless it expands to fill the whole 3x5 map grid; if a stack of

Anuirean infantry is fighting a stack of Khinasi horsebowmen, the

horsebowmen can indeed use their mobility to their distinct advantage

unless they are significantly outnumbered. Now, really, that withdrawal

rule should have been written in terms of movement rate, not

mountedness: scouts (mv 3 foot) should be able to chase down and withdraw

from knights (mv 2 horse); this at least the BRCS draft does correctly.



When I first encountered the warcard system, I too recoiled in horror.

However, over the years, it has grown upon me significantly. It`s still

not nearly as detailed a military simulation as I prefer, Advanced Squad

Leader grognard that I am, but I think it does quite well for D&D.



Now, as for five units at a time, there is a subtlety in tactical

coordination which takes some thought to represent in a wargame. The

issue is never really the total number of troops a general commands: it is

the number of different things he orders them to do at once. That is, any

fool can command a mob of ten million men to all charge forward in a mass

and kill whoever they bump into, but only a skilled commander of elite

troops can command a band of twenty men to each perform a different task

in cooperation. The way a unit limit, if there is to be one, needs to be

worded is really that a commander can only give orders to a few different

*groups* of units -- of unlimited size, so long as they`re all together in

one big clump -- per turn.



As an example, a full consular army of the Roman Republic nominally was

composed, in BR muster terms, of about 12 pikes, 24 elite infantry, 24

infantry, 20 irregulars and 8 cavalry. Each of the four flavors of foot

soldiers were nominally organized into forty separate units, but they were

*never* employed that way tactically. Instead, they were all drawn up

into one long line of each type (one behind the other), and each line

moved forwards all together as a single unit. When one line had had

enough, the next line (in reverse order of the way I`ve listed them) was

ordered forward to replace them. Thus, in practical terms, no matter how

many men were present at a battle (and many think the Roman forces at

Cannae constituted about four times this number), they were never in any

practical sense organized into more than six huge groups (one of each type

of infantry, and one group of cavalry on each wing).



Medieval generalship generally consisted of only three or four separate

maneuver units -- Right, Left, Center, and, optionally, Reserve -- though

each could be comprised of many thousands of men drawn in many very small

groups from an area comprising several hundred BR provinces. If you want

to make a realistic medieval command-control rule, what you should do is

before each battle, divide all your dozens or even hundreds of warcard

units up into just 3 to 5 big groups, and say that each group may only

move and fight as a group. The 3x5 warcard map is actually very conducive

to this kind of arrangement, as long as you don`t discard stacking.





Ryan Caveney

[Osprey]

Medieval generalship generally consisted of only three or four separate
maneuver units -- Right, Left, Center, and, optionally, Reserve -- though
each could be comprised of many thousands of men drawn in many very small
groups from an area comprising several hundred BR provinces. If you want
to make a realistic medieval command-control rule, what you should do is
before each battle, divide all your dozens or even hundreds of warcard
units up into just 3 to 5 big groups, and say that each group may only
move and fight as a group. The 3x5 warcard map is actually very conducive
to this kind of arrangement, as long as you don`t discard stacking.


Ryan Caveney


This is by far the best rationale I&#39;ve ever heard for the war card system. It makes a great deal of sense, given the historical precedents. The thing is, the Romans had single-purpose groups, which massively simplifies their functions in combat. Not to mention the Roman style you described is extremely formulaic.

In general, I&#39;m wary of over-simplifying the battlesystem, especially in a world where military commanders seem very significant(and powers like Great Courage and Battlewise, as well as the Warcraft and Lead skills, accentuate this aspect).

Some of my reading of medieval strategies suggests a somewhat broader range of tactics than you describe. Although things could be quite predictable among the great powers of the time (say, France vs. England in much of the Hundred Years&#39; War), if we look at a broader picture of medieval Europe, including the eastern parts, then we see a greater diversity of influences, such as Mongol tactics that relied on fast horse archers keeping out of reach of enemy infantry. Byzantine and Slavic forces had similar units with related tactics. The Scots fighting the English is another great example of tactical genius and innovation playing a significant role on the medieval battlefield.

In Cerilia, I have always assumed that the Anuireans, Rjurik, Brechts, Khinasi, etc. have all influenced one another fairly significantly, given their long-time unification under the Empire. The same would be true for tactics and strategies, and even more so when we consider the influences of all the non-human races too. If the elves in Cerilia are analagous to Native Americans in the colonial era, then guerilla tactics would have been introduced a long time ago. And the dwarves&#39; expertise in mountain fighting wouldn&#39;t have gone unnoticed by curious humans who saw the advantage there. Sooner or later ideas are copied or taught between cultures that have contact, be it friendly or hostile.

Thus, the average Cerilian commander should at least have a chance of knowing some fairly diverse types of strategy. Which allows players to use creative tactics, so long as an oversimplified system doesn&#39;t restrict their tactical options down to a few narrow choices.

When I played the original War Card system, I felt it worked OK, but the unlimited stacking bit did get pretty unbelievable when the numbers got too big. Larger battles got pretty cumbersome without there being more options and advantages for smart maneuvering, plans, etc.

In the end, I simply prefer battles in greater detail than the War Cards. Otherwise, I&#39;d rather have a way to simply crunch the numbers and determine the outcome if it&#39;s not worth fighting the battle. I haven&#39;t really tested the BRCS quick resolution system yet, though I&#39;ll give it a whirl before too long.

Whatever system does get worked out, I hope it is cohesive and fairly easy to learn while still providing a sufficient degree of detail and tactical flexibility that reflects the great array of possible units, terrain configurations, and the effects of magic and monsters on the battlefield.

Osprey

[ryancaveney]

On Sat, 6 Sep 2003, Osprey wrote:



> This is by far the best rationale I`ve ever heard for the war card

> system. It makes a great deal of sense, given the historical precedents.



Thanks. =)



> The thing is, the Romans had single-purpose groups, which

> massively simplifies their functions in combat. Not to mention the

> Roman style you described is extremely formulaic.



Oh yes, definitely. Actually, since each of the four pre-Marian Roman

infantry groups ran the entire length of the battlefield, they don`t fit

all that well with my description of medieval battles on the war card map

as "everything in one space is one maneuver unit". That would be more

appropriate to the imperial legion, which consists entirely of BR elite

infantry (well, 26 EI and one Cav, plus a few cav and/or other foot types

as auxiliaries), or the Byzantine combined-arms mixtures of Maurice`s

Strategikon which divide the army into basic maneuver units having three

or four different equipment types mixed in equal ratios in each one.



And don`t knock the formulaicness of the Roman system! It does a really

good job of insulating military success from political incompetents

appointed to command.



> In general, I`m wary of over-simplifying the battlesystem, especially

> in a world where military commanders seem very significant (and powers

> like Great Courage and Battlewise, as well as the Warcraft and Lead

> skills, accentuate this aspect).



Fine by me -- but limitations on the raw total number of troops they can

bring to the battlefield is not a good way to do this. Limitations on how

well different commanders can use the same troops is a much better method.

Or, rather than impose limitations, look at the awnsheghlien commander

cards from Blood Enemies: a sufficiently great leader could give morale,

attack, or other bonuses to his whole army!



> if we look at a broader picture of medieval Europe, including the

> eastern parts, then we see a greater diversity of influences, such as

> Mongol tactics that relied on fast horse archers keeping out of reach

> of enemy infantry.



Right, but we also see a necessarily related diversity of equipment; and

given one nation`s preferred equipment, there was pretty much only one

good tactic for using it, and vice versa. Crusader heavy cavalry were

physically incapable of being used like Mongol horse archers, and so on.



> In Cerilia, I have always assumed that the Anuireans, Rjurik, Brechts,

> Khinasi, etc. have all influenced one another fairly significantly,

> given their long-time unification under the Empire.



But still, each people has its one preferred way of war. All these groups

know how the other folks fight, but they still prefer to do it their own

way, as fits with their traditional tactics and equipment. To really do a

good job of fighting like another culture would require significant,

unwelcome and highly unlikely changes to the culture itself. The kind of

economy and society that supports horse nomads does not support heavy

cavalry, good regular infantry needs a third lifestyle entirely, and so on.



> If the elves in Cerilia are analagous to Native Americans in the

> colonial era, then guerilla tactics would have been introduced a long

> time ago.



I personally think this analogy is very poor. That said, I still think

they would naturally use guerilla tactics -- they are few in number, very

good at magic, and have an extremely strong incentive not to get involved

in battle themselves: unlike every other soldier, they do not have to die

someday anyway! However, if those of us who think that elves make

large-scale use of charmed and summoned troops are right, then when using

such troops elven commanders would have to use them much like their native

commanders would. If you are an elf leading an army of Anuirean knights

which you have obtained via the Subversion realm spell, there`s just no

point trying to use them like elves, or in any other way except exactly as

they would themselves: massed charge on the open plains. Well, there is

one time -- if the spell`s duration is about to expire, you may wish to

give your borrowed army an order which you hope they will not survive.



> And the dwarves` expertise in mountain fighting wouldn`t have gone

> unnoticed by curious humans who saw the advantage there. Sooner or

> later ideas are copied or taught between cultures that have contact,

> be it friendly or hostile.



Well, some ideas can be copied or taught, but some take long *personal*

experience to learn -- much of what dwarves know about fighting in

mountains comes not so much from their people having done so for

generations as from individual dwarves having done so for decades or

centuries. No amount of practice on a rock-climbing wall could make

flatlander Anuireans anywhere near as good as dwarves are in their home

environment -- it`s not their *home*. Furthermore, given that this is

fantasy and dwarves are an entirely different species, they have natural

biological advantages and disadvantages which also heavily influence their

preferred style of war (much as I argued for elves above).



> Thus, the average Cerilian commander should at least have a chance of

> knowing some fairly diverse types of strategy. Which allows players

> to use creative tactics, so long as an oversimplified system doesn`t

> restrict their tactical options down to a few narrow choices.



They may very well know what dwarves would do in a given situation, but if

their troops are not trained and equipped as dwarves are, it is likely to

be completely the wrong thing to try. Light cavalry would profit much

more from doing the opposite of what dwarves would. =) However, noting

that the enemy has a great advantage in cavalry could very well imply to a

good Cerilian general that "this is a good time to act like dwarves".



> Larger battles got pretty cumbersome without there being more options

> and advantages for smart maneuvering, plans, etc.



Yes, the fact that envelopment and flanking are not really possible on

that map is distinctly unfortunate. On the other hand, since there is

really no limit on the number of attackers which can engage a single

defender, it makes being extremely outnumbered even worse.



> In the end, I simply prefer battles in greater detail than the War Cards.



As do I!



> Otherwise, I`d rather have a way to simply crunch the numbers

> and determine the outcome if it`s not worth fighting the battle. I

> haven`t really tested the BRCS quick resolution system yet, though



The BRCS quick resolution method is very close to doing an original rules

warcard battle in which you stack every unit in the battle in one map

space. When quick resolution systems are discussed, the one I always

recommend is based on the War Machine from the old D&D Companion Set:



http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Fortress/2198/Birthright/brwarmach.html





Ryan Caveney

[Birthright-L]

> On Sat, 6 Sep 2003, Osprey wrote:

>> Thus, the average Cerilian commander should at least have a chance of

>> knowing some fairly diverse types of strategy. Which allows players

>> to use creative tactics, so long as an oversimplified system doesn`t

>> restrict their tactical options down to a few narrow choices.



Well, I know this isn`t really what you`re looking for but in my games I

sell out Tactics as type of military unit. After the initial Research, you

can purcase them with gold and maintain them and move them around with your

military units. They`re basically another type of warcard.





Ryan wrote:

> The BRCS quick resolution method is very close to doing an original rules

> warcard battle in which you stack every unit in the battle in one map

> space. When quick resolution systems are discussed, the one I always

> recommend is based on the War Machine from the old D&D Companion Set:

>

> http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Fortress/2198/Birthright/brwarmach.html



I`ve tried this little system and used it many times for my own games. It`s

really cool, really fast, and easily tweakable.



-Lord Rahvin

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>

Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2003 1:08 PM





> [re Subversion] Well, there is one time -- if the spell`s duration is

> about to expire, you may wish to give your borrowed army an

> order which you hope they will not survive.



In today`s politcal system, I think a favorite tactic would be place a

subverted unit in territory which is mutually hostile to the elves and the

unit. Imagine a unit of Boeruine heavy infantry shaking off its charm in

Avanil.



Osprey wrote:

> > And the dwarves` expertise in mountain fighting wouldn`t have gone

> > unnoticed by curious humans who saw the advantage there.



Ryan replied:

> Well, some ideas can be copied or taught, but some take long *personal*

> experience to learn



My solution was to just integrate dwarves into the Empire. There are

references to dwarves living in mountains outside of the designated dwarven

realms. These dwarves might be hired as mercenaries or enlisted as

auxilluries (mostly in exchange for political autonomy). So for the most

part, there are no human mountain troops, just the advantage that some

realms have in recruiting native or mercenary dwarves.



> > In the end, I simply prefer battles in greater detail than the War

Cards.

>

> As do I!



I don`t think you really can beat the war cards unless you lay down terrain

in your living room and pull out minatures. Ditch the map use the cards

free form on the floor. Regulate movement by the length of the cards. You

can reproduce nearly any medieval or ancient battle.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[ryancaveney]

On Sat, 6 Sep 2003, Kenneth Gauck wrote:



> In today`s politcal system, I think a favorite tactic would be place a

> subverted unit in territory which is mutually hostile to the elves and

> the unit. Imagine a unit of Boeruine heavy infantry shaking off its

> charm in Avanil.



Yes, indeed! The unit is lost -- they surrender, or they fight to the

death, or they head for the hills and become brigands. Much the same way

that the fact that Summoned troops turn into a monstrous brigandage event:

it`s not a drawback, it`s a fringe benefit!



> So for the most part, there are no human mountain troops, just the

> advantage that some realms have in recruiting native or mercenary

> dwarves.



I agree this is the best approach.



> I don`t think you really can beat the war cards unless you lay down

> terrain in your living room and pull out minatures.



Which is to a great extent what I do. ;) I`m always tinkering to find

improvements, but at present what I use is pretty much standard war card

combat resolution, but instead representing them by small cardboard

counters on my quite considerable collection of hex-grid wargame maps.



> Ditch the map use the cards free form on the floor. Regulate movement

> by the length of the cards. You can reproduce nearly any medieval or

> ancient battle.



This is an excellent suggestion which I heartily endorse. The main

different between what I do and what you do is that by using much

smaller representations of the cards, I can do the same thing on a

smaller table. =)





Ryan Caveney

[ryancaveney]

On Sat, 6 Sep 2003 lordrahvin@SOFTHOME.NET wrote:



> in my games I sell out Tactics as type of military unit. After the

> initial Research, you can purcase them with gold and maintain them and

> move them around with your military units. They`re basically another

> type of warcard.



This is a really neat idea! Could you give us some detailed examples?





Ryan Caveney

[ryancaveney]

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003, Gary wrote:



> One of the things I found I missed in battle resolution rules was

> facing. 3e did away with facing for the most part, and the warcard

> system never employed it, but when it comes to large scale combat in

> which units can take on formation, and tactical advantages are such

> that one wants to flank or otherwise take advantage of battlefield

> maneuver and positioning when portraying large scale battles.



Yes, very much so. Facing and flanking is crucially important in warfare.

Even if you don`t restore it to individual combat (and I agree you should)

it should definitely be a part of mass combat.





Ryan Caveney

[Cruelsader]

Has anyone tried to adapt Cry Havoc for BR battles? How did you intergrate it with domain rules? Thanks&#33;

[Solmyr]

> On Sat, 6 Sep 2003, Osprey wrote:

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Fortr...mach.html<br (http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Fortress/2198/Birthright/brwarmach.html<br) />


I`ve tried this little system and used it many times for my own games. It`s

really cool, really fast, and easily tweakable.


It&#39;s nice to see that my old battle system still sees use. :)

[A_dark]

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