Battle rules

[Midnight]

I know that this has been addressed before but rather than resurrect an age old post I’ll start a new one.

These are the changes I would make to the Battle rules for Birthright.
1. Expensive units are just not worth the gold you pay for them. Granted most of the higher end gold bar units have a movement of two that allows them to be more effective on and of f the battle board but that advantage is small when compared to having a less well equipped but more numerous army. Also the more gold a unit costs the harder the unit is to muster due to holding requirements.
You can make your own comparison or tests on this but for the most part as an example a unit of knights will almost always lose to an equal number of gold bar units of all or mixed archers, infantry and pike-men.
What I think should be implemented is units that have a melee or missile higher then six should than get an extra attack using the base attack chart of a fighter. Thus a knight would have a melee of +6/1 an elven archer a missile +6/1, dwarves guards a melee of +6/1 etc. This evens up gold bar value and effectiveness of units and from my tests seem to give the results I was looking for, a more even battle based on gold bar value while the more expensive unit keeps there advantage of extra movement or terrain bonus.
2. I would have the charge attack deal double dmg on a successful hit. A charging unit of Vos Berserkers or Anuirean knights would be one of the most destructive and powerful attacks done on a battle field. I would than add to the pike-men that they do not take double dmg from a charge.
3 I would bring back the original rule regarding Calvary from second edition, that after a battle is over for each unit of Calvary the victory has he can destroy a retreating unit (the one losing the unit chooses which unit if its an option), for each unit of Calvary in the retreating army screens or basically neutralize the Victors Calvary. I would exclude heavy Calvary from this rule, ie Knights and Varsk Riders as they were excluded in the original rule. I always liked this rule and I am not sure why it wasn’t included in the play-test.
4 Strategic Warfare. To make good generals good, before the first strategic move both opposing leaders make a war-craft check to determine who has the best battle plan. If one general has bested the other by more than five he has the advantage. Once and for one round per battle the general with the higher score applies a +1 to each units melee or missile for every 5 points above the others score. This rule is to represent the foresight and wisdom of the General when his battle plan takes form.
5. The hero unit, I do not think that the rules for a hero unit represents just how powerful and destructive high level characters would have on a battle field. Actually I feel very confident in saying that the hero unit is way off on the effects leveled chars would have on a battle. If any of you have played Dynasty Warriors that’s about what a 10 level char would look like fighting in a battle. The ideas I have come up with so far for changing the hero unit I’m not happy with but I do remember seeing posts about this before and I will see if I can find them and look what was said.
I look forward to any comments and if any one still uses the battle board and tries out these changes let me know how it went and what you thought.

[kgauck]

As a general principle I don't think that units should have the same ratio of combat power to cost. Generally the extra cost achieves something unusual that no other unit can do.

[Tomtom]

We had the that same problem in our game. After a while when it became evident that to win a battle you need just numbers our armies were entirely archers and infantry with a sprinkling of a few other units for show. What we did to solve this is for each hit a unit has they get 8hp and when the hit they do d8 dmg. It made it worth buying other units again.
Like you idea for warcraft not sure about your calvary rule.

[bbeau22]

I have never like the battle system and seek ways to improve it. I agree there is no way for individuals to make a difference on the battlefield. Of course this is realistic, but I like the fantasy idea that a single man might be able to change of the course of a battle.

I will keeping thinking about this and hopefully come up with an improved system for my players. I want a system that is a bit more dynamic, more options during the battle, and all around more fun to play. Battles right now are like a tooth being pulled. It needs to happen, but the process is a bit painful.

-BB

[Rowan]

I like your suggestions 3 and 4, 2 with reservations (need to test the idea a bit more).

I agree with Kgauck that combat effectiveness should not be related directly to GB cost. Greater numbers of troops should almost always overwhelm smaller numbers of better equipped or skilled troops as long as terrain, morale, or tactics don't limit the advantage of the greater numbers. Even NATO troops tend to go into battle with superior numbers in any localized conflict. They try to harness every advantage they can to go along with the vastly superior equipment and skill that the individual troops have.

I also agree with Beau that individuals cannot influence combat greatly; I actually like the Hero unit modifications. Maybe they could be increased or adjusted a little to emphasize the hero aspect of the game, but basically powerful individuals mainly serve to bolster the morale and discipline of the unit, inspiring them to fight better. So maybe they could add a Hit, add more to Morale, maybe a little more to Defense. By the way, I don't think a Battle Magic system is needed at all. I think you just factor spellcasters into the hero unit, perhaps giving them an additional bonus to EL equal to the highest level spell they can cast, since wizards are essentially walking artillery pieces.

I agree with you guys that the system is limited and rather broken. For instance, since it is based on small modifiers (+1 to +2 at a time) to a d20, it is inherently a very random and swingy system--particularly in small skirmishes, which is most of D&D and BR battles (battles with dozens of units will statistically even out better than ones with only a few). WotC has FINALLY recognized this in 4th edition. There are two ways to correct this with minimal changes. The 4e route is to adjust the curve upwards but keep the swingy d20. If you, for instance, double or triple all of the modifiers for units and terrain and warcraft and so forth, battles will become a little more stable and approach the statistical Normal distribution better.

The other method would be to remove the wild variability of the d20 and replace it with 2d10 or (like the defunct but quite interesting Shards of the Stone game) 3d6. These, again, approach Normal distribution much better, allowing a Knight unit to more reliably overrun an Infantry unit in a charge (because lets face it, on an open plain, if a Knight unit gets up to a full charge against an unprotected Infantry unit, that Infantry is toast almost 100% of the time with very little chance of injury to the Knights).

The other things that the current battle system doesn't quite take into account well enough are the major tactical factors of battle.

1. Terrain and weather are given a minimal impact, with no bonus for units fighting on known or home terrain.
2. Warcraft--the strategic and tactical skill of commanders--gets some impact, but again it is very swingy because of the d20, and it is still a little weak, I think.
3. Information availability and communication are almost completely ignored on the tactical level
4. Unit fatigue is underrated
5. Fortifications are underrated--without towers, rams, ladders, grappels, or artillery, assaulting a walled fortification is virtually impossible. Low level fortifications give very little bonus to defense or Warcraft in this game; they should give probably at least a +4 on top of the fortification level, an advantage negated only by engineers.
6. Attack is more difficult than defense

That list seems shorter than what I had intended. Suffice to say that if you hold more of these advantages than your opponent, they would make a big difference in the battle. If you control your home terrain, have more skilled commanders, have scouts/information and communication methods, command any sort of fortification, and outmatch your enemy in unit skill and composition and numbers, it should be all but impossible for him to even do significant damage to you, let alone defeat you in battle.

Unfortunately, I have seen several instances where one side controlled almost all of these advantages and yet, due to the inaccuracies in current battle resolution systems, suffered staggering damage and even defeat from a comparatively unharmed attacker (one in unfamiliar terrain, with fewer and weaker units not optimized against the defenders while the defenders were optimized against the attackers, lower morale than the defenders, attacking into fortifications on the defenders' home turf without any engineers, with poorer information).

[Rowan]

Just thought of something. Perhaps one way to improve the system and even out the elite units a little is to recognize Hits as having mostly to do with unit cohesion, and the fact that casualties, even in melee warfare, were far fewer than this system seems to assume. Not a lot of people died unless they were trapped or cut down when routed, and most defeated soldiers were captured or scattered as deserters.

So, figure that units can recover 1 hit automatically given two days of rest or a war move if they are marching (not needing to be in garrison for a month). Even "destroyed" units down to 0 hits should be able to recover, since most of the individuals are still alive and not seriously injured.

Recovering more than 1 hit requires additional recruitment to reform the full unit formation (though recovering 1 hit might only mean you need to recruit 10-20 more individuals to fill out the unit's ranks) and requires you to be garrisoned in your home province for a month.

What this means for the winner of a battle is that his own units recover quite a bit, "destroyed" units can be recombined with other "destroyed" units after they each recover 1 hit to restore a unit to full hits. Enemy units that were destroyed are considered captured, and can either be slaughtered, ransomed (probably for near to the muster cost of the unit), or exchanged.

The loser of a battle has to deal with the fact that his destroyed units are unrecoverable unless they are ransomed back to him. Injured or routed units can live to fight another day. This new reality makes retreat more attractive, rather than fighting it out to the bitter end every time.

The main thing that I think is still missing from this variant unit damage/healing system is taking desertion into account. This could perhaps be done by having units make a morale check like the Forced March check: DC 10, +2 in home territories, suffer 1 hit (subdual or actual?) if they fail. A penalty to the check should apply for the loser of a battle (perhaps -2 and -2 more for each 10% of the army lost), and a bonus for the winner (+4?).

The explanation seems long, but in brief, the rules are just:
Units recover 1 hit for 2 days of rest or 1 week on the march. Additional hits must be recovered in garrison at the rate of 1 per month. Units reduced to 0 hits are eligible to recover hits, as well, but destroyed units on the loser side are considered captured by the winner and can be executed, ransomed, or exchanged. At the end of a battle, each sides units must each make a morale check DC 10 or suffer 1 hit from desertion that can only be recovered in garrison. Modifiers are +2 in home provinces, -2 for losing the battle and -2 for each 10% of the army lost, +4 for winning the battle.

[Midnight]

I think the battle resolution can be fixed or at least be much better with a few changes. I disagree with you Rowan that numbers will always over run better armed and equipped troops, throughout history you can find countless examples of just the opposite, I could give a list if you want. I do agree that there is power in numbers and it is an advantage but there is equal power in training and equipment, obliviously yes if it is within your means to do so you would want to have as many advantages as you can.
As for can an individual greatly effect the out come of a battle. It has been done… but is rare. The question I think would be are the battles more fantasy based or grounded more to reality. If they question is can a 12th level character greatly effect the out come of a battle the answer would be yes without a doubt in the world of dungeons and dragons, but if your personally flavor is that you want to have more realistic battles than the hero unit doesn’t need to be changed or used at all.
As for your 6 points Rowan I agree with them and I think everyone else would agree with them as well, and I addressed #2 as a big flaw in my first post. However I’m looking at trying to make small changes with out having to change the whole system, can it not be salvaged. Basically I think the biggest flaws are the issues I posted.
For those that do use the Battle resolution do you not agree that the shock and awe that big name units like knights, Varsk riders and Berserks should possess are just not there. I have tested my suggestion out in about 10 mock battles and am happy with the results, numbers keep an advantage but its possible for small elite armies to win against large poorly equipped and trained armies. Granted my changes are small ones but I think it balances out and makes for a more fun battle, where is the fun if you don‘t recruit knights and cavalry because they limit your ability to win wars. I welcome any one to test the changes and post there thoughts.

[hirumatogeru]

I have found the birthright mass battle system to be fine really, except for how the PC's become involved in the fight.

What I do in my games (I use Savage Worlds as a ruleset) is plug in a battle table that I found in the Legend of the Five Rings RPG 3rd edition book. Basically, if the PC wants to add a bonus to a unit (represented by the Adventurers card) they have to roll on the table (a strategy or warfare roll) and complete the challenge successfully for the unit to gain a bonus. This makes it a tough choice sometimes as PC's can split up to give bonuses to multiple units, but have to complete all the challenges by themselves usually, or can team up to give the bonus to one unit.

The challenges have different tables for certain foes, if you're fighting a naval battle, use the naval tables, if its against humanoids on land use the humanoids tables, if its against monsters or undead etc. use the monstrous tables. They needed a very small amount of tweaking to work with Birthright which was super easy.

Some examples of challenges were capture the enemy banner, hold the line, attack the archers, attack the spellcasters, duel vs. enemy general, and the list goes on. Lots of flavor for the PC's, simple to use rules, and it plugs in seamlessly with the battle cards.

[Rowan]

Midnight, in your tests, did you find battles still to be swingy when still using the d20? Particularly in battles with fewer than 10 or 20 units total?

As for the shock and awe of the elite units, applied in the right situations, I think they truly are devastating. They can and should indeed run down non-elite or normally-armored units with impunity (and very little risk of taking a hit themselves). Double damage on the charge helps represent that nicely. The concern I have is with double damage AND the Charge bonus to attack, and also the inability to do it to Pike. Pike should have a significant advantage against charges, but historically there still are many instances of charges against Pikemen. If there is no benefit to charging Pike, it wouldn't be done. I think the reason it still is seen occasionally is that desperate or perhaps foolhardy men take the risk of great cavalry losses, but recognize that the armored tanks charging even a Pike unit can be so terrifying and have such momentum that they can still shatter and run down a pike unit--though at great personal loss.

I haven't run the skirmishes, but I tend not to think that the additional attacks you outline in your point #1 are necessary, partly because I philosophically disagree that a single unit of knights should be able to take on an infantry, a pike, and an archer. In that engagement, unless the commander of the knights can make better use of surprise, terrain, and break the opponents' morale, those knights are and should be toast unless they're truly legendary (big heroes unit, Toughness and Melee+ training, etc.). By the way, I'm not convinced Archers should get a +2 bonus versus mounted units.

Hiru, I like the Challenges idea for engaging PCs. Where would I find this oft-referred-to "Savage Worlds" rules set? I have never seen it.

____________________-

I know that small, better equipped and trained units can take on larger numbers, but usually they benefit from some other force multiplier as well--like the aforementioned terrain, better tactics, routing an enemy unit early on, etc. The two classic examples I can think of, the Alexander's victory at Gaugemela and Henry's at Agincourt, involved the smaller forces making much better tactical choices. Alexander didn't allow Darius's overwhelming numbers to engage and tie down his mobile army, nullified his elite charioteers by avoiding their paved attack runway (good recon on his part), and then took a classic Chess move and made an opportunity to charge hard at the King himself and rout the and capture the King's unit--causing the whole army to fall into disarray and breaking morale. Alexander was regularly successful at bringing his elite forces to bear at opportune times against the right enemy companies; had he slugged it out, all things (tactically) being equal, he would have suffered tremendous losses fighting when he was outnumbered. He may still have gained victory primarily through the better morale of his troops, but that is and should be the main pivotal point of battle--whoever routs first and can't recover loses. Sun Tzu observes this when he recognizes that you don't want to trap an enemy, because desperate men with no chance to break and run away will fight desperately for survival--in other words, you want to give them a chance to rout so you can destroy them more easily.

At Agincourt, the English channeled the enemy through a funnel that not only nullified the French numbers, but actually made the French bunch up so ridiculously that they couldn't even fight, crushed in on each other as they were. Plus, the superior skill and range of the English longbowmen on the flanking hills was quite effective. Ultimately, it was mastery of terrain that one that battle, plus French overconfidence and lack of discipline. After witnessing the slaughter of the front lines, the remaining French army broke morale.

[Tomtom]

We had the same problem what we did was add 8hp per hit a unit has and have stronger units deal d8 dmg and and the weaker ones deal d6 dmg. combat take longer but if you didn't have an army of mass archers or inf you would lose to the army that was before we changed how we deal dmg.

[kgauck]

I disagree with you Rowan that numbers will always over run better armed and equipped troops, throughout history you can find countless examples of just the opposite, I could give a list if you want.

I think Rowan is right here. Smaller numbers of superior troops never defeat larger numbers unless they can do one of two things, require the larger force to only fight with a part of its troops (such as at Agincourt, where the battlefield was so narrow that the French could never put more troops before the English than what the English had fighting) or by adopting a defensive position that multiplies their effectiveness (again at Agincourt the French had to climb a hill to reach the English).

However its possible for inferior troops to use these techniques and win as well. I think the French had a large number of elite troops at Agincourt, and overall the English did not have a qualitative advantage. They had a vastly superior position on the battlefield. Henry rolled a critical on pre-battle tactics roll.

But feel free to present your list.

The best work on quantifying troop quality is done by Trevor DuPuy, and every case where superior troops defeat a much larger number of inferior troops, the actual cause of the victory is better use of some other factor (generally position to prevent the enemy from using their superior numbers, which is kind of like not having them, or improving defense by using stakes, trenches, walls, hills, or woods) which are terrain factors, not troop quality factors.

The beauty of using superior troops in bottlenecks is that superior troops maintain cohesion and morale better, and so can maintain their killing effectiveness much longer into the battle, despite facing new troops often throughout the battle, where inferior troops in a bottleneck might hold off a larger force or they just might break morale or just loose their fighting effectiveness over time, allowing attrition to whittle their numbers in the face of the enemy.

[Rowan]

Other examples I'm thinking of (outside of Alexander's many campaigns) are Thermopylae, Salamis, and whatever that battle was that Roland fought in. Again, all of those were victories due mostly to bottlenecks. It just so happens that elite units tend to have better leaders and tend to be more mobile and agile (largely due to discipline and being fewer in number). So the much larger, poorly-trained and poorly-equipped armies are more unwieldy and have poorer unit-level commanders, so the smaller elite armies tend to outmaneuver and seize more strategic and tactical advantages. Logistically, larger armies have fewer options as well, because they must stay provisioned and travel across ground adequate for their numbers. So on a strategic level, elite units are often a good idea, particularly if you have a small population to support them.

That brings up another little discrepancy that Ericthecleric handles in his current PBEM: there is little reason for maintenance costs to rise linearly with muster costs. Elite units, if anything, have fewer men in them, and their pay and provisioning should not cost dramatically more than lesser professional soldiers. So rather than having maintenance cost half the muster cost, ericthecleric streamlined it so that units costing 3GB or less to muster cost 1GB to maintain, and those costing 4GB or more cost 2GB. That helps some with the elite units.

[hirumatogeru]

Hiru, I like the Challenges idea for engaging PCs. Where would I find this oft-referred-to "Savage Worlds" rules set? I have never seen it.


Go to www.peginc.com/games and you'll find the PDF for sale for super cheap, 10 bucks I think. They have a number of "settings" and toolkit books as well. The 3 fantasy toolkits are excellent purchases.

[tpdarkdraco]

In respect to Armies with great numbers as opposed to well trained smaller armies. I agree that big armies can be ungainly and terrain can affect their potential to field all troops for the battle. Maybe each terrain could have a maxiumun number of units that can present them selves on the battle field at one time and the rest can be held in reserve until a unit has been destryed or routed. I believe that the original rules allowed for a certain amount on the field and the rest were held in reserve.

[kgauck]

Setting up conditions where terrain is effective for one side or another should be the result of one commander or another winning strategy or tactics rolls by a wide margin.

[Midnight]

In hind sight I agree that knights should be able to charge pike-men so I would not change any of the pike-men rules. As for in my mock battles did chance play a big roll, yes and no, in my small battles with a single knight vs. different mixtures of units of equal gold value a single bad roll and that just cost the knights any chance of wining, like if the knights fail to hit with there charge, even in the smallest of scales the cheaper units can afford to botch a roll or two. With the bigger mock battles I did of 20gb armies and bigger I find there is more room for strategy but you can still lose if you just have bad luck, a little hard to say for sure being its hard to strategize against your self lol.
I don’t want to take to much time on this but just off the top of my head here are some battles that quality prevailed over numbers. But take this into account as well, you can say that these victory’s are due only to terrain or great leadership but even bad generals understand the importance of terrain especially when you have a smaller force, so you just wont find many open field battle’s with smaller and larger forces in history.
Every battle that Hannibal fought.
The Romans vs. Boudica
Battle of the bulge
Where the Japanese defeated the Mongols
Almost every battle Genghis Khan and his Mongols were in, during and for a short time after his death.
The Apache wars
The Spanish and Aztecs
The Japanese invasion of China
Almost all the battles of Sparta and Athens
The British and Zulu’s
These are just what I thought of in a min but if its an important selling point I and can buckle down and due some research and make a much larger list and what the fighting forces consisted of.
But all of this aside I personally see the fantasy aspect of Birthright should be in the battles as well, knights in shining armor should be the champions and lords of the field, evil ogre’s and barbaric Vos Varsk riders should be terrors that no normal unit could hope to vanquish, player characters and there retinue (hero units) capable of feats on battle no normal man could hope to achieve. I hope im not letting loose to much with my imagination here but I think that’s what Birthright is about, the battles should have a healthy flare of the impossible and the battles epic in nature, I don’t think the battles resolution was ever designed to be a historical battle simulator. And I stand by my option that the higher quality units in the game need some buffing up.

[dunsel]

Midnight, you're overlooking one important piece.

If an domain is in a war, they quickly become limited by their province level in the number of troops you can muster per season. A level 3 province can only muster 3 units, they could muster three infantry/archers or they could get three goblin guard/knights/elven cavalry/etc. Along this same line of thinking, in large battles you could have five infantry on your front line, or you could have five elite infantry. Even if the elite troops aren't worth their muster cost against a greater number of lesser troops, the battle board is only five squares wide so those lesser troops will be forced to wait their turn to die.

Also, I expect a field full of nothing but knights would do poorly. However, if they have two knights on the field and a few infantry to fill out the field, I expect the knights to be used to their full potential.

[AndrewTall]

One idea used in Rjurik winds (which doesn't use a standard battlemap but currently roughly follows the warcards rules otherwise) is using skills for leadership and strategy. Strategy is about being able to take advantage of terrain, figure out where the enemy will be to optimise attack etc, leadership is about then being able to make your army do what you want it to do - loosely only 1 unit per point of leadership is active at any point in a fight, while strategy adds to the 'attack rolls' during combat phases.

Under this sort of system you can't just muster 40 units of goblin rabble (maint .25 GB) and sweep the board since the commander can only effectively control a fraction of them, and elite units like cavalry or giants are greatly valuable to a commander with poor leadership since they compensate for the commanders inability to control large numbers of troops justifying their high cost - they also of course have prestige value from an RP perspective...

[Midnight]

I think thats a great Idea Andrew! It takes away the temptation of just mustering a ton of crap to win wars, the way I see either good units need to be better or some thing needs to be in place like your talking about. Im not familiar with Rjurik winds can you post in more detail how this system works or where I could look at it. Also it sounds like your strategy skill is more or less the Warcraft skill in the play-test.

[kgauck]

I don't have a clear idea of what is wrong with the current rules because I don't have a clear idea how other people play with the war cards. Most of D&D is where the players attempt to do something novel, and the DM tries to analogize from the rules and sets DC's picks the appropriate skill, and asks a player to roll to see if they were successful. I know of no project more novel than warfare. No two campaigns are alike, no two battles are alike, everyone involved is seeking to outwit and surprise their opponent and so they incline to novel behavior just to keep the enemy from guessing their intentions.

So it seems to me that its only natural that battles would be full of players attempting something based on a reasonable assessment of what a unit could do, and the DM adjudicating results.

So if players and DM's aren't getting the results they think are reasonable, I blame the players and DM's themselves.

Now I have certainly seen ridiculous actions taken by players in which DM's seemed insensible of how ridiculous an action was and allowed it without consequences. That's not the game's fault. No one claims that RPG's are fool proof. Likewise I have seen reasonable actions proposed by players but rejected by DM's because they didn't understand the reasonableness of the plan or didn't want to totally derail their preparations. Again, that's a DM's fault, not the game's. Likewise players who fail to suggest anything useful or suggest the wildly improbable are not doing a very good job of overcoming obstacles.

So when I hear that lots of cheap troops are supposed to be better in all regards than elite troops, I scratch my head. Many military functions are done perfectly well by cheap troops. However, moving, following directions, and being calm in combat are not among these. Andrew has mentioned a perfectly reasonable (although limited to one issue) limitation on command and control of large forces of cheap troops. High quality troops are very good at acting on their own as long as they have a general idea of what is going on. Because its not just a question of having a certain number of command points to activate units, units act on their own too. Some units might attack before you want them too. Some might run away before being subjected at an attack that would normally warrant a morale check. Units take more time than you thought (or than they should) doing things. Units may stop before you want. Units may misunderstand their instructions, may misunderstand the situation. If cavalry suddenly emerges from the woods, do the archers shoot at it? They have to decide friend or foe, and mistakes in that decision are frequent and can be quite serious. When two armies array, what do the commanders do? Asses the enemy, spread word of their plan, rally their soldiers? There isn't time to do everything one might like, so one must make choices and pay opportunity costs.

Are there rules for these situations. Certainly, but like every other part of D&D, its done by a DM who can provide DC's and identify skills to be checked. If people are judging units only by their attack, defense, and charge ratings than I think they are not going to be able to reproduce a medieval battlefield.

[cccpxepoj]

we used to play battles in birthright campaign using warhammer rules, you can easily adopt armies for, you have higher level characters represented as champions and heroes, the advantage of the terrain, the use of magic is obvious on battlefield, problem is that you need lot of figurines, lot of space and battles lasting longer then using the birthright rules. The biggest problem are the figurines cause you need the lot of them( and that cost money) and well i like them to be painted so it require more of your free time, and as older i am the less i have it :(

[bbeau22]

I have been tossing around the idea of using Warhammer rules and have most od the conversion in place. If you have anything written up on how you went about converting I would love to hear it.

-BB

[AndrewTall]

I think thats a great Idea Andrew! It takes away the temptation of just mustering a ton of crap to win wars, the way I see either good units need to be better or some thing needs to be in place like your talking about. Im not familiar with Rjurik winds can you post in more detail how this system works or where I could look at it. Also it sounds like your strategy skill is more or less the Warcraft skill in the play-test.

Rjurik Winds is a PBEM currently in turn 13 run by Charles Dupin de St Cyr the current battle rules are found on: http://www.rjurikwinds.com/rw_battle_rules.html

RW uses birmail so RW is a 2e game. Skills are therefore out - non-weapon proficiencies are in. The rules have been an ongoing work in-progress and some of the cannier players are currently writing a software engine to revise the system significantly - one change is that a 'battle' will represent a weeks worth of fighting rather than a single engagement.

I'm not sure that it is possible to have a '300' moment (something that is difficult to permit in any system) and the width of a D20 is a pain (although battles should be fairly random) but it's worked pretty well to date.

[kgauck]

A 300 moment requires that several condition be met.

1) A narrow approach so that the numerically superior attacker must send in one unit at a time.
2) The numerically superior attacker doesn't know what heavy infantry is or what it can do.
3) Elite heavy infantry in defense

Generally getting #2 is the hardest.

[Vicente]

I would say a "300" moment (as portrayed in the comic/film) is just that the Spartans are heroes while the enemy soldiers are level 0 NPCs. Add a narrow fighting space to that and you are set.

[cccpxepoj]

I have been tossing around the idea of using Warhammer rules and have most od the conversion in place. If you have anything written up on how you went about converting I would love to hear it.

-BB
I have a club of warhammer fans here in my hometown, and they are playing it often, i can ask them if they have something written. We used the standard warhammer rules for battle, there is no limit in points, every unit in the birthright is a unit on field heroes and champions must be recruited, so in general you have weaker armies then in original game, but the good thing is that u can mix them from different races( or countries ).
There is complete goblin armies with Trolls and Giants for goblin realms, now there is ogres to.
Two type of elves for their armies, the armies of dwarfs have slight problem of lacking the gunpowder but they are still tough foes.
Gnols can be represented with beast-men armies.
We used for bretonian armies for the Anurians with the mix of some empire units, and Brecht as mostly empire units, and for the most of the Vos chaos warriors.
There is small problem with the armies of Rjurick and Khinasi but the can be made with mixing some merc. units and some regular.

[kgauck]

I would say a "300" moment (as portrayed in the comic/film) is just that the Spartans are heroes while the enemy soldiers are level 0 NPCs. Add a narrow fighting space to that and you are set.

I'd say the only difference between the comic/film version and the history is the look (and the roll of the Thespians). That a little over 2000 men held off an army so large doesn't get much more dramatic , just cooler to look at, because its on film.

[Rowan]

Actually, I think the existing battle rules work fairly well for a "300" moment. Since I like these theoreticals, I'll give an example recreating the Battle of Thermopylae below based on existing rules in the BR setting. A uniquely BR scenario could easily be arranged similar to this--the Battle of Mhelliviene seems to be the nearest story example.

Treat the Spartans as 2 units of Elite Infantry with all of the adders you can stack on them (Shield Wall, Toughness, Morale+, Melee+, Defense+). Even give them a Missile attack and Missile+ with their spears. Possibly add on another Hit or double Toughness, and give them the special abilities of Pike units (double damage on charge, opportunity attack before melee range is closed). Then stack a Hero unit at least EL14 to each with a Battlewise commander with a huge Lead and Warcraft. They may have even had the blessing of some of their gods (Battle Bless, maybe also magical Battle Arms or Battle Armor). The Thespians and others would be lesser units, but still more elite than the Persians.

Terrain would be as Kgauck said, although the bodies may have created a Limited Fortification situation eventually, in favor of the Spartans. Treat all the Persian forces except the Immortals as Mercenaries (lower morale).

So 2 Spartan units with scores possibly higher than: Melee +15, Missile +9, Defense 23, Hits 5, Move 1, Morale +21, +2 vs. Irregulars and Mounted, attack first in a round, Defense +4 vs. Missiles, plus any terrain modifiers. Commander with Warcraft and Lead probably over +20 each.

Attacking 1 on 1 or even 2 on 1 vs. mercs, it's a mass slaughter, with most enemies being routed before their second attempt to strike that Defense of 23. The Spartans hit on almost every attack, and their enemies strike them hardly ever. Mathematically, I think most units only have a 10% chance to inflict a hit. With half of them routing after the first Spartan spear attack (not even getting a chance to try to strike), that leaves 1 in 20 units hitting, if that. So to kill off the Spartan units (not including the 3+ units of Thespians), you'd be looking at the Spartans carving through 200 units. Each assault would be routed and repulsed, forcing Xerxes and his commanders to take time to reorganize and recover from rout, accounting for the three days.

The Immortals would pose a minor threat to the Spartans, likely being Elite Infantry with Toughness and Melee+ or Defense+, and possibly Hero units attached. The final hail of arrows that brought them down would just be the inevitability of some Hits occurring (on 20's) from a constant barrage against the Spartan shield wall.

Well, talk about over-analyzed! Anyway, these situations can be created in BR. The key is, though, that on an open field, surrounded, those Spartans would fall pretty quickly. They'd do some serious damage, still, but they wouldn't last.

[Vicente]

I'd say the only difference between the comic/film version and the history is the look (and the roll of the Thespians). That a little over 2000 men held off an army so large doesn't get much more dramatic , just cooler to look at, because its on film.

Well, the comic/film is highly flawed in the weapons and armors representation in both armies (Hoplites equipment was ages ahead of their enemies). And numbers of both armies continue to be a heated subject of arguments and research (your 2000 estimates are pretty low).

Although the feat performed by the Greeks is nevertheless impressive.

[kgauck]

We know their were 7000 citizens of Sparta in the Archaic age, and 5000 Spartiates in the Classical age. There was an earthquake at the beginning of the Peloponesian War, so the larger estimate of population is probably closer. Sparta did not send a main body to hold at Thermopylea because they were holding back for a main battle later, what occurred at Platea. So the number of participants must be small. The number give is given by contemporaries, and the numbers such that they could easily be counted, unlike the Persian army which must be estimated based on such things as supply and how long it took to cross the Hellespont, and such things.

[Rowan]

How many years before the Peloponnesian War was the Battle of Thermopylae? I thought quite a bit of time passed after that Persian invasion, during which Athens basically established an empire, taking the Ionian coast, and became huge. Sparta dwindled in power at this time, but at the height of their power I thought they had some 20,000+ citizen-soldiers...?

[kgauck]

Thermopylae was in 480. The First Peloponesian War started in 460. This lasted until 445 with the peace that was supposed to last 30 years. So in 431 war resumed and Athens suffered a whole series of reverses until 404 when the Spartans set up the 30 oligarchs in Athens and proceeded to dominate Greece until the rise of Thebes and Epominondas.

The peak of Sparta was in the Archaic age from about 700 to 500.