Cry Havoc

**ausrick** · 12-13-2005, 07:56 PM

Has anybody bought that book by Malhavoc press/Skip Williams called "Cry Havoc", the d20 mass combat system.

I have it and think it would be fun to use in my campaign for the domain battles. I've done some work on trying to make units that use those rules blend with the BRCS ones enough that it will be fair. Have any of you that have read this book tried that? Any suggestions? Rule alterations if I did?

Also for those of you with extensive experience with the BRCS playtest/sanctioned chapters combat system, I have some questions on its balance so I can maintain that in my system adaptation:

For instance, would a unit of Knights, muster of 6GB, would straight-up on average eat up 2 units of infantry, muster of 2GB, be even with 3 units, and probably fall to 4?

Would that same unit of Knights get schooled by 3 units (6gb total) of archers because their +2 bonus against cavalry is enough to tip the balance?

Any ideas, thoughts, considerations would be appreciated.

**irdeggman** · 12-13-2005, 10:38 PM

It's a good book. Unit size is smaller than the BRCS (and 2nd ed BR).

Try Eden's "Fields of Blood".

Unit size is larger and it has a system for domain action play also.

**LeifVignirsson** · 12-14-2005, 06:03 PM

I have both, I lean more towards Eden Publishings... They have a good system. Stay away from Heroes of Battle, they toss chimp!

**irdeggman** · 12-14-2005, 08:35 PM

Heroes of Battle has a few decent things to it (like siege engines) but I can't recommend it.

There is no mass combat system info in it. It focuses on how PCs interact on the battlefield.

**ausrick** · 12-14-2005, 10:12 PM

Ok, I'll have to look into that fields of blood book.

With the battle system presented in Ch 6? of the BRCS though, is it balanced so that commanders being even, initiatives being even, x gb worth of one unit is as effective as x gb worth of another one, barring the fact that certain units are designed to more appropriately deal with other types of units and thus why mixed arms approaches to warfare work best.?

**ausrick** · 12-14-2005, 10:14 PM

Plus, right now I'm mainly focusing on Anuirean units, but it looks like certain cultures have a strong advantage over other ones, for instance the Anuirean units all look tougher than the Khinasi units at similar prices. Is this true or am I looking at it wrong?

**Fizz** · 12-15-2005, 05:26 PM

So is there any particular reason to choose Fields of Blood over the rules in the BRCS?

Most of my gaming in Birthright has been from the usual PC advemture genre, but i've been giving much thought to a domain-based and mass battle type game.

Advantages/Disadvantages?

-Fizz

**irdeggman** · 12-16-2005, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by Fizz

So is there any particular reason to choose Fields of Blood over the rules in the BRCS?

Most of my gaming in Birthright has been from the usual PC advemture genre, but i've been giving much thought to a domain-based and mass battle type game.

Advantages/Disadvantages?

-Fizz

Not IMO, but I'm prejudiced.

Fields of Blood (and Cry Havoc) both have systems for dealing with individual spells on the battlefields - which the BRCS does not do.

**ausrick** · 01-19-2006, 11:39 PM

Ok, I've done it! Vrs. 1 of my Cry Havoc Birthright Units is available for download, please read the readme that came with it. I'm looking for a lot of feedback because as you know, the Cry Havoc Rules don't blend all that easily with the scale of mass combat in BR. At any rate, I've done a lot of number crunching and time wasting, so hope you all can profit from it.

I'm especially looking for insight on how many men in a unit can attack and how many are in rear ranks, any tweaks to the turn based'ness of it and how to deal with damage and movement, and what a unit of 384 engineers can really accomplish, it was my best guess. Thanks.

At the very least you all should find the character sheets useful, I made them using PC Gen, its a free program, if you do a search for it and download it you'll be happy.

Thanks, and I hope you like and give me lots of feedback.
(ps. this is all in reference to a file I uploaded called Anuirean_Units_Cry_Havoc_vrs_001.zip, if you don't see it, then go check it out, things will make more sense then hopefully.)