Third Battle trying out the Beta rules of Wartorn.

I tried to concentrate on the mechanics of the game instead of winning.

_________________
Lord Kulhaq

The Nightmare of your nightmares

"During your enslavement to me you will learn that there are worse things than dying."
"The world is ours, you only have to be strong enough to take what you want."

Again, super cool batrep you have a way of describing the action that makes the battle report very interesting to read.

With Animate Dead, i'm not sure if it should be allowed to animate more wounds then the formaton starts with. Your thoughts on this?

With your crossbows not getting as many shots as before, you had said that it seemed unbalanced and to killy with shooting. There was also the issue with formations winning combats and not being able to lap around, forcing formations to stay in a certain block seems the best way to tackle both issue at one time. Although formation costs need to be lowered to reflect the new point costs involved with not having multiple stands that all get their own attacks, but having a formation that has a dedicated ammount of attacks that never change until the formation is removed from play.

Looking at your battlereport i'm not exactly sure how your dread shadows where able to kill that necromancer, the necromancer is not the closest formation and he looks to be within 5cm of a friendly formation allowing him to hide in the chaos of the battle. Also your dread shadows have a friendly formation and two other formations partially blocking their shot. Now i didn't have a measuring stick and i wasn't their so the necrommancer could have been to far away to recieve the cover from friendly formations.

Undead spearmen having to many attacks: I'm not sure they have to many attacks they follow the rules for the current point system, they have 4 attacks but at a 5+ to hit. Undead suffer the worst under the to hit penalty, combine that with a lower wound count they are particularly fragile but still have some teeth.

Combat: I had seen you a couple times as who goes first in combat and how that's decided. Combat happens all at one time. If you have a vampire lord, wights, 2x dread spear formations. Everyone gets their rolls, record wounds and after everyone has gone mark/remove formations as needed. Combat is decided off of this. Also you do use your character command value if you fail to see if you run, they are still inspiring your formations to victory even though they got knocked down a little.

So lets say you lose a combat and your character is in range with leadership 9, you pass your flight test and receive a demoralization marker. The next round your characters is killed, you then don't use his leadership and you still have a demoralization marker on that formation. If they have a base leadership of 7 the demoralization marker drops it to a 6 and they need to see if they stay on a 6 or less.

I'll work on the standard commands, and the advanced command orders later after work tonight. But if you make an advanced command, and pass you do your command. Then you want to make a snap call to keep the initiative and send another command with a -1 command modifier. If you fail any snap commands trying to keep the initiative the formation loses it's turn and sits in place. The command got lost, or the order was confusing, or the runner was killed. This is the only way a formation will not activate and sit in place.

Blind-

When I was making the maps I did think that I should have stated that they weren't exactly to size, and looking at the Turn when the Necromancer was killed by the Shadows I can see I forgot to state that the Shadows did have a clear line of shot, that although the Necromancer was within 5cm of the Skeleton Spears in combat with the Dread Elf Spears, the Shadows could not actually see the Skeleton Spears that he was close to.

I think Animate Dead should only be used to replace casualties previously lost up to their starting Health, not actually increase their Formations. But I also think that the Necromancers should be able to cast this spell into combat, re-animating the remains of Skeletons at the rear of their Formation. Also replacing 1d6 Wounds could be scary, but it seemed to work well in this battle.

The Undead Spears performed well, in that they continued to roll slightly higher than average hits (out of their 8 attacks they were causing 4-5 wounds per combat phase, the Dread Elves in return were rolling poorly, out of their 8 Attacks they were only averaging 3-4 wounds!). Leave the Undead Spears at 4 Attacks, while they were living they would have had 4 Attacks.

Keep Formations in one block, so they can't lap around.

I am not keen on one big Stand of 80mm frontage x 60mm depth to represent the majority of core Formations which can have extra wounds purchased but then do not increase the size of the Formation. It just makes every Formation the exact same depth, which I disagree with. The other issue I see with this is if a Formation is reduced to half casualties it still occupies the same amount of ground, this becomes even worse when they have suffered 75% casualties, there is no way to reduce their actual size. I like individual Stands which have X Health per Stand, each Stand is removed when the Formation has reached X Health. But I also want the ability to add extra Stands as well. Goblin Spear minimum of 6 Stands, with the option of purchasing extra Stands up to a maximum of say 10 Stands. This truly gives the impression of a Goblin Horde. Similar for Skeletons. Most Core Formations between 4 - 8 Sands, Veteran 2-4 Stands, Elite 2 Stands.

Reduced Shooting, I found having the Dread Elves have their Crossbows in a 2 x 2 Stand arrangement was a blow to their combat power. If they are to remain at only 2 Stands wide, increase their number of Shooting Attacks from 3 to 4, as their rear rank does not contribute to their shooting. I allowed the Skeleton Bows to shoot from the first rank and added +1 dice for each Stand in the second rank. This worked ok.

Combat Phase, got it. I took it as being the results of each individual combat applied immediately after that combat before moving onto the next combat being fought. This would have seen the Wight Cavalry dispatched a little sooner. All combat is simultaneous with the results taken at the end of the entire Combat Phase, not just individual engagements. This makes the rules slicker and stops the rules lawyers from trying to kill off Characters first then other Troops.

Seizing the Initiative. If a Character wishes to seize the Initiative, they nominate a Formation in Command Range, declare the Action the Formation is to performs and rolls a Command Test at -1 to their Command Value. If they pass this test, the Formation carries out the Action, if they fail the Formation can do nothing as there is a misunderstanding of the orders, the expected messengers were waylaid etc. Would you restrict this to just one attempt by each Character per Command Phase? Or allow a well placed Character to attempt to Seize the Initiative multiple times during the Command Phase (but only one attempt at a time; ie Formation A conducts an action, Character Z attempts to Seize the Initiative and declares Formation B to conduct an action, rolling a Command Test at -1 to the roll. If this is passed all good, if not Formation B can do nothing. Character Z cannot attempt to Seize the Initiative again until the enemy have activated a Formation and then another Friendly Formation has conducted an action. ). This does allow Armies with a higher Command Value to use it to good effect without it being overpowering.

This is great, I am really enjoying this, but I need to tidy up the rules a little to put the changes into them. That is my mission today. I will email them to you separately later on this week (it will probably take me a few days to go through all of my notes etc).

_________________
Lord Kulhaq

The Nightmare of your nightmares

"During your enslavement to me you will learn that there are worse things than dying."
"The world is ours, you only have to be strong enough to take what you want."

so each rank will have a total hit points, and you remove them as they die.

So if we bump dreadelf shooting we should bump all shooting up. Basically the standard for an 80mm front is 4 shots at 4+,elves get 6shots at 4+ for being elves. Dread elves us crossbows getting a -1 save modifier to who they shoot at. Bows don't get the -1 save modifier, but they get +1 shots for each rank past the first. Humans, undead, beast men, dwarfs, orcs, goblins all get 4 shots in the first rank, where elves get 6. I believe balance is their, crossbows are the flavor of dread elves and give bonus's and negatives respectively. Woo delves would get 6 shots +1 for each rank and piercing ranged attacks(-1 armor save) for being in my opinion the best argue force in the game. They will also be a guerrilla fighting force with light armor and high maneuverability.

I agree 100% on animate dead and have been using that way in all my games.

With seizing initiative, the -1 to command value is cumulative. You issue a command, no problem. You seize the initiative -1 command check penalty, activation successful. You wish the seize the i initiative again making a third move in one turn -2 command value check penalty... And keep going till you fail, run out of formations, are decide against it. Risk vs reward.

Remove a whole rank as casualties mount, good, keeps the ranks even and gives a visual impression of the morale and bearing of a Formation.

Yep, agree with shooting as written, Elves dead shooty, Wood Elves the best, like those rules I had forgotten that the shooting of other armies had decreased, need to consolidate the rules...starting on that right now..

Seizing the initiative with a cumulative -1 modifier for each further attempt is great, this gives a commander an opportunity to push his command and control in order to enact his plan, allows high command armies the ability to put their high command value to good effect.

_________________
Lord Kulhaq

The Nightmare of your nightmares

"During your enslavement to me you will learn that there are worse things than dying."
"The world is ours, you only have to be strong enough to take what you want."