From: [t--fi--v] at [cui.unige.ch] Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.archives Subject: SUPPLEMENT: DOG2.3 - tactic battlefield Date: 13 Oct 1994 13:56:14 -0400 Death or Glory ROLE PLAYING GAME Battlefield Medieval Board Battle Supplement v.1.0. Copyright Notice : These records are copyright (C) 1994 Alexander N. Trofimov. The entire system or any part of it cannot be used for commercial purpose without explicit written permission of the author. The basic ASCII file version 1.0 can be copied, printed, referred to and uploaded / stored to any archive under condition that the file stays unchanged as it is, including this copyright notice. Order information : Enhanced formatted edition can be purchased against a modest contribution of Sfr. 10.- (mostly the postage fees from Geneva/ Switzerland to you + some printing/trouble expenses). The packet mailed includes the latest version of Death or Glory main role-playing system as well as all supplements appeared until now. This way you also become a registered user and all information on the subject - future releases, supplements, etc. - would be communicated to you directly. Short Description : this supplement is a set of rules to handle small-scale fantasy battle simulations. None of the specific technical features of "Death or Glory" are used in the supplement, i.e. "Battlefield" constitutes an independent set of rules, which may be easily adopted to any other fantasy world. This version is being play-tested, so a number of corrections and additions would certainly appear in the next release. Please send your comments to (me) : Alexandre Trofimov; 29, av. de Vaudagne, 1217 Meyrin, Switzerland. E- mail [t--fi--v] at [cui.unige.ch] Changes as compared to the previous version : No previous version. Still to be implemented : fear, fatigue and wounds elevation and visibility sudden attacks CONTENTS: 1. UNITS & THE BATTLEFIELD 2. ARMIES 2.1. ARMY STATISTICS 2.2. ARMY TYPES 2.3. LEADERSHIP 3. GROUND 3.1. TERRAIN TYPES 3.2. RELIEF 3.3. FORTIFICATIONS 4. BATTLE RESOLUTION 4.1. BEFORE THE BATTLE 4.2. MOVE 4.3. COMBAT 4.4. FLEE 4.5. SURRENDER 4.6. HIDE Units & the Battlefield The battlefield is a conventional hexmap. One map case may be occupied by one army unit. The maximum number of fighters in a unit is scale dependent. Three following scales are generally adopted : Strategic max. 200 men-sized fighters per unit Tactic max. 20 men-sized fighters per unit Personal single fighters On a tactical battlefield a unit may be composed of only one type of troops. Armies Army statistics Attack score Reflects the army's power of close attack assault. The total unit attack score is (number of fighters) x (attack score). Defence score Reflects the army's power of defence as well as of retaliation against an enemy attack. The total unit defence score is (number of fighters) x (defence score). Distance attack score Reflects the army's power of distance attack (for example bow shooting). The distance attack score is usually noted as NNxPP:DD, where NN is the number of "shots" available per battle, PP is the shooting power and DD is the maximal shooting distance. The shooting distance is measured in hex map cases of tactic battlefield. On a strategic battlefield a shooting unit may shoot only to an adjacent case. The total unit attack power is (number of fighters) x (attack score). Move Reflects the speed of army movement, measured in cases per round ( regardless of scale; map scale change induces the time scale change). Size Reflects the space one fighter needs to fight correctly, measured in 1 man- sized soldier spaces. Used to determine the maximal number of fighters per army unit. HP [hit points] Reflects the amount of damage needed to kill one fighter. If a unit receives N points of damage, N/HP (rounded down) fighters die. Ego Is a measure of troops pride. The higher it is, the smaller number of fighters of this type one can employ. More on Ego below in "Leadership" paragraph. Hire cost and Maintenance cost Reflect (guess what?) respectively hire and maintenance costs in abstract units of money. Maintenance cost is measured per abstract unit of time. Army types Below is an incomplete list of possible army types with the special rules and historical notes on the armies concerned. The list may easily be adopted to your RPG system. See Table 1 (Armies) for details on the troops' statistics. Archers (A) Human archers. Provide a very good distance support at a reasonable cost. Arrows are obviously the best way to strike enemy troops without putting the life of your soldiers in danger. The only problem is that archer troops are relatively weak in close attack / defence. Cavalry (Light) (LC) The mounted warrior coming on at a gallop has a dramatic effect on the resolve of those in his path. Cavalrymen are not only useful in battle as shock troops, but can follow up a victory by pursuing the losers and finishing the rout. Besides the conventional war-horse mounts, this category includes also dromedary / camel and desert lizards gonga (desert troops, mostly employed as mount by rakkh - desert folks) as well as battle lizard mounts mara-mara. Same is also valid for Heavy Cavalry and Knights (below). Cavalry (Heavy) (HC) Mounted on huge horses bred for power rather than speed, encased in armour, braced in stirrups, and charging at a thunderous gallop, heavily-armoured cavalrymen are a terrifying prospect to the knaves and ruffians on foot. One of the most dreaded regular war forces, Emperor's Thunder Legions are formed with elite heavy cavalry and elite heavy infantry. Knights (K) Noble heavy cavalry. In addition to good heavy cavalry training are distinguished by the high quality of armour and weaponry. Apparently, the only reasonable way to counter charging knights (beside using costly overkill solutions, such as dragons, battlemage platoons etc.) is to shoot them off the saddle at a distance. Chariots (C) Fighting vehicle first used by the armies to transport archers and other troops to the battlefield, where they would then disembark to actually fight. But it may also be a fearsome offensive weapon, when spearmen or archers fight from the car of the chariot itself. One chariot may carry one archer or one light-armoured infantryman (or equivalent) without extra Size usage. In this case the attack and defence power, as well as HP of the fighter carried are added up to those of a chariot. Infantry (Light) / Swordsmen (LI) One of the most common fighting forces of the Eastern Continent, the Light Infantry units have an advantage of being easily raised and trained, not mentioning the cost, to counter heavier armoured troops with relative success. Pikemen (P) A military formation of pikemen is usually a large block of men in ranks and files, generally ranging from 10 to 30 men deep. All are armed with long pikes The first five ranks of men present their pikes outwards, forming a bristling barrier of spearpoints, while the others keep their pikes upright to deflect missiles. An enemy has difficulty closing with the men behind the pikes. On the attack, the enemy is faced with this densely-packed body of pikemen advancing, often at the run, and usually has to give ground or being impaled en masse. Infantry (Heavy) (HI) Heavily armed and heavily armoured infantry is the force that has conquered and holds the Northern Empire for already eleven centuries. A legion of heavy infantry approaching enemy troops has, in all aspects, the allure and appearance of a slowly approaching concentrated death (FOOTNOTE: The only historical precedent of heavy infantry being stopped is the famous Daerquwa battle, when the joint forces of Elven archers and Dwarven elite guards defeated the Emperor's Thunder Legions near the Daerquwa forest on the north- eastern edge of the Spine of the World mountains. Some say that the price of the victory was too high, as nearly two thirds of the best troops of the dwarven king have been slain, leaving the River Passage without defence. The barbarian invasion from Ashland desert followed and it needed twice seven years to clean up the North-Western Realms from the savage hordes.). Peasants / Militia (PE) The cheapest military units are simply the citizenry armed with whatever tools and weapons they could grab. Although militia units are inexpensive to organise and maintain, they are not effective against trained armies. However this type of army is frequently in use due to the speed in which they can be raised. They are often useful for stopgaps while superior units can be assembled or brought forward, and are certainly better than no defence at all. Barbarians (B) People of plains, forests and mountains that do not build towns and rarely build villages. Hard life makes tough fighters, but these guys, unfortunately, have no idea of loyalty. If they are outnumbered, they flee. On the other hand, if a barbarian cannot flee, he fights to the death. Nomads (N) Mounted barbarian freeriders of plains, that do not build villages at all. When hired, need only very small subsistence, as they are accustomed to feed and support themselves and their horses with what Mother Nature offers. These troops feel themselves very uneasy in towns and castles and despise the town citizens for their "cowardice" and "laziness". The town people's feelings towards a nomad army camping in their town / castle are not any warmer. Dwarves (D) Children of the race created for battles, dwarven troops are one of the most effective light assault forces of the known world, fighting perfectly well on the rocky terrain of hills and mountains. Dwarven mercenaries made proof of great courage and skill as underground fighters when they fought for the elven king during the Goblin wars inside the Yarwi mountains. Dwarven guards (DG) The cream of dwarven army forces - the guards - are reputed all over the Three Continents for their loyalty and courage. Dwarven Guards rarely serve a non- dwarven master. If a unit of these troops pledged allegiance to a master, either the death of the master or the extermination of the unit may make them disobey an order. Furthermore, these troops are respected as the only regular army in the world that is able to counter the Emperor's Legions in an open battle. The elite of the dwarven guards serves only the dwarven noblemen. Elves (E) The history and the traditions of the elven folks, their peaceful nature and the constitution itself of the elves makes of them poor hand-to-hand fighters. The elven armies always preferred to flee an open battle and then attack from an ambush or from behind rather than to counter an enemy face-to-face. That is the reason why the biggest part of the elven army is formed by archer troops. After all the infantry is not well trained for conventional battlefields. Large elven troops are hardly organised under single leadership and are most effective in guerrillas. Elven archers (EA) Elven archers are doubtlessly the most dreaded distance attack force of the World. Initially raised as popular resistance army during the lizardmen invasion of the Aerie kingdom in the early fourth epoch, the elven archers soon got very well trained under the command of Abass the Black (FOOTNOTE: Historical note - Abass the Black was one of the greatest warriors of marrawi race equally able with a sword and with an axe and with a bow. He received his nickname simply because of his skin colour - ebony black. Before having himself enrolled as a mercenary for May the Hot, Queen of the elven folk, he was a warlord for the marrawi prince and was reputed for his intelligence and frankness. Abass falled into disgrace after the prince has heard that the huge part of the success in the ever-lasting racial wars with dwarves is attributed to Abass and not to the prince (which was quite true). Being a genial war master, Abass was the fist to employ the small-unit guerilla tactics for the elven army instead of conventional battlefield combats. It is believed that he was the creator of the elven army and the originator of the victory above the lizardmen, thought he have not seen the results of his deeds slain in an open duel by a dwarven mecenary also at the service of May. This fact was the cause of the tension between Elves and Dwarves for a quite a while.END FOOTNOTE). Elven archers are the only elven mercenaries to fight in foreign armies. Forestmen (F) Forestman archers (FA) Lizardmen / Marrawi (L / M) Lizardmen / Marrawi guards (LG / MG) Goblins (G) Orcs (O) Ogres (OG) Trolls (T) Giants (GI) Skasi (rat folk) (R) Tarquee (battle lizards) (BL) Hoggo (battle elephants) (BE) Yarzz (battle pterodactyls) (BP) Battle wolves (BW) Battlemages (BM) Wyverns (W) Lesser Demons (DE) Elite troops represent only a very small part of the regular armies, are extremely difficult to find and hire. The attack and defence scores of the elite troops, as well as the maintenance cost are doubled, and ego and hire cost are tripled. Leadership A leader (one of the players) has a characteristic (the only player's characteristic needed in "Battlefield" supplement) called Leadership. The higher is the leadership - the bigger army a leader can lead. Victories and defeats influence the player's leadership in the following way : the HP lost by the player's army are multiplied (divided) by two in case of victory (defeat); then the enemy army's HP lost in the battle are subtracted, then the result is divided by 5 (rounded up). And that would be the number of leadership points lost by the player in the battle. Example: if the players army in a victorious battle has lost the total of 100 HP and the enemy has lost only 40, then the leadership will decrease by (100/2-40)/5 = 2 points. The price of the victory was too high. The total Ego of the army may not exceed the Leadership of the leader, otherwise the troops may disobey the orders. Ground Terrain types Different hexmap cases are of different terrain types. The following characteristics are attributed to every terrain type: Movement cost Is the number of movement points a unit must pay to put itself onto a case of the terrain type. Defence adjustment When a unit is defending itself or retaliating on a certain terrain type its defence score is multiplied by this value (rounded down, minimum 1). Visibility Describes the visibility on a certain terrain. Influences mostly the possibility to hide the troops in the map case of the terrain type (see "Battle Resolution" paragraph below). A case of hexmap may be of one of the following terrain types : None Movement cost 1 Defence adjustment 1 Visibility 1 "Default" terrain type - nothing special on the surface. Bushes Movement cost 2 Defence adjustment 1 Visibility 2 Saïva folks soldiers have no penalty fighting in bushes, i.e. movement cost and visibility are 1. Forest Movement cost 3 Defence adjustment 2 Visibility 4 Forestmen troops have a special ease fighting and moving in the forest. An attack adjustment of x2 is applied and no moving or visibility penalty is applied. At the contrary, big fighting units such as chariots or battle elephants (but not ogres or giants) are unable to move through forests. Road Movement cost 1/2 Defence adjustment 1 Visibility 1 Sand Movement cost 2 Defence adjustment 1 Visibility 1 Desert troops have no penalties moving through sands. Snow Movement cost 2 Defence adjustment 1 Visibility 1 Arctic troops have no penalty moving through the snow. Swamp Movement cost 4 Defence adjustment 2 Visibility 2 Swamp folk troops have a special ease fighting and moving in the swamps. An attack adjustment of x2 is applied and no moving or visibility penalty is applied. At the contrary, heavy fighting units such as heavy cavalry, heavy infantry, knights, chariots, battle elephants, trolls, ogres etc. briefly anything that has 4HP or more is unable to move through swamps. Water Movement cost 5 Defence adjustment 1/2 Visibility 1 As usual, no penalties are applied to water folks while fighting in water. Heavily armoured units (heavy cavalry, heavy infantry, dwarven guards, knights etc.) sink. The usage of a bridge or boat is suggested. Battle elephants, battle lizards and battle wolves can not swim neither. If any unit is in water in a case of map not adjacent to the ground for more than 3 rounds, 1/4 of troops sink every next round. Relief Any terrain type except swamps or water can be of one of the three following relief types. Plains Movement cost +0 Defence adjustment +0 Visibility +0 "Default" plain terrain. Hills Movement cost +1 Defence adjustment +1 Visibility +1 Dwarven troops ignore movement and visibility penalties on the hills. Rocks / Mountains Movement cost +2 Defence adjustment +2 Visibility +2 Dwarven troops have +1 and +1 respective movement and visibility penalties. Fortifications Fortifications may be erected on any constructable terrain providing additional defence bonus. The bonus is not cumulative with terrain bonuses (the terrain is considered to be "none"), but is cumulative with the relief adjustments - first goes the fortification bonus, then the relief one. Simple fortification Defence adjustment 2 Fortress / Castle Defence adjustment 3 Stronghold / King's palace Defence adjustment 4 Cavalry and beasts-of-war attacks and defence scores from inside the fortifications are counted as light infantry attack and defence. Battle resolution Before the battle All the parties involved fill in the unit records - one for each military unit engaged in the battle - specifying the type, number and initial position of the troops. If a unit is supposed to be hidden in the beginning of the battle, the chances to discover the unit are noted on the back of the record. (See "Hide a unit" below). Then the dices are rolled to see the succession of the moves (just decide yourself on your way to determine who acts first, who acts second etc.). Then the first round of the battle begins - the armies are moved. Move The leader of an army decides on how his units move. A unit may not pass near an enemy unit in a neighbouring case without engaging it in a combat - if a nearby enemy is not engaged, but just passed by, under certain conditions the moving army is considered as fleeing the combat (see "Flee" below). If an army wants to combat an enemy, the movement is to be stopped and the unused movement points for this round (if any) are lost. Of course, the maximal number of hex cases "steps" a unit may make per round is equal to its movement score. After the first unit is moved, its record is moved from "unmoved in this round" pile to the "moved" pile and the second unit makes his move. After all units of the first army are moved, the second army makes his moves. After all armies have made their moves for this round - the combat begins. Combat The order of attacks of an army's units is chosen by its leader. In a round, a unit may (a) attack an enemy army or (b) defend itself. If the unit attacks the enemy (Attack) - only one attack strike and one defence strike (retaliation) are allowed. The retaliation may be directed only against the enemy unit, that has been (is supposed to be) attacked. For example the army leader says "let my LI unit attack that skasi squadron over there". In that case, his LI unit later may not retaliate against any attack but the " skasi squadron"'s one. If a unit defends itself (Defence), it may retaliate as many times as needed but no attacks are allowed. If a unit is being attacked (Retaliation) - The leader of the unit under attack decides on the unit's action right away and acts accordingly later on. The retaliation happens right after the enemy attack, without waiting for the unit's army turn to attack. Of course, distance attacks may not be retaliated. The attack and retaliation are considered simultaneous, i.e. for the retaliation strike force the unit is considered entire and alive - the number of dead soldiers is subtracted from the total unit's body only after both attack and retaliation blows have been calculated. Technically: A (1/2)d6+3 is rolled (FOOTNOTE: For those of you, who are not accustomed to the RPG (Role Playing Game) slang here is a simple explanation (I guess the board games slang has similar terms). You roll a normal (cubic) 6-sided dice, then you divide the result by 2 (rounded down, so 1 and 2 make 1, 3 and 4 make 2, 5 and 6 make 3) and you add 3 to the result - all that is noted (1/2)d6 + 3. END FOOTNOTE) and then the result is multiplied by 1/10 (rounded up) of the actual unit's strike force - that would be the amount of HP lost by the enemy. That looks rather complicated first time you read it, but in fact it is quite simple - here comes an example : a HI unit of 18 fighters (1 fighter's attack strength is 4, total attack strength is 72, one-tenth of the attack strength rounded up is 8) makes his attack roll. The result of the dice divided by two is interpreted like this : 1 corresponds to a bad strike, 2 is medium, 3 is good. The leader rolls 4 with 1d6 (divided by 2 is 2 - the strike is medium), then the final result is ( 3+(4/2 rounded down = 2) ) * 8 = 5 * 8 = 40 - the number of HP lost by the enemy. A big table of multiplication - for those of you who are not so good in arithmetic - may be found in Table 2 - "Strikes". Note that this is very important to keep track of the HP lost by the armies fighting to calculate the change of leadership. The above procedure goes both for attack and defence strikes. When all the units of the first army have made their strikes - the turn is to the second army, then to the third etc. When all the armies have made their strikes the round of battle ends. The order of moves is changed in the following way - the first army becomes the last, the second moves to the first position, the third becomes second, etc. The next round begins - return to "Movement" above and repeat until the total extermination of one or all of the armies. Flee If an army unit leaves a case neighbouring to an enemy case without fighting to death, the unit is considered as fleeing the combat and receives an extra (bonus) attack strike from the enemy unit without having the possibility to retaliate. Note that in that case the enemy unit is considered as attacking the fleeing army for at least the next round. It is possible to leave a part (at least 1/4) of the fleeing unit to fight with the nearby enemy, while the rest continue moving (FOOTNOTE: It also means that if a unit is surrounded by 4 enemy units eager to fight, it is impossible to flee even for a part of the surrounded unit safely without receiving some backstabs.). In that case the unit's record is changed accordingly and a separate record is filled for the split unit. Surrender If a unit surrenders and is not freed by allies by the end of the battle, once its maintenance cost is requisited by the enemy as loot and the surrendered unit is permanently lost. The enemy unit receiving the surrender is occupied for one round disarming the losers. Hide If a unit is supposed to be hidden in the beginning of the battle, the chances to discover the unit are noted on the back of the record. An uninvolved person is to check out whether the co-ordinates of the hidden units in different armies overlap - if so, these co-ordinates are signalled to the leaders and the armies have to be moved. Then dices are rolled to see whether the hidden armies are discovered before the beginning of the battle. The chances to discover a hidden unit depend on the number of fighters hidden as well as on the terrain. Chances = (number of fighters factor) - terrain visibility. A roll to determine whether the unit has been discovered is made with 1d6. The following table resumes the "number of fighters" factor numerically : < 1/8 4 1/8 to 1/4 6 1/4 to 1/2 8 1/2 to 1 10 Fist column is the (actual number of fighters in the unit) / (maximal number of fighters in the unit), the second column is the factor. If the chances are 0 or negative, consider 1 anyway. Table (1) - armies Army Combat strength Move Size HP Ego Hire Maintenance attack distance defense cost cost Archers 1 10x3:5 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 Cavalry (Light) 3 0 3 5 2 3 4 3 3 Cavalry (Heavy) 4 0 4 4 2 5 6 4 4 Knights 6 0 4 4 2 6 10 8 4 Chariots 2 0 1 4 3 5 4 6 4 Infantry (Light) / Swordsmen 3 0 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 Pikemen 3 0 5 1 1 3 4 3 2 Infantry (Heavy) 4 0 4 1 1 4 5 4 3 Barbarians 3 5x2:3 3 2 1 3 3 1 3 Nomads 2 5x2:3 2 5 2 2 3 2 1 Peasants 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Dwarves 3 0 3 1 1 3 3 2 2 Dwarven guards 5 0 5 2 1 5 6 8 3 Elves 2 5x3:5 2 2 1 2 4 2 2 Elven archers 1 10x5:5 1 2 1 2 5 2 3 Forestmen 2 5x4:5 2 2 1 2 3 2 2 Forestman archers 1 10x4:5 2 2 1 2 5 2 2 Lizardmen / Marrawi 3 0 3 2 1 3 3 2 2 Lizardmen / Marrawi guards 4 3x5:2 4 3 1 4 6 6 4 Goblins 1 5x2:3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Orcs 3 0 1 2 1 3 2 2 1 Ogres 3 0 4 3 2 5 5 4 3 Trolls 4 0 4 1 3 8 8 2 4 Giants 10 0 8 5 5 30 50 20 10 Skasi (rat folk) 2 0 2 3 1 3 2 1 2 Tarquee (battle lizards) 5 0 4 3 4 6 2 12 4 Hoggo (battle elephants) 5 0 3 4 5 8 2 16 4 Yarzz (battle pterodactyls) 4 0 0 8 2 4 2 12 4 Battle wolves 3 0 3 5 1 3 2 8 2 Battlemages 5 5x10:3 5 3 2 5 20 20 5 Wyverns 20 0 20 10 20 40 100 Lesser Demons 250 50x200:10 250 50 5 to 50 1000 50000 -------------------------------------- Unit Record - make a lot of copies UNIT #.............. Type Number Attack Distance Defence HP Initial pos. Comments: --------------------------------------