A mixed bag

Hundred Years War

Last week I sorted through my cleaned up Hundred Years War Minifigs 25mm miniatures to see what sort of armies I could muster. I will be basing my units on 4" by 3" bases with 10-12 foot figures and 5-6 mounted figure. The unit numbers will be determined by fit and availability. I currently have a preference for mounting my miniatures on 4" by 3" bases so they fit nicely into a 6" square grid and allow enough room to place terrain pieces and speeds up the game. In all I should get 3 long bow units, 4 crossbow units, 8 men at arm units, 4 levy/pike units and 8 mounted knight units.

Testing the base size.

I am hoping to use Lion Rampant rules for small engagements and One Hour Wargaming rules for larger battles. In both cases I will track casualties using a couple of dice and leaving space on the base to move the dice with the unit.

Swatters / SciFi

During the week I was able to get in a couple of games using Swatters ruleset with modifications to both combat and shooting rules. The modifications seem to be working for me now, by which I mean, I am enjoying the flow of the games and not tweaking the rules on a constant basis. I am now considering starting a short campaign to give the games more purpose and a narrative now the rule changes have settled down.

Space Marines vs. Necrons

WW2 Rules

After playing a few WW2 campaign games the previous week I have decided to make a rule change to how artillery and mortar shooting occurs. Previously the grid-based rules stated that only one square could be attacked by one mortar or artillery unit. The idea behind this restriction was to avoid undisrupted units being eliminated by barrages alone. I still want to keep the approach of not eliminating units with a barrage, but want the option of allowing barrages to overlap on a target to increase the likelihood of disrupting a unit. The new rule allows multiple barrage attacks on the same square, but only barrage hit will apply to the unit.

Swatters Rules Variations

This week I have played a few games of Swatters using modified combat rules. So far I am happy with the way the games are playing. The reasons behind the rule variations to the core rules are to make the game more geared to ranged combat and tailor them to suit my Warhammer 40K collection.

I have not changed any of the activation rules or expenditure of actions. These remain the same as I really like the mechanic, and have added the reaction rule idea from "Of Gods and Mortals" another Ganesha rule set. This rule variations allows any single unit once turning a turn to attempt an action for each failed action by an opponent.

In terms of combat variations there are five areas of changes:

• Units combat scores
• Combat rolls
• Melee
• Vehicles and monstrous creatures
• Unit elimination

The make up of a unit is still the same, but with each unit having an assigned combat score for the type of troops rather than based upon the number of models. The combat score is used to determine the number of casualties after combat rolls. So a lightly armoured troops have a score of 1, armoured troops a score of 2 and heavily armoured a score of 3. If a unit is in cover, then +1 to their scores.

Lightly armoured Cultists (C1), armoured Chaos Marines (C2) and heavily armoured Chaos Terminators (C3)

For combat rolls the defending unit does not roll. Only the attacker rolls and adds to their rolled score on 1D6 with modifiers for weapon types and subtracts for the range. A note here for ranged combat, -1 for each distance bound away from a target unit, including the first bound. The total score is then used to remove models from the target unit.

For example, a Space Marine unit with Boltguns and missile launcher shoots at some Chaos Cultists  en cover at a distance of 2. They roll 4 with adjustments of -2 for the range and +2 for the missile launcher. So with a score of 4 they can remove 2 Cultists who are lightly armoured and normally have a combat score of 1, but have a combat score of 2 because of a +1 for cover.

Space Marines cause 2 hits on Cultists in cover (C1+1)

Melee is treated the same way as combat, but the units being in contact. This is quite different to the way Swatters has melee working which forces an outcome, but I have found most combat situations are over within 2 turns with no negative range modifiers and cover to reduce hits. (Units only get cover on the first charge into melee.)

Vehicles and monstrous creatures are treated in the same way as other units, but with combat score of 4. The difference between a light vehicle and a heavy tank is the number of hits they can take before being destroyed. Only certain high power weapons can attack a vehicle of monstrous creature.

An Imperial Sentinel (1 hit), Chimera (3 hits) and Leman Russ (4 hits)

The approach to combat and treatment of units is along the lines of One Hour Wargaming rules where there is no combat reduction with the loss of models. I like this approach and have essentially modified the Swatters combat along these lines, keeping the stragglers rule and forcing units to take a quality check with one dice whenever casualties are taken. Any failed quality check with 50% casualties causing a unit to be removed.

I am going to stick with the Swatters rules, plus my variations, for the moment as they have to date provided some enjoyable gaming. Buying these rules was money well spent in my view, and the variations on my part are as much about me always wanting to mess around with any rule set I get.

More gaming with Swatters ruleset

Having tried out some different combat and shooting mechanisms earlier in the week which worked in a fashion, but at the same time seemed to go against the grain of the Swatters ruleset. I decided to go back to the original rule mechanism and have another look. It was probably laziness on my part that took me down my first path of using multiple dice.  I also spent some time glancing through Mutants and Death Ray Guns, Flying Lead and Of Gods and Mortals looking for ideas (over the years I have collected a few rules based on the Song of Blades and Heroes rules).

Orks press forward as the space marines try an out flanking move

Anyway, after a couple of tryout games sticking as much as possible with the rule mechanisms and using adjusted special rules. I found I settled on an approach which for me seems to work for me and the W40K models I use.

For shooting:

• I don't graduate the range. It's either in range of not.
• Flamethrowers +2 against troops at range 6" and in combat.
• Support Weapons (e.g. Heavy Bolter, Assault Cannon) +2 against troops range 24". Cannot be used in combat.
• AT support weapons (e.g. Plasma Gun, Lascannon, etc) +2 against vehicles and monstrous creatures range 24". Cannot be used in combat.
• Pistols (Boltpistols, Stormbolters, etc) range 12".
• Automatic Guns (Bolters, Lasgun, etc) range 24".
• Missile Launcher +2 against all units at range 12". Cannot be used in combat.
• Grenades range 6" against vehicles and monstrous creatures.
• Veteran leader (e.g. space marine sergeant) +1 to units shooting and combat.
• Hero +2 (e.g. space marine commander) +2 to units shooting and combat.

To calculate the effects of shooting both sides (shooter and target) roll 1D6 and add the above. The defender cannot add any weapon benefits. If the defender scores more or ties, then they can return fire if they are suitably armed. Otherwise, remove target unit casualties up to the winning margin:

1 point for a lightly armoured figure (2 if in cover)
2 points for a power armoured figure (3 if in cover)
3 points for a terminator armoured figure (4 if in cover)
4 points for a light vehicle or creature (e.g. land speeder)
5 points for a medium vehicle or creature (e.g. Dreadnought, Rhino)
6 points for a heavy vehicle or creature (e.g. land raider)

For combat:

• Talons and claws +2 against troops
• Large claws/power fists +2 against troops and vehicles/creatures
• +1 if outnumber opposition
• Some weapons (see above) can be used.
• Cover is ignored

Combat calculation is the same as shooting, but with no cover allowed. If no casualties are inflicted roll again until a side suffers casualties, except against vehicles/creatures where only one attack is allowed.

A Killa-Kan bites the dust

Next week I will be getting back to my WW2 campaign and hopefully completing a couple of games.

Playing around with Swatters rules

A few weeks back I had a game of Swatters, a set of rules from Ganesha Games, which provides an enjoyable game between Tyranids and Space Marines. The rules are geared towards bugs vs. marines, but there are suggestions for using the rules in other settings. So this week I have been playing around with Orks vs Space Marines and introducing vehicles.

The area of the rules I am playing around with are combat and shooting. Here is a quick list of ideas I'm trying out...

All units get to roll 2D6 when shooting regardless of unit size. Any 3+ removes a partially armoured figure, 4+ an armoured figure, and 5+ a heavily armoured figure. Any 6 that is rolled allows the shooting unit to select the figure removed.

• Maximum shooting is range 24"
• Intensive Fire activation add 1D6.
• Minus 1D6 for cover or if attacking a vehicle.

If the unit has other weapons, then only one of them can be used.

• Support weapons add 2D6 against non-vehicles (heavy bolters, assault cannons, etc)
• Missile Launchers add 1D6 regardless of troops or vehicles
• High Power (AT) weapons add 2D6 against vehicles

Vehicles and monstrous creatures are hit on a 5+ and lose a hit point. Their size determines the number of hit points.

Reactive fire at the shooting unit is allowed after casualties are removed and a successful activation.

Combat (assaults) occur when units are within 6" and have successfully activated. Both sides roll  2D6 simultaneously and the side with the most number of casualties retires one move and the attacker moves into the vacated space. Any ties, then repeat the process.

• If the unit is armed with close combat weapons add 1D6 (unless assaulting a vehicle)
• If the unit makes a powerful attack activation add 1D6 (unless assaulting a vehicle)
• If the unit has a flamethrower add 1D6
• If the units has power weapons add 1D6

I am keeping the same unit size and rules for when a unit only has two models, but whether you have 3,4 or 5 models does not influence the D6 rolled.

Whether or not I do much more with these rule modifications I'm not sure, but I will be using the rules again for Tyranids vs Imperial Guard or Space Marines. A worth while investment for the PDF rules (about the cost of two coffees).

A game of Swatters

During this week I was able to get in a quick game with Ganesha's Swatters SciFi rules using my 40K Space Marines and Tyranids. I used the force lists in the rules to keep things straight forward and found reasonable matches fro my 40K units.

2 x Power Armour Trooper squads each of 5 x Space Marines
1 x Marine Sniper squad of 5 x Space Marine Scout squad
vs.
4 x Warriors each of 5 x Hormagaunt
1 x Assault Warriors of 5 Genestealers

Start of the game (and only picture I took)

I selected a meeting engagement scenario which has the two forces trying to destroy each other on a board with very little terrain. The look of the game reminded very much of my first few games with my son when I first bought him the Games Workshop Space Marine and Tyranid starter set.

With not much terrain the Tyranids launched themselves at the Space Marines. I was not expecting much out of the game other than getting familiar with the rules. However, the game played well with the Space Marines getting forced back with each subsequent wave of attacks which treated to push them off the board. The game ended up as a bit of a close run thing for the Space Marines. If I had understood the rules better I suspect the victory would have been reversed with the Tyranids forcing the Marines off the table.

I will definitely be using these rules again. They are designed for bug hunt situations, but can be tailored for man vs man or man vs machine game, and come with a few suggestions in the back of the rules on how to approach this.