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Post by knorrrskk on Nov 13, 2013 17:40:37 GMT -5
About to begin a new Tunnels & Trolls campaign with some people also into a bit of classic wargaming, so I've put this little document together that some of you may find of interest. It's a set of guidelines for running wargames using Tunnels & Trolls as the core of the combat system. It allows you to use your Tunnels & Trolls characters as heroes and officers in a game without modification of any sort (except for calculating Rally adds based on your CHA). It's designed for use with 28mm miniatures and uses a 1:1 man scale and a 1":6' ground scale. It can be run with or without the aid of a GM. It requires some work from the GM or players to use, there are no points systems or army lists or anything else, nor should they be required. It hasn't been properly tested or proofed yet, though I have just gone over the document and added some More Ideas for things like Shieldwalls and War Beasts. Anyhow, thought it might be of some interest to some of you!
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Post by knorrrskk on Nov 14, 2013 11:35:48 GMT -5
A few more thoughts on Cavalry:
Cavalry
Most horses (and by extension, all similar mount creatures) don't like to charge into formed bodies of troops. The most common way for cavalry and chariots to attack close order infantry is either with missile weapons, a charge to the flank, or to form a single model wide column and move along the front of the Element; thrusting spears or sweeping sabres over the top of the Element's shields. To more accurately represent cavalry and chariots in Battlefields & Banners, I suggest the following:
All cavalry and chariots treat Open Order Elements as Interrupting terrain. Open Order Elements moved through by cavalry count as Unformed in that turn.
Only heavily armoured, lance or spear carrying cavalry (preferably with stirrups) may voluntarily enter front contact with close order infantry Elements except to the flank or rear (assuming they haven't turned any troops to face).
Cavalry and chariot Elements do not need to take Morale Tests for being contacted in Flank or Rear, unless they are also contacted to their Front.
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Post by zanshin on Nov 15, 2013 4:59:17 GMT -5
Interesting stuff.I like the CORage stat, very necessary for modelling battles with units.
A quick and dirty way of translating MR to unit stats would be use as well, or alternatively pre-rolled units/order of battle.
Thank you for sharing knorrrskk.
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Post by knorrrskk on Nov 15, 2013 7:14:47 GMT -5
Well, Monster Rated troops have a different role to other troops in B&B. They represent a swarm, or perhaps a horde of slavering beasts, or perhaps a monstrous individual. The rules treat them differently for that reason. Instead of taking Morale Tests, for example, they lose points from their MR, representing a reduced will to fight or models slinking off. Any missiles weapons they might have are used at close range only and are counted part of the melee. So they don't need to make tests really. Except perhaps luck saves.
If you should need to make a STR, DEX or LUK save, or need to find those values then one way I sometimes use is to divide the monsters combat adds by 3 and add them to 12. Doesn't always work without a little fiddling though. COR has no multipliers so can be rolled up normally, or assigned based on the unit.
If you mean converting them to a statline before the game starts, the T&T books have Peters-McAllister charts for most common monsters of course, and it's not too much of a hardship to create some more.
Creating some example Elements is a good idea though, as I create them for our games I'll post them up or add them to the document.
Might also be worth me adding in conversion notes for other scales (1/72 is a cheap source of game miniatures for example), and my notes on resolving battles by treating an army as a weapon (with dice and adds) for more abstracted battles without miniatures, and also for using index cards to represent units and recording damage and abilities on them. The last is less flexible, and not nearly as pretty, but doesn't require miniatures to play.
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Post by knorrrskk on Nov 15, 2013 9:14:08 GMT -5
And here they are:
Some Notes on Scale
It should be noted that cheap and readily available 1/72 miniatures are much closer to the 1":6' scale than heroic scale miniatures are so there is no need to make any modifications if you wish to use them.
For other scales, there a couple of useful tools that a person new to wargaming may not be aware of.
Firstly, to change ground scale working with a nominal Man Height of 6' or 2 yards is useful. It isn't particularly accurate of course, but should be close enough for most purposes. Simply figure out roughly how many of your models you could fit in an inch if laid end to end. Multiply that by 6 and you'll know how many scale-feet are in an inch, or by 2 to get yards. From there you should be able to work out any movement rates or ranges easily enough.
Secondly, playing with Man Ratio. Few people have the thousands of miniatures necessary to represent even a smallish historical battle. In order to get around this, you can use a differing man ratio; which is to say that instead of each model representing 1 soldier, it instead represents 10 or 100 or a 1000 men (or any other sensible number you choose). Still treat that model as one soldier in regards to the rules, but you imagine that it represents more. You will also need to multiply the ground scale by the man ratio to get your ranges etc too, and you may need to alter the time that a round represents so that movement rates aren't miniscule. Individuals need to be treated a little differently. When fighting other Individuals there is no problem, but when involved in a fight with Elements you will need to divide all their combat values by the man ratio and also multiply any damage received by the same ratio.
Using Index Cards to Represent Elements in Battlefields & Banners
If you don't have access to many (or any) miniature figures, you can fight a battle using index cards to represent each Element. Write all the details of the Element on the index card and record any damage, losses etc upon it. This works particularly well if most Elements are Monster Rated instead of having a full statline. You will also need to mark which direction is forward. It won't be as pretty as playing with miniature figures, but is more convenient if you don't have the time or money to build a collection. It can also allow you to field all sorts of fantastic units that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive or difficult to model. This can be combined with using Individual Hero and Monster models if you have those, otherwise you can use counters to represent them, or treat them as part of Elements, or ignore them entirely.
The Abstract Battle
If you wish to skip the idea of miniature warfare entirely, a more abstracted method can be used to resolve large Tunnels & Trolls Battles.
Treat a battle as an ordinary Tunnels & Trolls combat, except that instead of using weapon dice and combat adds you will be getting your hit point totals from somewhere else.
Each Army will be lead by a General, either a player character or an NPC. Note that there can be several Armies on a side, controlled by different characters. A General will have Command Adds, calculated in the same way as Combat Adds except from IQ, LK and CHA Prime Attributes instead of the ordinary ones.
Each Company in the Army will generate Company Dice, which work like Weapon Dice. A Company's dice can be derived from their STR multiplier or their MR of a single individual.
A Company with a STR multiplier will have a number of Company Dice equal to the multiplier plus one. If the multiplier is less than 1 (halflings for example) it will instead generate one add, for a total of 1d +1 Company dice. For example, a Company of Humans would provide a total of 2 Company Dice.
A Company with an MR will throw the same number of Company Dice as they would throw Combat Dice ordinarily, only without adding half (or a quarter) of their MR as adds. If it's MR is not a multiple of 10, they will also get +1 add. For example, a goblin company with an individual MR of 16 would provide 2d+1 Company Dice.
To generate each sides Hit Total, throw all their Company Dice and add (or subtract) any Command Adds. Damage is taken to General's CHArisma rating. When it reaches zero his Army flees the field.
Using this basic system, it is easy to use T&T's usual system of saving throws and stunts to represent battlefield trickery; such as ambushes, misleading information, preparing fortifications, building traps, assasinations etc. Such things can also be played through as vignettes involving player characters, or even by having players take on the role of ordinary soldiers temporarily. This can also be combined with the ordinary Battlefields & Banners guidelines to fight small, tactically important parts of a larger battle.
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derv
4th Level Troll
Posts: 335
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Post by derv on Dec 15, 2013 10:36:53 GMT -5
knorrrskk, I like this alot. I only gave the rules a quick read through, but will sit down and look at them more closely later. I'm curious what your wargame influences were on these rules? I've recently been toying with original Chainmail. I see some similarities, but they may be coincidence since there are common elements found in many wargames.
I hope you follow up with a play report of how your game went.
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Post by joelmarler on Oct 24, 2017 3:51:11 GMT -5
Looks great! Perhaps units should also still get APs so that they can improve their stats during long battles/campaigns, and each side could have a limited amount of gold to spend on kit before the game begins.
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