"N gauge or HO trees for 15mm?" Topic

My son and I have found a game we both like playing.
It's simple, but we are finding the dice rolling interminable.
I'll explain how it works, and ask whether anybody can suggest a way to roll the dice.

WW2 units shoot, with target priority – generally requiring to shoot the closest target.
Each shot has a designated shooter and target, and rolls to hit.
If hit, then the target rolls to save.

At present we are working along up to 40 elements per side saying "This guy shoots at this target", rolling the dice, and possibly rolling to save.
It takes a long time, and is quite dull.

I'd appreciate a way of batching up the shots, but can't figure out how without altering thnigs.
For example, if we roll one die for each shooter, we lose track of who was hit (and different troops have different saves).

Solutions don't necessarily have to be faster, but batching the combat into one or more bigger rolls would improve the feel of things.

All suggestions welcome.
Thanks

Which size/scale trees look good with 15mm minis? Or is it all a matter of taste/what looks good? Though I suspect the latter to be more expensive trying to figure it out.

-B6

Yegads! The Bug is back!

You might simply mark each target that's hit and the number of times each is hit by placing either a numbered marker or dice behind the target. Don't mark targets that aren't hit. When you're done rolling the shooters, go back and roll the saves.

You can also do this off the table with a pre-generated laminated list of units. Place a mark by the name of each target as hits are scored, then go back and tally up saves and roll accordingly. It's the same as above, but makes for a less cluttered table.

Another way is to buy multi-colored dice and mark each unit's base with a dot of paint corresponding to one of the dice colors. Then all you have to do is remember which color save dice you have to roll. If you have more units than dice colors, do it in batches, targeting only one unit of each color per batch. For example, in a batch you have one red unit, one blue, one green, one yellow, etc. Roll the shooting and you can remember: a red hit, a yellow hit, but not a green or blue. Roll the red and yellow dice, apply results, and then move to another batch of different units divided as red, blue, green, yellow, etc.

Hope that helps!

Whoa… now *that's* a new bug. When I clicked on this thread at first, it was Steve Holmes' thread asking about faster dice rolling. Now it's Bravo Six's thread about 15 mm trees.

Yikes!! This is NOT good. Second time a post of mine's become a bug-post. What gives Bill? I can't get answers to my gaming questions when THIS keeps happening. ;-)

-B6

Rolling for saves always seems kind of clunky to me. You could figure out the probability of passing a save in a given situation. Then subtract out that percentage of hits, or figure out the appropriate modifier for a shot under those conditions, and then you halve the die rolling and get instant results.

Roll the to-hit and save at the same time. If the to-hit misses, ignore the save die. If the to-hit die hits, then read the save die.

You can roll as many sets of these together as you can keep separate. Color is a good way to break out the die sets.

If it's a polyhedral dice game, the to-hit and save are probably usually different shapes so they only need to be the same color; here's an example from D&D play, of to-hit and damage: I roll a blue D20 together with a blue D8 plus a red D20 and a red D8 and say "my fighter rolls to hit with his first attack, that's blue, he gets an 8, er, never mind and for his second attack, the red die says 19, he hits! and the red damage is 6 points".

Probably the rule set you're describing uses the same shape die for to-hit and save. So, differentiate the second die with paint on the corners or something. Have a third die of the same color, that's a shooter marker. And if you like, fourth die for a target marker as well. So … suppose you have red, green, blue, white, black, yellow quads of dice, with corners marked on one die in each set.

Select 6 shooters, place an unmarked colored die next to each shooter. Say what he's shooting at, placing an unmarked colored die next to that target. (If you're really anal you could turn them to show the to hit and save numbers.) Throw the remaining handful of colored pairs. For each color, find the unmarked die, which is the to-hit die; if it hits, that shooter hit. Find corner-marked save die of the same color; if it didn't save, apply the result. Go to the next shooter; when you run out of thrown dice, repeat.

Voila! Speed!

If you have that many dice rolls, just work out the over all odds and go with that. So if you hit in a 4-6 and save on a 6 your overall odds are about 42%. So convert do a D100 system. You could easily use Excel to make a handy chart:

Rows are "Hits On" and Columns are saves on. Calculate all your DRMs, cross reference and roll…

Roll as many die as you need that round and all the die work your way from the left to right top to bottom for the dice and the figures. Knock over the ones hit, then save roll all using the same system, remove the dead, stand up the saved.

On the tree question, I'd go HO. People seem to consistently under-size their trees in game terrain (and on model railroads).

Doug

People seem to consistently under-size their trees in game terrain …

That's very true. Just stand next to a common oak tree sometime. But then again, huge trees on the wargaming table might be a bit of a hindrance to ease of play.

Buy the trees that look good to you.

You have to balance figure scale off against ground scale off against playability off against cost. In the end the only thing that matters is you like them, right or wrong.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll go over all in detail with a rating.

Parzival – almost there – except that these rules require multiple shots at a single target to be worked though in sequence (A hole in the line can result in more interesting opportunity targets behind).
It's unusual for >3 shots at any target, so coloured dice rolled in 3 waves would be a lot better than 14 individial rolls and saves.

donrice – rolling to hit and save will halve the number of rolls. It doesn't neatly combine with the "buckets of coloured dice" above (and buckets of coloured dice seems to offer a bigger speed up.

K McChutney and Extra Crispy: It's workable, though again each combat must be resolved individially.
My percentiles are 2xd10, so I'd prefer to simultaneously roll a hit and save dice and consign the arithmetic to svchool days.

donrice2 – A neater re-statement of parzival's idea with colours.
This is the one I'll use.
I have a whole bunch of different coloured 7mm D6 families.
From these I can extract "Waves" of one of each colour,
I can also provide sequenced markers for shooter and target.

Since the dice are tiny, dotted corners for saves are not realistic, However a second wave can be rolled into a dfferent receptacle for the saves.

Ace2004 – I'd thought about something similar and concluded that I'd need to build a dice rolling gatdet with a gutter in order to line up the scores in sequence.

And the rest of you: Ironically, I'm playing desert scenarios, so I don't get a lot of call for trees.

Many thanks to all who replied – lots of good answers.
I also realise that I omitted a couple of points (It's all D6, and firing is non-simultaneous).
Best wishes to you all.