"Song of Drums and Shakos vs flintloque" Topic

Hello
I would like to play flintloque type Alternative Napoleonics but with different minis and in slightly more serious tone.
Iam totally new to SONG OF BLADES AND HEROES
How hard would be to create fantasy influenced hack of SoDaS?
With some magic ,magic items, magic monsters , fantasy races (orks vs elfs)? Any one tried something like this?
Thanks

I am currently working on a similar project for my Flintloque-based armies, Zombie Alamo. I ended up pulling racial characteristics from Songs of Blades and Heroes since Song of Drums and Shakos is based on historical Naploleonics.
In addition, I used the SoBaH combat values for melee, and added a second combat value for ranged combat only since almost all SoDaS values are either 2 or 3, which I felt did not reflect the fantasy melee qualities of orcs, zombies, etc.
I have yet to play test this, so I don't know how well it will work.
Since my scenario involves 10-man squads of orcs, goblins, ratmen and dwarves vs. tons of Zombies, I've also had to make modifications to command and control of zombies, which I plan to group either in full units of 20 to 30 zombies, or squads of 5 zombies, which affect the number of activations required. Also kept the lich rule of culling the ranks to raise the dice rolls on activations. Since zombies are quality 6 (I make it 5 as long as the officer is present), this seemed like a necessity.
Not using any magic, but that could be easily added based on SoBaH rules
Always like flintloque, this seems like it would be an option for faster game play. nice to see someone else is considering this

See, I was going to do something similar using the Black Powder rules.

My original idea was to create a fantasy setting with a 1770-1850 tech level, but I'm thinking the best option is to start off with "not-Historical/Napoleonics" and maybe add fantasy elements later on.

If you're into this genre then you may like the "Iron Elves" trilogy by Chris Evans -- blackpowder and magic mixed up in a style akin to Bernard Cornwell's "Sharpes Rifles" series. Great stuff!

ironelves.com/index.html

As far as rules go, the reason I'm a bit reluctant to use a true fantasy element is magic.

Casters tend to wreak havoc on game balance; using the BP rules as they are, everyone's on level ground, mechanically speaking.

In theory all I would have to do is reverse-engineer some Warmaster stats, but how do I keep mages/dragons et al from becoming a huge Charlie-Foxtrot when it comes to balance?

warpig69: great minds…. cool to hear i will consider this..i already have SONG OF BLADES AND HEROES so it even easier :>

SBminisguy: Thanks for link i will check it out!

Seamus: I played quite alot in WWW2 enviro, so i dont think its such big problem . Secret of third Reich has Werewolfs,Vampires and Power Armours and it is balanced .Or Malifaux with Gunslingers vs Stempunk Constructs and Freikorps vs 4 Riders of Apocalypse..
I though about Evil Aristocratic Vampires leading their cannibalistic Fomori troops to war, some zombies, Elf and Trolls being highly resistant to gunfire and vulnerable to cold steel, Priest with power prayer giving troops bonus to shot or church bells creating panic in Napoleons Fay eetc
Magick methinks should be more strategical and subtle , i am not looking for fireballs.

I left the magic out of my scenario for the same reason. the witchlands army has some magical characteristics already, such as wraiths mounted on flying cavalry. both sobah and sodah give you plenty of options to add in other characteristics to individuals, such as terror, fearless, sharpshooter, etc. one other change I made is the zombie units automatically advance a short move towards 'food' otherwise it would be near impossible for zombie leader to get his troops to do anything at all
supplemented my four slaughterloo level undead units with a horde of old mageknight undead figures that i've picked up cheap over the years.

SoBaH should be easy to integrate with SDS. Point costs might get a little tricky but the two games should work fine together.

We play SDS using my Flintloque minis……no magic though…

If your any good with excel you can grab the old excel builder for SBH from the yahoo group and insert the SDS abilities into it to make a cross genre builder (the points for the SDS abilities are on the java builder).

Robert

There's also Wessex's Strange Grogge, although with more of a pirate feel, it's still black powder era fantasy.

What alternative miniatures are you using Grandier? I'm interested in what's out there, particularly if it's 15mm.

Chris

In theory all I would have to do is reverse-engineer some Warmaster stats, but how do I keep mages/dragons et al from becoming a huge Charlie-Foxtrot when it comes to balance?

If the mage is throwing fireballs, he's just highly-mobile and irreplaceable artillery. Galloper gun equivalent?

A dragon is basically a ship (Temeraire), and scares the daylights out of troops. They aren't likely to be seen over land battles, IMO.

Then again, I pulled a lot of my ideas for how to deal with crazy stuff from Exalted's mass battle system. With the exception of the non-linear 'Magnitude' stat, it made for really good descriptions of troop capabilities.

Relevant thread: TMP link
and also TMP link

Less uncommon in a 18th C. setting, yet fantasy is generally restricted to one (e.g. zombies) or at most two (vampires vs werewolves…) 'abnormal' types among a majority of humans
link
link
TMP link
May be, or not, combined with some 'Lacepunk' (equivalent of Steampunk / Victorian Science Fiction by 'Lace Wars' times) link