"Speed up and streamline combat? Opposed rolls?" Topic

Just curious if anyone has tried to change up the rules a little to make combat go by faster. I've been playing GW games forever so its second nature to me.. but when I'm teaching new people it bogs everyone down especially since they don't know the charts by heart.

I'm curious if anyone has changed up the way combat is worked out to streamline the process. I'm even more interested if anyone has flirted with the idea of creating a system that completes combat with opposed rolls. This would ofcourse require the potential to combining stats to make it happen (like str+ws in 1 and tough+armor in another). These are obviously just for house games as I'm not interested in tournament or official play.

Have you looked at the rules that Alessio (ex-GW) wrote for Mantic. Specifically I'm thinking of Kings of War where only the active player rolls dice. Also, the Hit, Wound, Save system is replaced with two rolls for Hit & Save.

I'd definitely have to look more in-depth with it. The only thing is.. I hear that system is optimized for large scale battle. I'm looking for something that works better on the skirmish level (Mordheim) so having more granularity is what I'm aiming for.. while doing away with unnecessary and cumbersome steps. The closest thing I can find is how LOTR SBG handles it with 2 rolls. I'd have to find a way to convert the stats over though that'll work well with those rules.

Ganesha's Song of Blades and it's cousins accomplish this using a single opposed die roll. But it combines attack and defense, so despite working very well may not be the granularity you are looking for.

yea, I currently already play Ares, SOBH, and Skulldred. They're all great games in their own right, but for my group, we're trying to find a way to streamline the Warhammer stats and play skirmish games. The closest we can find is of course going LOTR SBG route but that'd require a lot of points balancing. Skulldred comes very close too, but it definitely plays as a completely different game (think SOBH with less randomness and more stat variation).

It's relatively easy to reconfigure a combat system to reduce the number of dice rolls. I made a chart for Flames of War where you roll 2D6 and read the chart instead of rolling 36 dice hitting on 4+. Minor statistical differences but nothing that bothered me. With Lord of the Rings you can replace it with one or two dice rolls (and switch to a D10).

I think I do like the idea of opposed rolls comparing WS to see who wins combat and then manage the hits ala SBG rules. The issue with that is.. it essentially makes initiative a useless stat other than for checking for hidden characters, etc (in Mordheim) so some models would be overpaying for that stat.

How did you manage to switch LOTR with D10s? I've always wished more games used D8s and D10s. Kinda tired that so many games use D6s just because its the most available dice.

it essentially makes initiative a useless stat

Are you serious? Movement and Initiative are the most important stats for winning a scenario in Mordheim. Read the scenario list and count how many of those are won by the hardest hitter vs those won by the fastest mover.

Initiative is used for climbing and leaping and if you're not doing a lot of those, you probably have far too few and too low buildings on your table. The game is supposed to be set in a ruined city after all – look at the photos in the rule book.

If one stat has to be singled out as useless in Mordheim, I'd suggest leadership.

Movement is indeed important. Initiative is completely situational. I guess I need to be playing with more buildings scaling upwards.. but on my gaming board its mostly 2 floors up.

Dunno if I agree with you on leadership.. thats pretty important too. Undead for example rely on fear to make sure they don't get surrounded by low leadership hoard models.

I tried that once with Warhammer fantasy, streamlining the rules so we could do 10,000pts. per side in 4-5 hours, but all the local power gamers threw a screaming fit, so I gave up & found other rules to use (And don't bother asking the Fanboys to play…)

If you intend to go the LOTR SBG or VOID/Celtos approach of a Hit roll then a Save roll, Spiney Norman's response to your question on Warseer was very thorough.

Looking at old threads here about converting the LOTR SBG missile fire to d12 rolls or converting rolls "To Wound" (Armor Saves) to a d12 with a straight target number may help. I use opposing d12 rolls where Extra Crispy uses opposed d10 rolls. What I did was as follows…

Each warrior has an Attack Value (d10 for rabble, d12 for common warriors and 2d12 for captains)
Each has a Weapon Mastery (Fight or Weapon Skill in GW terms)

I introduce one non-obvious part into the way I do it to force more ties. Any roll of 11 or 12 counts only as a 10.

Roll dice and compare. Take the highest value.

If one doubles the other, the loser is slain.
In the case of a tie, break with weapon mastery value.
Winner without doubling forces the loser to make an armor check or take 1 hp damage.

(It is this last armor check roll with a d12 that you add your WFB values of Strength, Toughness and Armor as modifiers if you prefer that to LOTR SBG's Defense stat.)