"How much detail do you want in your fantasy skirmish game?" Topic

I'm curious about how much differentiation of units/models people desire in a skirmish level fantasy game. By "skirmish level" I just mean that each model on the table represents a single person/ogre/dragon or whatever, but they operate in units. Some rules, like Dragon Rampant, really simplify and abstract away a lot of the differences between different models/units, which some people like. Others may want, for example, their elves to be faster or harder to hit but more fragile than their dwarves.

However, with such a huge range of creatures that can appear in a fantasy game, from a rat swarm or zombie up to a massive flying dragon, each "step" of difference in, for example how resilient a model is, has to be fairly large, or there have to be a lot of them which could over-complicate things. Especially if you are rolling for groups of models at a time, rather than a handful of individuals.

So what I've been thinking about is, for some physical characteristics such as how resilient the model is, how strong it is, how nible/evasive it is… how many "steps" of differentiation do you feel you need in a skirmish fantasy game to get a sufficient representation of the differences between units?

Or, put another way, below is a list of typical fantasy creatures I could think of. If you can think of any others, please let me know. For that list of creatures, what would you be willing to group together as having essentially the same resilience? The same evasiveness? The same strength? Anything else you can thing of?

animal swarms (bats, rats, giant spiders, etc)
elves
humans
dwarves
orcs
wolves/warhounds
ogres/trolls/minotaurs/golems/werewolves/other large humanoids
goblins
centaurs
zombies
skeletons
vampires
griffons/manticore/other medium monsters
dragons/giants/other large monsters
rat people
lizard people
goat people/beastmen

Very hard to say. Are you using d6, d10 or d100? How many models do I control? A dozen in 3 units or 100 in 8 units? How many stats for a model are there? Three – move, attack, defend? Or 20 (move, agility, hit points, armor value, melee value, ranged weapon fire, morale, magic resistance etc. etc. etc.)

If there are three stats and you use D6 then 3 or 4 categories is enough. If I only control 3 or 4 figures but each has lots of stats then loads of gradation is fine.

I want enough detail that the various races and classes will be inclined to play to a particular strength, but are not required to. (A fighter should want to stand toe-to-toe, and a thief ought to want to work for an attack from behind.) Same with experience levels,; there should be enough detail that a newbie has a chance of freezing up during combat (etc). I also want enough detail that it doesn't feel generic. I'm a fan of narrative, and while every encounter should not be filled with weird and atypical events, there should be a chance of unusual events (broken weapons, lost coins during the fight, potion bottle got broken, Goliath got his head knocked-in by the guy in a bathrobe on the first turn….). All that said, I don't want it to be a bookkeeper either.

Extra Crispy – There are definitely a lot of possibilities, but what I'm looking for is, what is YOUR feeling on where that sweet spot is?

To narrow it down, I am picturing more like 100 models in 8 units. But it could be anything from 30 or less models to 150ish. I'm picturing like 5-10 units, but the units could be 15 or 20 zombies, or 5 trolls, or one big monster, or anything in between.

In terms of what dice and how many stats, that kind of depends on how much differentiation you want. More differentiation would require more stats I should think. If your opinion is that you want at least 5 different ratings for how strong a human could be, that will require a much different game and mechanics than if you're okay with there only being two different strength levels: normal and monster.

mwindsorfw – Well, you ask a lot of your game. Have you found a game that fulfills those requirements for you?

The answer to your question can be found in play testing. You can think about and theorize all day long about a set of rules, but it is not until you start playing when you will discover if you have the right mix of detail vs. playability. You must play test over and over and constantly tweak until you get the balance you are looking for.

No, but I have several rules sets in the "to read" box. However, I think there are mechanics that would work that are fairly well-established. An initiative system that is weighted for experience would give newbie the shot at moving first, but is more likely to result in experienced characters acting first. Die roll modifiers can encourage characters to play to type, but not require it. I'm a big fan of the critical hit/catastrophic failure tables on natural high and low rolls. The options don't always have to be tremendously good or bad, but should be able to add flavor to the game.

Simple answer here:
Dragon Rampant and the like for casual pick-up play. The abstraction is just right for gaming a scenario without bogging down too much in special rules.
However, for dedicated gaming and even campaigning, I think 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles had it just right, outside of the IGO/UGO aspect.

I'm curious about how much differentiation of units/models people desire in a skirmish level fantasy game

I'm afraid that if you ask N people you will get N answers, and being the kind of person I am, I can think of N+1. And, oh no ! this turned into a brain dump

It's fantasy gaming so we are supposed to use our imaginations and I have to tell you that if you ask me, some people have strange imaginations. Usually this manifests itself in having a fixed idea about how a certain faction should behave.

I saw this recently in playtesting some mass fantasy army battles, every single person had a different idea about how the zombie army should behave. Let's not even talk about dragons.

There are two realistic solutions

1) A complete system with clearly defined characteristics, back stories etc. Comprehensively playtested so that opposing forces have a reasonable chance against each other. I am thinking of WHFB

2) A freeform system with points that allows any kind of army to be built with any set of characteristics. Sufficiently playtested to avoid the creation of super armies. Dragon Rampant is an example. HotT is also an example.

(1) has issues to the extent that GW seems to have given up and produced Age of Sigmar which doesn't really fit into any useful category (I'm not a GW gamer). Of course they didn't help themselves by continously introducing (extremely expensive) super units that unbalanced the system. Playtesting does not seem to have been comprehensive (or done at all ?). Nice artwork though. I have met people that seem genuinely puzzled that anyone would want to deviate from specific rules, specific creature colours or use figures not from Games Workshop

(2) is never going to be detailed enough to really allow our imaginations to run free. It's also pretty hard to set points for some features. Ability to walk on water may not even be useful in a desert scenario for instance.

There is also an issue that we would like to give some forces global characteristics that would apply to some opponents but not others. For instance dwarves might have a fierce burning hatred for elves and goblins, getting attack bonuses. Come to think of it, I am not sure that dwarves like anything except rocks and beer very much so that might not be the best example.

Powerful magic is also going to be difficult to assess in scheme (2) as well, and honestly is probably not well balanced in WHFB

Probably what most people want sits somewhere in between my (1) and (2)

And then people ask for simple rules (known as "quickplay" sometimes, which is shorthand for "can still have a decent game without actually reading much of the rule book")

There are also people who would like an opportunity to game with figures they already own. (2) can be pretty good for this as it can have a lot of flexibility. From reading stuff online, it seems that this was part of the guiding principle behind Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant.

I like to collect small forces of cool miniatures that don't really fit in with anything else. I am working on a HotT army of witches (check out Rapier Miniatures). "Working on" here means don't hold your breath to see them finished, but it does keep me out of the pubs.

My ideal set of rules would meet my (2)criteria but with more options. This would mean a set of characteristics that could be tweaked (not just resilience) for instance (some characteristics could be negative rather than positive)

- attacks anything they see
- already dead or not very smart so not afraid of anything
- speedy
- good at hiding or running away
- don't believe in magic
- able to fly
- resilient (or too dumb to know when they are hurt)
- able to dig a hole in the ground to escape
- won't co-operate in groups, won't obey orders (my kids for example)
- good (or bad) defenses against some kinds of magic

Each category could have a level (say 0,1,2) that would allow bonuses in some die rolls. Each category and level would then get a points cost (or bonus for negative traits) so armies of comparable strength can be built. Some of my characteristics are silly – I'm just giving examples – and there is a major risk of making the rules too complex

And then a list for magic spells in the same kind of way
- risk of harming friends as well as foe
- longer ranges
- scary
- freeze victims in place

So let's see – a Vampire might be
- easy to kill (who doesn't carry a stake and silver dagger nowadays)
- regenerate after a couple of turns
- fly
- extremely vulnerable to light and heat spells
- capable of enslaving enemy troops
- scary
- bad actors

How the heck you turn that into a balanced number of points I don't know, but it would be OK for someone else's Vampires to be from a different backround and either more or less powerful. Oooh – a Vampire vs Vampire fight, has anyone made a movie like that ?

Ideally stick to single figure bases so can use troops in several different sets of rules. The Lion Rampant forces I am working on (see above for definition of working on) will also play SAGA and with the addition of a few cool figures (I admit it, already purchased in advance) Dragon Rampant

Of course the other important things in a set of rules is that they are free, have great artwork and solve world peace

Good luck with your rule development efforts

John

P.S. I am an Englishman living in the United States. It has been pointed out that my dry sense of humour (note spelling) does not always communicate well, particularly on the interwebs. If you think I write something strange or blindingly obvious, imagine the addition of a smiley face.

P.P.S. Terrement's response might be more useful and better written than mine

First you should design a gaming engine (incl combat resolution). Test it out on 3 or 4 basic troops type (avergae infantry, cavalry, monster, wizards).

Once you are satisfied with your design, now you can start to introduce modifiers within the system, and map these modifiers to different troop types.

Such a top-down design has a much better chance of producing a workable game rather than approaching it bottom-up. If you say "I want orcs to do this, and humans that, and undead this, and dragons should do this, …", and try to reconcile all these things in a single gaming engine, well, good luck with that :-)

Also, having too much differentiation between troop types has disadvantages as well:
- players have to constantly look up special rules
- the game feels more random, and specific characteristics will bear almost no influence on decisions made by players, but will influence combat resolution. Hence, the feeling of having random effects just for the sake of having modifiers.

But in the end, it all depends on your idea of fun, not on the preferences of others on this board who you will never play a game with :-)

I agree with the above poster about the general categories of systems. For the former, one with a lot of depth in characteristics and flavor, some version of Warhammer Fantasy Battles is a very good set although every edition had some serious flaws. In my mind, again for this category of system, using 6th edition WHFB with several rules ported in from 8th, or vice versa, is the way to go.

First of all, I prefer individual combat: each base has one "Combat Value" (CV), and when two or more gang up on a single enemy base, they combine CVs. "Buckets o' Dice" does not appeal. It is counterintuitive to a skirmish game, which is one "man" to one model.

Individual combat greatly eases the challenges of species differentiation. It also makes combat mechanics easier to fine tune into a desirable granularity.

I try and "humanize" as many species as possible. Mankind is the most numerous of the "races" of humanoids; "giants" are the least numerous; it is a matter of size. But then, I lump "goblins" ("Ekbashim" in my world) into the "human" category: they are simply warped, morphed humans and can interbreed. So other than a few minor differences that apply to character creation, I treat them the same as men. Same with the larger varieties up to those that are man-sized.

When a race is particularly tough I give them two or more "hits".

Stronger races get pluses to their CV.

Some species "regenerate".

Zombies require cutting to pieces to stop them, so they get 2 or more "Hits". But they are slow and if anything their CV is less.

Skeletons are the same as men; their appearance is a reflection of their "plains of the dead" origins. They don't perceive themselves as skeletons, but only as the warriors that they were as mortals.

Larger humanoids get increasingly larger CVs and numbers of Hits.

Monsters are treated as elephants as a relative size baseline. Smaller are less in terms of Hits and CV than elephants. Larger (not many here!) have more Hits and larger CV.

Larger creatures are on larger bases. Base size is a direct function of determining CV, along with "armor class".

Special characteristics, such as "regenerate", "will power attack", "invulnerable to physical weapons", and causing morale affects such as fear, terror or reluctance, are all part of the genre, borrowing from each other across game design. You have to include as much of this as necessary to give your games the ambiance and depth to maintain interest….

Enough differentiation so there is a reason why they are different units.

If orcs fight the same as elves, then why do I have orcs vs elves instead of elves vs elves or orcs vs orcs? To be distinguishable, different units should lend themselves toward certain strategies and away from others.

I plan it out based on tactical characteristics, each with a certain number of grades (significant performance level groups) and main grades (the subset of performance groups that cover 2/3 of the figures (slightly less than one standard deviation, but easier to track)). My planning baseline (which can be modified) is:

speed – six grades, three main grades
special movement – four grades, two main grades
defense/resilience – five grades, three main grades
close combat accuracy – five grades, two main grades
close combat power – five grades, two main grades
ranged combat accuracy – six grades, three main grades
ranged combat power – six grades, three main grades
command and control – eight grades, three main grades
magic – eight flavors (five main) with four grades of power and accuracy each (two main grades of power and accuracy each)
special rules – very few, and only for exceptional characters, races

With no special rules, that gives just over 30,000 tactically significantly different unit types for the main grades. In the QILS system, there are codependencies that limit certain combinations (you can't have all of everything) for regular unit types. That kind of folds the space into a couple hundred or so distinct unit types possible.

That's plenty. And you get to spice it up with a few (because otherwise, they wouldn't be special) special cases.

It really sounds like you are looking for BladeStorm from ICE. Check it out. Should not be hard to find a copy.

I like 5-15 model per side on the table. The new Frostgrave rules push the limits of how much complexity I like. Generic units that I can use whatever from my miniature collection (my penchant for anthropomorphic ducks and rabbits, and naked amazons is well known wround these parts) are preferred. QILS is great in this regard. I am hoping Nordic Weasel does a medieval/fantasy FiveCore supplement soon, that would be perfect for my needs.

Dragon Rampant

So I picked up my copy of Dragon Rampant from the local game store on Friday

I think it is going to meet just about everything I was asking for in the previous long (rambling) message, although I would never expect it to make every single person happy. It looks like I may even be able to field Brave Sir Robin as he should be (cowardly units -2 points)

Probably about time I stayed off the interwebs and did something useful like actually finishing enough figures to play a game :)

John