Miniatures combat

 

This is a fantasy/medieval skirmish combat system that is intended to work for narrative style games where there are heroes fighting anything from rank and file minions to Cave Trolls and also where the dramatic action follows some characters more than others. Time is not spread evenly across the tabletop. If Aragorn is running to try to rescue the Hobbits, the heroic character will keep trying to activate Aragorn while the villainous player will keep trying to activate the Orcs fighting Boromir. As part of this, when groups of characters are activated, that is when they get attacked. You cannot be damaged, for example, until the story is talking about you so by activating a group of characters, the player chooses to risk their safety.

 

Characters are assigned numbers of general dice (3 for good fighters, 2 for average, 1 for minions) and also get bonus dice for certain things (shield gives 2 bonus defence dice, horse gives 2 bonus movement dice) and this also marks their toughness. These are not hit points. A good fighter, for example, must take 3 hits all at once to be killed. It may be that the system will allow for things such as monsters to have 4 or 5 dice/toughness without breaking the system.

 

A key aspect though is that although the heroes are tough, near misses will also tally against them in the form of story points so though the hero has been successfully holding off Orcs all day long, they are building a small pool of story points and they can elect to spend them, and if lucky, suddenly get some chance to dramatically affect the hero or his allies.

 

TURNS

 

Turns are done by alternating players activating a group of models.  The models of a group must all be within 8" of one another. Unengaged models may be freely moved up to 2" so long as they are still unengaged in order to join a group about to act. Every group that is activated must either be unengaged or engaged (generally within 1" of an enemy) so that if a single member of the group that you choose to activate is engaged, the whole group is engaged.

 

In their turn, they will have their dice pool to work with and should assign them against each opponent.  Note that a defensive manoeuvre against one opponent may allow them to move back out of range of another. They may also save dice to roll them after they see the results of the first dice rolls.

 

When a group is activated, if it is engaged, then every active model within melee range of an enemy must make defensive fighting tests against every enemy within melee range.

 

ACTION DICE

 

Models will have general action dice available based on their stature:

 

 

There are also bonus dice available based on equipment and other factors

 

Buckler/Main gauche 1 bonus defense die
Shield 2 bonus defense dice (1 if already moved)
Mounted on Horse 2 Bonus movement dice
Attacking a prone opponent 1 Bonus die if at least one die used
Attacking a wounded opponent 1 Bonus die per wound if at least one die used
Minion 1 Bonus movement die
Higher than all opponents 1 Bonus attack die and 1 Bonus defense die
Adjacent to covering terrain 1 Bonus defense die
Opponent fails at a defense attempt 1 Attack die
Heavy Two handed weapon 1 Bonus attack dice against a target if 2 Action dice are used against the same target

 

 LIFE-THREATENING SUCCESSES

 

When a model has life-threatening successes against it, it may be slain if the total number of successes over the course of an turn (friendly or enemy) equals or exceeds its toughness. Minions have a toughness of 1, average characters 2, good characters 3, and monsters 4 or more.

 

Once per activation per model, shields and heavy armour both may be used to remove remove life-threatening successes. Each time this is done, a story point is awarded to the opposition.

 

If a model has enough successes against it to kill it, and these successes are not negated by shields or armour, the model is immediately removed unless it has story protection.

 

At the end of an activation, models with life-threatening successes against them that are not slain by them grant story dice to their opponent. If, as a result of immediate story point use, further life-threatening successes can be applied to the character they are added to those already on them and they may be killed. Toughness is not 'reset' until the end of the turn.

 

 

 

 

STORY POINTS

 

Story successes are accumulated generally by the actions of the opposing player. Whenever a new story point is gained, any number of accumulated story points may be turned in then as a D6 toward a roll on the random events table. A player may always choose a lower result instead the result obtained. Anytime that a 6 is rolled on a story dice, the opponent gains one story dice.

 

Random events:

1+ no event

5+ the opposing model stumbles and gets one less dice on his/her turn.

7+ You may select the next opposing group to activate at the beginning of your opponent's next turn.

9+ a lucky strike. Roll 2 more dice in the current attack.

11+  the target receives a wound (unless it is a minion. Minions instead are knocked unconscious and are out of the fight)

13+ Story event

15+ a volley of missiles (if available) may be fired at the opposing group regardless of  engagement status

17+ roll 3 more dice in the current attack

18+ one enemy model of your choice is knocked prone (dismounted if mounted).

20+ Minions flee! (see below)

21+ roll 4 more dice in the current attack

24+ major story event

27+ lucky strike, the target of the attack is knocked unconscious and incapacitated.

 

Story Events and Major Story events are scenario specific happenings such as triggering reinforcements or moving a timer o doom forward.

 

When it states that you must pick an opposing group, you select one model and your opponent will pick the remainder of the legal group.

 

MINIONS FLEE!

 

 

Morale is determined by the narrative in that minions will break when the story dice tell them to (result of 20+). The person rolling the result can immediately select one minion (friendly or enemy) and it and all likewise aligned minions within 4"  of it (we will call this the 'break radius') are immediately moved 8" directly away from their nearest enemies. The models are moved by their owning player and if straight back is not the the safest route, they can be moved into better defensive terrain instead.

 

Before any models are moved, the player owning the routing minions may also choose to similarly move any level 2 characters within the break radius. Also, the owning player may choose to increase the break radius to 8".

 

If the owning player chooses to increase the break radius to 8" then the opposing player may elect to do one of three things:

1. Try to increase the break radius. Roll a D6. On a 1-2 the break radius is not increased. Any other result adds to the break radius.

2. Require all level 2 characters within the break radius to flee also. The player owning them may opt to roll a D6 for each level 2 character affected. On a 4-6 it does not need to flee.

3. Increase the distance that all the fleeing troops must move to 12" 

 

None of the fleeing troops can voluntarily move from unengaged to engaged status  the next time one of the models that fled is activated. After a single model that fled has activated without engaging, all other models that fled can move normally in future activations.

 

Some scenarios may state that any minions that flee are removed from the game or that victory is achieved by making any opposing minions flee.

 

DEFENSIVE FIGHTING

 

Everyone is always assumed to be fighting defensively/warily. They must defend against each enemy within melee range (normally 1" but 2" for pole arms) and multiple members of a group may find themselves having to defend against the same enemy model. Models must have a clear line form the center of their base to the center of the enemy base to be able to melee so if one wants spearmen in the second rank, they must be staggered to be effective.

 

A very good fighter will succeed on a 1 (i.e.. success simply by allocating a die to it), average fighter on a 2, a poor fighter/minion on a 3.

+1 to the difficulty number for each wound that the active character has.

 

 

Note that the difficulty of defensive fighting is not at all related to the skill of the enemy testing against. Multiple dice may be thrown from the character's pool. If at least 1 success is achieved then it is a success. If they allocate no dice then it is an automatic failure and their opponent gets an instant attack against them.

 

 A heroic character with a shield can indefinitely, perfectly hold off 5 enemies forever but will have no attack dice and they may find ways to get him if they are activated.

 

Models may choose to use action dice to try falling back (they cannot use shield bonus dice for this). The block difficulty is raised by 2 but if successful, they can move back up to 2" in a straight line if they can do so without touching any other models.

 

If unsuccessful, the opponent that they failed against can immediately attempt to take advantage of an opening by attacking with a single free dice (Plus dice for combat advantages) see basic weapon attacks.

 

Defensive rolls may be done in any order as long as no enemy model is attacked until a defensive roll is made against it and that all models that are currently in range of a model are defended against at some point in the turn (exception: if you are moving from unengaged to engaged and you do not attack any models, you do not have to make defensive rolls on that activation). If a model falls back on his first defensive roll and thereby leaves no other enemies within an inch, he need not make further defensive rolls.

 

MISSILE FIRE

 

 

 When an unengaged group is activated opponents may fire with missile weapons at them if they are within 18", are also unengaged, and have line-of-sight at some point during the movement. The number of archers that may fire may be no more than three times the size of the activated group (though against a lone character a maximum of 5 dice may be rolled). Note that this means that archers can fire multiple times at multiple enemies that activate. Each arrow is a life-threatening success on a 6 and are applied to the active group as follows:

 

Half the total damage must first be applied to minions. After that, the remaining hits may be spread  as desired among average and good characters as the activating player desires. If the hits taken equal or exceed the toughness of the character, they are slain.

 

If a model has a shield or heavy armour, the activating player may choose to convert a hit into a story point (see story points). After all hits have been applied, the player with the missile weapons, if they gained a story point in that volley, may choose to make a story roll.

 

Example. Conan (good fighter with a shield), gathers a collection of 6 bandits around him and decides to make a sprint for the courtyard doorway. A full four and a score of archers are on the wall to rain death upon them before they can make good their escape. The activated group consists of 7 models so a maximum of 21 archers may fire. We'll say that they roll four 6s and so get 4 hits. Half of the hits are applied to the minions so 2 bandits fall before they reach the safety of the gatehouse. Conan can shrug off the remaining 2 hits. 

 

 

BASIC WEAPON ATTACK

 

Basic attacks may be done against any foe in range.

Close fighting weapons may only attack foes that you are in base-to-base contact with.

Basic melee weapons have a range of 1"

Spears and halberds have a range of 2"

 

In your turn, before you can attack a foe within its melee range you must declare if you will first defend yourself from them. In other words, resolve your defensive fight against them first and then do your attack. You do not have to deal with all your engaged foes first just ones that you attack.

 

You get various numbers of dice depending on your skill (3 for good fighters, 2 for average, 1 for minions etc). You gain a dice for combat advantages also as listed:

 

Higher than all opponents (including mounted vs. dismounted): +1 die

Against each prone opponent if at least 1 dice is used: 1 bonus dice

Against a wounded opponent if at least 1 dice is used: 1 bonus dice per wound

 

Basic attacks may only be done against opponents within melee range.

 

Each 5 or 6 roll is a life-threatening success.

 

If the total number of life-threatening successes against a character in a single turn (any turn) equals the number of dice they have then they are defeated. So a single 6 will defeat a minion but a 3 dice character will require 3 6s in a single flurry. Anytime a character is hit but not killed (including a character protected by story protection), a story point is awarded. If the character has heavy armour and/or a shield, they may also choose to negate one hit by giving their opponent a story point.

 

Example: Aragorn, armed with a shield, has 3 Uruk hai swordsmen/minions within an inch of him. He has 3 dice + 2 defensive dice for his shield. He wishes to attack one but first must look to his defences. He puts 1 defensive dice against an Orc and succeeds automatically. He then spends 2 dice to make an attack against one Orc and gets a 4 and a 6, slaying the minion with the 6. He then selects another Orc to fight defensively against, allocates his second free defensive dice to that again automatically succeeds. He still has one die remaining and one Orc to fight. He plays it safe, allocates the die to a fallback defense, and with the successful roll of 3 (no longer automatic), moves 2" straight back from that Orc, and is no longer engaged.

 

A LUNGING ATTACK

 

A lunging attack can only be made against opponents that are more than 1" away at the start of the lunge and are within an inch at the end of it. Lunges may not be attempted until defense rolls on all foes within 1" have been dealt with.

 

 

The lunging model moves up to 2" and then rolls a basic attack. There must be an unblocked straight line between the target and the attacker and the lunging player must be able to move the two inches without contacting any enemy models. Note that in the case of a lunge, the defender does not force a defense roll before the attack is made.  Instead, immediately following the lunge, if the target remains on his feet (neither prone nor dead), the lunging model must make a defense roll against his target.

 

A lunge attack makes a life-threatening success on a 5,6.

 

Lunge attack modifiers:

 

PUSH ATTACK

 

 After having made a defense rolls against an enemy model within 1", a character can choose to use action dice to make a push attack against it. If successful, the enemy model is moved by the active player up to 2" without regard to passing through its friends. If there is not room for the model to stand there then it is knocked prone and other models are moved back to give it room. The acting model can then advance forward to follow up so long as it can do so without contacting enemy models.

The basic difficulty is the standard 5,6. There are cumulative modifiers to the chance of success with a pushing attack:

 

 

 

Pushing does not cause any damage. 

SWEEP ATTACK

 

Engaged, standing Models with heavy two handed weapons may attempt a sweep attack. A sweep attack cannot be attempted until all defense rolls have been made. They will get two dice for each action point used on the sweep attack and will score non-life threatening successes with every 5,6. For each success, an enemy model within 1" can be moved 2" straight back. If it contacts any model within those 2", it will be knocked prone also. If there is no room for it at the 2" point, move other models back to make room.

 

Normally, a character making a sweeping attack gets +1 to difficulty for each wound he has but story dice may be discarded to discount those wounds in the difficulty.

 

MOVING

 

If one model in an activated group is within 1" of an enemy then the whole group moves as engaged. Otherwise they move as unengaged.

 

ENGAGED MOVEMENT

 

 

Movement dice may be spent to do any of the following movement actions (may only be spent after successfully defending from all attackers (i.e. you are not hit):       

 

UNENGAGED MOVEMENT

 

If a group is entirely unengaged, the entire group moves based on the movement roll of the slowest member of the group with a minimum result of 3 on each movement dice.

 

Models moving from unengaged to engaged do not have to make defense rolls against foes within 1" unless they either choose to attack (in which case they must first defend against the one they intend to attack and then, before the end of their activation, against all others still within 1") or if they do not move into that 1" range by the most direct route, in which case they must defend from all within 1" before the end of their activation.

 

One action dice needs to be spent to do the following actions:

 

Movement modifiers for unengaged movement:

 Characters who start their turn mounted on a horse receive 2 free movement dice each turn which must be used before dismounting. Minions get 1 free movement dice each turn.

 

Carrying captives: It requires one model per level of prisoner (3 for each good fighter for example) to carry a captive and it counts as the group carrying a load (unless the captives are smaller than the captors). If there are not enough captor models, the prisoners cannot be moved.

 

A group of Uruk hai Orc minions would therefore move 2D6 (1 action dice, 1 free movement dice) getting a +1 on the dice for being athletic  with no result less than 3. Therefore it would be 6-12". Two wounded halflings with the party would drop their speed down to 2D6 (with -3 on each dice) so they would move 6". They'd best carry the halflings.

 

STORY PROTECTION

 

Some characters will be granted story protection by a scenario. Any life-threatening blow that would normally kill them endangers them instead. The opposing side immediately gains a story dice. If, at the end of any following activations of their group there is an active enemy within one inch of the endangered character, the character is captured instead. The capturing player may choose if the character is also incapacitated.

 

Also, characters with story protection do not have to take hits from missile fire until the player owning them wishes them to.

 

If an endangered character subsequently suffers a blow that would kill it, it is incapacitated instead.

 

 EXAMPLE OF PLAY

 

 

 

 Let's throw 12 Uruk Hair against Boromir, Merry and Pippin

Uruk Hai will be 6 athletic minions with swords and shields and 6 with bows.

Boromir is a good fighter with a shield. He is athletic.

Merry and Pippin will be short poor combat characters with story protection. The Uruk Hai start 12" away and we'll give them the first turn.

 

The Orc player activates his 6 swordsmen who roll 5,5 and, adding one to each dice for their athleticism, they can charge right into contact with the heroes but have no dice remaining for combat. We'll assume that there are now two Orcs against each hero. Because they Orcs are not attacking and moved directly into contact they do not need to make defense rolls.

 

The Hero player decides to activate only Boromir, hoping to shake things up for the Orcs. First, he has to tend to his defensive attacks and because he has a shield, he gets two free ones. He defends against one Orc with an automatic success and then puts two of his three attack dice against that Orc getting a 5 and a 6 and so slaying the fiend (even if it took one for the shield). He turns to the remaining Orc that still engages him and blocks it. Following the block, he uses his remaining action point to take 2" of movement from  to slip over and engage both of the Orcs on Merry. Boromir will still need to make defensive attacks against these two new opponents and has no further action dice to allocate and so has two defensive failures. Luckily, in their attacks, neither Orc rolls a 5 or 6.

 

The Orc player still has nothing he can do with his archers so he grumbles about switching them to hand weapons but instead opts to activate his five Swordsmen. First come the 2 against Pippin. This should be easy afterall, they get two free defensive dice for their shields. The first rolls 5s (they need 3s) and is fine. This allows him to do an attack against Pippin with his single die and misses with a 2. The second rolls a 5 and a 1 with his defensive dice and is therefore free to attack the Hobbit and he also misses. He curses. He has three Orcs remaining with one of those outside range from anyone and the others engaged with both Boromir and Merry. He decides that he wants to bring his archers into play so he looks for ways to fall them back from the fight. They can't use their shields for the fallback attempts so must use their lone action dice and with that getting a +2 difficulty, they'd need to roll a 5. The easier way, the way that they choose to do it, is to each make a shield defense roll against Boromir and Merry.  The first rolls a 5 against Merry and a 3 against Boromir and then uses his free movement dice to step back 2" and then smugly uses his action dice to go another 2". The second makes his defense roll against Merry but blows it against Boromir. Before Boromir gets to attack though, he allocates his action dice to trying another defense and rolls a 3 so is safe. he then uses his minion free movement to back up 2". The Three Orcs are now all more than 1" from any heroic character and he clears a line of sight for the archers. Pippin and 2 Orcs remain engaged but Boromir, Merry, and three Orc swordsmen are not.

 

With the Hero player's turn, he finds that if he chooses to activate all three of his Heroes, the group would count as 'engaged' because Pippin is engaged. He is a bit leery of activating Pippin unnecessarily though so sends in Boromir alone against the pack of Uruk hai swordsmen. Boromir acting alone counts as unengaged so he rolls a single dice for movement and rolls a 6. Even though he is athletic, the number remains 6. In any case, it is enough and he charges into combat with 2 action dice remaining. He sets himself up to put 4 Uruk hai within an inch of him. Before that can be resolved though, the Orc bowmen get a chance to fire on the model that activated while unengaged. Only 5 can fire at a single figure and a single 6 is rolled. Boromir chooses to take it on his shield and the Orc player gets a Story Point. He saves it. Boromir has 2 remaining action dice plus 1 free defense dice (a moving shield) and has four Orcs engaging him. At least one of them will get an attack in since allocating no defensive dice means an auto failure at defense. His free shield dice goes against one Orc and then he uses his two remaining dice to attack with. A 1 and a 2. He misses! Now three Orcs get free attacks on him because he has nothing left to commit to defence. One rolls a 5 to score a hit. That isn't enough to slow down the mighty Boromir but it does give the Orc Player a second Story point and the option of using them but again, the Orcs wait. That ends the Hero turn.

 

The Orcs opt to be straight forward this turn and activate all of their swordsmen fighters who will count as engaged. They each get two defense dice and only one has two attackers to worry about. The one against Pippin alone easily brushes aside the Halfling's attacks with a pair of 3s and then rolls to hit, only to miss with a 1. The distant Uruk Hai swordsman with nobody near him spends his free minion movement and his action dice to move around next to the unengaged Meriadoc (4"). Because he has no dice to attack Merry with and he didn't start engaged, he doesn't have to make a defensive roll. The two Orcs opposed to only Boromir make their shield roll attempts and succeed with at least a 3 in each so they can then attack. One hits with a 5! The final Orc splits his defences, rolls a 2 against Pippin and a 5 against Boromir. Pippin attacks for no effect. The Orc attacks Boromir and fails. Still, Boromir took a hit which is less than the three it takes to drop him but it is still a story point. The Orcs now have 3 story points and elect to roll them all. Fortune! They get a 15. They could drop to the story event which might have something to do with Frodo taking off in a boat but the Orc player opts for the volley of arrows. Selecting Boromir as his arrow target, the Hero player says that it will be a group of only Boromir. Five dice are rolled and incredibly, 3 come up 6s. That is three hits on Boromir this turn, even though one was already converted into a story point (and used). Boromir's player could scrub one point off with his shield but the remaining three would still kill him so he does not block the dark shafts and Boromir is slain!

 

The Hero turns comes up and since both halflings are engaged, the Hero player activates them as a single group. Pippin is engaged by two and Merry one. Pippin only has one dice to allocate to he puts it to one enemy as a fall back attempt and succeeds with a 5 so opts to move back 2". Using his free movement dice he goes back another 2". Merry tries his luck and spends no dice on defense. Bad luck, the Orc gets through his defences and scores a hit on his attack. Because Merry has story protection he is not slain  but is instead endangered. No further movement is available because he failed in his defence so he attacks the Orc. Though he scores a hit, the Orc players takes it on the shield and gives the Fellowship player his first Story point.

 

The four unengaged Orcs minions, being athletic, will roll a free movement dice, add 1 to it, and chase down the halflings with some degree of inevitability. Even rolling a only a 2 (lowest result possible is a 3), no less than three Orcs catch up and each will get one bonus dice to block the Hobbit attacks (moving shields). Two of those rolled less than 3 so both Merry and Pippin get attack chances. Freakishly, both Halflings roll a 5+ but the shielded Orcs scratch the attacks off with their shields and they are converted into story points. Thinking that they will never get a better chance, the Hero player spends the two Story points plus the third it got earlier and gets a 9 result - roll 2 more dice in the current attack! With a single 5 or 6, Merry could kill an Orc since they had already used their shields this turn. He fails to get any 5s or 6s from those two dice. Now the three contacting Orcs get their attacks which result in no successes.

 

Hero turn four and Merry is endangered. If he ends his turn within an inch of an Orc, he is captured. The Hero player could choose to not activate Merry and instead concentrate on trying to let Pippin escape but he decides to just see what will happen and only activates Merry. He has a free movement dice but it is only useable if he first defends against all foes. There's just one but Merry needs all the distance he can get. He puts his one dice in fallback defense and succeeds with a 5. He runs 2" away and then goes another 2".

 

In the Orc turn 5, One Uruk Hai swordsman chases down Merry while 4 others work to surround Pippin. One fails his defense check and the plucky Hobbit gets a hit but that is given as a story point due to the shield. Pippin saves it. Of the 4 attacks raining down on the Hobbit, one hits and Pippin too is now endangered. The difference is that Pippin will be unable to back up 2" if he successfully defends since he is surrounded. 

 

We know how this ends.