Evolution and samurai era

T

tneva82

Mongoose
Well my most recent idea which comes from my interest in Japan and the 1/72 samurai warriors I found. Only problem: No rules! So why not apply evolution rules thinks me. So any issues there could be?

Would include quite a bit of close combat but with arquebus and of course longbow plenty of shooting as well depending on exact era(after arquebus arrived those seemed to rise in numbers FAST).

Any suggestion for basic stats? Mainly looking samurai themselves and ashigaru. Ashigaru had worser armour but still some sort of armour. Arquebus probably lessens effectivity of armour so would 5+ save and 6+ save be appropriate with arquebus having piercing/1(2?)?

How would one deal with naginata(long staff with curved blade) and yaki(spear)? Mounted and foot. Hum hum.

Need to start working some stats so once the miniatures arrive I can start playtesting them.
 
This was actually something we have been looking at :)

No work has been done yet, and I cannot guarantee it will see the light of day as an actual release (though an S&P article might be an interesting start, if nothing else).

The big thing it would need is a new Advanced Rule covering close combat, making that a bit more funky for sword play, rather than wrapping a rifle around someone's head.

For Ashigaru, I would be tempted to use 'standard' human stats from Modern Combat, with perhaps a 5" movement and 5 or 6+ save.

Samurai, I would divide into two - the foot troops and the elites/lords. For the former, Ashigaru stats, but with a better save. Their weapons should be superior as well, granting Piercing and Parry.

The elites you can really go to town on, with 7+ kills, multiple CC dice, dodges, etc.

Treat cavalry as infantry, but with bigger movement and better CC (perhaps with a special rule that if they Charge, they get a bonus). Give them two Hits? Maybe, maybe not - perhaps only if the hoss is armoured itself.

I would give an Arquebus a better Piercing score, perhaps 3 - that allows you to make some Samurai armour much better (3 or 4+?).

I would also be tempted to hang history and tactics, and add Ninja - there are too many good models for them around :)
 
msprange said:
This was actually something we have been looking at :)
Click to expand...

:D

Treat cavalry as infantry, but with bigger movement and better CC (perhaps with a special rule that if they Charge, they get a bonus). Give them two Hits? Maybe, maybe not - perhaps only if the hoss is armoured itself.
Click to expand...

As far as I have read japanish horses didn't have armour to speak of. They were small(though strong) so had quite enough to carry with fully armoured samurai top of them. Not sure armour for horse would be practical idea. Might not make for much of a charge when horse collapses beneath you :D

Thanks for the ideas.
 
The first thing I thought of when I read the thread title was that scene in "Ronin" where the story of the Ronin is being told to DeNiro's character while that guy paints his models.

LBH
 
LBH - Excellent movie. And if you're a true fan you'll tell me what colour the boathouse at Hereford is (and might even pronounce Hereford correctly!).

Back to the topic though...

Sounds like a great idea. With so much emphasis on the shooting and vehicle rules it will take some work but I'm sure that the ruleset can meet the challenge. As has been said the close combat will have to be beefed up a bit, I like the ideas on parry and piercing in CQB, seems very easy to impliment.

As for cavalry, I would be tempted to keep it as 1 model, single hitpoint and keep the same movement speed. Instead of increasing movement give them the special trait Gallop/12" or suchlike, this would lead to hit and run horse archers etc. Also maybe instead of D6 make it 2xD6 on the charge, or perhaps D10. This would make them a size 2 model so less cover but far more impact.

I might be a little off with my assumptions on the period, it's not something I know a huge amount about (my sources tend more to the martial arts films which glorify the single warrior against the horde army, not exactly the realism we seek). However, I'll be keeping an eye on how things progress as I'd love to do some oriental models!
 
I started an Old West version of the game a couple week ago with the intentions of an Apocolypse-Z style product. I've added horses for it similar to your method Stormrider. There are two new traits:

Mounted: When given this trait, the model is considered to be mounted on horseback. The model will gain +2 Hits, a +2 to Move, Ride/12” trait and its Target and Kill will be increased by 1. If during game play the Model suffers a Killshot but remains alive, the horse has been killed and the rider immediately loses the Mounted Trait. Additionally, the rider will lose all Actions or Reactions until the next player’s next turn as they recover from the fall.

Ride/X”: Akin to the Wheels/X or Tracks/X trait, this model may use a Ready action prior to its movement. On it’s next action it may move up to X” Mounted models may make a Ready action to combine a Move and Shoot action
 
Instead of having a straight roll vs. target, you could have an opposed roll, with the person rolling highest comparing his roll against his opponents target no. If you beat your opponents score, but fail to beat his target, or he saves, you'd push him back.

Just a thought.

I sort of envisaged even close combat weapons having traits, such as strike first in close combat, or +1 to close combat result, for example.
 
maybe allow cav units a final save 456 replace mini with foot version on a 123 the horese survived and ran off... remove model...
 
Okay, geek alert here...

There is no boathouse at Hereford, however, there is a rowing club building which is a brick building with stained wood gable ends.

*end side-track*
 
emperorpenguin said:
Stormrider said:
LBH - Excellent movie. And if you're a true fan you'll tell me what colour the boathouse at Hereford is (and might even pronounce Hereford correctly!).!
Click to expand...

How the **** should I know?! :wink:
Click to expand...

It was so obvious I thought I'd let someone else take it, thanks EP.

LBH
 
Rick said:
Instead of having a straight roll vs. target, you could have an opposed roll, with the person rolling highest comparing his roll against his opponents target no. If you beat your opponents score, but fail to beat his target, or he saves, you'd push him back.

Just a thought.

I sort of envisaged even close combat weapons having traits, such as strike first in close combat, or +1 to close combat result, for example.
Click to expand...

It really depends on whether you are sticking to 1 hit per infantry model. If so, . I think you'd might need a new combat skill related to your attack ability that reflects your skill more than your damage. I'd almost break this game from the standard BF:Evo style and go with infantry that take multiple hits to reflect the samurai/heroes/leaders of the army.

Alternately you can replace the entire Close Combat system to be a base D6 per human with a "standard" or "medium" weapon. Small weapons (daggers) = -1 to damage roll. Heavy Weapons would be more pts but do more damage. Pole arms would add a Reach/X" trait (I've already added this for other mods I've done) to allow the target to reach farther than their base Lethal Zone based on Size. Skills would be a 1-5 bonus to the damage (or negative perhaps for unskilled civilians/slaves). "magical" or "finely crafted" weapons would be a 1-5 bonus as well with select items switching to a D10. Multi-Fire would be replaced with Multi-Attack Trait.

I'd also look at modifying the Reactions to a new one for a Parry (that would replace the Parry Trait) that allowed you to roll your own combat skill to block the incoming attack.
 
i say introduce the D8 and D4 :D then give diffent troops a diferent combat master, thats works as a plus bonus...

knife would be 1D4 short sword D6 long sword D8 double handed run run run is a D10 lol... so a guy with a sword and a knife would be 1x d4 and 1d6 plus his level modifier..

level 1 peasant is -1 civilian soldier is at 0 then +1 +2 and so on for diff types

a reaction could be to either move away, strike back or parry... or evan counter charge if they pass a skill check for thier level if they fail then they do nothing as a reaction and are in trouble, if passed both combatants loose thier modifier and strike simultanously... simple i know but simple can be good.

i havnt aimed this at samuri by the way just meelee in general..

knife could allow a back strike bonus and you could if carrying 2 weapons use one to attack and reserve the other for a parry bonus..

to parry roll your weapon dmage dice and minus that from enemy attack roll inc bonuses...

ie it would be very hard for a knife to parry a great sword, wich makes sence realy.. shields could be used to parry instead of as a value/save.... buckler would be D6 norm shield D8 and large shiled would be D10, to show their effect against ranged stuff, they would allow target to have a reroll to save and for a large shield a plus one as well, a buckler would be of no use against ranged, maybe allow a reroll for a save working on a 6.

i can see some one saying a broadsword would be rubbish at any type of parry after all in warhammer there slow, but in the real world only well trained men used them and they used them largly as a parry weapon utilising the size as a buckler and then using thier stringth to strike with such weight they enemy was eigher dead or had to many broken bones to play any major part in the battle...

hope this makes some sence i may try re do this post when i have a little more time to convey my meanings better.
 
Any thoughts on the Arquebus riflemen? I've seen the range of this weapon to vary from 100-250 meters for effective control range.
 
Its more like 30-50 metres. IIRC there is reference in one of Stephen Turnbull's excellent books to some trials carried out to assess the effectiveness of the Japanese arquebus (which was a smoothbore rather than a rifle), something like 5 hits out of 5 at a man-sized target at 30 metres, 1 out of 5 at 50 metres. Rate of fire was about 1 shot per 15 seconds, although slower if you were careful and wanted to avoid a misfire (so a poosibility here for better trained troops to fire faster, or for less well trained troops to risk a misfire if they try to fire too quickly).
 
ok as prevouse post this is more what i ahve in mind generaly and not aimed at samuri..

gunpowder weapons.

the results are spread over 3 range types short meduim long

weapons are basicly for the moment split over small meduim large

small D4 - -

meduim D6 D4 -

large D8 D6 D4

id sugest gunpowder weapons have a good penatrations score, the efectivness of gunpowder weapons was they where easy to train some one to use compared to say the long bow that took somthng like 15 years to build up the strenght to fire, gunpowder often made a mockery of alot of armour types.

your notice i sugest a D4 for pistol and long range on some weapons reason being the FPS was often so low that the stoping power of the weapon was mostly in causing pain especialy from pistols slowing down the enemy, they may get a lucky kill on most peasant with a 4 but on average the idea would be to get 2,3,4 to supress the enemy and get the od lucky kill..

ranges need to be thought about here as well and comparable to bow weapons as you need to make it a hard desision between gun powder and bows, as it was back in the day...

bows should be handled different as the bow is the delivery sytem and the arrow is the weapon, id sugest 2 damage stats for bows one for a straight shot that is power equal to the delivery sytem then allow range to be doubled but reduce the Dice by 1 type to represent a volly, and have it take 2 actions to fire burning arrows doubling supression and allowing rerolls to hit to represent catching the enemy on fire and killing them that way lol... this can be done both direct and volly fire of course.

just my thoughts, if i can get away from my around the clock work il see what i can do in a more readable fashion.
 
bows should be handled different as the bow is the delivery sytem and the arrow is the weapon
Click to expand...

I think there is potential in the training aspect to make some intertsing diffrences between bows and firearms. As I see it, the main differences were (or were perceived to be):

Physical strength - important for bows, not so much for firearms
Training - as above (?)
Effect of a "misfire" - probably not that significant for a bow, possibly catastrophic or a firearm
 
I'm surprised no one has thrown up any examples yet.

Perhaps something like this:

Arquebus Rifleman
Size 1/Move 4 or 5/Close Combat 1d6+1/Target 5/Save 6/Kill 6/Traits Muzzle Loading

Samurai
Size 1/Move 5/Close Combat 2d6/Target 6/Save 5/Kill 7/Traits Swordmanship, Horsemanship

Samurai on horse
Size 2/Move 12/Close Combat 2d6/Target 7/Save 7/Kill 8/Traits Horsemanship, Charge
*The horseman can ram people on foot for Close Combat.

---------------------------------------------
Weapons / Range / Damage / Traits

Katana / 1 / 2d6 / Piercing 2
Arquebus / 12 / 1d6+1 / Piercing 1, One shot
Sword / 1 / 1d6 / Piercing 1
Knife / 1 / 1d4 /
Bow / 24 / 1d6+2 / Piercing 1, Slow
Crossbow / 18 / 1d6 / Piercing 1
Club / 1 / 1d6 / Painful
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

StellarAmusement
Orbital Emergency Playtest and Feedback
Replies
7
Views
2K
Sigtrygg
Sigtrygg
T
Acquiring equipment and game balance
Replies
19
Views
2K
Vormaerin
V
R
Ghalalk and Element-Class Cruiser Pods (HG 2022) - attempt at reverse engineering
Replies
4
Views
1K
ColinD
ColinD
A
categorizing banned and illegal items
Replies
1
Views
1K
Condottiere
C
MonsterX
Combat in Traveller: some tactical principles
3 4 5
Replies
88
Views
16K
Condottiere
C
Back
Top