Having recently seen some of the Perry Twins' offerings for Wars of the Roses, English Civil War, and Napoleonic miniatures*, I was having a mull over what would be required in terms of statlines and traits for a EVO rule-set for them.
1) Shooting has to be much, much less effective; in game set in modern warfare or world at war settings it's perfectly realistic that infantry trying to run across the board will be gunned down by equal numbers of enemies by the time they've got half way, but it won't half make it boring in an army where most of your force should be armed with sharp implements on sticks.
2) There needs to be more effect of being in formations, and more granularity to melee; again squads being a loose mob is fine when formation only matters for figuring out how many poor sods are caught in a machinegun's fire zone but not for a pike block.
3) One big problem - it would be nice if statlines are cross-compatible. World at War, Modern Combat, Apocalypse Z and Starship Troopers are more or less set on similar lines:
Forms the 'generic military bloke' statline for all Evo games.
Move 4", CC D6, T:4+ Sv:6+ K:6+
is considered the basic soldier with a helmet, and that's fine for medieval era too; a padded jack and helmet corresponds to the protection one would expect from WWII gear pretty well. Pike and Shot and Napoleonic would probably lose the 6+ save in most cases (big deal) unless representing troops who actually had a breastplate or helmet (usually for melee cavalry, occasionally well-equipped infantry)
Move 4", CC D6-1, T:3+ Sv:- K:5+
is the 'incompetent militia bloke' - Cepheid Militia, Rioting Mobs and so forth, and should form a large proportion of disposable troops.
Move 5", CC D6+1, T:4+ Sv:6+/6+ K:7+
is the 'elite troops' statline, backed up with Elite Training and some sort of suppression-resistance rule. Obviously, making melee combat more important ups the importance of a CC reroll, and making shooting less effective 'per dice' means more attack dice thrown per kill - hence more suppression, hence suppression resistance being more useful. The +1 save in cover isn't especially useful, but I've had an idea for that: see later....
Doing historical stuff properly requires a couple of items of equipment, to my mind:
Standards (or Eagles!)
Fairly easy - the guy with the flag becomes the unit leader. As long as the unit is above half strength, if he's killed someone else will pick up the flag. If below half strength, you'll need another unit leader (probably a character with the independant trait) to join the unit to get the peasants back in fighting order.
Sword (and shield/buckler/companion weapon/etc)
Improved melee ability that's 'stand alone' (since a proper sword was most definitely NOT standard issue, and in a one on one fight a man with a sword and shield is at an advantage against virtually any other weapon combination) would be good: I'd suggest 'As User +1' for melee damage, and 'parry/x' as a trait - probably parry/1 for a sword, +2 and parry/2 for a sword and paired weapon. Note that a pair of swords does not give you extra attack dice; you cannot use two swords effectively on the attack simultaneously unless you have stepped straight off the set of an action movie.
Armour
Improved save (fairly obviously). No need to push up the kill score as well; generally armoured troops and elite troops will be one and the same, so their kill score will be out of reach of D6-only weapons. There should be some option for armour that only counts against cc attacks (e.g. buckler) or only counts against ranged attacks (e.g. saracen-style layered silk).
Mounts
Easy enough to do - one can take the example of the Mid War Italian Motocyclisti unit. This gives +3" move (ok, technically only +2" but that's because Bersaglieri are 5" move - one of the hallmarks of elite troops), +1 target (if the mount is armoured in some way) and +1 cc. In addition, after the fashion of the Bolide Tawn cavalry, upping the unit to size 2 might be a good idea - better lethal range.
Lances
Extra reach and hitting power on the charge....the thing is, you only make CC attacks on the charge, so I suggest this should represent an 'if you get a charge move of at least' bonus. In addition, an extra die (D10?) rather than a dice bonus makes sense - you still get your D6, or 2D6 or whatever, but you get a single extra D10 - it may hit hard, but a lance can only hit one person!
Bows
At close range, the difference between a modern bullet and a sheaf arrow is as near to nothing as makes no odds, provided you're only concerned with putting the enemy down and not with whether medical care could save him. There should be some reduction in capability - so something like a D6-1 at close range? At long range, by comparison, you're looking at unaimed arrows falling randomly in a volley from the sky - so a much weaker effect over a wider fire zone is appropriate; possibly making someone reroll hits (a la moving World At War vehicles?) but gain a 6" fire zone at over half range? This means that whilst the initial hits will be at the front of a fire zone, the reroll will randomly eliminate hits across the fire zone, which seems right.
Blackpowder Firearms/Crossbows
Rate of fire is low, so Ready - there's no problem with firing it as a reaction provided it's loaded. Charging a unit with loaded muskets that's able to react should be a big gamble.
These are direct fire, rather than 'drop shot' so the volley rule above would not apply; the front rank gets the highest rolls and dies.
These weapons will be a lot more potent, though - piercing/1 might be appropriate for man-in-a-can shooting.
Polearms
This is the big one - it needs to provide a melee bonus over someone unarmed for melee (easy enough) but more importantly a big bonus when fighting in a formation. I see this as having three elements; first, a static 'as user +1' for wielding one. Second, an ability to bring more people into the fight - plagiarising the Reach/x trait from Apocalypse Z (so a model adds the reach of its weapon to its size for working out the lethal range in melee), and lastly, something to provide protection when a unit is bunched up and presenting a hedge of english billhooks/pikes/bayonets. This is more about defence, so some improvement to either target or save is in order.
This seems to suit something akin to the cover rules, but for close combat - that is, if I'm in a fighting line, and you're attacking the middle of said line from the front, the guys in the line get an improved save and kill score (and, if they've been given the countercharge reaction, get to hit you first!). This would nicely stack with Elite Training, for an extra save bonus for good troops; so whilst both regulars and veterans are T:4+ Sv:6+ against bow fire (albeit the veterans being K:7+), with a 'heavy' formation in a melee, that changes to T:4+ Sv:4+ K:8+ for the regulars and T:4+ Sv:3+ K:9+ for the veterans - stacked with a reroll on cc attack dice and countercharge to thin out attackers before they strike and you have a big edge in durability, but only within the reach of the pointy sticks. Arrows, by comparison, are no respecters of quality troops.
This should affect only the front centre, so flanks matter, like so:
I suggest the conditions for benefiting be (a) you are in contact with at least three other models with the same trait (left, right, and another rank behind), that all these models are facing in the same direction, and that the enemy is attacking you from the front.
Suggestions? Comments? Insults?
* Which are, by the way, made entirely of awesome.
1) Shooting has to be much, much less effective; in game set in modern warfare or world at war settings it's perfectly realistic that infantry trying to run across the board will be gunned down by equal numbers of enemies by the time they've got half way, but it won't half make it boring in an army where most of your force should be armed with sharp implements on sticks.
2) There needs to be more effect of being in formations, and more granularity to melee; again squads being a loose mob is fine when formation only matters for figuring out how many poor sods are caught in a machinegun's fire zone but not for a pike block.
3) One big problem - it would be nice if statlines are cross-compatible. World at War, Modern Combat, Apocalypse Z and Starship Troopers are more or less set on similar lines:
Agis said:
Forms the 'generic military bloke' statline for all Evo games.
Move 4", CC D6, T:4+ Sv:6+ K:6+
is considered the basic soldier with a helmet, and that's fine for medieval era too; a padded jack and helmet corresponds to the protection one would expect from WWII gear pretty well. Pike and Shot and Napoleonic would probably lose the 6+ save in most cases (big deal) unless representing troops who actually had a breastplate or helmet (usually for melee cavalry, occasionally well-equipped infantry)
Move 4", CC D6-1, T:3+ Sv:- K:5+
is the 'incompetent militia bloke' - Cepheid Militia, Rioting Mobs and so forth, and should form a large proportion of disposable troops.
Move 5", CC D6+1, T:4+ Sv:6+/6+ K:7+
is the 'elite troops' statline, backed up with Elite Training and some sort of suppression-resistance rule. Obviously, making melee combat more important ups the importance of a CC reroll, and making shooting less effective 'per dice' means more attack dice thrown per kill - hence more suppression, hence suppression resistance being more useful. The +1 save in cover isn't especially useful, but I've had an idea for that: see later....
Doing historical stuff properly requires a couple of items of equipment, to my mind:
Standards (or Eagles!)
Fairly easy - the guy with the flag becomes the unit leader. As long as the unit is above half strength, if he's killed someone else will pick up the flag. If below half strength, you'll need another unit leader (probably a character with the independant trait) to join the unit to get the peasants back in fighting order.
Sword (and shield/buckler/companion weapon/etc)
Improved melee ability that's 'stand alone' (since a proper sword was most definitely NOT standard issue, and in a one on one fight a man with a sword and shield is at an advantage against virtually any other weapon combination) would be good: I'd suggest 'As User +1' for melee damage, and 'parry/x' as a trait - probably parry/1 for a sword, +2 and parry/2 for a sword and paired weapon. Note that a pair of swords does not give you extra attack dice; you cannot use two swords effectively on the attack simultaneously unless you have stepped straight off the set of an action movie.
Armour
Improved save (fairly obviously). No need to push up the kill score as well; generally armoured troops and elite troops will be one and the same, so their kill score will be out of reach of D6-only weapons. There should be some option for armour that only counts against cc attacks (e.g. buckler) or only counts against ranged attacks (e.g. saracen-style layered silk).
Mounts
Easy enough to do - one can take the example of the Mid War Italian Motocyclisti unit. This gives +3" move (ok, technically only +2" but that's because Bersaglieri are 5" move - one of the hallmarks of elite troops), +1 target (if the mount is armoured in some way) and +1 cc. In addition, after the fashion of the Bolide Tawn cavalry, upping the unit to size 2 might be a good idea - better lethal range.
Lances
Extra reach and hitting power on the charge....the thing is, you only make CC attacks on the charge, so I suggest this should represent an 'if you get a charge move of at least' bonus. In addition, an extra die (D10?) rather than a dice bonus makes sense - you still get your D6, or 2D6 or whatever, but you get a single extra D10 - it may hit hard, but a lance can only hit one person!
Bows
At close range, the difference between a modern bullet and a sheaf arrow is as near to nothing as makes no odds, provided you're only concerned with putting the enemy down and not with whether medical care could save him. There should be some reduction in capability - so something like a D6-1 at close range? At long range, by comparison, you're looking at unaimed arrows falling randomly in a volley from the sky - so a much weaker effect over a wider fire zone is appropriate; possibly making someone reroll hits (a la moving World At War vehicles?) but gain a 6" fire zone at over half range? This means that whilst the initial hits will be at the front of a fire zone, the reroll will randomly eliminate hits across the fire zone, which seems right.
Blackpowder Firearms/Crossbows
Rate of fire is low, so Ready - there's no problem with firing it as a reaction provided it's loaded. Charging a unit with loaded muskets that's able to react should be a big gamble.
These are direct fire, rather than 'drop shot' so the volley rule above would not apply; the front rank gets the highest rolls and dies.
These weapons will be a lot more potent, though - piercing/1 might be appropriate for man-in-a-can shooting.
Polearms
This is the big one - it needs to provide a melee bonus over someone unarmed for melee (easy enough) but more importantly a big bonus when fighting in a formation. I see this as having three elements; first, a static 'as user +1' for wielding one. Second, an ability to bring more people into the fight - plagiarising the Reach/x trait from Apocalypse Z (so a model adds the reach of its weapon to its size for working out the lethal range in melee), and lastly, something to provide protection when a unit is bunched up and presenting a hedge of english billhooks/pikes/bayonets. This is more about defence, so some improvement to either target or save is in order.
This seems to suit something akin to the cover rules, but for close combat - that is, if I'm in a fighting line, and you're attacking the middle of said line from the front, the guys in the line get an improved save and kill score (and, if they've been given the countercharge reaction, get to hit you first!). This would nicely stack with Elite Training, for an extra save bonus for good troops; so whilst both regulars and veterans are T:4+ Sv:6+ against bow fire (albeit the veterans being K:7+), with a 'heavy' formation in a melee, that changes to T:4+ Sv:4+ K:8+ for the regulars and T:4+ Sv:3+ K:9+ for the veterans - stacked with a reroll on cc attack dice and countercharge to thin out attackers before they strike and you have a big edge in durability, but only within the reach of the pointy sticks. Arrows, by comparison, are no respecters of quality troops.
This should affect only the front centre, so flanks matter, like so:
I suggest the conditions for benefiting be (a) you are in contact with at least three other models with the same trait (left, right, and another rank behind), that all these models are facing in the same direction, and that the enemy is attacking you from the front.
Suggestions? Comments? Insults?
* Which are, by the way, made entirely of awesome.
