Reply To: Universal Map Based Campaign System Where Manouvering Matters!

[greyhunter88 1658xp 0]

Thanks!

All sounds really fun! In case you’re interested, how casualties worked in Age of Sigmar was that you rolled a d6 for every model who died in the game. For every 1, that unit took a “Casualty”, and you effectively lost your Casualty Score worth of guys at the start of every battle.

Eg. if my 10-man unit was wiped out and I rolled 10 dice and got three 1’s, I’d get a Casualty Score of 3. At the start of the next game, if I deployed them, I’d remove 3 guys and deploy only 7.
You could spend money to ‘recruit’, and you’d roll a number of dice equal to your Casualty Score and each 4+ would reduce it by one. If your units sat out a game, they could ‘recruit on a 2+, instead.

I thought it was really fun because your units would slowly attrite over time, and sometimes you would have to sit units out to try and refresh them because it could get expensive with pricey units!

Secondly, with regard to the ‘narrative VS tournament’ mindset, I am very firmly in the former camp. What I meant about ‘fighting losing battles’ being unfun is that it doesn’t tend to lead to really exciting narrative moments, in my experience. Wargaming mechanics don’t generally allow these underdog forces to win a Battle at the Hot Gates. So what happened in Bolt Action, for example, was I was eating so many random pin markers from the vastly overwhelming enemy force that I couldn’t really do much. If I passed my Order Test, I’d fire a few ineffectual shots, but mostly I waited for death.
In 40k, you’d just eat so much volume of fire that you would be wiped out too quickly.

My issue isn’t losing, it’s just that if I get one rare game a night to play with my buddies, I don’t want it to be some massacre where one player is just going through the motions. A ‘quick game’ doesn’t usually exist for me because set-up and tear-down takes a lot of time, unless you’re playing something like Combat Patrol or BattleTech.
Though maybe underdog/guerilla mechanics, as you’ve described, could work, or some kind of sudden death win scenario.

Curious to see what you’ve come up with! We’re currently in campaigns of Warmachine and BattleTech (neither of which seem like systems you designed these rules for), but I will try to grab a volunteer to try it out with WW2 or 40k or something! We’ve actually been looking for an excuse to play Legions Imperialis for a while. This could be it!

When I get a chance to try it out, I’ll let you know what we think!