Topic: Empire on a Grand Scale

[swampsheep]

I like the idea of thinking of it as a fun game.

You could make some simple guidelines to army building that would enforce such a train of thought. It could be along the lines of;
33% Core minimum (gives more "basic" troopers)
No more that half of the core selection on the same unit entry (gives a spread on the types of units fielded)

The argument for such rules/guidelines would be to ensure that both teams were aiming for roughly the same amount of "friendliness" in the army list. It is easy to agree that it should be fun and relaxed, but interpretations of what that means might be rather different from one person to another.

[Aineias The Scarred]

Quoting the 2 above

[Holy Hand Grenade]

What kind of help do you need from me on this?

[Voltan Ignatio]

In a game of this size, it would be great to see at least one unit of each troops type represented.
Agreeing with those who have posted similar.

[zifnab0]

If commandant is willing to administer the game, lets go ahead and do this.

I'd be happy to run the list I posted above, maybe with a little help from some others.  Otherwise, post some lists and we can decide which one we want to run.

If people are willing to play the side of another army (Chaos, O&G, Skaven), put together a list and post it here.  We can vote for which enemy we want to play against.

[Noght]

I'll help with whatever you need, friend or foe. 

I have to look at BC maps, see if they go that big!

[commandant]

I am happy to administer the game.

For a fun game I think the following rules might be worth considering.

- The size of the game is massive [ten thousand points] but the winds of magic stays the same.   This will greatly impact on the power of magic.

- I could set up a story line for the players to follow so that the objective might be other than smashing the opposing forces.   Also a storyline would allow us to have some idea of the type of armies that could be fielded.

- For my own ease I would suggest that the generals submit a battleplan of where their forces are [map deployment] rather than using the drop system.   It would speed things up.

I don't really know the special rules for any non Empire army so I'd need help with that.   

When writings lists or considering lists I would suggest a few things.

- This could be an option to see what 40 handgunners could do in a single unit.
- Free company etc could play a role [after all gathering that number of state troops could be difficult]
- I would use this to make the army look like an army.

[Holy Hand Grenade]

Okay-  just let me know if you need assistance with Battle Chronicler, posting photos, rolling dice, etc.  I would definitely be willing to be some kind of leader for the opposition if it is O&G, Chaos, or Lizards.

One recommendation I have to give this an "army feel"-  is you have one General per team, and 3 Captains. 

The board should be 3 times as long as normal but normal depth (or maybe 24 inches deeper).  One Captain is in charge of the left flank, one the center, and one the right flank, with the General in charge of the grand strategy.  So it ends up being almost 3 battles going at the same time with bleed over and blending between them.

I think each side does their entire deployment in one drop and then you reveal them.  This allows strategy up front-  load up one one flank or spread the combat power out...

Also-  with forces this big 6 turns isn't going to cut it.  If you crush a flank but don't have time to shift forces to influence other battles the game will have less of a tactical flavor.  I think 8 or 10 turns would be much better.

For magic, I would have Winds of Magic for each section.  Either one roll for the whole army or 3 rolls, one for the left, center, and right.  Wizards in those sections could use those dice.  This doesn't make magic OP, but it does keep this battle more Warhammer-like.

Just let me know what you need Commandant.

[Realjuan]

Still looking forward for this, so hope it comes true.

[commandant]

I like the idea of one general and 3 captains per side.   I think it would be interesting if the general issued general orders

"Right flank hold the river and ridge, centre advance towards castle/town, left flank pull back to cover centre" type and the captains and their staff had to decide how to do it.   With this in mind I would like people to think that the army will be spilt into three sections when drawing up army lists.

I played in a game once which had the following rule for magic

Spells that effect the entire table have a 72 inch range.   
All nuke spells allow LOS [I would also allow MR though that should be discussed]

I do like your idea for winds of magic.

I think Chaos would be a good foe for this game, it would make the storyline easier.

Lenght wise I think it would be interesting to have 8 turns and then darkness [roll a d6 on the end of your turn on a 6+ darkness makes it impossible to keep fighting.   Next turn its a 5+ etc.]

Also we would need to discuss certain houserules like I think if you flank a unit it should lose steadfast.   Other houserules can be discussed.   

Shall we go for Humans v Chaos.

[zifnab0]

Keep the percentage requirements/limitations for Lords, Heros, Core, Special, and Rare.

Use Grand Army rules: maximum of 6 special choices, 4 rare choices.

Each side should strive for a balance between pure fluff and competitive.

Does it make sense to allow duplicates of certain magic items or chaos mutations? For example Scaly Skin and Dispel Scroll, rather than Third Eye of Tzeentch and Runefang.

I would suggest we don't mess around with steadfast at the moment.

For Magic, use HHG's idea with the added caveat that each side casts 3 spells at once, then the other side chooses to dispel each of those.  Otherwise the magic phase would be pretty drawn out.

I was thinking about whether we should allow duplicates of spells for different wizards, but it is more interesting to force each army to decide how to allocate their spells.

Finally, I say we should allow special characters.  This is a big battle, so some of the major players in the Old World might take an interest in the fight.

The next step would be to make a master battle thread that lays out the rules and sub-threads for each of Chaos and Empire so people to pick their side and start developing an army list and command structure.

The main thread should, like previous games, only be for the generals and the administrator, so that the game is easy to follow for both participants and readers.

edit: Also, 1 general, 1 BSB.  With steadfast and big units on the board Leadership is going to be important.

[commandant]

Also I think I got the hang of Battle Chronicler.   However is the a place I could down load symbols etc for it?

[Forumite]

If the battle is going to be played as 3 different flanks with some overlap, then I suggest creating them as 3 separate allied armies, perhaps 3000, 4000 and 3000. A Grand Alliance with 3 armies, 3 generals, etc. That would allow dublicates of items, like multiple Dispel Scrolls. The separate armies could be from different sides. I think it would be fluffy to see 3 Empire armies facing one army each of Chaos Warriors, Deamons and Beastmen.

[Holy Hand Grenade]

Also I think I got the hang of Battle Chronicler.   However is the a place I could down load symbols etc for it?

You can download additional terrain and content from the BC website!

I would love to run some Chaos against the Empire.

[Scalenex]

Before trying a 10,000 point game, perhaps try a 5000 point game, it's still bigger than you usually see but it would be more manageable.

I'd advise against allowing duplicate magic items.  Half the appeal of a game of this scale is that it forces the generals to take things they normally wouldn't take.  You aren't changing things much if you have TWO Captasi both the Charmed Shield instead of one.

I would also advise against a massive Empire army versus a coalition of Chaos armies, especially not Chaos Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos.  Combining great shooting with great close combat power would provide a lot more synergies than a mono-Empire army. 

[swampsheep]

I agree with scalanex. No duplicate of magic items, no matter how common. I find that to be some of the charm - you'll have more unusual equipped characters and units.

I also think zifnab0s idea of having it all as one army holds a certain charm - so there is only 1 general and 1 BSB. In that way, you have another way of managing a limited ressource. The same for the grand army rules - that will automatically adjust special and rare selection considerably.

In regards to special characters there is a large difference in the power level of those - and the amount there is in each army. For this reason, I think you should set a cap of how many could be included - like 2 or 3. In that way, an army with a lot of good special characters will not get a big advantage.

For spells I think that for each "set" of power dice should count as an isolated match in regards to duplicate spells. For Empire with a huge lore selection and a lot of different strategies that apply to different lores, not having duplicate spells across the board would be easy, but for armies with a more limited selection, it might be a delibitating limitation.

Finally - irrespective of how I think it should be - I think Commandant should decide the actual rules in the end. Since he is going to take the tough job of running the match I think he should have the final word. There are probably as many opinions on how this should be made as there are people active in this debate, so we will never get to any universal agreeance. So whoever does the work, get to decide.

[commandant]

I don't personally think a 10,000 point battle will cause any problems that a 5000 point one will not cause, it will just take longer and as such I think that we should go big.   Sure why not, it lets us do things that we couldn't otherwise do.

We should get as close to agreement as possible.   I believe that there are two areas of debate.

1: Army Creation
2: Magic

My thoughts are as follows

1: Army Creation.

I want this to be a single army regardless of how we decide to devolve the command of that army.   Therefore each army will be limited to one Army General and one Battle Standard Bearer.   However the size of the army [10,000 points] is really huge and I thing that should be considered in its creation.   I am willing therefore to propose the following unit.

Personal standard Bearer [PSB]
Stats as battle standard Bearer but instead of having a 12 inch re-roll each a PSB only allows the unit he is with to re-roll.   Each wing may have a single PSB for its commanding officer.   Cost +10 points all normal rules apply.


This unit would allow you to strengthen the wings without breaking the army into three completely different units and would represent the control of the Captains who were commanding the wings.   The PSB would not be allowed in the same section as the BSB.   I also think the PSB should be in the same unit as the Captain commanding the wing.

I don't want each wing to be a different army because then you get 3 3000 point battles beside each other instead of 1 10,000 point battle and that kinda defeats the purpose.

I like the Grand Army rules so we should use them.   

I know that it is more work for me but I would rather see 2 units of 50 greatswords than one unit of 100.   The large points should not be used I think to just build a normal army and make all the units massive.

2: Magic

I purpose two options for magic

Option 1:
Each section rolls the winds of magic and those dice can be used by magic users in that section as normal.   For the purpose of dispelling a wizard can only dispell spells which are cast within the effective magic range [EMR] of him.

When casting wizards are limited to casting within the EMR

Spells which would normally have no range limit are limited by the EMR.

The EMR is a radius of 36 inches.   Note that EMRs can overlap but wizards can only draw on the PD from one section even if their position means that their spells effect a different section.

Option 2:

Roll 6d6  for the winds of magic and 6d3.   Each D6 of power dice is give to the section which comes up on the D3.   For Dispell dice the dispellers get the value of highest half of the casting dice rounded up.   

For example I roll 6d6 and get

6,2,3,2,6,5

and 6d3 getting

3,2,2,3,3,3

which means
section one get no dice.
section two gets 5 casting dice and 3 dispell dice
section three gets 19 casting dice and 12 dispell dice.

If we use this method of generating dice I would  ignore the 12 dice limit.

the advantage is that magic would be able to have a massive part but also it would be very uncertain.   If all of your army's wizards are in section one then this roll would be useless to you.   If all of them are in section three then you would have a field day.

It would should the swirling nature of the winds of magic quite well I think, but it would quickly become really random.


Proceedure for commands.

I feel that the rmy General should submit me a list of movement orders [including charges].   If there is an issue then conditional orders can be issued.   For example A charges B.   If B flees than charge C.

I will read my book when I go home but I think that all charges need to be declared before any charge reactions are declared.   That should make my life easier.

For magic the wizards will declare a spell for each section and then have them all announced so that dispelling can be done.

I also think a timetable should be set up to prevent the size of this causing it to get out of control.

[zifnab0]

Agreed except the magic, which is too confusing.  The Personal Standard Bearer is a good idea.  It gives a little support without being unbalanced.

Just have 3 sections (A, B, C) and roll 2d6 for each.  At the beginning of the game the controlling player decides which section his wizards are in.  He can change the assignments at the beginning of his turn during the movement phase.  All casting and dispelling is done normally (with 72" range for spells that affect the whole board).

The generals need to remember that this is more of a narrative, rather than trying to win outright.  Don't make things confusing.

We should also have some narrative objectives.  Something simple that gives both sides an objective other than "kill the other guys."

For example, the Empire might be defending a town, so there's a tower at the back of the Empire deployment zone that Chaos must assault (1 point) or capture (2 points).  Chaos has some mobile siege towers that move up to 6" per turn straight ahead; Empire must assault (1 point) or destroy by capturing (2 points).  The general and BSB are worth 2 points, each captain (each player designates a character to be their avatar) and PSB worth 1.

These towers would be normal, 2 story towers, so the Empire could deploy some handgunners or crossbowmen (no warmachines) inside.  I guess Chaos could deploy something in theirs if they really wanted to.

[swampsheep]

Agree with all that zif is writing. Simpler magic rules like the ones he suggest will be easier to manage I think, and rather similar to what we are used to.

I assume that casting and dispelling is done within each section, so that you can only dispel spells cast by wizards in the same section. Are the sections supposed to have any geographical connection - so that a wizard that moves across a certain border enters another section? Or is it only an abstract division - so that a wizard placed in the center can cast and dispel belonging to the left flank section?

[commandant]

I agree that narrative objectives are a good idea:

I will draw up a map with some narrative in mind

Scrap the second magic system so.   Though I go think that the 72 inch bubble around the caster is better than the idea of sections for spells cast [though not for the generation of dice] because it removes the invisible wall effect.   I know that exists some what with the generation of dice but you could feel the winds growing stronger [or weaker as they pass across the battle field].

Also what size of a space do we want?   A normal 3000 point table is 6 X 4.

I was thinking 15 X 5?   Would that be too big do you think?



I made this map.   It is fifteen feet by five feet.   YThe idea would be that the Empire would need to defend the village.  What are your thoughts?

[zifnab0]

I think 15 is a good length, 5 should be OK for depth.  Make deployment zones 15" so the armies have a little more room to maneuver, and Empire doesn't get to bombard the Chaos forces with cannons for 4 turns.

[commandant]

I can also post the distance between things if people want

I assume each box is one inch.   In that case it is 15 inches along the alter wall.

[zifnab0]

The idea would be that the Empire would need to defend the village.  What are your thoughts?

Why should the Chaos forces do anything but load up on the left side?  There's nothing to be gained on the right.  The town also seriously complicates Empire's ability to maneuver in the area.  They will have to deploy around the village while Chaos has a virtually unimpeded deployment zone.

Make the village one objective, the middle tower a second, and the (black and purple) portal-thing on the right a third.  Move the tower a couple squares towards the right so it's a distinct objective.

[commandant]

True.   there is that problem, also the river makes movement on that side really difficult.   Still I was more concerned with the size than the layout.   You figure that the size is okay for this level of a game, the terrain can be shoved around a bit.

[zifnab0]

Yeah, I think the size is good.  Just keep in mind that the distance between the armies is going to matter a lot as well, 15" would be a good distance.