So my brother and I ran the Bowbe's Roadhouse scenario in the back of the Fields of Battle book. We worked our way through the rules and had a blast! I will post pics soon, but wow. A lot more fun than Warhammer; it just had a less rigid, free flowing feel to it that was intuitive. I defended the roadhouse and had a couple pc heroes to add to the roster, including a 4th level mage. He was instrumental in turning the tide with spells like wall of flame, and such. The druids used entangle to great effect, confounding the enemy troop movement while they were pummeled with missle fire. But when Bull entered the melee, holy crap that guy is a slaughtering machine. And they Ugashtan units were unstoppable due to their endless hit points. Still, it was a close battle. My brother and I played it out over about 7 hours, but this was with several long breaks in between due to screaming children, family meal times, and such.
A huge selling point here is that hero units can act as a single character or imbed in a unit. If you choose, you can have players run their pc around the battlefield by themselves, still fighting side by side with other units or running about on special battlefield missions. I had an elven rogue take several rounds to get behind enemy lines, come up behind a pesky shaman spellcaster, and backstab him for an instant kill. She rolled a natural 20 on her stealth roll, so my brother, running the bad guys and acting as a GM, ruled that the other shaman next to him wasnt aware of his companion being killed and pulled back behind the bushes. So she got him next.... heh heh.
My hat's off to Casey, as this is the first real battle I have had using the rules, and its great fun! It makes wargaming easy and yet allows your C&C story and roleplaying to continue at the same time.
Fields of Battle Fun!
- Sir Ironside
- Lore Drake
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- Joined: Sat May 02, 2009 7:00 am
Re: Fields of Battle Fun!
I've had a love affair with Mass Combat rules since I was a player, way back, in a Chivalry and Sorcery game. Sadly that was the only time I'd ever been in a mass combat scenario due to almost all rpg's never having rules for mass combat that I have played. Being a RAW guy I was never interested in creating my own. (Looking back I was all giddy about dropping large pieces of ice on the formations below, while flying just outside the range of their projectile weapons.)
I guess there was Battletech but it was really a 4 on 4 combat scenario that I don't count as mass combat. The distinction was the Battletech rules were two different entities and two different set of rules that pretty much had nothing to tie each one to other (Battletech combat was purely a miniatures game and the rpg part was purely a rpg rules set.) except for things like upgrading/repairing/reloading your Battle mech. Even then it was more like a check list (For the most part.) than actual role-playing.
I guess there was Battletech but it was really a 4 on 4 combat scenario that I don't count as mass combat. The distinction was the Battletech rules were two different entities and two different set of rules that pretty much had nothing to tie each one to other (Battletech combat was purely a miniatures game and the rpg part was purely a rpg rules set.) except for things like upgrading/repairing/reloading your Battle mech. Even then it was more like a check list (For the most part.) than actual role-playing.
"Paranoia is just another word for ignorance." - Hunter S. Thompson