Pirateheim - Teaser for the rules for mordheim at sea (update from yesterday)
Pirateheim! A teaser concerning rules - For those who felt interested in the concept
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Hey, again!
Well my last post got tremendous amounts of support, and I want to thank you all for it.
Since it might be a few weeks (not overly long though, I expect) before I've refined the scattered documents that I've used writing the rules for this game (I started three/four years ago but didn't finish it, and picked ut up a couple of weeks back) I feel I should give you an idea of what to expect from it.
First off, what game is it based on?
As for inspiration, the game is based pretty much solely on Mordheim. About 20 years ago, I read (and haven't read since due to losing the book) the generals compendium, which had a section for simple sea combat (but I don't know if much of that has been retained at all.
As I've mentioned, I've refrained from reading other supplements in the same theme due to me feeling I want this to feel almost like a game in itself, with any internal balance ( I don't want it symetrical, though) only having the game itself as a factor.
The rules:
The turn is divided into a shared start of turn-sequence, followed by player A, player B, and then monsters.
In the start of turn-sequence the following happens: Roll for random events, precipitation and wind. The random events list concists of several possible monster, with their own rules for abilities, and preferences for attacks (sharks prefer attacking figures in the water, then smaller ships, and lastly large ships, great eagles rake sails, and attacked crew on deck by preference).
The player turn is divided as such: Move the ship, move miniatures on board ships, shooting, and close combat. After these steps comes a step shared by both players (it happens two times per full turn, in other words): checking for stability. The stability is a value-system in which the ship may start taking in water, shudder, take damage or even sink. I've tried to make different abilities worth having, such as S being the value for being able to swim for long, I being the value for being able to get back on the ship if you end up in the water, and leadership representing the control the captain has over his ship and crew.
The ships:
Thus far the following ship types exist:
Sailing ships, row ships, steam ships, and ghost ships, and monsters as ships.
They differ in locomotion and how fast they can turn, but sailing ships are the fastest, steam ships the slowest but most reliable and being simplest to turn, and row boats being able to, for a short while, make great speed for a short span of time. Monsters move as steam ships, with the benefit of being able to stop on a dime, but the problem of a monster actually being a living being and not always being happy about being used as a ship.
The ship, of course, not only has to care for stability. Indeed, ships (as we've tried the game thus far) take a lot of damage. The toughness value of the ship works slightly as you might remember older editions of 40k, where a war machine could be weakened over time.
Three sizes of ships are described. Sloops (>8'') boats (8-12'') and ships <12''). Larger ships are tougher, but harder to navigate.
Moving the ships takes some skill, due to most ships not being able to turn on a dime, but having to pick up speed in order to do so. One must, therefore be careful not to strike a reef or an island. For example, a sail ship at marching speed (ramming being the fastest) must move a full 3'' before it can make a turn up to 45''. Marching speed being about 10'', a full turn is thus not possible for a sailing ship in one turn (although can be made quicker by having a smaller ship or having wind in the sails).
Rules that are in place thus far:
Ships, moving ships, damage to ships, stability for ships, artillery types (cannons, beam-weapons (magical attacks like skaven stuff), shooting, ramming, boarding, disengaging from ramming, weather tables, monsters (not all fully formed yet), and post game damage, hand to hand combat, combat with monsters.
Planned concepts are two sets of resources, scenarios (some inspired by famous sea battles (especially some swedish ones, bias at work (Sorry))), sharts for eq, special skills and what not.
How long have the games taken, thus far?
Thus far the games are rather quick, about 90 minutes. They are very violent, so far, and I've made it so that it's slightly deadlier (seen from post game-tables) than Mordheim is.
I hope some of you still feel interested in the game! =) If you have any questions, I'll try and take some time to answer some of them!