Blast of War: Movement
In typical wargames there is no player input outside of the movement phase and no chance within the movement phase - you move your pieces a predetermined amount and the positioning of those pieces then dictates the probability of success in resulting combat. I believe I've mentioned this earlier, but I'll say it again: that's not a bad thing! In fact, it matches very closely to the commander's point of view of battles throughout history - they have maps in front of them, send out orders to units to hold, maneuver, or attack, try to understand the disposition and intent of the enemy forces, and wait for updates about units in combat.
But I don't like it for a skirmish game, or any game that isn't attempting to be a military simulation really. I want player involvement throughout the game, a game caulk full of meaningful decisions that players can agonize over.
In Blast of War players have a choice with each movement action - allow units to walk at a set pace, or attempt to run and risk moving slower with a critical failure. I don't expect this to be a huge factor in games but it should impact the game in a two (hopefully) meaningful ways:
1 - Players will want to have a good runner in their force in the event a distant objective needs to be captured or enemy needs to be intercepted, in point-based games this will force the player to make decisions on how to build their forces.
2 - Races between two units are no longer a foregone conclusion - sure your opponent is moving a faster unit, but you might make all your run rolls, and they might fail theirs!
Mechanically a player rolls against a target number, equal to or less than is a success, greater than but not more than double is a failure (normal move), more than double the target (or a natural 20) is a critical failure. A success improves the terrain type by one step - so a unit moving through rough terrain would move as if in open terrain - while a critical failure decreases the terrain type by one step - open terrain would be treated as rough terrain. This mechanic is also used for climbing or crossing "impassible" terrain, successful checks allow you to slowly progress up the wall or through the swamp, failures leave you stuck until the next activation, and critical failures turn the terrain into dangerous terrain (from falling, drowning, etc).
As always I'd love to hear from you on alternate ways to do this or better ways to achieve this design goal!
But I don't like it for a skirmish game, or any game that isn't attempting to be a military simulation really. I want player involvement throughout the game, a game caulk full of meaningful decisions that players can agonize over.
In Blast of War players have a choice with each movement action - allow units to walk at a set pace, or attempt to run and risk moving slower with a critical failure. I don't expect this to be a huge factor in games but it should impact the game in a two (hopefully) meaningful ways:
1 - Players will want to have a good runner in their force in the event a distant objective needs to be captured or enemy needs to be intercepted, in point-based games this will force the player to make decisions on how to build their forces.
2 - Races between two units are no longer a foregone conclusion - sure your opponent is moving a faster unit, but you might make all your run rolls, and they might fail theirs!
Mechanically a player rolls against a target number, equal to or less than is a success, greater than but not more than double is a failure (normal move), more than double the target (or a natural 20) is a critical failure. A success improves the terrain type by one step - so a unit moving through rough terrain would move as if in open terrain - while a critical failure decreases the terrain type by one step - open terrain would be treated as rough terrain. This mechanic is also used for climbing or crossing "impassible" terrain, successful checks allow you to slowly progress up the wall or through the swamp, failures leave you stuck until the next activation, and critical failures turn the terrain into dangerous terrain (from falling, drowning, etc).
As always I'd love to hear from you on alternate ways to do this or better ways to achieve this design goal!
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