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Fantasy Triumph (Monsterpocalypse) at Fall In 2019

Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2019 7:18 pm
by David Kuijt
Hey all,

Half-way through making four custom boards for the Monsterpocalypse events at Fall In 2019. We'll be playtesting the maps and the scenarios at Chris Brantley's house next weekend, which is why the need to have the maps mostly done now. Monsterpocalypse is a Kaiju (giant monster) theme, and well-suited to testing some (not all) of the Fantasy Triumph rules. In particular, the following rules will be important (depending upon which army is taken):
  • Fantasy Triumph Battle Cards:
    • Massive (enormous and huge -- sticks out above the trees, crushes enemy and friendly stands when it falls back on them)
    • Deadly (significantly more so than other examples of that troop type)
    • Slow
    • Fast
    • Tunneling
    • Flying (see below)
    • Shooting (for types that don't normally shoot)
  • Plus the Flight rules
That's about half the Fantasy Triumph rules -- the rules on Powers (powerful individuals who are way way smaller than a full stand of 1000-ish people) and Magic are not going to be part of the test at Fall In, as they are still in development.

I'll post a summary of the draft rules here this evening.

Re: Fantasy Triumph (Monsterpocalypse) at Fall In 2019

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2019 1:46 pm
by David Kuijt
Here is a precis of the relevant Flight rules from Fantasy Triumph that will be used at Fall In.

14. Flight
Flight allows a stand to move in the air. This gives the stand a lot of mobility, but at a cost in command control and in other ways.

Flying stands retain their troop type (infantry or mounted) and whether they are close order or open order – those describe how they fight, which does not change due to their mobility.

Flying stands use the following modifications to the normal rules:
  • Distant Shooting:
    • Distant combat against flying stands always counts as from behind, regardless of the relative positions of the two stands. As such flying stands suffer a -1 modifier and ignore a fall back result.
    • Line of sight for missile attacks by them or against them is never blocked by intervening terrain or other stands (not even other flying stands). If the shooter or target is inside terrain that would block line of sight (village, woods, or similar) then firing is still impossible. Normal firing arcs still apply.
  • Movement:
    • Move 2x normal movement rates except for moves that include any movement in or through woods, village, or wooded hills, which are normal movement for the stand type.
    • Use the Flight rules for interpenetration.
    • May move to Up.
  • Terrain:
    • Woods, village, and wooded hills are the only terrain types that impact the movement of flying stands.
    • Woods, village, and wooded hills are the only terrain types that can apply normal negative combat modifiers to the combat factors of flying stands. (for example, a Heavy Foot with the Flight battle card would suffer the normal -2 combat modifier when fighting in a village, but not when fighting in rough or swamp).
  • Group Movement: Flying stands may not group move with non-flying stands, and vice versa.
  • Enemy Camps: Flying stands fight at -1 against any enemy camps.
  • Combat Results:
    • Open Order Flying stands are not destroyed due to blocked recoil. If they are forced to fall back and cannot complete the move because a friendly or enemy stand is there, they are removed from the map and placed Up.
    • Open Order Flying stands cannot block friendly or enemy stand recoil. If they would block a stand falling back they are removed from the map and placed Up. If both this and the previous clause both apply (an open-order flying stand would fall back, but its position is occupied by a misaligned friendly open-order flying stand), only the falling-back stand is placed Up.
    • Close Order Flying stands suffer destruction if they cannot fall back, and may block friendly or enemy recoil, as normal for other (non-flying) stands.
    • Flying stands who suffer a Panic or Evade result are removed from the map and placed Up.
Attacking from above doesn't give the huge advantage you might think -- firing a bow while flying is less stable than firing from a horse is much less stable than firing from the ground, so the few bow-armed flying creatures have to get closer for accuracy (chance of hitting anything) even as they get range advantage from being above the foe. It is possible for flying rabble and other troop types to be throwing javelins, dropping rocks, and the like -- gravity is still on their side, but with that type of combat ammo is limited (large rocks are exactly what nobody wants to carry while flying) so such creatures will still try to get just out of enemy range to drop their rocks etc..

Up (flying movement off-map)
Up represents everywhere out of contact with the battlefield. Flying units that are Up are out of the battle. Coolest way to represent this would be to glue together an acrylic sheet and some acrylic rods and put this beside the battlefield (storing any stands that are Up on the acrylic), but any representation would do. Any flying unit can move to Up; Any flying unit can move from Up to the battlefield. Not both in the same turn. Flying units can deploy Up.

Moving to Up (from the battlefield) requires normal command points. Group movement to Up is possible.

Everything Up is out of command control. The only exception is if the General is Up, in which case everything Up is in command control and everything on the map is not in command control.

Moving from Up back to the battlefield allows you to place your stand (or group) anywhere on the map more than 4mu from enemy. Yes, that means in two turns (one to Up, and the next turn from Up to the map) you can be 4mu from the enemy camp. Anyone who is fighting an army with flying units and chooses not to garrison their camp is asking for a quick game.

Everything resident in Up counts as a casualty until it returns to the battle, but at 1/2 normal cost. So a 4pt stand that is Up counts as 2pts of casualties. This represents the fact that the REST of the army has no idea where they are or if they are ever coming back. It is quite possible to break your army by retreating a bunch of it to Up. If you don't want to do that, you have to keep them in the battle. As a side benefit, this stops any army from flying to Up and saying "Nanee-nanee-boo-boo."

No combat is possible Up. There's lots of air, and finding each other in it is difficult. This choice is made for simplicity, and to keep the game focused on the ground combat. If you want to play an air combat wargame there are lots of better options than Triumph.


Flying Movement On-Map

Flying stands differentiate between enemy troops who are dangerous to them when they are moving (i.e., who are equipped with missile weapons) and those who are not. These missile-equipped troop types are:
  • Archers
  • Bow Levy
  • Pavisiers
  • Skirmishers
  • Artillery
  • War wagons
  • any troops with the Battle Card “Shower Shooting”
Flying stands ignore ZOC for all enemy stands except missile-equipped troop types when moving, except when they end in combat with enemy. If they end in combat with enemy, they are subject to the ZOC of any stand for their final position (only – ignore ZOC as usual for all movement up until that point).

Flying stands may pass over any friendly stand, and any enemy stand that is not a missile-equipped type.

Flying stands may always disengage from combat with non-Flying stands who are not a missile-equipped type. If they wish to disengage from a missile-equipped type or an enemy flying stand, they use the base movement rate of their stand type to calculate whether they can disengage or not.

Re: Fantasy Triumph (Monsterpocalypse) at Fall In 2019

Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2019 1:58 pm
by David Kuijt
Monsterpocalypse Triumph uses stands which are much taller than others (60 meters and more) -- stands with the Huge/Massive Battle Card in Fantasy Triumph. Here is a precis of the Tall/Massive battle card rules.

11. Massive

Cost: +1 per stand. +0 pts per stand of Warwagon or Artillery.

Rules Change: troop stands that are Massive have the following effects:
  • They count as Close Order for penetration and pass through.
  • They cannot be pushed back by non-Massive friendly troops. Non-Massive friendly troops that are pushed back into them and would normally push them back are destroyed.
  • If they suffer a fall-back result in combat their fall back is not blocked by any friends or enemies that are not also Massive. Non-Massive friends and enemies that they fall back upon are destroyed. (exception: Skirmishers are pushed back, but not destroyed unless their push-back is blocked.)

12. Tall
The Tall attribute represents individuals who are enormous – who treat normal woods of 30-60’ height as if they were waist or knee-high bushes. Tall stands should usually take the Massive battle card. Cost of this attribute is zero (there are advantages and disadvantages); games with Tall stands must use the rules for Tall Terrain (below).

Tall Terrain
To add variety to terrain for games with Tall stands you may differentiate types of Woods/Village as normal or Tall. Tall Woods/Village is at least the height of the Tall stands; normal Woods/Village is much shorter. For example, high-rise buildings in a large urban center might be Tall. 200 foot Redwood forests might be Tall.
  1. Tall stands interact with Tall Woods/Village as per the usual rules (no changes).
  2. Normal stands interact with all Woods/Village as per the usual rules, regardless of whether the terrain is Tall or not.
  3. Tall stands treat normal (non-Tall) Woods/Village as if it was Rough terrain. Note that Flying stands ignore Rough terrain (treat it as open terrain) – so Tall Flying stands ignore normal Woods/Village.
  4. Normal (non-Tall) Woods/Village does not block line of sight for shooting at or from Tall stands.
  5. Normal Woods/Village does not block command control to or from a Tall stand.
  6. Both 4 and 5 do not apply when one of the two stands (shooter/target, commander/receiving commands) is a non-Tall unit inside normal Woods/Village such that the terrain it is in would normally block shooting or command control. In other words, you still can’t see into or out of small terrain if the unit you’re trying to see is small and inside that terrain.

Re: Fantasy Triumph (Monsterpocalypse) at Fall In 2019

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2019 4:15 pm
by David Kuijt
Some other relevant Fantasy Triumph Battle Cards for the MonPoc event:

4. Slow
Cost: -1/2 per stand.

Types with 8mu movement move 6mu instead; types with any other movement rate move -1mu from their normal. This ability may only be taken once for a given troop type.

5. Fast
Cost: +1/2 per stand.

Types with 6mu or greater movement move +2mu to their normal; types with any other movement rate move +1mu from their normal. This ability may only be taken once for a given troop type.

14. Tunneling (Teleportation, Dimensional Travel, etc.)
Cost: +1/2 per stand.

Tunneling represents the ability of stands to remove themselves from the battle by digging underground and then coming up on a later turn in some other part of the battlefield to continue the fight. This section also covers teleportation, dimensional travel, and any similar method that prevents interaction between stands and the battlefield until they reappear. (Flight is different)

Tunneling stands act as their normal troop type in all respects, but gain the ability to travel to and from an off-map reserve area named appropriately (“Underground” for tunneling, other names for dimensional travel or teleportation). Underground functions in every respect like “Up” does for flight.

Re: Fantasy Triumph (Monsterpocalypse) at Fall In 2019

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2019 2:36 pm
by Andreas Johansson
Do really artillery deserve to be "missile-equipped" for the purposes of annoying fliers? A trebuchet or medieval cannon would seem extremely ill-suited to targeting any flier more mobile than an anchored observation balloon.

(Fantastic artillery could be more suited for aiming at moving targets of course - new AAA battlecard?)

Re: Fantasy Triumph (Monsterpocalypse) at Fall In 2019

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2019 6:57 pm
by David Kuijt
Andreas Johansson wrote:
Fri Oct 25, 2019 2:36 pm
Do really artillery deserve to be "missile-equipped" for the purposes of annoying fliers? A trebuchet or medieval cannon would seem extremely ill-suited to targeting any flier more mobile than an anchored observation balloon.

(Fantastic artillery could be more suited for aiming at moving targets of course - new AAA battlecard?)
Reasonable point. Although remember that "flyers" isn't a class in F.Tr. -- unlike HotT. So flying Skirmishers are differentiated from flying Warwagons, etc.

With that said, any of the variety of ballistae that existed could easily have been modified to targeting aerial targets. Rock-throwing ballistae modified to throw a shotgun-shell bucket of bent nails is well within the technology of any Roman/Alexandrian army that had been exposed to flying troops, and could have been quite devastating at (relatively) short ranges.

Re: Fantasy Triumph (Monsterpocalypse) at Fall In 2019

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2019 8:40 pm
by Rod
DK,
we are using 80mm Basing for Monsterpocalypse?

Re: Fantasy Triumph (Monsterpocalypse) at Fall In 2019

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2019 11:49 pm
by David Kuijt
Rod wrote:
Fri Oct 25, 2019 8:40 pm
DK,
we are using 80mm Basing for Monsterpocalypse?
60mm.

Re: Fantasy Triumph (Monsterpocalypse) at Fall In 2019

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 11:55 am
by Rod
Was thinking we need measurement sticks?

Re: Fantasy Triumph (Monsterpocalypse) at Fall In 2019

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 2:20 pm
by David Kuijt
Rod wrote:
Sat Oct 26, 2019 11:55 am
Was thinking we need measurement sticks?
Good thought, Rod. Yes, please.