FANGS: Mass Combat

File:FANGS-Basic Fangs Logo (small original).gifWelcome to FANGS, the Fantasy Adventure Networked Gaming System. The goal of this roleplaying system is to offer rules that allow for fun, dramatic play without losing too much realism, simple and yet elegant rules, and balanced for different styles of players who wish to game together.

Mass Combat

The intention of Mass Combat is to allow either a) a combat situation between two large adversarial groups to be determined faster if role-playing or drama demands speed, or b) handle war sized combat situations. This combat system is still being designed, and hopefully should be available by the release of a future version of Basic FANGS.

There are three approaches to mass combat resolution, each depending on the importance of the PCs to the mass combat.

Just Another Grunt System

In this situation, the PCs are just soldiers in the battle. They might be highly regarded soldiers, but they have no command responsibility.

This is simple to run, because the GM only has to run a simple combat, pitting the PCs against opponents roughly their equivalent. Depending on the size of the opposing armies and relative expertise of the troops, the opponents might be better trained (have higher skill with weapons) or more numerous. They can even be less numerous and less trained.

However the individual battle between the PCs and the opponents goes, so goes the big battle.

Example:

The PCs are a party of five high-powered PCs who have thrown in with the Baron of High Crags. The Baron is being invaded by an army of nomadic barbarians. The Baron's family has been fighting off the barbarians for centuries. His military is highly skilled, but way outnumbered.

Becaue the PCs are even more skilled than the Baron's troops, the GM puts them in the van of his defending army in a good defensive position. He then describes the onrushing barbarian horde charging down on the defenders.

First there is an exchange of missile fire. The GM has created 15 barbarian NPCs who are about half as good as the PCs. They shoot at the PCs and the PCs shoot (and/or throw spells) back. Then the remaining barbarians close. The GM runs that fight alone, keeping track of how well the PCs do and occasionally throwing in comments about the rest of the battle, based on how the PCs are doing.

When the last NPC of the 15 is down or fled, or the last PC goes down, the GM can describe how the whole battle went.

If the PCs are killed or captured, their army is slaughtered or captured.

If the PCs flee the battle, so does the army.

If the PCs send their opposite numbers packing, the enemy army flees.

If the PCs slaughter their foes, their army celebrates a decisive victory, with enemy leaders captured and their ability to field another army notably reduced.

Warband Commanders

In this situation, the PCs are in command of elements of the army. There may be one or more units of troops who look to an individual PC for leadership.

There are three steps to this resolution:

A. Determine the Tactics Skill of the PCs. This is a new Skill, and it varies depending on the troops being led. This means if the PC is leading more than one kind of soldier, it can vary per unit. The formula is simple. INT/5 + Character's Skill with main weapon of the unit. If the unit is a mounted unit, substitute the character's Ride Skill if it is higher.

Example: Saul, one of the five PCs cited above who distinguished himself in the fighting against the barbarians has been given command of some of the Baron's elite troops. Now he has to lead them against the Ice Demons who drove the barbarians out of their homelands.

Saul has been given command of several units. He has 2 Companies (100 men each) of spearmen, 1 company of archers (another hundred), and 1 troop each of light horse (50 men) and heavy horse (another 50). Saul's skill with Spear is 11, his archery is 10, and his riding skill of 10 is superior to his lance (8) but not his sword (12). His IN is 10. So his tactics with the spearmen is 13 (10/5+11). with the archers is 12, with the light horse (sword users) is 14, and heavy horse (lance users) is 12 (having deferred to his riding skill).

B. Fight the battle abstractly or put out slips of paper on the tabletop (each slip is a unit, or perhaps a trooper) or get out the miniatures and scale terrain and set up a full scale battle. The Tactics Skill is both the Attack and Defense Skill of the Commander. If a Commander "hits" compare the maximum damage done by the unit's weapon (assuming all the soldiers are STR 10, or the minimum to use the weapon) against the armor worn by the defenders. If the attacking weapon is more, subtract a number of troopers from the unit equal to the difference. Every time a unit takes 10% of its original complement in casualties, make a PW roll for the commander. If unsuccessful, the troops break and run.

Example of Unit Damage and Defense

The archers do 12 points with long bow and wear leather jacks for 2 points of armor. The Spearmen do 9 points of damage and wear 5 point Scale armor. The light horse use broad swords for 10 points and wear 5 point mail. The Heavy Horse lances hit for 11 and they wear 8 points of armor.

The Ice Demons do 10 points of damage and can stop 5 points of damage. Their Attack and Defense Skill adds up to 11.

Saul has 400 soldiers all together. There are 800 demons bearing down on him in groups of 50. Saul essentially has to protect his archers with the spearmen, rain down death on the ice demons, and be prepared to smash infiltrating demons with the heavy horse and chase down fleeing demons with the light horse.

Good luck, Saul.

For speedy resolution where the Commander has many more than one unit, assume that any damage to a unit destroys it as an effective force.

If one side rolls a Critical on the Tactical Skill roll (either in attack or defense), then the other side's PC Commander has been caught in battle and normal damage from the attacking weapon should be rolled against him.

C. For more tactical detail, Modifiers can be used to help resolve the battle results.

• Fighting from cover adds one (1) to a unit's armor value

• FIghting from a height advantage adds (1) to a unit's armor value

• A Charge adds 1 to the charging troops' Damage

• Set vs Charge adds 1 to the defending troops' Damage

• Horses add 1 to Charging Troop's Attack Skill

• Horsemen cannot Set vs Charge

• Attacking from non-shield side adds 1 to Damage value of attacker

• Attacking from behind adds 2 to Damage value of Attackers (Note that this applies to attacking fleeing troops, who do not get the benefit of shields, either)

Army Commander

For those situations where the PC is in charge of an entire army, perhaps with other PCs as his immediate aides and sub-commanders, the resolution can be very quick and abstract, or very long and detailed. For the latter, there are a number of fine miniatures rules (and boardgames) for sale that will let the players resolve the combat. Or of course they can use the Warband Commander rules with lots and lots of units.

For the former, abstract, system, evaluate the opposing armies. We must assume that the GM has a good idea of the scope of the armies or this situation would never have happened in the game. Compare the units in the armies and match those units that seem the same on each side. For every Elite Heavy Horse on one side, find an Elite Heavy Horse on the other, etc. Ignore all the matched units.

For the remaining units on each side, evaluate them numerically as follows.

• 2 pts for every Elite Unit

• 1 pt for every Veteran Unit

• -1 pt for every Peasant or Conscript Unit

• 1 pt for every Heavy Unit (Well-armored with high damage weapons)

• 1 pt for every Horse Unit

• 1 pt for every missile Unit

In this fashion, an Elite Heavy Horse unit would be 4 points. Veteran bowmen would be 2 pts. Etc.

Add all these points together and compare the two numbers. Subtract the lower from the higher. Add the result to the Base Tactics (Int/5) of the winning army's commander.

Then roll the Tactics Skills of the two commanders. If more than one PC is involved, then each can command a wing or battle or regiment, opposed by a wing commander on the other side, and the above calculation has to be done with each set of opponents.

Winner of the Tactics Roll (which subsumes all considerations of terrain and position and morale) wins the battle. Winner is determined by who rolls highest on D20. If several commanders are involved, then each set of battles must be resolved, and further battles resolved if commanders on opposing sides win.

Example:

Saul and Gru and Esmeralda are Commanding the High Lord of Anaztria's troops. They are opposing the Troll Armies of Urgbek. They have them outnumbered, but the Trolls are ALL heavy Units.

Comparisons show that Saul's Center forces have a 4 point advantage over the third of the Troll Army they are fighting. Saul has never commanded troops before, so his Base Tactics Skill is 2 (for his INT/5), to which he adds his 4 point advantage. The Wily Troll Commander opposing him has experience but is not much more intelligent, so he is using his Tactics of 5 against Saul's 6.

Gru's Tactics is actually 3, because he has some experience. However, his troops match up almost exactly with the Trolls he is facing, whose commander also has a 3. They are evenly matched.

Esmeralda is a High Priestess with almost no experience in battles, but she has an IN of 17, so she has a Base Tactics of 4. She also has a couple of contingents of Elite Jadherian Pikes, which has kicked up her superiority in units to 7. Her opponent is the dimmest of the Trolls, whose Tactics is 3 because of experience. So she has an 8 point advantage.

The battle joins. Saul's player rolls 14, for a total of 20. The Troll commander rolls 8, for a total of 13. The center holds and the Trolls are sent reeling.

On the left Flank, Gru has his usual luck and rolls 18, for a total of 21. The Troll gets 12, for a total of 15. The left battle is victorious.

On the Right Flank, Esmeralda strides forth to smite her foes with her superior forces, and her player rolls a 3, for a total of 14. Her opponent seems to have the luck of the Troll gods behind him, and rolls an 18, for a total of 21.

Esmeralda's overconfident right flank reels back in disarray. As the Trolls opposing her send up their victory yells, they realize that there are now two more battles of humans bearing down on them. They wheel to face Saul, whose numbers for the purpose of abstraction remain the same. The Troll Commander rolls a 14. Saul's player rolls 11. Neither rolled 20, so they continue in battle. But Gru then attacks the Trolls. With his usual luck, Gru's player rolls 18 for a total of 21. The Troll's player rolls 7. The Troll Army is broken and fleeing.

This is necessarily abstract. A lot of detail involving individual units defeated and refiguring of the combat values could be done, but every step increases the time the battle takes. However much the players want that result they may pursue it.