Terror of the Goblins

Does it really make sense for the wolf rider unit to be more than 3x as tough as the heavy calvary, despite being 1/4 the cost? If you look at the core ACKS statistics, a dire wolf is only 1 HD tougher than a heavy warhorse, and actually will receive fewer attacks. The wolf’s edge is fairly small. So in this case, the ACKS rules and the DoW rules will produce significantly divergent results.

Alex’s suggestion of simply treating dire wolves as animals which will not stay and fight does solve the problem, but I still think that the unit formulas should be tweaked.

On the other hand, I’m intrigued by your suggestion of elephant-mounted shark troops, and will probably spend a bit of time calculating their unit characteristics.

/In a world with proficiencies such as Beast Friendship and spells such as Charm Animal, my assumption was that a unit of dire wolves could be fielded on the battlefield and would fight. As such, wolf riders need to be at least as good as just wolves./

In such a world, we might also wonder if a unit of horses could be fielded on the battlefield.

Orangefruitbat, horses are prey animals. Wolves are predators. Horses instinctively flee from attackers. Wolves instinctively fight back. Horses do not pursue defeated enemies. Wolves instinctly chase and finish off weakened enemies.

There's a reason no one puts encounters with horses in their low-level dungeons. Claiming that the two types of creatures are the same simply because of HD / # of At isn't realistic.

The strength and sturdiness of horses is doubtless enormous, but a warhorse without its rider is not a meaningful combatant on the battlefield. On the other hand, a worg without its rider is still a vicious combatant. A warhorse is a means of augmenting the strength and fighting prowess of a man. A goblin rider is a way of steering a warg.

That said, *you aren't wrong* that goblin riders are cheap for their value. I think the reason is because I'm handwaving away how difficult it is to control aggressive mounts. The rules have the same weakness in attempting to model elephants without their elephant riders.

Here's an idea for handling troops like warg riders, elephants, and possibly, e.g. war dogs, dinosaurs, and so on:

1) The units must make shock rolls if they reach 1/4 uhp or less, rather than 1/2 hp.

2) Shock and morale results of "flee" are replaced with "frenzy". In a frenzy, the unit immediately changes to face a random direction (roll 1d6) and then charges towards the nearest unit (of any type on either side). If it reaches the targeted unit, it makes an immediate attack sequence against it. (If already adjacent to the unit, it simply attacks it.) At the conclusion of the attack sequence, the unit routs off the table, having dispersed into an uncontrollable mob, been put down by its mahout, etc.

That would make worg riders and elephants and similar units have quite a distinct flavor - not as tough as they seem based on uhp and with a delightful dangerous to them. 

 

  1. The units must make shock rolls if they reach 1/4 uhp or less, rather than 1/2 hp.

To clarify, you mean here that they reach 1/4 of their uhp, or that they have lost 1/4 of their UHP? I think from the following paragraph that you mean lost 1/4, but am not certain.

Yes, sorry. I was typing fast. When they are reduced by 1/4 of their hp, as compared to by 1/2.

This might help / I would like to chime in with my particular brand of pedantry:

A typical grey wolf requires something like 6-8 pounds of meat a day to live and reproduce and be generally happy. It weighs about 85 pounds. Let’s be generous and round that up to 8 pounds of meat a day for a 100 pound animal.

A wolf the size of a horse (a dire wolf) is going to weigh about 1,000 pounds (let’s be generous, because a Dire Wolf has more HD than a heavy warhorse, which weighs like 1,500-2,000 pounds). Let’s be generous and say that a Dire Wolf needs 80 pounds of meat and fat a day for an average animal of 800-1,000 pounds.

Meat is inherently more difficult to obtain, store, and transport than fodder for horses. An army on the march cannot graze its horses, so the 240gp/unit supply cost for cavalry includes the pounds of dry fodder for horses. An army on the march cannot allow its Dire Wolves to go foraging in the country - not that there would even be enough food for that many wolves of that size.

In ACKS, a pound of meat costs 1sp. That’s 8gp a day to feed a single dire wolf.

8gp a day. That’s 56gp a week per wolf. That’s 3,360gp a week to feed 60 wolves. You also have to feed the Goblins/Hobgoblins and supply them at the base cost of 240 for goblins, water, butchers, what have you. 3,600 a week.

All of this is to say that the base 240gp/week for a unit of cavalry just won’t cut it when it comes to wolves the size of horses.

Do they still seem like a bargain? Probably not.

But wait! We can redo these assuming you get your meat in head of cattle, which are cheaper per pound of meat. That averages to about 2cp per pound of meat. That still adds up to 672gp/week to feed 60 wolves. This is probably what I would do, and then I would add that 240gp base to that cost - have to feed all those cattle. Smooth it out and we get 912gp/week in supply costs for a unit of sixty wolf riders. You still need the base 240 added to that for shepherds and to I’d also rule that if you get defeated, your giant herd of cattle gets captured.

Run the numbers now, assuming a 4 week month:

Cost of a Unit of Heavy Cavalry per month: 3,600 + 240*4 = 4,560gp a month

Cost of a Unit of Wolf Riders per month, using cattle: 900 + 1,152*4 = 5,508gp a month.

Which is… remarkably similar. Fascinating. The wolf riders still make your army more susceptible to disruptions in your cash flow and changes in supply lines.

Of course, those prices assume you can enough head of cattle a month in your local city (Hint: You can’t. You can find 100 a month with a Class I Market as a supply base. That feeds about 625 dire wolves - ten units. A class II Market can support 3 units at that price. A Class III Market can only support a single unit of wolf riders at that price. Basically, Great Goblin Empire can support a limited supply of super-predator mounted cavalry.

If you also deplete your markets of sheep and goats - other animals you can drive, whose meat is more expensive at 3cp a pound, you get about 4 more units in a Class I market, 1 more unit in a class II market, and half a unit in a class III market.)

At a price where you have to source meat at slaughter prices (that’s 1sp a pound), you’re in big trouble.

A unit of wolf riders will cost a shocking: 900 + 3,600*4 = 15,300gp a month.

Let’s take the average of those two weekly costs, though, assuming you can get half your meat from herding cattle (A big assumption): 900 + 2,376*4 = 10,404gp a month. That’s more than twice what a unit of heavy cavalry costs to employ.

I’d like to extrapolate further and find some truly meaningful average that gives us a good supply price for carnivores, but I don’t have the time. Maybe in the future.

TL;DR: If your players insist on hiring legions of wolf riders, I suggest bringing up the increased supply cost that will entail. It probably cost about twice what heavy cavalry cost, once wages and supply are taken into account.

As an aside:

I’d like to point out Wolf Riders’ inferior morale score. Makes a huge difference in play. They’re also irregular cavalry, as Alex has noted.

Brilliant analysis, Maticore. The fact that it emerges such that heavy cavalry and worg riders cost the same is a beautiful emergent property. It also addresses a gap in the rules I hadn't handled, which is supply cost for monstrous creatures.

Supply cost can be 60gp per unit of man-sized creatures. and 240gp per unit of cavalry or ogre-sized creatures or larger.  Carnivorous monsters (including units of dire wolves, dragons, wyverns, etc.) cost 4x. 

 

A flat 4x modifier is a good idea. It keeps us from unnecessary bean counting and means that a unit of Wolf Riders still costs a few hundred more than a unit of heavy cavalry, because you have to feed sixty super-carnivores that are eating their body weight in other animals every ten days.

Note that bear cavalry can be fed berries and some vegetables, and therefore should warrant maybe a 2x supply modifier. Bear cavalry for the win, I guess. On the other end, polar bear cavalry need an incredible amount of blubber and fat, and should probably warrant a 5x modifier.

It also means to feed an ancient dragon, you need to bring a huge baggage train of live animals - the image of which I love!

Let’s do the supply costs of a unit of rust monsters next! (joking.)

Does this apply only to carnivorous monsters, or does a unit of war dogs cost 4 times as much to supply as a unit of men?

One advantage of carnivores, though, is that you could convert prisoner ransom values into meat supply for them :stuck_out_tongue: Probably not efficient, but if you’re really out of supply…

Dogs are omnivorous.

:D

 

Touche, Mr. Macris. :wink:

This is great. My players would be horrified in the best way.

On that line, you can also add the casualties as spoils of war. Even your own!

As we speak, some wizard somewhere is developing an unholy crossbreed of cow with a gelatinous cube (for the digestive ability, and for the cubic shape) with a splash of gray ooze or rust monster for a mobile meat platform that can digest anything to grow.

Mobile meat platform.

If anyone’s read Astonishing Swordsman and Sorcerers of Hyperborea, the Thew Wagon is what I’m imagining here visually.

I’d definitely see dire wolves living off enemy (or ally) casualties. So that is why wolf riders are so cheap for their effectiveness, constant bloody warfare is the only way that goblins can keep their mounts fed. You do not want your dire wolves getting hungry enough to consider you a source of sustenance.

Fun note: Goblins and their mounts are not likely to differentiate the ally and enemy casualties after a battle, nor do they necessarily care if you are dead, or merely seriously injured (if it can’t fight back, it’s food; if it can fight back, it MIGHT not be food… yet).

Problematically, casualties would spoil pretty quickly. You’re good for four or so days there.

Wolves can act as scavengers, picking at slightly rotten meat. Also, they might be able to last on smaller portions for the period after a big meal.

But yes, it is better if you keep the wounded alive for a while so they don’t spoil…

Anyone else seeing the possible negative effects on the moral of non-beastman soldiers that have to fight alongside wolf riders?

Carnivorous Supply: Most units are fed wheat, oats, grass, and similar inexpensive foodstuffs. If a unit’s troops or mounts are carnivorous (e.g. dragons, goblin wolf riders), the unit will be much more expensive to supply. Increase the supply cost for these units by four times.

As supplying them can be quite expensive, carnivorous units are sometimes fed prisoners captured in battle or pillage. Each prisoner supplies his own base XP value in gold pieces of meat. Any unit which sees prisoners of its own race eaten by a carnivorous unit from its own army suffers a calamity (triggering a loyalty roll) due to the innate repulsiveness of the practice.

EXAMPLE: Moruvai’s army includes a unit of 60 goblin wolf riders. The wolf riders costs (240 x 4) 960gp per week to supply.

When Moruvai’s army captures 500 normal men, the ruthless ruinguard decides to use the prisoners as food for the wolf riders. Normal men have 1-1 HD, so they are worth 5xp each. Therefore they supply (500 x 5) 2,500gp worth of meat to the wolf riders, enough to keep the unit in supply for 2½ weeks.

However, Moruvai’s army includes four units of human mercenaries. Upon seeing prisoners of their race devoured by the wolf riders, each of these units must now make a loyalty roll. One of the units fails its roll and deserts. Undeterred, Moruvai sends his wolf riders to capture the deserters. Some problems create their own solutions…

Great rules. I figure that base wolf rider wages assumes you let them … supplement, their diets somewhat. I do have a few quibbles on the moral rules:

I think that this moral roll might be waived for certain chaotic units. Certain chaotic races/groups may be cannibals themselves and only raise issue that good meat was wasted on mere beasts. Others might not care about the fates of the enemy’s dead, but care a lot about their own casualties. There might be others that roll as normal (they are bad, but not THAT bad).

This does seem not to take into account the possibility of supplementing a beast’s diet with the recently dead soldiers (of the enemy, hopefully). While still a frowned upon practice, it isn’t quite as bad as killing prisoners. They may not last long, but if the goblins are good at smoking flesh (so that their pets don’t get too hungry), or the beasts are able to subsist on partially rotten flesh like most scavengers, or if the environment is such that rot is slowed (as in a tundra), it could last for a good time. A battlefield leaves a treasure-trove for the discerning dire wolf.

It is also noteworthy that the soldiers only care if their own kind are eaten. Humans don’t care about elves, elves don’t care about humans. This might require some guidelines for Judge interpretation more than hard-and-fast rules…