Colossal Creatures at Platoon Scale

A Colossal creature counts as a full 120-man unit at Company scale.

Presumably, platoon-scaled troops encountering a Colossal creature (bless their hearts, what were they thinking?) would be faced with a 2x2-hex-sized counter, with the attacks & UHP doubled, since it’s an ‘indivisible’ Company scaled unit?

Thanks!

I think the attacks and uhp should be quadrupled, based on the adjustment to the hit-point conversion ratio. Approximately, the platoon-scale ratio is 1 uhp = 17.5 hp (based on the “roll 5d6” formula), which is a quarter of the 1 uhp = 70 hp ratio at company scale.

For example, the 14 HD dragon summoned by Call Dragon has 63 hp, which equates to 1 uhp at company scale, but 4 uhp at platoon scale.

I feel like it makes more sense to have them in a 1x2 hex arrangement, since that “looks more like” a dragon’s shape, 30 feet wide by 60 feet long. Since some smaller soldiers could physically occupy the same surface area “footprint” as the dragon (say, up under its legs), it probably isn’t worth worrying about the longer size that much.

Thanks for noticing that I hadn’t covered this. Here is a workable solution. Please test, as I’ll be including in the rules.

Colossal Creature Units: At company scale, a solitary colossal creature constitutes a complete unit and occupies one full hex on the battlemap. At platoon scale, a solitary colossal creature still constitutes a complete unit, but it occupies three adjacent hexes on the battlemap. A platoon-scale colossal creature unit must have one of three facings such that it has three front hexes, four flank hexes, and two rear hexes (see the accompanying illustration). Use three unit counters to represent the unit on the battlemap.

Front

Rear

When a platoon-scale colossal creature unit’s counter occupies two or more different terrain types, treat it as being in whichever terrain the majority of its counter is occupying. If each hex of its counter is in a different terrain type, the commander chooses.

A platoon-scale colossal creature unit may not conduct movement (including retreats or withdrawals) which would cause any of its hexes to pass through or end in a hex containing another unit or obstacle unless the unit would be entitled to do so anyway (e.g. a Flyer above impassable forest). Attacks and effects can be targeted against any of the platoon-scale colossal creature unit’s hexes.

Ah - that’s clean, I like that. The 3-hex shape is the smallest approximation to a circle that’s not a single hex, and it’s easy to envision the creature being centered at the vertices of the three hexes.

Following from that, the unit can change facing within those same three hexes (from your diagram, from the Northward position to either the Southwest or Southeast positioning) for no cost during a march, and once before a hustle without a cost.

Any other repositioning, say to face the Northeast, would require a movement point (to shift the center vertex to occupy the vertex of the right and rear hexes). Would that sort of face change still be allowable under a hustle either before or during at some given cost in movement?

Also, the bit about movement passing through occupied hexes - let’s take the example of a ground unit in the presented position, marching one hex to the northeast, and at the same time changing it’s facing to the northeast (it’s front two hexes now occupy it’s previous left-most front hex and north-most right flank hex). Would that have been a legal move if another unit occupied it’s previous center front hex, and hence at some point during that movement it’s leftmost front hex would have “passed over” that hex? (the same would hold for a unit in either southern flank hex)

Or does it instead virtually squeeze itself through that left-most front hex and spread out into the new facing?

Does it move + change face like a solid piece, I guess, is what I’m asking. I’m guessing yes, but figured I’d throw it out here.

And since at least one of those paragraphs is crazy, here’s a picture. The cyan hexes are the unit, previously facing north. If it marches/changes face in the given direction, the overlap is the hexes that units could occupy to block that movement (or any movement, actually, for a non-flier).

https://436a4f5b-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/crowbarandbrick/home/colossal-marchface.png

For simplicity I would limit it to three facings, e.g. North, Southwest, and Southeast. In that circumstance the conditions you describe would not arise. At any point the Colossal Creature would only be able to change facing within hexes it already occupies.

As you’ve realized, vertice facings are certainly possible but the added level of complexity would be vastly disproportionate to the gain to playability.

If you’ve ever played Car Wars, you might remember how complex the rules became with the addition of, e.g., Hovercraft, which required an entire separate set of maneuver rules for every circumstance in the game. It hugely thickened the Deluxe Car Wars rulebook. Yet almost no one ever used Hovercraft. D@W is already getting close to Car Wars levels of complexity with regard to its special cases (chariots, etc.) so I guess I just have to draw a line somewhere!

If you end up working up house rules for vertice facings of three-hex creatures, let me know and we can host them on site.

Car Wars is a good time; Hot Wheels should come bundled with the rules. I don’t believe I’d ever played in a game where Hovercraft were offered however. May have never actually played Deluxe.

I may have been overly unclear - I’m not wanting it to face on the vertices; I’d expected that the unit would have had to change face and move in the direction of the arrow as one atomic action (i.e., make it’s center the B36/C35/C37 vertex, it’s middle front hex now being B38).

I was essentially seeking what it’d take for, say, a Purple Worm to haul it’s tail all the way around to face whence it came. I got stuck on if surrounding units would block the necessary turning-while-moving.

If that’s overly complex; is the implication then that units starting on opposing sides of the battlemat would only ever be able to face N/SW/SE or S/NW/NE depending on their original starting side, and therefore they’d rout back to their own side in a diagonal?

You’re right, I didn’t understand your question. You are pointing out that by moving 1 hex it’s possible to gain a facing which is straight south.

Let me ponder that.

:slight_smile:

I was trying to be so explicit I may have even lost myself on that one.

PLEASE REVIEW - REVISED TO ACCOUNT FOR KOEWN’S NOTES


Colossal Creature Units: At company scale, a solitary colossal creature constitutes a complete unit and occupies one full hex on the battlemap.

At platoon scale, a solitary colossal creature still constitutes a complete unit, but it occupies three adjacent hexes on the battlemap. Use three unit counters to represent the unit on the battlemap. This configuration gives the platoon-scale colossal creature unit three front hexes, four flank hexes, and two rear hexes. At the vertex of the platoon-scale colossal creature unit’s three hexes is its centerpoint. See the accompanying illustration.

Front

Rear

While marching, a platoon-scale colossal creature unit can change facing around its centerpoint for no cost. When hustling, it can change its facing around its centerpoint prior to moving, but any centerpoint facing changes during a hustle costs 2 hexes of movement each. Note that each such facing change is 120-degrees.

While marching, a platoon-scale colossal creature unit can also change facing by rotating around one of its hexes. Keep one of the unit’s three hexes stationary, and then shift its other two hexes clockwise or counterclockwise one hex each. Each rotational facing change costs 1 hex of movement.

When a platoon-scale colossal creature unit’s counter occupies two or more different terrain types, treat it as being in whichever terrain the majority of its counter is occupying. If each hex of its counter is in a different terrain type, the commander chooses.

A platoon-scale colossal creature unit may not conduct movement (including rotational facing changes, retreats, or withdrawals) which would cause any of its hexes to pass through or end in a hex containing another unit or obstacle unless the unit would be entitled to do so anyway (e.g. a Flyer above impassable forest). Attacks and effects can be targeted against any of the platoon-scale colossal creature unit’s hexes.

That works. Rotation about a hex was what I was reaching for and not grasping.

It’d be an interesting dance of cavalry and tough infantry (and well-stocked leadership) I think, but I’d expect it wouldn’t take that much to force, say, a non-flying Very Old Dragon type into a rout - all you’d need is 3 units in the right positions and you’d only need a Recoil result to get it off the board (quickly reducing to a rout due to limited movement options), which, if you had a mage or cleric handy, might not take even that long with magical damage in play to force Shock Rolls.

Not having calculated the D@W:B stats for a Very Old, I could be quite wrong.

It’d be worth the carnage…er, the fun, I mean… to make any colossal, non-flying brute an Unpredictable unit.

I kind of wonder what the population of Erebor was at the coming of Smaug, now, though.

Alex, should the text include any of the multipliers EHamilton suggested, as it’s still a “company sized unit”, for clarity in use?

Which multipliers? I’m not seeing anything by EHamilton in this thread.

The first reply after mine, #2, copied here:

I think the attacks and uhp should be quadrupled, based on the adjustment to the hit-point conversion ratio. Approximately, the platoon-scale ratio is 1 uhp = 17.5 hp (based on the “roll 5d6” formula), which is a quarter of the 1 uhp = 70 hp ratio at company scale.

For example, the 14 HD dragon summoned by Call Dragon has 63 hp, which equates to 1 uhp at company scale, but 4 uhp at platoon scale.

I feel like it makes more sense to have them in a 1x2 hex arrangement, since that “looks more like” a dragon’s shape, 30 feet wide by 60 feet long. Since some smaller soldiers could physically occupy the same surface area “footprint” as the dragon (say, up under its legs), it probably isn’t worth worrying about the longer size that much.


Here’s the direct link to the comment in case the boards are weird:

http://www.autarch.co/comment/14113#comment-14113

A Platoon-scale Colossal Creature has its uhp and number of attacks quadrupled. I have revised this in the rules.