Mass Combat in Adventurer Conqueror King

With you on the utility or the Napoleonics era model Alex, although you might find the US “legion” to be a little closer fit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_of_the_United_States

The combined arms approach embodied in mad anthony Waynes legion organization would defiently prove more flexible in handling armies with wizards and dragons than the more monolithic divisional organization in the contemporary armies of France, I would think. Maurice De Saxes’ Reveries might also provide some inspiration. The organization scheme he advocated was theoretical, and drawn from the Roman example, but along much the same lines.

Fireballs in OD&D and Swords and spell were 20’ Radius - 40 feet across. Arneson commented on ODD74 forum however that he allowed smaller ones if that is what the caster wanted.

Arneson’s original method of employing them can be found in his 1973 draft of the D&D rules and is as follows: “… the accuracy will vary with the distance of the intended target. Targets within 50 feet can be hit with 99% accuracy, at 55 feet 95%, accuracy, and the accuracy decreases a t 5% per every 10 feet.” (Glossary of Terms, p. 20)

Daniel - The Legion of the US is really interesting! I hadn’t been familiar with it before. Thanks for sharing it.

So Daniel/Bargle, am I to understand the timeline went like this:

  1. Chainmail Fireball - 10’ radius (catapult sized), hit based on player estimating range and angle
  2. Arneson Fireball - 20’ radius, % chance to hit based on range
  3. D&D Fireball - 20’ radius, always hits
    In other words with each iteration, fireball got more and more powerful.

As of v17 of ACKS, I have the fireball at 10’ radius, always hitting.

Well… was trying to avoid a CHAINMAIL argument with Cooper/Bargle, but the “error” he mentions is a bit far fetched. There is no “siege/man to man” scale in CHAINMAIL. Scale in CHAINMAIL is 1"=10 Yards. There is a note in the Man to Man section on misile weapons saying “Ranges for each weapon are divided into thirds for simplicity” - applying to weapons for which only a single maximum range had been given in the mass combat section. It doesn’t apply to catapults, only bows and such. Nothing is said about changing the area of effect and certainly nothing about altering siege warfare or any other scales in the game.

On p12 the heavy catapult has
Minimum Range 24" Maximum Range 48" Hit Area 3 1/2"

D&D rescales Yards to feet, such that 1"=10 feet, thus a fireball has an area of effect of 35 feet. Gygax simply rounded that to 40, he didn’t make “errors” converting his own stats, it is simply what he intended and Arneson agreed with. Coopers’ point about there being 10 or twenty catapults represented in a single catapult unit is not relevent, since the single wizard is equal to the unit, whatever it’s size.

  1. and 3) should probably be reversed. The detials in Arneson manuscript suggest very strongly that it is the final version he was preparing when Gygax published the Lake geneva draft that Dave complained was “not right”. So I think Dave was trying to curb the “always hitting” rule. I used a variation of the chance to hit rule in D@D. (and CoZ), but in dungeons, it rarely comes into play.
  1. fireball description in 0d&d says 20 feet and, “this is larger than the fireball in CHAINMAIL. CM’s fireball is 3 1/2”

  2. catapult and bombard rules are not in the mass combat section of CM, the are in the missile fire section of CM and in no less than 3 instances refer the reader to the siege/man to man section. Catapults were not used in mass combat; in real life, or in CM.

  3. ranges are in 10 yards, are of effects are in 1 yards.

since the catapult was for use in man to man siege, one must ask themselves, given that 1 figure represents 1 man (let’s say a 5/8" miniature represents 1 man wielding a sword as S&S informs us) how man many ca be hit with a 3 1/2" catapult? 3 or 4? Or 30 or 40?

Furthermore! (all in good spirits Daniel!) using miniatures must inform us about effects. Ad&d spacing in a dungeon (4 men abreast with spears, 2 with swords, etc) comes directly from the basing figures from s&s. A man with a spear uses a base of 3/4". This gives 4 men in a 10 foot dungeon corridor. 1" was 1 yard in man to man scale, otherwise–using figures the rules would not allow more than single file fighting in a standard 10’ dungeon c

Of course using different sized miniatures changed the area of effects and numbers of men effected.

CM has a man on a 30mm or 54mm base. I believe it was all codified in swords and spells as men on a 5/8" inch base, but look at the size of creatures and look at their area of effect. A wizards fireball of 3 1/2" cannot effect that many heroes in man to man combat if the hero is on any one of those bases.

And lastly. Te very idea of indoor and outdoor scale comes directly from chainmails mass combat/man to man scale. D&D combined and mixed all scales in a mash (12" but indoors it’s at a snails pace, 1" 10 feet but three 5/8ths bases can fit in a 10 foot corridor, etc).

So, man scale was something but d&d just mashed it all up 10 yards 10 feet and 3 feet. It’s as much a mess as the economy. Best to have–like CHAINMAIL, multiple rounds of melee per 1 minute turn, but movement rates and scales that match. Which means that if a 5/8th base of 10 men move 120" yards in 1 min. Than a single 5/8" man moves 12 yards in 6 seconds and wizards cast 1 spell per minute.

Then you can zoom in and out of the battle field–from man to men without continuity problems.

I apologize, I’m on my iPhone and it’s difficult to type in these reply boxes.

The best example is giants and thrown rocks in 0d&d itself referencing CM.

here’s some more interesting information.

1 cubic foot of stone is roughly 150 lbs. A boulder 10’ in diameter would weight roughly 25,000 lbs. No giant is going to do anything like throw that 200’. A giant throws a rock with a light catapult ( 2" area of damage according to 0d&d as informed by CHAINMAIL). The potential targets hit cannot be more than anyone standing withing 6 feet of the missile, it certainly cannot be 20 foot radius of foes.

The size of stones of roman catapults:

Quote:
When the torsion principle was perfected, it became possible to fire a stone weighting as much as 78 kilograms. Indeed, the Roman military engineer Vitruvius gives dimensions for catapults firing stones as heavy as 162 kilograms, although such giant machines may never have been actually constructed. More typical machines fired balls weighing from 13 to 26 kilograms.

The average size and range of a catapult missile: “The longest recorded range for a catapult firing an arrow of the ordinary size, about 70 centimeters, was about 640 meters, and there is some reason to believe the claim was not inflated.”

The largest Bombard in the world Was the “tzar’s cannon” in red square which is about 2 1/2" feet in diameter.

So, in CHAINMAIL a small catapult is 2’ feet across and a large is 3 1/2’ which is quite generous for a damage area.

hmmm…pg. 60 and 121 of the reformatted 0d&d reference a “sling ended” catapult which fires in a “shotgun like” formation, presumably of multiple rocks. Only those have a area of 2" and 3 1/2".

This is area and not radius whatever that means. Presumably then, the boulders thrown by giants (1-2 foot diameter at most) then were single target missile weapons and could not damage multiple creatures.

Interesting! This was not mentioned in CM, I feel as if this is a retcon of sorts so as to account for the size of catapult shots referenced in CM. As 3 1/2" only works in 1" 1 yard scale and there was no way to keep the area of damage at 2" and 3 1/2" in the 1" 10 foot scale. So a "sling ended"catapult has a damage area of 20 feet or 20 yards outdoors…laughable.

Indeed, giants missile fire effects only one target and is not “sling ended” and the sling ended option is not available in CHAINMAIL.

Well, now here goes the arguement I was trying to avoid…

First, base size is irrelevant in CM, because the rules were written to accomodate whatever fiigures you had - thus the 1" melee distance and 3" melee range. Gygax mentioned using all sorts of figures in his battles, including plastic toy monsters from the 5 and dime.

Second “catapults” in CM (and in the ‘60’ and '70’s generally) is used as a generic term to include any kind of large mechanical missle hurling device. Finer distinctions like trebuche and ballista etc, were not being made, no more than they were for the variety of Cannon. This is why Gygax notes the use of different types of shot (shotgun and dart) in Underworld and Wilderness Adventures (p27). Your misunderstanding here may be why you made the claim that catapults were only employed in sieges. Of course, that is not true, there are many types of catapults employed in field battles - the Romans and Byzantines loved to use them.

Third, I’m sorry coop, but you are not going to convince me that there is a special hidden and completely unmentioned scale for area of effect in CHAINMAIL.

Forth - Fireballs in OD&D have a RADIUS of 20’ - that’s a 40 foot circle area of effect.

Well, gygaxian clearly lists base size for the fantasy supplement, and most fantastic creatures outside of elves, orcs, goblins (anything with a 30-300 # appearing in d&d) were extensions of the man to man game.

If you look at the “leader” from the man to man write up you see much of the same language as the hero, army commander shares much with the super hero, wizard is a single catapult, dragon a single creature–magic swords and armor are specifically referenced to man to man combat.

The fantasy supplement in part allows you to run eowen and the nazgul, beorn and bolg. The wizards fireball chases off a single dragon not a flight of 20, likewise the dragons breath is designed for roasting 1:1 figures and gygax’s rules for how many people can stand shoulder to shoulder in a dungeon (the man to man game) is derived from a 1" 1 yard formula taking the basing structures from s&s.

So, if a single giant throws a rock at a single wizard on a 5/8" base, how big of an area effect is his 2" rock?

In swords and spells, gygax recommended 5/8" figure of men, orcs, elves and dwarves at 10 men to 10 yards. This would give us a man taking up 5/8" of 1 yard (3 feet) or 22.5 inches for a man wielding a small or thrusting weapon like a short sword or spear. A long sword requires a 3/4" base as does slightly larger than man sized creatures (bugbear or lion), so our elf armed with a longsword takes up 27 inches or just over 2 feet to fight properly.

So 4 elves armed with longswords or 5 elves armed with spears or short swords can fight in a 10’ corridor.

However! this only applies to fighting in formation with like troops. An open attack order requires 3 feet (1") between allies which would give us 2 elves armed with longswords or daggers could fight side by side.

It looks like gygax split the difference between 4 and 2 and pretty much just say 3 abreast down a 10’ dungeon corridor.

Found it. DMG says the combat table is 1" = 3 feet. The exploration maps are 1" = 10 feet, 1" = 10 yards, and 1" (hex) = 5 miles.

Nobody expects a fireball to turn into a neutron bomb just because you’re on the wilderness exploration map, do they? Why is the dungeon ‘exploration’ map any different? The person gary put in charge of writing up the PHB volume was wrong. No where does the fireball description say 20 feet, or 20 yards, it simply says 2". And in combat, gary says the game table is 1" = 3 feet.

Combat is not done on the 1" = 10 feet map grid. That map is for exploration only.

Even if the killing power/gp of a fireball is less than the troops you get for that coin seeing 50 of your mates getting roasted at once ought to be a tough morale check.

I solved the Fireball vs Medieval Tactics issue in my 1e Yggsburgh game by not having it be a common spell. Easy to do in 1e thanks to the various restrictions it places on M-U spell acquisition, plus the culture restricts access to offensive magic due to sensible fear of out-of-control wizards.

I was wondering if this kind of slight tweak is easy in ACKS, or does it hardcode in routine fireballing?

That sort of tweak is very easy to do in ACKS. I was actually contemplating just that same concept for a Ravenloft-style gothic horror ACKS campaign.

I was debating getting ACK, but seeing that its tactical system assumes too little abstraction and too much miniature-battle mechanics, I guess I will pass on it. I am not trying to rant here, but just offering some insight why I, for one, am not buying the game. If there is ever going to be an option for those of us who desire a more abstracted battle system (Birthright did that brilliantly), I will be glad to reconsider.

I just posted my version of D&D mass combat rules here:
http://olddungeonmaster.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/dd-wars-mass-combat-rules/
I would love to have you compair them to your’s.
Thanks,
Ronny