Chronicles of Yore: Open Combat on a Drear Heath

A while ago, I had the privilege of teaching my room-mate one of my new favorite skirmish games, Open Combat. Open Combat is a fast-playing skirmish game. It's main strong points are: streamlined, easy-to-learn rules of play; an easy system for creating characters (more on that below); and a robust combat mechanic that makes for balanced, crunchy, strategic play (MUCH more on that below).

What follows is a battle report, as well as what I have to admit is kind of a bear of a game review. This has been a loooong time coming—I told Carl Brown, the author of Open Combat, that I'd do one way back when I first bought the rules last October (sorry about that, Carl, if you're reading.) 

(I've separated the rule discussion in italicized footnotes at the end, so that I won't bore anyone who's interested in the pretty pictures. If you just want to know what I think overall, you can skip to the bottom—you lout.) 

We set up on my then-new teddy bear fur gaming mat, with a fay circle of standing stones, some ancient barrow mounds nearby, a desolate spinney of trees on a ridge, and some cairns marking the long road between Skeldkryk and Drycud-upon-Gyre.

We decided on using the basic "Open Combat" scenario for simplicity, in which the goal is to reduce the opposing warband to their break point* and make them quit the field.

We also, for simplicity, played with (more-or-less) mirrored forces which I worked up in about 5 minutes.*

For setup, we rolled “Confrontation,” meaning that instead of board-edge or –corner deployment, we took turns placing figures anywhere on the table at least 8” from an opponent. I deployed the bulk of my troops in the circle of stones, deciding that the Fell Glendywr, my wizard, was trying to use the convergence of leylines to work some necromantic majicks, perhaps bestirring the denizens of the barrow-mounds…

Tom (my room-mate) very neatly set up to surround me. He also placed his ogre** (who he named Percival) as a guard at the barrows for, it turned out, this was the burial place of his ancestors and he would not see the place defiled.

I split my band into two forces. I sent one force (comprised of Brittleghast, the Gribbly-wight, and the Flayer of Shins) to pry Percival the Ogre and the Hunchyman Ludwig of Flür from the ancestral tomb…perhaps they would prove useful for Glendywr’s ritual…

I sent the rest of my band to guard the right flank using the standing stones as a defensive picket, with Glendywr supporting the line with his ensorcellments***.    

Above you can see as Bale Grimly positions himself to hold the gap between a carved head and a stack of (oddly cuboid) rocks. Meanwhile, Skjorn Boarkinder pushes along the right flank, supported by Greer. Together, they form a sort of loose battle line(****) protecting the edge of the ring of stones, while Glendywr begins his black chanting.

Greer stalks the flank of the field, looking for an opportunity to strike where the flesh is soft...

...and Tom's leader, Ulthar IV, strikes at my battle line, trying to ride down Bale Grimly before his demonic comrade could come to his aid...

Meanwhile on the other side of the circle, Brittleghast and his complement stop to bandy a few insults and prepare themselves...

...before charging uphill at a stubborn ogre. Percival, doing much honor to his forefathers, holds his attackers at bay on the threshold of the barrow before ultimately forcing them to withdraw back down the hill.

The fight for the standing stones intensifies as the individual duels converge, then break apart, then converge again. On my side, Skjorn is run through and left expire, while Bale Grimly succumbs to his many wounds. As revenge on Tom's side, Mel-tead B'tar and the Viscount of the Flies are bludgeoned into the mud. Tom's reserves begin to threaten my flank but neither side is able to gain the upper hand*****...

...until Ulthar and Greer are finally able to come to grips.

The scrum closes again, with Tom's reserves desperately trying to stave off the combined force of Brittleghast's sweetly swinging axe and the formidable intensity of Greer's battle-ire.  Desperation then turns to despair as Greer's heavy blade finds the breast of Ludwig of Peregrine and cleaves it open (causing Tom's warband to reach their breakpoint). Ulthar's men turn and flee at the sight, broken and lost to reason.

*Force Creation and Breakpoint: Characters in Open Combat have five stats—Speed, Attack, Defense, Fortitude, and Mind. To create a character, you just decide on values for each stat…and add them up. If you want to tweak a profile—say, add an extra point of attack, that change will cost one point. Likewise, all weapons and special abilities cost one point each. On the face of it, this system seems very easy to unbalance, but it’s not…but I’ll get into that at length.

The Breakpoint is determined by adding up the units FOR and MIN values and dividing by two. During the game, each player tracks his band’s total FOR and MIN (percentile dice come in handy for this) and once it reaches the BP, the band is forced to cede the field.

**Monsters and Mounted units are treated the same in OC. Mainly, they are able to push units farther in combat (which makes them quite dangerous among confined spaces) and they are slightly less reliable to activate: at the beginning of their activation, you roll a die. If you roll poorly, the character will only have limited actions, and if you roll very poorly your monster/mounted fighter won’t activate at all and your turn will end.  I find this abstraction very satisfying for this level of game, and it adds an element of risk-management into using your potentially more powerful units. (This mechanic, by the way, is borrowed from Blood Bowl—and it’s not the only one, as we’ll see.)

***Open Combat does not have a dedicated majick system—which may seem odd for a rule-set that purports to cover all pre-gunpowder periods both historical and fantastical. However, it’s important to realize that the special rules, though named in very concrete ways (dagger, shield, intimidate, etc.), are actually quite abstract and can be used to represent quite a lot. I find that the rules for psychological attacks combined with ranged weapon rules like Crossbow or Javelin can represent quite a powerful wizard; in fact, I find this to be much more flexible than the standard magic rules for SoBH (though SoBH supplements have rules for summoners, necromancers, illusionists, et. al., which OC currently lacks; however expansions are promised). 

****Positioning is very important in OC, because attacking a character's rear facing means that that character will halve their defense value. This is usually the difference between rolling one, two, or three attack dice (see below) which can translate into a significantly greater chance of doing damage. And then when you consider that a character who is surrounded is likely to take damage when they are pushed back into an enemy, you begin to look for ways to get around your opponent.  Scrums in OC therefore, are often decided by who can maintain the integrity of their battle line while compromising that of their opponent. I find this both realistic and strategically challenging.

*****Combat and game balance: remember how I said that the game is tough to unbalance? The reason for that is the combat mechanic, which is the heart of the game. 

Incidentally, it's also the heart of another great game: Blood Bowl. As it turns out, Carl Brown used to play in the GW studio league...and it was reading that little factoid on Gav Thorpe's blog that convinced me to give these rules a try. I could not have been better rewarded, because it turns out that combat in OC is a modified version of the block dice mechanic that makes BB so great.

Here's how it works. When you make an attack, you compare your character's ATK to your opponent's DEF. If your ATK is less than or equal to your opponent's DEF, you roll one attack die. 

On a 1, not only do you fail to do any damage, but your turn immediately ends (just like rolling a skull in BB). A 2 is basically a tie—no telling blows are struck. 3 or 4 allows you to push your opponent back, potentially doing damage by pushing them into other characters or terrain. A five does a point of damage. A 6 deals damage and allows you to push back. I've summarized these results and their probabilities in the table below, but it's basically a 1 in 3 chance each of doing damage, pushing back, or doing nothing at all.

1 Die
Turn Over	Impasse	Pushback Only	Damage Only	Damage+push
1/6	1/6	2/6	1/6	1/6
16.67%	16.67%	33.33%	16.67%	16.67%
			Any Damage
			2/6
			33.33%

Now if your ATK is greater than your opponent's DEF, you get to roll 2 dice and choose the higher one. This has the effect of skewing the probabilities towards the higher results. Instead of a 1/3 chance of doing damage, you have a chance slightly better than 1/2, while your chance for a turnover becomes minimal. Additionally, in close combat you have the opportunity to score additional hits (i.e., if more than one die comes up as 5 or 6). I've included a separate column with the odds for that happening.

2 Dice
Turn Over	Impasse	Pushback Only	Damage Only	Damage+push	Additional Hit
1/36	3/36	12/36	9/36	11/36	4/36
2.78%	8.33%	33.33%	25.00%	30.56%	11.11%
			Any Damage
			20/36
			55.56%

Finally, if your ATK is more than double your opponent's DEF, you get to roll 3 dice and choose one. This skews the results even more, such that you have better than a 2/3 chance of doing damage, and about a 1/4 chance of doing 2 or more damage. Your chances of turning over are incredibly low (though not impossible) and you are equally as likely to score 3 damage as to score either a turn over or an impasse.

3 Dice
Turn Over	Impasse	Pushback Only	Damage Only	Damage+push	1 Additional Hit	2 Additional Hits
1/216	7/216	56/216	61/216	91/216	48/216	8/216
0.46%	3.24%	25.93%	28.24%	42.13%	22.22%	3.70%
			Any Damage
			152/216
			70.37%

The upshot of all this is that, yes, high ATK characters can be very dangerous. And high DEF characters are relatively difficult to take out. But here's the thing: no matter how weak or outclassed your character is, they always have a 1/3 chance of doing damage. (This is in contrast to some situations in games like SoBH—itself a reasonably balanced game—where weaker characters simply stand no chance of getting a positive outcome in a fight.) 

Furthermore, you can even the odds on a powerful character by swarming them with weaker characters. If you get the powerful model surrounded, this can actually improve the odds of  damaging the character to 2/3—since scoring a pushback into another character usually also causes damage (which would be 2 damage if you roll a six!). The only problem is that for each of these attacks you are at an increased risk for turnovers.

The alternative is to set up a group action that allows multiple figures to add their ATK scores together in one attack. The issue here is that none of the characters taking part in the group action can have activated...which means that you need to move them into combat the turn before and hope that they survive. 

However, if you know (or suspect, or are GMing a scenario in which) there will be a tough character to take down, you can design your force accordingly. Looking at the charts above, you can be pretty sure that your characters will survive if they have 3 fortitude or more when they are against an opponent rolling 2 dice, and that an opponent rolling 3 dice could only kill one character at most in a turn of attacks (using both actions to attack). This is true whether that opponent has 5 ATK or 50. Therefore it is easy to create a group of 4 or so fighters with low ATK and DEF but relatively high SPD and at least 3 FOR specifically to hunt your opponent's beefier characters. (They'd do even better armed with spears, which allow them to attack from an inch away). That profile would look like:

SPD	ATK	DEF	MIN	FOR	Special	Cost
5	1	3	1	3	Spear or handweapon, shield	15

...which at a cost of 15 (or 14 without the shield) would allow you to field a small group of these guys for just over a 3rd of  your total cost in a 'standard' 150 point game. Just make sure they don't get ganged up on or targeted with psychological attacks, because they'll go down quick!

Okay, we're at the part where I tell you my overall impression. Still with me? Wow, that's incredible.

I really like Open Combat. The way it combines ease of play, ease of adaptation, and challenging strategy is highly satisfying. The only drawback, in my skinflint estimation, is the price, which at 10 Great British-style dollars (just over 15 of the US-type 'bucks') for the PDF is just a hair expensive, considering there are only 3 scenarios, no dedicated majicks, and no campaign system. By contrast, the first SoBH book comes with a basic campaign system and a couple more scenarios, along with a comparably abstract system for basic magic, for only 8 bucks. (And I guess now there's Fightin' Fungi which has similar stuff and a detailed magic system for 10 bucks).

HOWEVER, as of the completion of the successful Kickstarter campaign to bring the book to print, there is going to be additional content in the form of more scenarios and a campaign system—which, when you consider the excellent production quality, will certainly make it worth the price. (Which is still basically just bus money, compared to many other game producers we could point to.)

SO IN CONCLUSION AT LAST: I highly recommend Open Combat. It has become my new go-to game for fun, fast, exciting fantasy game play. The mechanics are solid, the design is solid, and the rules are robust, clear, and easy to learn. I also anticipate that it's going to take the pressures of narrative scenario design quite well. It's easily my favorite game I've played in the last year, and I see getting many more years of enjoyment out of it.

You can let me know what you think by writing three comments in the box below, then choosing the best one.

Playtesting at the Club: The Dogs and The Dust

I haven't said much about it here yet (out of fear of hexing myself) but for the past six months or so, I have been tinkering away at a set of scifi skirmish rules called The Dogs and the Dust. The project originally started because I wanted a game with the simplicity of Song of Blades and Heroes but with the feel of Necromunda. It has since absorbed a lot of other elements: the shock system from Nuclear Rennaisance; a simplified version of the attack/shoot/magic dice and Dreadskull systems from Skulldred; a radically altered version of the command dice system from Chain of Command.

It's still very early days, but nevertheless the guys at CSW sportingly agreed to help in some preliminary play tests. What follows are some pictures from the game.  

Above: the beginning of a game-long standoff between Pat's commander and Josh's motile brain-in-a-jar.

Like SoBH and Skulldred, TD&TD is meant to be completely customisable. As a result, this three way game saw everything from walking lobotomies and storm troopers to mechanized walkers.

Pat's scout gets the drop on some storm troopers with poison flechettes.

I was testing a way of randomly generating objectives. There were d6 objectives (we rolled 4) that players took turns placing before deployment. Players could deploy characters anywhere within 12" of an edge and 6" from any opponent. After deployment, each objective was individually determined to be worth d6 victory points, and then each one was scattered either 3", 6", 12", or stayed put. As a result, the action was all over the map from the very first turn.

Government and Corporate troops play laser tag among tire sculptures.

There was a lot of absurdity as we encountered some...ah...soft spots in the rules. It was also a lot slower than I expected, running about two hours for a three player game (which is probably twice what a game of SoBH runs), so it definitely needs streamlining. But by the same token, the guys picked up the basics really quickly and seemed to enjoy themselves. A huge learning experience, all told. Still a lot of work to do going forward...

A complex showdown under the Noonan day sun.

...but hopefully some day soon, I'll have a beta test version to share...

Chronicles of Yore: Outpost Raiding for Fun and Profit

Here follows a battle report from a while ago now of a couple games of Nuclear Renaissance that I played with fellow CSW member, Tim. He brought his Neo-Soviet future men, and I, of course, brought my Slagscape Conservation Collective mounted up in their brand new Mayhem Machine.

It was a cold, fluorescent dawn over the crossroads community Orehill, last outpost of the Inner Outlands after the Unthinkable Incident.

...reason being, they had a well protected community bunker. Word was that it packed full of Canned, Hyper-Enriched, De-hydrated Dietary Aid Rations—commonly known in the wastes as C.H.E.D.D.A.R.s

As luck would have it, both bands of Wasteoids came across the same rumor. Informants are scarce out here. The Neo-Soviets roared out of the alkali dust on choppers and a land vessel.

Meanwhile, on the other end of town, the Slags rolled in off the hard pan. Slow going, since the Professor couldn't fit in the truck, what with his lobotomised gorilla body.

The Neo-sovs didn't waste much time getting into the center of town to crack open that bunker full of C.H.E.D.D.A.R.s.

But then neither did the Slags. As soon as they realized they weren't the only ones interested in a few recommended monthly allotments of calcium, they revved up the old Mayhem Machine and gunned it into town, with Graf Moxie and Janx Moogin spittin' fire from the copula.

Even though they commanded a full field of fire on the bunker, the Slag's were unable to close and make off with any of the cheez (the obvious outlander slang for C.H.E.D.D.A.R.s).

Meanwhile, the Soviet bikers buzzed along the flank, past the food carts, emptied of their cheez in the final minutes before the Incident.

Graf Moxxie got gunned down as he tried to leave the safety of his rolling fortress to make a dash for the bunker.

But the Slag's gave as good as they get. Downtown Orehill quickly becomes lousy with wasted Wasteoids.

It was at this point that the Neo-Sovs withdrew, figuring this particular haul was not worth the havoc. As it turned out, they had another trick in mind.

We decided to play another game representing the Slag's attempt to transport their hard-won C.H.E.D.D.A.R.s down the main road leading out of Orehill. This time, though, the Mayhem Machine was so packed with rations that none of the collective could take up crew space.

And it just so happened that the pissed off Soviets were waiting in ambush.

It didn't take long for them to start pouring hot lead and hotter plasma into the Mayhem Machine's hood.

Nor to start springing on their adversaries from the side streets.

Unfortunately, they were not counting on the as-yet un-tested Gatling prowess of Professor Parcival-Blythe.

After a flurry of exploding gas tanks and a hail of bullets, the road was clear...

...while the erstwhile bushwhacker met with the business end of Sprightly Jiles's Stunbrella.

It was hard fought, but the Collective won its way out of Orehill with the cheez in hand. There was much toasting on the Slagscape that night. The Conservation Collective celebrated with a fun do.

Chronicles of Yore: Teachin' Song of Blades

The nice thing about Song of Blades and other games sharing the 'small game, simple rules' philosophy is that new players can pick them up rapidly, even over the course of their first game. So when I invited a friend over to game (sometime in August, I think) and he wound up bringing two of his friends, I knew there was only really one choice.

I grabbed my deck of character cards and had each player choose a couple hundred points-worth of regular characters as well as a personality, just based on which figures appealed to them. Meanwhile I rolled out my gaming mat and some walls, cairns, trees, and stone heads. Then followed a bloody four-player brawl in two parts:

Once every year and a day rises over the 'wold the vermilion moon like the eye of  a dissipated god. It is said to awaken a hunger in man and dwimmer-beast alike, so that they spend the night in bloody carousal. Few, it is said, wake to see the sanguine dawn, but those that do awake renewed, with the knowledge that they have survived to see another foul year.

Among hollow cairns in the northeast, a party of dwimmer-beasts emerge in search of sacrifice. They close on a band of baleful men, sure in the advantage of darkness and surprise. But the men have the insight of the blood moon's rising. They seek struggle. They welcome strife.

Meanwhile in the Southwest, Dire men ride besotted, seeking the glory and bliss of death under the red moon's spell. Fortunately, Bilebroke's hunchymen are about and willing to oblige.

The struggle is joyous and desperate. The stones watch and chuckle their approbation.

At last, and one by one, the dwimmer-beasts are hunted down, and sent squealing back to the pit, while the hunchymen withdraw in terror and ecstasy into the night.

Barely sated, the maddened riders continue their charge across the fells, and the hunting party is glad of the change in sport. The red moon begins to set in the west, and each breath before the carnage stretches interminably like the streaks of red moonlight through the shivering trees. Soon the morning will come, and a new year will bestow it's ghastly, mocking smile upon the 'wold. But for the rest of this glorious witching hour, we all are lost.

Happy new year.

Chronicles of Yore: a Bloodbowl Match

My sister came to visit me back in August (!?) and surprised me completely when, after she saw my lovely wall-art, told me that she might like to learn how to play Blood Bowl. Actually, she was downright enthusiastic. See the bloodthristy delight below:

She also turned out to be a gifted team creator. Just check out the names on this roster!

I always find teaching Blood bowl to be kind of a slow process, because playing with the time limit is intimidating to new players. This game was therefore played over the course of two evenings, the first half without a time limit, and the second half, once my sister had the rules down, with the standard 4 minute turn.

So the Fightin' Fay squared off against the (highly unorthodox) defensive line of Who-Rah! and quickly found their way down the left sideline.

Ensnarion the catcher boldly attempts to outpace the opposition.

Before the close of the first half, however, the blitzer Meatface managed to pull the same trick to equalize.

I believe he also beat down a catcher in the process.

The second half, however, saw the swift fay defense snatch up the ball from Who-Rah!'s backfield and twinkle-toe into the end-zone.

It was a fun game, and I realized how the gonzo, off-the-wall tone of Blood Bowl can make it a perfect introduction for people who do not usually play tabletop games--as long as they don't mind committing to learning the rules, which can be a bit of a bear for novices. But once you get into the second half, the time-limit really transforms the game from super deep and crunchy to tense and action-packed.

You now have four minutes to leave a comment below. Don't turn over!

Chronicles of Yore: Song of Blades at Next Dimension Games

I seem to be developing a biannual tradition of shoving my poor blog under a rock and doing something else for a while. I think it might be part of a greater cosmic rythm in which I am helplessly enfolded. But now I'm back, I think. Merry Christmas.

Part of this return to blogging always involves going through the backlog of posts, several of which are batreps and AARs, that I couldn't bring myself to write (part of the reason the blog went dark in the first place), and that in the interrim have been swallowed in the mists of my less-than-perfect memory.

I'm calling these the Chronicles of Yore, and below is one such battle report from, I think, July. We had just discovered a wonderful little game store called Next Dimension Games, which was conveniently situated right along my commute from work. They had lots of gaming space, plenty of terrain, and friendly staff, and were, of course, defunct like two weeks later.

So enjoy some forgotten deeds from a land that is lost:

The puckish magician Glendywr had once more taken to trickery, stealing some arcane bauble from the Warder of Wyrd's purse o' gimcracks. Away he danced o'er the fields and into the lonesome fief.

So sent forth the sorcerer his nefarious clan to ride the hunchy-imp down. 

But to Glendywr's aid came a cadre of dark-livery'd knights.

Their liege had made pact with the stunted conjuror, offering amnesty in exchange for majicks most black.

Swift as night and dark as wind, these foul paladins swept the Fell Glendywr away.