[Malhavoc] cry havoc!
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BiggusGeekus@Work
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How well does it integrate individual character action with mass combat?
Azure Trance
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I need a Psion review.
Emiricol
Registered User
From the Malhavoc web site:
This seems odd to me since 1E didn't have it; 2E didn't have it; and the 3E DMG is already 256 pages. I suspect it wasn't included because of chainmail, more more importantly because it's never been included and there wasn't room.
Having said that, I'm keeping a keen eye on the reviews. It's probably true that the team that did Cry Havoc is among the best qualified in the industry to put something like this together!
This seems odd to me since 1E didn't have it; 2E didn't have it; and the 3E DMG is already 256 pages. I suspect it wasn't included because of chainmail, more more importantly because it's never been included and there wasn't room.
Having said that, I'm keeping a keen eye on the reviews. It's probably true that the team that did Cry Havoc is among the best qualified in the industry to put something like this together!
Looks like a D&D friendly system.
Couple of comments (not sure if I'm not reading the example of combat closely enough, or whether they're taken care of elsewhere in the system):
1) Unless my grasp of stats is wrong, when rolling 10 d20 the average of the result is more likely to tend towards 10 than when rolling 1 d20 (less deviation?). Therefore, the BAB of the critters becomes more important under D&D, but this doesn't seem to be reflected by CH. This may be intentional (and I don't see it slipping past the designers) because a unit's fate depends on the others in that unit. It does keep the role of luck on the battlefield lively, which has it's pluses and negatives (probably more pluses, as combat needs that dynamic and unpredictable aspect to it). Perhaps it's captured in that table 3-3 which we don't see?
2) It appears to spread wounds evenly over the unit until one of the critters runs out of HP. Not certain I like this; yes it's simple and probably saves a nightmarish amount of keeping track of casualties, yet the idea of a lucky volley of arrows dropping an ogre (instead of wounding the whole unit equally for some time, and then them all dropping like flies in quick succession later on) is an appealing one.
It also appears to give an advantage to high HP critters - you can wound them for 60 HP and they'll still be fighting at full capacity, whereas the orcs they're fighting have lots less attacks after receiving that same 60 HP of damage. This is a problem Warhammer has - better off spending points on troops that wind up wounded than dead, which demotes the role of light troops to mere delaying tactics.
Mind you, this does relect combat in D&D-World; a Solar can slice orcs all day at full strength until his last hit point drops, whereas the orcs he's slaying get less attacks with every swing. Despite that, this changes the battlefield dynamics as much as magic does, IMO, making it doubly hard to represent a medieval style battle if either side has big bads around.
But again, I haven't seen enough of the system.
Couple of comments (not sure if I'm not reading the example of combat closely enough, or whether they're taken care of elsewhere in the system):
1) Unless my grasp of stats is wrong, when rolling 10 d20 the average of the result is more likely to tend towards 10 than when rolling 1 d20 (less deviation?). Therefore, the BAB of the critters becomes more important under D&D, but this doesn't seem to be reflected by CH. This may be intentional (and I don't see it slipping past the designers) because a unit's fate depends on the others in that unit. It does keep the role of luck on the battlefield lively, which has it's pluses and negatives (probably more pluses, as combat needs that dynamic and unpredictable aspect to it). Perhaps it's captured in that table 3-3 which we don't see?
2) It appears to spread wounds evenly over the unit until one of the critters runs out of HP. Not certain I like this; yes it's simple and probably saves a nightmarish amount of keeping track of casualties, yet the idea of a lucky volley of arrows dropping an ogre (instead of wounding the whole unit equally for some time, and then them all dropping like flies in quick succession later on) is an appealing one.
It also appears to give an advantage to high HP critters - you can wound them for 60 HP and they'll still be fighting at full capacity, whereas the orcs they're fighting have lots less attacks after receiving that same 60 HP of damage. This is a problem Warhammer has - better off spending points on troops that wind up wounded than dead, which demotes the role of light troops to mere delaying tactics.
Mind you, this does relect combat in D&D-World; a Solar can slice orcs all day at full strength until his last hit point drops, whereas the orcs he's slaying get less attacks with every swing. Despite that, this changes the battlefield dynamics as much as magic does, IMO, making it doubly hard to represent a medieval style battle if either side has big bads around.
But again, I haven't seen enough of the system.
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