MASS COMBAT

In Dawn of Legends, where heros could be kings and queens, great warriors and war-leaders, there is often call for them to lead forth armies to defend their lands and strike down their enemies. There are two ways to handle the question of mass combat. Method one: The GM decides the outcome and/or allows limited PC participation to affect the outcome in some way. Method two: use this plugin, the Total Fuzion Mass Combat System!

This system is scalable, giving generals flexibility in army composition and new unit construction. There are listings of some common units in Appendix A. These are a sampling of the possible unit, but you may wish to follow the system shown below to create your own or expand the current listings.

This system should be used with miniatures and a hex map. You can use any terrain. Stacking of units is not allowed, except in the case of characters which may join any large unit.

Unit Composition
First, it is important to determine exactly what makes up fantasy battle units. Each unit will have a kind of HITS of it’s own. This should be a relatively small number which directly relates to the toughness and number of individuals in the unit in order to make the system fast and understandable. We’ll call them War Hits.

Typical Dawn of Legends Setting:
1 War Hit = 50 BODY

War Hits
War Hits are a scalable concept which are designed to allow you to create any size of army and figure the amount of damage they can sustain before they no longer become a useful force on the battlefield. War Hits are scalable to your campaign. Each War Hit represents a total amount of BODY that the a typical unit has in your campaign. For instance:

Typical Army Size Body/War Hit
Small (Iron Age or Dawn of Legends; hundreds of persons)
50
Medium (Middle Ages, later Iron Age; thousands)
100
Large (Empire Periods, Rennaisance, High Fantasy;
many thousands)
300
Immense (Modern era warfare, hundreds of thousands)
500+

Each War Hit represents an amount of BODY in the unit. In Dawn of Legends, the setting is low at 50 BODY/War Hit; typically kingdoms can be won and lost with mere scores or hundreds of warriors! Thought of another way, you could say 1 War Hit equals 250 HITS in Dawn of Legends, using the standard Fuzion calculation for HITS based on BODY. The first step in scaling your combat units is to find the basic statistics of individuals which make up your unit. Once you have this, you can find the total BODY of the unit by finding the combined total of BODY for all the individuals. In other words, if your unit has 35 individuals with a BODY of 3, then you have a total of 105 BODY for the unit. If you end up with a remainder, cast it away (drop all fractions when calculating War Hits). Here’s the formula for Dawn of Legends:

(Total # of Persons) x (Body per person) = Total Body per Unit

War Hits = (Total Body per Unit)/50
(Replace “50” with whatever you use in your campaign, if not using Dawn of Legends units.)

Here on out, we’ll focus on Dawn of Legends examples. You can easily extrapolate this into any army size by substituting the number of BODY you have chosen to use per War Hit instead of the Dawn of Legends 50.

You can also work backwards to find total numbers of individuals in a unit. Thus, if a unit of infantry had 2 War Hits, then the Total Body would be 100. If you had decided that the infantry was filled with reasonably average people, (Say 3 BODY), then the Total # of Persons in the unit would be 34. This number seems to be in line with a medieval or fantasy unit. After all, the Saxon system considered units of 7 or less to be Thieves, 35 or less was a Warband, and 100 or more an army! And since the system is scalable, you can build “massed infantry” units of hundreds of individuals by recruiting them at the per unit cost, and simply rearranging them into “combat units”. Massed together, they’d pack a bigger punch and could take more damage.

Summary: If you are creating units from scratch, keep in mind that a War Hit (using Dawn of Legends for example) is equivalent to 50 BODY of people or, thinking of it another way, 5 x 50 BODY = 250 HITS per War Hit.

Damage & HITS
Resistance
Time &
# Troops
Modifier
Modifier
Distance
1 Turn is
1 Hex is

1
+0
+0
x1
12 sec 2 m/yds
2
+5
+3
x1
12 sec 2 m/yds
3
+8
+4
x1
12 sec 2 m/yds
4
+10
+5
x4
48 sec 8 m/yds
6
+13
+7
x4
48 sec 8 m/yds
8
+15
+8
x4
48 sec 8 m/yds
12
+18
+9
x4
48 sec 8 m/yds
16
+20
+10
x8
1.5 min 16 m/yds
24
+23
+12
x8
1.5 min 16 m/yds
32
+25
+13
x8
1.5 min 16 m/yds
48
+28
+14
x8
1.5 min 16 m/yds
64
+30
+15
x16
3 min 32 m/yds
96
+33
+17
x16
3 min 32 m/yds
125
+35
+18
x16
3 min 32 m/yds
187
+38
+19
x16
3 min 32 m/yds
250
+40
+20
x32
6 min 64 m/yds
375
+43
+22
x32
6 min 64 m/yds
500
+45
+23
x32
6 min 64 m/yds
750
+48
+24
x32
6 min 64 m/yds
1000
+50
+25
x64
12 min 125 m/yds

Scaling
Next, it’s important to understand scaling. Rather than roll dozens of dice and figure damage for units with combined totals of thousands of HITS (Fuzion HITS, not War Hits), it’s far simpler and faster to scale the battles.

First divide up the units such that the scale of the battle remains somewhat uniform for all units. Note that if you use the conversions in the Appendix, this is already done for you.

Using the example from above, we have determined that each individual in our Infantry unit had pretty average stats, except that they were reasonably well trained. Thus using Instant Fuzion, we might have 3 MENTAL, 3 COMBAT, 3 PHYSICAL, and 4 MOVE.

Note: Instant Fuzion is simply a way to quickly note characters. I.e. instead of figuring out Intelligence, Willpower and Presence we lump them together and give the average value under MENTAL. Likewise, Technique, Reflex and Dexterity are grouped as COMBAT. Constitution, Strength, and Body are PHYSICAL. Move is, well MOVE!

They have a 3 PHYSICAL giving us 15 HITS a piece. We arm them with spatha for a total of 3d6 damage. Our calculations above have already determined for us the number of individuals in the group to be 33. Using the chart, we see the Damage and HITS modifier is +25. Thus our new unit has 40 HITS and does 2d6 + 35 HITS to opponents. Our well-trained infantry has a fighting skill of 4 (this counts for both melee, melee evade, and ranged evade since we are just summarizing the abilities for the average soldier in the unit). Looking at our equipment section on swords tells us that there is a +0 AV modifier. Thus the total AV for the unit is 3 (COMBAT stat) + 4 (skill) +0 (spatha) = 7. Next we figure the average person’s armor or Defense. We’ll equip them with Leather Armor for 6 points of Armor .

Cohesive Battle Rating
Each unit has a Cohesive Battle Rating (CBR) based on their fighting ability or strength of will. Essentially, this determines how easily a unit will break up when it gets hit in battle. It’s a combination of morale and training. For instance a bunch of peasants are ill trained, and liable to break up and run when a determined attacker such as professional saxon warriors explode into their midst. Also, one might note that although undead might not worry about such things as morale, they can still be scattered by an attack unless they are well trained or strongly controlled. Consult the table and formula below and use the lower of the two numbers for the CBR rating. When the unit takes half or greater its modified HITS after armor in a single attack, a CBR check is called for.

WILL + Concentration + 3d6 vs. DV 18

Combat Skill
Roll (3d6)
1
14+
2
13+
3
12+
4
11+
5
10+
6
9+
7
8+
8+
7+
Continuing our example, we have two options here. Using the straight combat skill gives us a CBR roll of 11+ on 3d6, referenced on the table at right. Using the formula, I know the Infantry have a 3 WILL (based on its 3 MENTAL Instant stat). I also know that usually the Concentration skill is an everyman skill with a value of 2 in it. These guys aren’t veterans, so I’ll leave the Concentration skill at 2. This gives us a 3 WILL plus 2 Concentration for a total of 5 plus 3d6 vs. a difficulty value of 18. Hmmm... this means I’d have to roll a 13+ on 3d6 to keep them from cracking up under pressure. The 11+ roll based on their skill sounds a lot better to me, so I’ll stick with a straight CBR roll of 11+, thus relying on that fine training I’m paying for. Note that many units in Dawn of Legends will not be such professional warriors, and would be more likely to have combat skills of 1 or 2. Calculating the Resistance for the unit (this is good against mind-affecting spells and PREsence attacks) is simple. Simply take the Resistance for an individual (MENTAL x 3 in our example case) and add the Resistance Modifier from the same chart we found the Damage & Hits modifier. For our unit, we have MENTAL (3) x 3 = 9 + 13 = 22 Resistance.

After doing all this work, we can finally bring it all together in a neat little package of information about this unit.

Caradoc’s Infantry (33 Individuals)
Move: 4 Hexes Melee: 7 Scaled Damage: 3d6+25
Defense: 6 Evade: 7 Scaled Hits: 40
CBR: 11+ Resistance: 22 War Hits: 2
Instant Stats: 3 MENTAL, 3 COMBAT, 3 PHYSICAL, 4 MOVE

Using CBR rolls allows players and GMs to keep track of veteran units. Should a GM desire, he may award a point of Experience to each unit which survives a battle on the winning side. These points may be saved and applied to the unit’s Concentration skill. Eventually, you could have even normally ill-equipped units become pretty tough veterans.

Battle Rules
Setting up the battle area is mostly up to the GM, although a little consulting with the players is probably in order. Size of the battle area can vary, but 3 x the fastest unit’s MOVE in hexes at the battlefield’s widest point is a decent rule of thumb. In cases where one army is not encircled by the other, each side should determine which side of the map is their Reserve Area. The attacker and defender should take turns placing units on the battle area or the reserve, with the attacker placing first. I’d recommend not allowing placing units farther than around 5 hexes from the edge of the battlefield. Also, units may be freely moved into or out of the reserve area during the Movement phase, although a unit may not be both moved into the reserve and moved out of the reserve in the same Turn. Additionally, no units may move into an enemy reserve area! The reserve area should be considered out-of-combat and units here are in Non-Combat status and movement. Obviously, if one or the other of the armies is encircled, then that army will have no reserve area, no place to withdraw to. Obviously, its best to use miniatures which at least vaguely resemble the individuals of the unit it is to represent. Good sized hexes on the hex map are also recommended so you can more easily accommodate very large or mounted miniature more easily. All of these set up guidelines are only suggestions, however, and a battlefield can look like anything you like.

Order of Battle
  1. Movement
    • Attacker Moves/Setsup units
    • Defender Moves/Sets up units
    • Repeat above until all untils have moved.
  2. Attack. All magical attacks occur simultaneously on their action, all missile attacks on their action, all charge attack on their action, and all melee attacks on their action. Thus, all Charges are resolved at the same time but before melee attacks. Note some weapons may allow the unit to attack in a different phase than usual. These will be noted in the unit descriptions.
    • Magical Attacks and Presence Attacks (large monsters & terrifying creatures may cause Fear if they wish. Units which are Afraid may not attack in any way.)
    • Ranged Attacks for units that have not yet moved.
    • Charge Attacks
    • Melee Attacks
    • Ranged Attacks for units that did move earlier in this Turn. Exception: Crossbow units may not both move and attack.
  3. Cohesive Battle Readiness Checks
    • Remove units which have taken more than their War Hits.
    • Units in combat (in a hex adjacent to an enemy) may voluntarily fall back one hex without changing facing.
    • Units which have succomed to Fear and Routed (the Presence attack is 30>=Resistance) must turn 180 degrees and run 1.5 x MOVE the opposite direction. DV falls to 0. They will proceed off the battlefield at this pace and DV until Rallied by a leader or Orator.
    • Surrender or Withdraw -or- repeat steps A-C.


Movement
The GM determines the relative distance and position of the units. The GM must also determine which army is the aggressor. Even if an army is on it’s home ground, if it is launching an attack against another army, then for the purposes of this particular battle, it is the attacker. That army must move all its units first, before the defender moves any of his. This represents a home ground advantage or defensive stance on the part of the defender.
A unit may move its MOVE in hexes per turn. To change facing, it costs one MOVE per hex side. Thus, for a unit to turn and face the opposite direction, it costs 3 MOVEs. A unit may not move into an opponents Reserve.
A unit equipped with spear may also Set. This means the unit may not move this turn, but if they are Charged, they gain +1D6 per 5 hexes the attacker moved versus the attacking unit for the first turn of melee.

Attack
A unit may make only make one damaging attack of any kind per turn. Individual characters attached to a unit may make a separate Magic or Fear attack as well.

Magic and Fear
First magic and Presence (Fear) attacks are resolved. This is all done simultaneously so if one wizard would have been annihilated by a rival’s magical attack, he still gets his spell off this turn before he dies. Wizards and Priests may cast their spells in any direction, not just the direction the unit is facing.
A terrible monster such as a dragon may decide to try to scare off its opponents rather than fight them. This kind of Fear or Presence attack does not count as an actual attack, however, so any Ranged, Charge or Melee attack it was planning to make can still be done. Roll Presence as normal, but it must act against the unit’s Resistance. Use this formula:

Unit Resistance = MENTAL x 3 + (Damage & Hits Modifier / 2)

Short Hand for Dawn of Legends Battles

If you’d like a faster, but less precise way to find DV’s for Dawn of Legends ranged mass combat simply follow this rule of thumb: Start at a DV of 12 for the first hex and add 2 for every 3 hexes away the target hex is.

Ranged Attack
All ranged attacks are resolved simultaneously. If the unit has not moved, it may make a missile attack now. The damage will be resolved before any charge or melee attacks, so if the unit is being charged, now is a good time to try to hit that unit before it does damage! Use the usual Fuzion rules for attacking and hitting, i.e. use 3d6 + attacking unit’s Attack Value (AV) vs. 10 + the defending unit’s Defense Value (DV).

Special Area Effect Rule for Ranged Attacks. Ranged attacks of units of 16 or more individuals are not resolved against the DV of the unit. Usually, a unit this size is trying to put as many missiles as they can into the target area (and in these larger-scale combats, they have enough time per Turn to really pepper an area, too!) Therefore, use the Targeting Against Range chart to find the Difficulty Value. For convenience, it is reprinted here.

Note that unless you have scaled the battle up or down, the default m/yds per hex using the standard units outlined in the Appendix is 16 m/yds for Dawn of Legends units. This means that the Difficulty Value will be at least a 12.

A unit making ranged attacks can attack enemy units within a 60 degree arc of its facing. It may not make ranged attacks against units which engaged it in a Charge or Melee attack the previous turn or are still in an adjacent hex.

Range Melee Close Medium Long Extreme
M/Yds <4m/yds <10m/yds <50 m/yds >51m/yds* >Listed Range
to Hit
4
8
12
16
16(+2)

* Up to Listed Range of Weapon
** +2 for every 50m past listed range

Charge Attack
All charges are resolved simultaneously. Only units with a Charge rating may make this kind of attack. It is resolved before melee, so it is possible to destroy an entire unit before it has a chance to react! Generally, units equipped with Lances of some sort have a Charge rating. Also, a few especially virulent units of Berserker may have a Charge rating. The unit must be in a hex adjacent to its target and facing it to complete the attack. A minimum of one hex must be between the charging unit and the defending unit at the start of the Movement phase in order to Charge.

Melee Attack
Again, all Melee attacks are resolved simultaneously. Use the Fuzion method of AV + 3d6 vs. DV + 10 to determine whether a hit may have been made. A unit may only attack units which it is facing!

Ranged Attack for Units which Moved
Units which moved but have not already attacked may attack now. Crossbow units may not attack if they already moved. Use the same rules as in Ranged Attack above.

Special note on Attacked Units: When an enemy unit moves into a hex adjacent to an enemy and is facing its target, the target unit may not move except to change facing. Such units are “locked into combat” until one unit or the other is forced to Fall Back or voluntarily falls back in phase C) CBR checks.

Regarding Fortifications
When attacking units protected by defensive works such as hill forts, dikes and defensive walls, add the value of the defense to both the unit’s Evade and Defense. Thus a defensive dike (value of 2) would give us an Evade of 9 and defense of 8 for Cadwallon’s Infantry, the example unit above. Likewise, a hill fort would give it’s level in defense for any unit inside fighting a unit outside.

Damage
Determine damage by figuring the Scaled Damage. Subtract the Defense of the unit and compare the remaining hits to the Scaled Hits of the unit. If Hits done by the attack is greater than half the Scaled Hits of the unit, the unit must make a Cohesive Battle Readiness (CBR) check. If the check is failed, the unit takes one War Hit and must roll another CBR check! Each CBR check that is failed removes one hit from the unit. When the hits taken equals or exceeds the War Hits for the unit, the unit is destroyed. You must continue rolling for the CBR check until the unit succeeds the check or suffers enough War Hits to eliminate it. Each War Hit the unit has sustained reduces the unit’s AV and DV by 2. See the following charts for details.

Note: If a unit takes its maximum Hits rating in one attack, that unit is destroyed immediately -- no CBR check allowed.

Results:
  • 1 War Hit per failed CBR Roll.
  • -2 AV and DV per War Hit.
  • Fall back one space per failed CBR Roll. Unit keeps facing, but moves backwards.
  • If the unit falling back collides with a friendly unit, that unit must make an unmodified CBR roll. If it, too, collides with another friendly unit, the chain reaction continues!
  • If the unit falling back collides with an enemy unit, the unit falling back is destroyed immediately.
  • Exception: Units in a Fortification need not move backwards.
Damage Taken Is CBR Roll + Modification
>=x1/2 Scaled Hits
CBR Roll
>=x1/2 Scaled Hits + 5
CBR Roll -1
>=x1/2 Scaled Hits + 10
CBR Roll -2
>=x1/2 Scaled Hits + 15
CBR Roll -3
>=x1/2 Scaled Hits + 20
CBR Roll -4
>=x1/2 Scaled Hits + 25
CBR Roll -5
etc.
etc.

Fall Back
If a unit is forced to fall back due to a failed CBR check, or chooses to do so voluntarily, move the unit backward one hex (opposite direction the unit is facing). If the unit will fall back into a space occupied by an enemy unit, then it is immediately destroyed and removed. If the unit falls back into a space occupied by a friendly unit, that unit must fall back as well and make a CBR check to maintain cohesion. Finally, if any unit falls back for any reason, it may not Charge in the following phase. This reflects the chaos the unit is put in by falling back.

If a unit is currently defending a fortification, it does not need to give ground by moving back a hex.

Rally by Leader or Orator
If a unit is fleeing the battlefield, it may still be possible for a leader or great orator to rally the terrified troops. A leader with the panicked troops, or having met up with them, may make a Leadership check vs. a DV of 18. Success means the troops have taken heart and are willing to reenter the fray! Likewise, a skilled Orator such as a Bard can also rally troops with a successful Interaction or Artisan Skill: Oration vs. DV 18.

Surrender or Withdraw
At the end of a Turn, and general may call for a withdrawal. If he does so, he sacrifices any and all units left on the battlefield. He may withdraw only the units in his Reserve. A general is forced to withdraw if all of his units have been placed into the Reserve at the end of the turn. In addition, for every unit of cavalry in a victor’s army one unit is destroyed in the retreating army (retreating general’s choice) minus one for every cavalry unit the retreating army has.

A general may attempt to surrender at any time. The terms of surrender are entirely negotiable and should be roleplayed. Additionally, a surrender need not be accepted!

Special Rules
Tactics
A character leading a unit with the Tactics skill can improve the units AV, DV or CBR with a successful check vs. a DV of 18. If the check is successful (INT + Tactics skill + 3d6 vs. 18) the character can add a +1 to AV, DV or CBR for one Turn. For every 2 points the character makes this check by, an additional +1 may be applied to the same values.

Inspiration
A character with Leadership or Oratory can improve the CBR of the unit for one Turn. The CBR roll can be improved by +1 for every two points the character exceeds the DV of 18.

The character may also attempt to inspire the troops with an impressive deed as well. For instance, by singling out an opponent and successfully striking him, the Leader may gain a bonus to add to his unit’s AV. If in a single blow the character reduces his enemy’s HITS by half, that’s a +1. If it’s by 3/4, that’s a +2. Killing the enemy outright should earn a +3 to the character’s unit’s AV. Other heroic actions can earn similar bonuses—this is limited only by the players’ or the GM’s imagination.

Criticals
• If a unit rolls three “6”s on his attack roll, it inflicts maximum damage upon the target unit.
• If a unit rolls three “1”s on his attack roll, it loses its next attack!
• An unmodified Attack Roll of 17 or 18 always hits, and an unmodified roll of 3 or 4 always misses.
• If a unit rolls three “6”s on his CBR roll, it recovers one War Hit free! (if it was missing one already).
• If a unit rolls three “1”s on his CBR roll, it is immediately destroyed as the troops despair of battle or blindly panic.

Characters vs. Units
A character or exceptional being may engage an entire unit, but remember that it will not have the Damage and Hits modifier. Thus it will have to do a lot of damage to force a CBR roll. The character may also take a lot of damage!

Magic
Generally, only area affect magical attacks are going to have an effect on the battlefield. As a rule of thumb, multiply the HITS done in the attack x2 for an area affect attack, x1.5 for an explosive area affect. If you can actually field an entire unit of spellcasters, then use the multiplier and then add the Damage modifier.

Spells may not be cast in excess of their listed range, unlike missile weapons.