This week marked my final fantasy
worldbuilding/creative writing class for the semester. I was hell
bent on ending on a loud note of mayhem and ludic anarchy so after
invoking the Battle of Helm's Deep, Pelennor Fields, and whatever in
tarnation that battle is called in The Lion, The Witch and The
Wardrobe in a mercifully brief lecture on the use of “final
battles” in fantasy storytelling, we dived right into a big giant
battle scene of our own.
Letting them divide up into two camps:
Good and Evil (endearingly all the girls chose this team), I pulled
out a big box of miniatures and several bags of homemade play doh.
Each so-called Good player was allowed to pick out 15 miniatures
while Evil got to make various abominations from the play doh and to
employ the large plastic dragons we painted last semester.
To handle the rules backend, I whipped
up a simplified system of By this Axe, presented here. You
will, of course, need a copy to make of By This Axe miniatures
rules to make any sense of this. PDF copy here, print copy here (all proceeds go to Autism Speaks).
Units are much
looser than in the regular rules. Individuals can move in a group for
mutual protection (to prevent flanking for instance) but are not
required to stay in any kind of order.
All range and
movement is measured with a regulation unsharpened Number 2 pencil.
Fighting Capacity, Armor Value
and Hits
Mooks (normal warriors and the
like) FC 2, AV 2 and can take one hit.
Tough 'Uns (heroes, big
monsters, commanders, knights etc) FC 3, AV 3 and can take two hits.
Heroes and heroines (who represent the player) never die they just
get knocked out (or fade away).
Duel Phase
Any hero can call out an opposing hero in one pencil range. Duels are
as normal in the rules. Note that in actual practice the dice pool
seemed to confuse them, you may want to substitute normal melee
combat.
Movement
Phase
Movement as normal, terrain is just for
show however. Movement must stop if it makes contact with an
opponent.
Slow Dudes (big monsters,
dwarves, giant sloths etc) half pencil.
Regular Dudes (foot soldiers,
goblins etc) one pencil.
Fast Dudes (mounted, flying) two
pencils.
Ranged Combat Phase
All weapons except for breath weapons
(which get two) get one chance to hit. Roll under FC to hit.
Short Ranged Weapons (breath
weapons, slings, muskets, javelins). One pencil range.
Long Ranged Weapons (bows,
crossbows). Two pencil range.
Melee Phase
As normal, except that players can
freely disengage figures from combat to “run away” during their
next movement phase.
Divine Intervention
Twice per battle, the player can “call on their patron god” to
intervene at any time. If a “6” is rolled on a d6 the god shows
up (She/He/It must be represented by a play doh creation) and
either grants two extra attacks, two extra saving throws or attacks
itself as a FC 5 creature. It disappears to the sidelines after the
turn is over.
Morale
No morale is used! Battle to the
grisly, child-friendly end.
Sounds like a good time was had by all. Particularly the play doh entities from beyond space and time.
ReplyDeleteAwesome. I really like the measuring with what's simple and on hand and the user made play-doh monsters. I had my players make treasure items out of it once, but abominations seems a better fit.
ReplyDelete