DariusSolluman/MassCombat
The original Mass Combat System (v1.0) can be found at http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte049v/Exalted/MassCombat.html. However, I decided it needed a bit of spit and polish, and so reincarnated it over here. Most of the Using an Army section came over intact, but the Recruiting, Training and Maintenance have been utterly overhauled, with some commensumate chages in the Charms.
Using an Army (Or, Why bother?)
DariusSolluman/BasicExplanation Armies as Weapons, Morale as Health, Clashes as Scenes DariusSolluman/SimpleCase Army vs Army DariusSolluman/ComplexCase Army vs Exalt DariusSolluman/SwitchedOn Charms in a Clash DariusSolluman/TerrainShieldsAndHorsemanship DariusSolluman/FlanksManuversAndEnvelopment DariusSolluman/BreakingRoutingAndRallying
Recruiting and Training DariusSolluman/FiveBasicArmies The Five Basic Army templates DariusSolluman/Recruitment Getting the troops for an Army DariusSolluman/Training Getting the troops to fight together as an Army DariusSolluman/Maintenance Getting the troops to stay in the Army DariusSolluman/UnusalUnits Barbarians, the Undead, and other units which screw with these guidelines DariusSolluman/BuildingAnArmyExample An example of building an Army from scratch. DariusSolluman/ModifyingAnArmy Increasing or decreasing an Army's size, changing it's Attributes DariusSolluman/HealingAnArmy Rebuilding and rearming an Army that's suffered casualties DariusSolluman/MovingAnArmy Moving an Army to where it needs to be
Other complications
DariusSolluman/ExaltedMounts - When you Exalt has a Giant Riding Lizard or a Wolf Spider of tremendous size, it rather changes matters a bit. DariusSolluman/EnginesOfDestruction - Balista, Catapults, Implosion Bows, and So On DariusSolluman/SolarCharmsTactics Tactical Charms and Spells of the Solar Exalted DariusSolluman/CelestialCircleSorceryTactics Using the Celestial Circle of Magic at the Tactical Level DariusSolluman/TerrestrialCharmsTactics Tactical Charms and Spells of the Terrestrial Exalted DariusSolluman/TerrestrialCircleSorceryTactics Using the Terrestrial Circle of Magic at the Tactical Level DariusSolluman/CommentsOnVer2 Comments on the current version that don't go anywhere else. My gut impressions now that there's some playtest experience. DariusSolluman/CommentsOnVer1 Comments on the initally posted version. The page was a bit cluttered, so this is to help cler it off some.
Comments
So, during my game last night I had a chance to try out the mass combat system, in at least a rough and dirty set-up :)
The Circle was split up while stealing a daiklaive from a Lunar/barbarian tribe god- two to sneak in, and three to make a massive distraction and draw out the bulk of the barbarians. They did so by casting a Celestial Circle spell; minions of the Eyeless face.
This was a fairly large encampment, so I ruled that most of the barbarias would charge out, and that they're already ready to fight as an army. They were treated as a Talon, with a Commander who had a 2 in all relevant Attributes and Abilities. The Twillight who controlled the Minions was granted an impromptu Scale (which, in retrospect, was too strong, although it didn't matter in this case).
The Twillight had initative, and attacked the barbarians with his Minion Army. Fairly solid hit, but no damage. Next, the Zenith stepped up- burning all his Personal and over half his Peripheral essence to use Excellent Strike / One Weapon, Two Blows, with a wonderful description of using his hammer to knock horses into other horses and how the Minions stop attack to gruesomely feast upon the dead. His attack does a staggering amount of damage, utterly demoralizing the barbarians (they're reduced to their -6 HL from full in just those two attacks). The Dawn Archer then picks off the stragglers (makes them break).
It went smooth, quick and easy- easier than explaining Exalted's combat system to a new player. Further, it let me impromptu an entire army attacking much, much more easily. I'm happy :) And with a little bit of forethought and prep time (having a note on the size of the army and the Lesser Minions as an army force, for example), it'll handle just fine for the future. - DS
A few things: a) The *Zenith* used his hammer, not the Twilight. b) I burned a little more than half (16 Peripheral of 26, with all my 11 Personal left over) c) You totally forgot Koresh, the giant riding lizard, upon which everyone was charging the enemy. -Dim
Editty edits. And yeah... Koresh is a big enough thing to actually matter to even army scale units. See the new section -DariusSolluman/ExaltedMounts under Other Complications. I'm also drawing up numbers for standard armies for the Tinalion Chronicle- they'll be under Tinalion though.- DS
Reading through Mail and Steel now. I'm amused at the number of similiar assumptions that both I and the offical system made- and fully intend to steal both the rules about Fatigue and Duels rules, and quite possibly the Rally rules :) DS
Just really finished eating the rules of Mail and Steel.\\ I'm stunned. These are fantastic.
There's a few points I'm uncertain of- linking the health of the army and the leader's Health Levels seems somewhat questionable to me, and Charm Use. But overall, it's excellent- solidly well built and put together stuff. I'm tempted to chuck my stuff in favor of it without a playtest, but something tells me that would be foolish ;) But overall, this is fabulous stuff, simply fabulous. DS
