Simultaneous rounds

That's a great idea!

Should get back to writing those wood elf warbands again.

Anyway you are correct, they probably wouldn't have time.

Cool. I have a rough Wood Elf band I've been working on, I'll post it tomorrow night. (/End talking about wood elves on this thread.)


As far as the simultaneous rounds, part of me wants to work it into a specific scenario (so you can test it out without commiting to it, or use it as an ice-breaker when giving it to reluctant groups... "oh, if the SCENARIO calls for it, that's okay")

What setting/background would prompt a rapid fight like that? Maybe a variation on Chance Encounter, where all of the warbands bump into each other, with no time to organize attacks or coordinate together? Call it something like the "Cluster" or "The Collision" or something?

Perhaps a sudden encounter in a bar? or a catacomb?

They should definately bump into eachother?

We could also explain it more silly with an artifact making time flow in shorter bumps than usually...

Ezekiel wrote:

Asp, I see where you come up with the 2 rounds of CC, but the way we played it, you basically got that, as player 1 got his attacks, and then player 2 got his attacks, we just skipped the part where everyone gets to fight back -which is really lengthy in multiplayer battles and besides tends to easily allow you to lose track of who fought and who didn't...


We did however resolve all CC rounds in initiative order, with charging overruling that naturally...

Master wrote:

also, I'm not sure I understand how the example given by ezekiel works. How do you let player 1 get all his attacks and then player 2 while still keeping in initative order?

My gaming group often play games with many players (e.g. four or more) and I am keen to introduce something like this to alleviate people needing to wait a long time between turns with nothing much to do. I'm confused though by the discussion of this method of multiplayer though as I don't understand how there is less CC than in the normal multiplayer rules defined in Chaos on the Streets.

My understanding of normal multiplayer (in a three-player game) is like this.

Player 1 recovery.
P1 moves.
P1 shoots.
CC for P1 and all models in base-to-base contact with P1 models.

P2 recovery.
P2 moves.
P2 shoots.
CC for P2 and all models in base-to-base contact with P2 models.

P3 recovery.
P3 moves.
P3 shoots.
CC for P3 and all models in base-to-base contact with P3 models.

* If P1 has a model that is in CC with a model of P2 then those two models fight in the CC phase for P1 and P2 but not in the CC phase for P3.
* If P1 has model that is engaged in CC with a model of P2 AND a model of P3 then the P1 model fights in the CC phase for P1 against both models and then again in the CC phase for P2 against the P2 model (but not the P3 model) and then in the CC phase for P3 against the P3 model (but not the P2 model).

OK. Now this is my understanding of the method of multiplayer mentioned by Eliazar here. First, each player rolls a dice to determine order of play. To keep things simple, P1 rolls a 6, P2 rolls a 5 and P3 rolls a 4 meaning that P1 goes first and then P2 and then finally P3.

Player 1 recovery.
P2 recovery.
P3 recovery.
(Recovery phase possibly can be done simultaneously by all players instead of done separately??)

P1 moves.
P2 moves.
P3 moves.

P1 shoots.
P2 shoots.
P3 shoots.

CC for P1.
CC for P2.
CC for P3.

Now how is CC for P1 here different from CC for P1 in normal multiplayer? The only way that I can see that this might be different from normal multiplayer is if Initiative is removed from the equation. If this is so then P1 models all attack in CC for P1 and then P2 models all attack in the CC for P2 and then finally P3 models (if any still alive) attack in the CC for P3. Is this how it is done? Yet Ezekial mentioned that Initiative was still used. Therefore I cannot see how CC would work differently from how it does in normal multiplayer (as in my two examples given above). Perhaps I misunderstand the normal multiplayer rules???

Thanks.

Did you guys nab this idea from GW's Lord of the Rings game? The concept is almost identical, with the only difference as far as I can tell being that close combat is worked out in whatever order the player with the highest priority score chooses, rather than Player 1's combats being worked out, and then Player 2's, and so on and so forth. In Mordheim I'm not really sure that that matters though.

Anyways, I think it's a great idea and I'm not sure why it never crossed my mind to try switching to this engine for Mordheim...

Maybe I'll propose it for our next campaign.

The Simultaneous turn system would also allow for some interesting new skills. One I came up with on the fly would be something like "Voracious Combatant (combat): If all of the model's opponents are knocked down, stunned, or out of action immediately after he has resolved his attacks, he may move up to 4" to join another melee. This does not count as a charge."

Another idea which just popped into my head would be to do away with the players rolling for priority, and instead go in Initiative order across the board (although this may get a tad to chaotic and require a lot of bookkeeping). So first all models with Initiative 7 would move, regardless of who controls them, then Initiative 6, then Initiative 5, and so on. Once everyone had moved, all models with Initiative 7 would shoot, then models with Initiative 6, etc etc. Then in melee all I-7 models make their attacks, followed by all I-6 models, and on and on and you all get the idea.

The biggest complication I can foresee with that concept is that if two models with the same Initiative wanted to charge each other, or one wanted to charge the other while the other wanted to charge someone else, I suppose you'd have to roll off or something.

This is a cool idea, I've always been bugged by the quirks of the turn system in Mordheim. Seemed silly that being stunned during your own turn was a death sentence but being stunned in the enemy's turn you had a chance to rescue to beleaguered model.

With my group we've usually played that everybody does "recovery" in every players recovery phase (so you'll never be stunned on your turn and guaranteed OOA on their turn, only if they have another model present doing followup attacks on the turn the model is stunned).

Does rolling to see who moves first each turn really randomize who gets the charge? It seems like it would and that doesn't seem right, but having it based on initiative doesn't really seem right either (as in a system where move order is determined by initiative and thus charges are).

Also it does make it so getting first move in a scenario doesn't matter at all, which might be an issue because the scenarios are balanced around that.

Are there any tested examples of such rules around?

hero wrote:

Does rolling to see who moves first each turn really randomize who gets the charge? It seems like it would and that doesn't seem right, but having it based on initiative doesn't really seem right either (as in a system where move order is determined by initiative and thus charges are).

It does randomize who gets the charge, but if you think about it that prevents turtling to an extent. In the standard turn-based rules if you're faster then you typically get to engage the opponent on your terms, but with the randomized priority that's not necessarily the case, which can be refreshing.

hero wrote:

Are there any tested examples of such rules around?

Yeah, Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings battle game uses a very similar system of rules, where the turn is broken down into the movement phase, shooting phase, and combat phase, and each phase is split between the players. At the start of every turn players roll to see who has priority for the round, and in the case of a tie priority goes to whoever did not have it last turn.

How about basing it on the LD then? Seeing that the Leaders ability to lead his (or hers) henchmen should affect how quick your warband moves – thus rolling a D6 and adding the leadership could determine the order.

Some great ideas here.

For another card-based take on intermixed turns: http://www.tabletop-terrain.com/stu/archives/MordheimSimpleAlternateTurnSequence.txt.

My preference for intermixed turns is based more on the Man O' War feel (love that game!), so a slight modification of the card-based intermixed turns would be:

Preparation: Create activation tokens for each hero and henchmen group in each warband.

Determine player turn order as normal for the scenario played.

Round order:
1. Recovery (in turn order for each warband)
2. Move/shoot. In turn order, each player activates one hero or henchman group, and performs the move/shoot with that group, repeating the process until all have activated.
3. HtH. Perform one HtH round for the entire board.

Even though we've modified the game quite extensively already for our group, I'm not sure the other players are ready for this yet, so this will remain just an idea for me - hmmm, maybe I'll try it out with my son though.

The one complication seen from intermixed unit activations is in disparity of unit numbers, where the Skaven could gain yet another tactical advantage over the Witch Hunters due to numbers - yet since the overloading of numbers happens after regular movement, it won't be quite as noticable as if the overloading happened at the beginning. Yeah, we could calculate and let some of the greater-unit warbands move 2 for the lower-unit warbands' 1, that's more time than I want to spend during a game calculating and remembering this fine point.

wyldhunt wrote:

Some great ideas here.

For another card-based take on intermixed turns: http://www.tabletop-terrain.com/stu/archives/MordheimSimpleAlternateTurnSequence.txt.

My preference for intermixed turns is based more on the Man O' War feel (love that game!), so a slight modification of the card-based intermixed turns would be:

I've seen that card-based take on intermixed turns that you linked to. It was discussed on this forum in the thread here: https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/rules-and-gameplay-f1/alternate-turn-system-for-mordheim-t442.htm. This is what my gaming group has tried but ensuring that models do not get extra hits than normal requires a lot of micro-management. I'll have to think about your ideas based on Man O' War as they might reduce micro-management. I also have an idea for how to change the rules in the card-based system slightly to reduce the micro-management but currently I am curious about other rules for shaking up the turn sequence that might not have any micro-management and this dice-based approach looks interesting. The comments on CC in regards to this dice-based approach have confused me though (see my post above).

RationalLemming wrote:

Now how is CC for P1 here different from CC
for P1 in normal multiplayer? The only way that I can see that this
might be different from normal multiplayer is if Initiative is removed
from the equation. If this is so then P1 models all attack in CC for P1
and then P2 models all attack in the CC for P2 and then finally P3
models (if any still alive) attack in the CC for P3. Is this how it is
done? Yet Ezekial mentioned that Initiative was still used. Therefore I
cannot see how CC would work differently from how it does in normal
multiplayer (as in my two examples given above). Perhaps I
misunderstand the normal multiplayer rules???

Thanks.

With a system like this you have one close combat phase where each
model fights once instead of a separate close combat phase for each player where every model involved in a combat with one of the active player's models gets to fight.

You resolve close combat like this:
1. Who ever rolled highest at the start of the round picks an unresolved combat.
2. Each model involved in that particular combat fights in normal initiative order.
3. Once every model in that particular combat has fought check to see if there are still any combats that need to be resolved.
4. Repeat steps 1 - 3 until all combats have been resolved.
5. Start the next turns recovery phase.

This is indeed exactly the way it works
- small note: The unresolved combat to be picked, can only be combats in which the player is taking part (naturally)

Ezekiel wrote:

This is indeed exactly the way it works
- small note: The unresolved combat to be picked, can only be combats in which the player is taking part (naturally)

Thank you BossFacePunch and Ezekiel. I guess I can see how it works.

How does it work though if a model for P2 is in CC with a model for P1 and a model for P3 and P1 goes first in CC? The model for P1 is not in CC with the model for P3 but the three models are still inter-twined. I guess even if the model for P2 fights in a round of CC against the model for P1 and then a second time against the model for P3 it is still one round of CC less than in normal multiplayer rules. Hmmm...

Thanks again for clearing this up. Unfortunately there is still some micromanagement in the CC phase to keep track of all unresolved CC. However, I'll talk to my gaming group about the idea to see if they are interested.

Myntokk wrote:

Yeah, Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings battle game uses a very similar system of rules, where the turn is broken down into the movement phase, shooting phase, and combat phase, and each phase is split between the players. At the start of every turn players roll to see who has priority for the round, and in the case of a tie priority goes to whoever did not have it last turn.

Lord of the Rings is definately what I first thought of when reading this thread.
However, I think Lord of the Rings works nicer due to their Might points I think it is. Where they can call out of priority/turn actions. So if you don't have priority that turn, but really need to get a charge off with your one guy, you can use your might to do that.
So while Priority definately matters, it also means you don't get completely screwed over if you roll badly on the dice (i.e Melee warbands would like to move first, but don't care about ranged. While shooting warbands probably like to move second so they can get into good shooting positions).

Simultaneous turns would certainly make the game play out a bit differently. Could definately add some interesting skills. Like Leader only skill something like "Seize the Initiative" where once per battle, he can add +2 to his priority roll or auto-win it or something.

Ok been going threw some old threads and found this and think it's an interesting idea.

Now I'm going to agree that it's still a problem in this situation:

RationalLemming wrote wrote:

How does it work though if a model for P2 is in CC with a model for P1 and a model for P3 and P1 goes first in CC? The model for P1 is not in CC with the model for P3 but the three models are still inter-twined. I guess even if the model for P2 fights in a round of CC against the model for P1 and then a second time against the model for P3 it is still one round of CC less than in normal multiplayer rules.

Why not if all rounds are meant to go at the same time have all CC happen in initiative order?

Thus each turn would be:
Roll for Priority
Recovory
Move in Priority order (including charges)
Shoot in Priority order
CC in Initiative order (charges get priority like normal)
Start next turn

Why wouldn't that be a better way to handle this?

Pervavita wrote:

Ok been going threw some old threads and found this and think it's an interesting idea.

Now I'm going to agree that it's still a problem in this situation:

RationalLemming wrote wrote:

How does it work though if a model for P2 is in CC with a model for P1 and a model for P3 and P1 goes first in CC? The model for P1 is not in CC with the model for P3 but the three models are still inter-twined. I guess even if the model for P2 fights in a round of CC against the model for P1 and then a second time against the model for P3 it is still one round of CC less than in normal multiplayer rules.

Why not if all rounds are meant to go at the same time have all CC happen in initiative order?

Thus each turn would be:
Roll for Priority
Recovory
Move in Priority order (including charges)
Shoot in Priority order
CC in Initiative order (charges get priority like normal)
Start next turn

Why wouldn't that be a better way to handle this?

What an interesting thread! I too have problems some times with rounds taking ages to complete so this is just what I was looking for.

In Regards to Pervavita suggestion I must say it gives a lot of sense. Especially the proposition of resolving combat in initiative order. I would propose that the turn priority would be influenced by initiative, in this way the initiative stat increase would be more desirable :-)