Rout Tests when at sea

So…

I’m working on my own set of rules for using boats and small ships and integrating them into a campaign. I’m happy with how the rules are progressing but have come un-stuck with one rule.

The Rout Test. Most games end this way, with the loosing warband running off into the ruins and play stopping instantly. If, and this happens lots in play testing, the rout test was failed while a vessel had models from both warbands on it how would you end the game? What would happen to the boarding party? What about models who belonged to the losing side but where not on a boat when the game ended?

I would be very interested in hearing people views on this. Maybe your group already has a rule they use?

Cheers,

F.

Hey Finn,  sounds like a cool project.

We have been using Warhammer Ahoy! rules for Mordheim ship fights for the last...long time.  Since '09.  Those rules don't really worry about what happens after the rout test is failed though, so we have had to muddle through.  One of my players' biggest concerns was losing their ship if they routed.  There's an historical game called Legend's of the High Seas that makes you buy a new ship every time you lose a naval engagement.  I always hated that idea as it meant that losing a ship fight would be a pretty decisive blow in a naval themed campaign.

We are a bit more forgiving.  If you rout in our games you lose the game not the ship, sort of like losing your cargo to a pirate rather than the whole vessel.  In two player games, nothing special need happen to boarding parties unless you want it to.  Do you have special rules for Mordheim games when a warband routs with several models at the mercy of the other warband?

In a multiplayer game the victorious warband captures a ship if its crew routs during a boarding action, and may sail the captured vessel if the victor can meet the minimum crew requirements for Warhammer Ahoy! to do so.  If a vessel routs with no enemy models on board, then it just counts as captured for victory conditions and is removed from play similar to a warband routing in a regular game.

If a warband has models on a ship and on land or on boats and it routs, the warband just removes its models as normal in two player games.  In multiplayer games the ship model (but not the warband models crewing it) may be captured as above, but all warband members are removed from the table when they rout.

We have some weird things come up from time to time.  For example a couple of weeks ago a Slayer Pirate warband routed after the Slayers had captured a Ghost Pirate rowboat.  So the Slayers surrendered their cargo (ship), but kept the Ghost's rowboat.  Not a perfect outcome, but it worked for those two players...  As an explanation they imagined that the Slayers piled into the captured rowboat to escape after the Dwarf ship was captured.

You didn't ask, but we rarely sink ships either.  Only two since '09.  This is because of the number of damage points on even small ships (T7 with 16 'wounds') and the fact that we use light cannon (S7 hits that do D3 wounds).

Our recent experiences are chronicled here--
https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t8432-pyrates-of-the-karribean-v-tzeentch-s-triangle

Other threads that might be of interest--
https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t8436-mordheim-on-the-high-seas

https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t3773-naval-battles-for-mordheim?

https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t2568-ship-battles-for-mordheim

Von Kurst,

Thanks for the lengthy reply. I have copies of lots of other rules created by different groups; WarhammerAhoy, Sartosa, Legends of the High Seas, Man-O-War, Empire in Flames. (What can I say, I like my boats). All have their good points and all have niggles as well. This project was to create a new set of rules especially within the Mordheim rules framework. So things like experience, exploration, specific weapon rules & getting stunned.

Anyway... back on topic. We have had models at the mercy of their opponents failing rout tests. It's normally up to the players to decide what they want to do. (The last time it was a troll slayer vs 5 orcs, so the only sensible thing was for him to challenge them all to one-on-one combats. Didn't end well for the dwarf.) Apart from the above we are happy to follow the rules in the book. You've already won the game so murdering off the lone enemy isn't much fun. The problem arises when they are standing on 300gc worth of ship. Suddenly players become more piratical and less sporting.

Two ideas:

1. The game ends like the book. If you lose but if the enemy do not have clear possession of the ship you (losing side) keep it. Not very satisfactory in terms of story lines, but at least it is clear cut and in keeping with the original rule book.

2. The game ends, but the models on a contested ship must fight it out (like the troll slayer). Works for story lines but could lead to the complete wipe out of the losing warband, which is never fun. Would make having several weaker ships a more attractive option.

Thoughts on the above please?

[The best ship available to players under our rules is the Medium Ship. It has 8 Hull Points and a Hull Toughness of 7. We use the same cannon as you. Once reduced to 0 Hull Points a ship takes on water at 1 unit/turn. Once the water is equal to the number of starting Hull Points it sinks. Further damage reducing the Hull Points increases the rate water comes in equal to the amount of extra damage. A model can bail 1 unit of water/turn. Have yet to sink one of these. Canoes and small boats meanwhile sink all the time]

Finn.

In standard Mordheim if a warband routs then all models are removed even if there one or more models are at the mercy of the enemy (e.g. the scenario with the Troll Slayer versus five orcs that you mentioned). While it doesn't make 'sense' it is the safest way to ensure that warbands are not crippled too much after a loss and it is also the way that the rules are written. Therefore if a warband routed while a Troll Slayer was fighting five orcs then the Troll Slayer would simply be (magically) removed from the fight.

I've played a couple of games with ships in Mordheim and use the Sartosa / Warhammer AHOY! rules the same as Von Kurst. We haven't played a multiplayer game yet so I can only comment on one-versus-one battles. When a warband routs (or 'strikes her colours' as in Warhammer AHOY!) then we follow the same rules as in Mordheim. The game ends and the ship and the models are simply removed from the table. This may not be very 'satisfactory' in terms of story but we fell that it is the best outcome for the ongoing campaign to ensure that the losing warbands are not crippled too badly and the winning warband is not buffed too much.

We also chose not to force warbands to purchase their initial ship nor any new ship if their ship is destroyed. This is simply because a ship would be expensive (300 gc as you have suggested or 1000 gc as Werekin suggests in the upcoming Mutiny in Marienburg expansion for Mordheim) and a warband would be generally not be able to purchase a new ship without sacrificing a lot of warband development while saving up. The only outcome therefore is that eventually only a single person would have a ship and no other warbands would have ships and then all battles would simply occur on land. This defeats the entire purpose of including naval battles within a Mordheim campaign.

Finally, we also did not allow the winning warband to sell the ship from the losing warband. This is also to prevent a warband jumping too far ahead of the other warbands in a campaign. A injection of 150 gc (half of 300 gc) or 500 gc (half of 1000 gc) is borderline too much. If a warband captures and sells several ships then the cumulative effect of these cash injections would not be fun.

While we have not played many naval battles the choice of rules that we have chosen is to maximise the ongoing fun within the campaign even if it sacrifices a tiny bit of realism. (Remember if we go too far with realism then once a warband/ship strikes her colours then they'd probably all be thrown overboard in the middle of the ocean and then there would be no more warband so we have to accept some leniency with realism.)

I should also mention that most (all?) of our rules for ship battles have been taken from Von Kurst's gaming group because his group has had five/six years of frequent gaming to refine the rules for using ships in Mordheim. I strongly recommend that you take most if not all of VK's ideas and use them within your group since they work really well. It is my understanding that his group uses the Sartosa rules and the Warhammer AHOY! rules as well as quite a few customisations to make it all work fairly smoothly.

Happy sailing! Arrrrrgh!

Quote :

I have copies of lots of other rules created by different groups; WarhammerAhoy, Sartosa, Legends of the High Seas, Man-O-War, Empire in Flames. (What can I say, I like my boats).

You've come to the right place then

Quote :

You've already won the game so murdering off the lone enemy isn't much fun. The problem arises when they are standing on 300gc worth of ship. Suddenly players become more piratical and less sporting.

We have a similar problem with campaign points.  Since a captured ship is worth at least +1 CP in our  campaign, players will go to lengths to avoid capture or assure capture.  I think it has something to do with a misunderstanding of routing or something.  I often have to explain that voluntary routing means that you have surrendered, lost the game, given up.  Several of my players are convinced (or at least would like to convince ME) that they can rout but still technically WIN a game.

Anyway, as a compromise we now only award points for captures if the winner of a scenario actually has a model on the ship when the enemy crew routs.

Quote :

Two ideas:

1. The game ends like the book. If you lose but if the enemy do not have clear possession of the ship you (losing side) keep it. Not very satisfactory in terms of story lines, but at least it is clear cut and in keeping with the original rule book.

2. The game ends, but the models on a contested ship must fight it out (like the troll slayer). Works for story lines but could lead to the complete wipe out of the losing warband, which is never fun. Would make having several weaker ships a more attractive option.

Thoughts on the above please?

1. The simplest is the game ends like the book.  +1 to what RL said.

2.  Not something I would recommend.  That said if it works for your players that is fine as I don't play in your group.

Since you have been working on your own rules I would recommend contacting Werekin about his boatyard project for MiM.  He has similar views on ship buying, etc. to your own. His ships are just more expensive.

https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/t7739-boatyard-shipwright-needed

Hey guys,

Sorry about the gap in replying, work has been keeping me away for a few days.

Thanks for your replies and sharing your experinces from the high seas.

I think that going with Option 1 (if you rout you take your ship with you) will be the one to take forward. Its simple to understand and clear cut.
A vessel could only be properly captured if the attacker has complete ownership at the end of the game (i.e. chased away all the defenders) or sailed clean off the board with it.

Moving off topic and on to price, as you brought it up Lemming, its a tricky one to balance. At the moment players get an additional 300gc to start with to put together their boats. Some choose to buy a single large boat but most go for a mix of small and medium boats. This prevents the situation you describe above of loosing your entire naval capacity in one game. Most players rout (optionally or otherwise) before they lose too many boats. The more expensive small and medium ships (base price 300 & 400 respectively) wouldn't be available, due to price, until the campaign develops. If this works remains to be seen as we have only play tested stand alone games. I suppose tweaking of prices may be needed by the games master. [Also the exploration charts are slightly more generous allowing for more cash to be earned post battle].

F.

Quote :

If this works remains to be seen as we have only play tested stand alone games.

Well our group has played at least one or more seafaring campaign a year since 2009.  Each campaign lasts about 14-20 weeks or so. Buying ships never worked for us, even with additional income available from the setting. (The Sartosa setting as written is very enriching compared to Mordheim, Lustria, Khemri or Empire in Flames).  

We didn't have extra cash to re-buy ships mainly because of our propensity to lose warriors every game and spend a lot just replacing them.  Plus our trading depends on location, so there is less opportunity for being able to trade in sea locations. You can pretty much figure that the loser of a game that loses his ship is going to lose some more of his warband in the process (at least the way most of my friends and I roll).

I understand that its more realistic to lose your ship if you lose the game, however, I don't understand how a warband that loses its ship is going to compete going forward.  Realistically that warband would also either be marooned or enslaved or murdered.  One of the things that I didn't like about Legend of the High Seas is that the warband has to pass a Ld test after every loss or disband, plus if you lost your ship you have to replace it before you can play another ship based game...or win the Capture the Ship scenario in port.

I also realize that I have no idea beyond what you have shared with us about how your rules work. For my campaigns I have a 'sea' location which requires a ship to visit. Not all battles on my scenario chart for the sea location require ships, but most do. We only use a Warhammer Ahoy! Small ship and rowboats for the scenarios. In my world if someone showed up with only rowboats against a warband with a ship, it would be a guaranteed loss for the guy with the rowboats.

I'm all about keeping players in the campaign as long as possible.  So some players can lose every sea fight, but still be there in the last battle of the campaign with a ship if they need one. Its completely un-realistic, but it works very well at extending the player's involvement in a campaign which is what its all about for me.

Von Kurst,

Thanks for the reply, again sorry for the slow response, busy time of year.

You are right in saying it’s hard to make well-constructed comments without knowing the details of the rules we plan to use, but I don't want this thread to turn into a discussion about all aspects of any possible maritime rule; wind, boarding, ramming, swimming, cannons, cruising, new exploration, fire aboard ships, encampments, steam engines... and on it goes.

To help things we could just assume my group is going to use the Ahoy rules, with a price chart attached, as that seems to be the crux of the feedback. The rest of the rules are as you might assume, you can't sail in to the wind, you drown if you try to swim in heavy armour, ships are bigger than boats.

One of the key differences is that we have more grades of vessels, the canoe/raft costs all of 5gc and carries two men. It sinks very easily. Then you have small>medium>large boats>small ships>medium ships. Our Medium Ship is roughly equal to the Small Ship in Ahoy, though the two do not compare perfectly.

Unlike in your Ahoy battles above, two or three boats could (and have in play tests) beat one of the ship class of vessels, especially if you can board the bigger vessel, making the extra wounds and cannons useless.

It is a good point that capturing a 400gc ship would end up in a campaign winning cash injection, even if the bigger ships are as supposed to be as rare as someone wearing gromril carrying a hochland rifle while riding a horse (390gc), I'll need to look into a way of balancing that. Less re-sale value I suppose?

We hope to get together near the end of this month for some more detailed play testing i.e. a short campaign, to see how it goes, will keep you all posted in the battle reports section.

[For Legend of the High Seas and disbanding if you lose a battle, have you considered making your crew elect a new captain instead? I don't have a copy of the rules to hand, but it would work well enough for Mordheim sea battles. The new captain gains the leader skill, the old one is demoted/leaves/hung from a handy spar, just a thought.]

F.

Finn,
No worries.

Our group has good fun messing about with boats our way, if your group has a good time with your version that's all you can ask.

As for Legends, we have good fun playing a Mordheim version with sea monsters, Undead, orcs and elves, so we just kinda lost interest in that game system.  

I did have a rule for pirate warbands that if a hero had equal to or higher Ld than the Captain he had to pass a Ld test every time the warband lost or challenge the Captain for the crew.  I enjoyed it, but other players never really took to it.

Fair winds,
VK