Close Combat - Tracked Characteristic Damage

Anyone else irked by the fact that you warrior can suffer multiple stunned results in a single round than still casually get back up to his feet in tip top fighting shape a few rounds later?

I was thinking it might be fun to actually attribute some kind of characteristic penalty every time your warrior gets Knocked Down or Stunned. Would mean some additional bookkeeping but what do you guys think about the following:

KNOCKED DOWN TABLE

Every time your model suffers a Knock Down result on the injury table roll a D6 to and consult the table below:

• 1-2: I am become death, destroyer of worlds!
  -1 Movement
  
  3-4 Got for the eyes...
  -1 Initiative
  
  5-6 - Oh, my heart's really not in this
  -1 Leadership
  

STUNNED TABLE

Every time your model suffers a Stunned result on the injury table roll a D6 to and consult the table below:

• 1-2: Your worthless lives end here!
  -1 to WS and BS
  
  3-4: And the rivers run red!
  -1 to Strength
  
  5-6: It shall be even bloodier than you've hoped!
  -1 Toughness
  

You can only ever suffer -1 to your characteristics in this way.

If you roll the same result again on subsequent Knock Downs and Stunned no negative effects takes place.

Mechanic designed to slowly reduce the fighting ability of a warrior. Will take some additional effort to track all the changes and might slow down the game too much but I think it might add a bit more flavour to combat especially as you chip away at some of the tougher cookies in the game.

I really like this in essence - but keeping track might be a challenge. Why not be really mean and take 1 of every characteristic instead?

Not likely to happen for my group. We have enough issues remembering advancements and injuries already...

I guess you could have a system where each time a character is stunned/knocked down they get +1 to the next stunned/knocked down test. Again, tricky to remember, and might not make too much difference.

I find more often than not that once a character is knocked down or stunned that's usually game over for the unfortunate victim as they are immediately ganked in the next player's turn.

Although perhaps highly complex for a full game, your system might be a nice addition to a pit fight, where a smaller number of combatants are easier to keep track of. The post battle injury table could be adapted to recognise the more specific injuries too.

benjaminography wrote:

I find more often than not that once a character is knocked down or stunned that's usually game over for the unfortunate victim as they are immediately ganked in the next player's turn.

Yeah that's usually the case in close combat.

I'm thinking this mechanism would add more to victims of ranged attacks - models that take an arrow, bolt or hot lead and still somehow end up functioning without any penalties after a turn or two of rolling on their backs.

But yes in terms of book keeping will mean that each individual will need their own separate entries somewhere in order to track the reductions. I guess in end this is suitable for someone who might want a bit more individual and granular effects of close combat on their models.

Still I'm keen to see how this works in practice so feel free to post any experiences you guys may have in your games should you give this a go.