Has anyone toyed with a strategic level (board?) game based on any of the various conflicts waiting to happen in 720? I had a go at the Rethemi Civil War a lot of years ago but I recently found the 'Cry Havoc' (anyone remember it?) startegic rules at the bottom of a pile of old stuff in what passes for my games room. A quick read reminded me that it's based on relatively small bands of troops and so might suite the Harnic environment.

When we did the Rethemi War I used a set we'd used even earlier to run a campaign for WRG Ancients 6th Edition. As such they tened to assume bigger forces than Harnic Lords can field. This was madfe even more noticeable as we used 5-6 players (Tormau, King, Techen, Kuborans, the Agrikan Church, plus NPC Tharda and Kanday) and the forces just didn't work in the scale of the rule we used.

So ... anyone got anything to build on?

Alun

PS: See - this time I asked first.

V/D is coming! That is "Victory! Destiny" by Tuomo of this forum, a well-meaning but busy Finn. There have been several threads about this game on this forum. Search and ye shall find.

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Laboro diem, carpe noctem.

I assume you know of BattleLust, which is similar to Cry Havoc! in its scale and scope, but uses the same systems bases as HarnMaster?

Also, one or two of us have used the De Bellis... systems for Harnic battles. The kingdom spreadsheets I did many moons ago have calculated 'army lists' for this, FWIW.

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Balesir
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- Eschew Obfuscation!

I could never get my hands on a copy of Battlelust and, as I had a copy of Cry Havoc, didn't need something in the 'skirmish' scale. I'd used DBx for most purposes ever since they replaced WRG 7th Edition as the rules of choice for ancients, indeed they were the rules for the flawed campaign I ran previously.
However, it's not really a set of table top rules that I'm looking for, but a strategic level game that might generate battles and allow some of the big issues to be resolved as a wargame campaign.
The Cry Havoc add-on I was talking about is 'Croisades' which allows small forces to maneuver across the Holy Land in search of a punch-up. It has approporiate supply etc. and even naval rules and though intended to generate Cry Havoc encounters I thought it might have an application in a low manpower Harn campaign.
Your spreadsheets remain a regular point of reference, and were the source of most of the data in the previous campaign, but the recent arrival of the 'Military Generators' has seduced me - their very completeness appeals, and areone of the reasons I had begun to think 'grand strategic' again.

Alun

Gallus,

As dogberry said, Victory Destiny is coming out http://www.harnforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=7867

Pete

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'Soon'. A word with so many nuances!

Hi all,

I believe the problem Tuomo is facing with his playable dissertation of Hârnic strategy and tactics is, that he's at the moment being paid for doing something vaguely similar with the Finnish historical and present-day stuff. Being paid, and being given decent feed-back, are terrible incentives for deviation...

But, I believe the project is as alive as Hârnic products tend to be before being published.
- IIRC, Tuomo promised to have something done next summer.
- For my part, I've thoroughly commented the rules (which are done, but unedited), drawn new unit counters, and done some other pics to enliven the text.
- The game has also been play-tested irregularly. (The result being that it rocks -the way mammoths do.)
- Last time I chatted with Tuomo, he was facing some problems with the software he's using for the tables. This is not insurmountable, I believe.

Take this as a status report from a person who actually is not entitled to give such reports.

Perhaps giving this kind of status reports will kick some action into Tuomo... Tuomooo?! Are you there...?

-ILe

Yes, I'm here allright. Unfortunately I'm very busy with eking out a living at the present, but by summer I have to accomplish something with V/D. We are now expecting twins to pop out early in August so after that everything grinds to halt for a while. I really want to have V/D done before the prospective children are born...

So V/D is alive and well, but coming slowly. In fact I was just working on it.

Tuomo

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Victory, Destiny!

Good Luck I only have one, and she is almost 4. I don't know if I could handle 2 at once.

Pete

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What is the status of V/D?

Pete

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As Tuomo is obviously too busy to answer this, I'll write few lines.

The project has effectively stopped when Tuomo graduated & became the father of two baby boys.

What Tuomo has is:
- Rules book (should be about ready, if unedited)
- Tables booklet (don't know the status of this, but the individual tables have been done)
- Map (there's probably an issue of copyright here, if not elsewhere too)
- Pictures & data for the unit counters (these need to be completely redone)

+ one set of pre-production examples of the whole game

The situation being as it is, the project will continue only when Tuomo finds time for it. Someone could easily do the counters, for example, but Tuomo's got to do the rules and tables 'right' before anyone can start editing the booklets. This is the typical bottle-neck thing we have with everything Hârnic.

Sorry to bring such news.

Merry Christmas!

-ILe

Darn! Having just read David Nicolle's Medieval Warfare Source Book, I now know how I should have approached the dovish Thardan legions. The problem was not in the simulation but in the chosen strategy.

I demand a re-match!

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Running: AD&D / When a star falls
Running: MERP / Woses of the black wood

As a father of a 4yo, I know all about the lack of time.

I hope he can either make time to finish VD or pass it off to someone who can.

Pete

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I told you so...



You shall have one as soon as I do not fear for my sanity. Restless five month old twins + a research job is a bit much.

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Victory, Destiny!

Really bad pun...
Perhaps we can avoid passing off VD to someone.

better way to say it
I for one would be thrilled to get a fully developed VD, just can't wait to get VD. And then I'll share VD with all my friends.

I'm inerested in a tease on the combat system, Tuomo. Have you given numeric valuations to the troops like in many standard Wargames, or quality levels more like the old Napoleon game? Any info would be of interest.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Might there be a possibility of a demo at IviniaCon?

Aye, I second that question.

Roland

Neither.

Battles in V/D are not simple compare-forces-and-then-roll-a-die affairs.

I've never liked that sort of a battle resolution mechanisms, especially in a game of this scale.

I've tried to build a combat system that would, to some extent, simulate the course of a mid 10th to mid 12th century battle in an abstracted fashion. As a consequence all battles are more or less chaotic and individual. More or less anything might happen. (And some very strange stuff has happened. )

As to the units there are three categories: Archers, Cavalry and Infantry. All have different characteristics. This means that although Light Foot and Light Cavalry both have 1 hit, an Fighting Value of 1 and an effectiveness of 50 they function quite differently in a battle. This has to do with the battle sequence. Then there are the terrain modifiers on top of that.

I'm afraid that I can't express it more clearly in a concise fashion.

As to a demo in Iviana Con: We'll see. I'd like to demo the game whenever I have the chance but:

1) I might not get to come to the con
2) The game itself takes at first a long time for beginners to play and I don't want to come to the con just to show off the game components. Are three of the participants ready to dedicate practically the whole weekend for this?

If you want to try the game out I can try to arrange a new international V/D session for whomever is intrested. Finland is nice whatever time of the year.

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Victory, Destiny!

Yes! Battle Morale is paramount, yet no leader can be ready for everything unexpected, and the Hârnic troops (mostly light foot and militia) tend to be - well, mobs. Given the right circumstances, armies of hundreds will flee in a battle against mere dozens. I say may, but Tuomo's dice obviously like to play with extremes. Repeatedly. On your face. Smearing it on your face: O-U-T-M-A-N-E-U-V-E-R-E-D... S-L-A-U-G-H-T-E-R-E-D... D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D...

And taking a keep/castle is plain suicide. For the first and second wave... Best to have those third, fourth and fifth wave ready... Read Sun Tzu...



Indeed. Especially Helsinki: A black Christmas. Now +/- zero degrees, the roads covered with invisible, slippery ice. The sun spends about six hours per day on the sky - somewhere behind the thick, gray clouds.

Come to experience the Hârnic weather! Come to understand why action in V,D! almost completely halts for winter months! Come to understand why, if you force your troops to move in such a weather, they move very slowly and defect or become ill all too easily!

-ILe

Is there a status update for V/D?

Vlad

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Yes and no. The game is 80-90% done. The problem is to find both my ans Ilkka's and Juha's time so that I could writr the thing over again and they could illustrate it.

I shy away from giving a schedule.

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Victory, Destiny!

OK, when you are at the playtest stage, please let us know.

Pete

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We're just waiting for the signal. Have been waiting for two years!

Tuomo, you should stop running PbEM's and instead concentrate on finishing V,D!

If you think it's possible, delegate.

-ile

Deligate what? the PBEM? or V/D?

Pete

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