We're back, for what will be the penultimate chainmail read through. Today we're tackling the Fantasy Supplement - getting most of the way through the “Fantasy Characteristics” and a peak at the Fantasy Combat Tables.
So what is the Fantasy Combat supplement and why would you use it? Well the book tells us that because Fantasy Literature is fairly close to medieval warfare Chainmail is a good basis - so if you want to play out the battles described in Tolkien or Howard, or create your own world then you should use this supplement. Notably, in the 3rd edition it points the “dedicated fantasy enthusiast” should look at Dungeons and Dragons from TSR.
The bulk of this section is characteristics for fantasy creatures - so lets dive in.
We open up with a discussion on figure scale, comparing the smallest and largest fantasy creatures to that of men. If your man scale is 30mm then a Halfling (read: Hobbit) should be 10mm and Dragons would be 54mm.
Each creature gets a morale rating and point value, I won't comment on these specifically though. The list contains the fantasy creatures that you'd expect, but lets list them and note anything interesting about them.
First up the famous Halfling (read: Hobbit), they “have small place in the wargame, but you may want them for recreation of certain battles”, now I wonder what battles they would be? There is some obvious heavy Tolkien flavour in the list as we'll continue to see. Halfling can “blend into the background” going invisible in brush or woods. They are also good with slings, and so for each 2 halflings they count as 3 on the missile fire table.
Sprites and Pixies can become invisible and stay so when fighting, because of this they are immune in the first round of melee (due to surprise) but after that the defender can see “disturbances” and can fight back. They can also fly for a limited period.
Dwarves and Gnomes can fight at night equally well - now we'll see a description of effectively complete darkness later on, but its not clear what the penalty for fighting at night would be if its different than darkness - due to their size they only take half hits from larger creatures (Trolls, OGres and Giants). And they have natural enemies of Goblins and Kobolds and so must attack them before other targets.
Goblins and Kobolds are sort of the reverse of Dwarves and Gnomes, they will fight Dwarves and Gnomes on sight and can fight in the dark but suffer a penalty if fighting in bright light. Additionally they have a larger version in the Hobgoblin which fight as Armored Foot and Heavy Foot. This is the first mention of attacking types - so its probably a good time to take a look at the first table for Fantasy Combat.
So there are two tables that accompany the Fantasy Combat section, the first is the Reference Table which is basically restating the fantasy characteristics but adding some more detail. So we get movement rates (including charge and fly if applicable), any special abilities, missile range (again if applicable) and finally their class for mass combat (Light Foot, Heavy Foot etc.) The nice thing here is that the special abilities are given a bit more of a definite definition. For example the halfling entry we already noted simply says they can “blend into the background” but the table lets us know that it is invisibility in certain terrain.
Next up in Elves and Fairies. They are noted at having deadly bows and magic swords, and can split move and fire. Another case where the refernce table is useful as we are told that Invisible Elves are not able to attack or be attacked except from someone with a special ability that could detect them - but it doesn't tell us that they can turn invisible or how. They also excel in combat with magic weapons (its not clear if they automatically have one as their description says they do, but I have my doubts) gaining an extra die and performing better against certain enemies most of which are on the “Fantasy Combat Table”. So we should probably take a look at that.
So the 2nd table is a bit more interesting as it describes a third combat method. So now we have mass combat, man to man and fantasy. This is the gist of how it works, you roll 2d6, and then compare the result on the table. Each row is the attacker type: Dragon, Elemental, Hero etc. and then each column is the defender (just the same list of attackers). If you score under the total shown, nothing happens, if you score equal the defender is forced to move back, if you score above the defender is killed. So pretty quick and deadly, though the numbers to tend to the higher side. Notably there are only a subset of all the creatures here, as only some creatures are able to fight on the table. Okay back to the units.
Orcs are interesting, and I think this shows one of the strengths of the fantasy supplement - each fantasy creature isn't just a series of numbers, they are designed to function like they would in fantasy literature (obviously this means you'll need to make some changes for your own fantasy world, or one not rooted in Tolkien). So they react to light like Goblins or Kobolds, but the key interesting thing is that Orcs come from many competing factions and so if there are two units of orcs they will be from different factions. So when not engaged in combat they must test to not fight each other, pretty fun. Lastly, again similar to Goblins, there is a larger version (urukhai probably right?).
Next we have Heroes and Anti-Heroes, the knights and leaders of armies. They fight as 4 figures, with a what you see is what you get fighting capability. They never check morale, they add a bonus to the dice of their unit and are the last to be killed. Although they can be singled out by other Heroes or creatures that can fight on the Fantasy Combat Table (love a good duel). They can shoot down dragons with a bow as well. Lastly they require four simultaneous hits to be killed.
Now I want to take a quick moment to discuss simultaneous hits, and the power of that. For simplicity lets say they are fighting in mass combat, defending as AF against AF. So 1 die per man needing 6s. A regular unit would die 16.67% of the time against a single attacker. Obviously our hero can't be killed by less than 4 men, those 4 men would kill a normal figure 51.77% of the time (just needing one hit), but would only kill the Hero 0.08% of the time. The hero would need to be attacked by a total of 13 men to have a similar chance (15.81%) of the original 1v1. I'd need to check the rule for how many figures a single figure can be attacked by, but the point is it is extremely difficult to kill a hero in regular mass combat.
Next we have super heroes, who are few and far between. They act as heroes except they are about twice as powerful, their ability to shoot dragons improves a nd they gain the ability that on a charge units must test against excess casualities (reminder failing this removes the unit). Though the wording here is a bit weird, I'm not sure if they need to make a charge move or just effect all units in that range here is the quote “When a super-hero approaches within his charge movement of the enemy” I'm leaning towards it being just an aura, which makes it even stronger.
Okay onto our last entry for this post, and its a long one. And I put the stop for this post at an awkward point so we'll be left on a cliff hanger. Lets look at the Wizard, which includes lower classes of wizard at various different penalties (Sorcerers at -1 and Seers at -4 for example).
So they count as 2 AF or Medium Horse if mounted, and they can use magical weaponry (I assume we'll learn more about these later). Now wizards get some cool abilities, they can become invisible and stay that way until they attack (again I'm not sure how invisible works, for now we'll assume untargetable), they can see in darkness (again not sure if there is a listed penalty) and they affect friendly and enemy morale as do Super Heroes - does this mean that they make enemies test their morale and friends test their morale? Or is it they get the +2 to all dice effect that a superhero would have but only to morale? Lastly they throw deadly missiles and can cast spells.
In case that wasn't enough, they are immune to normal missile fire except against that of another wizard in which they need to score a 7 on 2d6 to survive. Notably they don't have anything about requiring simultaneous hits, so I assume they can take 2 hits total from other types of combat.
Okay how does wizard missile fire work? Before the game they select either a fire ball or lighting bolt. A fireball effects an area equal to that of a large catapult, and a lightning bolt affects a 3/4“ wide and 6” long area with an attack value equal to a heavy field gun. All figures affected are destoryed (with some noted exceptions for figures on the fantasy table). You know I like no premeasures, and its nice to see that here - they each have a range of 24" direct or indirect and the range is called prior to the template being placed. Now I have no idea what it means to have an attack value equal to a heavy field gun, it seems like you could ignore that line and it would work - so I've got no guesses.
Then we have spells. A stronger wizard can counter a spell on a score of 7 on 2d6 whilst a weaker will take a penalty to this roll depending on their relative weakness, the counter takes the wizards turn. We get a list of 16 spells though its noted that there are virtually unlimited numbers of spells that can be employed - I suppose you can make your own up (especially if you're trying to mimic some fantasy literature).
Creatures on the fantasy combat table can make a saving throw against the missiles, it doesn't look like they can save against the spells though.
Okay so as to note risk boring anyone reading spell descriptions I'll list them and note any highlights.
Phantasmal Force, Darkness.
Wizard Light, Detection, Concealment, Conjuration of an Elemental
Moving Terrain, Protection from Evil, Levitate, Slowness, Haste,Polymorph, Confusion, Halucinatory terrain
Cloudkill
“kills all men, orcs, dwarves and the like” I don't know how to translate “and the like” are heroes affected? It seems like all man sized creatures? Are elves affected?
and finallyAnti-Magic shell.
In order to cast, and maintain a spell the caster has to be stationary and undisturbed by attack (I wonder if missile fire would disturb the Wizard despite being immune?). Depending on the 'level' of the Wizard they can cast more or less spells (6-7 for Wizards, how do you decide?) And the level also determines range, with a Wizard having unlimited.
So that wraps up this post - next time we'll tackle Spell Complexity which is an optional rule for casting spells and go all the way to the end on page 39 (7 pages total I think which would be our longest yet, but it'll be two short sections otherwise).