Melee Specials for SOBH

Some ideas for melee specials. Some of these are used in a Song of Dragon Noir.

Weapon Master
You may roll 2 dice for your combat roll. Choose one of the values as
your final combat roll.

This should effectively add a +1 to your die roll. However, you have the choice of choosing the final value. The reason for this is to give you the option to choose to knock down or force your opponent to recoil.

Mighty
When your Combat roll is a 5, you may change it to a 6.
This effectively bumps your combat odds of causing a knock down.

Hardy - this idea came from the Bren of SOBH forum.
When your Combat roll is a 1, you may change it to a 2.

This effectively reduces your odds of fallen or killed.

Song of Dragon Noir - Rule Costing

Here is a summary rule costing for the specials in Song of Dragon Noir.
These values probably need balancing.

Acrobat;3;
Armored;3;
Berserk;3;
Bodyguard;3;
Cleric;15;p;
Combat Master;10;p;
Coward;-2;
Epic Attack;5;p;
Evil;0;
Ghost Blade;2;
Good;0;
Group Fighter;3;p;
Hatred;3;
Magic Resistance;2;
Mighty;3;
Necromancer;15;p;
Opportunistic;4;
Paladin;2;
Quick Shot;7;
Running Blow;8;
Sharpshooter;3;
Shock;3;
Shoot or Move;-3;
Sniper;10;p;
Summoner;15;p;
Weapon Master;7;p;
vs dwarves;0;
vs elves;0;
vs evil;0;
vs good;0;
vs humans;0;
vs magic users;0;
vs mounted;0;
vs orcs;0;
vs trolls;0;

A Song of Dragon Noir

I finally wrapped up all my notes on my Dragon Noir/SOBH conversion and bundled into a few pdfs. The first draft can be found at the SOBH forum

A Song of Dragon Noir is a fan conversion of Dragon Noir to SOBH rules. It was a good mental exercise and got a few solo plays.

Each counter has a unique stat and fills a role on their side for a campaign game.

If I have time, I would like to update the stats for the individual characters differently using some new ideas I have.

SOBH: Black Fox Warband

Here are the stats for the Black Fox warband.

;Black Fox Warband
Arek;17;4;2;false;Coward,Gregarious;
Aruk;23;4;3;false;Evil;
Ashrak;48;3;3;false;Armored,Evil,Lethal,Shock,vs mounted;
Attrag;33;4;3;false;Hatred,Sharpshooter,Shoot or Move,Shooter: Medium,vs dwarves;
Azrog;27;4;3;false;Evil,Savage;
Baby Dragon;86;3;4;true;Armored,Epic Attack,Tough;
Black Fox;96;3;4;true;Armored,Leader,Savage,Weapon Master;
Crazy Ork;39;4;4;false;Berserk,Mighty;
Fnarad;29;4;3;false;Evil,Shooter: Medium;
Gattog;39;4;3;false;Evil,Quick Shot,Shooter: Medium;
Gharvs;38;4;4;false;Animal,Big,Long Move,Slow;
Gnurr;41;5;4;true;Big,Fearless,Tough;
Graz;33;4;3;false;Evil,Hatred,Sharpshooter,Shoot or Move,Shooter: Medium,vs elves;
Grishnak;48;3;3;false;Armored,Lethal,Shock,vs elves;
Gromr;62;4;4;true;Big,Mighty,Tough;
Gromrak;44;3;3;true;Evil,Weapon Master;
Grumuz;36;3;3;false;Evil,Steadfast;
Grunek;26;4;2;false;Gregarious,Shooter: Medium;
Guruk;46;3;2;true;Armored,Evil,Leader,Slow;
Kommog;44;3;3;false;Evil,Sharpshooter,Shooter: Medium;
Krek;24;4;2;false;Free Disengage,Gregarious;
Krobek;32;3;2;false;Mighty,Shock;
Krular;20;4;3;false;Coward,Evil;
Kuruz;32;4;3;false;Armored,Evil,Mighty;
Radak;42;3;3;false;Armored,Evil,Savage;
Shaman;46;3;2;true;Coward,Evil,Magic-User;
Shraggag;36;3;3;false;Evil,Group Fighter;
Throda;41;5;4;true;Big,Group Fighter,Tough;
Thrugg;35;4;4;false;Evil,Mighty,Savage,Short Move;
Ugluk;46;3;4;false;Armored,Evil;
Wardog;14;3;2;false;Animal;
Wardog;14;3;2;false;Animal;
Zabek;24;4;2;false;Gregarious,Shock;
Zarad;27;4;3;false;Evil,Fearless;
Zed;32;4;3;false;Armored,Evil,Poison;
Zorak;33;4;3;false;Armored,Evil,Opportunistic;
Zrodek;24;4;2;false;Gregarious,Hatred,vs dwarves;
Zugun;36;3;3;false;Berserk,Evil;

SOBH: Rebels Warband

Hi,

Work has been very busy but I was able to complete the Rebel Roster for this conversion.

I tried to make each character unique to make each character uniquely valuable in a campaign.

I tried to show the list as nice images but its hard to get the Warband builder to print out the images in a nice format.

This txt is for use to be imported into the HTML SOBH Warband builder.

;Rebels
Aldus;40;3;3;false;Armored,Good,Paladin;
Arlon;33;4;3;false;Sharpshooter,Shoot or Move,Shooter: Long;
Barin;36;4;3;false;Magic Resistance,Shock,Shooter: Medium;
Barney;38;3;2;false;Acrobat,Free Disengage,Stealth;
Ceodoras;64;3;3;false;Quick Shot,Sharpshooter,Shooter: Long;
Cerenbril;70;3;3;true;Sharpshooter,Shooter: Long,Sniper;
Davrich;26;4;2;false;Opportunistic,Shock;
Dill;32;4;3;false;Armored,Hatred,vs orcs;
Evans;32;4;3;false;Armored,Steadfast;
Ferin;36;3;3;false;Mighty,Shock,Short Move;
Findarfin;56;3;3;false;Forester,Hatred,Shooter: Long,vs orcs;
Gerfindel;80;3;3;true;Leader,Sharpshooter,Shooter: Long;
Godiva;42;4;2;true;Cleric,Shock;
Gorin;27;4;3;false;Hatred,Shock,Short Move,vs orcs;
Gotmar epreuve;36;4;3;false;Group Fighter,Mighty,Shock;
Gotmar;10;5;2;false;;
Grast;32;4;3;false;Armored,Mighty;
Gustav;24;4;2;false;Free Disengage,Shock;
Hohmley;42;3;3;false;Armored,Steadfast;
Hurin;29;4;3;false;Shock,Shooter: Medium,Short Move;
Jon;26;4;2;false;Sharpshooter,Shooter: Medium;
Kerin;60;3;3;true;Leader,Shock,Short Move;
Khuzun;36;3;3;false;Berserk,Shock,Short Move;
Konrad;102;3;3;true;Armored,Hero,Leader,Shock;
Laberne;41;4;2;false;Quick Shot,Sharpshooter,Shooter: Long;
Lucifer;50;3;3;false;Animal,Bodyguard,Long Move;
Matt;29;4;2;false;Armored,Hatred,Shock;
Paul;29;4;2;false;Armored,Shock,Steadfast;
Rix;24;4;2;false;Mighty,Shock;
Roberts;20;4;2;false;Armored;
Santiago;23;4;2;false;Free Disengage,Shooter: Short;
sarah epreuve;35;4;2;true;Coward,Summoner;
Sarah;25;5;2;false;Entangle;
Simon;24;4;2;false;Opportunistic,Shooter: Short;
Thorin;44;3;3;true;Shock,Short Move,Weapon Master;
Zacharie;60;3;3;true;Magic-User;

Example Archers using archer specials

In the Dragon Noir campaign, each individual has a name. To make the campaign more interesting, I tried to give each model some unique traits to make players attached to the characters.

Here are examples of 3 different characters using the archer specials.

I thought Elves with a Quality of 2 were overpowered, so I increased their quality. In addition, I made ample use of the prototype rules of Shock and Sharpshoooter to differentiate models.

Archer Specials for a Song of Blades and Heroes

Here are two specials for SOBH. I haven't had a chance to play test them much.


Shoot or Move
Cost: -3
Requires Ranged Attack.
If you move, you cannot shoot. If you shoot, you cannot move.

I modeled the cost after the slow move. The standard SOBH rules basically allow archers to shoot on the run, so you need to give crossbowman some benefits.

This seemed to work well and the cost looks ok in my playtest.

Quick Shot
Cost: 7
Requires Ranged Attack.
If the character does not move, you may make an additional ranged attack. Each additional shot is at -1 combat. You may not make any additional melee attacks using this special.

This allows you to simulate robin hood or any excellent archer at the cost of shooting on the run.

The cost is a bit high but based on the high costs for other multiple attack specials.

Dragon Noir Special Rules

Here is a list of the special rules used in the SOBH conversion of Dragon Noir.
There are a few custom rules I wrote or gleaned off the SOBH forum.

You can copy these rules into Ray Forsythe html warband builder for SOBH.

I used the custom rules to record specials that are against certain types.

Dragon Noir Special Rules
Acrobat;3;
Amphibious;3;
Animal;-3;
Armored;3;
Artificial;3;
Assassin;15;p;
Beastmaster;8;
Berserk;3;
Big;3;
Bodyguard;3;
Burrowing;4;
Cleric;15;p;
Clinging;3;
Combat Master;10;p;
Coward;-2;
Danger Sense;3;
Dashing;3;
Desert Walk;3;
Distract;12;
Drain;8;
Elementalist;15;p;
Entangle;15;
Epic Attack;5;p;
Evil;0;
Fearless;3;
Flying;10;
Forester;3;
Free Disengage;3;
Ghost Blade;2;
Giant Slayer;3;
Glancing Blow;5;
Good;0;
Greedy;-2;
Gregarious;3;
Group Fighter;3;p;
Hatred;3;
Heavy Armor;5;
Hero;15;p;
Huge;5;
Leader;15;p;
Lethal;3;
Long Move;10;
Magic Resistance;2;
Magic-User;15;p;
Mighty;3;
Mountaineer;2;
Mounted;6;
Mutant;3;
Necromancer;15;p;
Opportunistic;4;
Paladin;2;
Poison;3;
Quick Shot;7;
Running Blow;8;
Savage;3;
Sharpshooter;3;
Shieldwall;1;
Shock;3;
Shoot or Move;-3;
Shooter: Long;7;
Shooter: Medium;4;
Shooter: Short;2;
Short Move;-3;
Slow;-5;
Sniper;10;p;
Snow Walk;3;
Sorcerer;15;p;
Standard Bearer;0;
Steadfast;3;
Stealth;3;
Summoner;15;p;
Swamp Walk;3;
Swarm;3;
Tailslap;3;
Teleport;12;p;
Terror;15;p;
Tough;15;p;
Traps;3;
Undead;3;
Weapon Master;7;p;
Were;0;
vs dwarves;0;
vs elves;0;
vs evil;0;
vs good;0;
vs humans;0;
vs magic users;0;
vs mounted;0;
vs orcs;0;
vs trolls;0;

Elves Oath - Dragon Noir

Dragon Noir Scenario:
Map: The WaterMill Map. For a miniature map, you will need to build a map with
a river running through it with a building on one side and forest on another.
A sample image of the Cry Havoc maps can be here.

Setup:
The exiled Rebels - Laberne, Jon, Grast, Hohmley, Gustav, Evans (all mounted); The Orks - Zed (mounted), 1 archer, 1 crossbowman, 2 Elite Orks (both 16 attack strength), 3 warriors (2 x 14, 1 x 10).

The humans start mounted on horses. Give them the special "Mounted" and "Long Move".
For the unnamed orcs, pick orcs that match the general stats on their images.

As a special rule, if a mounted figures ever gets "Fallen" as a result. Remove them off their horse and place them adjacent to their mount. It takes 2 actions to remount a horse in battle. Horses stay in the hex where their rider was unmounted. They may be pushed aside with no penalty as part of a character's move to an adjacent empty hex.

Flavor Text:
"We are like leaves from the same tree: same blood, same destiny" says the Oath of the Elves.
Since their arrival on Kazhdin, Zacharie has advised Konrad to send a small group to meet the Elves in the forest of Penrad.
If Laberne and Jon, half-elven through their mother, were to join with the Elves
then the assistance of the Elves of the island would be acquired.

Black Fox, well named, suspects that there may be elves among the strangers
and that they will seek contact with their brothers on the island.

So he sends a patrol to intercept them on the road leading to the forest.

Starting positions and Sequence of action: The Orks enter by side 8 of the map, in the section between the corner (with side 5) and the stream.
They make one initial full move and then a second.
The exiled Rebels then start the first game turn by entering through side 6 in the section between the corner (with side 7) and the stream.


Important: A bridge is placed over the stream 2 hexes from the edge of the map (side 6), where the watercourse is no wider than one hex.
Characters may make use of this normally.

The fallen wall represents the bridge.

Victory conditions:
The first scenario is essentially a breakthrough scenario. Team 1 needs to break through the opposing team's side in order to achieve the scenario objective and gain victory points.

Specific rules:
If, before the end of the twelfth turn, the Rebels are able to exit Laberne or Jon through side 8 of the map, between the stream and the corner (with side 5),
they have won. If neither of those two characters exit the map by the specified edge before the end of the twelfth game turn, the Orks win.

Victory Points: 1 vp per 25 point kill. 3 VP for winning scenario + Campaign scenario bonus below.

Campaign scenario: If the Rebels win, the 4 Elf archers will take part on their side in the decisive battle (see Scenario 5).

Dragon Noir Song of Blades and Heroes Conversion

After reviewing the scenarios for the game Cry Havoc, I realized that the scenarios are a natural fit for a Song of Blades and Heroes.

I've started a conversion of the Dragon Noir Campaign to the Song of Blades and Heroes game to allow more people to enjoy the scenarios for this game.

The idea of the campaign is to play through the first 5 scenarios of Dragon Noir using the Rebel and Orc Army List provided by Dragon Noir scenario.

Each scenario will post the map rules along with some conversion of the original scenario to Song of Blades and Heroes.

My first attempt at this conversion is the first scenario: Elves Oath. To speed up play, I use the default teams defined in the non-campaign scenario rules.

Red Hand Orcs - Stats

This is the starting stats for Red Hand Orcs

Treasure Hunt - Results

Onfrey and Uzun were decisive and quick in battle. They easily moved forward to the center of the village before the Orcish warband could organize itself.

Onfrey, not content with an easy victory, moved forward to spill some goblin blood with Uzun as support. Arek was the first goblin on the scene but he held his own against the mighty warrior as the orc warband slowly moved forward.

Uzun moved to support Onfrey, lest he be surronded, but it was too late. Arek knocked the archer low as Shaman came in to support his goblins with web spells. Onfrey was able to resist the magic and started his retreat. However, he was soon encircled by the orcs and beaten down.

Uzun had retreated back to the center of the map as the rest of the Apocalypse warband moved to recover the treasure. The orc warband pressed forward with Arek and Zabek in the lead.

Uzun and Alayette easily fell the goblins in their charge. Ugluk charged forward and with a savage blow knocked Uzun down. The rest of Apocalypse fled with the treasure.

Red Hand Orcs: VP 3
Apocalypse: VP 6

SOBH movement rules for hex maps

On our village map, the current movement rules for hex based maps is very restrictive. There are alot of corners, so it makes it very slow to move around. Its also very hard to check quickly if you or your opponent is making the correct move.

To simplify things, I'm thinking of setting up the following house rules for hex based movement.

Counters are given a default movement of Medium on a map. This translates into generally 5 Movement Points( MP ) on a small map. Short = 3 MP and Long = 10 MP.

Each hex of movement costs 1 MP. Any rough terrain costs 2 MP to enter( forest, brush, light rock terrain). Each additional step costs 1 MP. You can change direction as many times as needed during a movement phase for 1 MP.

Water hexes = These hexes end movement unless you have the special Amphibious.

Example: A wardog with Long Movement has 10 MP on a small map. If the wardog runs in a straight line, he can run 10 hexes. If he wants to run in a zig-zag manner on a hex map, he can only move 9 hexes. Any rough terrain he encounters costs 2 MP to enter.

This will need some testing.

Campaign rules for SOBH

I've been looking for custom campaign rules for SOBH.

One of the more interesting links I found was this SOBH rules for "Island of the Lost".

Unfortunately, its a google link so I can't link back and find the original author's website. I'm curious what other ideas he had.

UPDATE 20081014

The author's name is Trevor and his material can be found at www.fionaadoresheroes.com.

It looked like a fun simple campaign system. I would love to try it out but alas my gaming group has grown up( i.e. married with kids).

First SOBH Campaign

I setup my first campaign in SOBH against J. My first warband is an orcish warband lead by an orcish shaman. J's warband is a small human adventuring party.

To keep things simple in this small campaign, we played with 180 points. A max of 60 points can be spent on personalities. My single personality was Claw, an orcish shaman 3/3 with the special "Magic-User". J's personality is the knight Hume, human 3/3 "Hero".

The first scenario is a Treasure Hunt. J is playing the Attacker while I'm the Defender. I used the Village Cry Havoc map as the map for the first game. J placed 3 orbs to represent the hidden treasure token in the center of the map.

SOBH Mod for Cry Havoc

While using Cry Havoc to play SOBH, I got tired of having to look at the reference files outside Vassal, so I took the time to learn how to create a module in Vassal.

I added 2 more dice buttons to easily roll the d6 in sobh. In addition, there is a summary sheet for the game. To ease bookkeeping, a property sheet was added to characters.

It was nicer to have labels for quick glance at stats but this is a workaround. Ideally, the graphics would have the stats like Cry Havoc did.

SOBH Online: Screencast

I put together a screencast of how to play A Song of Blades and Heroes online using the Cry Havoc Module.

Gundam mod for Song of Blades and Heroes

I had some initial design ideas for a gundam mod of "A Song of Blades and Heroes".  Here are my design notes.

Could use the basic rules to model a quick Gundam game.  I would need to pick different traits to represent the mechs.

RX-78  Q:3 C:4
Ranged(Long). Hero

Zaku Q:4 C:3
Ranged(Long)

Break up the Combat score between Melee and Ranged so that you can do a bit more diffentiation. The other thing is to have a trait called Melee to give units a +1 in Melee combat to defentiate between their ranged and melee scores.  A melee trait fits more in the system than breaking it out.  When you build the model, assume all Mechs have a default combat value for ranged. Give better melee mechs a Melee trait.

RX-78 Q:3 Melee:4 Ranged:4

Zaku Q:4 Melee: 2 Ranged:4

Something simple like that. You could give the generic mechs gregarious, so they can do group move or something.  This could simulate unit actions.
Command Mechs get the Leadership trait.  The system is pretty flexible, so it should work.

Reuse the simple scenarios from Gundam Game as sample scenarios.

New Traits:
Melee: +1 to Combat score in Melee
Ace: Treat Ranged combat hits as Lethal
Melee Master: Treat Melee Combat hits as Lethal

To model new type powers,
Magic-user: No ranged attack but you get the Transfix ability( represents mental stun)
Cleric: Represent Fast Recovery and basic buffing of troops

Vassal using a Song of Blades and Heroes

I tested this a few times and it works as a quick way to get a game of SOBH online working. Here is what you need to do:

1. Download Cry Havoc for Vassal
   
2. Download the base module
3. Download the Map Pack1 and Map Pack 2
4. Download Dragon Noir 1 and Dragon Noir 2
5. Setup a map
6. Drag some characters onto the board
7. Label the characters with their stats
8. You're ready to go!

The Cry Havoc module provides a hex based game for skirmish combat. The graphics are colorful and appealing. The nice thing is that if you right-click on a character, you can change their status from healthy to wounded, stunned and dead. This fits in great with SOBH.

The game also provides a d6 for rolling on the screen. SOBH is simple enough that you can easily play it using Cry Havoc gameboard.

In the example above, you can see I labeled the characters with their stats to make it easy at a glance to see what's going on.

Vassal: Song of Blades and Heroes

The Song of Blades and Heroes caught my attention when it got nominated at Origins for Best Miniature Game.

The rule set fits my needs for being elegant and concise while still giving a variety of tactics. There is a core set of simple rules which are modified by specials to give individual units more characters. The rules are also nicely illustrated and edited. All this for $4.00 ;)

As I noted earlier, the Cry Havoc module is nicely written for simple d6 based man to man combat. You just need to download the main module, a few maps and the Dragon Noir setting to have some fantasy troops for your online fantasy skirmish map.

To playtest my idea, I setup the Cry Havoc module using a Song of Blades and Heroes. To give some element of randomness when solo gaming, I quickly added the reaction charts from Mayhem Warrior Heroes. It actually worked out pretty good but required some quick decisions.

I'll do a separate post with my notes for combining the two.

The SBH system works pretty good.