the river crossings (WIP scenario)

[calmacil]

okay i'll start the ball rolling.

An Introduction
With the Scenario Sub Forum I thought we could have some finshed scenarios and others that are work-in-progress scenarios. The reason is it's often daunting to write out a whole scenario, and other people can bounce ideas around and may give you ideas that you'd have never come up with by yourself.

C&C is always welcome. Whether you think the scenario isn't balanced, or things you'd add..... anything you like really




My idea for this WIP scenario
This is a very basic scenario that i wrote last night. It's still a WIP idea, but i intend to try this after i get back from my holiday. Personally i prefer to sort out the mechanics of the scenario first, then add in the background afterwards.



There's 5 objectives in the game. Whoever controls the most at the end of turn 6 wins.
The board is seperated by a river running down the middle, in the centre of the river is a huge bridge (that's also an objective) The river can only be crossed by infantry, they can't charge from one side to the other though. They'd need 2 orders to do that.



At first i was only going to have one crossing point in the river, but i thought cavalry would get bottlenecked all aiming for the bridge. So i've included two more crossing points for cavalry. (i'm going to use a bridge and a ford) Both of these are at the extreme edges of the board, so they have go out their way to use them



Deployment will be anywhere on your side of the board, at least 30cm away from the river, and at least 20cm away from the edge of the board. (this will make armies slightly closer together ...a possible 60cm instead of 80cm. That's because the terrain slows you down. My reasoning for the "20cm away from edge of board is to make cavalry units work hard to use the two crossings at the edge of the board)


Here's a very basic idea of the map. This shows where the 5 objectives are, and my idea with the other two river crossings.
It looks like i'm playing along the length of the table, i didn't intend that to be the case.




For the objectives....... i don't want to make them a huge advantage to infantry (eg. villages, hills) i feel as though infantry already has a decent advantage with being able to cross the river. I have two 10mm high elf monolithes that i was going to use, a stone circle, and maybe a tower.
Just had a thought.  Maybe the objectives can trigger something else happening in the game? (for example... one objective on the other side of a river to a chaos army could be a cave,  roll on a random chart and you may get a monster that will join your forces?) ...or the elf monolithes have magic power in them?



Background....... depends on the forces involved, i was something along the lines of >>>>
....An army landing on the shores and crossing the borders into enemy terrain and taking vital areas (elven monolithes) If the attacking force can establish themselves in the enemy terrain it will allow the rest of their army to land and form a base camp. The defenders are desperatly trying to fight their enemy back, they have sent word to their capital and help will soon be on the way. If they can disrupt the enemy before they get a foothold in their land, maybe they can drive them back into the sea.




What do you think? there's room for improvement there. All C&C's are welcome
Would keep it as 3 river crossings? or just have one in the middle?
Thanks 



PS. here's my 10mm elven monolithes. I got them from a german company, i think they're cool

[jchaos79]

If I understood well:  river do not stop infantry, but they can not iniciate a charge beyond it.
Cavalry (I assume chariots and monster too) can not pass the river.

I feel 3 passes are OK.

I like it. Never play with objectives so I can not valorate appropiately.

[calmacil]

If I understood well:  river do not stop infantry, but they can not iniciate a charge beyond it.
Cavalry (I assume chariots and monster too) can not pass the river.

I feel 3 passes are OK.

I like it. Never play with objectives so I can not valorate appropiately.

Thanks jchaos.

Yes that's correct. Cavalry can't pass over the river, and infantry can't charge from one side to the other

Something i thought of... i might have the objectives as bonus victory points instead. Maybe +400 per objective, and +500 for the central objective

[TristanHoag]

Hehehe... I was going to suggest the same. Many Warmaster games end when one army reaches their breakpoint and flees from the table. Having the objectives count for VP bonuses can keep them relevant in this situation. I have played many games where I defeat my opponent only to find that the game is a tie or even a loss because of the number of VP's they have earned!

[Jo]

We played a similar scenario on our previous yearly warmaster event where we typically play a 6 player game. The objective of that game was crossing the river for one army, the other army trying to defend it.

Some things we learned/ruled during that event:
- The attacking armies had more points than the defenders: 1000 for defenders and 1500 for the attackers. This proved to be quite a good balance. We played 2 battles of 3 vs 3 and on average the attackers were able to cross the bridge half of the time (2 players in battle 1, 1 player in battle 2).
- Infantry on the river bank counts as defended, even on the other side of a ford. This will induce the risk of having simply lines of infantry on the opposite sides of the river.
- For this 3000 vs 4500 points battle we used a table of 2m50 x 1m40. We had a central bridge and 2 fords where cavalry could pass but defending infantry still counting as defended. This was fine since there were 3 players per side.  We had one of the flank players moving half of his army to the central bridge causing a massive 'traffic jam'. They ended up breaking through the flank, the bridge itself didn't fall.
- If a cavalry unit is on the bridge and is driven back by shooting then you should allow the unit to straight back over the bridge iso directly away from the enemy (and being blocked & confused on the side of the bridge).
- The river was exactly 10cm wide with infantry moving at half pace. So a unit flush on one bank would just be able attack a unit on the other river bank so 1 command was sufficient. Really crossing the river unopposed would require 2 commands as well.
- To avoid all those troops swimming in the river we had a special scenario related rule: there was a random steam cloud hovering over the river with severe consequences if it would land on the section your troops are in - it also blocked LoS. This reduced the incentive of players of crossing the river but also weakened the defenders as their shooters were not as effective.

Your idea with the objectives allows for armies of the same size and equal chances but I think that the main action will be concentrated on the central bridge with infantry protecting the fords from an attack. An army attacking at the fords first will be at a disadvantage before reaching a goal pretty far away - so you might want to give an additional incentive for crossing the river. You might also want to make the number of turns variable, otherwise there will be a lot of last-turn movement with flyers etc.

Anyhow - enjoy, I know I did

Jo