Hey All,

Thought this might be of interest.

http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=9270

Stu.

Hi All,

I ran my first game of "The Regiment" on Sunday and had a lot of fun. I would have liked to use a historical scenario and make maps and everything but I quite literally had zero prep time. I decided on a "unit has been destroyed except for you guys" type of scenario and had a vague idea that the group would eventually hook up with the resistance and be hidden in another village somewhere.

I figured that if the game ended up being a campaign then it would be cool to have a human element where the group had to deal with reprisals for Resistance activity as well as shortages of equipment and members of what would become their community being killed.

I had a vivid image of a young boy slashing the tyres on a German Staff Car and the threat of random public executions if the culprit were not given up.   

Anyway-

We had three player characters in the group. (All Corporals actually)
McCaffrey, the weather beaten old soldier,
Riley, a shattered man running on instinct
Barnes, a young man aged beyond his years. 

And a few NPCs.
Sarge. We never actually named him LOL! He was delirious/unconscious most of the game anyway
Neville Adams, a young soldier. wide eyed and innocent.
Stuart (not my idea) Neville a sniper with passion for his job. The Nevilles were really good mates.

I started the players off with a bang (heh) and had them running up a hill towards a ruined house in a random French village whereupon they threw themselves over the partially destroyed front wall amidst a hail of incoming fire. The building was on top of a small hill with a steep slope on all but the side with the door.

Once the players were all in cover, I told them that they counted only 6 men left from their squad including the Sarge who probably wasn't going to make it. As far as any of them knew, the rest of the platoon had been wiped out by the panzers that were not supposed to be in this area. The team was not equipped to deal with tanks.

Nobody quite knew who should take charge so each player started to do their own thing which was quite interesting. McCaffery started to lay down suppressing fire to keep the German's from advancing. (suppress the Enemy. Hit on a 10+), the group closest to the house were unable to advance and stuck at the bottom of the hill with little cover. The Neville's took advantage and rolled grenades down the hill knocking out the 5 Jerries attempting to advance. (GM Fiat. Really, a reward for the suppression)

Balmy Barnes as he became known decided that he would take matters into his own hands. He opened the side door, threw out a couple of smoke grenades for cover and shot off around the back of the building and down the hill. This was pretty crazy given the circumstances so xp was marked and the dice rolled. (Are you crazy? Hit on a 10+ made it round the back of the building)

Meanwhile, Riley decided to see what could be done about the Sarge's chest wound. He taped gauze over both the entry and exit wounds and applied pressure to try and stop the bleed. (Medic! Hit on a 7-9, patient stabilised) I ruled that this took quite some time.

McCaffery and the Neville's kept up their withering fire although the grenades eventually started running low. The enemy was starting to mass forces for a push and time was running out. When the mortar rounds started crashing all around, the team decided it was time to leave in another cloud of smoke. (spend more gear. I wanted them low on stuff)

Meanwhile, Balmy Barnes made it around the house and realised that he was well concealed from the incoming forces by the slope which extended 50mtrs or so from the house. He assessed the situation (Hit 7-9. Asked about the biggest threat, I told him that a mortar team was setting up 30 mtrs or so away near the edge of the ditch.) Barnes raced along the ditch as fast as he could until he got close to the enemy position. (The enemy had popped off two mortar rounds by this time that were landing increasingly close to the house.)Barnes popped up out of nowhere, raked the mortar crew with submachinegun fire and killed them all. As he was pocketing their kit, he heard a continuous rattle and squeak coming from over the next hill. (Assess the situation Hit 7-9. TANK!) Balmy scarpered back towards the house.

The team indoors picked up Sarge on his stretcher, and moved off as quickly as possible out the side door and across the field behind. (Act under fire. Roll plus Guts. Everyone made it but Riley took a minor wound to the arm. Just then the farmhouse exploded from an HE round fired from the Tank which crested the hill a few moments later.

The team sprinted across the field under mortar fire and almost made it into the woods when poor Adams was killed outright by a mortar fragment. This was made worse by the fact that he was carrying the back end of the stretcher. He dropped Sarge as he died inflicting another wound and the Sarge maxed out his stress and started screaming. Riley prepped a big hit of morphine. (spend gear) and knocked Sarge out with it.

The team escaped far enough into the woods that the pursuit was broken off and stopped to deal with stress and wounds. I can't remember what was and wasn't rolled but the mechanic to deal with stress via passing out smokes is gold. It worked really really well.

I'll try and post the rest of the AP tomorrow. It's 23:00 here. :) (I hope this made sense, I'm too tired to proof it.)

Stu.

Hi Guys,

When I was growing up playing D&D, I never even dreamed that the writers of the game hadn't done any research into weapons and armour.... It turns out that they either really hadn't or had and decided to ignore their findings.

I thought the following might be of interest. This is going to be a little incoherent though as I once again find myself posting in the middle of the night:

A long sword is a two handed weapon and there is no reason at all why it should get a damage bonus over any other weapon. Anything with an axe blade makes far more sense for a bonus and particularly so against armour.

Interestingly, weapons capable of penetrating armour had a nasty habit of getting stuck, hence the attractiveness of (certain types) of maces and hammers against plate armour. These could cause concussive and compressive damage  without getting stuck.   

Plate armour is far less cumbersome than a maile shirt.(walk around in one of each for 5 minutes and you'll know) Plate is built for the individual and it's rigidity makes it self supporting to a degree. A mail shirt is worn with tight belt to get as much of it's weight  as possible on the hips. Otherwise, the whole thing is supported by the shoulders. (which hurts)

When it comes to encumbrance, IMHO, this stat should be a combination of weight and awkwardness. The beauty of a short sword (which often had a blade well over 30 inches!) is that it can be easily sheathed out of the way. Shields? Not so much and that pole arm is downright annoying. :)


Swords in general are backup weapons by the early medieval period because they are useless against most decent armour/helmets/vambraces etc unless used to thrust at weak points....and even then... Manuals from the 1500s are full of pictures of knights in full harness going at each other with long swords. They hold them like bayoneted rifles and thrust at the armpits/wrestle & try to break limbs. Often, an armoured fight was finished on the ground with daggers!

In a civilian or town setting of course short swords, small maces, daggers (eventually rapiers) become the weapon of choice due to ease of carry and also social acceptability for carry. (this progression finished up with smallswords and their ilk and eventually walking sticks)

A sword should be about 20 times the cost of an axe or mace. They are much harder to make, require superior tempering, involve more costly steel, and take a long time to forge. They also require a lot more looking after.

Incidentally, sword (or any one handed weapon) and buckler is a vastly superior weapon system to sword alone as one can make attacks with the buckler positioned to deny a counter-cut to the sword arm. You don't really block with a buckler most of the time but use it to close a line of counterattack. If you fight someone with a shield with sword alone or sword and buckler, you are toast.

Shields by the way are mostly held edge on and are used to completely close what would otherwise be an open line of attack. Often, shields are engaged in order to open a line of for a weapon. If you hold your shield face to the enemy, he will engage with his edge at one of yours and open you up.

People arguably stopped using shields because armour became good enough that it could soak up a blow from a one handed weapon. Two handed weapons then dominated the battlefield. Gunpowder then rendered armour mostly obsolete as all but the very heaviest could now be penetrated with an arquebus ball.

Speaking about bows, I have seen a 90lb bow with an arrow that has a bodkin point,  shot at 2mm mild steel helmet at point blank range.  It didn't penetrate. Even if we were talking thinner steel than this, you have to get through the padded arming cap as well...

A crossbow (which I realise isn't in the game) is another matter. We are talking about a heavier projectile fired from a bow with many times the pull, far more accurately. Hitting anything with a bow is really really hard. (Medieval Archery is frustratingly hard) I am told that a crossbow is relatively easy. 

Encumbrance aside, the underlying problem for me here is that D&D allows weapons and armour options from a stretch of time (in Europe at least) that covers (conservatively) about 7 or 800 years of what was a desperate arms race.

I will be hacking my games and setting them in the Dark Ages for the most part to get around this. (also allowing me to add an awesome Viking feel to things) Folks will mostly have spears, shields and light armour along with axes (+throwing), shortswords, Javelins, daggers, staves and self bows. There will be no plate armour, most of the polearms will go, and there will be no long bows or cross bows. 

Hope this is of interest. I've spent years working with translations/transcriptions of ancient fight manuals and reconstructing the systems and thought I'd share.

Cheers,

Stu.