Paying the Troll - Warrior Heroes-Legends

It was a tradition in the village for as long as he could remember. Every Spring the Troll would go down from his mountain and visit the village. And they would leave him piles of gold, food, wine and more. And he wouldn't destroy the village.

But this time when the Troll got to the village and his presents there was a surprise. And not a good surprise. This time the villagers had hired seven stout men to kill the Troll and free the village. So when the Troll showed up they sprang the trap and charge him from all over.

This irritated the Troll as he believed that tradition must be respected. He grabbed his large hammer and charged the closest warrior near him.

Who promptly stabbed the Troll with his great sword. "I have killed the Troll," he shouted. And everyone rejoiced. Except for the Troll.

And he would have killed the Troll becasue he was Obviously Dead. But you see, Trolls are Hard as Nails and when you kill him the first time, well, they don't die. Instead they get back up and fight. And he did.
The warriors charged and swung their great swords pushing the Troll back.

Except the Troll swung his large hammer and when he did a warrior went squish.

 And then another went squish and now there were only five warriors. But the warriors were brave Grunts and kept attacking.

Squish! Squish! And now there were three. But these three were mighty men of Reputation 5! And they attacked the Troll with vigor and drove him back again and again.

 

Their swords cut and stabbed but the Troll was Massive and their weapons had little Impact.

They were brave and fought well, never running. But they were not Stars. So when the Troll swung his large hammer three times... Squish! Squish! Squish!
The Troll killed all the warriors and tradition was saved.

FYI - Want to see how tough a Troll really is?

Click here and scroll down to the bottom.  Look for Warrior Heroes - Legends in early January

Field of Blood - Warrior Heroes - Legends

Here's a battle fought last night using Warrior Heroes - Legends and the Heroic Combat option. I wanted to see if using 40 figures was a stretch. Well, it wasn't. The entire game was over in 30 minutes. I believe the main reasons that this could be fought to a satisfactory conclusion in such a short time is due to three changes in Warrior Heroes - Legends.

 

The first one is the new In Sight mechanic tweak. Instead of each figure taking an In Sight only the group Leader takes the In Sight. This means for the 40 figures involved only two figures, the Leaders, rolled In Sight.

The reasoning for individual In Sights was to get a more realistic feel and look to melees. Part of that is the confused look during the melee as members of each side win and move forward. All order in formations is lost when smaller numbers of combatants fight. Unlike large units where there's someone to step up and occupy the place of a fallen comrade in the smaller melees this doesn't happen. Instead of four or eight ranks these would have one or two as everyone tries to get involved.

The way I solved this and gained the confused swirling mass of combat was by tweaking the Charge into Melee Test. It's simplified to three results. Charger scores more successes and charges into contact. Charger and Target score same successes and Charger charges into contact. Target scores more and charges into contact. The following pictures show the result.

Another tweak was a result of "6" when scoring damage actually pushes back the loser 2" and another round of melee is fought with the winner getting a bonus. Scoring a "1" allows the winner to kill the loser outright and move its remaining move and attack another enemy.

Smoothing this is the tweak that once in melee any subsequent melees with the same enemy group does not require another Charge Into Melee Test. So A charges B and C. He kills B and can now move into combat with C without either side testing.

Another change using the Heroic Combat option also available to Warrior Heroes - Legends is changing the Recover From Knock Down Test for melee only.
Pass 2d6 is loser falls back 2" and winner gets a +1d6 bonus when the melee continues.
Pass 1d6 the lose falls to the ground and must spend one full turn of activation prone before it can regain its feet. This gives any attacker a +2d6 bonus in melee.
Pass 0d6 the figure is Out of the Fight.

This means Stunned is gone.
Obviously Dead can only be inflicted by the winner.
Loser can die from their wounds using the After the Battle Recovery Test.

This battle concluded with a Tereken (Irish) victory over the Mirholme (Vikings). The Viking Leader was knocked Out of the Fight and the subsequent Reaction Tests caused the Vikings to run away.

Dungeon Diving - WHL - Part Three

Part Two

After defeating the Big Bad the trio moved deeper into the dungeon. Haldor wasn't sure if they were lucky having got the Black Moon Goblin heading up to the surface but he wondered why he was alone. There must be more Goblins somewhere.

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You can meet the Big Bad in the dungeon without finding him in the treasure room. Flipping the next card (4 Diamonds) revealed  nothing. The next card (4 Spades) was a potential contact but proved to only raise the Encounter Rating to 4.

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Frenk was in the lead. Having had  a chance to fight the Big Bad (Haldor actually killed him) had only whetted his appetite for more. "Stairs," he whispered. The trio went down to the third level.

The next card drawn was a Face Card. This signified a set of stairs down to a lower level and more importantly the replenishing of the dungeon deck to twice the current ER, 4. It should be noted that the first dungeon deck had 6 cards in it due to an ER of 3. Now, after exploring 8 cards (2 over the original) there were now 8 more cards to explore. This is my favorite dungeon mechanic. You never no how big the dungeon is or when it will increase in size.

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The two Goblins stepped into view as the passage widened. Led by Frenk the three Warriors charged. Rolf cut down his opponent while Haldor forced his back, who was then killed by Frenk. His first kill! The trio searched the Goblin bodies and found 2 Gold Talos and some Food.

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The next card was the 7 of Diamonds, again nothing. The next card as the second Joker. This meant the dungeon deck would be replenished to three times the current Encounter Rating. I have a rule where if the Big Bad is dead and a Joker is drawn this signifies a new dungeon entrance inside the current dungeon. And with a new dungeon comes a new Big Bad. Time to roll one up.

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The Warriors moved on into the dungeon. 

"Hold," Rolf said. He moved to a spot in the floor and knelt down. Shaking his head he said, "Troll." 

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The Joker meant replenish the dungeon deck as well. This made 12 unexplored cards. What had started as a small 6 card dungeon had grown into a three level 30+ card dungeon with a very bad Big Bad. Trolls are very tough in Warrior Heroes - Legends. How tough?

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The three conversed for awhile. Goblins were one thing, but a Troll? Haldor knew that if there was a Troll that left the door open to maybe an Ogre or two, Ghouls or worse. Frenk didn't know any better but this was not Rolf's first dungeon. They decided to push on.

Heroic Combat - Detailed Example

Here's a step by step example of the Heroic Combat mechanic.

Heroic Melee Combat - Must have for THW games!

Here’s an easy to do change to melee that allows for Heroic Combats. You know, the kind of fights where the good guy and the bad guy square off, back and forth, sword fighting for a long time. Well, here it is.

This is a step beyond the new melee combat in Warrior Heroes – Legends and not for everyone. Use it as you like, I am definitely using it!

Recover From Duck Back Test

Modify the Recover From Knocked Down Test as follow:

·        Pass 2d6 – Loser moves back 2”, winner remains in contact. Next round of melee the winner receives a +1d6 melee bonus.

·        Pass 1d6 – Loser is knocked to the ground. May not regain feet until has remained prone for one full turn of activation.

·        Pass 0d6 – Loser is Out of the Fight.

Example – Brian the Irish Warrior and Sven the Viking have just finished a round of melee. Brian was knocked down and now takes the recover From Knock Down Test. He scores a 5 and 4, passes 1d6 and is knocked to the ground. Sven has yet to carry out his In Sight action, remember that it was Brian’s action that caused the melee. Sven now attacks Brian who is prone. Sven receives the +2d6 bonus for attacking a prone opponent.

That’s it!