AoS Siege battles / rules / ideas

[Warden]

Wow really interesting siege thread. I am a bit late but here is my two cents:

My first thought is that the terrain pieces used to represent walls and towers will need to support whatever rules exist that allow them to be damaged. Something to think about.

Rolling a bunch of dice and then a wall is removed and bare Tabletop replaced it? =Disatisfactory

Having walls / towers be impervious to everything, nothing can take them down? =Disatisfactory (also)

I heartily agree with this.

When a wall/tower is destroyed (by siege weapons, huge monsters, or magic ) the wall is removed and replaced by a ruined wall section =Satisfactory

I played many siege scenarios with my brother a long time ago (6th ed? pardon my AOS ignorance) and we had a ton of variations between beastmen, lizardmen, wood elves, and bretonnians. Having ruined wall sections came in handy when they were destroyed (whether by monsters, magic, or siege weapons) so that the destroyed sections could now be crossed over by the attacking troops. This allowed them easy access to the central keep-plaza, BUT it also counted as difficult terrain for them to cross, and they would have to contend with the wall defenders to happened to survive. I believe everyone on the wall before it was destroyed all had to take a mandatory strength 10 hit or something to survive, so not many did unless they were a character (just like in movies, the heroes tend to survive crazy scenarios like falling a 100 foot drop surrounded by falling boulders).

hmmm.... all melee weapons?

I am thinking about monsters.
- The tail swipe of a Bastiladon
- the club of a giant
- The mighty fists of a Maw-Krusha
- Ghal-Maraz, Sigmar's own warhammer wielded by the mightiest Stormcast, the Celestant-Prime

Even the weapons of some elite units with magical weapons:
- Stormcast Concussors
- Stormcast Retributors with Starsoul Maces
- A Saurus Sunblood with his weapon bristling of Celestial Energy, whatever.

I mean: Sure, in a realistic world a infantry weapon regardless of its quality cannot damage a stone wall. But in Warhammer? Where do we draw the line?

Lots of good points. We dealt with damage to walls/towers/buildings by using the strength of an attack: the higher the strength the better the damage, so only really big things could have a chance of destroying them. I don't remember where we drew the line but most monsters could at least damage the gates of a fortress. Artillery (especially cannons) had a better chance of bringing down some fortifications, and I think we used the old RUINATION OF CITIES magic spell a couple times to really bring down the walls

Kislev. I remember a siege game where some Orcs (or possibly Chaos dudes) pushed a siege tower forward for four turns. It moved at a painful 4 inches per turn. Each turn the Elves, defending the walls of Praag, peppered it with arrows. It died on turn four...and just disappeared from the table. 6th or 7th Edition I think.

This was also a huge issue for us too , we figured out that after a while it was too boring to have siege towers start so far away and not make it to the actual walls until turn 4, plus shooting from the walls nearly wiped out most of the units first. Options to fix this problem were either move them closer than the 24" start (because maybe the siege towers have had time to work their way towards the walls before the battle starts in earnest) or to just allow them to march towards the walls each turn (because they are really putting their backs into it, though this is a bit of a stretch ).



I am looking forward to whatever other ideas come out of this thread, this makes me want to go build some more siege equipment!

Hmmm, Mortal wounds against a structure can only be used while your within 3in of a siege weapon and 6in of an opponents structure.

Edit: 5000 posts!!

Congrats Lord Slann, I like your new picture!

 

[Canas]

This climbing ^ business has been a pet peeve of mine for years. It started with those wretched Yeti in the Ogre army. I absolutely detest a climbing rule that allows something to ignore a vertical distance.



Good ^ man. Climbing an eight inch tower should cost eight inches of movement. We concur. (And that is being incredibly generous, since normal, real life, mundane climbers need far longer to ascend a given distance.)

Are you agreeing with Aginor but disagreeing with me? Cuz w're saying the same thing. I'm confused.

Agree about the tunnels.
They tried to do _something_ with them in the GHB2017 siege rules, but those are pretty underwhelming. I'd rather omit tunnels than doing them half-assed.

Also agree about the spiders. Those walls will still be a speed bump - as they should - if they have to spend movement inches for the vertical distance, and that's enough.



As for the defenders:
The obvious bonus is that the walls and fortifications help them so they need less troops. Since we want battles to be balanced that basically means that at least defense towers will have some sort of point value.
I think we don't need points for simple walls since - compared to defense towers that use weapons - they are not very useful if nobody is there to guard them.

About wall bonuses specifically:
In general I would say that sombody standing on a fortress wall is fully within a piece of terrain, so yes I'd say walls grant cover.

Also we could talk about walls having anti-siege equipment mounted on them. Like this:
For each wall segment of 5" you can choose a anti-siege weapon. Pick one of the weapons below, it can be used once per turn by one unit standing on that wall segment:
- drop/throw rocks: 4 attacks, 1" range, 4/4/-1/1 (or something like that)
- drop oil: (works like a Salamander's stream of fire, but limited to 3")


Balancing-wise the goal is to have the game balanced on a 3-1 ratio of attackers vs. defenders. So if the defender brings 1000 points of troops the attacker will need roughly 3000 points to win the game. The defensive structures have be effective enough to be worth the point difference.

For siege equipment I'd do the following:
"major" points on the wall (towers, gatehouses) can have heavy siege equipment (e.g. a mounted cannon). How heavy exactly depends on the type of wall (a small village's wall isn't going to have nearly the same capacity as a heavily fortified fortress). The wall segments in between can have throwing weapons stockpiled on them (rocks, javalins, etc.). These throwing weapons can be used by any unit within 3" of the stockpile instad of their regular attack (excluding you know stuff that is too feral/stupid/has no arms to throw things with). The type & effectivness of weapon depending on the race defending. This to balance out squishy and smart human defenders with hulking orruk brutes.

As for walls providing a bonus great enough to sustain a 3-1 ratio; a lot of armies, especially at lower point values, will not be able to pull that off without the walls having significant bonusses beyond just being in the way. Walls or no walls a 1000 points of skinks are unlikely to stop 3000 points of stormforged.

 

[Aginor]

For siege equipment I'd do the following:
"major" points on the wall (towers, gatehouses) can have heavy siege equipment (e.g. a mounted cannon). How heavy exactly depends on the type of wall (a small village's wall isn't going to have nearly the same capacity as a heavily fortified fortress). The wall segments in between can have throwing weapons stockpiled on them (rocks, javalins, etc.). These throwing weapons can be used by any unit within 3" of the stockpile instad of their regular attack (excluding you know stuff that is too feral/stupid/has no arms to throw things with). The type & effectivness of weapon depending on the race defending. This to balance out squishy and smart human defenders with hulking orruk brutes.

As for walls providing a bonus great enough to sustain a 3-1 ratio; a lot of armies, especially at lower point values, will not be able to pull that off without the walls having significant bonusses beyond just being in the way. Walls or no walls a 1000 points of skinks are unlikely to stop 3000 points of stormforged.

Well, of course walls alone are not enough. That's what other fortifications are for, like the towers I mentioned in the first post.

Let me explain it on an example that I tried already:
I created a terrain piece that is a fighting platform. It has magnets so I can use my spare Stegadon equipment on it. Here it is:

http://lustria-online.com/threads/aginors-painting-blog.19114/page-16#post-201638


The rules in the shown configuration are as follows:
- if there are two or more models on the platform (they may not have mounts but everyone else is OK) it gains the Stegadon's Sunfire Throwers attack.
- otherwise it works with the same rules as the Watch Tower standard scenery.

I played it against my good friend @Mesandres and covered it with a few low and barriers. I gave the walls the following simple stats: 3+ save, only melee attacks, 10 wounds. The barriers were standing close to each other in the middle, but on the edges there was open space to attack through.

We then played the battle and the Ironjawz attacked that small fort with a 1600 points army, while I defended it with about 1000 points of Seraphon, mainly Skink units. That was before GHB2017 though so our army was a bit weaker and Ironjawz were quite a bit faster.
In short: The Ironjawz won, which was the expected result, but that simple platform and a few simple barriers made it a close battle. Had the walls been closed on the sides I am pretty sure I would have won, because then the Gore-Gruntas couldn't have killed my Bastiladon so quickly.

With proper fortress walls I could have easily fended off that attack I think. That's what made me think about how it could be fun having such rules for a proper siege battle.

 

[Aginor]

Another idea just as an example:
If you had a Bastiladon with a Solar Engine, but it would not be able to move and instead have 30" range with its main attack. Would it cost more or less points? Because that's pretty much what I have in mind for a possible tower.

 

[Canas]

Well, of course walls alone are not enough. That's what other fortifications are for, like the towers I mentioned in the first post.

Let me explain it on an example that I tried already:
I created a terrain piece that is a fighting platform. It has magnets so I can use my spare Stegadon equipment on it. Here it is:

http://lustria-online.com/threads/aginors-painting-blog.19114/page-16#post-201638


The rules in the shown configuration are as follows:
- if there are two or more models on the platform (they may not have mounts but everyone else is OK) it gains the Stegadon's Sunfire Throwers attack.
- otherwise it works with the same rules as the Watch Tower standard scenery.

I played it against my good friend @Mesandres and covered it with a few low and barriers. I gave the walls the following simple stats: 3+ save, only melee attacks, 10 wounds. The barriers were standing close to each other in the middle, but on the edges there was open space to attack through.

We then played the battle and the Ironjawz attacked that small fort with a 1600 points army, while I defended it with about 1000 points of Seraphon, mainly Skink units. That was before GHB2017 though so our army was a bit weaker and Ironjawz were quite a bit faster.
In short: The Ironjawz won, which was the expected result, but that simple platform and a few simple barriers made it a close battle. Had the walls been closed on the sides I am pretty sure I would have won, because then the Gore-Gruntas couldn't have killed my Bastiladon so quickly.

With proper fortress walls I could have easily fended off that attack I think. That's what made me think about how it could be fun having such rules for a proper siege battle.

That'd work relativly well as what I mentioned as the "main" pieces of equipment (towers, gatehouses etc). Just wanted to be clear on this as in real life the mere existance of walls provides a massive advantage. There's examples of mere handfulls of men stopping entire armies simple cuz they have terrific fortifications.

Also I would Always do this INSTEAD of its normal attacks. Otherwise you'l get into situations where for example a unit of kurgoth hunters being amazing at melee, amazing at range & heaving freaking extra attacks.

Another idea just as an example:
If you had a Bastiladon with a Solar Engine, but it would not be able to move and instead have 30" range with its main attack. Would it cost more or less points? Because that's pretty much what I have in mind for a possible tower.

Less, unless it's positioned in a manner were it can't really be counterattacked while being able to cover 90% of the battle with it's own attacks. It being stationary reduces it's potential considerably. Also the lack of javalins & melee attack significantly reduce it's reliability. I'd say it should probably be 50-75% unless it's in a perfect position or is extremely difficult to destroy.

 

[Aginor]

That'd work relativly well as what I mentioned as the "main" pieces of equipment (towers, gatehouses etc). Just wanted to be clear on this as in real life the mere existance of walls provides a massive advantage. There's examples of mere handfulls of men stopping entire armies simple cuz they have terrific fortifications.

Also I would Always do this INSTEAD of its normal attacks. Otherwise you'l get into situations where for example a unit of kurgoth hunters being amazing at melee, amazing at range & heaving freaking extra attacks.



Less, unless it's positioned in a manner were it can't really be counterattacked while being able to cover 90% of the battle with it's own attacks. It being stationary reduces it's potential considerably. Also the lack of javalins & melee attack significantly reduce it's reliability. I'd say it should probably be 50-75% unless it's in a perfect position or is extremely difficult to destroy.

Good points!