A [recent blog post](http://awargamingodyssey.blogspot.com/2010/09/lord-of-rings-hotts-and-memoir-44.html) at 'A Wargaming Odyssey' (with a [follow-up posting](http://awargamingodyssey.blogspot.com/2010/09/te-wapen-fantasy-rules-by-phil-dutre.html) as well), brought the ruleset *Te Wapen* back to my attention. *Te Wapen* is a fantasy ruleset, heavily inspired by the game engine of [Battlecry](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/551/battle-cry) and [Memoir 44](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10630/memoir-44), both excellent boardgames. I wrote these rules a couple of years ago, as part of my neverending quest for the perfect rules to fight fantasy battles with miniatures. This obsession started when I first read *Lord of the Rings* many moons ago, and over the years, as driven many of my miniature wargaming endeavours. Needless to say, I don't think *Warhammer* is a ruleset that appeals to the needs of the discerning wargamer, but let us not open that can of proverbial worms.
*Te Wapen* (most recent rules, dated 2007, can be found on the Yahoo group) is actually fairly simple. It uses a hexgrid for movement and ranges, and the combat resolution is a direct derivative from the games mentioned above. The command and control mechanism went through some iterations, though. The original *Battlecry* gave the player some command cards, with which you could activate units. The next turn, those very same units could be activated again. This works well if all units are more or less the same in strength, but in fantasy games, where one unit can be a tiny battalion of goblins, and another a mighty dragon, this doesn't work that well. Nothing stops a player from activating the dragon over and over again. Moreover, the *Battlecry* or *Memoir 44* system also doesn't work that well when each side has a different amount of units (e.g. in an attack-defence scenario), since it implies that units on the numerous weaker side get much more activations on average compared to units on the stronger side.
Hence, I started looking into alternatives: more cards per turn; activation counters with each unit (a unit cannot be activated again until everything else has), etc. Also, I had to find an alternative for the 3 fronts commonly used in *Battlecry*. Many scenarios do not adapt well to the three front battlefield.
The final version of the rules uses generals (each of a certain color, and partly inspired by [**Rudi Geudens' variant rules**](http://www.tsoa.be/html/fuseliers.html)), that can command any unit in their vicinity (replacing the three fronts), and a counter activation system that prevents activating units over and over again. This worked well, and I remember we played a couple of (very bloody) battles using these rules. If I would do the whole exercise all over again, I would probably look into the command&control system made popular by *Blitzkrieg Commander* or *Warmaster*.
However, in 2006, [Battlelore](http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25417/battlelore) was published, and development on *Te Wapen* sort of stopped. My own interest also shifted back towards more historical periods, resulting again in self-developed rulesets (ACW skirmish, Napoleonics, Infantry firefights), but I will keep a discussion of these for a future posting.
Showing posts with label TeWapen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TeWapen. Show all posts
Sunday, 26 September 2010
Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Battle for Rohtang Pass
In the sequence of 'Schild en Vriend' revival games, the May game (after WW1 in December, Lowenheim in January, WW1 in March, Memoir44 in April) was a 25mm fantasy battle using the Te Wapen rules (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Te_Wapen/ ).
Four players were present: Maarten, Alan, Eddy and myself. Eddy was so kind to provide us with an after action report:
Just a small AAR on last night�s game The Punitive Expedition into the Orc
homelands after the successful raising of the siege of L�heim. As fate
would have it Alan and me would be playing the brave humans, Maarten and
Phil playing the ugly, cowardly bad guys so it seemed that the God of Dice
was for once going to play fair tonight.
It would be a classical medieval/fantasy battle and Phil re-assured us that
�There would be no suprises�. At that point in time we should have realized
anything Phil says has the believability of a press statement by Mohammed
�There are no Americans in Bagdad� Saeed al-Sahaf but that would become
painfully clear in the game ahead.
So we split-up our army into 3 sections to be able to navigate the 3
mountain passes leading up to the Orc plain � and presto, suddenly archers
appeared out of nowhere to pepper our trapped troops with deadly arrows from
the safety of the mountains. �Well, you can�t call that a surprise, can you
- you�re moving through mountain passes, what did you expect ?� was the
only comment from Phil so we knew that there would be other trouble ahead.
Those archers had cost us two units, both of them ranged units (blunderbuss
and archers) and managed to delay our approach considerably so while the Orc
army was happily setting up a battleline only our cavalry had managed to
extricate themselves from the mountain passes and form-up in a line. There
they would wait a couple of turns for the infantry to catch-up and cover
their flank.
As our cavalry was on the left, and the Orc cavalry / wargs was on the right
a gigantic cavalry clash was clearly going to happen so it would be
important to get the first charge in. Through some cunning play (read :
luck) it were the humans who got to launch their charge first. And what a
charge it was � virtually annihilating the Orc cavalry but then it dawned on
us that it had all been a gigantic trap as the deadly card of �Judgement
Day� was used on our troops � twice - This had the effect of removing just
as much figures from our units as we had killed in that charge. 2 heavy
cavalry units got wiped-out, with a third just hanging on and our most
powerfull unit � the Red Dragon � frozen in place. It was a disaster from
which the left flank would never recover. Gone was the tactical plan to
occupy the enemy burial mound.
So with our left flank gone, our right flank still hopelessly stuck in the
mountains and out of the game, our only hope lay in the centre where we had
a local superiority as the Orc army had concentrated too many of their units
on their right flank to counter our cavalry. But the God of Dice hadn�t
abandoned us : Maarten and Phil were getting low dice while even our
long-shot totally-against-the-odds attacks managed to kill some enemy units
so the unit kill tally was slowly turning into our favour. With one unit
killed equaling 1 VP we were even ahead by 1 point throughout the middle of
the game though we didn�t control any of the victory locations worth 2 VP�s.
It was getting late so at that point Phil declared that since neither army
was likely to fulfill their victory conditions a �moral victory� would be
given to the first army to reach 10 VP�s. It was 7-6 in our favour at that
moment so a desperate struggle in the center ensued with both sides going
for kills regardless of the consequences. The Orcs were up first killing 3
of our units so it was 7-9 and they were only 1 VP removed from victory, but
in our next turn the last cavalry unit coupled with a wizard�s fireball
attack and even a regular infantry attack (the only one in the game IIRC,
all the rest being ranged, cavalry or magical) managed to kill an orc unit
and in a stroke of genius Alan also managed to occupy the central victory
location stone which netted us an additional 2 VP�s : 10-9 � we had �won�,
but given the carnage all around us, we would have settled for a draw
anytime.
Aftermath :
As this was a card-driven game with activation, attack bonus and opponent
counter-cards we had to use-up all our cards to get out of those bloody (in
both senses of the word) mountains and out into the plain while the Orc army
had had a chance to accumulate some deadly counter-cards which they used to
good effect. I don�t think we ever used either a bonus card or a
counter-card throughout the game which is fine as it means the system is
flexible enough to cope with different situations and strategies.
I should have brought along my digital camera (and I will next time) as the
table looked spectacular. For those who were there here�s what I would have
taken pictures off : the Orc army lining up beautifully in the center of the
table, the total confusion in the mountain passes following the ambush, the
human heavy cavalry drawn up for battle on the hill and the charge downhill
and the scenes of Armageddon in the centre as both armies just battered each
other to pulp.
Four players were present: Maarten, Alan, Eddy and myself. Eddy was so kind to provide us with an after action report:
Just a small AAR on last night�s game The Punitive Expedition into the Orc
homelands after the successful raising of the siege of L�heim. As fate
would have it Alan and me would be playing the brave humans, Maarten and
Phil playing the ugly, cowardly bad guys so it seemed that the God of Dice
was for once going to play fair tonight.
It would be a classical medieval/fantasy battle and Phil re-assured us that
�There would be no suprises�. At that point in time we should have realized
anything Phil says has the believability of a press statement by Mohammed
�There are no Americans in Bagdad� Saeed al-Sahaf but that would become
painfully clear in the game ahead.
So we split-up our army into 3 sections to be able to navigate the 3
mountain passes leading up to the Orc plain � and presto, suddenly archers
appeared out of nowhere to pepper our trapped troops with deadly arrows from
the safety of the mountains. �Well, you can�t call that a surprise, can you
- you�re moving through mountain passes, what did you expect ?� was the
only comment from Phil so we knew that there would be other trouble ahead.
Those archers had cost us two units, both of them ranged units (blunderbuss
and archers) and managed to delay our approach considerably so while the Orc
army was happily setting up a battleline only our cavalry had managed to
extricate themselves from the mountain passes and form-up in a line. There
they would wait a couple of turns for the infantry to catch-up and cover
their flank.
As our cavalry was on the left, and the Orc cavalry / wargs was on the right
a gigantic cavalry clash was clearly going to happen so it would be
important to get the first charge in. Through some cunning play (read :
luck) it were the humans who got to launch their charge first. And what a
charge it was � virtually annihilating the Orc cavalry but then it dawned on
us that it had all been a gigantic trap as the deadly card of �Judgement
Day� was used on our troops � twice - This had the effect of removing just
as much figures from our units as we had killed in that charge. 2 heavy
cavalry units got wiped-out, with a third just hanging on and our most
powerfull unit � the Red Dragon � frozen in place. It was a disaster from
which the left flank would never recover. Gone was the tactical plan to
occupy the enemy burial mound.
So with our left flank gone, our right flank still hopelessly stuck in the
mountains and out of the game, our only hope lay in the centre where we had
a local superiority as the Orc army had concentrated too many of their units
on their right flank to counter our cavalry. But the God of Dice hadn�t
abandoned us : Maarten and Phil were getting low dice while even our
long-shot totally-against-the-odds attacks managed to kill some enemy units
so the unit kill tally was slowly turning into our favour. With one unit
killed equaling 1 VP we were even ahead by 1 point throughout the middle of
the game though we didn�t control any of the victory locations worth 2 VP�s.
It was getting late so at that point Phil declared that since neither army
was likely to fulfill their victory conditions a �moral victory� would be
given to the first army to reach 10 VP�s. It was 7-6 in our favour at that
moment so a desperate struggle in the center ensued with both sides going
for kills regardless of the consequences. The Orcs were up first killing 3
of our units so it was 7-9 and they were only 1 VP removed from victory, but
in our next turn the last cavalry unit coupled with a wizard�s fireball
attack and even a regular infantry attack (the only one in the game IIRC,
all the rest being ranged, cavalry or magical) managed to kill an orc unit
and in a stroke of genius Alan also managed to occupy the central victory
location stone which netted us an additional 2 VP�s : 10-9 � we had �won�,
but given the carnage all around us, we would have settled for a draw
anytime.
Aftermath :
As this was a card-driven game with activation, attack bonus and opponent
counter-cards we had to use-up all our cards to get out of those bloody (in
both senses of the word) mountains and out into the plain while the Orc army
had had a chance to accumulate some deadly counter-cards which they used to
good effect. I don�t think we ever used either a bonus card or a
counter-card throughout the game which is fine as it means the system is
flexible enough to cope with different situations and strategies.
I should have brought along my digital camera (and I will next time) as the
table looked spectacular. For those who were there here�s what I would have
taken pictures off : the Orc army lining up beautifully in the center of the
table, the total confusion in the mountain passes following the ambush, the
human heavy cavalry drawn up for battle on the hill and the charge downhill
and the scenes of Armageddon in the centre as both armies just battered each
other to pulp.
Sunday, 5 June 2005
Te Wapen webpage
I've set up a small webgroup for my "Te Wapen!" wargaming rules. These rules are based on the Battlecry and Memoir44 game engines, and are primarly intended for fantasy games.
Currently, you ca download the current version of the rules, and look at some pictures of past games (you might even recognize some faces :-)).
Link:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Te_Wapen/
Currently, you ca download the current version of the rules, and look at some pictures of past games (you might even recognize some faces :-)).
Link:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Te_Wapen/
Thursday, 30 December 2004
First playtest of "Te Wapen" report
As mentioned in an earlier post, I'm developing some fantasy rules for quick and easy battles. The system is based on the Battlecry / Memoir44 engine, but of course, with the necessary fantasy flavour thrown in.
Bart Vetters, Vincent Mattelaer, and myself gathered in my gaming attic (which also saw the first game happening there), around my knee-height gaming table. I did prepare 2 scenarios from a wargame scenario book. The first one was a classic 'hold the ridge' attack and defence scenario, while the second was a break-out scenario. We also played a third battle, which was more an encounter-type battle.
We used the rules as I had written them up, but the game produced a few comments and thoughts on how to tweak the system. An updated document of the current rules can be found here.
One of the things we noticed is that the BC/M44 system is very much tuned towards ranged combat. Troops run around, seek a good spot, and try to fire on the enemy. In fantasy (or ancients for that matter), the emphasis is much more on close combat, and you sort of expect the 'frontline' to remain somewhat intact, at least during the intial stages of the battle. Instead, the games had a significant skirmish feel to them. Troops could run around, attacking foes on the side, or sometimes in the back. This is not a bad thing, but at least for me, it didn't quit satisfy me. The rules so far have no concept of flanks or rears for individual units, so a 'clever' charge in someone's rear does not give you any bonuses. This could be solved by giving the troops an orientation, but then it was felt this would overcomplicate an otherwise elegant and simple ruleset.
Skirmish games are not bad of course, but my hope is still to come up with a ruleset that can recreate in feeling and visual appeal famous fantasy battles such as Pellenor Fields or the Siege of Minas Tirith. I have a strong feeling it can be done with this engine, but some more playtests are necessary.
Bart took some pictures of the table, so I expect they will be available soon.
Bart Vetters, Vincent Mattelaer, and myself gathered in my gaming attic (which also saw the first game happening there), around my knee-height gaming table. I did prepare 2 scenarios from a wargame scenario book. The first one was a classic 'hold the ridge' attack and defence scenario, while the second was a break-out scenario. We also played a third battle, which was more an encounter-type battle.
We used the rules as I had written them up, but the game produced a few comments and thoughts on how to tweak the system. An updated document of the current rules can be found here.
One of the things we noticed is that the BC/M44 system is very much tuned towards ranged combat. Troops run around, seek a good spot, and try to fire on the enemy. In fantasy (or ancients for that matter), the emphasis is much more on close combat, and you sort of expect the 'frontline' to remain somewhat intact, at least during the intial stages of the battle. Instead, the games had a significant skirmish feel to them. Troops could run around, attacking foes on the side, or sometimes in the back. This is not a bad thing, but at least for me, it didn't quit satisfy me. The rules so far have no concept of flanks or rears for individual units, so a 'clever' charge in someone's rear does not give you any bonuses. This could be solved by giving the troops an orientation, but then it was felt this would overcomplicate an otherwise elegant and simple ruleset.
Skirmish games are not bad of course, but my hope is still to come up with a ruleset that can recreate in feeling and visual appeal famous fantasy battles such as Pellenor Fields or the Siege of Minas Tirith. I have a strong feeling it can be done with this engine, but some more playtests are necessary.
Bart took some pictures of the table, so I expect they will be available soon.
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