Wednesday 13 November 2013

Distant Shores - Supplement for Warrior Heroes Legends

Much has been made about the fantasy world of Talomir used in THW. There's Warrior Heroes Armies and Adventures, Warrior Heroes Legends, Red Sand Black Moon as well as Rally Round the King. But all of these concnetrate on the northern half of Talomir. Well it's about time to fill in the gaps.

Distant Shores is the upcoming Talomir supplement that is centered in the southwest of Talomir. What WHL does for Altengard, the Capalan League, Mirholme and Tereken, Distant Shores will do for  Valkae, Sortium, Aeja, Zamba, Kurinthia, Barylistan, Demeskeen, Eskelin and Malohad.

Here's the area map.


Being a supplement means that the basic mechanics of how to play either Warrior Heroes book won't have to be repeated in Distant Shores. Instead there will be new monsters, new maps for the countries, new scenarios and army lists.

But one thing will be added as a game mechanic and it's purely optional. With the popularity of the Dueling mechanics in By Savvy and Steel, I'll be adding a variation for use with the Warrior Heroes  books. Just substitute it for melee when you have smaller fights. Most, if not all of the Attributes have been brought over into Distant Shores to work with the new optional melee system. Here's a step by step look at how it works.

Each character will have five Stats to use in melee. To convert them from the WH books is simple. The first of the five Stats is Stamina. This is the number of "wounds" the character can take before going out of the fight.
Stamina is equal to Rep.
The next Stat is one less than Rep, then two less, then three less and finally four less for the fifth Stat. However, this means some lower Rep characters may have one or more "0" Stats. Choose wisely!

Haldor has a Stamina of 5, Swordplay of 4, Aggression of 3, Power of 2 and Quickness of 1. Each Stat is used on one or more of the Melee Tables.


The game is played normally, using Activation, Reaction Rules: everything except when its' time to melee.



Activation is rolled and Haldor goes first. The Charge into Melee Test is taken and melee follows.  As there's only four fighting I choose to use the new mechanic. Haldor charges the closest enemy and they go to the Maneuver Table. Note that this is different than the Maneuver Table used in our fantasy gladiator game. Swordplay and Aggression are used on the Maneuver Table, dice are rolled, and Haldor gains a +1d6 advantage as the fight goes to the Attack Table.


The Sortium soldiers now activate and the two non-involved soldiers join the Attack. The winner of the previous table dictates what table is used next. As Haldor won on the Maneuver Table the fight is now on the Attack Table.

When multiple figures fight everyone rolls their d6 at the same time. The highest scoring of the multiple side is counted against the single figure. In this case Haldor wins again and the fight  moves to the Taking Control Table. The original figure attacked has lost 1 Swordplay d6.

As all figures are involved activation is not rolled and the melee continues until one or more figure leaves the melee. Haldor wins on the Taking Control Table and scores multiple wounds on his opponent, who fails his Wound Test and goes out of the fight. This causes a Man Down Test, remember that the WHL rules are still used.
 One soldier fails the test and runs away but the Rep 4 leader continues the fight. As a figure has left the melee Activation dice are rolled and Haldor goes first. He continues the melee and the two fighters go to the Maneuver Table.
This leads to the leader gaining the advantage as they go to the Attack Table. But once there Haldor takes control and a wound is scored on the leader.

The leader takes the Wound Test and runs away.

The optional melee rules are easy to follow as each table directs the action to the next. When they have been finalized I will publish them online so they can be downloaded for free.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds good, Ed; looking forward to trying them out - nice one.

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  2. Sweet! Is this an extension of the heroic melee with push backs?

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  3. Nope, totally different, based on the Dueling Tables in By Savvy and Steel and moves from one table to the next.

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