Friday, December 2, 2011

Mighty Empires - Consolidated Archipelago and Other Rules

Exploring Wilderness

(51-60) Wizard’s Tower, (61-70) Necropolis, (71-80) Temple and (81-100) Mine. These rules are all in white dwarf and usually help you. 11-50 is empty and 01-10 is a chaos portal

Chaos portal – On the tabletop your army fights an exalted greater daemon – alternatively you can
have the GM make a dice roll and your army loses D6 x 100pts

Wilderness tiles can only be explored in this way once per year


Allies and Enemies

One of the Ogre’s 2 special race rules allows them to ally with anyone.

Non Ogres may ally with any race from the same side (order or destruction). The ordinary people
would never tolerate a traitorous ruler willing to ally with a hated enemy (Dwarfs and Warriors of
Chaos buddying up just isn’t going to happen) – and that king would be immediately usurped

Order: Bretonnia, Dwarf, Empire, High Elf

Destruction: Beastmen, Dark Elf, Vampires, Warriors of Chaos

Ogre: Anyone they goddamn please

Alliances are announced by both players at the start of any campaign turn (announcing to the GM is
fine)

Banners can march across allied territory unhindered without taking over tiles although they cannot
use allied settlements for subsistence. They can also take part in sieges together.

Anyone not an ally is technically an enemy (obviously kings can ally secretly but even so they still
cannot move across each other’s territory without taking control of it - the local people won’t
tolerate it)

See page 22 under ‘scouting a known tile’ to see what happens when moving into a rival (non-ally)

player’s tile - (paragraph 2 and paragraph 4)

Winter Quarters – dusted off from over a decade back

Banners need to get back to your realm. Your realm is your 7 starting tiles. Besieged and besieging
banners use special rules for winter retreats – they do not use these rules – see rules for sustaining
sieges on page 47 for these banners

Moving across the sea is equivalent to moving across a river with the exception that the route roll
always fails

In order for a banner to retire unhindered to winter quarters it must be able to trace a clear route
through its own side’s territory (or that of an ally) to any un-razed tile in its own realm. There
must be no blocking mountains or rivers/seas (river sections with bridges are ok – cities always
have bridges). A route home may not be traced through enemy territory (i.e. non-allies), unknown
territory or razed territory. If a banner cannot make a route back to its realm (in its own territory)
then it must make a special winter retreat before it may move to winter quarters.

It should be obvious that razing territories is a viable tactic for fucking over enemy banners.

Fleets can help banners reach winter quarters in a number of ways (A) they can form pontoons
to ‘bridge’ islands (B) Alternatively a fleet can carry 1 banner in the same or an adjacent province
back home to the realm across the seas provided the fleet can itself make its way home without
moving through enemy territory (the unmarked open seas that ring the map are considered friendly
territory for everyone)

Undead are not immune to the consequences of winter retreat

The capital can support 4 banners, other cities in the realm support 2 banners and fortresses/villages
in the realm support 1 banner - razed tiles cannot support banners over winter – any excess banners
are destroyed

The winter retreat table is on page 39

The rules I have been using to simulate naval engagements are as follows:

Each fleet has 2 wounds.

Each round I roll a number of D6s for each side equal to its number of fleets. Whichever side rolls
highest does 1 wound to the other side. If it is a draw then both sides lose a wound. As fleets get
wiped out they obviously roll less dice each round.

At the end of each round I roll a D6 and if the dice roll plus the number of rounds is 7 or higher the
engagement ends.

The basic rules for this are on page 42. All 10 capitals are worth 4 crowns to the controller. Other
cities are worth 2 crowns and fortresses/villages are worth 1 crown. Tiles with Razed settlements
give you no crowns while razed. Forested tiles also provide timber which is required for certain
purchases (it should be pretty clear from the map which tiles are forested – if in doubt ask the GM)

Diplomatic missions = 1 crown
Recruitment of troops = 1 crown per 100pts of troops
Recruitment of fleets = 3 crowns +1 timber per fleet
Recovery of razed tiles = 1 crown to add +1 to a dice roll after it has been made (4+ restores
villages and 6+ restores fortresses and cities
Upgrade a village to a fortress = 5 crowns + 1 timber
Upgrade a barren tile to a fortress = 10 crowns + 1 timber
Upgrade a village to a city = 15 crowns
Baggage = 1 crown per D6 baggage points (note players must roll a D6 for each of their
besieging forces and pay that much baggage or the besiegers are destroyed and the siege
lifted – on the other hand besiegers don’t have to make winter quarters)
Assassin = 1 crown
Spies = D6 per crown
Saboteur = 1 crown
Agents = 1 crown
Siege Batteries = 2 crown + 1 timber (these are used offensively - siege rules are being
released on December 3 so will be able to nail down the special rules then for tabletop
battles – if the GM is rolling it basically reduces the fortress bonus to a city bonus and
eliminates a city bonus altogether – 2 batteries eliminate a fortress bonus altogether)
Great walls = 3 crowns (walls go across 1 of the edges of a hex – barren tiles only – wall section faces outside). Rules are on pp 21-22 of citadel journal no 5
o A) walls bar enemy troops from passing and will defend – the wall is breached on 4+ (attacker usually loses D6 x 100pts win or lose)
o B) unless the enemy empire has a non-walled tile adjacent to you it kills all enemy espionage trying to enter your empire on a D6 of 1-3
Bridge = 1 crown + 1 timber


Independent Empires

Each contiguous group of independent provinces comprises an independent empire. You may send
a mission to any independent empire adjoining your territory. A successful diplomacy roll gives you
control of each province in the independent empire.

The Lost city of the old ones is a unique independent city at the centre of the board. It is a razed
city containing a wizard’s tower and it generates 4 crowns for the controller despite being raised.

It also counts as one of the capitals for the purposes of winning the game and allows its controller
to buy magic items which is normally not allowed. The Lost city cannot be won through diplomacy.
The Lost city does not roll randomly for the number of defenders each turn – it always has the same
defensive force – which is very tough – tougher than rolling a 5 for an independent city but not as
tough as rolling a 6 for an independent city. The Lost city cannot be retreated into like a normal city
and does not help for defensive sieges.


Misc.

There are two tiles which link islands and are moved across like rivers – these are H14 and C10

The storm of magic moves at the beginning and at the end of the campaign season, as well as at the
end of turn 3.

Control of a Wizard’s tower allows the player to force a reroll of the storm’s movement.

1 comment:

  1. Lord almighty preserve us that offer campaigns to the player. May we be saved from them that never read our stories or thank us for our hours of toiling.

    I feel your pain!

    RF

    ReplyDelete