Fighting the Weather!

[Eternus]

Hey guys. I don't remember seeing any rules in the book for this, but wanted to consider some rules for fighting battles in:

Thick Fog
Night Time
Pouring Rain

Please forgive me if I'm confusing 7th and 8th edition rules, as I don't have my BRB to hand and wanted to get these ideas down before they evapourate. My initial thoughts for rules to represent these conditions are:

Thick Fog - visibility is much reduced, sounds and distances are distorted, and units struggle to maintain contact with the rest of the army

Thick fog can be represented using the following rules:

All maximum shooting ranges are halved.

Each time a unit needs to take a Ld test for which they would normally be able to use the bonuses granted by a nearby General or Battle Standard, on the roll of 1 -3 on a D6, a thick bank of fog obscures the character and their bonuses cannot be used for this test.

Units automatically pass tests to march close to the enemy, as they can't see them until they are almost face to face!

When making Charge Distance Rolls, units must roll and extra D6 and discard the highest roll, to represent their reduced visibility of enemy units and ability to judge distances in the rolling fog.

Units do not have to take panic tests caused by friendly units unless they actually flee through them.

Night Fighting can be represented using the following rules:

All rolls to hit for shooting suffer an additional -1 to hit, on top of the usual modifiers.

When making Charge Distance Rolls, units must roll and extra D6 and discard the highest roll, to represent their reduced visibility of enemy units and ability to judge distances in the dark.

All Fear and Terror tests are taken with an additional -1 modifier to Ld.

Pouring Rain can be represented with the following rules:

The rain has started to pour as the battle begins. Each time a unit that uses either strings or gunpowder to shoot must roll a D6. They can only shoot if they successfully roll 1 or more on the D6. Each turn, apply the following modifers to the roll, as bow strings become damp and loose, and powder is wet by the incessant rain:

Turn 1: no modifier
Turn 2: -1
Turn 3: -2
Turn 4: -3
Turn 5: -4
Turn 6: -5
Turn 7: No more shooting! If the battle last this long, all missile weapons and powder warmachines are sodden and cannot be fired.

Units are slowed by the ground, which is rapidly becoming a quagmire. Each turn, reduce all move rates apart from flying moves by the following:

Turn 1: 0"
Turn 2: 1"
Turn 3: 1"
Turn 4: 2"
Turn 5: 2"
Turn 6: 3"
Turn 7: 3"

No model can have it's move reduced to 0", they will count as having a move rate of 1". Modifiers affect the models base move rate, so count double when marching.

These modifiers are applied to the base move rate for Charge Rolls and Flee rolls. In addition, roll an additional D6 and discard the highest roll when making the roll for distance.

What do you think as a first draft? I was thinking you could either choose which condition to apply, or roll for it, or use more than one if you're a real glutton for punishment.

These rules are meant to be fun and interesting, but do any of these rules punish certain armies too much?

Cheers.

[Scalebug]

"Would you like to play with my set of rules that makes your shooting worthless?"

Back in 6th ed, the Albion campaign had weather rules, which were less of an impact than what you suggest, but still no fun for anyone with ranged weapons.

Think you will have a hard time getting an opponent to accept them, if their army is affected...



Also, the Rules sub-forums are for existant rules, there is a section for homebrews further down the page.

[theunwantedbeing]

I have to agree with Scalebug, all these things do is nerf shooting.

It would make more sense to impose visibility restrictions across the board.
ie.
Nobody can see more than 36" when there is Mist/Rain
Nobody can see more than 24" when there is Fog
Nobody can see more than 12" when there is Thick Fog

Banners add an additional +6" to the ranges the unit is visible at
Being a large target does the same
Units with Flaming attacks are fully visible at all ranges at night

and so on.
It's a bit of a shooting nerf, but not a giant one where your Bs based shooting becomes almost worthless even at the very lowest levels.

[Eternus]

Thanks. I did wonder if the impact on shooting would be too much on some armies, but then again, a balanced army would have less to worry about.

I would be grateful if this could be moved to the Rules Development forum.

I guess a general tone down would benefit? I was hoping that the reduced movement and charge ranges might balance the impact on shooting.

[Mr_Rose]

Toning it down isn't the problem, the problem is that modifiers are boring. Wasting a good fluffy description of a hailstorm full of 3"+ hailstones on "- some number to hit" is a travesty; look to the marshland and river terrain effects, and the celestial magic "weather" effects for inspiration instead.

That and disproportionately affecting shooting, especially BS-based shooting, is a little off; trust me, trying to swing a sword when you are ankle deep in mud and wearing metal armour is really, really hard. Especially if said mud keeps trying to bite said ankles.

[Eternus]

Toning it down isn't the problem, the problem is that modifiers are boring. Wasting a good fluffy description of a hailstorm full of 3"+ hailstones on "- some number to hit" is a travesty; look to the marshland and river terrain effects, and the celestial magic "weather" effects for inspiration instead.

That and disproportionately affecting shooting, especially BS-based shooting, is a little off; trust me, trying to swing a sword when you are ankle deep in mud and wearing metal armour is really, really hard. Especially if said mud keeps trying to bite said ankles.

The muddy ground does affect movement. The problem is that most issues with visibility reduction are going to affect shooting more than anything else, and Warhammer Fantasy is not meant to hinge on shooting. It isn't 40K.

[Blkc57]

I remember reading the somewhere in rulebook where they had some weather rules. It had rain rules where you rolled a dice to see if it started pouring and you got -1 to all BS, any non BS shooting needed a 4+ and -1 to all movement. You had random lighting strikes that functioned like a unit being hit by the Lore of heavens spell "Lighting". You had hail storms and snow storms (like ice shard blizzard spell, it gave you -1 to hit, and -1 leadership) and earthquakes and wierd flaming gas pits in there in various parts. I played in a tournement that had a heat wave rule where it randomly gave a unit the transmuation of lead spell (-1 BS, -1 WS, -1 Movement, -1 Armor) to symbolise heat stroke. I know it was in some 8th edition book but I can't remember if it is the main rulebook or one of the new supplementals.

[T10]

How about this:

Rain and Fog
The muddy ground slows down the units and even make flying hazardous.
All charge rolls that include one or two 1's (after excess dice have been discarded) automatically fail.

Banks of fog hide friend and foe alike, only to suddenly part to reveal some unspeakable horror, or just an oddly shaped boulder
Units will at any time only be able to see a single enemy unit and a single friendly unit: This is the closest unit in line of sight. However, all units may attempt a Leadership test to perform a single reform before declaring a charge. If the test fails then the unit cannot declare the charge and makes a normal reform in the Remaining Moves part of its Movement phase this turn. The unit may be allowed a redirect if the enemy flees far enough that a different enemy unit is closer (and thus visible), but no further reforms are allowed that turn.

The rain plays tricks on the ear.
Any Leadership test that includes one or more 6's (after excess dice have been discarded) count as having rolled 12.

[Eternus]

I think I've come to the conclusion that weather rules just won't work for Fantasy, because the armies are just too varied. Anything that affects shooting will favour combat armies, anything that affects movement favours shooty armies. Stuff that affects leadership gives advantage to armies that don't suffer from Ld mods, etc, etc.

If it was a historical wargame where armies were far more similar, then it might work, but not for Fantasy. Weather will just have to stay in the fluff. Not that battles in history or even the Fantasy background are often anything like fair. When things were against real life generals, they just had to suck it up!

[Meatballer]

Don't Be a Quitter!

I think you had some pretty neat ideas, they just need a little fussing with.

Unwantedbeing's max visibility range notion is solid, you might need to tweak the numbers a bit. Making banners 6" more visible is great. Keep -1 on fear and terror checks and marching like nobody is around in the fog. Those are good.

In heavy rain, archery does not become impossible, just trickier. I would think -1 to ranged weapons, -2 to gunpowder weapons and 4+ to shoot for non-bs shots would be ok. The movement slowing was a little over the top, but T10's auto fail on a charge is pretty decent. Maybe a -1 to leadership tests for people who aren't aquatic.

You don't need to have it be balanced for every army build, just that nobody should lose BECAUSE you are fighting in bad weather. (except dwarf gunlines). Then we need some weather that might hinder melee, then we say 5+ at the beggining of the game means we roll on the weather chart.

Unseasonable Heat is the kind of weather that it might suck to fight in. Would have no effect on ranged attacks. Any unit that marches will reduce initiative by 1 until the end of the next movement phase that they do not move? or each 2 points of armour reduce the model's initiative or movement or leadership by 1? I dunno let's think about it, have another beer, and tell me what you htink later.

[Haravikk]

I have to agree with Scalebug, all these things do is nerf shooting.

It would make more sense to impose visibility restrictions across the board.
ie.
Nobody can see more than 36" when there is Mist/Rain
Nobody can see more than 24" when there is Fog
Nobody can see more than 12" when there is Thick Fog

Banners add an additional +6" to the ranges the unit is visible at
Being a large target does the same
Units with Flaming attacks are fully visible at all ranges at night

I like that take on it, but at the same time it's perhaps a bit too binary; might be interesting if the visibility range prevented your short-range from being any higher than half. So for example, if you're fighting in thick fog, aiming at a large target then your maximum range is 18", and your maximum short-range is 9". So there's still some added inaccuracy, but not as much. In addition, short range is used when determining whether models are in range for special rules such as Inspiring Presence, but not for damaging effects that do not require line of sight or similar.

There are some possible rules that could affect non-shooting as well, for example:

• Mist/Rain - Units do not get the combat resolution bonus for charging as their impetus is dulled by the weather.
• Fog - Enemies that charge an enemy in the Flank or Rear regain the charge bonus (as they appear to come from nowhere).
• Thick Fog - A unit may only compare its own number of ranks when determining if it is Steadfast, and not those of other friendly units in the same combat, as they can hardly see what's going on.

These effects are cumulative (so Fog adds to the effect of Mist/Rain) and in addition to the range limits above.


Anyway, I do think that some better weather rules would be good, particularly for custom scenarios. There are a bunch of more unusual effects that can be modelled as well, such as a howling magical gale, that might count as Fog or Thick Fog (randomised) but also have an impact on magic use.
Torrential downpour could count as Fog, and if it lasts for more than one turn then D3 marsh terrain pieces are randomly placed in areas of open terrain (following the normal rules for random terrain placement).

I think fighting in weather effects is practically a small supplement needed to give a nice range of effects, and some good ways to play them. For example, you might pick a weather table (by choice or randomly) which will then determine what effects may come up during the game, forcing you to adapt your tactics accordingly.


For heat, I think it's very difficult to adequately represent a difference between living and undead without making things unbalanced, a good compromise might be to have an effect on the living, but also stunt magic somehow to balance it a bit?