Balance the Scenarios for OFCC 2018

TheBeninator · July 10, 2018

Hey everyone,

I thought Id start a separate thread dedicated to any discussion you would like to have over the Scenarios proposed in the 2018 packet and the special rules I made up. What I learned last OFCC is that some special rules are REALLY broken. That said, no special rules is kind of dull. Many secondary objectives in the T9A book have no real purpose until Turn 5, then it's a mad dash to capture the objectives. The intent with these special rules is to give the objectives a bit of an incentive to hold earlier in the game. This should hopefully promote a slightly different game experience.

Below I have summarized the Deployment, Secondary Objective (with a brief recap of what it is), and Special rule for quick reference. Everything is on the table for criticism!

R1:

Deployment: Encircle

Objective: King of the hill (each player chooses a non-impassable terrain feature not within their deployment zone, you must hold both, whoever holds more of the objectives with scoring units wins)

Special Rule: Any unit with at least half it’s footprint within either chosen terrain feature, as chosen through the rules for King of the Hill, grants the unit “Battle Focus”. If the unit already has the special rule “Battle Focus”, then the terrain instead grants +1 to hit (in close combat) to that unit. This benefit is lost as soon as over half of the unit’s footprint is no longer within the terrain.

* The idea here is to make defending your location advantageous, so if you are getting crushed you can fall back and make a last stand

R2:

Deployment: Refused Flank (Diagonal)

Objective: Spoils of war (Three tokens on the board that must be collected by a scoring unit and held for the remainder of the game, effects march rate if less than 3 full ranks)

Special Rule: Once per player turn, a unit which has possession of a spoil of war may invoke its magical properties to take a single 4+ Aegis save vs. a wound suffered. This benefit is extended to any character or war platform which is imbedded in that unit. Once this feature is used, regardless of result, it cannot be used again until the next player turn. This means that during a single turn you can use this feature while you are the active player, and the inactive player (there are two player turns in a single turn).

* The idea here is to get people out to the markers quickly, the trouble with this is that a M5 army can secure all 3 targets due to the small deployment. To this, I could add an additional rule that you cannot secure an objective on T1? Discuss!

R3:

Deployment: Counterthrust

Objective: Capture the flags (destroy 3 marked scoring units)

Special Rule: If a marked unit is charged, and the marked unit makes a flee reaction, it may choose to make the flee result with the “Maximized Roll” (swiftstride) condition.

* This should hopefully allow you to be a bit more aggressive with weaker scoring units, as you have a better chance of getting away if things get hairy and you need to flee from a particularly nasty charge. Note, this does not help cavalry at all, so that is a downside (unless we let maximize stack).

R4:

Deployment: Dawn Assault***

Objective: Hold the ground (Hold the center of the map)

Special Rule: The deployment of this scenario will begin with a “fog of war” (a wall blocking your vision of your opponent’s deployment zone). Start by surveying both sides of the field and work through choosing sides as normal.

Once you have each chosen your sides, return to your side of the table, from this point on until the game begins you cannot peak around to your opponent’s deployment zone.

You must then deploy your entire force, including choosing up to two units to hold in reserve (as per the rules for Dawn Assault). You do not have to declare to your opponent which units these are until the fog is lifted.

Your vanguard movements may be a total of 11” (instead of 12”). Since you do not know where your opponent’s units will be, you may ignore the 6” rule during Vanguard deployment. Do not deploy your scouts at this time.

Once both players have completed their deployments, you must then announce how many units you are keeping in reserve. Then roll for first turn following the instructions below

First turn will be determined by a single dice roll-off. For each unit you choose to keep in “reserves” (maximum of 2) under the conditions of Dawn Assault, you get a +1 to your roll. If both players dice roll + modifiers tie, then reroll until one player wins the duel. The winner of the dice-off may then choose to go first or second.

Once first turn is established, the fog is lifted, remove the middle barrier. At this point you may deploy scouts starting with the player who will be going first.

After this somewhat complicated setup, the game is played as normal, following the rules for Dawn Assault and Hold the Ground. The TO will collect the "fog" and get them out of your way.

* Lots of words just to try and fully cover the order of operations, everything should be fairly intuitive. Once you are done with deployment, its just a simple game with no extra stuff

R5:

Deployment: Front-line Clash

Objective: Breakthrough (get into their deployment zone)

Special Rule: Your forces are reinvigorated to see their nemesis on the field. Once per game, you may choose to reroll one of your own failed charge distances. This must be used during the charge phase and does not apply to post combat pursuits or random movement. If you have already rerolled your charge dice through some other rule, you may not use this feature to reroll them a second time.

* Pretty simple special rule, allows you to be a bit aggressive with a single charge, does not seem game breaking.