Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Melee!

Over the break we kept up our usual Thursday schedule, but I kept the games open in case we had fewer people. I dug out an old favorite. I had some of the great old Foundry "Baron Wars" knights and designed a small game based on the Melee part of the tournaments of old, when knights would beat the crap out of eat other with blunted weapons.
The field is divided into 18 sections. In the case of our games, each of the 8 players controlled 2 knights (don't worry, even with 8 players it went really fast).
Each knight has 4 skill slots, each also representing his hit points. Take a hit, lose a skill.
There are 5 skills to chose from, but only limited number at the beginning. We all took turns picking one skill til both our knights were loaded up. The skills are:
Sword: which gives the amount of dice rolled
Helmet: Which lets you re-roll the whole throw
Shield: lets you block a partial hit
Gauntlet: which lets you temporarily disable one skill of your opponent
Lightning: lets you decide who goes first in a fight.
The skills and the idea for the game I shamelessly stole from a game called "Clash of Gladiators". In that game, instead of skill, it is a distinct gladiator in a group that gives the benefit.
The knight dubbed "Chickenhead" one the first bout, but was of course, ganged up on in the second.

Tomorrow: the Dungeon

4 comments:

Carl Brown said...

That sounds loads of fun - simple mechanically and fast playing.

I've a melee game I've been developing on and off for while - I think I may need to dig it out and give it another look.

BaronVonJ said...

I have rules for Jousting too, but need a third event. Archery seems like it would be too based on good dice rolling.

David said...

Feasting!

Stamina, to keep going; Strength, to get the best portions; Speed, for consuming said portion for bonus points; and Skill for avoiding other feasters' knives and other implements of destruction.

;)

Ironworker said...

That's pretty cool! I've always wanted to figure out how to wargame a tourament. Reminds me of SCA events. :)