Re: (TFT) New TFT Talent: Shield Wall. VERSION 2.

[Rick Smith <rick_ww@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi Neil,
  Good points.  I should have said in my rules you needed to have
one of your front hexes touch the hex in front of the next person
in the wall, or their own hex.  

  With the rule written this way, figures spaces with a hex between
them automatically would not qualify.

  The rules should also specify that the next person in the shield
wall can not be behind you or directly in front of you. 

  I do not think your shield wall rules should allow figures to 
make a wall with six figures around a central hex.  I think that
their facings as so different that the shields could not cover each
other well.  In other words, I think that if the rules specify that 
everyone on a shield wall should have the same facing, then 
this is an advantage.

  These rules need to specify what happens if someone in a 
shield wall does NOT have this talent.  John newbie, is fresh from
the farm and is given an ax and told to stand in a wall.  He knows
how to use a shield but not the shield wall talent.  What happens?
Likely he simply does not transmit the bonus to the men on each
side of him.

  I am tempted to say that the shields in a wall, protect one less point 
than their rated value.  So a small shield protects 1–1 damage = 0.
So large shields would protect one, agis protect 2, tower shields
would protect 3 or more.  But then again, I might say tower shields
are too big for shield wall tactics.

  David Bofinger made the point that shields should likely only 
protect the man on your left.  Sensible as far as realism goes.  If 
that is the case, the rule above about shields doing one point less
than their rated value are likely not needed.

  Don suggests that there should be some penalty for attacking 
out of shield wall.  This is true enough... a –2 adj DX penalty would
likely be realistic.  Worth the trouble?  On the other hand, part of 
the talent would be training on how to attack out of a shield wall,
so maybe this is not needed.

  Peter suggests that shield walls make you harder to hit.  Say,
for argument, a –2 adj DX adjustment if you are part of the wall?  
In many ways I like this better.  I would rather not tie them into the
Thail parry rules, because: 1) few people use them, and 2) they 
are already complex enough.


  So here is my revised version:

IQ 8		Shield Wall (1) 	co-requisite shield.
General description: people with shields who all have this talent 
may share damage protection from people to either side of them 
when they form a solid line.
People in a line with you can not be in your rear hex, nor the hex
directly in front of you.  You may only get one bonus per side from 
your left or right.
If two figures with this talent have 'overlapping' front hexes, each may 
share one point of their shield's damage protection.  If you have a 
man on each side of you, (each with this talent), you may get a point 
of protection from each.
'Overlapping' in this context means if the attack comes thru a shared 
front hex OR if you are standing in a front hex of the man beside 
you (who is part of the shield wall, with this talent).  Note that you 
must be adjacent AND have the same facing.


These are not final rules.  Things I am thinking about are:
-- Protect the people to right and left, or just left?
-- Protect full value of the shield, just one point, or between these?
-- Exclude tower shields as too unwieldy?
-- Peter's idea for making you harder to hit, rather than just stopping
more hits.

  I welcome more comments.

  Warm regards, Rick.
  

On 2015-02-11, at 2:39 PM, raito@raito.com wrote:

> Hi Rick,
> 
> You have a good concern about the hex grain, but I don't think it makes a
> difference in this case. You may want to define overlapping better. 'front
> hex of the man beside you' probably isn't specific enough. I probably
> didn't write as good a description of my version as I could have.
> 
> The figure receiving the bonus has to be adjacent to the figures giving
> the bonus, and a front hex of the figure getting the bonus must be a front
> hex of the figure giving the bonus. A maximum of 2 figures can give a
> bonus to any figure.
> 
> If you don't make the figures be adjacent, then you can end up with
> figures spaced apart getting bonuses.
> 
> Note that I don't require the figures to face the same direction. You can
> form a defensive circle using my version. But if you have 2 figures back
> to back, they won't get a bonus (their front hexes don't overlap).
> 
> As far as maximum bonus goes, I used the value of the shield. In a more
> complex world, I'd have the figures giving the bonus only get their
> shield's value, and let them spread it out over however many figures they
> wished. But essentially otherwise unarmoured lines of battle with large
> shields gave each figure 6 points of shield each. It also made it
> practically mandatory for attackers to take someone out, whereupon the
> bonuses start to shrink, and the line can be exploited (much like my SCA
> experiences, and what seems to happen in such battles from the historical
> accounts). Break the line ad you win. Don't, and the other guy wins.
> 
> In any case, it's nice to see that you liked it.
> 
> Neil Gilmore
> raito@raito.com
> 
>> Hi guys,
>>  I am adapting a new talent by Neil Gilmore for possible use in my
>> campaign
>> that I saw on the TFT mailing list and would like your thoughts.
>> 
>> 
>> IQ 8		Shield Wall (1) 	co-requisite shield.
>> If two figures with this talent have 'overlapping' front hexes, each may
>> share
>> one point of their shield's damage protection.  If you have a man on
>> each
>> side of you, (each with this talent), you may get a point of protection
>> from each.
>> 'Overlapping' in this context means if the attack comes thru a shared
>> front
>> hex OR if you are standing in the front hex of the man beside you who is
>> 
>> part of the shield wall.
>> 
>> 
>> Some thoughts of my own.
>> -- Currently this protects only one hit per shield.  A more powerful
>> (realistic?)
>> version would protect you the amount of the size of the shield (everyone
>> must
>> carry the same shield size).   So if your shield wall had everyone
>> carrying
>> large shields, the man in the middle would get –4 damage from attacks
>> thru
>> the front.
>> 
>> -- I think that most traditional shield walls (Roman, Greek, English
>> around 1044),
>> etc. all used large shields.  This would suggest that either the shield
>> has to be
>> at least that large to work, or the bonus is equal to the size of the
>> shield (so there
>> is a strong incentive to got to larger shields.)
>> 
>> -- The careful definition of overlapping is so shield walls can be built
>> along
>> alternate hex grains and so we don't have some people in the wall having
>> 
>> more protection than others in the same wall.  Basically this is so
>> shield walls
>> are not dominated by the hex grid.  This rule does mean that the wall
>> can
>> curve gently.  However, everyone ends up having to face the same way,
>> you
>> can't make a shield wall out of six figures radiating out from a central
>> hex. (Or
>> rather you can, but the wall is only half as effective and a everyone
>> has one
>> side hex exposed.)
>> 
>> -- In my campaign prerequisites are like spells, which grant you the
>> lower level
>> spell at no memory cost.  Co-requisites are like talents where you have
>> to pay
>> memory for the lower level talent.
>> 
>> -- I have agis shields in my campaign (which stop 3 hits) and tower
>> shields
>> (which stop more, depending on size).  This is why I am nervous about
>> Neil's
>> original rule that adds the full value of the shield to both sides.  Do
>> we want to
>> put a maximum of –2 hits taken in these rules to prevent shield walls
>> from being
>> dominated by huge shields?
>> 
>> Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
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>> 
>> 
> 
> 
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