Trying to Build a new expansion to Warhammer FB/Warhammer FB Warbands.

[Royal_Marine_Machine]

Hey,

I'm trying to construct my own expansion, to a Warhammer FB expansion!

The Idea is based around naval warfare - I know that there are already rules for boats etc. but there are none that I have found for a full blown naval battle, maybe including several warships on both Sides.

The Game will be called Warhammer FB Warships, because it's like War bands and so fits in like that.

Ships will range from the strong, but slow, Ironclad ships of the dwarves, to the hastily built Raiding Ship of the Orcs.

There will also be Pirates, along with the Rules for Zombie Pirates, that are in some white dwarf somewhere.

So any advice on this would be appreciated, I will be posting the first draft of the Expansion when someone requests it!

[Phoenix]

Sounds cool Id very much like to read the first draft (although you may have to wait a week or so for feedback as i will be away for a bit).

[Royal_Marine_Machine]

You'll have to wait a week for me to adjust the rules and change them after I did some play-testing.

I'm also working on a Dwarf Ironclad

[Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Royal_Marine_Machine

You'll have to wait a week for me to adjust the rules and change them after I did some play-testing.

I'm also working on a Dwarf Ironclad

Perfect, ill be home in a week (ish)

[Royal_Marine_Machine]

Cool, there's lots of thinking involved to make the game compatible with all races

e.g. Only 2 or 3 races have cannons

Here's the First Draft of the first part of the Rules:
Warship uses the same rules as Warhammer FB: Warbands.
The Points range is from 100-600 points per Fleet, fleets may ally and combine to form one larger fleet however.

At the start of a game, decide which direction is north, then roll a D6, on a 1 the wind is blowing north, on a 2 or 3 then it’s blowing west, if 4 or 5 then East, and if it’s a 6 then south.

There are however, a few differences.
There are 2 main things that are different:
 The Ships.
 The Shore Batteries.

The Ships provide a completely different environment for the crews to fight in. Therefore, all squads count as skirmishers, and have a maximum regiment size of 4. There is no minimum regiment size. This is to break up the combat phase into several smaller skirmishes, instead of one huge close quarters fight. This also creates a more tactical game. Also, no cavalry may be used. Also, no flyers, chariots, or Monsters may be used. War Machines are vital however.

There are five types of ship in Warhammer FB: Warship:
 Sloop
 Frigate
 Man’o’War
 Battleship
 Dreadnought

Sloops are tiny things, with no more than two War Machines each, whereas a massive dreadnought has ten, and can truly rip through any opponent.

The smaller the Ship, the smaller amount of men it can hold, and the fact that it is a lot less robust than larger ships, also means that they will cripple easily.

Here is a small Table for each type of ship (additional Characteristics are explained Later):
Ship/C/T/Sp/W/A/M
Sloop/15/7/10/10/2/1
Frigate/25/8/12/15/4/1
Man’O’War/35/9/15/20/6/2
Battleship/45/10/18/25/8/2
Dreadnought/50/10/20/30/10/3



C = Capacity, this is the maximum Unit Strength that a ship can hold.
T= Toughness
Sp = Speed, this is how many Inches a ship may move (they turn in the same way as a regiment does)
W = Wounds
A = Arnaments, how many War Machines a Ship can hold.
M = Masts, the number of masts on a model.

You may have noticed that the Ships have incredibly high Wound values, this is because when a ship loses all it’s wounds, it sinks, and a ship sinking rarely happens in naval warfare.

What is far more likely however, is that a ship is crippled, maybe even set alight, and is forced to retreat. If a ship is reduced to a third (rounding down) of it’s original wounds, then it is crippled. If a ship is crippled then it’s speed is reduced to a half, if it still wants to fire. It can (at any point, not just when crippled) move an extra 2D6 in the movement phase, as long as it doesn’t fire, and as long as it moves towards the closest board edge, like it is fleeing, but can rally at any point. If a ship is reduced to a third of it’s Wounds, or if it’s captain (commander) is killed, then the Captain, or whoever has the highest leadership, takes a break test, or flees in the same manner explained above. It can also rally in the usual manner, testing with the Captain, or whoever has the highest, leadership.

Catching Fire.
Ships can also catch fire, if a weapon, which has flaming attacks, causes a wound, then a ship catches fire, this means it takes a strength 8 hit at the beginning of every turn. Place a Suitable marker for a ship on fire.

Masts.
A war machine may aim at a ships mast, masts have 3 wounds, and the same toughness as their ship. War Machines can chose to aim at masts, but in doing this they must roll against the crews ballistic skill, if they miss the shot is ignored (it impacts harmlessly in the sea). If they hit then they guess range, roll to wound etc. like usual. If a mast loses all it’s wounds, it is destroyed. Mark it with a suitable marker (Removable Masts are a good idea). If all a ships masts are destroyed, then every turn it drifts 2D6 in the direction of the current. If this brings it off the edge of the battle zone, then it counts as having fled. If it brings it into contact with a harbour or the shore, it takes D6 wounds, and can no longer move. A Ship cannot move voluntarily while drifting, but may fire, if the enemy comes into line of it's weaponry.

[kithre]

Rather than have the broad-brush categories, I would work on 2-3 ship types for each navy:
This is teh fleet list from the Man O'War game

Dwarf Fleet:
Monitor (Ship of the Line) - 1 turret cannon battery
Iron Clad (small Man O War) - 1 fore turret, 1 aft turret, 1 broadside battery (cannon battery on each side)
Dreadnaught (Battleship) - 2 fore turrets, 2 aft turrets, 2 broadside batteries
Pros - paddle wheels so don't need wind to move, steel armour, can ram
Cons - slow average movement, generally low numbers of crew


Elf Fleet
Hawkship (Ship of the Line) - 2 fore batteries of Eagle Claws
Eageship (Man O'War) - 3 broadside batteries of eagle Claws
Dragonship (large Man O'War) - 2 fore batteries of Eagle Claws, Dragon blade ram (very powerful attack, should be able to sink most enemy ships), 1 broadside battery of Eagle Claws
Pros - VERY fast ships, long range accurate armaments, not impacted as much by adverse wind direction
Cons - Sailing ships, lightly crewed, not heavily armoured

Empire Fleet
War Galley (SOL) - 1 forward cannon battery
Wolfship (large SOL) - 3 forward batteries (I think)
Greatship (Man O'War) - 2 forward batteries, 3 broadside batteries, 2 rear batteries (I think)

etc etc

[Royal_Marine_Machine]

I was going to do that, but I'm making it so that it is best used with the Campaign rules, and so you can upgrade your small fleet, starting off with a lowly sloop, and slowly building up to having a huge navy with a dreadnought and two frigates or something.

Then there will be special rules for each Race so their ships are unique.

But I could do this with a tier system, but that's alot of work in an area I'm not concentrating on (trying to get game play right mostly).

[Kamikaza]

It is a cool idea, but one suggestion:

With you're system how bigger the ship the better. However in the history of naval warfare there are numberless situations were this was quite the opposite (The Spanish armada against the english, the persian ships against the greek etc.) It would be a little bit more realistic if you'd make the small ships faster, with less warmachines and toughness.

In this way you'll have two really different ships, fast ships specialised in boarding actions and the like (maybe make some special boarding weaponry) and the slow heavy warships, bristling with all kinds of warmachines, mages and stuff like that.

The variety of the forces you can make will really be enchanced, because you can make an army with a specialty. An example of two forces

Dwarves (The Floating Mountain) :

Core:
4 Thunderers w/shields + Veteran w/ 2 pistols (Generally shoot the crap out of opponents)
70 pts

4 Thunderers w/shields + Veteran w/ 2 pistols (Read above_
70 pts

Special:
2 Ironbreakers
24 pts

2 Ironbreakers
24 pts

Thane
65 pts

The thane and ironbreakers are there to kill any boarding troops.

The units are 250 pts
For the ships are no points (yet), but let's take a man'o war with 4 cannons, (2 on each side) and let's say it costs 500 points. With the rules that are standing now you will have one really fast ship with a ton of troops on it, a lot of cannons and an enormous toughness.
And I think the speed is the factor what make's it to strong because you can out run everybody and take allmost a damage in the face.

Now let's say small ships have a higher movement, but a little bit lower Toughness, Armanents and Wounds, so it is possible to make a list which will actually have a chance to beat this list, and won't consist out of 1 big ship.

Orcs and Goblins (Da Giv'-me-ur-Ship Ladz)

Core:

4 Savage orc big unz: Extra handweapon, bow,
68 pts (This unit will act like a line breaker and can do some shooting in the first few turns)

4 goblins with bows,
16 pts (Well you will need some shooting)

4 goblins with bows,
16 pts (read above)

1 snotling base
20 pts (will soak up fire for the Big Uns, Black orcs and mage)

1 snotling base
20 pts (read above)

3 orcs
15 pts

3 orcs
15 pts

3 orcs
15 pts

Special:

1 Black orc w/ shield
14 pts ( These will go on the second ship)

1 Black orc w/shield
14 pts ( Read above)

Heroes:
Goblin shaman (Will try to kill the war machines off)

Well this force has allmost no shooting power, but a lot of close combat power. You can set it all on a big ship, but then the dwarves will outshoot you. So for this force I'd choose 3 sloops (let's say lower the capacity to 12) with on each sloop one bolt thrower on the front. I guess 500 points for these 3 ships would be a good price.

Ship 1: Goblins + Mage
Ship 2: 2 units orcs, 1 black orc, 1 snotling swarm
Ship 3: Savage orcs, 1 black orc, 1 unit orcs, snotling swarm.

The first ship will be circling around the enemy, the other 2 will be charging forward.
___________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________

*Looks at clock a hour later* Well holy -curse-, I got a little bit carried away I think. The point I wanted to make for the faster small ships is made, but when I was making those army lists, I really got thinking about the tactical aspect, and this game might actually work. No offense to anyone who tried this, but most of these games aren't really going to be played. But this game has it. Please, please go on with the rules development, the game rocks! (And maybe try to get it to GW!)

[Royal_Marine_Machine]

I was going to make the smaller ships faster, but in the Naval "Era" Where this is based (Spanish Armada for eg.) then smaller ships weren't actually faster, larger ships had more masts which made up for their weight, the reason smaller ships won is because (being smaller) they have tighter turning circles, and are therefore more agile, but I'll do some play testing once I've finished Faction Specific rules and see if smaller ships work better if they are faster. I'm undecided on the matter atm

Also the British won the Spanish Armada Deal because we British own... and were willing to set fire to our ships...

P.S Thanks for the encouragement

I'll use Points value like you used them and will increase the Speed Characteristic if it works better.

[Kamikaza]

Well, as long the smaller ship get a little bit more agile. Another point that needs some thought is how to stop one ship outrunning the other. At warhammer FB that is march blocking, but I don't think that will work for Warships. Maybe something with grappling hooks?

And for that armada thingy, without us dutchies it would have never worked (I allmost believe it )

Good luck again!