Home Forums Ambush Alley Games Force on Force A Truly Weird Question – Horror Elements?

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  • #73409
    Avatar photoAnonymous
    Inactive

    I’m admittedly a shameless fan of the Savage Showdown rules, its various Weird Wars campaign settings and all that series elements of weird horror. I’ve run scenarios and campaigns with it set in WW II, French Indochina war, US Vietnam war and Algerian Independence war theaters over the past decade with those rules with good results. The Savage Showdown rules are an enhancement of an RPG (the decent Savage Worlds system) though, so nothing there for running Team Vs Team other than that systems very abstract Mass Battle rules.

    I’ve been playing FoF for the past year or so and have come to enjoy the rules as much as Savage Showdown, but obviously enjoy FoF more for true platoon level war gaming. There are some similarities between the 2 rules in that they both have capabilities as stepped dice in the range of D6-D12 (SW also uses D4s) and both have an almost-universal value of 4 for dice roll successes. IMO  it would be easy to translate a pool of SW character stats into the TQ and Morale ratings of a FoF fire team and confidence and supply are already there via the Weird Wars campaigns.

    My Weird Wars gaming group enjoys the crunch of miniature games as much as RPGs, so that’s s got me thinking of ways I might use FoF as a Team Vs Team subsystem for SW. The big challenge I see is how to handle huge, formidable horrors which will attack as a single threat instead of as a team. I’ve thought about possibly stat’ing them as the living equivalent of a MBT, but I’m not sure about damage; do they just do AP or do they also deal AT? As well, how much AP and AT damage is too much and how much is too little?

    I’ve noticed that AAG also publishes a Zombie themed edition of FoF, but Weird Wars horrors skews more in the direction of Lovecraft horror, than the hordes of the undead variety. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel though and would really appreciate hearing about the efforts of anyone else that’s deranged enough to consider such a weird project?   🙂

    #73413
    Avatar photoDon Glewwe
    Participant

    Check out Pulp Alley – it seems to answer all of your questions, and Mike is really cool!  ; )

    #73415
    Avatar photoAnonymous
    Inactive

    Check out Pulp Alley – it seems to answer all of your questions, and Mike is really cool! ; )

    Many thanks for the reply. Oh yes I know of Pulp Alley; like Force on Force and Savage Showdown, they’re one of the officially recognized rule sets of my miniatures club. I’ve played in a session once (don’t recall it all that well though) and have the quick start stuffed away somewhere on my harddisk. I’ll dig it out and give it a browse. I should probably mention that I’m not necessarily looking for another rule set, but more for suggestions/ideas for ways to stat horrors with FoF rules. That said, if PA or any other miniatures rule set can be good templates for doing that, I’m definitely interested in hearing about them.

    #73478
    Avatar photoAnonymous
    Inactive

    Check out Pulp Alley

    I did dig out my Pulp Alley QS last night and after familiarizing myself with the rules again, I realized I don’t really want something akin to PA Leagues for fire teams. PA Leagues are more character focused than what I’m looking for, which is cohesive, highly unified fire teams like what you have in FoF. The rest of the PA rules are very nice though. 😉

    #73838
    Avatar photoPapasan
    Participant

    Don’t know of anyone who is so deranged Don and have no knowledge of the horrors of which you speak but it sounds that assigning them Armour like stats is the way to go. You’re best placed to know what their capabilities are regarding speed/defence/attack so it may just come down to trial and error to see what fits.

    #73852
    Avatar photoAnonymous
    Inactive

    Don’t know of anyone who is so deranged Don and have no knowledge of the horrors of which you speak but it sounds that assigning them Armour like stats is the way to go. You’re best placed to know what their capabilities are regarding speed/defence/attack so it may just come down to trial and error to see what fits.

    Thanks for the feedback. What you suggest is more or less what I’ve gone with, so it’s very good to have that confirmed. I have differing types / levels of horrific elements. Some are units with the standard Troop Quality / Morale stats which I refer to as Fiendish Units. The other which are stat’d more like armor vehicles I refer to as Greater Fiends. The greater fiends have a very similar stat block to vehicles,  but because there’s no unit controlling them the dice type is always listed. The greater fiends also have varying degrees of damage Vs vehicles, signified the same way as it is with vehicles by a (L), (M) or (H.) So a greater fiend’s defense & firepower stat block could be something like this:
    Defense: 5D10
    Firepower: AP:4D10/AT:2D10 (M)

    I’ve had to create a number of Fiendish attributes, in particular a close assault specialist, as most of them only have a close assault attack. And of course there are those that can Fly, some that Swim as well as an amphibian, or Tunnel like a mole. A few fiendish units only begin with a D6 TQ, but those have a Hunger attribute which let’s them grow a dice step in quality when they inflict a certain number of casualties – simulates things like ghouls feeding on flesh or vampires on blood. Yes I know it sounds very deranged, but my gamers are going to love it – and probably my miniatures club too.  🙂

    #74697
    Avatar photoPapasan
    Participant

    ….. Yes I know it sounds very deranged, but my gamers are going to love it – and probably my miniatures club too. 🙂

    And that’s the bit that counts Don – have fun with it and try not to get devoured ! 

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