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Combat Results Tables

10 replies [Last post]
Mon, 09/22/2003 - 20:26
Anonymous

I have little experience with hex-and-counter type wargames, though I do own a few and would like to play them more often.

I am hoping that some wargamers out there could point me to a variety of different CRT's in specific wargames. Let's pretend that I am asking for three, but you can give me as many examples as you wish. Those three would be two that are as far removed from each other as possible and one that is in between those two. I not looking for really bad vs. really good. I'd rather just hear about the good ones. I am also more interested in "bloody" CRT's rather than the "bloodless" variety.

Thanks.

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Fri, 09/26/2003 - 03:19
#1
FastLearner
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Combat Results Tables

I don't think there are many wargamers here. For wargaming I can recommend the Web Grognards list: http://grognard.com/

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Thu, 10/02/2003 - 20:01
#2
Anonymous
Combat Results Tables

If there are any wargamers here, I'd be interested in hearing from you. I am not so much looking for examples to copy, but to use as the basis for a dice based combat mechanic that DOES NOT use a CRT. I've actually been working on this combat mechanic since I first posted this discussion, and seem to have come up with something that I like. Still, any pointers would be helpful.

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Thu, 10/02/2003 - 20:16
#3
Anonymous
Combat Results Tables

WarGamer here! Well... Small WarGamer. I just started getting into WarGames. CRT? Meaning Chart something something? Meaning a game that uses chart look up for playing?

If so, Mage Knight is a good example. It uses a Combat Dial with all of the stats a spinnable base. When warriors take damage they take clicks of damage. Stats get lowered a Special Abilites might change. Special Abilites are shown by having ethier colored squares or circles for different abilities (different shapes so they could use the same color twice).

The only thing is that the special abilites are on a 'card', which is more like a small brochure, with the colors and ability defintions on them. I guess this could be kind of like a chart, but most frequent players have the thing memorized.

Anyway, the combat dial allows for more player interaction and faster game play, a 300 point game taking about 1 hour.

www.wizkidsgames.com for more info.[/url]

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Fri, 10/03/2003 - 19:11
#4
Anonymous
Combat Results Tables

Combat
Results
Table

It's the chart you look at after comparing the relative strengths of an attacking force vs. a defending force to let you know if DE (Defender Eliminated) or AE (Attacker Eliminated) or NE (No Effect) or DR (Defender Retreat) or any sort of other combat result. Usually there is a die roll to randomize the results of the conflict.

I guess this makes me a wargamer.

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Sat, 10/04/2003 - 00:05
#5
IngredientX
IngredientX's picture
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Joined: 07/26/2008
Combat Results Tables

I grew up playing Car Wars and Ogre, which makes me a borderline wargamer. :)

One trend I see with board games that you may want to steal is to customize your dice. Let's say that you have a situation where, on a d6, rolling 1-3 would be a miss, 4-5 would be a 1-point hit, and a 6 would be a 2-point hit. Rather than offering a d6 and a printed table, you can just print the results directly on the dice - three faces would say M for Misses, two would represent 1-point hitss, and the last face would be the 2-point hit.

Of course, this doesn't take modifiers into account. So you can have your players roll multiple dice. A weak attack would roll one die. A strong attack would roll three dice. An overwhelming attack would roll five dice.

You might want to look at some roleplaying games for systems like this. Fudge, I believe, works only with hits and misses; the dice have only two possible results, and you add up the results across the dice.

A system like this would be flexible enough to represent a range of units, but would not require a CRT. Battles can be resolved nice and quickly. And of course, you can customize it to your heart's content. Perhaps you can have certain dice with more "risk/reward" faces. Or allow units that spend enough resources roll better dice. Plenty to work with, without any cross-referencing required.

Hope this helps!

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Sat, 10/04/2003 - 00:58
#6
Anonymous
These might help . . .

I am not too familiar with CRTs in board games. However I do know about their uses in role playing games. Many solo rpgs or "game books" use combat result tables combined with a random number sheet to determine impartial combat results (as the player would tend to be biased towards himself, he cannot judge as a game master would). A solo game book should be near what your looking for. If it is not exactly what you need, it could at least serve as some inspiration - I hope ; )

I think I have a link to some game books somewhere here *digs around humungous links list(s)* aha, here's something from an abandonware website: http://www.the-underdogs.org/gamebook.php

See if that helps,

Silverdragon0

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Sat, 10/04/2003 - 03:17
#7
Anonymous
Combat Results Tables

Great site that :)

I confess to also being a wargamer (and also a roleplayer and boardgamer)- although not particularly interested in historical wargames. I grew up on SFB (Star Fleet Battles), Games Workshop, Battletech and Carwars.

In general CRTs are used to simplify formulas and reduce calculations. Also if you have items that are exceptions to formulas for any reason - put it in a CRT.

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Sun, 10/05/2003 - 16:21
#8
JPOG
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
Combat Results Tables

Not a wargamer, though I've played Risk and Axis and Allies (the latter is my favorite of the two but I agree its not nearly what it could be), but from an rpg standpoint which I think applies to board games as well, the less charts the better; A&A even, just has too many charts, though its not insurmountable, its tedious. I don't know anything about CRT other than the obvious basic idea (I bought a 'combat calculator' once, which consisted of two cardboard wheels that lined up and told you how many men each side lost - dunno why I bought that, just looked neat).

Though I like dice and think they can be used, I prefer much simplified rules that still give the nod to strategy and common sense, such as dividing armies into groups of 10 or whatever (depending on the size of the armies) and giving each a die, so a larger army will have more die rolls, etc., so its more sensible - if your army is 1,000 strong, you divide it by 100, so you'll do 10 dice worth of casualties per turn; and the opponent will do the same - larger weapons or better armor may modify this but in a mismatched combat, its still obvious whats going to happen. Charts are good if you use them OCCASIONALLY, to me, to do one thing each turn, or every few turns, but otherwise the 'rulebook' becomes an integral part of the 'at the table action' and I just feel thats cumbersome.

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Fri, 10/10/2003 - 17:14
#9
Anonymous
Combat Results Tables

I've played a few old-style avalon hill games with CRTs, use typically broke down into a few parts. The examples below are from a really old game called Gettysburg.

First, you'd determine the attacker's and defender's strength. Each unit (cardboard marker) was printed with a combat value. You'd add up all the attacking units, adjust by modifiers (multipliers I think) if the attacker is flanking, and come up with a single attacker number. The defender would to the same, adjusting by terrain (defender on hill doubles defender strength, etc). So you'd end up with large, unwieldy numbers like 19 vs. 9. You'd use one chart to reduce those odds down to a simple ratio in the range 6-1 -> 1-6. Then, you'd roll a single d6, and consult a chart. The rows were the 6 possible die values, the columns were the various odds. Each box would contain the result like 'Defender eliminated', 'Attacker retreat', 'Exchange'. One nice thing is you only roll one die, and you can tweak the CRT to give different results depending on your game. For example, in a blitzkrieg type setting, maybe the attacker is usually favored, but in a trench warfare setting the defender is favored. Is this what you're asking for?

The CRT looked something like this:

Roll 3-1 2-1 1-1
1 A Retreat A Elim A Elim
2 Exchange A Retreat A Retreat
3 D Retreat Exchange A Retreat
4 D Elim D Retreat Exchange
5 D Elim D Elim D Retreat
6 D Elim D Elim D Elim

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Tue, 10/28/2003 - 11:52
#10
Anonymous
Combat Results Tables

I've done a lot of wargames as well, but most CRTs end up looking very homogenous in the end... the only other common results I've seen on them that wasn't reflected in the above chart is the NE, No Effect, roll.

I too am in the middle of a game that needs a CRT and am trying to think of something more interesting for it than the generic bleah of the CRT...

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