If you have a minute?

Greetings from Las Vegas, gaming capital of the world! hehe...
I want to thank the administration for this forum, and encourage them to press ever onward in their proliferation of this hobby we all crave.

I am an avid gamer of all genres and have designed almost a dozen games. Many of which are played by my gaming group here in las Vegas. I am particularly interested in wargaming and minatures.

I have shelved an idea for a game for quite a few years and decided I would break it back out and work on it some more. It is a game that I have found little in the market place, and those that are there did not do it right in my opinion. I think this game needs to be done on a grand, epic scale, with all the trimmings, but first a basic layout of design , mechanics and rules needs to be worked out. I simply call it SIEGE....

It is a game of turns, one side is a Siege Army with terrible siege engines such as the Trebuchet, Belfry Tower, Mangonel, Battering Ram, Ballista, and Medievil Cannons. It utilizes tools such as bridges and ladders, large shields called Pavises that archers stand behind. Troops such a Archers with fire arrows and Crossbowman fire with deadly accuracy at the troops in the catwalks. Tactics such as draining the moat and filling it with debrie to set afire, or diggers tunneling under the corner of a castle and placing timbers which are lit to burn out the foundation are used with evil intentions. A monstrous battering ram covered with wooden shield and wet hides slams mercilessly into the castle doors as the crazed soldiers try to enter the castle courtyard. All this occurs as the commander and his crack troops waylay much needed supplies and water to the castle proper. The Siege commander knows he has time on his side.

The other side of this epic struggle is the Magnificent Concentric Castle with its deep moat and crenelated catwalks. Archers with fire arrows, and Mangonels from the towers fire deadly missiles into the sieging rabble. Trying to set alight the monstrous machinations, and put to death the aggregious felons in yonder field. Large rocks and boiling oil are dropped atop the heads of troops below through deadly Murder Holes, as the archers in the towers fire arrow after arrow from there loop holes. Large Iron or stone boulders are shot out of Boulder holes mowing down unsuspecting men in its wake as it tears free from the castle walls. A well placed Trebuchet in the courtyard lets loose an angry missile which seeks to destroy the Siege engines of the attacking army. Meanwhile secret passages put forth spies to send for help, and assassins to go out in the veil of darkness and mesh with the wicked foe, causing mutinous folly among the men and leaving death at the commanders doorstep.

Who shall win this battle of wits, tactics and time, only the man with the perfect combination shall come out victorious.

I yearn to have this game on my shelf....It must be done right, I can see cool miniatures of the Siege weapons, and a nice size castle with brilliant terrain around it. Perhaps a ready made castle from the numerous ones available on the market, or one built from card stock or styrene. In any case I hve worked out a few of the basics;

This is a turn based game, a game consists of a predetermined set of turns, a standard game being 25. The difficulty level of the game can be adjusted by decreasing the amount or increasing the amount of turns.
A roll of 2d20 can let fate determine the difficulty of the game.
Here is a simple suggestion for the amount of turns to be played;
Simple Castle 15 turns
Castle with moat 25 turns
Crenelated Castle 35 turns

TO WIN
*The Siege Army wins if they take the castle
*The Castle King wins if he can hold the Siege army at bay for the set amount of turns. (A friendly army has come to the castles rescue and the siege army is routed)
*The castle army wins if the Siege army cannot continue

Round One;
The siege army arrives on scene and must set up its equipment. (To be determined in charts, ie. a Trebushet takes 2 turns to set up, so it will
be ready to fire in turn 3. It takes one turn to load so it effectively fires every other round.

A standard round Lets each side, starting with the side that has initiative(In turn 1 Siege army starts with initiative.) perform 10 actions. Once they have done this the turn belongs to the other side who has 10 actions as well.

Each round after the first, each side rolls 1d6 to determine initiative. This indicates a side is able to respond or act faster this turn.

Turn actions:
1. Pack or Set up a siege machine
2. Perform maneuvers (with troops)
3. Attack with Siege weapons
4. Attack with troops (fire with archers, etc.)
5. Perform Tactics (draining moat, tunneling, use murder holes or boulder holes, pour boiling oil, etc.

Now, I have a basic idea of how I want the game to play, but I need to work out combat situations, ie. Siege weapons Range, damage, etc. Same for Archers and such. The way I am currently thinking of accomplishing this is as such.....
Each side has 100 health point(generic term) As a side is able to inflict damage to its troops, equipment, walls, etc it is dealt a certain amount of damage according to the weapon used. This comes off the main health track of the army. (Siege and Castle armies) At certain intervals down the health track critical circumstances are encountered. Such as say the Siege army is taking a lot of hits and its health track is down to 65, well at 60 there is a critical encounter, all Trebuchets are destroyed by castle Archers. This may or may not have a roll associated with it, or it may be an automatic thing. Regardless, in this situation the siege army is only 5 point from loosing one of its big hitters. So this is my idea for How a side is defeated, I am currently working on Charts for the different equipment that will be encountered. Range, Damage, LOS, etc. I will retire here and let you folks digest this info, thank you in advance for ideas and suggestions on this project, and thanks for reading!

Joe Knight
Komichido