Monday, January 25, 2010

Matters of Scale





1:1 Figure Scale





1:2 Figure Scale



1:10 Figure Scale





1:20 Figure Scale







  1. Why does the time-scale change with the figure scale? Chain Mail always uses a one minute round, as does OD&D, regardless of scale.

    The point about shooting rates seems a bit misplaced to me. In the ordinary shooting rules for Chain Mail two ranks of figures may shoot, which means two ranks of bows or two ranks of crossbows. Further, the movement rules attached to those weapons absolutely contradicts the hypothesis that bows are not being shot at an increased rate.

    In terms of frontage, you are assuming close order deployment (3' frontage per figure), but at 1:1 scale you say each figure occupies 5'. Is this the reason you started looking towards 1:2 scale?

    I think that 1:10 probably assumes deployment of two ranks of five men, as you say, but 1:10 scale probably assumes two ranks of ten men, as that would be a true "doubling" of scale. Interestingly, Gygax mentions the problem of depth relative to miniatures in the DMG in a different context.

  2. "Further, the movement rules attached to those weapons absolutely contradicts the hypothesis that bows are not being shot at an increased rate."

    Definitely not, read my post again. There is no need for an individual bow to fire twice as fast as an individual sword; the observation that a single figure is itself two lines deep suffices to explain the twice-as-many-attacks-from-a-missile-figure rate.


    Nothing to do with sword, but with crossbows. If a bow shoots twice and a crossbow shoots once, it cannot be the case that two ranks of bows are assumed, rather than they have twice the shooting rate. Indeed, bows shoot once in the movement phase and once in the melee phase, but crossbows shoot in either or (see p. 11 of CM).

    One could possibly argue that more bowman can shoot than crossbowman, but this ignores that two ranks of missile troops can shoot in all cases. So, whether you have one rank of figures representing two ranks of men, or two ranks of figures representing four ranks of men only half of the ranks would be assumed to shoot under your paradigm [i.e. unrelated to the number of ranks that can shoot, only the total number of ranks].

    I started another thread about this over in the OD&D Chain Mail forum if you are interested.

  4. Definitely not.

    A multitude of individual sword or bow attacks are required to make up one mass-combat figure's attack roll. Since the archer figure has more men actively firing, it achieves this number twice during a turn, while the sword figure only achieves it once.

    For crossbows, the half-speed counteracts the twice-as-many-firing, therefore resulting in one mass roll per turn. Faster individual bows are not necessary to generate these reults.

  5. I have no idea how you are coming to this conclusion. Let us say you have 20 men shooting a bow in two ranks and you make 2 rolls, whilst you have 20 men shooting a crossbow in two ranks where you make 1 roll. You are arguing what here? That there are more bows being shot, or that the multiple rolls represent more effective shooting?

    The reason this does not work conceptually for Chain Mail is that if you then have two ranks of figures, so 40 in four ranks of 10, the rear rank can shoot as per the rules. It is illogical to assume that only the first and third rank of crossbowmen can shoot, but not the third, so we must conclude that all ranks shoot, whatever the formation.

    With that in mind, we need only look as far as how crossbows work versus heavy crossbows. Crossbows shoot every turn, and heavy crossbows shoot every other turn. If that is not representative of rate of shooting, then I will eat my hat.

    With that in mind, how can bows, which shoot twice per round when stationary not be shooting at twice the rate of crossbows, when we know that more powerful attacks,a s with the heavy crossbow, are represented by adding one to the roll?

  6. Individual bows are shooting at the same rate as swords are attacking. Individual crossbows are shooting half as often as either of those. Now think through the implications of a 2x5 formation.

  7. I am still not following you here. What am I supposed to be thinking through? As you point out in your initial paragraph, there is some level of historical simulation in Chain Mail; crossbows shooting at half the rate of bows in ranks of 2x5 or 2x10, 4x5 or 4x10 both fits the historical evidence relative to the game and makes for a perfectly reasonable abstraction.

    Are you making an argument, perhaps, that only the front rank of melee combatants are actually fighting in a given turn? That because 10 swords are attacking, 20 bows are shooting? I do not think those things can be related the way you are imagining, since melee attacks are not a case of 10 men fighting, next 10, or whatever. The die roll represents the strength of the unit engaged, everybody fights.


  9. I do not think that is a tenable conclusion, although I see what you are driving at; presumably you are here treating Light Foot as Unarmoured, Heavy Foot as Half Armoured, and Armoured Foot as Fully Armoured.

    The missile troops are equivalent to Light Foot in this scheme, in that the total casualties they are able to inflict is of the order 3:2:1, which is to say 3 for every 6 against light foot, 2 for every 6 against heavy foot and 1 for every 6 against armoured foot, per volley, two volleys being equivalent to the casualties potentially inflicted by light foot against those foot types.

    It seems to me, however, that this fails to appreciate the fact that the same number of heavy horse (that is to say 6 figures) is capable of inflicting up to 24 casualties on light foot (or perhaps 30 during a charge), and thus must be attacking at four to five times the rate of the bowmen in that instance.

  10. Mathhew: I'm not considering troop types or any game's specfic combat tables here, just rate-of-attacks only.

  11. Then you realise that bows cannot have the same attack rate as swords, figuratively speaking, since swords have an attack rate dependent on type and circumstances? You might get as few as 1 die per four men, or as many as 5 dice per 1 man, and thus the ability to inflict from 0-100 casualties with 20 men in melee per round, but only ever 0-20 with bows and 0-10 with crossbows.

  12. Chainmail's combat resolution tables are not part of this discussion.

  13. Now you have lost me. ;)

    So, what are you driving at here? That bow shooting rates should be the same as the number of melee attacks made in a mass scale combat system based on OD&D in order to give a nod towards historical simulation? Or are bows only employed once per round in your OD&D campaign? Will only the first two ranks be able to shoot in this system?

    I do not think it really matters too much, but if the mass combat game is intended to be OD&D on a mass scale, it should probably follow the same rules.

  14. Yes, bows are only employed once per round in my OD&D campaign.

    Recap of reasons: (1) Matches my real-life research on attack rates, (2) Is the correct scaling down of a mass figure that fires arrows at twice the rate of sword attacks, and (3) Is simpler and more elegant to resolve.

  15. Right you are; so what is the shooting rate at 1:10 and 1:20 scale? 3 per round (30 seconds), and 6 per round (60 seconds) respectively? (per volley).

  16. Yes, for individual bows.

    In my own 1:10 mass-combat game, to tell it briefly, every 15 individual attacks become one mass die roll. So each mass archery figure is again making 2 rolls per turn.