Fell beast

GothmogtheWerewolf · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 12:38 pm

Or you could use a tall model like a bat swarm or a troll to block line of sight.

General Elessar · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 2:01 pm

hithero wrote:

It's nearer 5 turns as a third will hit the rider, you will aslo be shooting his archers and hopefully be using terrain to block shots to reduce hits and depending on rider in combat anyway.

Coming back to this, why would a third hit the rider? My understanding is that if you aim at the rider, there's a 50/50 chance of hitting the rider or his mount; if you aim at the mount, you hit it normally (i.e. there's no obstacle in the way, including the rider). Am I wrong?

GothmogtheWerewolf · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 3:34 pm

You aim for the whole model, not specifically one or the other, hence there is always the roll.

Beowulf03809 · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 4:18 pm

Correct. In SBG a mounted model is the target. There's a 50/50 chance on a d6 of it being the mount or the rider (we usually do high=rider, low=mount since that's logically how they're riding).

In many cases the mount has a lower defense than the rider and robbing the rider of his mount can tactically cripple that model anyway (I love shooting or hacking the horse out from under a major Hero).

Draugluin · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 4:56 pm

I'm pretty sure that when shooting at a fell beast you have a 2/3 chance of hitting the mount cause they're so big.

GothmogtheWerewolf · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:23 pm

Yes, same for chariots, but Beowulf was refering to cavalry in general.

Draugluin · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:26 pm

General Elessar was wondering why only 1/3 would hit the rider.

GothmogtheWerewolf · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:31 pm

No, he though that you can choose to shoot the fell beast and thus hit it automatically, but he is wrong it always has a 2/3 chance hitting fell beast and 1/3 chance hitting the wraith

Draugluin · **Posted:** Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:44 pm

I know that, I was just rying to make it clear to him.

Hilbert · **Joined:** Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:07 am **Posts:** 2088

So as Nazgul have high defense you ar eeven safer- I agree shooting hero's moutn is very useful

Beowulf03809 · **Posted:** Fri Oct 07, 2011 1:24 pm

Draugluin wrote:

I'm pretty sure that when shooting at a fell beast you have a 2/3 chance of hitting the mount cause they're so big.

Ah. There's one of those rules that just don't stick if you don't use it often. We've only seen a couple FB in our local group's play in the 5-6 years I've been playing SBG. But we see lots of Cavalry used. So I probably haven't had to look up shooting at a FB for two or three years. Damn...I need to play SBG more. :sad:

General Elessar · **Posted:** Fri Oct 07, 2011 3:12 pm

Ok, to confirm: when shooting at a normal cavalry model, once an arrow has hit there's a 50/50 chance of it hitting either the rider of the mount. However, when shooting at a monstrous mount, it's a 1/3 chance that the rider will be hit. Is this right?

It seems a bit silly that you can't aim at the rider or mount specifically, and thus increase your chances of hitting your exact target.

Beowulf03809 · **Posted:** Fri Oct 07, 2011 3:50 pm

Legolas has a special rule in SBG that allows him to pick a specific target and I'm pretty sure that can be used to select the Mount vs. Rider as well. But otherwise you have to keep in mind what a moving, mounted target looks like. I think the 50/50 ( or 33/66 ) is a fine way to abstract that condition without added complexity.

And that's one of the key factors of SBG. It really is not a very complex rule system and yet allows a lot of tactical and situational variety. I've seen many house rules posted over the years to add additional "realism" to one area or another of the game but often those have the potential to unbalance something unexpected or simply add complexity without adding anything significant to the game play itself.

WayUnderTheMountain · **Posted:** Fri Oct 07, 2011 9:46 pm

Beowulf03809 wrote:

Legolas has a special rule in SBG that allows him to pick a specific target and I'm pretty sure that can be used to select the Mount vs. Rider as well. But otherwise you have to keep in mind what a moving, mounted target looks like. I think the 50/50 ( or 33/66 ) is a fine way to abstract that condition without added complexity.

As someone who used to teach archery quite frequently and still does do a fair amount of shooting with a bow, I would attest to the difficultly of hitting a target, moving or not, mounted or not (they're still trying to find the kids who went missing on a trail ride nearby

). This is especially true when a archer is shooting by instinct (the way they used to) and not with a sight. When the horse and rider are directly facing you from a longer distance, you have a fairly even chance of hitting either because what you see is roughly the same size in area. Now if they're perpendicular to you or closer, it could be argued that its far easier to hit the horse because its area now appears bigger. Then models who are spread out (skirmish formation) should have a bonus to defense against bows at long range because a single man running at 100 yards is harder to hit than one man in a rushing mob at 100 yards, and the list goes on and on. The rules that are in place for SBG shooting are complex enough to be 'realistic' without negating all the fun.

If you want 'realistic archery' go to the archery range for a while and shoot a bow with a 30lb draw, then a crossbow of equivalent draw strength. Then tell me the 100lb draw longbow is only Strength 3 while the crossbow is Strength 4, yet both have the same range and shoot at roughly the same pace of once per turn (5-6 seconds). Almost all medieval wargames have these kinds of flaws in them, but as Beowuld03809 said to modify them often creates imbalances and unnecessary complexity to a game is already quite enjoyable.

If anyone was disturbed by my comment above about shooting small children off horses with a bow, I should make it clear that I never did such a thing and in fact as a archery range safety officer I was responsible for preventing any such instances from occurring.

Beowulf03809 · **Posted:** Fri Oct 07, 2011 10:31 pm

The producers of this forum would like to mention that no children, mounted or otherwise, were harmed in the writing of the previous post.

Thank you.

Fell beast

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