It’s Summer again! A time when our thoughts turn to sunning, surfing, and lazy afternoons spent playing wargames in the cool comfort of air conditioning. To help out, I’ve again teamed up with Wargame Vault to bring you some great bargains during the Summer Campaign Sale. From now until July 8th, 2013 at 1000 Eastern Standard Time, ALL products from Bombshell Games and Brent Spivey on Wargame Vault are 25% off! Here’s a look of some of the products included.
Want to get your Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Ghost Recon friends to play a miniature game? If so, then The Battlefield is just the ticket. The 2013 Origins Nominee for Best Miniature Rules brings the tactical first and third person shooter experience to the tabletop supporting up to 8 players and 9 game modes. If you’ve wanted to try out Overdrive™, then now is the time to pull the trigger. The download includes quick reference sheets for all infantry units, standard actions, and vehicles.
MAYHEM is a ‘fantasy mass battle’ combat game played on the grand scale. Here generals lead armies of their own creation on the field of battle in search of victory and glory. Not just for wargamers, MAYHEM is perfect for roleplayers looking to integrate a customizable set of mass combat rules into their campaigns and adventures.
Game features overview:
- custom points based army construction
- uses d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20 dice
- VERSUS game engine [including Deadlocks and Overdrive]
- play at any scale including 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, and 28mm
- players can use armies based for other systems
- no casualty removal
- includes quick reference sheets, army construction worksheet, and General’s Compendium
- official support from popular miniature manufacturers
Also included is the HAVOC Bundle which not only contains the 2010 Origins Nominee for Best Miniature Rules and quick reference sheet for the game, but it also boast 2 amazing multi-layered PDF paper models from Dave Graffam Models. This sale makes that bundle a bargain just for the terrain alone!
Summer Campaign Sale – Join the Fight!
bombshell games 
Hi, the sale actually brought my attention to your games, which I had not seen before…
I just got through reading HAVOC and I was trying to sign up to the Yahoo group but I’m not sure it is still active… also are any supplements to HAVOC to be released at any point in time ?
thanks
Francisco
Posted by Francisco Erize | July 9, 2013, 12:06 amHi Francisco!
Glad you found my games! I just approved your membership on the Yahoo Group, and there are a few resources there that you may find useful. As for supplements to HAVOC, there are definitely plans for some but it will be just a bit longer as I have a couple of releases to get out first. The good news is both of those are just about ready to drop! 🙂 If you have any questions about any of my games, then don’t hesitate to ask them here or on the group.
HAVOC!
Brent
Posted by Brent | July 10, 2013, 5:26 pmI also found your games through the sale and have enjoyed messing about with some small Mayhem games and making some army lists. Not sure if I might be pre-empting the upcoming supplement but there are a couple of special rules I think don’t quite do what they sound like they should (if that makes any sense) and a couple more things that sort of feel “missing” from the tactical mix. Hope this is an OK place to leave feedback?!
Shieldwall – rule works OK. But I’d like to see something else to represent the sort of shield wall that dark ages troops used. Maybe something like an elective rule where troop gets +1 dice, but cannot cause any damage if they win?
Berserker – I was playing with a unit of berserker figures and decided to give them a new rule where they had to declare a charge if they were in potential charge range, couldn’t use shields and had +1 dice until they suffered damage. Kind of like the sort of “frenzy”/”berserker” rules that crop up in a lot of games I guess – bit of extra hitting power, but hard to control and fragile.
Light troops/scouts – feel these miss a tactical element of the game. Haven’t playtested, but thought about maybe allowing the unit to elect to move as per drive back when they are charged/contacted by the enemy. Probably move this first then move charger, if driven back light troops are contacted (I.e. their drive back move results in the distance between them and charging unit being less than the charger’s move) then they are wiped out. Add to this the ability to make a “free” reform at the start of their move. (meaning they can “flee” from a charge, and then reform and move as normal in their move). Inf/Cav only. Not allowed to take h.armour, lance, great weapon, heavy crossbows.
Posted by Simon Dixon | August 11, 2013, 9:09 amWelcome!
This is a fine place to discuss ideas and ask questions. 🙂
I’ll start with the light troops and scouts first. Fast cavalry, scouts, and skirmishers all play important roles in the expansion material and fill multiple strategic and tactical roles. Fast cavalry in particular become very important for harassing flanks and acting as a direct counter to threaten war machines. Based on your thoughts above, I think you’ll be very pleased with the expansion material! 😉
Shield wall- to get the effect that you’re looking for, I recommend using the Set rule found in the General’s Compendium [that will give you the extra die that you’re looking for] and giving the unit the Steadfast trait as well. You’ll find that these units will give your enemies much pause when trying to figure out how to crack them.
Berserker- I like the frenzy concept you have for the berserker. Frenzy would actually work quite well as a separate trait and add some layers to the unit creation process- interesting. Also, when you say charge, I assume that you’re referring to the Charge! rules found in the General’s Compendium. If not, then I would recommend using that as it would both require them to make a danger roll [adding to the unpredictability] and make them very nasty on the charge with the extra die!
If you explore this concept further, then you’ll want to require your frenzy units to make their charge range checks at the beginning of the turn [if they have to pay for the action as normal]. If frenzied units are not going to be required to pay for this action [if it’s a compulsive action], then the cost of the trait will require some advanced math. Don’t forget that only one Charge! can be attempted per turn! [this would keep your frenzied units from getting into a Charge! loop]
Don’t forget that Magic is on the way as well!!
-Brent
Posted by Brent | August 11, 2013, 1:47 pmThanks for the reply Brent!
The expansion sounds really exciting, I had forgotten there would be magic involved as well.
For the frenzy/berserker troops I was indeed referring to the Charge! rule, but was giving them an additional +1 dice until they were disordered over and above the charge bonus. It did make them very scary to face. It would make sense to resolve all elements of this compulsory charge! move at the start of the turn – makes things less confusing, but also feel characterful. The way I played it was for the compulsory Charge! to have its normal CP cost. Afterwards we were discussing all sorts of cunning strategies an opponent could use to draw the frenzied berserkers out of position by moving just into their maximum move range, I guess using a combo of that with Set would be a possible counter. And perhaps future fast cavalry/scouts will be able to play havoc with them by running away! In our game they chewed through a few units but as soon as they got bogged down in a combat and overextended it was fairly easy to get a counter-charge in the flank and wipe them out.
Its a fun house rule, but I think potentially it could make for some pretty over-powerful units and I guess as it grants an extra dice the cost technically should be proportional to the CQ of the unit? (frenzied ogres being a mite more dangerous than frenzied goblins!) Making it hard to properly cost? The build I used was Mv-D8, CQ-D8, Infantry, axe, fear, berserker, “frenzy” = 24 crowns. Just adding 6 crowns to the base cost – but this was a total guess as to what “felt right”. (both sides had “stock” troops with mv-D6, cq-d12 and so the rule was the same cost as an extra basic unit with axe & shield.)
In future I think I would tone it down a little as two steps in CQ above normal axemen probably isn’t justified, and CQ-D10 would be fine.
Posted by Simon Dixon | August 13, 2013, 6:18 pmI can’t tell you how excited I am about this expansion. There are so many little surprises and extras going into it that I just can’t wait to get into the players’ hands. A couple of additional unit types in particular are going to open up some really unique tactical options and make for an especially interesting meta-game [sorry! those unit types are still under wraps]. And magic? Everyone that’s been playtesting agrees that it’s going to take people by surprise!!
I like the stuff you’re doing with the house rules. Keep sharing any hacks or mods that you and your group do. I love hearing what people are doing with the system!
Oh, and as far as ‘pricing’ unit abilities goes, I think so of the design notes that will be coming out with the expansion will help you dial in your own pricing.
Posted by Brent | August 14, 2013, 7:21 pm