The Dice Carnival commences

 Hey look, long time no blog! (Has it been 6 years? Whoa.)

     I'm jumping into the Campaign Carnival 2022 presented by Wargame Culture.It's going to be a campaign of 4 linked scenarios where the results of each battle will influence the campaign as a whole.For more info follow the links above. (Also check out other videos on the Carnival on the Wargame Culture channel).

 

     I've chosen to use the Dice Legions system to play out this 1st scenario. It's a system I've been watching via it's Facebook group for a while and wanted to give it a test spin.

• Six sided dice are used for the units, with each pip being a 'man'.  (For the larger numbers in the campaign I'm treating each die as a stand and each pip as a figure. Each figure will represent 20 soldiers). 
• There are specialty units that use other dice (most commonly d8) and their value is a number of health points and not individual 'men'. 
• The units have a unit card designating it's attack, movement, and defense values and an special abilities.  Most units roll a six sided for each pip on the die, with the attack value designating when hits occur.  The defender can then roll to negate any hits. 
• Each side gets a limited number of unit activations per turn with each unit finishing any movement and/or attack before another unit is activated.

      This system is not the best fit for this campaign as it does not have morale or leader rules. I've violated a prime principle of gaming (don't tinker before you've even tried the game) by adding these rules.

• Morale: When a unit suffers a hit (successful attack) that unit, after it's save (defense) rolls, must roll a 6 sided die as a morale check.  If the result is equal to or above its Morale Value (the number of pips/health points currently showing), the morale check is failed and the unit must retreat half it's move. If the attack was a ranged attack the unit's player determines the direction of retreat, as long as it's away from the attacking unit.  If a melee attack incited the morale check, the opposing player decides the direction.  On it's next activation the unit may make another Morale check; if it fails it can only continue to move away from the enemy.
  
• Leaders: One standard unit (pip based d6) of each unit type has a leader.  The leader counts as the last pip lost, but does have a d6 worth of health points to be killed.  Any unit within Command Range (3") of a leader gains a bonus of 1 to its Morale Value. If a leader is killed/captured, any units within Command Range must make an immediate morale check. Each leader can activate one unit in Command Range per turn independent of the normal number of activations per turn.

Once I've played out the scenario, I'll detail the results in another blog post.  So stay tuned!