I met up with one of my AoA freinds the other day and he talked about a new game from GW called War of the Ring. I've not played it myself but he said it was a big improvement from the existing GW games. He also said that one thing he like about it was that heroes could use something called "might" to perform heroic actions during the game, such as make extra attacks and so forth.

This got me thinking about how such an idea could be incorporated into AoA. After all, the non-wizard characters are somewhat dull ... all they really do is bolster morale and magic save slightly and then fight each other. I wonder if you could have a new ability available to the Lord-level characters (the more expensive of the melee characters) that gave them a certain number of "Heroism" points and they could spend these to perform heroic deeds during the game.

Here's a very rough concept / example:

Lyonesse Palladin - with added Heroism (3) option, where the number in the brackets denotes the starting number of Heroism points the character receives. Let's say each point of Heroism costs 25 points and so the Palladin would now cost 75 points more.

During the game, the character may use up his points at specific points in the game. Usually before making a particular roll or at the start of a specific phase, as explained in each Heroic action desription. Once used up, the Heroism points are exhausted and do not regenerate on their own. However, if the character kills an enemy character, monster, vehicle or artillary, he receives 2 Heroism points and if he successfully passes a morale test or a magic resistence test, he receives 1 Heroism point.

Now here's a sample list of Heroic actions ... I can see there being different type so Heroic action tables to represent different types of non-wizard characters. One for sword masters, another for great war leaders, another for mage hunters, another for stealthy characters / assassins and so on. This one is rather generic:

Generic Heroism Table:

Focus Strength - 1 Heroism Point - Lasts until end of turn
Declare its use at the start of the Melee phase. Character increases strength of all of his melee attacks by 1 point.

Inner Courage - 1 Heroism Point - Lasts until end of turn
Declare its use at the start of the Morale phase. Character increases his morale value by 1 point.

Resist Magic - 1 Heroism Point - Lasts until end of turn
Declare its use at the start of the Magic phase. Character increases his magic save by 1 point.

Storm of Blades - 2 Heroism Points - Lasts until end of turn
Declare its use at the start of the Melee phase. Character may roll a further melee attack for every melee attack that scores a successful hit. The extra attack is identical to the original attack except that it does not result in further extra attacks.

Driving Leadership - 2 Heroism Points - Lasts until end of turn
Declare its use when moving the affected character / unit. The character and any unit he has joined increases its movement by 25%.

Crushing Assault - 2 Heroism Points - Lasts until end of turn
Declare its use a the start of the melee phase. If the character slays another character this turn in melee, the loss of that character will impose a -2 morale penalty rather than the normal -1.

Defensive Stance - 2 Heroism Points - Lasts until end of turn
Declare its use at the start of the melee phase. The character increases his evasion by 1 point in the melee phase, up to a maximum of evasion 2.

Victory or Death - 3 Heroism Points - Lasts until end of turn
Declare its use at the start of the melee phase. The character throws caution to the wind and hurls himself at the enemy in a suicidal assault. The character reduces his evasion to 0 and increases his attacks by that same number. The additional attacks are identical to an existing attack.

War Cry - 3 Heroism Points - Lasts until end of turn
Declare its use at the start of the morale phase. The character bellows a fearsome war cry that envokes fear in his enemies. Any enemy unit in base contact with the character reduces its morale by 1, including that of characters in that unit.

Crippling Wounds - 3 Heroism Points - Lasts for the remainder of the game.
Declare its use at the start of the melee phase. Any character or monster wounded by the character this turn suffers -1 to hit on its melee attacks for the remainder of the battle. The effects are removed if the affected model either regenerates a wound or recovers a wound from any other source (bind wounds spell, heal spell, etc.).

Heroic Sacrifice - 3 Heroism Points - Lasts until end of turn
Declare its use at the start of the melee phase. The character's actions inspires great deeds from his companions, even if he should fall. If the character is killed in melee this turn, his unit is not required to take a morale test as a result. Instead, the unit receives +1 to its morale bonus and penalty in the subsequent morale phase.

Again, this is just a rough idea. What are your thoughts? Is it an idea worth exploring and further refining?

I like how the buiding and expending of heroism points mirrors (incompletely) the magic points system. I also like the idea of entering battle with a store of these prepared. It compares well against the Eye of the Gods rule for Warriors of Chaos in WFB, whereby characters can get nice bonuses for killing enemy characters, but this is unlikely to have a meaningful effect on the game as it will be very late in the game before this happens.

I don't see why a lesser hero should be excluded from having these abilities, although to a lesser extent. I also believe that there should be no cap on how many heroism points a hero can store, because it is much more heroic to start weak and defeat something more powerful than oneself.

Its certainly much more interactive and interesting than the current (more basic) system, but it does emphasise heroes over troops. For this reason especially, the system should not benefit a hero riding a powerful monster more than a hero on foot/ horseback. For the purposes of the rule, prestigious kills by the hero's mount shouldn't count.

Its very much a case of a rule thats "just not AoA", but thats okay by me.

I feel it's kind of similar to the wizard's ability of building up power each turn ... just not exactly the same. To me it feels like something (with some heavy tweaking) that could end up feeling very AoA in style and execution.

It might be a nice way to make AoA melee characters more interesting and dynamic without going down the route of magic items and such. And after all, I can just imagine how they might reinforce the story-telling quality of most AoA games .... most are, after all, designed to allow the heroes to do something heroic and memorable.

Giving this idea some more thought, I think what's critical is to come up with a workable method of managing the Heroism points that is:

1 - Well balanced.

2 - Feels like an AoA mechanic.

3 - Not overly cumbersome and easy to keep track of during a game.

With those ideas in mind, I figured it's better to keep it so that it can be tracked the same way the wizard's power points are tracked. A dice or a number of tokens kept next to the miniature. Typically for a game of AoA, each player is tracking the power level of 2 or 3 wizards. Therefore, I think it's best to keep Heroism points to the more expensive lord-level characters ... so that's its only 2 or 3 more point pools to track for a typical game. Giving these to every hero would probably make the tabletop unnecessarily cluttered.

Now regarding the mechanic for generating the Heroism points, I think it should be a situation where different characters have different starting levels of points at the start of the game, which they pay for in points at a standard cost across all armies. A human Palladin might start the game with 4 points of heroism, a Marrian Legate might start with 3, a goblin king might start with 2 and a Caliphate Grand Assassin might only have 1. These would reflect the respective luck / courage / desire for valour that you would expect of each character type.

Now how should the points be replenished or built upon during the game? I think that having them build up each turn in the same way that magic does wouldn't work so well. You would end up with a situation that lords from both sides would have a large number of Heroism points available to them as they entered melee and make the process somewhat chaotic. You'd also get heroes often using at least one point a turn during the critical melee turns as those turns are so important ... why would a character not use them up as quickly as possible?

Instead, I think that each character should start off with a certain number, as specified on his army list, and then his actions should affect whether the points increase or decrease. The list of actions needs to be small and easy to remember. Here's my first draft:

Things that Boost Heroism Points:

- +1 point for each melee phase when the character wounds an enemy character or base 4 or 9 monster in melee.

- +2 points for each melee phase where a character kills an enemy character or base 4 or base 9 monster in melee. (not cumulative with the one above about wounding a character/monster).

- +3 points for each melee phase where a character destroys an enemy war machine in melee.

- +1 point for each morale test that the character successfully passes. If part of a unit, the character recieves the bonus only if his morale value was used for the test.

- +2 point for each morale test that the character successfully passes where he was engaged with a Superior Enemy. If part of a unit, the character receives the bonus only if his morale value was used for the test. This bonus is not cumulative with the one above.

- +1 point whenever the character declares a charge against a Superior Enemy. If the character is part of a unit, his entire unit must consider the enemy to be a Superior Enemy.

- +1 point for each enemy spell resisted by a successful magic save roll using the characters magic save value. This does not apply to saves made against eldritch attacks.

Actions that Reduce Heroism Points:

- -1 point when the character or the unit he is in declares a flee response to an enemy charge.

- -1 point for every failed rally attempt made by character.

- -1 point for every morale phase where the character was not allowed to take a rally test (due to suffering wounds or the proximity of enemy).

- -2 point for each failed morale test.

In terms of when the points are awarded or removed, I think it would occur whenever the triggering event occurred. That way a character that uses his magic save to resist a hostile spell would have one more Heroism point to be used in the subsequent shooting, melee and/or morale phases.

Do you guys think the above mechanic would work? Let me know if you think anything should be tweaked or redone completely. If it's okay, then we can all start coming up with different types of Heroic Action tables. I'm thinking a character would choose one in the same way mages choose a spell lore. Each one would allow a character to be specialized into either a commander, a master swordsmen, a marksmen, a monster riding expert, an assassin, etc.

In a way, you'd be turning the generic melee lords into character types like you get in most role-playing games .... but in a quick and hopefully simple enough way to be suitable for a wargame. Thoughts?

Are the purchased points to be treated like a threshhold, a potential limit to the amount of stored power as well as beginning power?

I don't think so ... I like Vadak's suggestion that there shouldn't be any upwards limit to the amount of points a character could accumulate. Provided there isn't an easy exploit to allow players to get lots of points really quickly and easily (and I can't imagine any), I suspect this would be okay.

Sorry, but I am not a big fan of this idea. Smells too much like Warmachine's Feat System where Lord level characters can perform some specialized action once per game that always works and cannot be countered or stopped by any means. It's a playing field leveler for people who can't otherwise play the game very well.

Some of these aren't going to benefit everyone and actually seems to favor elves with the extra evasion and their relatively high number of attacks generating extra attacks from certain uses. Is there a max points?

By some of the methods mentioned for regaining them a character could use a heroism point in practically every turn of the game leaving an opponent with no way to counter other than using their own hero points.

IMHO just leave well enough alone.

I quite like this idea.

Infact, any new rule that might add more 'character' and playability to existing characters now is, imo, quite workable and easy to mainstream into the rules.


I say playtest it, then go for it!

This is why I love AoA....

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Tanker wrote:

Some of these aren't going to benefit everyone and actually seems to favor elves with the extra evasion and their relatively high number of attacks generating extra attacks from certain uses. Is there a max points?

No max number of points. The sample list of actions I threw up was just some random ideas so don't worry about the specific abilities yet. Right now, I'd like to focus on the overall idea first and if that works, develop specific heroic action lists.

Quote:

By some of the methods mentioned for regaining them a character could use a heroism point in practically every turn of the game leaving an opponent with no way to counter other than using their own hero points.

Good point ... perhaps the +1 for wounding either a character or monster during a phase should be removed. Often, that would allow characters in duals to build up at least one point per turn of melee.

Quote:

IMHO just leave well enough alone.

Fair enough ... but the good thing about AoA is that everyone can tinker and throw out ideas. Some will be silly .... perhaps most, but no reason not to explore them.

Although I see the reason behind this rule I think Tanker is right - it smells too much like Warhammer and other Hero-favoring games.
I too think characters could need some (very little) extra, but the stuff here seems to much for me. I could live with more command-style heroes, providing extra maneuverability to units for example. I don't think that heroes should be measured by the number of enemies they kill, I can live with supporting heroes. Maybe something like AT-43 has, where the highest ranking officer generates leadership points that are used for commands (like overwatch or take cover).
I could see the heroes in AoA work in a similar way - cumulating points that can be spent on special actions for the unit they are with, to perform a cool trick that the enemy didn't expect (remember Braveheart, where they had their long spears on the ground waiting for his command to pick them up and stop the crushing attack of the heavy cavalry). Of course we don't want any complicating lists of actions, so it could end up in an extra inch of movement when turning, a sudden first strike in the first turn, a natural missile attack or something like that as long as it works with units only. I don't see AoA heroes out there on the field by their own cutting down troops.

Actually, by writing this down now I think I will put some more thinking into that...

I like your efforts to push AoA forward, Raj
It's very inspiring.

Thanks Shadeaa .... actually I was thinking of one particular list of Heroic actions for just such types of special manoevres and unit boosting abilities.

What I'm hoping for is a set of optional rules that allow players to tailor their lord-level characters. Not by a huge margin ... but just enough to make them more unique, interesting to field and play against.

I think the idea is nice but I wouldn't have particular actions generate extra hero points

just have the option to buy them at the start of the game and leave it at that

Ulrictar

Those are kind of the ideas I had in mind for the "leadership" focussed heroic action list. Small bonuses that affect the whole unit, which typically last one turn.

Ulrictar's idea of not having the heroic action points regenerate from the character's actions is also worth considering. It would mean one less thing to track during the game .... or perhaps the middle ground is to reduce the number of actions that affect heroism points to a smaller list? I'd say both would be worth play testing.

I'll throw some ideas for different types of Heroic Actions .... please throw your ideas out as well.

Here's my first draft on a few different types of Heroic actions. I'm thinking a character with the Heroism ability would have to choose one of these heroism styles ... in the same way a mage must choose his lore. That way, a player can give a certain style to his non-wizard lord .... kind of like character classes in most RPG's.

Here's goes ... remember these are just first drafts .... let's hear all comments and criticisms. The first is for a ranger style character:

Heroism Style - Ranger

This style represents leaders that, when not campaigning, spend their times exploring the world around them. They are skilled at using the plants and animals of their surroundings for their benefit. They are also expert trackers and are able to move through terrain freely and set traps for the enemy.

* Ranger skills may only be performed by unmounted characters.

Heroic Actions:

Tracker - 1 Point Cost - Declare before Moving character

The hero uses his knowledge of the terrain to move through forests, rivers and other terrain like a shadown.

Effect: For this movement phase, the character may treat difficult terrain as open ground and very difficult ground as merely difficult ground.

Herblore - 1 Point Cost - Declare at the start of the morale phase

The hero uses nearby plants to create a quick balm to heal the wounds suffered in the battle.

Effect: During this morale phase only, the character or any other character in the same unit may make 1 regeneration roll, provided the character is positioned in a forest or water terrain feature and was not engaged in melee this turn.

Hunter's Eye - 1 Point Cost - Declare before firing missile weapon

Having learned to live off the land during much of his life, the hero knows how to predict the movement of flying prey and shoot them out of the sky.

Effect: A character equipped with missile weapon will not suffer the -1 to hit penalty if firing at a target that is either flying high or low this turn.

Beast Ward - 2 Point Cost - Declare at the start of the melee phase

The hero has fought many of Arcana monsters during his life and knows what charms, chemical reagents, and diversions affect them. When facing such creatures on the battlefield, he uses these tricks to momentarily confuse them.

Effect: Target monster engaged in base contact with the character suffers a -1 to hit on its melee attacks this turn.

Pathfinder - 2 Point Cost - Declare before movement

The hero leads his warriors through hidden pathways through difficult ground unhindered.

Effect: The hero any any unit he has joined that is in skirmished formation may move through difficult terrain as if it was open ground and very difficult terrain as if it was only difficult terrain for this turn only.

Monster's Bane - 2 Point Cost - Declare at the start of the Melee Phase

The hero has an intimate knowledge of monsters and the poisons that can cripple them. As he faces such a creature on the battlefield, he applies such a poison to his weapon.

Effect: Target a specific monster engaged with the character in melee. If wounded by the character once or more this turn in melee, it suffers an additional d3 wounds at the end of the melee phase.

Set Trap - 3 Point Cost - Declare at the end of turn.

The hero uses his skills as a hunter to set a series of quick snares and traps in his immediate surroundings.

Effect: The character plants a trap in any forested, rocky or water terrain he is currently occupying. Any enemy that contacts the terrain during its movement in subsequent turns triggers the trap on a roll of 4 or more on a D6 (rolled after movement is completed). If triggered, the trap inflicts 2d3 str (1) missile hits on that unit and is then removed from play. A given terrain peice may be trapped multiple times.

Eagle Eye - 3 Point Cost - Declare before firing missile weapon as part of a stand and shoot charge reaction.

In this time as a ranger, the hero has faced the charge of many enraged monsters. He knows the precise time to fire his weapon against such charges, finding the creatures heart or eyes even as it charges at full speed.

Effect: If declaring a stand and shoot charge response to a monster, the character receives +1 to hit, ignores the creatures evasion and flying to hit penalties and any wound inflicted by the shot causes 3 wounds rather than one. The effects apply only to one shot and must be declared before the roll to hit is made.

So this my first draft of a heroic action list that would enable players to field one of their lords as a ranger. Equip him with a missile weapon and leave him on foot and he should be able to suprise his opponent once or twice the game. Would probably be suitable for Sylvan Elf lords, Barbarian lords, Snakemen and beastmen characters ... but I think that the best way to go would be to allow any lord-level character to choose any of the Heroic action lists. This allows the player to really customize his characters and doesn't restrict them to anyone else's preconcieved notion of fluff.

What do you guys think? No idea how much the ability would cost ... I'm guessing 20 points per Heroic action point? Perhaps 30 points? Perhaps a flat 100 point cost upgrade and all characters start with 3 or 4 points? Anyway, that stuff could be tweaked through playtesting.