Hi gents,

Let's put our thoughts and experiences on the seige rules here.

Zink, could you put up a link to the rules here please?

I'll be playing my first seige game this thursday with 2 other players. The battle will be 4500 points of High Elves defending a 1500 point stone castle. The attackers will be 6000 points of dwarves. In addition to the standard seige rules, we'll be using the following tweaks:

- Units defending and assaulting a castle section are considered to have a magic save of 4. (This is to prevent the dominance of magic and the effectiveness of auto-hit magic spells such as lightning bolt and such).

- If a castle section collapses (loses all wounds), then any defenders on the section and any attackers assaulting it suffer 5d3 str (2) hits, not halved for skirmished units. (no idea if this is good or not, just a guess for our first game).

- Shots at castle sections receive +1 to hit.

Will let you know how it goes. If you have other ideas and experiences please post them here for us all to discuss and share.

I'm reading through the WAB Siege and Conquest book and working on translating some things over to AoA. I'll post up my new ideas for a siege scenario in fews days once I get more things thought out. I'm trying to add a lot of things to Thane's basic rules. Siege engines, sappers, boiling oil, flaming arrows, moats and more.

Here's Thane's siege rules.

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Here's an early draft of my addons. I'm already redoing a bunch of the defender options.

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Any ideas and comments appreciated.

Here's my latest draft of siege items for castle defenders.

Defender’s Siege Equipment

1)The defender must buy/construct his castle using the rules in the Thane’s Games’ Siege rules and the following options.

-Shallow Moat 1 points / 1” square. Very difficult terrain for infantry and cavalry and impassible for warmachines and vehicles.

-Deep Moat 2 points / 1” square. Impassable terrain.

2)The defender may purchase the following items his units. A unit may only carry one of these items.

-Boiling water cauldron: 1 cauldron/unit allowed. 23 points 1/ 3 range 0” str 1 2d3 hits. Usable as a charge reaction(no negative to hit modifer) and until attacker gains wall. If unit flees or falls back while in melee the cauldron is lost otherwise it moves as normal with the owning unit.

-Boiling oil cauldron: 1 cauldron/unit allowed. 30 points 1/ 3 range 0” str 2 2d3 hits d3 wounds. Usable as a charge reaction(no negative to hit modifer) and until attacker gains wall. If unit flees or falls back while in melee the cauldron is lost otherwise it moves as normal with the owning unit.

-Naptha cauldron: 1 cauldron/unit allowed. 72 points 1/3 range 0” str 2 magic, 2d3 hits, d3 wounds fearsome. Usable as a charge reaction(no negative to hit modifer) and until attacker gains wall. If unit flees or falls back while in melee the cauldron is lost otherwise it moves as normal with the owning unit.

-Rocks: 10 points / model. 1/ 2 range 6” str 1 natural. Buy for non-missile units.

-Braziers: 1 point + additional 1 point for each 6” of weapon range / model. Elemental fire ability given to unit. Usable by bowmen and catapults.

-Naptha projector 211 points. Move 4”. Wounds 4. Armour 3 – fixed. Morale 8 melee wounds/2. missile 1/3 range 0” str 2 magic, 2d3 hits, d3 wounds fearsome(on the missile attack not melee) Base 4.

The moat costs are based on a models movement costs for swimming or ignore terrain. The naptha projector is just another warmachine except that I applied the fearsome ability's cost to the naptha attack and not the crew's melee attacks. Not sure how big they were in history so I called them base 4.

I'm also wanting to incorporate fire sensitive into the stats and costs for any wooden structures. Just gives people a reason to take the various flaming options. Then you can use flaming weapons to hurt siege engines or wooden walls/buildings easier.

As I have time I will work up and post some stats for various attacker options.

Played our first game and it was very interesting. The dwarfs managed to seize the castle in the end, though things looked bad for them initially.

It made me realize that I still don't have a full grasp on the seige rules in terms of when troops reinforce and how they move between wall sections. The rules are really very unclear and need a lot of elaboration. I think I'll work on trying to flush out the core rules first before worrying about adding new things like seige weapons, moats and so on ... I like Zink's ideas so far, but I really want to focus on getting the core castle rules as rock solid as possible.

One thing that really struck me was how effective flyers are in seiges. They completely ignore the defensive benefits of the castle and on top of that, the defenders are in skirmish formation so cannot drive off flyers like they could in a normal battle. Philzes fielded two dwarf lords on oriental dragons and they killed massive numbers of defenders while suffering very few casualties in return. There is really no reason why the attacking player wouldn't field as many heavy hitting flyers as they possibly could in a seige game.

I think this is one of the key areas where the rules break down for the current seige rules. They seem to take the approach of assuming that flyers would be able to ignore all the defensive benefits of a castle because a European castle would (in theory) have little protection against a flying monster. However, why would we assume that the people of Arcana would build castles identical to that of the people of Earth? If they knew they were going to face a sky full of dragons and wyverns, surely they would build castles with some types of defenses that would impede them in some way?

Not sure exactly what would be the best way to implement this ... but I feel that flyers have to work differently. I see them fighting the way the Nazgul did in the Lord of the Rings movies during the seige of Minith Tirith. Swooping over the battlements, making diving attacks on the defenders and then flying off. I don't see them hovering over one section fo the castle like a humming bird and picking off the defenders with impunity.

I'll put some suggested alternate rules for flyers in seiges up once I've put some more thought into it. We should be playing another seige game next week if possible.

There also needs to be a lot of clarrification on how reinforcing a castle section should be done, how Superior Enemy works (if at all), what the positions within a castle peice (not on the surface) do exactly and so on. I'll put those down as well and get some ideas.

Overall though, I did like the seige rules ... they just seem very beta at the moment. There were two really great bits where two big units of dwarfs swarmed onto a tower and a wall section and siezed it. Looked really cinematic and was resolved very quickly and easily.

Another one of my friends watched the game and said it was the most interesting looking and flowing game of AoA he'd seen so far ... hopefully next time, I'll get him to play.

Here is a cut and paste from the siege section of my house rules (remember these are derived from two battles, one in which I was the attacker, and one the defender, so they are hardly "play tested"):

Special Siege Rules

Morale
The defender does not take morale tests for superior enemy tests. They test like normal for the loss of a character, ¼ models lost in a turn, under half wounds and engaged, and from fearsome attacks. This only applies to units that are defending structures, a unit that is engaged in the open outside of the castle tests normally.

Shooting
Missile weapons get a plus one to hit siege weapons and fortifications. Weapons that do multiple hits, such as most artillery, large monster breath attacks, and some spells, will do half hits to units on the fortification targeted or units using siege weapons. All siege weapons and fortifications are considered elemental sensitive.

Purchasing Siege Equipment/Fortifications/Terrain
Siege equipment, fortifications, and terrain are purchased with the normal troop allowance. This amount should never exceed 50% of the normal troop allowance (30% of the total army cost). If siege troops are modified in such a way as to make them exceed 50pts (such as by “upgrading” them to reflect a particular race, IE skill 3 attacks, or magic res 4, etc) then they must be purchased out of the players elite allowance as normal. Fortifications are purchased using Thanes siege rules. Approved modifications to fortifications from Zinkala's siege scenario include the Boiling oil and rocks that can be purchased as part of a fortification. Terrain pieces that are purchased can be occupied by enemy troops and DO count against point totals when deciding if an army must take a test in an attrition scenario. Each army can only purchase one terrain piece per 1000 points. Point costs for terrain are taken from below.

Reinforcing
A defender may move troops from an unengaged castle section into other castle sections during the movement phase..

A defender may reinforce a castle section that has suffered casualties during the missile and magic phases. During the melee phase the defender declares they are reinforcing and allocates troops from an unengaged castle section. These troops do not get the benefits of the fortification, that is they do not get re-rolls and fight at the same time of last striking attackers who had to climb.

Time Limit
Placing a time limit encourages the attackers to get stuck in. I would not recommend more than 8-10 turns. This keeps the attacker from plinking away at extreme range with artillery for 3 hours before moving in (smart in concept but stupid in game terms). It also keeps them from building up insane amounts of magic before the assault.

Victory Conditions
Objectives can be chosen per as normal following the normal rules. The attacker or defender can choose parts of the wall/fortification as objectives.

The battle can also be fought using the standard rules for the attrition scenario. The castle pieces are included in the defenders points, and are lost when destroyed or when the attacker takes control of the area (occupies more than half of the spots on and in the fortification piece).

Main Rules
The main rules outlined in Thanes siege games are used here as well. (Except for the morale, shooting, purchasing, and reinforcement modifications noted above). Fortifications are created using those guidelines. Siege equipment for attackers has been created using those guidelines as well. Terrain that is part of fortifications must be purchased/created using the attached terrain guide.

The dismounting troops/cavalry rule from Zinkala's siege scenario is used.



Here are the siege options that I currently use:

Attackers

Siege Towers
Armor 6, 9bases (9), 45 wnds (2x45=90), Heavy Cover (3 x 9 = 27), Anti-Climb (3 x 9 = 27), Movement 6 (4 pts). Total points 148 Slow vs Missile, (Mag res 2). Models in a tower that is destroyed suffer a S1 hit.

Battering Ram
Armor 6, 6 bases, 36 wounds (2x36=72pts), Heavy Cover (only for six base 4 or smaller models), (3 x 6 =18 pts) Move 6 (4 pts), (6)/2 (3) D3 wnds = 56 pts, 150 pts, (Mag res 2) Number of attacks determined by the number manning the ram when the melee phase arrives, up to 6.

Pavise
Armor 5, 6 wnds (1 x6 =6), provides heavy cover (Ev 2 vs Missile) cannot be used same turn as moved (3 pts). Move 6 (4pts)If shooting at the pavise it counts as slow (+1 to hit), Models behind a pavise that is destroyed suffer a S1 hit. Total cost = 13 pts per pavise. (Mag res 2)

Ladders
Armor 5, 4 wnds (1 x 4 =4), Anti-Climb ( 1x 3=3), Base 1, Move 6 (4pts), Total cost = 11 pts Models on a ladder that is destroyed suffer one S1 hit. (Mag res 2)

Huge Ladder (for base 4 creatures) Armor 5, 8 wounds (1 x 8 = 8) anti climb (4 x 3 = 12), move 6 (4pts) Total cost = 24 pts. (Mag res 2)

Sappers: An infantry unit may be purchased as sappers. Sappers carry extra equipment designed to allow them to damage walls/buildings/etc. Cost is 5 pts per model, allows 1 S3 hit vrs the wall. Only those in contact with the wall may make these attacks, usually limited to the wall length and diagonal contact.
Base 4 creatures can purchase a S4 sap attack at 8 pts per model. Base 9 models get a S5 d3 hits d3 wounds sap attack for 39 points.

The defenders can bay sap equipment for the purpose of damaging attacking siege towers, pavise, and battering rams.

Sappers may choose either Raf or Skirmish without penalty. Sap attacks can only be used against inanimate objects, they cannot be used against war machines, monsters, characters, or troops.

Tunnelers: Upon reaching the wall a unit may break into skirmish and begin to tunnel underneath. Tunneling equipment costs one point per base. It takes one turn to tunnel down, one turn for each inch the wall is wide, and one inch to tunnel to the surface. A tunnel is made for every 8 bases in the unit (so for every 8 base one troops, or every 2 base 4 troops.). If the unit takes casualties sufficient to reduce a unit below the required 8 bases then that tunnel is stopped. Each tunnel is as wide as the troop digging it. A unit can “pool” its tunnelers to make one large tunnel. Tunnels Defenders can try and stop attackers as they come out of the tunnel, they get first strike against the attackers (the attackers can counter attack into the tunnel as well, if they go in and come out the other side the “attackers” have first strike against them). Combat with tunnels does not follow normal rules. The number of attackers that can come through per turn is equal to the base size of the tunnel times two. So a tunnel that is 2 inches wide could send out 4 base one models, 2 base two models, or one base 4 model. Attackers coming out of a tunnel may be attacked by two defenders for every base size of the attacker (in our above example of a 2” wide tunnel up to 8 base sizes of defenders could attack back), any surviving attackers are then engaged in skirmish melee as “normal” and “tie up” a defender, keeping them form engaging additional tunnelers. If the defenders have killed all attackers who exited the tunnel, and they win initiative they may choose to enter the tunnel and engage. In the tunnel combat is man to man, that is only models in base to base contact may attack one another. The unit that wins initiative may choose to advance and fill any empty spaces in the tunnel.

Instead of tunneling under the wall the attackers may choose to try and collapse the wall. The tunnelers dig down for one turn, then forward for each inch the wall/tower is deep. After the tunnel is dug the area undermined may be enlarged. Once the area underneath that has been tunneled out is over half the size of the wall/tower then the fortification becomes to be unstable. The fortification takes one S4 hit for every base size dug out beyond half, (so a base 8 wall would start taking hits once the 5 bases have been dug out under the wall. It would take one hit for each space above 4, so maxes out at 4 hits if all 8 bases are dug out). The wall continues to take these hits during the melee phase of each turn. The defenders can counter tunnel, and if they succeed in driving the attackers out of the tunnel can shore up the tunnel at the same speed as the attackers dig it (one inch per turn per 8 troopers). They cannot shore up the tunnel if in combat. If the tunnel is attacked in the future disengaged enemy troops can destabilize shored up areas at 1” for every 4 bases (destabilizing is easier than digging/shoring up).

Units that are tunneling may do so under the cover of pavises, where available.

Attackers may also purchase braziers for missile troops: they recost the missile troop to make the attack elemental fire. They cannot pass on this ability to someone else.

Defenders

Boiling Oil Crew: Move 4" 2 wounds, 3 fixed armor, magic 1, morale 7, 2/2 melee, Missile: 0" 1/3 Eldritch, 3d3 hits, 1 turn to reload (boiling oil) Base 2. VP 48.
Something to point out about the above unit, the attackers are always considered skirmished, so those hits are going to be halved.

Heavy Rock Crew
4”, 2 wnds, armor 2, mag 1, morale 7, 2/2 melee, Missile 0” 2/2. (2) 1d3 hits, 1d3 wnds Base 2 (note that the weapons are not natural)

Murder Holes, Purchased for the inside of gatehouses. 6 pts per base. Only units with long weapons may attack from or into a murder hole. Defender's have evasion 2 vrs attacker’s trying to get back at them through the murder holes. May attack and be attacked by any unit that moves through (like an overrun may make multiple attacks, and attacked multiple times, if multiple units move through in a turn). May not target lone characters unless they are mounted or larger than base 2. Characters that are eligible for attack may suffer up to one attack per base size, so a champion on horseback could be attacked twice moving through a murder hole. A lone great wolf pack leader or snakeman hero would not suffer attacks, since they are base two and smaller and unmounted. A rat avatar would always be eligible to be attacked since it is base 4. Attackers can assault the gatehouse from the courtyard or other connected structures as normal.

May also purchase the boiling oil, barricade, and rock modifications from Zinkala's siege scenario. Defenders may purchase braziers for missile troops: they recost the missile troop to make the attack elemental fire. They cannot pass on this ability to someone else.

Last but not least I think there are some other issues with the rules as they stand...such as the fact that the defenders get free cover vrs missile fire. They pay points to get first strike and rerolls, but the evasion 2 vrs missiles is free? Comon.....

I have to agree with Bluntfang about magic resistance. You can already buy it for your castle if you think you need more than MR 1.

As for free evasion(-1 and -2 to shooting units in the castle) do you think it needs to be added into the castle design formula? What would you do, add it for base sizes? It doesn't seem fair to calculate it based on the wall's(tower, etc) wounds as the wall itself doesn't get the bonus, just the models hiding on it.

I like Blunfang's ideas for reinforcement. Would defender count as the contolling player for the section or just the castle defender for the scenario? Makes sense to me that if the scenario attacker controls the section that he could more easily move troops in.

I'd say that the points for the castle come from your troops allowance. It's just too expensive to pull only from the elite allowance. Or the other option it to assign say 50% of total army points to the castle.

I need more time to look over your(Blunfang's) siege equipment rules. I want to compare them to the ideas I have before making any comments.

Nice to see all the comments and ideas flying around here. Keep it up!

Magic Resistance:

Regarding magic resistance, the current rules allow you to increase the castle's magic resistance only, which does not benefit to the defenders on the walls. It's also very expensive. As such, I don't think it works in its current form.

As both attackers and defenders are forced to engage in skirmish, damage spells like mass petrify are going to be a lot more potent as casualties caused by them will more easily break units. REmember that this is for both sides, a defending wizard would do very well throwing out a mass petrify as the walls are assaulted ... the attackers are likely to suffer a lot of melee casualties as well that turn and would be very likely to break initially. Being in skirmish will mean they'll get little benefit from their numbers. My suggestion gives both attackers and defenders the same protection and helps keep seiges about swords and ladders/grappling hooks rather than spells. AoA is designed after all to keep damage spells to have a reasonable impact on the game, which I don't think is the case with the current seige rules due to other factors.

It's the same issue I saw with large flyers ... as they are dealing with small units that must adopt skirmish formation to defend a castle section, they tend to punch above their weight.

Flyers

For flyers, I feel that they should be limitted to the following:

1 - Swoop / Flyover attack on the defenders on a given castle section. Perhaps attacks made at -1 to hit or flyer only makes half the normal attacks (rounded up). Defenders get to attack back at -1 to hit (just like flyover attacks). Making a swoop attack on a castle section takes up the flyers entire movement, with the flyer ending the movement flying high or low (but not landing).

2 - Assaulting a castle section by physically landing on the parrapet and gripping onto the wall (dragons, manticores, etc.) or hovering (carpet riders, air elementals, etc.) infront of the defenders. Rules-wise, this would count as assaulting just like a land unit and the defenders would have their benefits (first strike, reroll attacks) as it's assumed the castles of Arcana are built to help defenders fend off flyers as well as land troops. I would also consider the flyer to be counted as on the ground for all other purposes (such as flyover attacks, being shot at and so on). They can then only move onto the castle section if a) it is wide and long enough to support their base size and b) there are enough empty spaces created in the section to support it's base size. So a base 9 phoenix would only be able to move onto a castle tower if it had cleared 9 of the available spaces of enemy and the tower was at least 9 spaces wide and long. I think that flying troops that assault in this way and are then broken should perhaps fall to ground level and suffer additional wounds ... though most are fearless and this wouldn't be an issue, unless they chose to flee rather than take wounds. Thoughts?

That would need to be playtested obviously ... will probably try that in our next game if my opponent agrees. Hopefully though this would make defending against large flyers a bit more reasonable. In it's current form, we found it to be way too easy to just sending in a squadron of fairly cheap oriental dragons in to thin the ranks of those on the castle walls.

I think that flyers are essential to seiges as they are the main threat that forces defenders to actually keep troops on the wall. Without them, you'd have the odd situation where the defenders only man the walls just before the enemy are in charge range to keep them safe from missile fire.

Castle Construction / Composition:

One question I have is with regards to having additional space inside a castle section. For example, Thane's rules give the example of a castle Donjon with 36 spaces at the top and 36 spaces inside or something. If a unit is in the internal space of a castle section, can it shoot freely? If so, what are it's line of sight constraints? Can it fight if the castle section is assaulted?

I would lean towards not allowing those in the inside of a castle section to either shoot or attack in melee as that would otherwise allow a defender to keep his best units safe from enemy missiles in the castle's inner bowels. It would also lead to an outrageous amount of defender attacks on a particular castle section ... which I think is what happened with Ulrictar's example of an unassailable giant Sylvan Elf Life Tree defended by a huge number of Tree Spirits. However, the internal compartments would allow large units to occupy a given castle section .... so that you wouldn't have to deal with small units of 9-12 defenders holding a section.

What do you guys think?

Moving Through Castle Sections:

Another question I have is with regards to units moving through other castle sections. Let's say you have a unit on a tower that wants to move to another tower. To get to that tower, they have to move through a wall section occupied by another friendly unit. If that friendly unit occupies all spaces on that wall section, can the friendly unit move through the wall section? What happends if that wall section is being assaulted by the enemy at that time?

My initial thoughts are to allow units to move through castle sections controlled by friendly units, even if all spaces are currently full. My reasoning is that the "spaces" on a castle section don't represent every inch of free space, but more of an abstraction of key control points of a given castle section. There would still be some room for friendly units to move through. From a game perspective, it makes defending and assaulting a castle more dynamic as the defender can then respond to a breach, rather than having friendly troops locked in place and unable to respond. Similarly, an attacker would be able to more easily take advantage of breach by allowing multiple units to move through a single castle section that he had successfully taken over. Otherwise, if an attacker seizes a wall section, he can only have one unit on that section and can therefore only attack one of the adjacent sections.

Opinions welcome, as always. Sorry for the lengthy post.

I would cost the cover based on the number of bases who receive cover, and not by the number of wounds on the castle. That is a good clarification Zinkala.

Yes, to me if an attacker occupies a section of the fortification they become the defender of that piece and can reinforce more easily until they lose control of it.

We all seem to be in agreement on the castle coming out of normal troop points, I was just curious to see if Raj did indeed do that, since he indicated on the battle rep that he was going to but did not list it here in the trial rules.

Raj

I assumed that units inside fortifications have no LoS. If they want to be able to shoot out then I think they should have to pay for it. Essentially they are missile immune for free, so if they want to be able to shoot out they had darn well better pay for it. This is another reason why I think they should pay for cover if it applies. The main benefit I could see for large rooms in fortifications was to reinforce easily.

I think the penalties against the flyers are justified, manily due to the fact that the defender is paying for the bonuses. If they want the bonuses to apply only to non flyers then let them buy it at a reduced rate, maybe 2 points instead of 3 or something (I don't necessarily agree with the premise that all castles in arcana are designed to deal with the threat. I agree with the premise that the defender pays for the points while the attacker does not have to pay anything extra to defeat them, they are already paying points for all the normal benefits associated with flying creatures. Does that make any sense at all?)