"Battle Troll"

Appendix 1: Hand to Hand Combat Example

by Howard Whitehouse

Here's a blow-by-blow account of a disagreement between two groups of suitably irate Norsemen, showing exactly how the mechanics of combat work in practical turns. Imagine two heroes, each with two lesser men, squaring up to one another in a boggy sheep pasture.

TURN ONE; Egil (a hero), ably supported by his two karls Einarr and Eirik attacks Thorgils, who has with his his own karls Thorgeir and Thorvald. Neat, this, eh? Thorgils has thoughtlessly walked ahead of his men, so on the first round Egil can claim his two karls as supports (an extra D6 apiece) without bothering with Thorgeir and Thorvald. Egil looks through his cards, and decides on a Swing. Thorgils, a careful man, picks a Parry. That means 2D6 for Egil's attack, plus 2 more D6 for his supporters, and 1D6 for Thorgils' defence. Egil rolls '2' 4, 4, and '5', while Thorgils rolls a'6'. The 6 means the parry is successful.

TURN TWO: On Thorgils' card, his two karls launch into the attack, taking on Egils matching retainers. They use the simple karl combat rules, drawing attack and defence cards at random. Thorvald draws a 'jest' against Einarr's parry, which would be a fine taunt were these to be Men of Note (but who cares what these lesser beings have to say?) while Thorgeir pulls a 'lunge' against Eirik who draws a '#&*A! !" and is ignominiously slain while gawping. Thorgils himself picks a lunge against Egil's jump back, two dice to one. Thorgils scores '3' and '5', but Egil rollsWand avoids the thrust.

TURN THREE: Thorgils gets the next card also and follows up on his advantage, Thorgeir stepping up as support for the big man.Thorgeir doesn't mess about with jests and such; he picks a 'cut'. Egil wants to win fast, so he goes for the 'counter-blow'. Thorgils rolls '3' and 6, plus a '5' from the sterling Thorgier in support. Egil rolls '3'. His counter-stroke has failed, and he is struck by Thorgil's blow. Thorvald and Einarr continue their fight, with no result this turn.

Egil has lost by 3 points from the combat. His foeman, Thorgils rolls to see where the blow lands - 4, the body. He rolls again to see how hard he connects '5' again, adding the '3' to make 8, potentially a killing blow. Since Egil did not choose to parry but instead made a counter-blow, he cannot count his shield as protection for the body. However, he put his chainmail shirt on this morning like his mother told him, which deducts 2 from the force of the blow. Now it's a 6, a wound, which isn't quite as bad. Had Thorgils rolled a W he'd have slashed a great rend in the chainmail protecting the shoulder.

TURN FOUR: Egil gets the next card. He is wounded and has one man down. He chooses a swing, while Thorgils parries (2/ 1). Egil rolls 4 and 6, while Thorgils gets a '1' and his supporter Thorgeir a '2'. This is bad news, but the wound against Egil permits Thorgils (and, indeed, any other opponent of Egil, at least today) two re-rolls. Thorgils decides to make re-roll the 4, but Egil rolls a '6' once again. Thorgils could make him roll it again, or re-roll his own pathetic '1'. He does so, scoring aW. Even so, Egil has struck him, though not potentially as disastrously. The karls fight on, and Einarr's cut against Thorvald's leap aside causes Thorvald to fall back 3" in order to recover.

Egil has beaten Thorgils by 2 points. A roll of '3' makes it a body blow. Egil then rolls a'6' as damage, totalling 8. Thorgils shield counts as -2 as a defence to the body while parrying, but the '6' smashes it to matchwood. A roll of 3-6 is needed for the shield to protect the owner even as it is destroyed. He rolls a 'T, which works. This brings the score down to 6. Thorgils is wearing a padded leather tunic, which is worth another - 1. The final score is 5, a slight wound.

TURN FIVE: Egil gets the next card. He's on a roll, now. Instead of moving Einarr up to continue fighting Thorvald, her moves him against Thorgeir and prevents him from supporting his chieftain. Egil then picks a lunge against Thorgils, who chooses the worst possible option, the counterblow (actually #A 4! is worse, but only idiots select it by choice). So Egil gets three dice ('2', '2', '3') against Thorgils' single '3'. Now, Egil has a wound (2 RRs) on him, Thorgils a slight wound (1 RR). The difference between them being one Re-Roll in Thorgils' favour, he chooses to see if he can improve his initial roll rather than make Egil roll - look at the numbers and see how foolish that would be. Actually he is taking a risk in choosing to re-roll at all, but he's looking for a 5 or 6.

Unfortunately he gets a '1', worse than his first roll, and takes another blow. To even things up a little, Thorgeir has drawn a parry against Einarr's lunge, and made him fall back to recover from the failed attack.

Egil has beaten Thorgils by 2 points. He rolls for location, a '5' for the left arm, no longer protected by the shield. Rolling again, he gets a '5', totalling 7. The leather tunic has short sleeves, so that doesn't help. Thorgils takes a grave wound, a horrible crippling blow, but he still has an arm attached to his body (look on the bright side: He slumps to the ground, and does not move again except in that 'call the paramedics' sort of way. Thorgeir and Thorvald, being good lads, crave quarter to attend their fallen chieftain rather than leg it for the hills. Egil has won the battle. He can't honourably strike Thorgils again, and may, indeed, help him to safety if he feels so inclined.

HERE'S ANOTHER EXAMPLE:

Steinthor moved quickly towards them. He flung his shield over Thord as Thorleif was about to strike, and with -his other hand he took a swing at Thorleif, severing the leg just below the knee. At that same moment Freystein Bofiz made a thrust at Steinthor's belly, but Steinthor saw it coming and leapt into the air so that the spear went between his legs. All three things Steinthor did simultaneously, just as we've described.

--Eyrbyggja Saga

Aha. So how would we do this in BattleTroll? Clearly Steinthor gets his turn in before Thorleif (possibly by using the optional 'hold card' rule, or perhaps he just gets a lucky card at the right time. He puts himself between Thorleif and Thord, and picks a 'swing' attack. We don't know what Thorleif chose, but evidently it was a complete failure at stopping the blow. Steinthor rolls a 6 for location of hit (the legs) and probably another 5 or 6 to make it a 'great blow' and lopping off the leg (but not, as we find out, fatally). Then it's Freystein Bofi's card (so it's not really simultaneous, sorry). He chooses a lunge card, but clever Steinthor chooses to leap in the air, which we have to identify as a 'leap aside' alright, alright, but you design a game with a limited number of choices which succeeds. There would also be a roll for an accident, though none is listed in the saga account (so we are ahead of the sagaman there, doncha think?) and then Steinthor goes on to do some more hacking.

More Battle Troll

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© Copyright 1999 Hal Thinglum
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