Weather & Night Battles

Weather & Night Battles

In real life, is there ever a time when everyone fought a battle in perfect weather, in the perfect battlefield, with the perfect army. The answer is no. In reality, we have weather, hills, mountains, swamps, rivers, and we also have traitors, and crappy fighters. To bring some realism into Warhammer, I have created these custom rules for weather. If you choose to use them, so be it, if you don't....so be it. It doesn't matter. Obviously, take location and terrain into consideration. You aren't going to have strong winds in a dense forest, nor rain in a desert. Common sense. Anyway, on to the rules.

Weather Table
Roll a 2d6

2-5	Clear Weather	No effects
6	Cloudy	See below Cloudy
7	Rainy	See below Rainy
8	Snow/Sand Storm (Desert)	See below Snow
9-10	Windy	See below Wind
11	Fog	See below Fog
12 (Optional)	Night (Optional)	See below Night

Cloudy Table
Roll a 1d6

1-3	Clouds. Affects the flyers. Due to the clouds, high flying creatures cannot charge a ground unit, another high flyer, or shoot/cast that target the gound. In addition, ground troops cannot shoot high flyers. If a high flyer attempts to land, it will land in a random 3" from the original landing site.
4-6	Rain Clouds. In addition to above, after 1d3 turns, roll on the Rain chart.

Rainy Table
Roll a 1d6

1-2	Rains. The rains have caused the ground to become muddy. All march moves and charges are reduced by 1/4 of the original distance, round down. Includes Cloudy rules.
3-4	Heavy rains. All march moves and charges are reduced by 1/2 of the original distance, round down. Includes Cloudy rules
5-6	Lighting Storm. In addition to above, after 1d3 turns, Lightning and Thunder. This causes high flyers to stay low, or take a 2d6 hit every turn.

Snowy Table
Roll a 1d6

1-2	Snow covers the ground, hindering your movement. All movement is cut by 1/4, rounding down. No clouds are present.
3-6	Heavy Snow. As well as snow, sleak ice covers the ground and frozen waters. Lakes and rivers are all crossable. Roads are frozen with ice and movement on ice is cut by 1/2, rounding down.
Sand Storm	If in a desert, Sand stroms replace the Snow. Along with heavy winds, the sand causes all war machines to suffer 1d4 damage, and high flyers cannot land.

Wind Table
Roll a 1d6 and Scatter die for dierction

1-3	Wind. High flyers can only fly high if they make a successful leadership test, as winds are stronger up high. Missile troops uffer a -1 to hit and lose 2" of range if firing against the wind. Missile troops suffer a -1 to hit and an extra 2" of firing range if shooting with the wind. Missile troops suffer a -1 to hit and an extra 5 degrees shooting arc if firing across the wind. Firearms are unaffected.
4-5	Heavy Winds. High flyers cannot fly high. Missile troops uffer a -2 to hit and lose 4" of range if firing against the wind. Missile troops suffer a -2 to hit and an extra 4" of firing range if shooting with the wind. Missile troops suffer a -2 to hit and an extra 10 degrees shooting arc if firing across the wind. Firearms are unaffected.
6 (Optional)	Tornado. Take wind of death template and randomly move around battlefield. Suffer 3d6 damage if moved over a unit, no saving throw. War Machines automatically destroyed. High Flyers are carried with the tornado until successful strength test is made. Cannot shot through the tornado. Trees and buildings are destroyed and rocks are removed.

Foggy Table
Roll a 1d6

1-3	Fog. Hinders the sight of your troops. Missile troops suffer -1 to hit. Charges can only be made if witin 7" of the target. March moves halved, rounding down
4-6	Thick Fog. Missile troops suffer -2 to hit. Charges can only be made if within 4" of the target. March moves halved, rounding down.

Night Battles

In the Random Weather Generator, use the Battle in the Darkness Rules. Night battles occur in the pitch blackness, usually derived from an army marching all day to reach it's destination, or a surprise ambush by one army. Should this occur as part of your campaign, then follow the rules below. We are assuming that the victims have light (torches) and the ambusher's don't, which means, they (ambusher) can see you (victim), but you can't see them. There are many variations you can use using the night aspect, but you'll have to customize those according to your battle. I'll just show you a couple examples.

The Encampment Ambush

Both players choose sides, one in the camp, and one the attacker. The defender positions his/her troops scattered in the camp. The attacker may position his/her troops where ever he/she might please. The victim should not be able to see the positioning of the models until the first hand-to-hand phase. This is to represent the surprise aspect, as many people develop tactics when they see the positioning. These battles should be kept to a low amount of points, as big armies are hard to march with quitely to ambush. This represents an army attacking a camp while people are relaxing or sleeping or whatever. They aren't prepared for battle. I'd suggest around 400-900 points.

Rules:
Attacker:

General NOT required, but one character must be present to count as one.
Wizard should not be present if possible.
No monsters, war machines, or anything else large.
Units no bigger than 10 and no smaller than 2.
May skirmish ANY units, regardless if they can or not.
All models get ONE free attack to any of the outer models, regardless of the number of attacks.
Set up models 6" away from the closest enemy model.
All models are hidden until the first attack, in which all models are revealed and must move toward the enemy.
Missile troops must only be 1 unit or less.

Defender:

General required.
Wizard may be present.
Monsters allowed, war machines allowed, but crew must be placed 10" away.
Units no bigger than 7 and no minimum
Units MUST skirmish until the 2rd turn.
May set up anywhere in the camp, including the tents or shelter. At least 1/4 of the army must be outside.
For the first 2 turns, some models may be hidden in tents or shelter.
Missile troops act as normal fighters until the 2nd turn.

I think I covered all the points. If there is some hole in there somewhere, E-mail me.

Battle in the Darkness

First, choose sides. Pick your armies, and give each unit, character, monster, war machine or whatver a symbol or number. Each one should be different. Write down, on little pieces of paper or something, the symbol or number. These represent your units, until your opponent can see them.

Set these pieces of paper up on the battlefield, estimate the size of the unit or model so that they don't overlap. Now, start the game with these pieces of paper.

If you have missile troops or war machines, they can still fire, but get a -3 to hit. They don't need to reveal themselves to the opponent (unless you need to measure, which will give it away. You can confuse your opponent by measuring with EVERY unit, this way, they all look like they are missile troops, until they figure out that they don't move).

Every time one of the opponent's units get within 15" of yours, reveal what each unit is, and it will stay revealed for the rest of the game. When that unit is revealed, missile troops no longer require a -3 to hit that unit ONLY.

Well, I hope you understand how that works. If it got confusing, e-mail me with questions.

Back