So, how do the new mechanics change your fight tactics?
I’m especially curious about weapon speed. At first I didn’t get it, but then I realized that if a WS 2 reflexes B4 wants to get in three strikes, he’s going to have to swap something out on his second or third action. Does this sort of thing affect how you script against an enemy?
How about positioning? Now you spend the whole exchange at the same weapon distance (more or less), how does this change how you script? I suppose if you get a shitty position, you tend to script a lot of defensive actions to avoid penalties? (Which, I guess, makes Feint all the more tempting for the other guy?) Or do you fuck up his script by starting with a Persona-fueled Beat?
Luke pulled a great trick at the GenCon social. His orc was up against a dwarf and he took a superficial wound in the first exchange. At the end of the exchange he disengaged, shrugged off his superficial wound to get rid of the +1 Ob penalty, then re-engaged the dwarf.
I love the new positioning rules! What a neat trick pseudoidiot/Luke!
The Engage positioning roll makes me want to spend Artha for it because it lasts for the entire Exchange now.
Weapon Speed didn’t seem to affect much – I’ve never experienced anyone scripting Strike after Strike anyway.
Stance Changes are awesome now. Lose the Engage? Script a Defensive Stance Change action (maybe not on the first action) and Avoid after that. Block is superior usually but Feint would hurt, and they’d probably be expecting defensive actions.
Also if somebody has a knife and they have the Advantage then script a Push or Lock or whatever and lose the penalties. I’m not sure what I’d do against a spear if I had an axe/mace/whatever and lost the Engage though.
Once I reengaged, I scripted Agg Stance, Strike, Strike, Strike with my short spear. It didn’t score a wound, but it was a very effective tactic for rattling my opponent’s nerves and tearing up his armor.
The new Fight rules give you a lot more information to play with than the old fight rules. Once advantage/disadvantage is determined, there are clear optimal paths – if you’re at a disad, frex, use defense actions since they’re not penalized – that are modified by the amount of disadv, your weapon and your armor.
The rules also stress action choice a lot more than the old rules. Your choices are very important in this iteration, which is how it should be.
Beat is now a killer tactical move in that it allows you to steal the advantage in the middle of the exchange. If you lose the positioning advantage but can pull off a successful Beat early in the exchange, you can really hose your opponent.
I ran a Fight demo at Gen Con in which I gave the newbie Brechtanz and I took Robard. That match up is generally a death sentence for Robard (I’d been watching him get slaughtered all day). Brechtanz won the Engage test with his sword, putting Robard at a +2 Ob penalty for non-defensive actions with his dagger.
I gambled and scripted Beat, Strike, Strike Strike. I was successful in the Beat and the advantage shifted to me. Brechtanz was now suffering the +2 Ob penalty on all non-defensive actions, and unfortunately for him he had scripted all offensive actions. I eventually managed to drill through his armor and plug him with a Superb strike from the knife.
Disarm is similar to Beat. Harder to pull off, but greater payoff.
Would you say the new positioning for advantage rules make combat more or less chaotic than under the old system? Seems to me that while it offers new avenues for strategy, it decreases the random factor quite a bit. Is this assumption correct?
Yeah, I noticed that Beat actually seems amazingly useful in the new system. If you’re heavily disadvantaged, its’ going to be hard, but that’s why you’ve got artha! Plus, the disadvantage mechanic actually makes it easier to get harder weapon tests in a Fight!, and you’ll be more inclined to use those tactics because they’re actually quite useful!
One question regarding Weapon Speed, as I wasn’t quite clear based on the book: does the number indicate the number of consecutive strikes, or the number of strikes per exchange? Or does it indicate both? Something in the weapons section made me think that there was a per exchange limitation as well.
