# How to Fix Cannonballs versus Ridden Monsters



## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Been having a chat over MSN over this, over the project a few of my mates and myself have in respect to making a working ruleset for Fantasy, and Cannonballs popped up.

How should Shooting at Ridden monsters with a laser, sorry, cannonball be resolved?

The first thing that comes to mind is reintroducing the randomisation rule - either hitting the rider or the monster.

Now, Large Monsters obviously take more up than the Rider, and so should get +1 on the Randomisation, so 1-3 hits the monster, 4-6 hits the rider, on a Large Target ,it's 1-4 Monster and 5-6 Rider.

Multiple Riders are easy, but Howdah's are not. For Naestra and Arahan, it's a simple case of then rolling off to decide which is hit. However - in the case of a Howdah, you don't always have an even, 2 way, 3 way, or 6 way split. 

Instead, the Howdah itself should be the two way split, with the riders representing the number of wounds, and the number of shots a Howdah has is equal to the number of remaining wounds, not including characters. Characters are worked out then as multiple riders.

So; for example in the upgraded ruleset,

Stegadon has 6 wounds, and a 5 wound Howdah, providing, depending on equipped with Javelins or Blowpipes (using their current rules), a number of shots equal to wounds value, or 2x their wounds value. A Cannonball fires, randomises, hits the stegadon, and causes 3 wounds. A second one fires, hits the Howdah, and causes 2 wounds, meaning it wasn't lucky enough to remove all in one hit, but being so tightly packed, whipped two off the platform, leaving the Stegadon with 3 wounds, and the Howdah also with 3. However, the number of shots is now 3 (or 6) instead of 5 (or 10).

Now, then there's an upgrade for an Engine of the Gods Howdah, which has 4 wounds, and an attached Skink Priest - it has the EotG rule, in addition to the shooting, resulting in 4 shots (or 8).

The Cannonball fires, takes 3 off the Stegadon. The next one fires, hits the howdah. Now, there's a second roll off, with a 50% chance of hitting the priest, or the other riders. It hits the priest, rolling a 1, meaning that the priest has lost 1 wound, but the Howdah is still at full strength firing 4 (or 8) shots.

The alternate method is to introduce the Howdah Upgrades to the following:

An Ancient Stegadon may replace their "Battle Howdah" for an "Engine of the Gods". 

Battle Howdah - 5 Wounds, 3+ Armour Save
Weaponry - 
1 Giant Bow - Shots = 1.
Blowpipes - Shots = 2*(Wounds Value -2)
Javelins - Shots = Wounds Value -2.

Engine of the Gods - 6 Wounds, 3+ Armour Save
Weaponry -
Engine of the Gods - Shots = 1
Blowpipes - Shots = 2*(Wounds Value -2)
Javelins - Shots = Wounds Value -2.

The problem with the first, is that it's either the character or crew which get hit, in reality, both are just as likely.

The problem with the second, is that it would require another rule to represent when the character is dead.

I'm personally aiming at the first one, as it allows the character to be targetted and removed in combat and shooting as easily as they are in a unit (if a little bit more resilient to shooting due to only a 25% chance of getting hit).


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

How about just doing two randomisation rolls? First one determines monster or riders, second one determines which rider is hit... Soo with the howdah, 1-4 would be a random crew member, and a 5 or 6 the character. 

Random crew means you loose the weapons as you suggest, character means you loose the rules the character would bring... So if its a mage, you can't cast spell from it anymore etc... ?


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## mynameisgrax (Sep 25, 2009)

Not a bad idea, although personally I think it'd be a lot easier if cannonballs and other template attacks always hit the monster, and never the rider. It'd be a lot simpler, and it isn't that unrealistic (the monster is huge after all). 

Either that, or I'd have a random roll like Vaz suggested, but the rider is only hit on a 6.


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## Durzod (Nov 24, 2009)

Why not use 1-4 hits the mount, 5-6 hits rider. If "rider" is a howdah/platform the number of wounds caused is the number of crew hit. If one is a character, give him a "Look out, sir!" roll as normal before rolling for wounds.If he's hit, he takes D6 wounds. If not, D6 crew are hit. If there are multiple characters, randomize to see which one is hit (thus making the Wood Elf twins function as they were intended), suffering D6 wounds.

As to weapon firing, say it takes 2 crew to fire the giant bow and 1 for each giant blowpipe. The crew can either fire a crew-served weapon or throw javelins. Their choice. No need for complex calculations.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

Or decrease the number of multi-wounds they cause, or make them cost three times as much... Although randomisation works as well.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Randomising is probably best. A guy gets hit by a cannonball, he's gonna die. Monster gets hit, well it'll take a few to take one down... and lets not bring in the whole headshot nonsense with that. Fantasy artillary is just not that accurate.


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