Playtest of Chainmail Reforged

I played a quick play-test of Chainmail Reforged.  I setup a simple game of 4 units each.  The red team had 3 units of armored foot and a unit of crossbowmen.  The black team had a unit of Armored horse, a unit of billmen, a unit of longbowmen and a unit of peasants.  I set them up across the board from one another and placed some terrain including a river.   Changes from the classic game published by TSR Inc:

1. Missile fire has been changed to be less deterministic.  Instead of rolling 1 die and consult a chart, you roll 1 die per eligable shooter and score a kill based on armor.  4+ vs unarmored, 5+ vs half armored and 6+ vs fully armored.  Casualties are halved from long range, cover and so forth.
2. Post melee morale is based on a ratio and has been simplified.   When a round of melee is over, each side determines how many figures are left in the unit.  They add to it the morale factor of that unit (Armored horse add 9 for instance) and then the result is multiplied by the result of a D6.  The two numbers are compared to a table 3:2 results in a push-back and the melee continues if the winner had enough move to follow up.  2-1 results in a retreat, 3-1 results in falling back and so forth.
3. Other minor tweaks and clarifications.

The units started at their respective board edges and maneuvered to this position.

Gary Gygax During the next round, black seized the initiative and charged in with his cavalry. The red crossbowmen fired at the peasants and put them to rout. The cavalry melee lasted 2 rounds. The armored foot was destroyed.

The followng turn, Black rests and moves up his longbowmen. They fire upon the advancing armored foot with little effect. The red crossbowmen are turned about to face the cavalry.  meanwhile, black rested their cavalry as they were exhausted from the charge.

Finally, the cavalry come about and walk into the rear of the armored foot. The armored foot fails the morale check and falls back. There is enough move left for the cavalry to charge in and strike and the flank of the armored foot.  The longbowmen do better this time as Red charges them with armored foot.  They manage to force the retreat after taking a few losses.   Red’s army morale collapses at this point and the heavy units rout off the board.

The game played pretty well.  It was quick and bloody as I remembered it.  Rolling many dice for shooting is a good idea as it allows for more variation in results than in the classic version.  The post melee morale worked pretty well too.  Twice, black scored significantly higher casualties in melee than red and twice they rolled a 1 while red rolled something higher.  The retreating footmen in the center was a result of one of those.  I did make one mistake.  the cavalry walked into the second melee so the armored foot was not obliged to make a “charged by cavalry charge” morale check.

I used my VASSAL module for Ancient and Medieval Wargaming.  The units are rigid so I could not do any formation changes.  I originally liked make maneuvering more fiddly but I am kind of happy with the simplified facing change for maneuvering which costs half of a move.