Had a game yesterday and something happened that I’m not sure we got right.
Ogre Palace Guard Horde Vs. Wight Horde.
I had 18 attacks, scored 17 hits, followed by 17 wounds. Then rolled a double 1 for the nerve test.
The Wights have -/17.
My Ogre Palace Guard have Brutal, does the Brutal change double 1’s to 3 or does the double 1’s trump and my attack has been useless?
We played that the double 1’s count, and then I had to watch as the Wights went on to destroy my force, the damage I did wasn’t over their nerve so they weren’t devastated.
The rules say that the double one saves them regardless and they will be steady and fight on regardless.
However, it also says that they may still have suffered enough damage to be Devastated, so 17 wounds plus Brutal makes them eighteen +2 for snake eyes brings them up to 20, so they might be Devasted. I’m not 100% sure about that. It says, if the amount of damage exceeds their routing limit, which in this case it does, then the unit is said to be Devastated
I don’t think brutal counts as actual damage, just a +1 modifier for the test. So the unit was fine, fresh as a daisy as if nothing had happened to it… despite the you know 17 points of frigging damage… as it then went on to wipe me out.
Good game.
Sorry, bit that has left me with a very poor gaming experience. Damage should do something, the last 5 games I’ve had it has come apparent that the amount of damage caused is irrelevant, a good nerve test roll is where the real damage lies.
Dread or Rally would have an effect - since they alter the Nerve value - Brutal is just a bonus to the Nerve roll - so that, and what is actually rolled, has no impact on being Devastated
Damage makes a unit more likely to rout.
The combat effective or routed dichotomy is a core game concept that allows KoW to be the smooth playing easy to learn game we love.
Saying that damage should do something feels right, but it’s asking for a significant extra layer of complexity that the game doesn’t really need.
