AoS Skirmish - Additional Rules

[VBS]

I like skirmish games. Kind of a pity that it is no longer supported. So like in previous cases, I put together a few rules to add new ways to play or further depth to AoS (similar to the "Warbands" supplement I made).  

Below is a page of rules that pick up many cool aspects of Skirmish from the old warhammer. It's super simple but should make the games pretty cool. Even the smallest of changes can have a big impact. Will try it out whenever possible!

 

 

DOWNLOAD:

Skirmish-Additional Rules.pdf

[Maxo Bug]

This is great! I'll try it for sure. 

Yeah, I'm sad it's unsupported as well. Was my first Warhammer rulebook ever, and now it's "discarded". 

I do like Warcry, seems interesting, but found Skirmish to be a great way to introduce people to AoS: both in the money investment (you can play with a handfull of minis) but also to the rules, which Warcry doesn't do, being a completely different system.

Anyhow, great work! I'm glad to see people still giving some love to Skirmish.

[Wraith01]

We have Meeting Engagements in the GH2019 for Skirmish sized games now. 

But its cool that you want to add to the Skirmish rules. 

[Maxo Bug]

6 minutes ago, Wraith01 said:

We have Meeting Engagements in the GH2019 for Skirmish sized games now. 

But its cool that you want to add to the Skirmish rules. 

Ummm... How? 3 - 15 models in Skirmish, compared to 30+ models, unit cohesion, plus completely different rules for deployment, "bigger" table size, and rules from specific battletomes allowed, make it very different. 🤔

[Not-not-kenny]

Only thing I'm sceptical about is crits causing mortal wounds as I think MWs already have way too much of an impact in skirmish games. Besides that I love the streamined version of the wound and injury tables from games like mordheim etc.

I'd probably use the hero injuries for every single member of the warband, just 'cause I ike the sense of importance it grants even the most unassuming of fighters.

Do you have a plan to write up some kind of campaign progression rules too?

[VBS]

7 hours ago, Not-not-kenny said:

Only thing I'm sceptical about is crits causing mortal wounds as I think MWs already have way too much of an impact in skirmish games. Besides that I love the streamined version of the wound and injury tables from games like mordheim etc.

I'd probably use the hero injuries for every single member of the warband, just 'cause I ike the sense of importance it grants even the most unassuming of fighters.

Do you have a plan to write up some kind of campaign progression rules too?

Thanks for the input. Well, the rules aim at implementing some of the Mordheim/Fantasy-Skirmish, so Critical Wounds was a given. I toned them down by not multiplying x2 but I think that overall, they serve their purpose:

Skirmish in AoS has the issue of making a lot of the weaker units quite useless, and heroes/brutes really tough and capable of wrecking a whole warband by themselves. So I think that rules like Overwhelm and Critical Wounds are a way to balance them out, as units that are hitting and wounding on 4s or 5s without rend or multiple damage have much more to benefit from them.

So your little skaven now have a minimum chance of actually doing something against a glorious elf noble, but at the same time, that same hero will not benefit as much when causing a Critical Wound on a unit that just has a 5+/6+ save (barely has a impact if you already have a -1 or -2 rend).

MW are strong, but if everyone has access to them through a lucky roll regardless of the model, it makes weaker units (no rend, bad stats) benefit more comparatively to stronger units, that have much more to lose (good save + multiple wounds). So that's the idea behind it, balance the far stretched performance within a small amount of models game.

 

And yeah, the injury table could work well for all members of a warband, but would require a few changes. AoS has limited stats and options, so it is more difficult to come up with an extensive injury chart that ain't reduced to the same 4-5 options, though. I found that annoying when looking for ideas.

 

Not sure I'd write further stuff (I'd like some jump/fall rules of some sort) or campaign rules. I often do all this in one go when inspired. Which is not often 

[harrocks]

great effort, thanks for sharing.

just in case you're not aware of them, Grand Exemplar has put up his 'Shardsfall' rules which go further with the Mordheim vibe and might help out with your own project:

 

[Grand Exemplar]

On 11/6/2019 at 9:06 AM, harrocks said:

great effort, thanks for sharing.

just in case you're not aware of them, Grand Exemplar has put up his 'Shardsfall' rules which go further with the Mordheim vibe and might help out with your own project:

 

If I'm honest, I completely forgot I wrote them lol 

[harrocks]

umm, right.

well I'm glad you did - thanks!

[antoara]

I recently tried these rules, and I'm impressed. It is exactly what skirmish games needed  to be perfect in AOS. Thank you very much!!!

[Nuno M]

I love it for it's simplicity.

The Skirmish rules were really only lacking just a couple of things, and these were it. ☺️

I particularly like the Overwhelmed rule: it addresses one of the few glaring problems of Skirmish with a surgical change.

I think I'll play with the Critical Wound giving only a -2 to Rend instead of a mortal wound though, because there are warscrolls that already have that ability as "something special" of their own.

I think il dip into Skirmish again with these rules 👍

[VBS]

Really glad you guys like it! 

If such little amount of changes make the game enjoyable, it shows that having an exciting aos skirmish format could have been easy. A shame gw never cared. So it goes.