Sign In Sign-Up

Welcome!

Close

Would you like to make this site your homepage? It's fast and easy...

Yes, Please make this my home page!

No Thanks

  Don't show this to me again.

Close

Combat

Page 11 of 11

Back To Page 10

Cavalry

Although most cultures have easy access to vehicles, there are those where horses or other riding mounts are still used. Even in advanced societies, some choose to ride animals, for recreational purposes.

All these rules are assumed to refer to horses and similar animals. Unusual cavalry mounts may have different rules – this is indicated in the appropriate section of the bestiary.

The movement rates and leaping distances of cavalry are generally double that of a character on foot. This is modified for being over-encumbered as normal (see Armour, Equipment And Encumbrance).

Because of their body shape, many cavalry mounts will have trouble manoeuvring in enclosed spaces.

A mounted character needs to keep one hand on the reins if he is to remain stable while fighting. As such, only one hand can be used in combat. The only exceptions are when a character holds the reins while also using a shield or supporting a rifle weapon.

A character wishing to take both hands off the reins (in order to fire two pistols, for example), must take an Initiative test to avoid falling off the mount.

A character aiming before firing at a cavalry character may select whether to target the rider or the mount. Otherwise, there is a 50% chance that the shot will hit the mount, as opposed to the rider. This chance may alter, depending on the relative sizes of the rider and the mount. For example, a ratling on a horse would probably increase the chance to 60%, as would an eldar on a dragon.

Cavalry excel in close combat against infantry. Note that cavalry against infantry count as being on higher ground, unless the infantry character is sufficiently oversized (ogryns or tyranid warriors, for example) to be at no disadvantage.

An infantry character can opt to avoid the –10 WS penalty for attacking a higher opponent by instead attacking the mount. Note that it is still a better idea, in most cases, to attack the rider. The mount is, after all, just a terrified animal, rather than an enemy with a sharp sabre.

If a mount should be killed, or be injured in such a way that it collapses, the rider must take an Initiative test to dismount safely. If the crippling injury result infers that the mount was instantly killed, there is a –20 penalty to this test.

If the rider passes the test, he or she may continue to fight on foot with no further ill effects.

If the test is failed, the rider lands badly, falls prone, and takes a hit causing D6 damage.

If the test was a matched failure, the rider ends up crushed by the mount, suffering D3 hits, each causing D6 damage, plus one extra point of damage for every ten points of the horse’s Encumbrance (Strength + Toughness + any baggage) above 100.

Vehicles

Over the course of most adventures, it is likely that the PCs will either obtain a vehicle of their own, or meet NPCs mounted on a vehicle. Most of the time, the effects of such vehicles on encounters can be decided by narrative – in fact, this is recommended, to avoid the game becoming bogged down in decisions over turning circles, acceleration and so on. Vehicles exist for dramatic purposes only, so a lot more freedom is available when dealing with them than with characters.

However, a few pointers are probably needed for when combat or some other encounter takes place involving vehicles.

These are the typical speeds of vehicles found within the Imperium. Many of these speeds, particularly those of the larger maritime ships or super heavy land vehicles, will never come into play, but are provided for comparative purposes.

Vehicles have a somewhat different profile than characters, as demonstrated below. Here is an example, the Leman Russ, main battle tank of the Imperial Guard, followed by explanations of the various sections of the vehicle profile:

Type And Class: In this case, Armoured Vehicle and Leman Russ. The type has little effect on the game, except as far as determining its speed and manoeuvrability.

Crew: The optimum number of crew in the vehicle. Additional characters may be able to squeeze inside, or ride on the roof.

Armament: The weapons mounted on a typical example of the vehicle, plus any useful equipment. In civilian vehicles, this category is listed as Accessories.

Special: Any special rules applying to the vehicle.

Toughness: Along with Hit Points, this works in exactly the same way as with normal characters, i.e. Toughness is equal to the vehicle’s initial and maximum hit points.

Base Damage: This works in exactly the same way as Base Injury in characters.

Operational Level: This is similar to Consciousness Level in characters, but a vehicle whose hit points fall below Operational Level is disabled.

Damage: This is for noting down the effects of location damage taken by the vehicle.

Hit Location Table: Every type of vehicle has its own hit location table, depending on its shape, the presence of turrets, sponsons, tracks, wheels and so on. Other than this, hit location is worked out in exactly the same way as with characters. On open-topped vehicles, Crew is normally a hit location, resulting in a hit to a random crewmember or passenger, which is resolved as normal.

Armour: Armour works in the same way on a vehicle as on a character, except that there are three values for each location. The first is for when the location is attacked from the front, the second from the sides, and the third from the rear. If there is an angle from which it is impossible to reach the location, the Armour value will be given as ‘-’.

Damage Level: Measured in light, heavy and crippled, these work like location injury levels.

As mentioned earlier, driving vehicles should mainly be portrayed through narrative, rather than dice rolls. Assuming a character is able to drive (i.e. has the appropriate Driver ability for the vehicle), then things go fine, whether reversing around a corner or driving along a motorway.

It is only when situations become frantic, or in difficult manoeuvres, that characteristic tests become necessary. If a character should need to avoid losing control of the vehicle, or dodge a potential cause of an accident (such as a pedestrian stepping into the road, or a landmine), the usual procedure should be an Initiative test, modified depending on how fast the vehicle is moving, what the weather conditions are like, whether the driver was paying attention or was distracted, and so on.

The GM should work out the consequences of a success, failure, or matched results, depending on the seriousness of the situation. For instance, a failure while speeding through a busy plaza may mean that the vehicle clips the edge of a fountain and suffers minor damage, but a matched failure has the vehicle’s tyres shredded by the clipping and the vehicle flips over, landing in the fountain.

Starting a vehicle’s engine without possession of any Driver ability requires a Sagacity test. The character can always retry if he or she fails, so in anything but a combat situation it may be more sensible to assume that the character eventually works out what to do.

A character without the appropriate Driver ability is going to have trouble controlling a vehicle once it gets started. Every time the vehicle turns, accelerates, slows down, changes gear and so on, the character must take an Initiative test. Modifiers should be imposed by the GM, depending on the factors described earlier, and characters without even a single Driver ability halve their Initiative. Failure generally results in the vehicle stalling or going out of control. The consequences of this depend heavily on the situation, and again rely on the GM to decide.

Cars and trucks can be shot to pieces relatively easily, but battling a dedicated combat vehicle – a Leman Russ, for example – should be a major encounter, and it is possible the entire party may be wiped out. Unless they’re smart.

Killing vehicles usually takes either specialist weaponry, such as super-krak missiles, melta bombs and power fists. None of these are in great supply, particularly outside the military, so characters will often be forced to resort to unusual tactics. You won’t find rules here for toppling statues onto personnel carriers, or for digging pit traps and covering them in leaves, but several more conventional situations are covered.

When firing at a stationary vehicle, characters will normally gain some kind of bonus to Ballistic Skill due to its large size. +10 is about right for a motorbike, increasing to +30 for cars and vans, and upwards for larger vehicles.

Once a vehicle is moving, these bonuses are usually cancelled out by increasingly hefty penalties the fast the vehicle gets. A vehicle moving between 20 and 50 yards per action generally imposes a –30 BS penalty.

Should the vehicle be hit, reverse the to hit dice to determine location, and apply damage as normal.

A character firing a weapon mounted on a vehicle does not have to worry about the weapon being too heavy to use, since it is the vehicle that is taking its weight.

Characters can also fire handheld weapons from any appropriate hatches, windows or sunroofs.

Any firing from a moving vehicle will suffer the same BS penalties as a character firing at the vehicle. Additionally, driving over rough ground will impose an additional –10 penalty on firing, since it’s almost impossible to keep the weapon’s barrel steady.

If a driver wishes to fire a weapon one-handed, then he halves his BS for combining actions, and any critical failures result in him losing control of the vehicle.

A character can fire through windows or vision slits at point blank range (within a few feet of the vehicle, or even pushing the muzzle of the weapon inside), targeting a specific passenger or crewman. This is resolved as with normal shooting against a character.

Note that even though the firer may not be able to see a tank crewman when firing through a vision slit, the crew of such vehicles are so crammed in amongst valves and machinery that an attacker can usually judge with some accuracy where exactly the

If the crewman or passenger is wearing a seatbelt or is otherwise pinned into place (by wreckage for example), the attacking character gains a +20 bonus to BS.

In a similar fashion, frag grenades can be tossed through vision slits or down the exhaust pipes of heavy vehicles. In the latter case, this will almost certainly immobilise the vehicle, or even detonate the promethium tanks, incinerating both the tank and its attacker – such attacks aren’t known as ‘death and glory runs’ for nothing. In effect, simply ignore armour and apply damage to the vehicle. When throwing grenades through vision slits, the crew will also take damage.

Note that these rules only apply to firing from point blank range into the vehicle.

Few vehicles are capable of fighting in close combat, giving well-equipped characters a significant advantage against them. Close combat attacks against stationary vehicles automatically hit, and the attacker may choose which location to attack, provided it is within reach of where the character is standing.

Some vehicles are capable of attacking or defending in close combat. This is resolved in exactly the same manner as combat between characters, including the random determination of hit locations. Note that attacking large vehicles will give bonuses to Weapon Skill.

At some point or another, a character driving a vehicle is going to try and use its bulk as a weapon. The driver must take an Initiative test in order to line up the vehicle appropriately. If the target is too big or immobile to miss, the GM may waive this test.

Characters aware that they are about to be run over, and capable of attempting to dive out of the way, or the drivers of vehicles trying to avoid being rammed, can take an Initiative test to do so. Failure means that they’ve been hit. A matched failure, or being unable to do get out of the way for any reason, means that the character has gone straight underneath and been crushed beneath the wheels/tracks/feet, doubling any damage taken.

Being hit by a moving vehicle causes a number of dice worth of damage equal to the vehicle’s Base Damage characteristic, spread amongst D6 locations (in the same way as a blast weapon).

The type of dice rolled and any modifiers to the attempt to dodge the vehicle depend on the vehicle’s speed:

For example, a Leman Russ travelling at 25 yards a round will not impose any modifier to the victim’s Initiative test, but will cause 12D6 damage if it hits.

Armour protects both vehicles and passengers against damage from ramming.

When ramming a vehicle, both vehicles take damage from the other as if travelling at the same relative speed. For example, two vehicles heading towards each other at 30 yards a round treat the crash as having occurred at 60 yards a round. Meanwhile, if a vehicle travelling at 40 yards a round shunted into the back of a vehicle travelling at 30 yards a round, the crash causes damage as if it happened while travelling at 10 yards per round. Side-on impacts count the full speed of the ramming vehicle, and half the speed of the rammed vehicle. Particularly high-speed vehicles can be assumed to smash apart completely when striking something, normally resulting in the deaths of all on board.

If a vehicle strikes a solid, unmoving obstacle, like a building or the side of a canyon, double the speed of the vehicle for reasons of determining damage.

Crew and passengers involved in a ram or a crash will take damage equal to a D6 for every full ten points of damage suffered by the vehicle, in addition to any injuries caused by the vehicle folding up around them. If seat belts, airbags, or some other safety devices are in use, this damage is reduced to D3 per ten points of damage. If a crewman or passenger was not seated or doing something potentially dangerous, such as leaning out of a window to fire, damage is increased to D10.

Some of the most dramatic encounters with vehicles will be chases through crowded streets, narrow ravines or underhive tunnels. As with other aspects of vehicle usage in Imperium, it is recommended that the narrative comes first, and rolling dice only occurs when it absolutely has to.

In its most basic configuration, a car chase has two vehicles, one with the objective of escape, and the other with the objective of trailing, stopping or destroying the escaping vehicle. If there is a large mismatch between the skill of the drivers, or the speed and manoeuvrability of the vehicles, it is likely that the vehicle with the advantage will succeed in its objective.

Play out car chases in detail, but when something . Try and avoid clichés like servitors walking across the road with a large sheet of glass, or crates of vegetables by the side of the road. Instead, replace them with other incidents, such as pedestrians, vehicles pulling out from the kerb, or potentially dangerous traffic-calming measures like humps in the road. Attempting to avoid any of these can be resolved using Initiative tests, or whatever other means the GM comes up with. Failure will not necessarily result in a crash, but damage to the vehicle (or to bystanders) would be normal.

The most important thing to remember about high-speed chases is this: if you drive at high speed through a built up area, ramming and firing at the other vehicle, hundreds, if not thousands of people will see you and alert the authorities. Stray shots will almost certainly hit an innocent bystander. You will end up hitting one or more pedestrians, at high speed, in a fatal manner. Roads don’t clear just because a lunatic is haring along at breakneck speed – there will be vehicles to be avoided at some point or other. When law enforcement gets involved, they usually have the benefit of reinforcements, faster vehicles, superior communications and an expert knowledge of the local streets. Escaping from them is a matter of great skill and luck.

When a vehicle suffers damage, location is determined by reversing the D100 rolled to hit, and levels of damage are crossed off on that location. The effects of hits to a particular location may vary from vehicle to vehicle, but for the sake of simplicity, most can use these generic damage charts.

If a vehicle is set alight, there is a 25% chance each round that the flames spread to a single adjoining location.

This is the main body of the vehicle, containing most of the vulnerable parts – the engine, fuel and crew. As such, it is usually the part of the vehicle most heavily armoured.

This chart represents damage for each weapons system on board a vehicle. Most linked weapons, such as a coaxial weapon beside a turret gun, will be treated as being part of the same location.

Normally, all wheels, tracks and so on are counted as being one location – damage to one impedes the abilities of others, until eventually movement becomes impossible for whatever reason. Particularly large vehicles (land trains, super heavy tanks, Titans and so on) may count each set of tracks, pair of wheels or leg as being a separate location.

Open-topped vehicles (such as buggies and bikes), and for those vehicles where the crew and passengers are otherwise exposed, have a Crew location. For example, a typical car will have a Crew location, representing the top half of the passenger compartment, protected only by glass and a few metal rods. Note that crew and passengers in enclosed vehicles, or otherwise protected from outside harm, can also take damage from hits to the Hull or Chassis location.

A hit to the crew location will affect a single crewmember or passenger in the usual manner. A blast weapon will affect a number of characters equal to the Area characteristic of the weapon, while flame weapons always affect D10 characters.

Damage to the crew location does not cause hit point damage to the vehicle – all the damage (after deduction’s for the Crew location’s armour) is taken by the crewmember.

The GM may rule that a character on a bike, or any other similarly precarious mount, may have to take an Initiative test or be knocked from the vehicle by a hit.

There are no hard and fast rules for GMs designing their own vehicles. A few have been given below as a guide (along with the Leman Russ, above). The strength of an armoured vehicle isn’t so much in its high Toughness, but in the high Armour values that make it nigh on invulnerable to light weapons. Toughness represents the sturdiness of construction, rather than plates bolted on to protect that construction.

Variations in the durability of certain areas can be represented by giving vulnerable locations lower Armour values than their construction would normally merit. For example, a Hellhound flamethrower tank has exposed promethium tanks mounted on its hull – the Hull location would lose a few points of Armour to represent the possibility of light weapons piercing these tanks.