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Ok so here is what I propose (though it might get shot down). Steadfast gets taken away but instead combat resolution is counted more by each side's dead models' points (including champions for purposes of points but excluding lords and heroes perhaps) and then we take the percent that died off the unit's starting points from before the combat. For instance say I lose 20 slaves but I kill one ogre. The slaves are about 40 pts total however the ogre is near enough to that cost. Then we take the points of the unit for the slaves it'd be say 200 pts for 100 slaves so we lost about 1/5 of the unit. The ogres lose about 1 guy of about 12 so they lost 1/12 of their unit. The opponent then earns what was killed on the enemy side so skaven gets 5 points from the killing and ogres get 12.

This may sound overly difficult but then we get to a different situation. Say that same battle just happened except the ogres took losses over the course of the battle. Now they have 1/3 of what they had (so 4 if it's 12). The same battle comes around with the skaven with full numbers. 200 pts for 100 slaves and we lose 1/5 of them again. The ogres lose one guy of the 4 they had left. This forces them to have taken 1/4 of their unit's casualties. The end result is now so close that the ogres may even lose the fight once ranks, charges, banners and all those extra goodies are accounted for.

I suppose this could represent some sort of fatigue of battle or an understrength tired unit getting pummeled by full strength guys. I believe it'd add another layer to the game with attacking under-strength units in an attempt to destroy them rather than waiting till they have nearly no supporting attacks and winning through superior numbers of attacks.

I feel like this idea could use a lot of work but it could eventually work. Course we might have to put some upper limits on unit size so we don't see a bunch of hordes with a huge block along the entire foot of the deployment zone.

Also as far as fatigue goes I think we should do something about each unit that has fought too much. Perhaps a penalty to their morale esp. if they had fled, a penalty to movement when moving as a unit and also maybe a penalty to WS or BS.

You'd be looking at a whole different game system at that point.
And it's not a bad idea.

Some of the games from Spartan Games use two types of life points, and the loss of either results in the loss of the unit. In Uncharted Seas, killing all the crew takes out the ship, sinking the ship also takes out the ship. It allows multiple strategies.

I wouldn't mind a fantasy system with hits points and fatigue. So effects would do wounds, other would exhaust. Both would reduce a units fighting ability.

-Matt

I understand what you're trying to implement here, and if done properly then it's certainly realistic and does force players to think on another level.

The problem is that it massively complicates combat resolution. In a narrative style campaign setting this wouldn't be a massive deal because players would have set aside time to play games and it really would add another dimension to battlefield strategy, or general-ship is you like.

In tournament play it would just be a time eater and personally in a casual game I just couldn't be bothered with the extra number crunching.

Ok well here's a way to simplify it a lot. Depending on how much of the unit has been lost up to divisions as small as 1/4 or possibly even 1/8. A certain amount is given as extra to the opponent for casualties. It works like this. You get an extra percentage to your casualties by the fraction of enemy left. If 50% or more are dead you get an extra 50% to the points for wounds caused. If 1/4 is dead you get 25 percent extra to the points for wounds caused. If the unit is 7/8th gone you get a whopping amount of 87.5% extra kill points for that.

I may also change this up so that 50% dead equals double wounds caused against that unit. If we go this route then we do the simple method of flipping the numbers. 1/2 of the unit left equals double points, 1/3 equals triple and 1/4 equals quadruple as crazy as that sounds. It isn't really such a big deal with say 7/8 of the unit still left 8/7 times the number of points. However when it's at quarter strength then sh*t starts to go down hard.

It's a neat idea, but, like others have said, pretty complicated.

Perhaps a simple combat modifier if you reduce the unit to 25/50/75% of its starting size?

Sort of stealing ideas from everyone here, but what if there were two life systems. The first could be the same way we have always done combat resolution and we keep steadfast (yes i know). The second is a fatigue system where if a unit that is steadfast, loses enough rounds of combat, say maybe three times, become so exhausted that they lose their rights to steadfast unless they win a round of combat. Representing that even a unit that is numerous will eventually decide that they are tired of getting cut down. Perhaps we could implement a system where after losing two rounds of combat they suffer a -1 WS and then after the third loss (without a win in between) they can no longer benefit from the steadfast rule.

The biggest issue I see with this is that in a 6 turn game the unit holding for three turns is probably enough anyways.

I'm kind of wondering how it could be implemented for undead and daemons since they probably don't tire. However I can imagine that instability for both might be enough unless people want them to tire out too. I can imagine the magic powers anchoring them both to the world ebbs away though probably not in the case of daemons so it's hard to say.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
You'd be looking at a whole different game system at that point.

If I remember both games have had some pretty big changes with some things though this would probably add a whole new level that never existed. 8th edition saw the crazy 2d6 magic roll and it also had all the crazy different unit types mostly in the form of monstrous infantry and monstrous cavalry.

Well this is a nice system for board games like runebound, I can't see how it could work here. Monstrous infantry units would be undefeatable.

KeyserSoze wrote:
Well this is a nice system for board games like runebound, I can't see how it could work here. Monstrous infantry units would be undefeatable.

Not if their unit becomes depleted over the battle. The combat resolution for each wound when there are few ogres left would still account for more. If monstrous infantry seem crazy strong it's because that's just how the current rulebook (8th) made them just like monstrous anything pretty much. It's not like ogres really need impacts hits, 3 attacks each, supporting ranks that have 3 attacks per model and stomps but they get them anyway.

@flamingkillamajig

You're right, I played some simgle close combats with a friend against various infantry from DoC, WoC, HE etc, it's not as bad as I first thought.
Ogres get ridiculously strong when using Dragonhide Banner: reroll ALL1s, breath weapon, if hit opponent gains ASL???C'mon!!!