[Mass Combat] Slave Revolt

[Grouchy Chris]

I'm running a TL3 fantasy campaign, and I'm going to want to use the Mass Combat rules for the next session. Here's the situation: the PCs are in a port city occupied by an invading army. They are trying to foment a rebellion among the enemy's galley slaves, who are chained to the oars on ships in the harbor. They have smuggled keys to them and told them the signal for them to rise up is sundown, whereupon all heck is expected to break out. There are over a thousand slaves on the galleys, and scores of enemy soldiers in the area of the harbor, with reinforcements available from other areas of the city.

I have two things I'd like advice on. First, how would you stat a mob of slaves who have thrown off their chains and grabbed improvised weapons? They are, in general, healthy, well-fed adults (and if it matters, they're all reptile men). Almost all of them would have been raised in a TL0 or TL1 society and taken as slaves in adolescence of early adulthood. They are highly motivated, but utterly lacking in discipline.

Second, what would you use for the strategy roll for the mob of slaves? If they had a leader, I'd give that leader an IQ of 10 and a default Strategy skill of 4, but they don't even have that, so they should be even worse off. How much worse?

[Purple Haze]

I would give them cultural weapons @ DX (club/spear?). Even without a leader they have a strategy (in D&D we called it Chaotic Hungry): preserve their lives, do as much damage as possible. I would assume a Strategy skill of at least 6 without leadership.

[Crakkerjakk]

Say let the PCs make a Strategy roll for the first round of combat. After that, it's default, as the better trained soldiers regroup. Basically this should be a lot like an ambush.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Grouchy Chris

I have two things I'd like advice on. First, how would you stat a mob of slaves who have thrown off their chains and grabbed improvised weapons? They are, in general, healthy, well-fed adults (and if it matters, they're all reptile men). Almost all of them would have been raised in a TL0 or TL1 society and taken as slaves in adolescence of early adulthood. They are highly motivated, but utterly lacking in discipline.

Probably poorly equipped, inferior quality, impetuous medium infantry.

[Grouchy Chris]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Probably poorly equipped, inferior quality, impetuous medium infantry.

Can I ask why Medium Infantry rather than Light Infantry or Stone-Age Warriors?

[Dunadin777]

Originally Posted by Grouchy Chris

I have two things I'd like advice on. First, how would you stat a mob of slaves who have thrown off their chains and grabbed improvised weapons? They are, in general, healthy, well-fed adults (and if it matters, they're all reptile men). Almost all of them would have been raised in a TL0 or TL1 society and taken as slaves in adolescence of early adulthood. They are highly motivated, but utterly lacking in discipline.

First, they have poor equipment. They'd probably be inferior quality, but if you wanted to get more specific, you might want to refer to my specific quality rules in another thread. They're still being tested and tweaked, but they might give you some more specific stats for your situation--particularly if the lizardmen's template stats turn out to make a difference in Mass Combat. They should probably also have Impetuous, and maybe Disloyal to represent the fact that if they start to lose the slaves will give up rather easily--they'd rather escape than win, I'd imagine.

Second, what would you use for the strategy roll for the mob of slaves? If they had a leader, I'd give that leader an IQ of 10 and a default Strategy skill of 4, but they don't even have that, so they should be even worse off. How much worse?

In a similar situation in my own game, I made it where the mob operated on the default Strategy skill--4 in this case--but only had a handful of possible maneuvers. I'd say the slaves have Attack, Fighting Retreat, and Full Retreat as options. Also keep in mind that the occupying force will start off Surprised.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Grouchy Chris

Can I ask why Medium Infantry rather than Light Infantry or Stone-Age Warriors?

Those are both possibilities too. Any given band certainly could fight in the light infantry style and thus clearly not be medium infantry. I mostly expected melee assault 'tactics' rather than light infantry tactics, so I tagged them as medium infantry based since they clearly don't have the gear or formation for heavy infantry.

I'd class them as light or medium infantry rather than stone age warriors for a few reasons, but none of them are all that solid.

I'd expect them to almost immediately obtain some current-TL weapons, which doesn't fit stone-age warriors too well...even improvised weapons they obtain may be a few TL too advanced. As noted above, I expected melee behavior, while stone age warriors behave as light infantry. And finally I'm not comfortable using stone-age warriors when I'm not sure what the difference is that makes them half the TV of light infantry one TL higher, while those TL1 light infantry seem to retain their TV indefinitely.