I'm a little bugged that there is no defense rating of units. Everything seems to be attacks. The only defense rating that I can see is the health amount of the unit.

Saw some defense style options (for 1e?) here

Since there is no actual # to base defense on... I'm not sure how I would implement it. The best I can think of is an attack vs an attack, subtracting returning attack values from incoming.

We've been playing Battlelore for more than a year now, and we still get the hankering to bring it out and get a few games in now and then. More so these days because we've come up with house rules to address the issues in Battlelore that we felt could be improved upon to increase our enjoyment in playing it. Theme is most important to us.

#1 Rolling flags can sometimes be beneficial to your opponent
In this game, it feels wrong when something that you roll benefits your opponent, and this happens way too often. Positioning your units to get the maximum number of hits in, only to have it retreat when you attack it with your first attack feels downright weird.

#2 Poor Command card draws can be unfun
Yes, the game is about hand management, so that's not going to go away. Still, when your units feel like sitting ducks because you didn't draw any cards for that section it's annoying. Yes, I know this is to simulate the frustration and all that, but I feel that giving you more choices is always good.

#3 Heavy units are just as vulnerable to damage as light units
Armor rules are largely omitted, and it just feels wrong that a unit of lightly armored infantry is just as soft as heavily armored dismounted knights.

If you feel similarly, then perhaps these house rules will help you too.

Retreat
Units will retreat their full movement for each flag rolled against them in combat.

Whereas before flags would give you a break when surrounded by enemy units, flags are now more brutal since they will leave your lines wide open to assault. Actually makes Goblins a little better, but just by a little.

DEFENSIVE OPTIONS
When a defending unit is attacked in melee , before the attacking unit rolls its dice, the defending unit has the option to try to battle back, defend or fall back. Cannot perform these actions against a battle back attack

Attacking units don't get these options, thematically because they're in less of a position to react, and mechanically because these rules are addressing poor Command card draws.

Battle Back
If the defending unit is not forced to retreat by the attack, if it chose to battle back, it will roll its own dice against the attacking unit, damaging it like normal.

Exactly like the battle back rules with battle savvy from the Heroes expansion. Your units aren't sitting ducks, support is still important, but not 100% necessary. It gives you the option to play aggressive and push your luck, at the risk of losing out on attacks.

Defend
After the attacking unit rolls its dice to attack, if the defending unit chose to defend, it will roll its own dice to cancel hits or flags with Swords on Shield on a one-for-one basis.

Really simple armor rules, it makes red units tougher on the battlefield, potentially allowing them to last longer than blue/green units, and it also helps avoid flags. A unit caught alone can try to hold its position as it tries to wait for reinforcements

Fall Back
Before the attacking unit rolls its dice to attack, if the defending unit chose to fall back, it must fall back towards its own side. Move 2 hexes if possible, if not; move 1 hex.

All Green units (except creatures) can fall back.
All Mounted units can fall back against Foot units and creatures.
All Blue Mounted units can fall back against Red Mounted units and creatures.
Creatures may never fall back.

The attacking unit rolls its dice, but only banner color hits will be counted, all Swords on Shield, flag and lore results are ignored.

If the unit is killed, the attacking unit may perform follow on actions, otherwise the hex is successfully defended and the attacking unit may not enter it.

Works almost exactly like the Evade rule in C&C:A, changed the name to Fall Back because of the Evade card in the Warrior deck. Helps you regroup units into formation even without Command cards, at the cost of potential damage.

There, comments are always welcome!

What is wrong with the counter?

(My comment refers for BL 2.0)

What is wrong with the life points?

Despite that:

Thinking of defense rolls - I don't think they are suitable since it's really hard to get more than one hit even with three dices (again, look at the stats: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/226226-unit-combat-roll-statistics-work-in-progress/ ). If you add now a defense dice the possibilty would be to high that a unit would survive undamaged (that would contradict most historical knowledge about warfare) so it's not a good idea.

You could give every unit more life points per figure - this causes a lack of easy overview since every unit has a different amount of lifes and it's more heavy to know which army has to be removed or how much attacks/attacking units it might take.

You could give units shields - the Daqan archers are doing that at the moment - but here you have the problem that you have to choose if you add extra rules like - double sword goes directly and single sword is dealing shield damage first.

My biggest concern are the commando cards - meanwhile I had really bad luck with'em - especially if the opponent is playing c

The last two cases are also just looking on the attacking side.


About retreat - I never had a problem with this and it always damaged the enemy more then it would helped (the same counts for retreats enforced on my troops by the enemy)

Retreat of the full movement in the actual battlelore would make some units really worse and (if you think about real battles) that would be somehow also unrealistic.

Fall back is also an ability I wouldn't like, I sometimes prefer to attack from behind to force the enemy group deeper in my territory so I am able to hit them with my archers - in real world there are two main options for an unit attacked by back - storming forward or trying to avoid and counterattack. So the house rule of Fall Back isn't that realistic so you should considering of leaving or adapting it.

But it's true that the Command cards are sometimes problematic. Especially if your opponent draws cards like 2/0/2; 1/2/1; counterattack, while you just have/get annoying cards. Here it migth be an idea to say that each player has one free option to draw cards again. A second one reduces his commando cards by one (and so on).

In all other cases I would suggest to see Battlelore as some kind of medieval chess including cards and dices

It makes me laughing when people are complaining about command cards. If you are unlucky with them, your strategy sucks. You either ignored taking infantry/archers/cavalry or placed all units in the same region. Yes, some cards are more powerful than others, but it is unusual that your opponent gets THAT lucky. Your strategy (which you determine BEFORE mustering and deploying troops) should work with ANY command cards, or it sucks.

I don't think that the commando cards are a problen. It's just heavy if your opponent can activate on average (in a game) more units each turn than you are allowed to do.

If you draw cards with an activation of 2/3 units (even with the 'special' commando cards) and your opponent constantly is playing cards to activate 3/4 units it's sometimes a bit troubling.

But for people who are complaining about Commando Cards - I always recommend this article:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2014/4/10/lady-luck-is-a-carnivore/

I, personally, love that defense is not a part of this game. In games like X-Wing, you have 50%-75% chance to get a hit on a die. In this game, you have between 16.5% and 33.3%. chance to get a dice result that deals damage. That's a pretty hefty difference. If you start adding defense, Attacks are going to be even less likely to deal damage. I think having a no-defense system streamlines the game and keeps the pace quick.

I, personally, love that defense is not a part of this game. In games like X-Wing, you have 50%-75% chance to get a hit on a die. In this game, you have between 16.5% and 33.3%. chance to get a dice result that deals damage. That's a pretty hefty difference. If you start adding defense, Attacks are going to be even less likely to deal damage. I think having a no-defense system streamlines the game and keeps the pace quick.

Not to mention it lowers the luck issue in the game.

I, personally, love that defense is not a part of this game. In games like X-Wing, you have 50%-75% chance to get a hit on a die. In this game, you have between 16.5% and 33.3%. chance to get a dice result that deals damage. That's a pretty hefty difference. If you start adding defense, Attacks are going to be even less likely to deal damage. I think having a no-defense system streamlines the game and keeps the pace quick.

Not to mention it lowers the luck issue in the game.

Not really. Generally, the more rolls you make, the lower is the luck factor.

I, personally, love that defense is not a part of this game. In games like X-Wing, you have 50%-75% chance to get a hit on a die. In this game, you have between 16.5% and 33.3%. chance to get a dice result that deals damage. That's a pretty hefty difference. If you start adding defense, Attacks are going to be even less likely to deal damage. I think having a no-defense system streamlines the game and keeps the pace quick.

Not to mention it lowers the luck issue in the game.

Not really. Generally, the more rolls you make, the lower is the luck factor.

I think you would stabilize the mean but increase the variance, no?

Statistics was never my strong thing in math, but I believe you 'stabilize the mean' by actually decreasing the variance.

It's like you have 'less luck' (and less variance) when you roll 3d6 compared to when you roll 1d6 and multiply it by 3 - though min, max and EV are exactly the same.

I, personally, love that defense is not a part of this game. In games like X-Wing, you have 50%-75% chance to get a hit on a die. In this game, you have between 16.5% and 33.3%. chance to get a dice result that deals damage. That's a pretty hefty difference. If you start adding defense, Attacks are going to be even less likely to deal damage. I think having a no-defense system streamlines the game and keeps the pace quick.

Not to mention it lowers the luck issue in the game.

Not really. Generally, the more rolls you make, the lower is the luck factor.

I think you would stabilize the mean but increase the variance, no?

Sorry, yes that's what I meant.

I'm wrong about the variance, I think. See, if you roll 3 dice, your options of damage are 0, 1, 2, and 3. If you add defense dice, that isn't going to introduce the possibility of getting a -1 or a 4 -- those just aren't options. So the variance isn't affected. Honestly, though, it's about time I refresh myself on probabilities and statistics, so I shouldn't be talking about this.

Well, lets look at it this way:

the benefit of Battlelore over Xwing is that bad rolls are less devastating.

The average roll deals one damage in battlelore, the average in X wing with a focus on a simple TIE is 1.5. Better ships reach 2 or more. Then defense dice have to be taken into account.

A bad roll in battlelore just means getting one less damage.

A bad roll in Xwing means the death of the ship, since the game is designed for damage to be rare.

So what I am trying to say is that in Battlelore, bad rolls are less devastating, but good rolls are very devastating to the opponent. In X wing, a good roll on defense dice just means that you get the usual result of no damage. A good roll on attack dice can still be countered by defense dice. So in X wing, bad rolls (on defense especially) are far more crippling, giving it the impression of being more luck based.

Having thought again, actually the probability distribution would not change. Because, with a defense roll, you would be effectively looking at a conditional probability - a successful hit roll IF a defense roll failed. And that would be still a uniformly distributed value.

Having thought again, actually the probability distribution would not change. Because, with a defense roll, you would be effectively looking at a conditional probability - a successful hit roll IF a defense roll failed. And that would be still a uniformly distributed value.

But if we kept the same results on attack dice, the distribution of hits -- although normal -- would necessarily shift toward zero if defense dice were added.

Of course if you are adding defense, you need to increase chances of attack. You obviously want to keep EV the same.

And be careful with the term 'normal distribution' - I am pretty much sure you've meant uniform distribution instead