Fantastical Figurines

Profiling – Part 1: Open Combat

This will be a series of articles focused on how I write profiles for miniatures in the different game-systems I play. For this post, it's all about:



For those who don't know: Open Combat is a Fantasy/Historical Skirmish game published by Second Thunder (www.secondthunder.com). The sales pitch states that it is fast-play, 5 to 10 models per side, and that you can use what ever models you want to from your collection (the creators are very adamant about stating that last part. It gets a bit buzz-wordy at times)

At any rate – The system takes inspiration from a lot of places, not the least of which is Blood Bowl in which the writer, Carl Brown, had some sort of involvement, I am told.

It is a very neat and simple system – You attack by rolling between 1 and 3 dice, depending on how skilled the attacker is compared to the defender (ATK and DEF), and compare the results to a table. This makes the math of the game quick, as you only really need to memorize the Attack table, which almost everything refers back to, and you are good to go. I found myself not needing to refer to the rulebook at all after the first game, and only very little during it. Chicago Skirmish Games has a pretty neat AAR (Here and Here) and review of the rules up, which I'd hearthily recommend reading if you are interested.

As I said earlier – one of the main selling points of the system is the ease of statting up your own miniatures however you feel like. The system is very simple, and surprisingly robust: One 'thing' (being a weapon, skill or stat) is worth 1 Point (Renown), and thats pretty much it. Players build warbands to an agreed limit, 150 being the recommended size though I find that I prefer the game around 200 Renown, and then have at it.

So, lets introduce a friend:

Borges - A veteran fighter with a nasty hammer.

Borges is fresh off of the painting table, and so far has not faced trial of combat yet. But before he can bash in some heads, he'll need some stats. Lets get to work!
First off, I find that it helps a lot to think of what kind of fighter you want the character to be: Who is he? And what role is he going to fill in the warband? As I see Borges, he is a bit brash and rough. I want the character to be hard hitting, and somewhat resilient, yet without seeming too well armoured. In order to do this, I find it the easiest to establish a sort of 'generic human' statline.

For Open Combat, I imagine somewhat basic human soldier to look like this:

Character:	SPD	ATK	DEF	FOR	MND	SPECIAL	RWN
Human Soldier	4	3	2	3	2	Spear	15

The soldier is somewhat trained at combat, but not wearing any armour – thus resulting in a low Defense. Somewhat capable, but not incredibly so.

Borges is about to bash in some skulls. In a literal sense!

I want Borges to be a bit better than that – Not quite on the mythical hero level, but somewhat more capable than an average grunt: A veteran!

Character:	SPD	ATK	DEF	FOR	MND	SPECIAL	RWN
Borges	4	5	4	4	2	Two Handed Weapon	20

I've gone for an Attack of 5 – This puts him well above the grunts: Against a regular Soldier, as statted above, he would be rolling 3 dice! The defense of 4 represents the chainmail he is wearing as well as a hardy physique and Borges being a tough survivor. The same applies to his Fortitude of 4. Together, this means that, while he is not too well armoured, he can still take a little bit of a beating. Should I want a fighter in heavy armour, I'd propably go for DEF 5 or 6 – Thus I have established a scale of reference with a bit of granularity.
I have left his MND at 2, since, while I imagine him to be quite adept at surviving for himself, Borges is not that well read. He is more a man of action, rather than thought.

With friends.

He is playable now – though I am not entirely satisfied with his profile. He could be a bit more characterful. Right now, he is a very generic fighter with a Great Weapon. Ideally, I would want to represent the concussive ability of his great hammer, and I could propably add some flavour with a couple of traits as well.
And, aside from that: He needs a warband! But that will have to wait for a future post. This one is long enough allready.

Cheers! And thanks for reading!
~Affun