Magicians Of Ozzz And Treachery

 This week was the first time I tied the Wars of Ozz magic system. This is how it works: Each magician has a power level of magic which he or she must roll level with or under to cast a spell. A d10 is used. The wizard, Zoraster has a level of 8. For this figure I converted a Mini-tanks Churchill. Signature spells: uncanny marksmanship, Rally, Heal, Good Luck and Poor Luck. The Uncanny marksmanship can be used once in the game for one unit. In our game he first used the uncanny marksmanship which gave a plus 2 on shooting. Then he repeatedly used Healing to heal d 3 wounds, Once he used Bad luck to reduce the effectiveness of an enemy volley. His leadership skill is Legendary.

Glenda: For this figure I used a metal figure (made and painted in Malaysia, I think). Her level power is 9. Signature spells: Transport, Fleet feet, Confusion, Good Luck. Leadership skill: Charismatic. For transport she transported an enemy steam flyer (modified Wright brothers plane) 20 cm in a direction of her choice by then needed another move to recover from casting the spell. She also used the Good Luck spell to enhance the shooting ability of her grenadiers.

Arella. proved treacherous in the battle - more on that later. Her army is made up of the Gillikins. Her spell level is 7. Spells: Fireball, Raise the Dead and Phantom Allies. Because I wasn't using the full rules set from Wars of Oz I interpreted some things differently. So for Raise the Dead she generated d3 skeleton warrios next to her, either as a new unit or part of another. (In Warhammer the generation can be made considerable distance away from the caster). For Fireball d 6 casualties were caused; that made her equivalent to a shorter ranged artillery. Alternatively, I could have made it d3. (By the way, the range I made for most spells was 70c)., which is greater than in Wars of Ozz. Phantom Allies gives, to a unit an extra two dice in melee.

Evora: I think this is a Phoenix figure.  She also makes a suitable witch for the three witches in 'Macbeth'. The thing with 'bad witches', at least in Baum's novels is they tend to be old and disagreeable looking (although not necessarily bare breasted!). It is a little ironic given Baum's feminist credentials. Also, couldn't  witch make herself look young? Glenda does. maybe bad witches don't have this option.

Her signature spells: Spell level: 8. Fire Ball, Blood Lust, Poppies and Fear. Decisiveness and Organisational Skill. Poppies create an area of the flowers that cause drowsiness and slow movement by half. Fear reduces (in my adaptation of the rule) leadership test ability or an LD test had to be made to attack. Blood Lust was the only one of these I used and it meant that when the Winkie Guard charged the Amerigan Volunteers (actually Marx West Point Cadets) they did not have to roll a leadership test. The reason she did not get around to using all the spells is one of the spell failures resulted in her losing most of her signature spells, except for Blood Lust and replacing them with others, including Raising the dead.

The funny thing was she rolled a 10 on at least four occasions which meant she had misspells or spell failure. The result on each occasion was not fatal to her and in one instance caused the nearest inanimate man made object to pack its bags and move to get off the field; this was a cannon, although it had already had its crew shot down. (Incidentally, the crew consisted of scarecrows, skeleton and Winkie as I had to fins crew members in a hurry and I took them from the other casualties).

SO that brings us to spell mishaps. Now the witches and wizards have a good chance of casting their spells but there is a mishap list of twenty possible results. Two d10s are riled for this. A number of thee are still beneficial to the caster's army, some are beneficial to the enemy and only one results in his or her head exploding. 'm not going to list all the results but many of them are quite entertaining. (It is well worth buying the boo, Wars of Ozz or see if the spell list is on-line).

SO my verdict is the rules are a lot of fun. As it happened I didn't use the leader attribute but the magic was intersting. I liked that the good magicians had different types of spells from the bad witches so they don't actually directly kill the enemy but do so directly whereas the bad witches have some nasty spells such as skeleton raising and fireballs. Warhammer magic, by contrast is a little more complicated and involve use of a lot of dice. The possible spells and results are potentially  more powerful but they can also be dispelled by the enemy (even when it does not have a wizard or sorceress). Also the chances of the magician blowing himself and anyone near him to bits is greater. Interestingly, when Mat and I get together for a Bogavania versus Ozz war we will be using both types of magic.

TREACHERY

I hope that those who really don't like magic or even fantasy in wargames have kept reading because the next topic can apply to historical games as well,

I figured that as the Ozzz forces were an alliance of four armies including quite different ethical codes and culture it was only right to factor in the possibility of betrayal. Rules for this would be as useful for the Middle Ages or contemporary Afghanistan!

SO this is what I decided: Each move a dice roll would be made to factor in possible treachery. I decided that as the Good forces would be less likely to break a pact they were exempt although I suppose the Wizard is a little tricky and one could argue for including him in the possibility of treachery. Also, he might identify with the invaders, not being Ozzz born. On the other hand they are all faced with an existential threat from an alien force and the Wizard is attached t is new homeland. Not only are the Amerigans from a magicless society but they could well bring fatal diseases that could wipe out Munchkins, Winkies, Gillikans and Quadlings. SO I decided the chance of treachery was a 1 on a d12. Then a chart for the results would be consulted.

This is what I came up with after rolling a d6: *  1 Change sides for d12 moves

                                                                           *  2  Move off the field
                                                                           *  3  Move off the field

                                                                           *  4  Stay in place without participating in battle 4 moves

                                                                           *  5-6 As above d6 moves (an alternative would be to                                                                                       roll each move to rejoin battle).

Obviously there are other possibilites where  a single unit takes aggressive action against an ally etc. In out game Arella did number 4 (I'm glad I didn't have to say she did number 2). This meant her skeleton unit which was moving through a tunnel on the Amerigans left had to stay there while the Amerigans moved a machinegun to the  mouth of the cave and blasted them for three or fur moves. They did survive though as they had a hard cover save from the tunnel, which may well have had twists and turns in it. I could have said this might influence Arella to change her mind or at leass to pull the skellies back but just left it at that. After all, she could always summon more and maybe she was hoping to ingratiate the invaders and to later do a deal with them.

Next post will include  detailed reports on the progress of the battle.