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Helluva Night

Helluva Night is a simple set of rules describing how to resolve combat for battles which take place during twlight, at night, or during inclement weather such as rain or heavy snow.

At the scale of Warmaster, the additional difficulties these conditions pose on the movement of individual troops is negligible. Turns represent a long time, on the order of 60-90 minutes, and most of any given turn is spent resting, preparing for battle, or simply waiting for orders.

As with moving over obstacles, broken ground, or through forests, while troops moving during heavy rains or snow storms do move slower, this has no effect on their total movement distance since it just means they spend less time waiting for their next orders.

In Helluva Night, the most significant factor is the loss of visiblity caused by these conditions, not being able to see the battlefield clearly makes it more difficult for troops to carry out their objectives accurately, since it's likely they can't see the particular hill or valley they were ordered to occupy, or the enemy they were ordered to attack.

Scouts and messengers also have a harder time at night or in bad whether since it's much easier to get lost. Heavy rainfall overwhelms war drums and extinguishes signal fires. In a blizzard, communication is almost impossible.

In game terms, these conditions have two main effects: reduced line of sight distance, and an increased difficulty in giving orders.

Condition	Line of Sight	Command Penalty Distance
Daylight	Unlimited	Each 20cm
Twilight Light Rain Snowfall	30cm	Each 15cm
Night Heavy Rain Thick Snowfall	10cm	Each 10cm
Torrential Rains Blizzards	5cm	Each 5cm

The line of sight range is the maximum distance over which a unit can draw line of sight to a unit or any other object on the battlefield. This will affect anything where line of sight is required, such as initiative movement, missile fire, charging, and most spells.

The command penalty distance is the size of the range categories for penalties to give orders. Under normal daylight conditions, this is 20cm, meaning that orders within 20cm are at no penalty, orders from 20cm-40cm are at -1, order from 40-60cm are at -2, etc.

As the weather worsens, these range categories shrink. In Thick Snowfall, for example, the command penalty distance is only 10cm. This means that orders to units up to 10cm away are at no penalty, but units beyond 10cm and within 20cm are at -1. From 20cm-30cm is at -2, etc.

The maximum range at which characters can issue orders is unaffected. Even in Thick Snowfall, a Hero can attempt to give orders to a unit up to 60cm away (although this will be at a -5 penalty!)

At Night, for example, the maximum LOS distance is 10cm. This significantly reduces the usefulness of flying troops, which can no longer declare charges from 100cm away, and makes artillery almost useless, since it can only shoot 10cm! Armies with fewer leaders will operate with much greater difficulty, unless they keep to very tight formations.