COMBAT

Combat is simple. The attacking player rolls the attack dice of the army unit(s) he is attacking with and gets a result. The defending player rolls the defense dice of the army unit he is defending with and gets a result. Highest result wins, and the opposing army unit is destroyed. Ties go to the defender. Note if you are attacking with two army units on one defender, you add both the attack dice results. If you lose though, you lose both armies that are attacking. Note that certain building tiles and terrain can give bonuses to attackers and/or defenders.

Example of Combat

Joe and Kim are playing against each other. Joe is playing with an army of humans, and Kim is playing with an army of orcs.

• It is Joe’s turn. Joe has a unit of Human Cavalry in a Grasslands hex, next to a unit of Kim’s Orc Warriors (who are also in a Grasslands hex). On Kim’s previous turn, she gave her Orc Warriors the “DEFEND” action.
• Joe decides to give the “ATTACK” action to his Human Cavalry, attacking Kim’s Orc Warriors. Joe did not give the “MOVE” action to his Human Cavalry, so if they win they still stay in their current hex.
• Joe uses the “BUILD” action on a different unit of Human Cavalry, building a Stable in their hex.
• Combat is now resolved. Joe has three Weaponsmiths in play, so he will have a +1 to his Attack Dice roll result. Since he is also attacking from a Grasslands hex with Human Cavalry, Attack Dice roll results of “1” will be re-rolled. Human Cavalry roll 1D8 when attacking and Joe rolls a 5. Five plus one for the three Weaponsmiths in play gives a total of 6. Now Kim has three armories in play, so she will get a +1 to her Defense Dice roll result. Her Orc Warriors also get an additional +1 because they have the “DEFEND” action on them. Kim rolls 1D6 for her Orc Warriors and gets a 3. Three plus two equals 5, not enough to win. Joe’s Human Cavalry destroy Kim’s Orc Warriors and the orcs are removed from play.

As you can see, some units are better at attacking then defending. Some are better used to construct buildings, while others are best at defending certain types of terrain. Trolls and Giants are best in Conquer campaigns, while in Economics campaigns they perform poorly.

When creating a map for play, use a good variety of terrain, but make the changes slightly realistic. For example, don’t put artic tundra hexes next to desert hexes. Elves should start near forests, trolls near swamps, humans near grasslands, giants near hills, and dwarves near mountains.

Play-By-Email

Karnage can be easily adapted to a PBEM (Play by E-mail) game, with the referee making all rolls for the players. The Referee controls the map, making the necessary changes after each player’s turn. Four or five players are best for a Karnage PBEM game, as eight could be too much for the referee to handle! Every week, orders could be sent to the referee by the end of the day on Monday, and the map could be updated and movement conflicts resolved by Wednesday. Then the updated map could be e-mailed out on Wednesday and combat resolved by Friday.

Or another way to run a PBEM game is to update the map with each player’s turn. For instance, if there are four players each get a day per turn. Player One sends his orders in on Monday and his turn is resolved by the referee by Tuesday morning. The map is updated, and Player Two sends in his orders by the end of Tuesday. By Friday afternoon, all four players have taken their turn and the map has been updated four times. If done this way, it is best if the referee hosts the map on a website and the players go to the website on their day to decide what to do.