Saturday, October 11, 2008

What's a wizard worth?


In Gygax and Perren's Chainmail a budget of one hundred points will buy you any one of the following:
  • 200 stinking peasants
  • 66 Swiss mercenaries with pikes
  • 50 vikings
  • 40 hobgoblins
  • 25 elves
  • 20 heavy knights, mounted
  • 10 wraiths
  • 9 ogres
  • 5 heroes
  • 4 heavy catapults & crew
  • 2 super-heroes (Conan types)
  • 1 wizard
A dragon also costs a hundred points. This line of thinking leads me to contemplate experiments where you use Chainmail to fight out encounters between a wizard and a dragon, or a dragon against 200 peasants, or whatever. I don't think Chainmail was designed for those sorts of shenanigans but it still might be fun to see how long those peasants last.

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good time to me:)

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  2. That seems like a lot of Swiss mercenaries for the price!

    Interestingly enough, I was just reading in Dragon #22 Gary's article "Irresistible Force", which talks a bit about Swiss military tactics, to include pikemen. Considering his lineage, I guess its not surprising he'd be interested in it.

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  3. Mercenaries are half price due to their unreliability rules. A hundred points will buy you 33 loyal Swiss pikemen.

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