Aggression factors in HOTT
One of the ongoing changes to DBA is the addition of aggression factors from DBM; in brief, this factor measures a given armies historical liklehood of being the "doer" rather than the "do-ee " in any given battle. The factor ranges from 0-4, with zero being nice quiet stay at homes, and four representing agressive expansionists. As examples, Alexanders army is a 4, Romans range from 2-3 , hellenistic Greeks from 1-2, and the Celtiberians are a 0. The factor is added to the initial dice throw to determine defender or attacker; thus, stay at homes (0) much more likely to be invaded by fascist-types (4) than vice-versa.
This works fine where historical info is available; or if you have well defined (or at least obsessively rigid & dogmatic) army lists; however, thank heavens, HOTT lacks both.
However, having my bow beast and lurker hobbit army decide to leave the villages, woods and hedgerows of pseudo-Sussex and invade the endless mongolian plains (complete with lots of mongolians, two small & gentle hills, one "forest" the size of a dime and a dirt track about 4" long, ho ho ho.), it occured to me that some armies could benefit from this rule, like, for instance, my Hobbits (and the Mongolians vs anyone else). Also, it adds a bit more flavor with very little change in the game. Hobbits and Dwarves can defend their homes (choose terrain), horse Nomads can gain the inititive and sweep around the enemies flanks (set up second, move first) etc etc. So how to do it ? Simple. Any given army has a default agression of "2"; this can be modified up or down at a cost of two AP per point of change. The min/max values are still 0/4, so it is unlikely, but not impossible for the Hobbits to invade Mongolia.
Jeff Bolton replies:
Who in the world is going to pay MORE AP (and why?) to have a HIGHER aggression factor?
This is probably something that needs to be addressed on a list by list basis. However, one could make cases for - by way of examples - Orcs (and similar beings) being at any of the possible aggression factors. OTOH, IMHO, Hobbits (and similar beings) could easily be classed as a 0 AF (or even less!).
As an alternative, use 4 as the base Aggression Factor. Then, as to the cost of the thing, use a cumulative totalling of AP equal to the number you want subtracted from the total. For example, if you want an AF of 1, the AP cost would be 1+2+3 or 6AP.