Last night we had our first beheading. One player was prone while a bad guy was taking swipes with an axe. Another player charged in with the longsword and took off the guy's head. He got five successes on his roll and the NPC got just one. Level five cut to the neck.

I love TROS!

Beheadings are the modus operandi of the group I seneschal for. That and Unter Hau's to zone 6. Thing is, most of the baddies die before they have time for the repeated strikes to the same area house rule to kick in.

Basically bad guys run around missing one vital portion or another since zones 4 and 6 are arguably the best choices when fighting guys in armor or partial armor.

yeah, one of the first things I noticed when we first started dueling was that Major Accuracy+ all out attack + a cut to zone IV = beheaded nine out of ten times.

I usually reserve zone VI for guys with bludgeoning weapons... Level three wound to the groin reads "Surface organs destroyed, may lose conciousness" yeah, if he's lucky. That's gotta suck.

If i had to pick one thing that sold me on TROS I'd say it's that specific wound level and location.

I personally like "Total Disembowelment. May lose consciousness".

another nice one is:

"shoulder caves in with lots of blood and bone fragments"

and there's always the:

"CP loss from shock and pain are total as weapon is lodged in chest"

the all out attack to behead only works if the target is either a mook or too dumb to full evade. this is also risky if the player doesn't know the CP of the enemy and then gets a surprise when he is countered and all those successes come right back to him and he has nothing left to defend with. Better hope he has a luck die left.

Also, in my campaign, since most of us are ARMA guys, I allow my players to tell me what counter they are doing if they can demonstrate how it would work so most counters end up in zone 4.

not nessicarily, for instance... most of the time, in a duel, here's the way it happens...

I throw white from a defensive stance, and then parry or counter, depending on what kind of attack they trow, then in the second exchange, beat them back enough to retain the initiative. Hopefully, I'll do a slight wound and give them a little shock to contend with.
Then, follow it up with the all out cut to zone IV.

Or, if I feel like really being aggressive, throw red immediately from an aggressive stance, and throw a beat with quite a few dice, followed by a strong attack vs zone II or VII. Then, in the next round throw a half-sword thrust to XII or XIII, with full dice.

You cannot, in a duel, give your opponent the opportunity to full evade, unless of course, you want to lose.