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Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Irregular Wars Nic on 18 February 2018, 12:11:42 PM
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I've just written a fairly lengthy blog post about my search for a fantasy mass battle game. In short, I have player 4.5 different systems, and none of them really sit well with me. I'm interested to know what other people are playing, and why they like them.
For those with too much time on their hands, here is the post: http://irregularwars.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/the-search-for-fantastic-rule-set.html (http://irregularwars.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/the-search-for-fantastic-rule-set.html)
I freely admit that these are just personal thoughts and not everyone will agree. Horses for courses and all that.
It seems that what I am after is a game that keeps both players engaged throughout. I don't want individual figure removal. It needs to have some sort of command friction that forces the player to make hard decisions, and have a well thought out and balanced points system, but not have army lists that are too prescriptive. If it fits within my fantasy world, why shouldn’t I have a halfling sorcerer riding a giant bunny?!
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Hordes of the Things and Mayhem for me. I play HotT more often, because its "time to table" is very short indeed. I think it has plenty of nuance, despite having only 20 or so troop types. A good point that someone on the HotT forum made is that HotT armies derive their flavour not only from the qualities of the troop types, but how those troop types interact on the table. So, an army that's half hordes supported by warbands and beasts plays very differently from one that's half hordes supported by knights and blades.
I also think that HotT armies do a really good job of recreating the armies of fantasy literature. The narratives that games produce tend to be interesting and "make sense" in a way that other games sometimes fail to.
Finally, HotT scales up really well. Games with 36 points a side are a lot of fun, and on a 6' x 3' dinner table, you can easily play a 72-point-a-side 28mm game, with each side having two commands of 36 AP.
Mayhem is great, but does suffer slightly from not having (a) a list of sample units in the book and (b) not having a quick online unit generator (like Song of Blades and Heroes). As a result, getting a game going is more of a challenge.
I like Sword and Spear Fantasy too, but haven't played it as much as the other two.
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You should certainly consider Warmaster Fantasy before charging into Hail Caesar
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I agree with Eric. Warmaster is an excellent mass battle ruleset that fits your description of what you would like to see pretty well.
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I would say give Dragon Rampant a go.
It is not on the face of it a mass battle game but... it could be.
It will work fine with 10 mm figures. Just mark the casualties in some way (eg little rings around the figures or use a dice)
It has command friction in the activation rolls. Whilst the troop types may seem limited there are actually a lot of different options available and nothing to stop you making up more.
For your halflings you have figures for 2 units of scouts, two units of light riders and three units of light infantry. You could make your leader a single model unit of Heavy Foot.
For flavour you could make you cook pot unit able to use the heal spell or give it a ranged attack or a venomous weapon.
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Dragon Rampant doesn't count? Oh...
I recently purchased it, wanting a change from my regular 28mm skirmish games. So only huge, combined arms sort of frays count as 'mass battles'?
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I usually prefer skirmish sized games, so no big help from me, I think. Unless you'll want to consider Battleground: Fantasy Warfare. It's an odd wargame played with cards instead of miniatures. But cards (that depict a top-down image of the troops represented) are moved around just like trays of miniatures. The ruleset is very interesting and has a twist in the order system that force you to assign orders and then see them executed in automatic by the troops. Each turn you have a handful of command points to change an order to a card or to take direct control of one card (without changing its order). The system is very interesting, and looking at BGG gallery for the game it seems that someone plays it with miniatures on top of the cards.
https://www.yourmovegames.com/battleground
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18985/battleground
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Very interesting to read you blog post Nic, sounds very like my groups journey through fantasy rules over the last few years. We played the games mentioned, and Warmaster and Hail Caesar (with fantasy mods, which where available on Yahoo groups, and might still be). We also played quite a lot of a game you might know of, Irregular Wars ;)
Ultimately we wrote our own rules.
A comment on a few of the published rule sets
KoW - agree with your comments, I and some of our group quite liked it, once we got into the way it played, its almost chess like, and can play really fast. But several of our group really disliked it. We tried both sides fighting, and random activation, and probably other things before moving on.
Mayhem - played with this a bit, liked the command mechanisms, agree with some of the WIP comments on the blog, haven't tried the updated version. We also tried a set based around the Normans which used different polyhedral dice for combat strength.
Warmaster - as a group we have played huge amounts of WM, and all of us own multiple huge painted WM armies (and several unpainted ones). Ultimately several of us got fed up with the rules, problem areas were, command system, which is just too random, too many units do nothing, some do loads; combats that went on forever; dominance of knights; lack of skirmishers; quite random magic, where power is limited by dice rolls, so you end up having pairs of wizards attempting the same spell, and sometimes you get lucky. We thought about patching the rules, but the list of changes was too long.
Hail Caesar - I really enjoyed playing this for a couple of years with 10mm fantasy figures. But we struggled to get the rest of the group into it. Can't really remember why we moved away, might have been some of the movement rules being very generous, and the orders system can be a bit problematic when you declare a broad order, then don't have as much success as you want, and this leads to some interpretation of where you troops would end up.
Irregular Wars - really enjoyed this as a game. Quick to play, lots of cool ideas. But we couldn't get it to scale to big battles. Stuff that worked well in smaller games, with 4x the number of units on the table kind of bogged down.
Ultimately we took bits of all the above and mashed them up to make our own set - we want a big battle that could be played in an evening, by big we mean 30-50 units a side. We have some command friction, but not too much. Combat seems to work. Magic is still a work in progress but seems to be getting somewhere now. Army lists are on going.
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In the last year or so only just moved back into mass battles, Picketts Charge for ACW. Sword and Spear for Ancients and Fantasy and DITDC for colonial (though not played this as yet). For me it is the rule mechanisms that do the trick, feel right and look right and suit my game play at a local club. Also they aren`t really competition focused with no real killer armies that can destroy a set of rules.
I did play Shako and Spearhead routinely in the past and loved them for similar reasons.
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I've been searching for a system i like and have tried a few. I always end up liking ELEMENTs of a system but never enjoying the whole playing experience, So i've just written my own that I will at the very least not have to learn and can house rule for added fun.
Perhaps might Mighty armies a try? It reads very well and its often used as a contrast to HOTT.
(Or message me for a rough PDF of my diceless mass combat system.)
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Feel free to take a look at our rules--Pride of Lions. http://www.splinteredlightminis.com/proflipdf.html
It is simultaneous movement with a fun and unique magic system and plenty of room to create your own units.
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I enjoyed Warmaster when it was young (and I was a bit younger too), but from my one game of Hail Caesar, I feel like it's a more developed evolution of many of the same concepts/mechanics. I plan on revisiting HC as a fantasy game using the Shadow Storm (page doesn't seem to be working at the moment) fan rules as a starting point.
I've been very curious about Hostile Realms for a while, too. I've never played any Piquet rules, but the love-or-hate reactions the system seems to generate and the authors design notes (on the Piquet web site) have only fueled my curiosity.
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There is also Mortem Et Gloriam...
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I’m going to try Battle Valor. I pciked up two armies from their recent Kickstarter. Anybody with any experience with this system?
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Dragon Rampant doesn't count? Oh...
I recently purchased it, wanting a change from my regular 28mm skirmish games. So only huge, combined arms sort of frays count as 'mass battles'?
Dragon Rampant sort of falls between mass battle and skirmish. It is fleixble enough that it can be either. So you could have a force that is only five models or you could play in teams of three with a retinue each and field 200 models.
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I'd highly recommend Sword and Spear Fantasy. And it seems to tick all your boxes.
I have review/AARed it here (with at least a couple of errors, alas).
https://tewblogger.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/sword-and-spear-goblins.html
https://tewblogger.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/sword-and-spear-brets.html
https://tewblogger.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/sword-and-spear-fantasy-test-1.html
https://tewblogger.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/sword-and-spear-fantasy-test-2.html
https://tewblogger.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/spear-and-sword-fantasy-test-3.html
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a very, very bastardized version of Commands & Colors Ancients :D
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I seemed to remember that War and Conquest struck me as agame that could be used for fantasy games, but couldn't remember why - I only ever played half a game a few years ago.
I had a read over the rules again and it was the leaders and personalities rules that struck me. The rest of the game wasn't to my liking - individual figure removal, so-so command and control. It is a multi-stage buckets of dice combat mechanism, this suits some people. For me, I get rapidly bored with this mechanism.
Still, you may find something useful in these rules, even if just ideas for the personalities.
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Wow, thanks for all the great responses so far. I haven't been on for a day or two and last to I checked, there were none!
Warmaster was looked at as an option but it suffers from being GW specific in terms of army lists, and the 3x bases to a unit doesn't suit our armies.
I admit I haven't considered Sword and Spear Fantasy, because the ancients version elicited a rather strong reaction when we tried it, and I didn't want to relive the experience. I have been told by a couple of people that the Fantasy version is better though.
I'm currently looking at Lord and Lands. Anyone have any experience there?
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There's also War of the ring to consider, which i am told works very well in most scales and from what I've read of it seems a nice system.
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Warmaster Revolution is a fantastic rule-set, and freely available. It’s my current favourite.
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Hi all,
I second Warmaster / warmaster revolution. The system plays fast and allows you to put a lot of lead on the table. Command rolls give you the friction you are looking for with the addition of failing a command roll ends your turn. There are also not tooo many dice (compared to KOW).
I also like KOW ed2 - because it plays fast and 25mm is easier to paint. As mentioned the system does not have command friction and uses buckets of dice (brock riders in a rear attack for example)
A big battle game i love is Fantasy Rules! 3rd edition. It does not have too many troop types but enough to give you flavor and tactical options. The system is super flexible and has good rules to build units and characters. Combat is opposed dice rolls so only a few dice at a time. FR!3 scales easily and you can play any size figure or battle. I regularly use 25mm warhammer / KOW armies on 60mm sabots. Also has some command friction in a morale clock. As the battle progresses and a player loses combats their clock winds down. Each point on the clock basically allows you a move so as your lines get fragmented command is an issue. Last off the time to table is pretty low. I live in a fantasy wargaming desert so I can get a game on the table in about a half an hour and play to completion in about 2 hrs.
I also play Overlord's Tower from time to time. Stand based game with characters, lots of flexibility, one die combat resolution and command pips similar to DBx. This one has been out of print for a while but you may find an old copy on the web somewhere.
I have tried fantasy impetus and legions of battle 1x each. I could not get into the Impetus rule mechanics and LOB felt like warhammer with multibased figures. Your mileage may vary but they are both still commercially available.
Best of luck and let us know where you end up rules wise
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Lord and Lands has just arrived, so that'll be the next game to try.
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I remember someone had some modified rules to allow units to stay closer together than 3cm and had rules for flanks. This may help convert it to a mass battle system. Try the Dux Rampant Forum
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Hi Nic,
One ruleset I don't think I've seen in this thread is Mighty Armies, now by Rebel Minis. It probably has most similarity with HoTT, with a die roll determining your action points (in my case I've switched to 2d3 rather than d6 for that though), and elements of figures rather than individual ones. It may not be interactive enough, but it is pretty flexible that you could impose other turn sequences on it, or interrupts (e.g. counter-charges).
I use sort of a bastardized version of it though, the version 2.0 rules, except the 1.0 rules I liked that got dropped, and a points system by a guy who cracked the 1.0 code (I think they were Mongoose rules then). The 2.0 rules have a points system, but it starts with a basic unit plus special traits, rather than the ground-up approach the house rules take.
Chris
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I've just posted a review of Lord and Lands on the blog. Haven't played it yet, but they read really well.
http://irregularwars.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/lord-and-lands.html (http://irregularwars.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/lord-and-lands.html)
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I'm another for Fantasy Rules!
Of late I've mostly used 6mm figures, which allows me to use some (comparatively) huge monsters.
Fantasy Sword & Spear is something I've been wanting to get into, primarily for use with my existing Oldhammer figures. I've heard great things about it and watched some batrep videos. It's different, but looks interesting.
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I've been having fun with Of Gods and Mortals.
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I play God of Battles as my preferred mass system (albeit with both 'pure' and proxied armies, and only the combat and magic rules, not the rules for interacive terrain and weather).
I intend to play some A Fantastic SAGA (more 'grand skirmish' than actual 'mass') at some point.
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I play God of Battles as my preferred mass system (albeit with both 'pure' anf proxied armies, and only the combat and magic rules, not the rules for interacive terrain and weather).
I intend to play some A Fantastic SAGA (more 'grand skirmish' than actual 'mass') at some point.
I just read the few reviews I can find for God of Battles. Can you tell us more about it?
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Well. I don't know what you've read, but:
GoB has struck a nerve in me that umpty editions of Warhammer never did. I now have several fantasy armies, I never bothered to get a full army up and running before.
Play is fairly fast-paced with alternate unit activation, which keeps both players on their toes and engaged (combat/shooting is part of a unit's activation, so no 'phases' - when a turn is finished, both players have had the chance to use their whole army).
No book-keeping, we use a roster with the unit profiles and special rules , keeping the rulebook ready for situations that call for an interpretation.
Combat and shooting is pretty straight forward, active unit roll a number of dice to hit, based on unit strength and formation, defender rolls a number of dice to save based on unit strength, formation, and facing (for 'formed' units), then the former defender gets to retaliate. The unit suffering the most casualties must take a courage test, and possibly lose further models (running away), before being pushed back (if 'loose' - 'formed' units cannot be pushed back, which I have been pondering to change somewhat, as it would make it easier to play 'take and hold' scenarios, and such).
No powerful characters, characters must be part of a unit, heroes buff the fighting ability of a unit (but CAN issue challenges to other characters), priests (max one per army) can invoke Miracles (magic) - Miracles, mostly buffs or nerfs, are not extremely powerful (but employed cunningly can make the difference between victory and defeat), can be countered/nullified whether or not the opponent has a priest (but chances are better with than without).
At first glance, the army lists seem very restrictive (only 10 or so races, units are fixed), but with a little imagination it is very easy to use the army lists for proxy armies.
For instance, I bought a second hand lizardman army and use it with the Blood Gorged (classic beastmen) list. Fits like a glove! A Slann priest palanquin I use as chariot with the army's shaman/priest, a Stegadon as another chariot. I have also been building a Viking army which I intend to use with the Blood Gorged list, when I have enough models for it.
I intend to make a Thousand Tribes army out of LotR Rohan models, and I have a small Gondor army for which I use the Mercenaries (Empire/Landsknechts) list.
Only my Lords of Undeath army (http://argonor-wargames.blogspot.dk/search/label/Undead) is 'purist'.
We rarely have to look up rules, as everything is pretty standardized (not a ton of special rules to memorize).
All this from the top of my head, even though it's been a while since my last game (real life circumstances have been unkind to my hobby-life the last year).
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I recently dusted-off and re-read a copy of Fantasy Warlord (by Gary Chalk and Ian Bailey) that I bought as a youngster in the early '90s.
At the time I was more interested in looking at the photos of miniatures, being pre-internet days. However, going over the rules they actually hit a lot of the right notes for me:
- Simultaneous movement and attacks.
- Order tests, with units less likely to follow orders as the battle develops.
- Limited impact from characters and magic.
- Realistic military simulation, in terms of movement, formations, morale, and combat resolution, etc.
I've not had a chance to try them out on the table yet, but I'm definitely interested in giving them a go.
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Hi Raedwald,
Haven't played Fantasy Warlord in years but as I recall combat got pretty predictable. The odds did not change that much turn to turn so you could pretty much anticipate when the melee would end. This could be fixed by using d10s and making a conversion. It would add some uncertainty about combat results.
Command friction is cool with the reaction charts for each race. Sometimes you have units pulled along in advances or if they are out of command. The system also does an admirable job of simulating reduced command as leaders get involved in melees too.
This is also a system that has a bit more bookkeeping, especially for characters and big monsters but definitely do-able with a few little home brew mods.
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LOL, You guys are killing my wallet. Thanks for the suggestions. lol
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I'm currently tinkering with a mash-up of To the Strongest and Command & Colors: Ancients. I'm using the movement and activation rules from TtS, along with the combat from CCA. Then at some point I'll have to figure out how magic will fit in (Warmaster, BattleLore?)
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@Timbo Slice - Thanks for the feedback, I was hoping someone with experience of the rules might comment.
That combat predictability was a point that concerned me. I wondered whether it was part of the realism that the system seems to go for - i.e. Unarmoured troops fighting those in chainmail really would suffer, regardless of how lucky they might get. I thought it might put more emphasis on the need to manoeuvre carefully and try to get in with flank charges etc.
This level of realism might cause problems in a Fantasy game, where players are constrained with the large variation in races' arms and armour - like ragged Goblins with clubs vs. armour clad spear-Elves for example. I don't know to what extent the game's point system balances such issues. Will have to get round to trying it out myself. Cheers.
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There is also Mortem Et Gloriam...
I second this - great set using custom dice, and coloured command cards - very simple and elegant
http://www.thewargameszone.org/62/The-Ancients-Zone (http://www.thewargameszone.org/62/The-Ancients-Zone)
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We're also going to try Saga replacing a miniature with a similar size base of 3-4 10mm figs. I actually think it could scale easily - there's a great article in Miniature Wargames I think where someone created a crusader army using 10mm scale. Watch this space on that I just picked up the 2nd edition to try it with my warmaster army
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We're also going to try Saga replacing a miniature with a similar size base of 3-4 10mm figs. I actually think it could scale easily - there's a great article in Miniature Wargames I think where someone created a crusader army using 10mm scale. Watch this space on that I just picked up the 2nd edition to try it with my warmaster army
Of course - a base then equals a model. You could use century or cohort sized bases, for all that matter.s The larger the bases, the bloodier the battle, though. lol
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Of course - a base then equals a model. You could use century or cohort sized bases, for all that matter.s The larger the bases, the bloodier the battle, though. lol
Indeed, This has always struck me about the division between Mass battle and skirmish.
I can play SoBaH with each unit representing a regiment, Or i can play warhammer fantasy with each unit being played by a single model.
It's not even like the detail levels scale as you get bigger, as we often think of big battle games having more rules, where instinct says that smaller scale systems would have more rules to focus on the individual actions of each character.
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I think what you are saying is true to some degree and I have thought about doing Dragon Rampant with a base per strength point rather than a figure. However, for most rules some mechanics must change to reflect the increase in scale. In a skirmish a wizard or hero might be a very dominant feature. In a mass battle a lone wizard becomes less important. If you are gaming a world where magic is very powerful or you can have units or wizards this might not matter, but if you were gaming in a world like Middle Earth it would matter.
Then there are things like movement rates and missile ranges to take into account.
For me it would be a matter of how to keep the fantasy elements in the rules without the game becoming ancients or Dark Ages with orcs and goblins; I suspect Middle Earth mass battles could easily end up just a medieval bash.
We might have to wait patiently for Modiphius to write his rules!
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There will be a new set of mass battle rules for Northstar's Oathmark won't there?
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We're also going to try Saga replacing a miniature with a similar size base of 3-4 10mm figs. I actually think it could scale easily - there's a great article in Miniature Wargames I think where someone created a crusader army using 10mm scale. Watch this space on that I just picked up the 2nd edition to try it with my warmaster army
That army looks really great - there are photos of it on the Pendraken forum as well. While I think it changes the look of the game quite a bit, you are only going from a few 8 man units to a few 25-35 man unis. This is hardly mass battle territory.
I. However, for most rules some mechanics must change to reflect the increase in scale. In a skirmish a wizard or hero might be a very dominant feature. In a mass battle a lone wizard becomes less important. If you are gaming a world where magic is very powerful or you can have units or wizards this might not matter, but if you were gaming in a world like Middle Earth it would matter.
Then there are things like movement rates and missile ranges to take into account.
I think this is very true. How individuals move and react is very different to how large groups move and react- so it is important that rules are designed for a certain scale of game, and the players need to understand this scale too.
This isn’t to say that rules can’t work if the representative scale is flexed a little, as the Saga example above, but few will work if written for 1 figure represents 1man, and you choose to replace that man with a battalion.
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Here are a couple of pictures from a recent Overlord's Tower game. Ii love the look and feel of miniatures (as opposed to cardboard counters) so I hope these shots will give you a sense of what the game looks like.
The set is OOP but still fun.
Board is 2' x 2' , units are standard DBX basing with characters on 20mm squares.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/jdNS3iJp7jYm_ZjbnV2BVkGM3Er5bmAlFzbE6pmAaX2pjuxkKUvtHQgLTet1odT0oEbIYSmhdIUqY9s2lhtCwztkQMYOiZ-uiLbDHAIozhenSI1Au6xPpecNDadzKK-3LVD7EQbsAbf8twLILvGyhTxigDoE4CO28x9T_EHhzKeubx0BhT3ortgMJRH-8l6TfdRGv0ks7g7dKldq8nqCRGa5qo8l-gmorhPomRXeUs_g5-93wOfZPP0I_sdVwYz_ICyn4x8PQ_jmNyAMBfU97c96wqHXGlsUye_eya0OGFmTeo5vUjcc8KvLbBAFL9sVkSq65m33sQZeb5wePKnpdVHwU7j2-5FizVtbJCxfePygh9GShhrrvkofH0LPWAaw5JKF0i6uPyb1KKAkfjrL7_U6EquNmoA0X1qjEyxbxwyjYRdOZGCusrGqpFXt9qKs-cGVmksKHlQnz19xqHW5yWENxn1XV9iRzFiU23wR8GjXaYYV6FHJVZ3-kVHRF7uZIb0ecZFygl07_C300zF-N5obI5S0ex1RQrzDeV94KRg-GQVyIsnUPvWNWQYXYONcZewxxwfEYk0KgCchpOVUuWrFANL_zhfq1RrCCbo=w1903-h949-no)
The game took just about an hour to complete and was a nail biter until the end. The orcs had no magic user and suffered greatly by not being able to dispell. They also rolled a couple of 1s in some critical combats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory...
When you calculate melee combat you roll 1d10 + attackers value - defence +/- modifications and get the number of hits. Natural 10s always inflict a hit and natural 1s always miss.
Command friction was evident as the orcs rolled poorly and could not move all of their units. Your general has to spend a command pip to activate sub commanders and the orcs did not get enough pips to react to the elf knight end around.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/UVjUW8FX9GEHNdXepaaxKjwYztax1_o_tq_Rz_pRYdy-tHfwGLL9NWV4xMmHoItJzuDd0G39wBHomdUt3Wixb9tDR4yVg9sax4Fe3VXwFs402AOe4tHGMKBDqabhVs6_0VtSvDLtCnz6UsOiihetIXfYXpBJxm2uOWC8WNMTfeiBDimt3_OHg3ZGnTMWmjLDGk7Ua5DlTzTvNhT5vqoO1EzbKDoegEuHS1FBQKk3-qO7LPj8atJxUbcaVPjMi9RpswDGMNgyvhSG20EdIaKdBmnkVxO0fDLd6GGVgXEvt1Lt5HurqK65IquEnsua0jkOghDS7FSCQD0JsUg-MXsI-BEdjT9GSqOLdp67SWP94PyUrwKqFaE9s8bSQw6dqbgkXqGiBPaUZ2xbKoRH725m5uYs2055iBbAnDQ42j4jb4Zjp-3Fw3HleOcGD1D4nt8cHBL2pCAMHYS0YEhwr1ef1ck5PbQU7VtY9YuFs0WElQC3YPyzYqkwjPK8UI-Iruc_BkA7_cnyH1aFAcqUpuXNeRB6Z_wSxzidx3W5lBDW8RMt1xym8MlcSjoxlVjkOeG_Tc6PVTA3ZaLe2w_jNkc_CLociUrBwp_5tNY94YU=w1439-h949-no)
Last thing is characters a better used a leaders and to perform heroic actions. In this battle the orc battle lord made a leadership roll to save his warband from annihilation when the elf wizard dropped a flame strike and incinerated the unit. Once the roll was made the units stuck around with 1 hit left. Presumably, the battle lord pushed guys out of the way or warned them when the fireball was incoming.
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To the Strongest, is a great game that ticks most of your boxes easily, just needs magic and monsters adding.
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That army looks really great - there are photos of it on the Pendraken forum as well. While I think it changes the look of the game quite a bit, you are only going from a few 8 man units to a few 25-35 man unis. This is hardly mass battle territory.
I think this is very true. How individuals move and react is very different to how large groups move and react- so it is important that rules are designed for a certain scale of game, and the players need to understand this scale too.
This isn’t to say that rules can’t work if the representative scale is flexed a little, as the Saga example above, but few will work if written for 1 figure represents 1man, and you choose to replace that man with a battalion.
The article on playing Saga with 10mm came from our club here in Lancaster, UK. We tend to play multi-faction games (usually 2 per side), with larger points than a standard game (usually 8 points and sometimes 10) on a 4x6 foot table. With 10mm figures this does give a mass battle spectacle, but still with plenty of space for manoeuvre. Playing with more points has the effect of reducing the impact of warlords and priests relative to the army size, but still making them heroic as single bases. We also find the movement and shooting ranges feel much more realistic relative to the size of the models. So a sweeping cavalry charge does feel like it, and the range of archery feels much better than in the 28mm game. We make no major changes to the rules, and the abstractions which many don't like in the 28mm game actually feel as if you are making 'general' level decisions rather than being sucked into the minutiae.
We used to play a lot of Warmaster until a couple of years ago. We preferred Warmaster Ancients as a set, and did some conversion work to use the original fantasy army lists, with some success. But we enjoy Saga better, on the whole.
But it really is horses for courses....
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I'm 'just' down the road in Southport, and our group plays loads of 10mm. We moved away from Warmaster a few years ago too, and now mainly play our home-brew mass fantasy rules.
We have played big battles of Saga, often with 3 players on a side, in 28mm, I forget what size of warband but 4 or 6pts. And these play really well, and do feel like a battle. As you say with 10mm figures a lot of the ranges in Saga will look a lot better, and with multiple figures per base it starts to look like a battle.
Just working through some unit & base counts and we probably have something similar between our games. With Saga and an 8pt force, you will average 8 units of 4, 8 or 12 bases so 40-80 bases, in 8 elements. In our mass battle game we tend to have 40 bases which will be under 6-8 commanders, though each can order more than one brigade (the brigades are not fixed).
As you say a lot of it is about the perception of what is a mass battle and what isn't.
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I play Warband.
The pdf: http://www.wargamevault.com/product_info.php?products_id=144517&src=newest_miniatures&site=¤cy=GBP&products_id=144517 (http://www.wargamevault.com/product_info.php?products_id=144517&src=newest_miniatures&site=¤cy=GBP&products_id=144517)
How to play: http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2017/09/warband-how-to-play-videos.html (http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2017/09/warband-how-to-play-videos.html)
My Taurians: http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2017/03/warband-taurians.html (http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2017/03/warband-taurians.html)
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Gnw6svPjwSo/WLii2uar1tI/AAAAAAAADPI/kS0AF8z3JKgoPW1DvXsTAquVxMmgtw-QQCLcB/s640/IMG_2829.JPG)
One of my dwarf armies: http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2015/09/warband-red-mountain-hill-dwarves-part-3.html (http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2015/09/warband-red-mountain-hill-dwarves-part-3.html)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8K8ELp0GMKA/VfWY4AR7GUI/AAAAAAAACoM/FPNwQKR65XM/s640/IMG_1877.JPG)
More dwarfs: (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--8Q-iNWQddY/VUzUkFDII1I/AAAAAAAACdU/YYDTSQuO6Ts/s640/IMG_1562.JPG)
Dwarfs and Goblins fight it out: http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2015/04/warband-find-prize-hill-dwarves-vs.html (http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2015/04/warband-find-prize-hill-dwarves-vs.html)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i_GKuQaxRm8/VShalpmUbCI/AAAAAAAACZM/UuIntgxLbZE/s1600/IMG_1522.JPG)
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Thanks for that. I watched the videos an,d read the army lists for Lord of the Rings. It gives me something to think about. The game mechanics look good and easy to learn. I always wonder how well command points work for solo games but I am sure there is a way around this so that the "other" army behaves in a way that is not entirely predictable.
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I tried something called Alternative Armies once. Resembled Warhammer Fantasy, but with less OOT Magic. Army lists were included in the primary rule book, point balancing system, model-brand agnostic, most WFB armies had a generic cognate list, we were able to adapt it to 15mm figures which were based for DBM.
Nothing in those rules prevented having an Alliance of Goblins, Ogres, and Minotaurs. (Or Elves, Dwarves, and Men...if someone wanted to go with the tradition.)
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I'll admit that I come from a Warhammer background - I've a particular fondness for 6th edition but fell out of love with the game by 8th edition - it got too large and money driven for me.
These days, when we play large scale fantasy games we play the new(ish) beta rules for 9th Age:
https://www.the-ninth-age.com/index.php?beta-page/
All of it is free to download and the units are based off Warhammer armies so if you have an existing army it suits well.
I'll be honest though, I'm personally not the biggest fan of 9th Age. Some of the other guys in my group absolutely love it (one of the guys actually contributes towards it in an official capacity) but I find it too serious and tournament list focused but I'm happy to play a few games of it a year.
Other than that I've got the Dragon Rampart rule set and had a couple of small games of that to test the rules and that seems to be quite fun. I'm looking towards playing that a bit more in the future in larger games to see how it goes.
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Dragon Rampant is my favorite... easily modifiable to whatever you want... I did just get the PDF of Fantasy Rules! from Chip... very responsive and sends the rules immediately... they look very complete and it has a million army lists... Interested to try it out with my new Kelt army..
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Great post, thanks! I was immedialely thinkink DR and HC, but I do thing WM Revolution is interesting as well.
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I play Warband.
The pdf: http://www.wargamevault.com/product_info.php?products_id=144517&src=newest_miniatures&site=¤cy=GBP&products_id=144517 (http://www.wargamevault.com/product_info.php?products_id=144517&src=newest_miniatures&site=¤cy=GBP&products_id=144517)
How to play: http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2017/09/warband-how-to-play-videos.html (http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2017/09/warband-how-to-play-videos.html)
My Taurians: http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2017/03/warband-taurians.html (http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2017/03/warband-taurians.html)
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Gnw6svPjwSo/WLii2uar1tI/AAAAAAAADPI/kS0AF8z3JKgoPW1DvXsTAquVxMmgtw-QQCLcB/s640/IMG_2829.JPG)
One of my dwarf armies: http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2015/09/warband-red-mountain-hill-dwarves-part-3.html (http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2015/09/warband-red-mountain-hill-dwarves-part-3.html)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8K8ELp0GMKA/VfWY4AR7GUI/AAAAAAAACoM/FPNwQKR65XM/s640/IMG_1877.JPG)
More dwarfs: (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--8Q-iNWQddY/VUzUkFDII1I/AAAAAAAACdU/YYDTSQuO6Ts/s640/IMG_1562.JPG)
Dwarfs and Goblins fight it out: http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2015/04/warband-find-prize-hill-dwarves-vs.html (http://luddite1811.blogspot.com/2015/04/warband-find-prize-hill-dwarves-vs.html)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-i_GKuQaxRm8/VShalpmUbCI/AAAAAAAACZM/UuIntgxLbZE/s1600/IMG_1522.JPG)
I have done a bit of searching on the internet about these rules and looked at some of the posts on the Pendraken forum. The upshot is I have downloaded the PDF.
I will need to do some modifying for making these solo playable in a way that won't make the game too predictable for "the player" when against the "non-player".
As much as I am part way into painting two 28mm projects (I have enough completed to make one project playable - for both Sellswords and Dragon Rampant) I thought I would get some 10mm Copplestone and Pendraken miniatures to test paint. The plan will be to paint very quick "good-enough-from-a-distance-on-the-table" look. I may use coloured sprays for base colours.