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Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Bellerophon on June 19, 2022, 09:09:51 PM

Title: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: Bellerophon on June 19, 2022, 09:09:51 PM
The kids in my Tabletop Gaming Club would like to do a campaign using my figures next year. The actual campaign rules for the map and all that go with it I'll be cooking up. But I'd like a fast-play system that can handle battles in 2 hours or so.

Here's my requirements:

1. My collection is entirely 6mm figures on 40mm square bases. Needs to work with that.

2. The campaign map is going to be loosely based on Hyboria, so that many of the students can use my historical armies. One or two players might play more exotic armies, elves and dwarves and such, but basically my Romans/Greeks/Persians/Celts/Egyptians/Hittites/Carthaginians/Successors will be most of the armies, albeit mapped to the cultures on the map.

3. Eventually I want to introduce magic/relics and maybe the occasional beastie to the campaign, but I'm not looking for herohammer. Part of the fun of this is to stealth-introduce the kids to more historical gaming (this is largely a crowd familiar with D&D & 40k).

4. Possibly considering going grid based, not sure yet. (I suspect it would involve some conversion, based on the ruleset, but it would save a lot of time measuring)

My club has 3 tables, which are roughly 6 by a little more than 2 feet, which we push together for really big battles, but my hope is that all 3 tables can run battles every week.

Anyone have any rulesets they can recommend?

 



Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: Hobgoblin on June 19, 2022, 09:52:10 PM
Hordes of the Things (HOTT) is perfect for this. It even has Hyborian army lists (as well as dwarves and elves). Troops are defined as standard types (blades, warband, shooters, spears, hordes, knights, riders, etc.), and there are also fantastical types (dragons, magicians, behemoths, gods, flyers, etc.).

Also, the game fits your table size well. At smaller scales, such as 6mm, HOTT is designed to be played on 2' x 2' tables with armies of 9-12 elements. But there's a bigger-battle version that allows for two, three or more commands to be arrayed against each other. And you can also use bigger armies than the standard 24 points. So you could field three commands a side on a 6' x 2' table - or two 36-point commands, for example.

A standard game of 24 points per side takes 45 minutes to an hour; a game with three commands a side could take about two hours.

Your 40mm frontages are the regulation size for smaller-scale HOTT, and the depths don't really matter; the rulebook has "suggested minima" for various troop types, but the game works just fine with square bases.

Also, as a close cousin of DBA, HOTT is a 'gateway drug' to historical gaming. The rules are very simple - each player rolls a D6 at the start of their turn to determine how many moves they can make; moves can be made by individual elements or by blocks of them. Combat is based on opposed D6 rules with combat factors added and results determined by the interaction of the troop types. For example, blades (e.g. Roman legionaries) add 5 against foot while warbands (e.g. Germans or Gauls) add 3. Doubling your enemy's total results in the destruction of the unit, but certain types can 'kill' others simply by beating them. So warbands destroy blades if they win, even though the blades are much more likely to win a round (+5 vs +3).

The one thing I'd suggest is using quick-reference sheets for each player. There are many such sheets floating about on the internet. They show the various combat factors for each troop type against foot and 'others' (mounted and flyers), along with the special outcomes.
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: levied troop on June 20, 2022, 05:53:16 AM
I’d second that, not least because DBA also has a simple campaign structure that might suit.
It might be a little too quick - I’ve had DBA games last just 30 minutes - but that just means you can play more games in an evening and advance the campaign decisions.

For a slightly longer/bigger game, then Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant has a similar historical/fantasy crossover, straight-forward rules and games likely to last your time slot.
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: DivisMal on June 20, 2022, 06:45:01 AM
HotT thirded!

A modern approach with a similar feel would be the excellent Mayhem rules. However, the army lists are in a crude format requiring a special app. - I never managed to get them working.

The Rampant series of games would be a third option, but work better with individually based models - or counters.
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: has.been on June 20, 2022, 10:44:08 AM
Hordes Of The Things, forth-ed (?)
Or any of the DBA stable. For all the above reasons.

Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles will do if you want a more Cinematic game.
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: Bellerophon on June 25, 2022, 01:40:09 AM
Thanks for all the advice!
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: Cat on June 25, 2022, 03:34:43 AM
Hordes of the Things indeed!  I've used that to build up 18-24 point Hyborian armies.
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: Commander Roj on June 25, 2022, 06:34:56 AM

 But there's a bigger-battle version that allows for two, three or more commands to be arrayed against each other. And you can also use bigger armies than the standard 24 points. So you could field three commands a side on a 6' x 2' table - or two 36-point commands, for example.


Is the bigger-Battle version included in basic HOTT? If not, where can it be found?
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: Hobgoblin on June 25, 2022, 07:59:07 AM
Yes, it's 'mass battles' on pages 37 and 38 of the current rulebook (2.1). It covers dividing an army into different commands (averaging 24 AP each), activations and demoralised commands within an army that continues to fight. 

It's worth adding that games with (say) 36 AP a command work fine too - the single D6 of activations simply encourages players to deploy their elements as larger groups. 
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: Bodvoc on June 25, 2022, 12:45:47 PM
I would go for Fantastic Battles, has full rules, magic, magic items etc... Also uses 4cm square bases and has a simple but complete campaign system. Great set of rules that we play as our main set of rules for fantasy.
 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fantastic-Battles-Nicholas-Wright/dp/B08MSJB1C6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=23LS8EZ37PDVL&keywords=fantastic+battles&qid=1656161056&sprefix=fantastic+battles%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-1
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: Bellerophon on June 25, 2022, 02:41:45 PM
I would go for Fantastic Battles, has full rules, magic, magic items etc... Also uses 4cm square bases and has a simple but complete campaign system. Great set of rules that we play as our main set of rules for fantasy.
 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fantastic-Battles-Nicholas-Wright/dp/B08MSJB1C6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=23LS8EZ37PDVL&keywords=fantastic+battles&qid=1656161056&sprefix=fantastic+battles%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-1


I was wondering how the "combine all the health points of bases grouped together" thing works in practice?
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: amunptah on June 25, 2022, 05:56:05 PM
Fantastic Battles is excellent!
A simpler version of HoTT is Mighty Armies Fantasy. Your students might get frustrated with the complexity of the language in HoTT so this is a much simpler alternative.
If you want to go with a gridded game I’d highly recommend Swords and Sorcery and Squares in the recent Portable Wargame Compendium. It’s easy to use for historical armies and port in the fantastical elements as and when you need them. I personally play with a grid formed from blank coasters I bought on Amazon, that I then painted up to represent different terrain.
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: Golgotha on June 25, 2022, 06:33:57 PM
Fantastic battles is also available on Wargame Vault - tad cheaper https://www.wargamevault.com/product/334554/Fantastic-Battles
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: capthugeca on June 25, 2022, 06:47:14 PM
Brent Spivey's "Mayhem" rules are worth a perusal.
They also use 40mm square bases for 6mm figures, offer more variety than HoTT and can be used for historical or fantasy.
They're available at https://www.wargamevault.com/product/110359/Mayhem?manufacturers_id=3556 (https://www.wargamevault.com/product/110359/Mayhem?manufacturers_id=3556)
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: Commander Roj on June 25, 2022, 07:20:59 PM
Yes, it's 'mass battles' on pages 37 and 38 of the current rulebook (2.1). It covers dividing an army into different commands (averaging 24 AP each), activations and demoralised commands within an army that continues to fight. 

It's worth adding that games with (say) 36 AP a command work fine too - the single D6 of activations simply encourages players to deploy their elements as larger groups.

Thanks for letting me know.
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: nickdives on June 26, 2022, 06:36:45 AM

I was wondering how the "combine all the health points of bases grouped together" thing works in practice?
Very well, we used casualty markers so that when a combined unit loses a baseworth, a base is removed.

A recent small game with Conan defeated the evil To-Me-Kupa and his hordes.
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: DivisMal on June 27, 2022, 04:41:45 AM
That’s a great looking game!  :o
Title: Re: Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience
Post by: Bodvoc on June 27, 2022, 12:35:38 PM
'I was wondering how the "combine all the health points of bases grouped together" thing works in practice?'

You create units from 2-4 bases (or companies as they are known in the rules). Each company has a 'Resolve' value, for example a Formed Company has a resolve of 4, thus a unit of 3x Formed Companies has a total resolve of 12. We use counters to keep score of loss of resolve.
At the price, it is very hard to find a better system than Fantastic battles and I have tried lots.