Of Armies and Hordes (Ganesha Games)

[beefcake]

Well I'm keen to give this a look at. I really like Song of Blades and heroes as it is a quick game that I can play with my kids (and Sellwords and Spellslingers) and now with a mass battle game I can bring out the armies of minis I have and give them a go as well rather than just skirmish level stuff. Just a PDF for now but a printed copy is due out late Feb. More info below the picture.

Of Armies and Hordes is an army level wargame using area movement and abstract maneuvering to simplify play while retaining all the tactical choices and variables required by the genre.

The rules are designed for fast, relaxed play among friends, not competitions. Bookkeeping is minimal. A typical large game requires two hours, including setup.

Combat is dramatic. Battle-lines clash into each other. Something happens on the table every turn. Troops die quickly.

The rules are non-scale specific.You can use any figures in any scale. Use any models you already own, or build dedicated armies.

Basing is flexible. Use any system you like. You can even mix basing systems. As long as you can count the units (either the heads of models or the number of stands), you can play.

Table size is flexible. As long as you can identify enough areas of the battlefield to provide a good game, you can play on a small kitchen table or on a huge wargaming table.

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The rules are written for fantasy games. It is possible to play ancient and medieval battles by removing the fantastical elements, but the rules have little pretension of historical accuracy.

There is no SOLO system but the rules are simple enough that a player may play solo by controlling both sides.

There are NO ARMY lists in the main file, but there is a spreadsheet with over 600 ready-made profiles, and you can create your own. From goblins to wlves to orcs to trolls and dwarves and humans and halflings and undead, we got you covered. By keeping the point system separate from the core rulebook, we will not need new editions as the game evolves and new troops are added.

We will publish free PDFs of army lists (the same that are in the spreadsheet, plus more that we will add). We plan to collect all army lists in a print book in 2020.

We will update the spreadsheet with new troops as they are created.

[Hobgoblin]

Aha! These rules have been long awaited! Just bought 'em.

We've had a bit of an SBH/MDRG renaissance recently. The rules are simple, but they've got plenty of depth beneath the surface. As an example, I recently played MDRG back to back with GW's Kill Team and noted that the Ganesha engine gives five potential outcomes from one opposed roll while Kill Team gives three potential outcomes from four or five successive rolls. So I've got high hopes for this game.

If only airport wifi were a bit faster ...

[beefcake]

 
I'm keen to hear your review of the rules. I'll probably get the PDF at least (well after my next payday I reckon).

[Spooktalker]

This is the only 21st century fantasy battle system that I have anticipated with any degree of fervor. Will follow the thread and am likely to pick it up.

[fred]

Looks interesting. Is it very much the SoBH mechanism (a couple of stats and lots of special rules) or is it something different? Any game reports out there?

[Hobgoblin]

I've been reading through the rules. They contain a fair bit of the SoBH engine but are very different in lots of ways (much more so than, say, OGAM). The stats are different, for starters.

Most strikingly, movement is by area; the table is divided into areas, which are used for movement. Control of advantageous areas (hilltops, defensive positions, villages, etc.) is clearly an important feature of the game. I'm playing around now with a small 'table' using outdoor dungeon tiles (each tile being an 'area').

Secondly, SoBH activations aren't used for shooting or melee, which happen automatically, but for movement (though only fast units can move more than one area at a time), changing formations and entering/exiting areas of difficult terrain (there are various types).

Combat isn't the same; yes, there's a die + modifier for each figure, but units have separate attack and defence values. So you can have hard-hitting troops that are lightly armoured (Dacians with falx or any number of fantastical analogues) and weak but heavily armoured troops.

Morale rules are similar but different (as all combats end in retreat).

There are Saga-ish fatigue/exhaustion rules; you can push units to do more than usual, but they pay a temporary price.

Units can adopt closed or open formations, march in column, form squares or operate as hordes. There are rules for flanking and rear attacks (generally, the formations with those vulnerabilities are also best placed at exploiting them.

One (great) thing about the game is that it's completely basing-agnostic. Units are composed of 'stands', which could be individual figures or HotT-style elements or anything in between. You could also use KoW or Impetus block, counting heads and recording casualties with dice or on paper. I'll be using units that consist of both multi-based elements and individual figures.

It's also entirely scale-agnostic, and can be played on tables of radically different size. A 'stand' might be a single 28mm figure or an element of 10 or more smaller-scale figures. But you can also use individually bases at smaller scales, multi-bases at biggers scales and mix and match as you see fit. All this is very good indeed.

There are interesting rules for assassins hidden in units, HotT-style lurkers and adventuring parties that might even explore dungeons in mid-battle.

In line with the above, terrain features have a lot of character. Enchanted forests, dungeon entrances, inhabited villages and the like look like they will add a lot of flavour.

I'd say that there's an assumed (largeish) figure scale. The biggest unit allowed is 16 stands, which will be 16 figures for most people playing in 28mm. But the unwritten assumption seems to be that one figure represents scores if not hundreds.

I haven't got to the magic rules yet - all I've read so far is movement, shooting, melee and morale. But my first impression of the game is very favourable. I really like Andrea's games - from SobH to MDRG and OGAM to Rogue Stars and Battlesworn - so that may be no surprise. This looks quite a bit different, though.  I'm itching to play it, but given our return from Italy scant hours ago, I think that will wait until tomorrow. All in all, it looks very different to anything I've played before - but there are echoes of lots of games I like: SoBH, Saga, HotT and those marvellous Avalon Hill card-and-counter wargames.

Much more tomorrow!

[El Grego]

Thanks for the overview, Hobgoblin.

As with others, I have been waiting for these rules for a long time, and in a few more clicks I'll have a copy 

[fred]

Thanks Hobgoblin a very useful write up.

The bit I’m struggling with is the area movement - how are the areas defined on the table? I am used to setting up a table as mainly open ground (the base cloth) and then putting large bases down as area terrain (trees, villages, scrub etc). So I can see how a wood can be easily defined as an area, but less sure about an open area?

[James Morris]

This sounds very interesting - thanks for flagging it up. Keep the reviews coming .

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks Hobgoblin a very useful write up.

The bit I’m struggling with is the area movement - how are the areas defined on the table? I am used to setting up a table as mainly open ground (the base cloth) and then putting large bases down as area terrain (trees, villages, scrub etc). So I can see how a wood can be easily defined as an area, but less sure about an open area?

The rules recommend dividing the table up using chalk on cloth. They also illustrate some examples with hex tiles, which would obviously work very well for this. Another way of doing it would just be to place terrain so that the table is 'naturally' broken up into segments.

One feature of the rules is that open terrain can accommodate more troops. So there's an in-built bent towards the open areas being bigger.

I'm going to attempt a run-through with the kids tomorrow using these tiles as the 'areas':

[Barbarus]

That movement mechanic sounds... weird.

Something that I would have to test before I know whether or not I can enjoy it...  o_O

[beefcake]

I kind of like that movement technique. It saves a lot of measuring.

[Hobgoblin]

The thing is, it's a movement mechanism shared by a huge number of wargames - perhaps even the majority. It's just not common in miniature wargames.

I have very fond memories of Avalon Hill's Samurai, which used that mechanic.

The impression that I get from the rules so far is that terrain is going to be much more important than in most fantasy wargames, with the 'areas' playing a big part in this. I suspect there'll be a bit of trial and error in getting the sizes right, but that suspicion might be misplaced: the difficulty of movement through rough and very rough areas might provide a balancing mechanism.

[Spooktalker]

I've been reading through the rules.

Thanks very much for the info!

[Pendrake]

The bit I’m struggling with is the area movement - how are the areas defined on the table? I am used to setting up a table as mainly open ground (the base cloth) and then putting large bases down as area terrain (trees, villages, scrub etc). So I can see how a wood can be easily defined as an area, but less sure about an open area?

I get the idea that you are wondering how to divide up an expanse of open table cloth into several areas?

The rules recommend dividing the table up using chalk on cloth. They also illustrate some examples with hex tiles, which would obviously work very well for this. Another way of doing it would just be to place terrain so that the table is 'naturally' broken up into segments.

One feature of the rules is that open terrain can accommodate more troops. So there's an in-built bent towards the open areas being bigger.

A simple solution for dividing up Fred’s open table cloth is corner markers that look like boulders. Method: grab a bunch of 25mm plastic figure bases, glue a real pebble or tiny chunk of gravel to it, add sand and flock (just like basing a figure but there is no figure in the way), paint it as desired. The battlefield looks like the Salisbury plain in England. Large Sarsen boulders dotted about left by a receded Glacier. It just so happens the boulders are in a grid, marking the corners of the ‘areas’ required by this game.

In my head it sounds simple to do and it looks pretty good as well.