Fantastic Battles - videos on Youtube

[Irregular Wars Nic]

In February 2011, I released Irregular Wars: Conflict at the World’s End. Originally inspired by the Elizabethan wars in Ireland, the rules were written to be suitable for all asymmetrical clashes around the fringes of the European world in the 16th and Early 17th centuries. A 2nd edition followed in 2014 which streamlined many of the rules to make the turns flow more smoothly and which earned fan-made supplements to cover ancient, medieval and fantasy genres. Since then, I have written 10 further rules sets and expansions, all published through Ganesha Games.

As I approach the 10th anniversary of writing rules fit for public consumption it feels like the right time to return to the Irregular Wars system. Rather than releasing a 3rd edition of Conflict at the World’s End –which still serves its niche admirably – I have embarked on a more broadly applicable set of rules for fantasy mass-battles, Fantastic Battles. The title is a play on words do you see, ‘cause the genre is fantasy games, and the battles will be fantastic – as in ‘great’ or ‘enjoyable’, or at least a moderately good laugh ... oh, never mind.

Central tenets of Irregular Wars: Fantastic Battles
* Engaging rules. The rules need to keep both players engaged at all times with randomised initiative and play passing quickly between players.
* Command friction and fog of war. The rules need to limit the omnipotent control a warlord has over their army and the battlefield conditions.
* Setting agnostic. The game must be applicable to any fantasy (or even pseudo-historical) settings.
* Flexible army building. As a game of fantasy battles, why accept restrictions on your fantasy? A flexible army building system allows players to create armies to their own tastes.
* Scale agnostic using multi-based figures. All measurements are expressed in distance units (u), where 1u is the width of one company base. Any size bases are possible, as long as all companies are based in the same way.
* No individual figure removal. All units have a footprint and are represented on the table as a complete unit. When a unit loses its resolve to fight, it is removed from the table in its entirety.

In Fantastic Battles, armies consist of a number of characters and companies, custom built to suit the player’s vision of their fantasy faction. For pick-up games, we recommend 500-1000 points per player which should allow for somewhere in the region of 12-24 companies. The company forms the building block of the army. Each company is built using one of seven base profiles and can be allocated up to three distinguishing traits – identical companies may be grouped into larger units which become more robust at the expense of maneuverability. Armies may also be given an additional blanket trait known as a racial trope which applies to all companies of the main race in the army. Each army must be led by a single warlord and may also include a number of other individual characters chosen from captains, magic-users and rogues.

The rules are still in the closed testing phase – the Covid-19 pandemic has really slowed testing down. Over the coming months, I’ll be posting more information on different aspects of the rules, from example armies, to pre-game mishaps, game play, random events, and the campaign system. Do pop over to the Irregular Wars blog and drop me a line or leave a comment below if there are any particular features you’d like me to cover.

http://irregularwars.blogspot.com/2020/05/introducing-irregular-wars-fantastic.html

[Easy E]

The title is a play on words, and the cover is a nice Fantasy in-joke as well.

[robh]

How are you dealing with bases for individual character heroes and wizards?
If armies are build your own how are you dealing with magic spells and artifacts?
Are bases for different troop types (skirmish open order vs shieldwall close order) same or different depth?

[Irregular Wars Nic]

The title is a play on words, and the cover is a nice Fantasy in-joke as well.

 

[Irregular Wars Nic]

How are you dealing with bases for individual character heroes and wizards?
If armies are build your own how are you dealing with magic spells and artifacts?
Are bases for different troop types (skirmish open order vs shieldwall close order) same or different depth?

Hi Robh,

Individual characters are on smaller bases, or a player can choose to embed them in a company if they choose. Characters are principally there to provide command and control over units. They can fight on their own, but this is not a skirmish level game - a single character, even a warlord, is unlikely to last long when faced with a whole unit in melee.

Magic-users have three spell slots and there is currently a list of ten different spells to choose from. The choice of spells is up to the player and how they view their faction. For example, my halfling wizard uses Bless, Blink and Empower, while my goblin shaman has been using Confusion, Curse and Magic missiles. More potent spells are harder to cast, so the different outcomes are balanced out.

The rules recommend having a standardised base size for all companies. However, it is the width that is most important and there will be explanations of how to handle units of different depth.

Cheers,

Nic

[robh]

Thanks Nic.  I have fantasy armies based for the excellent, but incomplete, fan mod of Impetus (for which the official D&P version seems to have been abandoned) and am always interested in other rules that work with the same 1 base 1 unit diorama style basing.
I look forward to seeing more detail in due course.

[fred]

This is exciting news!

We have been playing quite a bit of Irregular Wars recently - as it works well over a video link for remote gaming, and it always gives a good game.

A few years ago we started on some Fantasy mods (well really army list conversions). But in the end went for home brew rules to give us a much bigger battle than IrW does.

[Irregular Wars Nic]

Thanks Fred. Hopefully these will capture the same flavour of game, but run smoother with much larger armies.

[Irregular Wars Nic]

In this second post introducing Irregular Wars: Fantastic Battles, we will look at two of the fundamental aspects of any game - the basing system and unit profiles.

Unit basing and measuring distances
The basic unit in Fantastic Battles is the company; companies may act independently or be grouped together into larger formations. Each company is represented on the table by a number of figures on a single base. Companies are an abstract representation of a large body of men (or orcs, or lizardmen, or elves etc ad nauseum), perhaps numbering in the hundreds or thousands. There is no figure removal to represent casualties, the exact number of figures per company is unimportant – players should base their units in the way that looks best.

We recommend square 40x40mm bases for companies of 6mm-15mm scale figures, or 60x60mm for larger scales. However, the actual base size used is irrelevant to the game mechanics as long as the same base widths are used across all companies on the table. While square bases are recommended, rectangular bases are feasible with minimal adjustments as will be noted throughout the rules.

Characters may act as individuals or attach to companies. A character’s base can be any shape and size appropriate to the figure, but should be smaller than a company and easily identifiable.

In the game, all distances are given in generic units of measurement (u) based on the width of a single company. Therefore, in a game using companies on 40mm bases, 2u would equate to 8cm while 3u would equate to 12cm.

Table size
A standard engagement between two forces of between 750-1000 points each is 30x20u (i.e. 1200x800mm if using 40mm bases). Smaller games could be played on 20x20u tables, while larger games would need to have the table size adjusted accordingly.

Company profiles
Every company in an army will have a profile which dictates how it behaves on the battlefield. The example below is for a company of goblin warriors. Detailed guidelines for customising company profiles will be dealt with another time.



Character/Company
The ‘Character/company’ column gives the company an identity. All companies start out as one a set number of generic base profiles (elite, formed or irregular companies, fantastic beasts, dragons, batteries or vehicles) and are then customised using traits.

Resolve (RES)
A unit’s Resolve is perhaps its single most important factor. It indicates a unit’s willingness to stand firm in the face of danger. During a battle, pre-game and in-game events such as being shot at, taking damage in melee, or seeing friendly units flee degrade a unit’s Resolve, sometimes sending a cascade of panic through a player’s battle line. The retention, loss and restoration of a unit’s Resolve is key and players will find that quick thinking or clever Resolve management can often be the deciding factor in snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

A single company of goblin warriors has only 3 Resolve. However, grouping multiple companies together into a single larger unit stacks their Resolve factors. A unit formed from two companies of goblin warriors (as in the photo at the start of this post) would therefore have 6 Resolve, while a large group made up of four companies would have 12 Resolve.

Move (MOV)
The Move column indicates the maximum distance a company may move in a single action phase. In this case, goblin warriors may move up to 3u in a single turn.

Melee (MEL)
The Melee factor shows the companies martial abilities and indicates how many attack dice are rolled during the Melee phase. Each company of goblin warriors may roll three attack dice under normal circumstances.

Shooting (SHT)
The Shooting column represents a company’s capacity for long range attacks, shown as two numbers divided by a forward slash. The first number represents how many attack dice are rolled in the shooting phase against targets within short range (2u) – it may represent close range shooting, thrown weapons or brave but ill-disciplined warriors dashing out of formation to launch individual attacks on enemy units. The second number represents true long-range shooting and indicates the attack dice rolled against targets within long range (5u). Each company of goblin warriors may roll two attack dice against a target within short range, or one die against a target within long range.

Defence (DEF)
A company’s Defence factor gives the target number required by an opponent’s attack dice to cause the company to lose Resolve. Goblin warriors have a Defence of 4+, so enemy attack dice against the goblins would need to roll 4s, 5s, or 6s to reduce their Resolve. Any rolls of 1, 2, or 3 would be ignored.

Traits
Traits represent the various features that differentiate units. Each unit may be customised with up to three traits, plus a possible fourth trait representing a racial trope. For this example, we are saying that all goblins have unreliable as a racial trope. Generic units of goblin warriors also have the shooting (mixed unit) and wild charge traits.

Points (PTS)
The Points column shows the cost to recruit the company. A more expensive company is usually more reliable, better equipped or trained, or has more resolve than cheaper companies. Goblin warriors cost a modest 23 points per company.

[fred]

I like the ability to brigade units together.

3 resolve units are very fragile and can  suffer from catastrophic cascading resolve loss.

Multiple combat dice sounds a lot more deadly than IW too

[Irregular Wars Nic]

A work-in-progress teaser from the Fantastic Battles front cover. I'm delighted to be continuing my working relationship with Greece's foremost wargaming rules illustrator (and a most talented artist despite it all), Orestix Ermeides.

[fred]

Thats a good looking drawing - has an old school charm to it

[fred]

A Test Game

Last night, through video chat we played an early beta test game of Irregular Wars Fantastic Battles. It was just a small game to get a feel for the rules.

I took the Forces of Nature, comprising of a unit of 3 forest shamblers, a single fire elemental, a unit of 2 water elementals, a unit of 3 Slyvan Kin, and finally the monstrous Tree Herder, with the army's Warlord.

Arrayed against this selection of moving trees, where the brave forces of the Empire. A unit of 4 Halberdiers, a battery of 2 cannons, 2 knights led by their Warlord, and a unit of 4 cross bows.

It was a fairly cluttered battlefield, and for the first few turns the Empire forces were happy to sit back to wait for the Nature troops to advance into their guns. This is the situation after a few turns, were the Water Elementals have taken one round of shooting from the Cannons, and are suffering from it!



The water elementals took more shooting damage - being left just 1 point of resolve away from breaking - so took an action to regenerate, drawing strength from the surrounding water (in the ground!) and came back to half strength.

Charge!

At this point it all kicked off! The Sylvan Kin advanced out of the wood and charged the crossbow men. The Knights charged the Water Elementals, and Tree Herder lumbered forwards

The crossbow men vs sylvan kin fight was fairly even - missile troops can stand and shoot as a charge reaction, gaining an extra dice in melee, and by being a bigger unit than their opponent gives them more bonus dice too.




The knights though had rather over cooked things, and left their flank exposed to the fire elemental, who charged in! While Tree Herder got into the other side of the crossbow men.
On the hill on the left the forest shamblers went forward very slowly, while the halberdiers held their line.

The knights destroyed the water elementals, but were still engaged by the fire elementals, who had done a lot of damage to the knights. The crossbow men couldn't stand another round of combat against both the sylvan kin and Tree Herder. The result of this was big gaps



Tree Herder, as a single stand company is very mobile, and was able to charge into the flank of the knights - generating 13 attack dice - quite  a few as most companies generate 3 or 4 normally. The knights caught fighting to both their flanks did little damage back, but it was enough to kill the Fire Elementals

Meanwhile on the hill the halberdiers spotted their moment and charge the Forest Shamblers. This turned into an attritional battle.



Big hole in the middle

Tree Herder left surveying the battlefield - where to go next!


Flank charge on the cannon!

Meanwhile on the hill the halberdiers and forest shamblers continue to hammer away at each other

The End!

The cannon battery is trampled by Tree Herder, while the shamblers finish off the halberdiers (with only a few wounds remaining on themselves).

Overall it was an enjoyable game - perhaps helped the the destruction Tree Herder caused!
The Empire forces were unlucky to have not killed the water elementals with shooting - one more shot would have finished them off, and that could have been quite different as then they would have got more shots off particularly at Tree Herder which would have been very dangerous to him as such a big creature, the cannons would have got +2 dice on their shooting.

Thanks to Nic for letting us play the beta rules, and for joining us for the second half of the game (the magic of video conferencing) Where he corrected our misunderstandings and put up with many many suggestions of how we thought things ought to work.

The rules play very differently to classic Irregular Wars, but have a the feel of a bigger battle. The ability to create your own units to build an army is certainly a fun and interesting part of the game - and I certainly have plenty of armies to build force lists for!

Looking forward to seeing how these rules develop.

Next up, Goblins vs Dwarves?



 

[Irregular Wars Nic]

It was great to be able to join you for a couple of hours by video link, Fred. Not anything I even would have considered prior to Covid-19. So that is one silver lining I suppose.

As a rule creator, it is always so interesting hearing how other people interpret and play your rules. Genuinely such a valuable process when fine tuning rules - or sacking them about with a rubber mallet ).

Also, great pictures. Looking forward to seeing the next match up which I hear will be rather larger.

Cheers,

Nic

[fred]

Yes the ability to link up with people from across the world, and actually play a table top game, is one of the few positives to come out of the current situation. We have re-linked up with one of our gaming group who is now in Central America and he can join it just as easily (if not better) than someone half-a-mile down the road.

Hopefully we didn't use the mallet too much...   

The test game has inspired me to paint up some more figures, which is always a good test of a game for me!

For Irregular Wars you need figures to represent various characters, the Warlord and Captains I've got pretty well covered from various command figures already, but also needed at Wizards and Rogues. Most of my Wizards are based on 40mm squares, and I've not need rogues before, so this gave an good excuse for a rummage through the various figures I have stashed away, and I found lots of promising candidates. A few colours later (including quite a bit of GW contrast paints) they are starting to look like what they should! I've based them up, mainly so that I can check for each figure which ones is finished, as on painting sticks it was getting a bit hard to see which were done, and which had bits left to do.



From a count up after taking this photo, about 1/3rd are done painting wise, 1/3rd are close, and the last third are barely started! And obviously all need basing.