Rules for 3mm fantasy games

[pixelgeek]

I have been looking into doing a 3mm fantasy project and was wondering if anyone knew of any rules that would fit the scale? Other than Warmaster. I am looking at doing large games with big blocks of troops.

[fred]

Mayhem - has several interesting ideas, defiantly suits blocks of troops and small scales

Nic at Irregular Wars is creating a fantasy version of his rules

[Samsonov]

I based my 3mm Romans and Celts (with added fantasy elements) on 2cm by 1cm bases, so I could join the bases together into many different sizes to try lots of different sets of rules before I decided upon how to base 3mm fantasy. So far, here is my list of rules to try:

Impetus
Warmaster
Warhammer Ancient Battle
With Sword and Shield
To the Strongest
Rally Round the King
Mayhem

So far, I have tried Warmaster, but in honesty the command system felt a bit strange at this scale. I have played lots of 10mm Warmaster Ancients and it makes sense to me in 10mm scale that some formations might sit still due to command problems whilst others advanced. In 3mm scale, it just seems strange that large formations did nothing whilst others advanced so far past them (of course, even in 3mm scale, each base still has a lower headcount than it is meant to represent in the rules).

I have also tried Warhammer Ancient Battles, seemed a bit lacking. Too predictable in some areas (movement) and too random elsewhere (leadership and pursuit rolls).

[pixelgeek]

I agree with your comments about Warmaster. The command system is the main issue for me and I think you are correct about how it would be problematic at the scale.

I am intrigued by To the Strongest and so I might check those out.

[fred]

TtS is a good game. You could play with quite small squares in 3mm

I got some small playing cards off eBay for out 10mm games, so they took up less space than normal cards. It was something like 6 packs for £7 or something.

[Cat]

Might want to give Hordes of the Things a try too.

[Martello Towers]

I've used Kings of War with units based on cm rather than the inches of the main rules - so a Lesser Obsidian Golem Troop instead of being on a 150mm by 50mm base goes on a 6cm by 2 cm base instead. You can get more figures on, and still have room for scenics.
Rules work fine, and you can get a real sense of massed troops that I don't think even Hordes don't capture at the intended scale of 28mm.

[thebinmann]

Depending on what you like I've used Battlesystem 2nd Ed for 6mm and it works well (better than 28mm I'd guess). I put the inches in cms and divided by two for the distances, you could do the same or divide by 4.

Cheers

[Macunaima]

I have based my infantry units as two 20mmx10mm blocks, with heavy infantry at 20mm x 7.5mm. As such, they can be used individually for any DBX style system, together for Mayhem, Fantasy Rules!, and Hail Caesar fantasy variants, or in clumps for To the Strongest!

What they can ot be used for, this way, is Warmaster.

[Polkovnik]

So far, I have tried Warmaster, but in honesty the command system felt a bit strange at this scale. I have played lots of 10mm Warmaster Ancients and it makes sense to me in 10mm scale that some formations might sit still due to command problems whilst others advanced. In 3mm scale, it just seems strange that large formations did nothing whilst others advanced so far past them (of course, even in 3mm scale, each base still has a lower headcount than it is meant to represent in the rules).

I don't understand how the rules mechanisms can feel fine for one scale and not for a different scale.
In any mass battle set of rules, a unit represents a large number of combatants - this isn't affected by the figure scale. Normally the smaller the figure scale the closer the figures get to being representative of the actual troops.

So in answer to the original question - any mass battle set of fantasy rules should work for 3mm (and by that I mean any set of rules that is actually written to represent mass battles, not just rules that call themselves mass battle rules but are really written with 28mm figures in mind and where one figure represents one combatant).

Sword and Spear Fantasy would certainly work well at this scale. One unit (typically on 8cm wide frontage but you can use any frontage) represents around 1000 or more combatants, so the smaller figure scale the better really in terms of looking like what is being represented.
 

[Samsonov]

I don't understand how the rules mechanisms can feel fine for one scale and not for a different scale.
In any mass battle set of rules, a unit represents a large number of combatants - this isn't affected by the figure scale. Normally the smaller the figure scale the closer the figures get to being representative of the actual troops.

I agree to this point in principle, but at the same time I always struggle to see a particular number of figure as anything other than the number of models on the actual table. This might be related to how most my wargaming is actually with cardboard counters in the form of hex and counter wargames. I can easily imagine a platoon counter representing an entire platoon, so my issues with models might be specific to me. Anyway, I will add Sword and Spear Fantasy to the list to games to try.

[pixelgeek]

I don't understand how the rules mechanisms can feel fine for one scale and not for a different scale.

The command system is very quick and flexible and doesn't model the inertia that a larger force would have. Compared to something like Mayhem which can give you the feeling of a large army that has to be bent back into formation

[pixelgeek]

Anyway, I will add Sword and Spear Fantasy to the list to games to try.

Its on my list as well. Thanks for the tip