Large Skirmish Rules recommendation needed.

[Hobgoblin]

I don't see why it should be any different in fantasy. I would expect troops in a fantasy army to behave in a similar way to troops in a medieval army, except possibly with more variation- for example elves might be more likely to act in the way the general wants them too compared to humans, and orcs less likely.

I was going to say the same! You wouldn't expect a gang of unscrupulous half-orc mercenaries (like Mudak's lot from Warhammer of old) to be particularly punctilious. And yes, most tabletop fantasy seems to be "medieval plus monsters and magic".

With regard to Dragon Rampant's activations, a useful comparator is Hordes of the Things. In that game (one of the very best fantasy wargames in my view and clearly one of the most enduring - a 30-year run with only a couple of tiny rule tweaks over that time), it's quite possible that you won't be able to do what you want in your turn. You might roll just one PIP, which isn't great when you want to have your wolfriders attack in a pincer movement or your magician general do anything. But it's all part of the fun of the game.

[Polkovnik]

With regard to Dragon Rampant's activations, a useful comparator is Hordes of the Things. In that game (one of the very best fantasy wargames in my view and clearly one of the most enduring - a 30-year run with only a couple of tiny rule tweaks over that time), it's quite possible that you won't be able to do what you want in your turn. You might roll just one PIP, which isn't great when you want to have your wolfriders attack in a pincer movement or your magician general do anything. But it's all part of the fun of the game.

The big difference though is that in HOTT you get some choice about which units you activate. You roll the PIP dice and then you have decisions to make, and it's decisions like these that makes wargames interesting and fun IMO. Also you will always activate at least one unit, and over two or three turns you would be very unlucky if you don't activate an average of at least two per turn.
On the other hand, the activations in LR and DR are just completely random. You can have turns where you activate nothing, and your best troops might sit there all game without moving.
Personally I like command and control restrictions in a wargame, so your units do not always do exactly what you want, but I want to have some control, and have some decision making to do in the activation process, not just have it left completely to chance.

[Elk101]

We had a house rule for a similar 'roll to activate' mechanism in a home spun ruleset whereby the commander had a certain  number of Command Points to use each turn based on their competence. They could be expended on forcing units to activate who had failed their activation rolls, shoring up the morale of units, etc. That worked quite well in that situation. It would be easy enough to so something similar in Dragon Rampant I'm sure?

[Hobgoblin]

The big difference though is that in HOTT you get some choice about which units you activate. You roll the PIP dice and then you have decisions to make, and it's decisions like these that makes wargames interesting and fun IMO. Also you will always activate at least one unit, and over two or three turns you would be very unlucky if you don't activate an average of at least two per turn.
On the other hand, the activations in LR and DR are just completely random. You can have turns where you activate nothing, and your best troops might sit there all game without moving.
Personally I like command and control restrictions in a wargame, so your units do not always do exactly what you want, but I want to have some control, and have some decision making to do in the activation process, not just have it left completely to chance.

Those are all good points, and I'd certainly see HOTT as one of the best-designed fantasy wargames out there (its longevity, popularity and lack of revisions are as close as one can get to objective proof of that). But LR and DR do deliver a fun, messy skirmish. And - like Song of Blades and Heroes - they break up the turn system a lot, so that you're constantly having to respond to unexpected events.

I'd say that the risk of failed activations hurting the game rises as you add more players - especially in games with larger-than-normal points values. But if you're playing with two, or if you have retinues of the recommended 24 points, the activations are likely to be zipping back and forth pretty regularly.

[AdmiralAndy]

Whilst Rampant and its children does tend to be my goto system for games.

What do others make of the Activation systems for WoE and Oathmark? As those where the other rulesets the OP had refered to.

Other than online reviews which I'm sure the OP has seen, its not something I can comment on as don't own either set of rules. Though I am curious about them myself.

Also as Narrative play was a consideration. Could the campaign system in Oathmark be adapted to WoE or DR?

[BZ]

In Oathmark there is an alternating activation system (I prefer it over an I-go-You-go), and every unit has to make an activation roll. If its successful, the unit can make 2 actions (move, turn, attack, shoot, cast a spell), if not (which is much more probable for goblins then for elves for example), then its only 1 activation allowed (no combat). Its a pretty good system, because it has fog-of-war, but its not that tragic: with a bad roll you still can do some action, but not as much as with a good one.

[Pattus Magnus]

BZ summarized Oathmark well.

WoE uses the turn system from Bolt Action. Each player’s force has markers (usually 6-sided order dice) of a specific color (ex. Red for one force, blue for the other). Each unit in a player’s force gets one marker, which is placed in a container with those from the other side. During the turn, one marker at a time is pulled and the player for that color puts it with a unit to activate it. Normally, the player has a free choice what the activating unit does, unless it is already suffering from a morale problem.

The randomness/friction in WoE comes from not knowing the activation order, but player control is otherwise pretty complete and each unit will get to act each turn (unless it gets wiped out before it gets activated, which is a real possibility).

[Hobgoblin]

Also as Narrative play was a consideration. Could the campaign system in Oathmark be adapted to WoE or DR?

You probably could port it over easily enough. One of the key things about the Oathmark campaign system is that armies derive particular troop types from particular areas. You could (very broadly) map Oathmark troop types to DR equivalents:

Heavy Foot = Warriors
Light Foot = Soldiers
Bellicose Foot = Linebreakers
Light/Heavy Missiles = Archers
Lesser Warbeasts = Wolves, Spiders, Warhounds, etc.
Greater Warbeasts = Dragons, Lindworms, Surma, etc.
Elite Foot = Any character figure or Ogres, Trolls, etc (whether using the Elite Foot profile or another with upgrades)

You could also use both Oathmark and DR for a campaign game - using Oathmark for massed battles with a 1:20, 1:50 or 1:100 ratio and DR for skirmishes with a 1:1 ratio. That might be a lot of fun - and both rulebooks are reasonably priced. As I noted above, Oathmark very clearly assumes a tacit figure scale that's not 1:1 (even though it states that it is 1:1). So combining both games in one campaign makes a lot of sense. You could go one step further and use Song of Blades (or whatever) for very small skirmishes too.

If you were doing something like that, you might allow the winners of skirmishes to gain some advantage in large-scale battles (delaying or preventing the arrival of some troops, etc.). So you might have a skirmish to destroy a bridge that would prevent troops from one area arriving in time for the next big battle.

[jon_1066]

I like the sound of your setting.  Sounds quite Arthurian in a way.  I think DR would easily allow you to use your dark age figures  with a sprinkling of fantasy elements.  Lion Rampant revitalised me on fantasy gaming as it meant you could have a fun battle with all the old GW lead in the space of 2 hours.  It very easily adapted to my fantasy collection.  The DR modification is essentially the same game with some extra zing.

As previously said the different troop types are quite different, however for differences between races (eg goblins and ogres) certain troop types are going to be restricted.  eg you probably shouldn't make goblins elite foot.

I think it strongly depends on how you view miniature gaming.  Back in the days of Warhammer 2nd and 3rd edition nothing caused us more hilarity than the stupid rule for giants and trolls and the totally random luck of goblin fanatics.  If you hated them then it is probably not for you.  If you view it as all part of the narrative you are creating then the failed activations become comical.  eg one battle a unit of archers steadfastly failed every single activation for the entire game.  They were clearly p***d off with their commander and refused to take part.

Having said that there are things you can do to mitigate the luck and failed activations don't necessarily mean you don't get to do anything.  The other guy may fail his first roll.  Wild Charging units don't end the turn with a fail.  This makes Wild Charge both a blessing and a curse.  Once they are in charge range you don't really get much control of their targets but they are also a free activation (and pack quite a punch normally).  Also keep in mind your units still defend in combat so even if you fail your activation the troops that are attacked will still fight.

DR is good at producing moments where it feels like a lot hinges on a particular dice roll - be it activation or courage check.  You both intently watch the dice as they roll praying for the result you need. 

[Sir Barnaby Hammond-Rye]

Well free and home-grown may not be the same thing. These days it is very easy to produce home-grown rules to a good standard and sell them.
However, rules that you pay for are much more likely to be better than free ones. You would expect them to be much more playtested (although unfortunately that doesn't always seem to be the case). If the free rules are good, why wouldn't the author be charging for them ? They are also much more likely to be widely played, meaning you can find more willing opponents.
I will have a look at free rules and maybe comment on them, and possibly borrow some ideas, but it's very unlikely that I would play them.

So unless its monetized it isn't any good?

[Elk101]

Oh come on people, let's not get into another argument. Opinions are just that, opinions. I'll bet there are some home grown rulesets that haven't been used outside of someone's house that might blow away some commercial rules. Likewise I think there are probably some home rulesets that really only suit the players who designed them. You can't say one way or another that rules you pay for are always going to be better than free rules. You might expect a higher level of production value but that might not necessarily relate to the gameplay quality of the rules. It's also up to an individual whether they would even want to charge for their rules, they may just be happy to share them with the community, even though people would happily pay for them.

Let's leave that one there please. I don't want more complaints heading my way over this thread.

Thank you

[Cat]

My absolute favorite medieval/fantasay skirmish game was the freebie handout from Ral Parha: The Rules According To Ral.

The original was historically oriented, I pencilled in fantasy units easily enough.

There was a later expanded commercial fantasy version: Chaos Wars.

Original free rules can be found here:
http://mainly28s.com/rules/0FANT.Ral.Partha.html

Chaos Wars was rebooted with a semi-recentKickstarter and is available, and now with many of the original line of RP minis too:
https://ralparthalegacy.com/

[racm32]

So unless its monetized it isn't any good?

I dont think thats what he is saying. I would agree that if I was paying for rules I would expect them to have been well play tested and laid out in a user friendly manner (not always the case). Nothing wrong with free rules but I find you have a greater chance of getting a set that ends up needing more work then its worth (but not always).

[Hobgoblin]

I dont think thats what he is saying. I would agree that if I was paying for rules I would expect them to have been well play tested and laid out in a user friendly manner (not always the case). Nothing wrong with free rules but I find you have a greater chance of getting a set that ends up needing more work then its worth (but not always).

Actually, one set of rules you might consider is a medieval/fantasy variant of FUBAR. There are loads, they're all free, and they're very decent.

There should be rich pickings here. I haven't played anything other than the standard modern/sf ones, but those were great.

[racm32]

I really apricate everyone's input. I am honestly surprised at how much there has been. I guess a lot of you are quite passionate for this genre, which is great.

I don't think I'll give WoE a try as I'm not sure the dice activation mechanic works well for the setting. I like it fine for Bolt Action but maybe not for this. I think I might get both Dragon Rampant and Oathmark to try as a lot of you have had good things to say about both. I don't mind tweaking a mechanic a bit if the rest of the rules seem solid enough.

I apricate everyone's help.