Mass battle rules

[bustapc]

Finally decided on element based and either 10mm Pendraken or 6mm Microworld. Now I just need rules. Three that have caught my eye are Mighty Armies, Warband, and Fantastic Battles, but I don’t know a lot about any of those. Definitely looking for something that gives a distinct feel to different units, especially characters and magic. Any opinions you have would be much appreciated!

[Wilgut Spleens]

I dont know about the others but I wouyld heartily reccomend Fantastic Battles, here's a link to my review of the game

https://wilgut.blogspot.com/2021/03/fantastic-battles-review.html

[LazyStudent]

Depending on exactly what you mean by a mass battle, but HOTT (Hordes of The Things) is a great element based game that can be scaled up using some simple modifications from Big Battle DBA.

[Sir_Theo]

Mayhem by Brent Spivey is worth a look, I always love the innovative take he brings to games.

[Mark]

Depending on exactly what you mean by a mass battle, but HOTT (Hordes of The Things) is a great element based game that can be scaled up using some simple modifications from Big Battle DBA.

I am a big fan of HOTT, but it doesn't particularly meet the OP's request of distinct troop types, heroes and magicians. That said, it is a great game, and there are notable differences in how armies play depending on how they are made up of different element types.

Perhaps Kings of War might work? Although it is marketed with individually based 28s, it is essentially an element based game with different sizes of element. There are lots of different army lists with the usual fantasy archetypes. I haven't played it though.

[fred]

Firstly 10mm is a great scale - so good work on choosing that!

Fantastic Battles, Mayhem, Warband and Kings of War are all ones I have played in 10mm

I’d probably put them in that order - as FB is newer and will likely get more author support.

The first 3 are all playable with square based units - I like 40mm square bases. For Warband you would put two bases together to make a unit.  These 3 are all generic systems so you can add your own mythos to them. FB and Mayhem have army builder rules in them too. All 3 are available pretty cheaply as PDFs so I’d give them a whirl.

KoW is certainly playable with smaller figures, but basing is a bit more complex (due to being derived from 28mm standards) - and the game play is not to all peoples liking with being very much about who charges and lining up flanks.

[Hobgoblin]

I'd agree with fred that you shouldn't restrict yourself to any one set. The joy of element-based wargaming is that it's a kind of "common language". So if you've got 40mm frontages, there are lots of different games that you can play with the same armies.

While Mark is right that HotT doesn't fit the bill in the OP, it's a ruleset that's well worth having for when you want a quick,  fun, tactical game - or a whole campaign in the afternoon. And as Mark says, the blend of different elements gives armies very distinctive feels even though there are only 20 troop types in total.

Mayhem is great and does fit the bill - you can create units with any sort of profile. It's a bit more work to get on the tabletop because of this.

I haven't played Kings of War yet, but have been dabbling - it seems to be a sort of cross between the more "chess-like" kind of game like HotT and more colourful ones like Warhammer, etc.

Fantastic Battles certainly looks intriguing.

[Bodvoc]

I also recommend Fantastic Battles. Although there are many army lists in the book, you can build any army or unit you want with the fully pointed army builder system provided. There is also a campaign system. The rules play fast and the book reads well. Great value too, you will only ever need the one book. .

[KONNOC]

https://www.wm-revolution.com/articles/download.html

I would recommend Warmaster.  I recognize you may have already looked at and passed over this choice, but there are lots of army lists to choose from, especially with Warmaster Revolution.  If your inclined, you can easily pick and choose stat lines or attributes for units you want to create from the various existing units across the different armies.  Magic also feels/works differently for the various armies.

[bustapc]

Ouch! My wallet   

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm fairly new to this sort of miniature gaming (only done skirmish type games) so hadn't even considered the basing aspect. Shouldn't be too much of an issue as it will all be super casual gaming, but nice to pick something relatively standard.

Looks like I have some reading to do! And buying... 

[Karadek]

I would recommend Warmaster. 

I'll second this one. Warmaster was an excellent game.

[Hobgoblin]

One other thing to consider might be games that you can play at various stages of the painting project.

So, while Hordes of the Things doesn't quite fit your original requirements, it is designed for relatively small armies: typically nine to twelve 40mm elements a side. That means you could probably get a game of it going before you have full armies for other games, which might help keep the project going.

For example, Mayhem uses square elements (so HotT 40 x 20 infantry elements doubled up). That means that you probably need twice as many elements to play a similarly sized game (which will look like a bigger battle because the units will be twice the size).

And L'Art de la Guerre uses larger units made up of several HotT-style bases. Warband sounds similar.

Given that, it might be an idea to get HotT (it's only available in print, I think, but you can get it on Amazon, etc.) and then work up a couple of armies for that, then expand them for bigger games.

I think I'm right in saying that 40 x 20mm is pretty much the universal standard for 10mm infantry; either as discrete elements or as building blocks for bigger units.

[Polkovnik]

How about Sword and Spear Fantasy ?

Here are some previous threads on the subject:

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=100086.0

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=114021.msg1426974#msg1426974

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=129859.msg1646915#msg1646915

And a review:

http://www.thewargamespot.com/first-playtest-of-sword-and-spear-fantasy/