Forum > Fantasy Adventures

Hyboria/Fantasy Rules for a HS Audience

(1/4) > >>

Bellerophon:
The kids in my Tabletop Gaming Club would like to do a campaign using my figures next year. The actual campaign rules for the map and all that go with it I'll be cooking up. But I'd like a fast-play system that can handle battles in 2 hours or so.

Here's my requirements:

1. My collection is entirely 6mm figures on 40mm square bases. Needs to work with that.

2. The campaign map is going to be loosely based on Hyboria, so that many of the students can use my historical armies. One or two players might play more exotic armies, elves and dwarves and such, but basically my Romans/Greeks/Persians/Celts/Egyptians/Hittites/Carthaginians/Successors will be most of the armies, albeit mapped to the cultures on the map.

3. Eventually I want to introduce magic/relics and maybe the occasional beastie to the campaign, but I'm not looking for herohammer. Part of the fun of this is to stealth-introduce the kids to more historical gaming (this is largely a crowd familiar with D&D & 40k).

4. Possibly considering going grid based, not sure yet. (I suspect it would involve some conversion, based on the ruleset, but it would save a lot of time measuring)

My club has 3 tables, which are roughly 6 by a little more than 2 feet, which we push together for really big battles, but my hope is that all 3 tables can run battles every week.

Anyone have any rulesets they can recommend?

 

Hobgoblin:
Hordes of the Things (HOTT) is perfect for this. It even has Hyborian army lists (as well as dwarves and elves). Troops are defined as standard types (blades, warband, shooters, spears, hordes, knights, riders, etc.), and there are also fantastical types (dragons, magicians, behemoths, gods, flyers, etc.).

Also, the game fits your table size well. At smaller scales, such as 6mm, HOTT is designed to be played on 2' x 2' tables with armies of 9-12 elements. But there's a bigger-battle version that allows for two, three or more commands to be arrayed against each other. And you can also use bigger armies than the standard 24 points. So you could field three commands a side on a 6' x 2' table - or two 36-point commands, for example.

A standard game of 24 points per side takes 45 minutes to an hour; a game with three commands a side could take about two hours.

Your 40mm frontages are the regulation size for smaller-scale HOTT, and the depths don't really matter; the rulebook has "suggested minima" for various troop types, but the game works just fine with square bases.

Also, as a close cousin of DBA, HOTT is a 'gateway drug' to historical gaming. The rules are very simple - each player rolls a D6 at the start of their turn to determine how many moves they can make; moves can be made by individual elements or by blocks of them. Combat is based on opposed D6 rules with combat factors added and results determined by the interaction of the troop types. For example, blades (e.g. Roman legionaries) add 5 against foot while warbands (e.g. Germans or Gauls) add 3. Doubling your enemy's total results in the destruction of the unit, but certain types can 'kill' others simply by beating them. So warbands destroy blades if they win, even though the blades are much more likely to win a round (+5 vs +3).

The one thing I'd suggest is using quick-reference sheets for each player. There are many such sheets floating about on the internet. They show the various combat factors for each troop type against foot and 'others' (mounted and flyers), along with the special outcomes.

levied troop:
I’d second that, not least because DBA also has a simple campaign structure that might suit.
It might be a little too quick - I’ve had DBA games last just 30 minutes - but that just means you can play more games in an evening and advance the campaign decisions.

For a slightly longer/bigger game, then Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant has a similar historical/fantasy crossover, straight-forward rules and games likely to last your time slot.

DivisMal:
HotT thirded!

A modern approach with a similar feel would be the excellent Mayhem rules. However, the army lists are in a crude format requiring a special app. - I never managed to get them working.

The Rampant series of games would be a third option, but work better with individually based models - or counters.

has.been:
Hordes Of The Things, forth-ed (?)
Or any of the DBA stable. For all the above reasons.

Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles will do if you want a more Cinematic game.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page