New Fantasy Mass Combat Rules - Pride of Lions

[Onebigriver]

Produced by Splintered Light Minis, distributed by Ganesha Games, written by John McBride

http://www.ganeshagames.net/pride-of-lions/

From the Yahoo Group:

"A bit more about my philosophy in PRIDE OF LIONS:

Though God knows I am no JRR Tolkien, nor CCS Lewis, I share their general outlook, including their interest in creating worlds. Although PRIDE OF LIONS can be played as a generic rules system, it is in its origin an attempt by me to explore the cultural dynamics, mainly in military terms, of MY world. Anyone who has read or played SONG OF THE SPLINTERED LANDS has seen a bit of that world, as the Druid's Wyldewood, the dwarven Mountain Home, and King Shade's goblinoid Moonglade are important cultures of my world. If you enjoy skirmish games in it, perhaps you'll enjoy large army battles as well.

That said, the rules work well, even as Dark Ages historical battles. We've played Arthur versus the Saxons at Mount Badon at least a dozen times, at cons such as Cold wars or Historicon, with no genuinely supernatural magic (Merlin does get a trick or two). We had six players; each of three Saxon players had ten units (eight warrior bands, huscarls, and a few skirmishers) while the Romano-British had two players' infantry (inferior to the Saxons') defending separated fortifications while Arthur rode onto the table with a panzer korps (heavy cavalry). Games were wild and wooley and fast.

The Saex are our fantasy Saxons, who can pray to Odin and Thor. Their main enemies are Logres, who worship The Risen Son to whom they pray. Both cultures are in the same world as Wyldewood and Moonglade, and if someone wants to battle the Saxons against the goblins that is available.

Most extensively described are the cultures of the leonines: Sun Pride on the veldt, Dark Pride in the great forest, Blood Pride berserkers, and Moon Pride spooks, plus Black Pride, a hybrid culture of Zulu type humans plus leonines.

There will hopefully be, in a year or two, a supplement with campaign rules and the cultures of many more armies.

But again, the rules are very flexible, and there is absolutely no need to play in MY world, if you'd rather have your own -- or just do one-off battles between any fantasy forces.

Many of our armies are Splintered Light because my son owns the company. But we have lots of old Ral Parthas and other manufacturers, including Demonworld."

In reply to my question about the army lists, John McBride wrote:

Let's see:

In the rules book are:

four generic armies: civilized drilled infantry, barbarian host, pikes and heavy cavalry, and cavalry.

More detailed, with magic (or prayer), are:

Druid's Wyldewood; Dwarves of Mountain Home; goblins of Moonglade; horse nomads; the Godfeaers of Logres (our fantasy Arthurian or late-Roman); and the Saex (fantasy Saxons who pray to Odin and Thor.

The leonine Prides are most fully developed with extensive cultural write-ups. They are three major armies (Sun Pride veldt dwellers, Dark pride forest dwellers, and Black Pride hybrid culture of Zulus and renegade leonines) plus the Bllod Pride berserkers and Moon Pride spooks.

The write-ups for necromancers and undead are extensive, but there's too many variables to have a single list.

The Yahoo group's posted files include more (or will very soon) including varieties of goblins and such -- bugbears, ogres, etc. -- as well as Dark Dwarves (the Khamsin Wind, fire-worshipping mutants), the beastmen of the sea of Grass, and varieties of the Vasty Vault undead. Also Entropy/the Eaters of the Dead, the hyena men and other scavengers often allied with the Lord of the Vasty Vault.

We'll be doing army lists very soon for the Druid's Children talking animals, as those are proving extremely popular for David's Splintered Light.
 

[mweaver]

At the 2008 Nashcon I had a chance to play in a game the McBrides were running.  Don't know how much the rules may have changed since the work-in-progress John was using then, but I liked the rules and had a great time playing. 

[rob_alderman]

Hmmm.

I'd prefer if it was generic.
Difficult though, I am sure.

[phreedh]

As the minis I'm interested in using for mass battle gaming are exclusively from Splintered Lights or fit "racially" with the setting, it's no problem for me that it's not generic. Thanks for posting the heads up Onebigriver, didn't know this was out. Purchased and downloaded, now to find the time to a. Read the rules and b. temporarily base the minis for a test run. =)

[docmcbride]

Hi, John McBride here.  PRIDE OF LIONS is as generic as you'd like it to be. There are extensive cultural write-ups for the leonines in the book, and for more cultures at the Yahoo group, and those do indeed tend to be for Splintered Light ranges.

But there's also generic armies, and the rules are very flexible, very easy to design your own army lists.

Magic, for example, has specific spells for each culture. But there are several dozen generic spells (for shamans, the most common sort of magic-user) with a set degree of difficulty and game effect. For example, a spell that requires an enemy unit t test morale has a difficulty of 4, iirc.  It might be called "Murmuring Trees" for a druid and "Wolf's Howl" for a goblin shaman of Wolf Clan, but in game terms they are identical.

There's also prayer, to pagan pantheons like the Olympians or Odin and his bunch, or to demons, or to the God of ethical monotheism. Dwarves have rune-based tools that are magic -- less powerful but more reliable. And so forth.

For those who want to play in my world, there's enough background to get started and more at Yahoo. But it's a very flexible set of rules for anyone who prefers top create their own world and wars.