Lord and Lands mass battle rules

[Ironduke73]

Hi all hope this is ok to put here, just letting you know about my new rules are about to be published by Caliver books, fast paced and fluid enough to ruin all your battle plans!!. It's not scale or manufacturer specific but I designed it using 6mm minis and the fantasy ranges available from Microworld. The historic version will go to the publisher in the next few days and is completely interchangeable with the fantasy version, so if you want to see if Rome could deal with a lizard man invasion go right ahead! Your intro here



Thanks guys

[Ironduke73]

Batrep on Lord and lands FB group now, feel free to check it out

[Argonor]

30 pages of background, really?

No, offense, but I buy rules to play games in any setting I see fit, not to learn about yet another fantasy background. I would much prefer buying a book half the size, and thus at a lower price, than have to pay for someone's vision on a specific fantasy world.

[Ironduke73]

The background is due to the fact that only a few of the 14 races are known, races such as the firmament or the wildland alliance have had no background to date, if you'd like to drop the background I could create a shorter PDF if that helps. The background hasn't added much on the publication price because publisher work out their costs in batches, so say a 25 page book cost X amount the next price bracket jumps up to 70 pages. So if you have a book with 30 pages it would cost the same as a book with 63 pages.

Hope this helps

[robh]

I think a short cheap PDF would be a good option. If gamers like the rules they may buy into your world and the fluff, but without the ability to experience the game on the table why would they?

[Vermis]

I'm a bit burned on giant books filled with extraneous... stuff. (God of Battles, BGK, WotR, etc. etc.) but from what I see and read here I don't think this is quite the same (a good thing) or will break the bank, especially if the extra content isn't pushing the price bracket up.

My concern is that there are a fair few small-mini mass-battle games out there, including some other new(ish) ones with good words spoken about them. Any features and quirks that make Lords and Lands stand out, Craig? I don't know how well the LaL rules and background are shown off on the FB group. I don't know because you might as well tell me the LaL rules and background are being shown off on Mars. I see you've got demo vids on your youtube channel, in which case a link would be handy.

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCqyZXkeQE_KEDP109Wu_4PA

I'll have to take a look at those soon.

[Polkovnik]

I would try not to have facebook as the only or main community and source of information for your rules. I recommend you set up a website and forum, both of which you can do for free. On the website, provide some information as to how the game plays - what are the main mechanics (command and control, movement, shooting, etc) ? What (if anything) is unique or interesting about the rules ? Is it based around unit / element or individual figures ? How many figures / units do you need ? How long does it take ?
Get some playtesters to write reviews and battle reports and make these available on the website or forum.

[Tactalvanic]

I would try not to have facebook as the only or main community and source of information for your rules. I recommend you set up a website and forum, both of which you can do for free. On the website, provide some information as to how the game plays - what are the main mechanics (command and control, movement, shooting, etc) ? What (if anything) is unique or interesting about the rules ? Is it based around unit / element or individual figures ? How many figures / units do you need ? How long does it take ?
Get some playtesters to write reviews and battle reports and make these available on the website or forum.

+1 to that - Polkovnik nailed the main issue for probably many of us - no interest in facebook, and by wanting to concentrate your effor there you may be cutting out a lot of possible interest from others.

Get your own primary website - its a big deal to gamers - your hoped for player community.

Secondary is social media/twitting etc, and they should not be neglected in anyway.

That extra bit of effort could really be worth it.

Will certainly take a look at the youtube stuff Vermis (thankyou) has linked for you - and good luck  with it all

[Ironduke73]

All great ideas, website is accessible but still under construction, army lists are there on the LAL page. Forum plugin will be activated soon.

www.craigarmstrongonline.org

YouTube channel for game play.



PDF version will be available and pretty cheap so you choose to read the fluff or ignore it

What sets this rule system apart is the speed and simplicity, lots of time and effort has gone into covering up the meta game with simple rules, allowing the game to develop in a realistic way without complicating the written rule is extremely tricky. A beginner can pick up these rules and be independently playing by the end of the first game, however the challenges within the games command and control management bend to fit any gamers experience and tactical play. There is also the option of using the DSC which is basically the dip system, a bag with two colours of counters, if a unit effectiveness is 5 you dip for five counters, one colour equals a hit the other a miss, in effect it's the 4,5 or 6 success rule on a d6 but faster. Dice or dips its up to you.

The rules are any scale, but minis are based in units, so if you wanna use 20x 28mm minis on a sabot base, or a 40x20mm unit base for 2,6,10,12,15mm it's completely up to you, so long as your unit base frontage matches your opponent your in business.

There is kind of I go ugo going on but only 1 unit per side so no one sits on their backside play alternates from 1 player to the next.

The historical army lists are there with period denoted above, but if you wanna have some fun you can ignore the period and still not break the game, you can even battle a historical army with a fantasy one, who wouldn't wanna see Rome tackle the orcs every now and then.

Lastly LAL uses command pips, you get to roll 1d6 for the general and 1d6 for each 500 pts you spend on the army, don't loose your general or you loose the d6! Pips can be spent to boost combat, shooting or movement. To rally and order troops or to jump the turn sequence.

Hope that helps guys

[Vermis]

What sets this rule system apart is the speed and simplicity, lots of time and effort has gone into covering up the meta game with simple rules, allowing the game to develop in a realistic way without complicating the written rule is extremely tricky. A beginner can pick up these rules and be independently playing by the end of the first game, however the challenges within the games command and control management bend to fit any gamers experience and tactical play.

The rules are any scale, but minis are based in units, so if you wanna use 20x 28mm minis on a sabot base, or a 40x20mm unit base for 2,6,10,12,15mm it's completely up to you, so long as your unit base frontage matches your opponent your in business.

Lastly LAL uses command pips, you get to roll 1d6 for the general and 1d6 for each 500 pts you spend on the army, don't loose your general or you loose the d6! Pips can be spent to boost combat, shooting or movement. To rally and order troops or to jump the turn sequence.

Nice!

There is also the option of using the DSC which is basically the dip system, a bag with two colours of counters, if a unit effectiveness is 5 you dip for five counters, one colour equals a hit the other a miss, in effect it's the 4,5 or 6 success rule on a d6 but faster. Dice or dips its up to you.

Interesting...

There is kind of I go ugo going on but only 1 unit per side so no one sits on their backside play alternates from 1 player to the next.

This is one of those things I was never certain about. From what I gather, IGOUGO is one full army acting, then the other; while what you describe is 'alternate activation'. Or more accurately, unit activation.

Aaanyways. I like the latter more. Sounds good.

[Ironduke73]

In a nutshell, yeah unit activation, or you can activate a group if grouped together (max 4 units grouped)

[Vermis]

Watched the first couple of gameplay vids. 'Bidding' for initiative sounds like an interesting way to use points.

Is there any indication when Caliver will release the book? When I search the site the top result is 'Landscape and Settlement in Britain', which doesn't sound like the same thing.

[Ironduke73]

LAL now available from Caliver books, here's the link

http://www.caliverbooks.com/bookview.php?884151fa6dd1845b1378b63894198afb&id=24218&subcatcode=J&subcatno=76

[Vermis]

Got it.

I've also watched the rest of the videos so far. To be honest I'm not so sure about the hints of true-line-of-sight in the last one, though I think it might be more of a problem for 'dynamic' 28-32mm than 6mm. How well does that work in practise?

And sorry for asking this so soon after release, and after my last question, but is there any clue when the historical rules will br released?  I saw a guy ask about 6mm ancients rules on another forum and pointed him at your FB page, but I dunno if he got there or not.

[Ironduke73]

Historic rules should be at the printers in the next couple of weeks, so hopefully beginning of next month.

Line of sight is pretty quick to resolve, basic infantry units must be able to draw a line from the centre of the unit to any 2 corners on the target. Monsters and elevated units must be able to draw los from the centre of the base to the target unit (true los) seems to work well in practice never had any issues with new players they grasp it very quickly. Obviously units in combat are invalid as targets but supporting units can be targeted if the rules above apply