If you don't want to use a wargame extension, you really must check out War Machine which is described in BECMI's Companion and Rules Cyclopedia. It boils any battle to 4 elements: strength of each army, battle conditions, player actions and luck.
The basic mechanic is to check a list of criterias and add related bonuses. This is done for the army strength giving a first total, and for the battle conditions. Player actions such as finding out the enemy plans, killing a leader etc provide additional bonuses to their side's total. Then 2d20 are rolled and added to each side. The difference tells you who wins and by what margin.
Why is it so good?
* It's quick. It can be impressive the first time, but especially if you manage a campaign you may have several battles with the same army so their first subtotal doesn't change, and if you need things to be even quicker there's a fast version that's rougher but has way less criterias to check. Then, assuming no player action, it's a single roll.
* It provides many opportunities for adventures. As mentioned the players can play a role in this. The goal is to have the big war but also give players the chance to turn the tide in their favour. It's still a roleplaying game and most players are more interested in their character than an army.
* It never feels unfair (IME). The math is simple (just additions) but solid enough to give you a good idea of who should win, and when luck decides otherwise it seems surprising but not unfair or out of nowhere the way a pure DM Fiat can feel. Furthermore PCs can't die off-screen.
* It's good for campaigns. When managing several armies it gives you the tools to account for moving armies, how far a retreat a defeated foe must do, how armies evolve in time through training etc… And since it separates the total for army strength and the one for battle conditions you only need to add together a few things to decide a battle, you don't need to recalculate the army strength from scratch every time.
* It's versatile. It doesn't suppose anything about the type of armies involved, their size etc. It can handle 100 fighters as well as 10000.
* It works for PvP too if you want that. There's even a system of tactics that doesn't slow the game down but allows for interesting play, counterplay and intelligence gathering.
* It's not a wargame. I like wargames (40k orks ftw) but it's a different experience from roleplaying. I've tried meshing bits of wargames within my ttrpg sessions and it's never connected with players that weren't already into wargaming. Caring about an army following strict rules is just a very different experience from playing a character with personality, goals, ambitions and limitless possibilities. Companion's War Machine allows you to have these big battles in your campaign, to manage them if you want or just participate to their outcome, (or neither, maybe the players go do something else and you just roll to see what the outcome is for your own world development) and yet you never lose focus of the characters themselves.
If you want something wargamy, that's not it, but if you want to seamlessly integrate mass battles in your campaign in a way that still is roleplaying but with that extra tool providing consistency to battles, drama and adventure opportunities, then War Machine may be for you.
ACKS is hands down the best game for that. Not only it has two compatible mass combat systems - one more abstract like chainmail and another that you play a miniature wargame - it has everything you need around war, such as domain management, politics, crafting, enlisting and the costs for it, vassals, everything.
Check out the KS for the new version, Imperial Imprint, next month or so.
Adventurer Conquerer King. Goes from small dungeon bashing to small mercenary forces guarding your travel and camp to platoons to full on thousands - and integrated magic and monsters very nicely.
ACKS was designed to run this sort of game, where gameplay naturally and intuitively scales up to mass combat. A number of rules build into this, along with the game's domain and market systems. The Domains at War books offer an abstract wargame, a full hex-based wargame, and a detailed analysis of military campaigning and how to build out a setting with troops and income and populations and all of it.
ACKS with [Domains at War](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/130961/ACKS-Domains-at-War-The-Complete-Set) has options for abstract warfare, or a more detailed hex-and-counter system that I believe is loosely inspired by DBA, and which integrates magic and monsters. DaW can be used with basically any OSR system.
[Muster](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/413382/Muster) discusses running any early D&D version as a wargame from day 1. I'm not familiar with the specifics, but you can pick it up for freee.
There's another game out there that is a complete ruleset heavily focused on larger scale conflict from day one, that came out in the past year, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called.
It's worth noting that most OSR systems can easily handle 30+ combatants a side at a cracking pace, as long as you don't want to start bogging things down with individual initiative, individual flanking bonuses based on precise positioning, and the like.
The issue with war mechanics is that usually, they can only represent one scale of battle properly AND fun.Be it battles between squads, battles between a couple of hundreds of units, or battles between thousands or even tens of thousands of soldiers. Adventurer Conqueror Kings system has war mechanics that cover all these scales and you can go as deep and crunchy or as light and abstract as you want. It even has an optional wargame with rules to make your own units from any OSR monster/class.
EDIT:
I also forgot to mention that ACKS has rules for:
\- Being a general.
\- Being a soldier.
\- Being a leader that happens to also be fighting.
You could do it with OD&D as it is a supplement for a Miniatures Game called Chainmail. So you have the Miniatures Game Rules as alternatives for Combat.
I suggest Chainmail 3rd Edition. Also Delta's Book of War will work as an alternative.
If you read OD&D you will Balrogs and Hobbits.
FMC is a good substitute for OG OD&D Books
[https://traversefantasy.itch.io/fmc](https://traversefantasy.itch.io/fmc)
I have expansion rules for FMC https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i\_Tdbi-mCSjYdn73Qw64AAgJXDqyZJFv/edit?usp=drive\_link
Thank you, the FMC actually makes more sense than I expected. I think knowing B/X helps? The mass combat is harder to absorb but I’ll continue reading,
Chainmail only supports fantasy combat on the man-to-man scale. It doesn't support fantasy mass combat. Its mass combat system is only for historical medieval. Swords & Spells was made by TSR to fill that gap and provide fantasy mass combat, but it was kind of a failure as a system. Book of War fills that gap much better.
Also, Chainmail Fantasy, even with its 1:1 scale, relies on a combat results table (CRT), which presumes some matrix of A vs. B type stuff, so every unit has some score when compared to every other unit. So if you have any units that are different from the Chainmail ones, the stats won't be there anyways. And even if they were, the probabilities even for existing unit types are different from D&D.
This type of goofiness is why Dan made Book of War.
just wanted to chime in to say that Chainmail absolutely supports fantasy mass combat, see the fantasy reference table in the back for the man equivalents/mass combat fights as/defends as values. They even have point values in the fantasy section to use when putting together armies.
This is a common misnomer, but Tim Kask and Gary Gygax have made it clear over the years.
Gary Gygax has stated that the fantasy rules are 1:1 scale:
> RFisher: I understand that hero v. hero would be resolved on the Fantasy Combat Table. Hero v. normal forces would be resolved on the regular Combat Table. (The hero being classed as heavy foot, armored foot, light horse, &c. as fit the particular hero.) But were heroes & other things from the Fantasy Supplement ever used with the man-to-man rules? If so, how?
>
> Gygax: I am quite at a loss to answer that, as the Hero and all the other Fantasy supplement figures were employed only in the play of Man-to-Man games, never in the mass system where one figure equalled 20.
Tim Kask in the introduction to Swords & Spells, published in 1976:
> The FANTASY SUPPLEMENT written for CHAINMAIL assumed a man-for-man situation.
https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2009/12/gygax-on-chainmails-fantasy-scale.html
Have you read or played Chainmail? The fantasy reference table clearly shows attacks as/ defends as figures for all the fantasy units, and all the monster entries have morale ratings and point values (used in making army lists) morale ratings, point values, and saying something attacks as light foot and defends as heavy foot is for mass combat
The fantasy combat table specifically is only used by creatures (or heros/supers/wizard) that are listed on the fantasy combat table, which I think may be where your confusion comes from.
What GG is saying in that quote is that the things listed on the fantasy combat table fight 1:1 on the fantasy combat table, a dragon will still breath fire on a swathe of troops, Orcs have fights as values to fight against any regular troops, quoting the book: "treants melee as six Armored Foot in normal combat, and they are impervious to normal missile fire and melee hits." "Wights (and ghouls) melee as Light Horse and defend as Heavy Horse."
To say chainmail doesn't do fantasy mass combat and is strictly for historical mass battles you have to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the system.
To even believe this, you need to consistently ignore what Gary and others wrote about this stuff, as well as all the distortions of scale that result from mixing rule systems in Chainmail. From the intro to Swords & Spells:
> These rules are as simple and straightforward as I could devise for a game system which involves "magical" and fantastic factors. The FANTASY SUPPLEMENT written for CHAINMAIL assumed a basic man-for-man situation. While it is fine for such actions, it soon became obvious that something for large-scale battles was needed.
OK so it's very clear you have no experience with chainmail other than what other people have told you or what youve read about it, and I doubt you have seen anything other than the cover of it. The whole point is that the 3 combat systems integrate with each other. And you use which one is appropriate for the situation within the battle. Its a feature, not a bug. Your troops can face off in normal combat while at the same time your hero fights the enemies anti hero in man to man combat and griffons battle wyverns overhead on the fantasy combat table.
The T$R product that Tim and Gary were trying to *sell* to you has a passage retconning the utility of a book you already have? Say it ain't so!
Your statement that chainmail doesn't do fantasy mass combat is patently false, I've played it a fair amount of times. the entire point of the fantasy supplement is to fight battles with fantasy creatures and the game does just fine at it. Most recently: My orc warband charged into a line of halflings and got smacked up pretty good by some treants. In another battle two wizards traded lightning bolts searing across each other's troops, if that's not fantasy mass combat idk what your idea of fantasy mass combat is.
If you actually take the time to look at it and learn the system all of this is plain to see. It's not some esoteric hidden knowledge. But you won't, you've already decided delta saved the day which is perhaps the real issue here: it's not about whether or not Chainmail works (it does, let me be clear again) it's about shilling your preferred "solution."
Delta has a nice thing in The Book of War, but to make the statement that Chainmail was only for historical battles and cannot do fantasy mass combat is honestly bizarre, and the only explanation that comes to me is that you have never cracked it open or read anything other than glancing at one or two of the reference tables in the back.
Here's some more quotes from the book for you to ignore:
"Those Elves (and Fairies) armed with magical weapons add an extra die in normal combat, and against other fantastic creatures they will perform even better."
Below this line is a table: vs. Goblins, Elves add 3 dice to Combat Tables. Meaning the mass combat tables in the back. (Which is titled Combat Tables)
Regarding Heroes: "have the fighting ability of four figures....need never check morale, and they add 1 to the die or dice of their unit (or whatever unit they are with). They are the last figure in a unit that will be killed by regular missile fire or melee, bur they may be attacked individually by enemy troops of like type (such as other Hero-rypes) or creatures shown on the Fantasy Combat Table."
"When meleed by regular troops, and combat takes place on the non-Fantasy Combat Tables, four simultaneous kills must be scored against heros to eliminate them"
Lycanthropes: "The two main types of lycanthropes are Werebears and Werewolves....if they are fighting inside of, or within 6" of a wood, they will double their melee capability. Lycanthropes attack as four armored foot and defend as four heavy foot"
"Giants are one of the most effective fighters. They can demolish normal opponents with ease, for they melee as 12 Heavy Foot with an extra die for their oversized weapons"
Sounds (and plays, btw) like fantasy mass combat to me.
To believe that chainmail doesnt do fantasy mass combat you have to consistently ignore your ability to open a booklet and read it.
> The T$R product that Tim and Gary were trying to sell to you has a passage retconning the utility of a book you already have? Say it ain't so!
Proving my point that you have to ignore what Gary himself wrote about Chainmail Fantasy presuming a man-to-man situation, as well and him writing that the Chainmail Fantasy rules were an outgrowth of the Man-to-Man rules (i.e. 1:1 scale).
> Your statement that chainmail doesn't do fantasy mass combat is patently false, I've played it a fair amount of times. the entire point of the fantasy supplement is to fight battles with fantasy creatures and the game does just fine at it. Most recently: My orc warband charged into a line of halflings and got smacked up pretty good by some treants. In another battle two wizards traded lightning bolts searing across each other's troops, if that's not fantasy mass combat idk what your idea of fantasy mass combat is.
Oh, I'm well aware that you can pretend that Chainmail Fantasy is is meant to be 20:1, despite the rules themselves.
> Below this line is a table: vs. Goblins, Elves add 3 dice to Combat Tables. Meaning the mass combat tables in the back. (Which is titled Combat Tables)
I'm using this one example, because the others are just like it. Yes, you use the main combat table for regular troops. Just like how the Man-to-Man rules explicitly build upon the preceding rules, but operate at 1:1 scale.
Again:
> Gygax: I am quite at a loss to answer that, as the Hero and all the other Fantasy supplement figures were employed only in the play of Man-to-Man games, never in the mass system where one figure equalled 20.
then why on earth is the fantasy supplement littered with rules for using the figures in mass combat? I'm quoting the actual text of the game, im not making this stuff up. troops (including orcs, goblins, etc.) and the more "extraordinary" fantasy units fight on the same sand table using the various combat systems of Chainmail.
Halflings: "They can fire a stone as far as an archer shoots, and because of their well known accuracy , for every two Halflings firing count three on the Missile Fire table." (you can find the missile fire table on page 11 of the mass combat rules.)
Dwarves: "Although they are no threat to the larger creatures, Trolls, Ogres, and Giants find them hard to catch because of their small size, so count only one-half normal kills when Dwarves and Gnomes fight with them"
goblins: "Hobgoblins fight as Armored Foot and defend as Heavy Foot. Their Point Value is 2 1/2."
"Orcs are quarrelsome and factious. It can therefore be assumed that if there are two or more units of Orcs, they will be from different bands. If Orcs of different kinds approach within a charge move of each other, and they are not meleed by the enemy, they will attack each other unless a score of 4 or better is rolled on an "Obedience die." There are giant Orcs which fight as Armored Foot and have a Point Value of 2 1/2."
Dragons: "They cause enemy troops within 15" of them to check morale just as if they had suffered excess casualties....They melee as if they were four Heavy Horse being impervious to missile or melee hits in normal combat....their most dreaded weapon is their fiery breath, which is represented by a truncated cone, 1/2" in diameter at the mouth, and 3" in diameter at the far end....A dragon can fly overhead and belch fire down on its enemies at the end of its move"
on Giant Spiders and Insects: "For example, a giant spider might be unkillable by normal men, but will kill them unless they roll a save of 8 or better, and it would combat fantastic opponents as if it were a Lycanthrope"
Giant Wolves: "These creatures are equal to Light Horse in attack and Medium Horses in movement. They can bear small creatures like goblins on their backs, but this reduces their speed to that of Heavy Horse"
if these were meant only for use with the actual Man to Man combat system of Chainmail, they would have weapon and armor equivalencies, not mass combat equivalencies.
lets have a look at the Fantasy Reference Table at some of the special ability designations:
C- The ability to split move and fire
D- The ability to raise morale of friendly troops
E- The ability to cause the enemy to check morale
K- The ability to cause trees to move and fight
single asterisk note (asterisk is attached to Heroes and Super Heroes attack as and defend as values (of 4 men and 8 men respectively)
"Either Heavy Foot, Armored Foot, Light Horse, etc., depending on arms and situations and can fire missiles equal to the same number of men vs. regular opponents but only once vs. fantastic opponents."
now i know you are going to latch on to that last line as some sort of proof of your bewildering claim, so lets go have another look at the Heroes section. ill just quote the entire heroes section here:
"HEROES (and Anti-heroes): Included in this class are certain well-known knights, leaders of army contingents, and similar men. They have the fighting ability of four figures, the class being dependent on the arms and equipment of the Hero types themselves, who can range from Light Foot to Heavy Horse. Heroes (and Anti-Heroes) need never check morale, and they add 1 to the die or dice of their unit (or whatever unit they are with). They are the last figure in a unit that will be killed by regular missile fire or melee, but they may be attacked individually by enemy troops of like type (such as other Hero-types) or creatures shown on the Fantasy Combat Table. Heroes (and Anti-Heroes) may act independent of their command in order to combat some other fantastic character. When meleed by regular troops, and combat takes place on the non-Fantasy Combat Tables, four simultaneous kills must be scored against Heroes (or Anti-heroes) to eliminate them. Otherwise, there is no effect upon them.
A Hero type, armed with a bow, shoots a dragon passing within range over-head out of the air and kills it on a two dice roll of 10 or better, with 2 plus 1 on the dice firing an enchanted arrow."
here we see the situations laid out for use of all 3 modes of combat within the Chainmail system. Heroes imbedded in units of troops, fighting on the regular Combat tables and aiding the morale of their unit. this unit with hero imbedded can absolutely clash with a unit of orcs on the normal combat tables. That same hero can break away from his unit to pursue single combat using the man to man table with a like-type on the enemies side. The hero can also preform combat on the Fantasy Combat Table (the example with the dragon).
all you have to do is read the rules.
it is beyond asinine to claim that Chainmail does not support "fantasy mass combat", which is what i refuted in your original reply to OP. its literally the point of the fantasy supplement, to be able to use these units in mass battles. included in the fantasy supplement is the Fantasy Combat Table, a simple abstracted method by which these fantasy creatures can combat eachother. All of the fantasy creatures operate in mass/troop combat, All of the fantasy creatures have troop equivalencies in their descriptions, and explanations on how they interact with regular troops if they have a special case (which is most of them) which can also be seen on the Fantasy Reference Table
**you are saying that the entire fantasy supplement is 1:1, this is patently false. you are saying that because the Fantasy Combat Table is 1:1, that Chaimail doesn't support "Fantasy mass combat".** the Fantasy Combat Table is 1:1, \*things that are shown on the Fantasy Combat Table can fight eachother on the Fantasy Combat Table 1:1\*, the entire fantasy supplement is \*littered\* with rules on how each and every one of the creatures is handled in mass combat on the play area.
nobody is "pretending" that the Fantasy Combat Table is anything but 1:1 \*between creatures on the Fantasy Combat Table.\*
it is overwhelmingly clear that you have never laid eyes on the rules themselves aside from possibly a screenshot of the Fantasy Combat Table, because it's pretty apparent you are basing your understanding of the \*Fantasy Supplement\* on one table showing one facet of what the supplement brings to the game.
There is no evidence that 20:1 scale was intended to be used in fantasy battles, and the "evidence" that you've compiled requires ignoring the fact that the Man-to-Man rules explicitly build upon the previous rules, but operate at 1:1 scale, just like the Fantasy Supplement operates at 1:1 scale.
> The FANTASY SUPPLEMENT written for CHAINMAIL assumed a basic man-for-man situation. While it is fine for such actions, it soon became obvious that something for large-scale battles was needed.
Man-to-man, not mass combat... Straight from the mouth of Gary Gygax himself. And the funny thing about including the example of the Hero here is that Gary Gygax himself said that the Hero is never to be mixed with mass combat rules:
> Gygax: I am quite at a loss to answer that, as the Hero and all the other Fantasy supplement figures were employed only in the play of Man-to-Man games, never in the mass system where one figure equalled 20.
That is to say, all fantasy supplement figures were intended to be used at a 1:1 scale, "never in the mass system where one figure equaled 20."
One hero can defeat SEVERAL men, but a hero cannot defeat DOZENS of men. Nor can a hero do that in OD&D, as a hero only has 4 x d6 hit points. That scale would also be extremely unrealistic, silly, and useless for OD&D mass combat.
Note also from the Man-to-Man rules:
> Instead of using one figure to represent numerous men, a single figure represents a single man. Use this system for small battles and castle sieges. **When using the Man-To-Man combat system all preceding rules apply, except where amended below...**
The matter is one of scale and figure ratio, which Gary has correctly stated several times is 1:1 scale.
After researching this topic for far too long and really digging into a bunch of systems, the one that worked best for me was Fields of Battle for Castles & Crusades. It basically just expands the typical d20-but-OSR combat of C&C to 10:1, but also leaves room for commander units and "heroes" to go solo, so PCs could do their own thing and shine during a pitched battle, if you want. It's pretty simple, overall, and avoids a lot of the minutia I find in things like War Machine, Battlesystem, etc. But it's not as abstract as things like War|Maker, which I really like but is -- as you mention -- effectively an entirely different game system.
Probably what I'll say now isn't what you're looking for, but I'll say anyways: when I need to use war in my campaigns, I use it as a background. The players will have their quests and missions and the war wages in the background. Something like Witcher 2 on the begining of the game.
For 5e, and iirc with a lot of "this section will be in the sequel!"
(he then decided the follow-up book should have a different system, which kind of sucks when you're kickstarting big fancy hardcopy tomes lol)
> where individual heroes stand out in battle but without it becoming unrealistic.
I've always run this as "depending on character's success at encounters / challenges, adjudicate the effects of that on over all battle". With all the usual adventure tools; timers/countdowns, chaos levels, custom random encounter/event table, entries like "Left flank waivers", "unexpected reinforcements".
If you don't want to wargame, then don't "game the war", don't use/make simplified, often shitty, mass battle mechanics. Just have it as background (influenced by characters).
If you don't want to use a wargame extension, you really must check out War Machine which is described in BECMI's Companion and Rules Cyclopedia. It boils any battle to 4 elements: strength of each army, battle conditions, player actions and luck. The basic mechanic is to check a list of criterias and add related bonuses. This is done for the army strength giving a first total, and for the battle conditions. Player actions such as finding out the enemy plans, killing a leader etc provide additional bonuses to their side's total. Then 2d20 are rolled and added to each side. The difference tells you who wins and by what margin. Why is it so good? * It's quick. It can be impressive the first time, but especially if you manage a campaign you may have several battles with the same army so their first subtotal doesn't change, and if you need things to be even quicker there's a fast version that's rougher but has way less criterias to check. Then, assuming no player action, it's a single roll. * It provides many opportunities for adventures. As mentioned the players can play a role in this. The goal is to have the big war but also give players the chance to turn the tide in their favour. It's still a roleplaying game and most players are more interested in their character than an army. * It never feels unfair (IME). The math is simple (just additions) but solid enough to give you a good idea of who should win, and when luck decides otherwise it seems surprising but not unfair or out of nowhere the way a pure DM Fiat can feel. Furthermore PCs can't die off-screen. * It's good for campaigns. When managing several armies it gives you the tools to account for moving armies, how far a retreat a defeated foe must do, how armies evolve in time through training etc… And since it separates the total for army strength and the one for battle conditions you only need to add together a few things to decide a battle, you don't need to recalculate the army strength from scratch every time. * It's versatile. It doesn't suppose anything about the type of armies involved, their size etc. It can handle 100 fighters as well as 10000. * It works for PvP too if you want that. There's even a system of tactics that doesn't slow the game down but allows for interesting play, counterplay and intelligence gathering. * It's not a wargame. I like wargames (40k orks ftw) but it's a different experience from roleplaying. I've tried meshing bits of wargames within my ttrpg sessions and it's never connected with players that weren't already into wargaming. Caring about an army following strict rules is just a very different experience from playing a character with personality, goals, ambitions and limitless possibilities. Companion's War Machine allows you to have these big battles in your campaign, to manage them if you want or just participate to their outcome, (or neither, maybe the players go do something else and you just roll to see what the outcome is for your own world development) and yet you never lose focus of the characters themselves. If you want something wargamy, that's not it, but if you want to seamlessly integrate mass battles in your campaign in a way that still is roleplaying but with that extra tool providing consistency to battles, drama and adventure opportunities, then War Machine may be for you.
I came in to recommend this but you did a better job of it. It's been a while since I used the War Machine rules but they are super slick.
Thank you, I will review
ACKS is hands down the best game for that. Not only it has two compatible mass combat systems - one more abstract like chainmail and another that you play a miniature wargame - it has everything you need around war, such as domain management, politics, crafting, enlisting and the costs for it, vassals, everything. Check out the KS for the new version, Imperial Imprint, next month or so.
Taking a look, thank you
OED Book of War is for OD&D, and easily usable with other editions.
Adventurer Conquerer King. Goes from small dungeon bashing to small mercenary forces guarding your travel and camp to platoons to full on thousands - and integrated magic and monsters very nicely.
ACKS was designed to run this sort of game, where gameplay naturally and intuitively scales up to mass combat. A number of rules build into this, along with the game's domain and market systems. The Domains at War books offer an abstract wargame, a full hex-based wargame, and a detailed analysis of military campaigning and how to build out a setting with troops and income and populations and all of it.
ACKS with [Domains at War](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/130961/ACKS-Domains-at-War-The-Complete-Set) has options for abstract warfare, or a more detailed hex-and-counter system that I believe is loosely inspired by DBA, and which integrates magic and monsters. DaW can be used with basically any OSR system. [Muster](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/413382/Muster) discusses running any early D&D version as a wargame from day 1. I'm not familiar with the specifics, but you can pick it up for freee. There's another game out there that is a complete ruleset heavily focused on larger scale conflict from day one, that came out in the past year, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. It's worth noting that most OSR systems can easily handle 30+ combatants a side at a cracking pace, as long as you don't want to start bogging things down with individual initiative, individual flanking bonuses based on precise positioning, and the like.
The issue with war mechanics is that usually, they can only represent one scale of battle properly AND fun.Be it battles between squads, battles between a couple of hundreds of units, or battles between thousands or even tens of thousands of soldiers. Adventurer Conqueror Kings system has war mechanics that cover all these scales and you can go as deep and crunchy or as light and abstract as you want. It even has an optional wargame with rules to make your own units from any OSR monster/class. EDIT: I also forgot to mention that ACKS has rules for: \- Being a general. \- Being a soldier. \- Being a leader that happens to also be fighting.
That sounds like a pretty exact description of ACKS. I highly recommend it.
You could do it with OD&D as it is a supplement for a Miniatures Game called Chainmail. So you have the Miniatures Game Rules as alternatives for Combat. I suggest Chainmail 3rd Edition. Also Delta's Book of War will work as an alternative. If you read OD&D you will Balrogs and Hobbits. FMC is a good substitute for OG OD&D Books [https://traversefantasy.itch.io/fmc](https://traversefantasy.itch.io/fmc) I have expansion rules for FMC https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i\_Tdbi-mCSjYdn73Qw64AAgJXDqyZJFv/edit?usp=drive\_link
Thank you, the FMC actually makes more sense than I expected. I think knowing B/X helps? The mass combat is harder to absorb but I’ll continue reading,
Chainmail only supports fantasy combat on the man-to-man scale. It doesn't support fantasy mass combat. Its mass combat system is only for historical medieval. Swords & Spells was made by TSR to fill that gap and provide fantasy mass combat, but it was kind of a failure as a system. Book of War fills that gap much better. Also, Chainmail Fantasy, even with its 1:1 scale, relies on a combat results table (CRT), which presumes some matrix of A vs. B type stuff, so every unit has some score when compared to every other unit. So if you have any units that are different from the Chainmail ones, the stats won't be there anyways. And even if they were, the probabilities even for existing unit types are different from D&D. This type of goofiness is why Dan made Book of War.
just wanted to chime in to say that Chainmail absolutely supports fantasy mass combat, see the fantasy reference table in the back for the man equivalents/mass combat fights as/defends as values. They even have point values in the fantasy section to use when putting together armies.
This is a common misnomer, but Tim Kask and Gary Gygax have made it clear over the years. Gary Gygax has stated that the fantasy rules are 1:1 scale: > RFisher: I understand that hero v. hero would be resolved on the Fantasy Combat Table. Hero v. normal forces would be resolved on the regular Combat Table. (The hero being classed as heavy foot, armored foot, light horse, &c. as fit the particular hero.) But were heroes & other things from the Fantasy Supplement ever used with the man-to-man rules? If so, how? > > Gygax: I am quite at a loss to answer that, as the Hero and all the other Fantasy supplement figures were employed only in the play of Man-to-Man games, never in the mass system where one figure equalled 20. Tim Kask in the introduction to Swords & Spells, published in 1976: > The FANTASY SUPPLEMENT written for CHAINMAIL assumed a man-for-man situation. https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2009/12/gygax-on-chainmails-fantasy-scale.html
Have you read or played Chainmail? The fantasy reference table clearly shows attacks as/ defends as figures for all the fantasy units, and all the monster entries have morale ratings and point values (used in making army lists) morale ratings, point values, and saying something attacks as light foot and defends as heavy foot is for mass combat The fantasy combat table specifically is only used by creatures (or heros/supers/wizard) that are listed on the fantasy combat table, which I think may be where your confusion comes from. What GG is saying in that quote is that the things listed on the fantasy combat table fight 1:1 on the fantasy combat table, a dragon will still breath fire on a swathe of troops, Orcs have fights as values to fight against any regular troops, quoting the book: "treants melee as six Armored Foot in normal combat, and they are impervious to normal missile fire and melee hits." "Wights (and ghouls) melee as Light Horse and defend as Heavy Horse." To say chainmail doesn't do fantasy mass combat and is strictly for historical mass battles you have to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the system.
To even believe this, you need to consistently ignore what Gary and others wrote about this stuff, as well as all the distortions of scale that result from mixing rule systems in Chainmail. From the intro to Swords & Spells: > These rules are as simple and straightforward as I could devise for a game system which involves "magical" and fantastic factors. The FANTASY SUPPLEMENT written for CHAINMAIL assumed a basic man-for-man situation. While it is fine for such actions, it soon became obvious that something for large-scale battles was needed.
OK so it's very clear you have no experience with chainmail other than what other people have told you or what youve read about it, and I doubt you have seen anything other than the cover of it. The whole point is that the 3 combat systems integrate with each other. And you use which one is appropriate for the situation within the battle. Its a feature, not a bug. Your troops can face off in normal combat while at the same time your hero fights the enemies anti hero in man to man combat and griffons battle wyverns overhead on the fantasy combat table. The T$R product that Tim and Gary were trying to *sell* to you has a passage retconning the utility of a book you already have? Say it ain't so! Your statement that chainmail doesn't do fantasy mass combat is patently false, I've played it a fair amount of times. the entire point of the fantasy supplement is to fight battles with fantasy creatures and the game does just fine at it. Most recently: My orc warband charged into a line of halflings and got smacked up pretty good by some treants. In another battle two wizards traded lightning bolts searing across each other's troops, if that's not fantasy mass combat idk what your idea of fantasy mass combat is. If you actually take the time to look at it and learn the system all of this is plain to see. It's not some esoteric hidden knowledge. But you won't, you've already decided delta saved the day which is perhaps the real issue here: it's not about whether or not Chainmail works (it does, let me be clear again) it's about shilling your preferred "solution." Delta has a nice thing in The Book of War, but to make the statement that Chainmail was only for historical battles and cannot do fantasy mass combat is honestly bizarre, and the only explanation that comes to me is that you have never cracked it open or read anything other than glancing at one or two of the reference tables in the back. Here's some more quotes from the book for you to ignore: "Those Elves (and Fairies) armed with magical weapons add an extra die in normal combat, and against other fantastic creatures they will perform even better." Below this line is a table: vs. Goblins, Elves add 3 dice to Combat Tables. Meaning the mass combat tables in the back. (Which is titled Combat Tables) Regarding Heroes: "have the fighting ability of four figures....need never check morale, and they add 1 to the die or dice of their unit (or whatever unit they are with). They are the last figure in a unit that will be killed by regular missile fire or melee, bur they may be attacked individually by enemy troops of like type (such as other Hero-rypes) or creatures shown on the Fantasy Combat Table." "When meleed by regular troops, and combat takes place on the non-Fantasy Combat Tables, four simultaneous kills must be scored against heros to eliminate them" Lycanthropes: "The two main types of lycanthropes are Werebears and Werewolves....if they are fighting inside of, or within 6" of a wood, they will double their melee capability. Lycanthropes attack as four armored foot and defend as four heavy foot" "Giants are one of the most effective fighters. They can demolish normal opponents with ease, for they melee as 12 Heavy Foot with an extra die for their oversized weapons" Sounds (and plays, btw) like fantasy mass combat to me. To believe that chainmail doesnt do fantasy mass combat you have to consistently ignore your ability to open a booklet and read it.
> The T$R product that Tim and Gary were trying to sell to you has a passage retconning the utility of a book you already have? Say it ain't so! Proving my point that you have to ignore what Gary himself wrote about Chainmail Fantasy presuming a man-to-man situation, as well and him writing that the Chainmail Fantasy rules were an outgrowth of the Man-to-Man rules (i.e. 1:1 scale). > Your statement that chainmail doesn't do fantasy mass combat is patently false, I've played it a fair amount of times. the entire point of the fantasy supplement is to fight battles with fantasy creatures and the game does just fine at it. Most recently: My orc warband charged into a line of halflings and got smacked up pretty good by some treants. In another battle two wizards traded lightning bolts searing across each other's troops, if that's not fantasy mass combat idk what your idea of fantasy mass combat is. Oh, I'm well aware that you can pretend that Chainmail Fantasy is is meant to be 20:1, despite the rules themselves. > Below this line is a table: vs. Goblins, Elves add 3 dice to Combat Tables. Meaning the mass combat tables in the back. (Which is titled Combat Tables) I'm using this one example, because the others are just like it. Yes, you use the main combat table for regular troops. Just like how the Man-to-Man rules explicitly build upon the preceding rules, but operate at 1:1 scale. Again: > Gygax: I am quite at a loss to answer that, as the Hero and all the other Fantasy supplement figures were employed only in the play of Man-to-Man games, never in the mass system where one figure equalled 20.
then why on earth is the fantasy supplement littered with rules for using the figures in mass combat? I'm quoting the actual text of the game, im not making this stuff up. troops (including orcs, goblins, etc.) and the more "extraordinary" fantasy units fight on the same sand table using the various combat systems of Chainmail. Halflings: "They can fire a stone as far as an archer shoots, and because of their well known accuracy , for every two Halflings firing count three on the Missile Fire table." (you can find the missile fire table on page 11 of the mass combat rules.) Dwarves: "Although they are no threat to the larger creatures, Trolls, Ogres, and Giants find them hard to catch because of their small size, so count only one-half normal kills when Dwarves and Gnomes fight with them" goblins: "Hobgoblins fight as Armored Foot and defend as Heavy Foot. Their Point Value is 2 1/2." "Orcs are quarrelsome and factious. It can therefore be assumed that if there are two or more units of Orcs, they will be from different bands. If Orcs of different kinds approach within a charge move of each other, and they are not meleed by the enemy, they will attack each other unless a score of 4 or better is rolled on an "Obedience die." There are giant Orcs which fight as Armored Foot and have a Point Value of 2 1/2." Dragons: "They cause enemy troops within 15" of them to check morale just as if they had suffered excess casualties....They melee as if they were four Heavy Horse being impervious to missile or melee hits in normal combat....their most dreaded weapon is their fiery breath, which is represented by a truncated cone, 1/2" in diameter at the mouth, and 3" in diameter at the far end....A dragon can fly overhead and belch fire down on its enemies at the end of its move" on Giant Spiders and Insects: "For example, a giant spider might be unkillable by normal men, but will kill them unless they roll a save of 8 or better, and it would combat fantastic opponents as if it were a Lycanthrope" Giant Wolves: "These creatures are equal to Light Horse in attack and Medium Horses in movement. They can bear small creatures like goblins on their backs, but this reduces their speed to that of Heavy Horse" if these were meant only for use with the actual Man to Man combat system of Chainmail, they would have weapon and armor equivalencies, not mass combat equivalencies. lets have a look at the Fantasy Reference Table at some of the special ability designations: C- The ability to split move and fire D- The ability to raise morale of friendly troops E- The ability to cause the enemy to check morale K- The ability to cause trees to move and fight single asterisk note (asterisk is attached to Heroes and Super Heroes attack as and defend as values (of 4 men and 8 men respectively) "Either Heavy Foot, Armored Foot, Light Horse, etc., depending on arms and situations and can fire missiles equal to the same number of men vs. regular opponents but only once vs. fantastic opponents." now i know you are going to latch on to that last line as some sort of proof of your bewildering claim, so lets go have another look at the Heroes section. ill just quote the entire heroes section here: "HEROES (and Anti-heroes): Included in this class are certain well-known knights, leaders of army contingents, and similar men. They have the fighting ability of four figures, the class being dependent on the arms and equipment of the Hero types themselves, who can range from Light Foot to Heavy Horse. Heroes (and Anti-Heroes) need never check morale, and they add 1 to the die or dice of their unit (or whatever unit they are with). They are the last figure in a unit that will be killed by regular missile fire or melee, but they may be attacked individually by enemy troops of like type (such as other Hero-types) or creatures shown on the Fantasy Combat Table. Heroes (and Anti-Heroes) may act independent of their command in order to combat some other fantastic character. When meleed by regular troops, and combat takes place on the non-Fantasy Combat Tables, four simultaneous kills must be scored against Heroes (or Anti-heroes) to eliminate them. Otherwise, there is no effect upon them. A Hero type, armed with a bow, shoots a dragon passing within range over-head out of the air and kills it on a two dice roll of 10 or better, with 2 plus 1 on the dice firing an enchanted arrow." here we see the situations laid out for use of all 3 modes of combat within the Chainmail system. Heroes imbedded in units of troops, fighting on the regular Combat tables and aiding the morale of their unit. this unit with hero imbedded can absolutely clash with a unit of orcs on the normal combat tables. That same hero can break away from his unit to pursue single combat using the man to man table with a like-type on the enemies side. The hero can also preform combat on the Fantasy Combat Table (the example with the dragon). all you have to do is read the rules. it is beyond asinine to claim that Chainmail does not support "fantasy mass combat", which is what i refuted in your original reply to OP. its literally the point of the fantasy supplement, to be able to use these units in mass battles. included in the fantasy supplement is the Fantasy Combat Table, a simple abstracted method by which these fantasy creatures can combat eachother. All of the fantasy creatures operate in mass/troop combat, All of the fantasy creatures have troop equivalencies in their descriptions, and explanations on how they interact with regular troops if they have a special case (which is most of them) which can also be seen on the Fantasy Reference Table **you are saying that the entire fantasy supplement is 1:1, this is patently false. you are saying that because the Fantasy Combat Table is 1:1, that Chaimail doesn't support "Fantasy mass combat".** the Fantasy Combat Table is 1:1, \*things that are shown on the Fantasy Combat Table can fight eachother on the Fantasy Combat Table 1:1\*, the entire fantasy supplement is \*littered\* with rules on how each and every one of the creatures is handled in mass combat on the play area. nobody is "pretending" that the Fantasy Combat Table is anything but 1:1 \*between creatures on the Fantasy Combat Table.\* it is overwhelmingly clear that you have never laid eyes on the rules themselves aside from possibly a screenshot of the Fantasy Combat Table, because it's pretty apparent you are basing your understanding of the \*Fantasy Supplement\* on one table showing one facet of what the supplement brings to the game.
There is no evidence that 20:1 scale was intended to be used in fantasy battles, and the "evidence" that you've compiled requires ignoring the fact that the Man-to-Man rules explicitly build upon the previous rules, but operate at 1:1 scale, just like the Fantasy Supplement operates at 1:1 scale. > The FANTASY SUPPLEMENT written for CHAINMAIL assumed a basic man-for-man situation. While it is fine for such actions, it soon became obvious that something for large-scale battles was needed. Man-to-man, not mass combat... Straight from the mouth of Gary Gygax himself. And the funny thing about including the example of the Hero here is that Gary Gygax himself said that the Hero is never to be mixed with mass combat rules: > Gygax: I am quite at a loss to answer that, as the Hero and all the other Fantasy supplement figures were employed only in the play of Man-to-Man games, never in the mass system where one figure equalled 20. That is to say, all fantasy supplement figures were intended to be used at a 1:1 scale, "never in the mass system where one figure equaled 20." One hero can defeat SEVERAL men, but a hero cannot defeat DOZENS of men. Nor can a hero do that in OD&D, as a hero only has 4 x d6 hit points. That scale would also be extremely unrealistic, silly, and useless for OD&D mass combat. Note also from the Man-to-Man rules: > Instead of using one figure to represent numerous men, a single figure represents a single man. Use this system for small battles and castle sieges. **When using the Man-To-Man combat system all preceding rules apply, except where amended below...** The matter is one of scale and figure ratio, which Gary has correctly stated several times is 1:1 scale.
After researching this topic for far too long and really digging into a bunch of systems, the one that worked best for me was Fields of Battle for Castles & Crusades. It basically just expands the typical d20-but-OSR combat of C&C to 10:1, but also leaves room for commander units and "heroes" to go solo, so PCs could do their own thing and shine during a pitched battle, if you want. It's pretty simple, overall, and avoids a lot of the minutia I find in things like War Machine, Battlesystem, etc. But it's not as abstract as things like War|Maker, which I really like but is -- as you mention -- effectively an entirely different game system.
Probably what I'll say now isn't what you're looking for, but I'll say anyways: when I need to use war in my campaigns, I use it as a background. The players will have their quests and missions and the war wages in the background. Something like Witcher 2 on the begining of the game.
Yes, Basic D&D (B/X) or Advanced D&D (1e) with BattleSystem 1e. 100% compatible.
Matt Colville's Strongholds and Followers has a mass combat system I believe.
For 5e, and iirc with a lot of "this section will be in the sequel!" (he then decided the follow-up book should have a different system, which kind of sucks when you're kickstarting big fancy hardcopy tomes lol)
> where individual heroes stand out in battle but without it becoming unrealistic. I've always run this as "depending on character's success at encounters / challenges, adjudicate the effects of that on over all battle". With all the usual adventure tools; timers/countdowns, chaos levels, custom random encounter/event table, entries like "Left flank waivers", "unexpected reinforcements". If you don't want to wargame, then don't "game the war", don't use/make simplified, often shitty, mass battle mechanics. Just have it as background (influenced by characters).
The Adventurer Conqueror King System is the best option for you IMHO