Comparing Chainmail v Book of War v HOTT

[chicagowiz]

I'm coming back into gaming and picking up projects that had been put on hold. One of them was to start mass combat scenarios in my campaign world as the overall campaign dictates. The goal had been:
- to find a way of having quick/fun games (with hopefully simple rules so that folks in campaign new to wargaming/miniature wargaming but interested might decide to join and play)
- to find rules that might easily permit the inclusion of PCs into the battle somehow
- to find something that feels close enough to D&D as to not feel like the people are playing two vastly different games.

So I'm looking at Chainmail, Book of War and HOTT. About 3.5 years ago, in 2011, I had put up some prototype rules elsewhere about using PCs in a HOTT battle. Rubbish and too complicated (see point #1). During my hiatus, I bought a copy of BoW and liked what I saw.

So, while the pros are basically even-steven across the three, here are con's as I see them:

Chainmail cons - game rules are confusing in layout. Questions abound (at least for me in my first couple of games), hard to get rules for other folks (not on Classic D&D :< ) Rules for incorporating PC Party would need to be developed when part of a figure, may need to drop to 1:1 (Alternative OD&D combat rules) if/when needed.

Book of War cons - would require rebasing a LOT of minitures to 3/4" bases unless everyone playing is fine with 1" bases (the GW standard that I stuck with when making minis for playing tabletop D&D) (time and cost!), requires more figures (1:10 rules)

HOTT cons - I have to build 15mm armies for Enonia and for orcs. I have a 15mm goblin army ready. Rules for incorporating PC Party aren't as straight forward, especially in determining spell effects. (would require perhaps some serious abstraction)

Ultimately, I think in terms of cost, it would be Chainmail, BoW, then HOTT.

My specific questions:

1. Are there any good "get started quick" guides to Chainmail, that might help newbies with the fiddly bits?
2. Has anyone done a BoW battle with 1" bases - did it still work? Were there any issues, aside from breaking Dan's scale a bit?
3. Anyone done similar (easy/quick/straightforward) PC incorporation into HOTT?

PS. Before folks get offended by the "Chainmail rules are confusing in layout" - please understand that while I love Chainmail, when I've showed the game to my target audience, the looks of confusion abound real quick. I've more often shown them my Chainmail play aid and that's helped, but there are still a lot of questions. Not so much from HOTT and definitely not from Book of War (although by this point, they may have gotten the general jist of things)

[aldarron]

Knights and Magick would is my go to choice, but it is 1:1 scale. But if you prefer CHAINMAIL but simpler, with quickstart, etc. for your target audience, you might want to look at Castle Cracker www.thortrains.net/armymen/castleck.htm

Those rules were basically written as a response to CM.

[kesher]

chicagowiz: I would think you could use a 1" base for BoW without issue, as long as you keep it consistent.

...and I selfishly want to you continue working on the PC/HoTT mash-up (I remember that thread)...

[chicagowiz]

Dec 23, 2014 9:43:15 GMT -6 aldarron said:

Knights and Magick would is my go to choice, but it is 1:1 scale. But if you prefer CHAINMAIL but simpler, with quickstart, etc. for your target audience, you might want to look at Castle Cracker www.thortrains.net/armymen/castleck.htm

Those rules were basically written as a response to CM.

Side question - How in the Hells do you find all these things? As long as I've seen you posting here and there, you almost always have these little oddball links.

[chicagowiz]

Dec 23, 2014 11:23:12 GMT -6 kesher said:

chicagowiz: I would think you could use a 1" base for BoW without issue, as long as you keep it consistent.

...and I selfishly want to you continue working on the PC/HoTT mash-up (I remember that thread)...

The approach I'm working towards in BoW is probably extendable to HOTT.

My former idea was too fiddly, not abstract enough, and it took Dan's BoW to hit me upside the head in how to think about PCs. Chris Kutalik (who wrote "By My Axe" rules, which are a cheap $2.50 and it seems like a pretty quick/easy game) also went in that direction.

My "Fellowship" rule basically says that if you're below name level, you can do *some* things, depending on scale, but ultimately, you provide a small benefit. Once you get to name level, then usually the rules take you into account as Heroes, Commanders or what-have-you. It's abstracting the majority of skills and bonuses. The dealbreaker is always magic. That's the nut I still work on.

You know... I'm sitting here typing this out and I realize that perhaps the Fellowship idea can be made so that it applies to multiple games - so that the inclusion of a PC Party figure (or abstraction of PCs into a figure/unit) takes a consistent route. That's a fun idea to twiddle with.

(Last time someone raised a question, David and I came up with One Page Dungeon templates, so maybe it's just this time of year and my Dog-With-Bone obsession on ideas... thank my Aspergers for that.)

[jacar]

So here's a silly question. What is "Book of War?"

[Deleted]

www.oedgames.com

[chicagowiz]

Dec 25, 2014 10:47:38 GMT -6 jacar said:

So here's a silly question. What is "Book of War?"

It's a set of rules for mass combat by Dan Collins (Delta) over at deltasdnd.blogspot.com. Dan is very rigorous about the mathematics and he was looking to design something that "flowed" with the approach of D&D from a statistical POV. That sounds pretty boring, but the result is a very fun, very quick (from my playtests) game. It's a bit of a different scale (1:10, 1" = 20ft, 1 turn = 30 seconds - www.oedgames.com/BOW-Promos/Part1/OED_BookOfWar_CoreRules.pdf) but it goes well.

The consensus is that if I play with consistent bases, I can ignore the 3/4" square base requirement for single figures.

It also makes it VERY easy to slide in monsters and things from D&D books to BoW.

[desertscrb]

I agree, you can use the one-inch bases for Book of War and it won't make much difference. Regarding Hordes of the Things, no need to buy all-new 15mm armies--you can mount your 25mm/28mm figures on 60mm bases according to the book's suggestions.

P.S. Welcome back to gaming!

[chicagowiz]

So noodling about as I get ready to conduct my "Battle of McGillicuddy's Farm" scenario in both Chainmail (again), HOTT and Book of War.

Interestingly, when I review my battle report from almost 4 years ago, I find that I screwed up big time. I didn't use the Goblin values from the Fantasy Combat section (or my faulty memory and lack of noting if I did that or not) and that means I may have made the goblins a little more powerful than they were supposed to be. This came about because I'm looking at the point values for each force. I'm not looking for balance, I expect the goblins to be outnumbered and outmatched. This force was a diversion for the goblins to tie up the Enonian militia while the main group from the goblin caves raided the harvests.

What did surprise me was the relative differences in point values.

Enonia Forces	HOTT Element	Number	Cost		Book of War Element	Number	Cost		Chainmail	Number	Cost
Town Militia - bow - 20 men	Shooters	1	2		Archers	2	14		Light Archer	1	4
Town Militia - spear - 40 men	Spear	1	2		Light Infantry	4	16		Heavy Foot	2	4
Marshall Roehm's Knights - 20 men	Knights	1	2		Heavy Cavalry	2	36		Heavy Horse	1	5
Marshall Roehm Cavalry - 40 men	Riders	1	2		Medium Cavalry	4	48		Medium Horse	2	8
Marshall Roehm Men At Arms - Bow - 40 men	Shooters	1	2		Archers	4	28		Heavy Archer	2	10
Marshall Roehm Men At Arms - Foot - 80 men	Blades/Spears	2	4		Medium Infantry	8	40		Heavy Foot	4	8
			14				182				39

Goblin Forces	HOTT Element	Number	Cost		Book of War Element	Number	Cost		Chainmail	Number	Cost
Grunk's Horde - 80 goblins	Horde	1	2		Goblin, Lt Infantry	8	24		Goblins (HF/LF)	4	6
Grunk Command - 10 goblins	Warband	1	2		Orc, Med Infantry	1	4		Hobgoblins (AF/HF)	1	2.5
Crunk's Shooters - 60 goblins	Shooters	2	4		Goblin Archers	6	36		Goblins/Bow (HF/LF)	3	9 *
Grit's Horde - 80 goblins	Horde	1	2		Goblin, Lt Infantry	8	24		Goblins (HF/LF)	4	6
Grit's Command - 10 goblins	Warband	1	2		Orc, Med Infantry	1	4		Hobgoblins (AF/HF)	1	2.5
			12				92				26

* - Chainmail lists goblins at 1.5 points, I figured giving them bow wouldn't bring them equal to elves (4), but it would make them twice as effective. 

Based on my screwup earlier, the goblins rated at men type figures (HF, AF only, etc...) would have a point value of 36, bringing them close to the humans. And, in fact, I've had the goblins defeat the Enonian forces outright when I've played this scenario.

Anyway, what I'm surprised at is how different the Book of War values are compared to the Chainmail and HOTT differences:

HOTT: 14:12 - 1.2:1
Chainmail: 39:26 - 1.5:1
Book of War: 182:92 - 2:1 (1.97andchange:1 to be precise)

Is it because we're scaling down? HOTT being very abstract, Chainmail 1:20, Book of War 1:10. 

[skars]

You don't have to rebase to use a rules framework like HOTT/DBA. Think of a single 25-32mm model on that 1" base as a single element for the purposes of army selection. You use far fewer miniatures (24 total) and you can easily represent characters as a unit type with a general(Commander) bonus or when they are in contact with an enemy unit, go to a skirmish using standard 1:1 combat rules zoomed in on the players with initiative and all that.

[desertscrb]

You don't need to rebase, but I think games of HotT look a lot better with more than one figure per element (for your rank-and-file foot and mounted units, anyway). If you don't want to permanently mount your figures, you could temporarily attach them to some bases.

[chicagowiz]

I'm definitely not going to rebase for BoW - everything pretty much uses the 1" bases I have. I am going to 15mm for HOTT, since that seems to be the popular size for most folks that I know who play it.