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Post by smubee on Nov 4, 2015 22:25:24 GMT -6
Miniature wargaming has always intrigued me.. I have downloaded the PDF of the Chainmail rules, but am looking for some help in getting started. I figured here would be the best place..
Thanks in advance!
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Post by keith418 on Nov 5, 2015 15:15:03 GMT -6
I, too, would love to play Chainmail and I'd love to have someone who knows it well just sit down and teach it to me.
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Post by derv on Nov 5, 2015 17:46:42 GMT -6
That's great guys!
My suggestion would be to start with the mass combat rules. Read through and concentrate on learning what's presented on pages 8-18 to start. You may even want to ignore the Post Melee Morale rules at first, until you get more comfortable with the basics.
Michael Monard has suggested simply cutting out 3/4" counters and labeling them LF, HF, AF. All cavalry would be 3/4" x 1 1/2" and labeled LH, MH, or HH. This would be approximately the same as the 40mm Elastolin figures that Chainmail originally had in mind. Though, you could use 25mm figures just as well. Starting out with cardboard markers is good way to learn the mechanics without putting alot of time or money into miniatures.
Set up a basic battle between two armies and give it a solo run through on the kitchen table. If you run into any questions or aren't sure if you are interpreting the rules right, post em up and I'll try to answer them, if I can. I'm sure others will chime in too.
Have some fun!
-derv
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2015 19:43:55 GMT -6
Where did you find the PDFs? I thought WOTC had pulled them.
But yeah, what Derv said. I'd recommend about 100 points per side for your first several battles.
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Post by smubee on Nov 5, 2015 23:05:09 GMT -6
Where did you find the PDFs? I thought WOTC had pulled them. But yeah, what Derv said. I'd recommend about 100 points per side for your first several battles. Not sure if I'm allowed to post it here or not, but I'm gonna post it. ADMIN EDIT: Nope. Please don't post links to illegal files. Posting this kind of thing can get the whole forum shut down by proboards. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2015 9:20:36 GMT -6
Sigh. Please don't download illegal PDFs. Jeff Perren is still alive, for one thing.
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Post by tetramorph on Nov 6, 2015 13:45:23 GMT -6
smubee, this is something I have on my to-do list as well. Do let us know how your battle goes.
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Post by derv on Nov 6, 2015 19:54:41 GMT -6
Does anyone know if WotC would re-release the pdf's of Chainmail, would Jeff Perren receive any royalties from the sales?
It would have been a nice way of helping him out if he did.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2015 22:00:16 GMT -6
I, too, would love to play Chainmail and I'd love to have someone who knows it well just sit down and teach it to me. Go buy or borrow a copy of C.W.C. Oman's "Art of War in the Middle Ages." Pick a battle from the book, set it up, and run it in CHAINMAIL. It really is that simple. Just remember that although the recommended figure ratio is 1:20, there is no reason you can't use any other ratio... 1:40, 1:50, even 1:100 or more to make the battle fit your available figures (or cardboard chips). |
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Post by smubee on Nov 6, 2015 23:29:50 GMT -6
I, too, would love to play Chainmail and I'd love to have someone who knows it well just sit down and teach it to me. Go buy or borrow a copy of C.W.C. Oman's "Art of War in the Middle Ages." Pick a battle from the book, set it up, and run it in CHAINMAIL. It really is that simple. Just remember that although the recommended figure ratio is 1:20, there is no reason you can't use any other ratio... 1:40, 1:50, even 1:100 or more to make the battle fit your available figures (or cardboard chips). I mean in terms of, how do I get started? What are some things to know, etc? |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2015 0:00:53 GMT -6
Shrug. Read the rules, play the game. It's not difficult.
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Post by smubee on Nov 7, 2015 0:17:20 GMT -6
Shrug. Read the rules, play the game. It's not difficult. If you're not going to be helpful, what's the point in even replying? |
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 7, 2015 7:32:27 GMT -6
If you're not going to be helpful, what's the point in even replying? What is it you want to know? There are no cabal secrets; it's all in the rules. If you have a particular question, we can try to answer it. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2015 12:27:43 GMT -6
If you're not going to be helpful, what's the point in even replying? What is it you want to know? There are no cabal secrets; it's all in the rules. If you have a particular question, we can try to answer it. This. Jeez, it's not brain surgery. If you can handle Parcheesi you can handle CHAINMAIL. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2015 12:29:23 GMT -6
Shrug. Read the rules, play the game. It's not difficult. If you're not going to be helpful, what's the point in even replying? I TOLD you how to get started. Read Oman's Art of War, get some markers, set up a battle, play it. If you're not going to listen, what's the point of answering your questions? |
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Post by Finarvyn on Nov 8, 2015 6:11:29 GMT -6
I mean in terms of, how do I get started? What are some things to know, etc? I may be a bad person to respond, because I like to over-simplify things a lot, but for me I think the key is: (1) Get lots of figures, or draw up some wargame-style counters, or grab some RISK pieces ... you will want to have lots of little dudes fight each other. (2) There are lots of rules you won't need most of the time (sieges, etc.) so focus on the ones you do need, such as the basic combat table. A lot of times when I play I simplify things by estimating movement distances rather than measuring. I have players take turns rather than fuss with complex initiative rules. I just grab guys and dice and a combat chart and have fun with it. (3) I'd suggest you fight out a couple of historical type battles first, maybe move into some Fantastic ones later on. (Wizards and dragons and the like are fun, but they add on more complexity you may not want the first time.) You can pick an actual battle from histoy, but it's also okay just to make one up. (4) If you have an old wargame mapboard, you might use that for terrain. Or make up some simple terrain ("okay, this here is a hill and here is a river...") to work around. If you play other miniatures games such as Warhammer, you might already have a terrain board or the like, but you don't need that kind of thing at all. I learned Chainmail on an actual sand table (i.e. a large flat board with short sides, full of sand where you could scoop up piles to make hills, draw in roads or rivers with your fingers, and so on. When old-timers discuss a "sandbox" campaign, this is where it came from.) but that kind of detail isn't at all needed. Is this kind of what you are looking for in this thread? |
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Post by smubee on Nov 8, 2015 23:06:25 GMT -6
I mean in terms of, how do I get started? What are some things to know, etc? I may be a bad person to respond, because I like to over-simplify things a lot, but for me I think the key is: (1) Get lots of figures, or draw up some wargame-style counters, or grab some RISK pieces ... you will want to have lots of little dudes fight each other. (2) There are lots of rules you won't need most of the time (sieges, etc.) so focus on the ones you do need, such as the basic combat table. A lot of times when I play I simplify things by estimating movement distances rather than measuring. I have players take turns rather than fuss with complex initiative rules. I just grab guys and dice and a combat chart and have fun with it. (3) I'd suggest you fight out a couple of historical type battles first, maybe move into some Fantastic ones later on. (Wizards and dragons and the like are fun, but they add on more complexity you may not want the first time.) You can pick an actual battle from histoy, but it's also okay just to make one up. (4) If you have an old wargame mapboard, you might use that for terrain. Or make up some simple terrain ("okay, this here is a hill and here is a river...") to work around. If you play other miniatures games such as Warhammer, you might already have a terrain board or the like, but you don't need that kind of thing at all. I learned Chainmail on an actual sand table (i.e. a large flat board with short sides, full of sand where you could scoop up piles to make hills, draw in roads or rivers with your fingers, and so on. When old-timers discuss a "sandbox" campaign, this is where it came from.) but that kind of detail isn't at all needed. Is this kind of what you are looking for in this thread? Perfect! That's exactly what I was looking for. A simple "Read the rules" is a little overwhelming at first, I've never played any tabletop game with miniature figures before (never played with minis for D&D), but I'm very interested in it. So, thanks!  |
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Post by religon on Nov 9, 2015 13:20:06 GMT -6
Depending on where you live, you might attend a local gaming convention or game store that hosts miniature games. There is little chance you'll find a Chainmail game, but most miniatures games have at least 60% overlap... initiative, measure, move, shoot, special attacks, saving throw, etc. It would give ideas on how to use terrain, how to use what you have as figures and some familiarity with general wargaming processes. Reading the rules becomes easier. It may also be fun in and of itself.
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Post by smubee on Nov 9, 2015 13:42:33 GMT -6
Awesome, I'll have to do that at some point!
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Post by Finarvyn on Nov 10, 2015 5:38:38 GMT -6
That's exactly what I was looking for. A simple "Read the rules" is a little overwhelming at first, I've never played any tabletop game with miniature figures before (never played with minis for D&D), but I'm very interested in it. To continue my earlier thought, in some ways I play Chainmail the same way that I play OD&D. All I really need is a DM screen (or in the case of Chainmail, a combat chart). The thing is that Gary and Jeff were interested in actual historical simulation, whereas I just want a simple mass-combat simulator. The mass combat chart breaks troops down into types, and that's almost all that I need. For example, from the KING ARTHUR movie with Clive Owen I wanted to reinact the final scene where we had four mounted knights fighting a bunch of viking berserkers. I gave the good guys four hero characters rated as heavy horse and grabbed a handful of RISK pieces to be the vikings, which I rated as light foot. I started the knights in a pack and randomly scattered the vikings over my combat area and spent an hour or so running over vikings. The exact number of vikings or their placement didn't matter much to me -- what mattered was that I could fight out a solo battle where I got to kill stuff. (I had to give the vikings another reinforcement group at one point, since the battle appeared to be a bit one-sided.) I've done the same thing with orcs invading Helm's Deep from Lord of the Rings, as well as a bunch of other battles from Middle-earth. Often I will sketch out a general terrain map using four pieces of paper taped together. In my old days we used to do this for nation-to-nation battles in my RPG world. I'd let the characters fight OD&D-style on one table while the main battle went on on another. That way I could control if troops spilled over from one scale to the next. A great time, paticularly if you don't sweat the details.  |
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Post by harlandski on Feb 11, 2017 13:43:12 GMT -6
Go buy or borrow a copy of C.W.C. Oman's "Art of War in the Middle Ages." Pick a battle from the book, set it up, and run it in CHAINMAIL. It really is that simple. Just remember that although the recommended figure ratio is 1:20, there is no reason you can't use any other ratio... 1:40, 1:50, even 1:100 or more to make the battle fit your available figures (or cardboard chips). Fantastic book recommendation! Best of all, the book is in the public domain and is legally available (with illustrations) on Project Gutenberg. |
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Post by grodog on Feb 14, 2017 14:22:57 GMT -6
Miniature wargaming has always intrigued me.. I have downloaded the PDF of the Chainmail rules, but am looking for some help in getting started. I figured here would be the best place.. JT: if you get the chance to play some Chainmail with Paul Stormberg, Kevin Cabai, or other folks at GaryCon, it's well-worth it! Allan. |
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Post by smubee on Feb 14, 2017 23:53:52 GMT -6
Miniature wargaming has always intrigued me.. I have downloaded the PDF of the Chainmail rules, but am looking for some help in getting started. I figured here would be the best place.. JT: if you get the chance to play some Chainmail with Paul Stormberg, Kevin Cabai, or other folks at GaryCon, it's well-worth it! Allan. I'm sure I posted it on here.. But out of curiosity, how did you know my name? Lol  ! |
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Post by grodog on Feb 15, 2017 9:52:54 GMT -6
I think you posted it on FB or DF in response to Zach's comments about attending GC this year. I just remember these things  Allan. |
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Post by smubee on Feb 15, 2017 12:04:51 GMT -6
I think you posted it on FB or DF in response to Zach's comments about attending GC this year. I just remember these things Allan. That's true -- FB Gary Con page |
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