Do you mass combat at 1:20 or 1:10?

[Malchor]

The three published booklet editions of Chainmail all state mass combat is a 1:20 scale, but the versions printed in The Domesday Book, Panzerfaust and Spartan International Monthly all had a 1:10 scale.


Edit: To Be clear, the question is about your preference, not what is correct as both are equally valid, and having a preference for one does not exclude using the other for whatever reason.

[retrorob]

That depends on the size of the army. I've used 1:20, 1:10, 1:5, 1:1. Soon there will be a great battle in my OD&D campaign: 10 000 vs 6 000. I guess I'll take 1:100 or even 1:1000.

[Malchor]

Jan 4, 2019 5:26:27 GMT -6 retrorob said:

That depends on the size of the army. I've used 1:20, 1:10, 1:5, 1:1. Soon there will be a great battle in my OD&D campaign: 10 000 vs 6 000. I guess I'll take 1:100 or even 1:1000.

If there is one thing I’m learning from reading old wargame books is that “it depends” is usually the case.

That and everything is relative. Change one thing, a few other things change and you may (or may not) need to swap out this rule for that rule—and boom, it is not the same, yet basically the same, but more importantly if it works well enough for the people playing, then it works.

[howandwhy99]

I believe OD&D assumes an outdoor 10 yard scale and a 20:1 ratio. (not that outdoor scaling cannot be covered over, like inside a massive cave.)

For me, indoor mass combat is 10 foot scale and 10:1 or smaller ratios. Groups of PCs (and NPCs) can cooperatively act as units with shared attack rolls, saving throws, and the like. Building a single state line for them as a group depends on their organization, general armoring, weapons, etc. I think this is a good way to learn the mass combat side of the game and leverage shield walls and similar tactics while still at relatively low levels.

[Malchor]

Jan 5, 2019 13:31:03 GMT -6 howandwhy99 said:

I believe OD&D assumes an outdoor 10 yard scale and a 20:1 ratio. (not that outdoor scaling cannot be covered over, like inside a massive cave.)

For me, indoor mass combat is 10 foot scale and 10:1 or smaller ratios. Groups of PCs (and NPCs) can cooperatively act as units with shared attack rolls, saving throws, and the like. Building a single state line for them as a group depends on their organization, general armoring, weapons, etc. I think this is a good way to learn the mass combat side of the game and leverage shield walls and similar tactics while still at relatively low levels.

For clarity, the question was:

• About Chainmail, not Chainmail applied to OD&D (the latter is a whole different can of worms).
• About the scale of men to figures. The rules for mass-combat appeared in newsletters/magazines three times before publication as Chainmail by Guidon, in all three for mass-combat as figure represented 10 soldiers, in the tree editions of Chainmail it is a figure represented 20 soldiers.
• It is duly noted that when playing chainmail, you might shift scale, that you might play at different scale depending on the situation or another factor.

[DungeonDevil]

Years ago when I started with WRG Ancients (6th ed.), the troop scale was 1:20, and that's what I also use with CM.