rhialto
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 128
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Post by rhialto on Jul 17, 2023 4:57:36 GMT -6
Are any of these other fantasy wargames that have been mentioned compatible with D&D? I guess it depends on the scale of abstraction: how abstract is a wargame allowed to be and still be compatible with D&D? Is Chainmail Troop Type combat compatible? If so, I'd say Fantasy Triumph! is compatible with D&D, though not as directly as Chainmail. Different troop classifications (more than Chainmail), heroes, heroic duels, magic, fantastic creatures, etc. |
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Post by geoffrey on Jul 17, 2023 10:04:35 GMT -6
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Post by rsdean on Jul 17, 2023 11:16:09 GMT -6
Yes; DR is essentially the same game as LR1. It adds a few decorative names/descriptions for unit types and some fantasy qualities (cleric, slayer, flying, undead, venomous, etc.) but the main addition is the changing the number of individual figures in a unit into more abstract unit "strength" so that, for example, a unit of 12 men from LR would become a strength 12 unit in DR which can then be represented by 12 men or 4 ogres or a single giant, or any arbitrary combination of fantastic figures that total 12 "strength". It also includes magic, albeit it's pretty basic. There's a short list (10?) of included spells with one line summaries, mostly just enhancing/affecting other elements of the game mechanics (i.e., prevent movement, prevent missile fire, cause a courage test, auto succeed on next courage test, etc.). Inventing your own spells by player agreement prior to play is suggested. In addition to the spells and variable strength point representation, Dragon Rampant units may have characteristics such as flying, poisonous, fear inducting and so forth added to basic Lion Rampant unit types. My favorites shift around every once in a while, and I’m currently ready to play Hordes of the Things, Dragon Rampant, Chaos Wars, or Song of Blades and Heroes (that one’s just skirmish) any time you like. We also sometimes dust off my brother’s and my long term favorite, Knights and Magick by Heritage, published in 1980. Of those, Chaos Wars (at least the 1987 original) and K&M have conversions to allow you to drop your D&D characters into the battle, with a fair amount of abstraction. |
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Post by rsdean on Jul 17, 2023 11:20:59 GMT -6
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Post by sirjaguar on Jul 17, 2023 12:54:40 GMT -6
HOTT
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Parzival
Level 6 Magician
Is a little Stir Crazy this year...
Posts: 401
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Post by Parzival on Jul 17, 2023 17:43:36 GMT -6
Warmaster, hands down. It’s a hoot, and I love the game. Easy to learn, very low “fiddly” factor, and a whole lot of fun. In fact, I’ll be running a Warmaster game at the local con next month (Nashcon in Nashville, TN— Nashcon.org for details ). The one I’m doing is actually the official The Battle of Five Armies variant sold as a boxed game by Games Workshop, based and licensed from The Hobbit— the novel; this game was published well before the horrid PJ film trilogy.  I was able to get ahold of two copies of the boxed set when GW dropped the game, which makes for a pretty awesome battle! GW’s Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game isn’t bad, either, but Warmaster remains my preferred game.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 17, 2023 18:02:28 GMT -6
I used to have a huge WarMaster collection with (i think?) every army including the rare metal wood elves and kislev, and two (plus a few extras?) BFA sets. Alas, I sold it all off around 8-10 years ago as part of an effort to narrow my hobbying down to fewer areas i could focus more on. I never really had reliable WarMaster opponents, so... it didn't make the cut  |
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skars
Level 6 Magician
Posts: 407
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Post by skars on Jul 18, 2023 20:20:25 GMT -6
Now with a lens of trying to include PCs in mass combat, that's where games like swords & spells, Chainmail, and Battlesystem were poised to solve but in practice have always come up short. Usually too fiddly to actually represent hundreds or thousands of troops AND your PCs in a meaningful way for a campaign mass battle in an evening session. I have memories of playing in a Battlesystem 1ed game at GamesCaucus 2 in Oakland. It took nearly 14 hours to play and we got about halfway through. I am not sure where the disconnect in that game you played. I have used Battlesystem 1e plenty of times. It has never taken that long to resolve and single battles were easily handled in the context of a session. If I had to guess it would be due to the fact my games were refereed by me and the player were not playing against me persay. Instead, they roleplayed as their characters on the battlefield giving commands or participating directly. Most of the movement and rolls were handled by me. The big issue as with any miniature wargame is that units are comprised of figures and that doesn't scale well until you use some tricks to manage it. The thing is that Battlesystem 1e isn't that complex of a wargame. As a seasoned "grognard" at this point I honestly agree that battlesystem 1ed isn't that complicated a wargame and if I were to run it myself, I'm sure we could shave off hours of game time. it just hasn't manifested that way in the games I have participated in to the point where I haven't bothered trying to run it myself. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2023 20:43:23 GMT -6
Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age by Fantasy Games Unlimited.
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arkansan
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 231
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Post by arkansan on Jul 18, 2023 22:38:11 GMT -6
For fantasy wargaming I like Rally Round the King for solo play. The reaction system works excellently. Otherwise I really enjoy Warhammer Fantasy Battles 1st edition. Nice "big skirmish" style game that also can be run as a light rpg.
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Post by chicagowiz on Jul 19, 2023 6:40:52 GMT -6
As a seasoned "grognard" at this point I honestly agree that battlesystem 1ed isn't that complicated a wargame and if I were to run it myself, I'm sure we could shave off hours of game time. it just hasn't manifested that way in the games I have participated in to the point where I haven't bothered trying to run it myself. Agreed. It requires a wargaming frame of mind, which many players may or may not have. I think Battlesystem requires a certain kind of table or set up, including the players, to make it work. For my table, it didn't. But that doesn't mean it's a bad game, it just wasn't the right solution for my table. |
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rhialto
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 128
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Post by rhialto on Jul 19, 2023 9:03:17 GMT -6
Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age by Fantasy Games Unlimited. Alright, I have to ask: have you actually played it? I have my original, and long to give it a try... |
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Post by Starbeard on Jul 19, 2023 11:53:50 GMT -6
For fantasy wargaming I like Rally Round the King for solo play. The reaction system works excellently. Otherwise I really enjoy Warhammer Fantasy Battles 1st edition. Nice "big skirmish" style game that also can be run as a light rpg. I've long wanted to try Rally Round the King. The original WFB is one of my favorites, an excellent gem that deserves a lot more attention from fantasy wargame and RP grog types. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2023 12:33:40 GMT -6
Royal Armies of the Hyborean Age by Fantasy Games Unlimited. I have played in a game with 3 players, each with his own army. My Gunderman pikemen held elevated ground against an opposing army of Nemedian knights, which crashed into their position, only to take heavy losses. Meanwhile an army of worg riders picked off stragglers. Ultimately, the Gunderman won out. |
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Post by robertsconley on Jul 20, 2023 6:41:36 GMT -6
As a seasoned "grognard" at this point I honestly agree that battlesystem 1ed isn't that complicated a wargame and if I were to run it myself, I'm sure we could shave off hours of game time. it just hasn't manifested that way in the games I have participated in to the point where I haven't bothered trying to run it myself. One fiddly thing that can be optimized is using a whole card the size of the formation to represent the unit not individual figures (or chits) arranged in formation. Granted this is not a Battlesystem 1e issue but an issue with using any miniature wargame rules in a RPG campaign. Also, you lose a bit of the flexibility from being able to rearrange the formation. However, I feel once you get above a certain number of units (5 or 6?) trying to deal with 50+ figures or chits bogs things down. Doing this should allow some massive battles to be run quickly. With a standard setup with two or more player participating equally this is not so bad. But one referee versus multiple PCs helps the referee. Especially when the referee basically runs both sides of the battle due to the player's unfamiliarity with miniature wargaming. |
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Post by thorswulf on Jul 20, 2023 18:00:35 GMT -6
Honestly there are tons of good wargame systems that are better than any of the D&D wargames systems. The second edition Battlesystem was a very nicely put together set of rules as far as TSR rules go. There is a huge change going on with miniature games. Most people don't have the time, space, money or dedication to build up and paint giant armies of hundreds or thousands of figures. Skirmish games you can play on a kitchen table or card tables needing 20-30 figures tops, and minimal terrain of 4-12 pieces are VERY popular. You can even get very cheap or free rulesets from Wargame Vault or DriveThruRPG. Don't want to paint minis. print and assemble paper armies are available.
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Post by owlorbs on Aug 11, 2023 7:26:43 GMT -6
Hordes of the Things and Dragon Rampant are my favorites.
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Post by DungeonDevil on Aug 20, 2023 4:31:17 GMT -6
Honestly there are tons of good wargame systems that are better than any of the D&D wargames systems. The second edition Battlesystem was a very nicely put together set of rules as far as TSR rules go. There is a huge change going on with miniature games. Most people don't have the time, space, money or dedication to build up and paint giant armies of hundreds or thousands of figures. Skirmish games you can play on a kitchen table or card tables needing 20-30 figures tops, and minimal terrain of 4-12 pieces are VERY popular. You can even get very cheap or free rulesets from Wargame Vault or DriveThruRPG. Don't want to paint minis. print and assemble paper armies are available. Juniorgeneral.org used to be a great site for free stand-up/a-frame type minis for many different conflict eras, but I can't find the site anymore. Perhaps it is gone. Naval and Military Press has an assortment of stand-ups: I recently bought some for fighting the Jacobite Wars (Culloden 1746), but it may take a month or two for them to ship from the UK. I bought some fun ones for Wild West skirmishing made by Disposable Heroes. Paper is a nice alternative for those of us who don't have the funds for squillions of lead figures. |
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Parzival
Level 6 Magician
Is a little Stir Crazy this year...
Posts: 401
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Post by Parzival on Aug 20, 2023 8:22:45 GMT -6
juniorgeneral.org/Junior General is still up and running. Used the above link just now. Ran the Warmaster variant Battle of Five Armies this past weekend at Nashcon. Had a full crew of players (8, 4 per side) and I think a good time was generally had. Battle ended in a victory for the orcs after Gandalf attached himself in battle to a unit with a seriously compromised flank. Oops. Plus, the good side never got either Beorn or the Eagles to show up (every turn they rolled exactly one less than the number needed, even with the turn by turn bonus). Added to that, there was a serious strategic and tactical disagreement among the Army of the Free Folk as to when and where to engage the enemy, which wound up with the various factions largely acting in piece meal fashion. A coordinated, united front, it was not!
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Parzival
Level 6 Magician
Is a little Stir Crazy this year...
Posts: 401
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Post by Parzival on Aug 22, 2023 14:12:24 GMT -6
Also at Nashcon I played a new one to watch out for on Kickstarter— “Dragonriders”. Think Dragonlance meets Wings of War. I lost spectacularly the first time, with my gold dragon taking out my ally (a silver dragon), and an enemy red dragon before spiraling headfirst into a storm conjured by an enemy blue. Kazaapp! It was a lot of fun.
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skars
Level 6 Magician
Posts: 407
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Post by skars on Aug 27, 2023 19:28:55 GMT -6
Also at Nashcon I played a new one to watch out for on Kickstarter— “Dragonriders”. Think Dragonlance meets Wings of War. I lost spectacularly the first time, with my gold dragon taking out my ally (a silver dragon), and an enemy red dragon before spiraling headfirst into a storm conjured by an enemy blue. Kazaapp! It was a lot of fun. Wasn't there an SSi gold box game like that? |
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Parzival
Level 6 Magician
Is a little Stir Crazy this year...
Posts: 401
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Post by Parzival on Aug 27, 2023 21:25:18 GMT -6
Also at Nashcon I played a new one to watch out for on Kickstarter— “Dragonriders”. Think Dragonlance meets Wings of War. I lost spectacularly the first time, with my gold dragon taking out my ally (a silver dragon), and an enemy red dragon before spiraling headfirst into a storm conjured by an enemy blue. Kazaapp! It was a lot of fun. Wasn't there an SSi gold box game like that? Yes, there was. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonStrike_(video_game)I briefly had the Nintendo NES version, which was only a top-down view— very disappointing.. I read good reviews of the PC game, however. Alas, no Mac version ever appeared. |
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Post by tkdco2 on Aug 28, 2023 12:34:42 GMT -6
I prefer skirmishes to large battles, so I look for games that support that type of play.
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Post by tdenmark on Aug 28, 2023 12:35:32 GMT -6
If I'd first experienced 4E as a miniatures skirmish game not called D&D, I might have liked it. I had no idea the rules were that succinct though, my impression was it was hundreds of pages of excruciating detail. The wargame I was surprised at how relatively simple and streamlined it is when I first played a match was Warhammer. There is a reason it’s so popular. Everything you need to run your PC is on the cards. You have to understand about 2 pages worth of general combat rules otherwise. I hated 2e what it came out. A couple years ago I won some of the Player's Options books in an auction, I didn't want the 2e books it was some other stuff in the lot I was after. However, once getting the books I read through them and was very impressed. So I did a deep dive on 2e and now I really like it. Not that I want to play it, but there was a lot of good stuff there I missed in the 90's. I'm wondering if a similar thing will happen with 4e. I despise it now, but when I'm in a retirement home* and someone starts up an old school 4e D&D campaign I might have my mind changed.  *Actually, I hope my kids don't do that to me. |
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Post by tdenmark on Aug 28, 2023 12:37:30 GMT -6
Also at Nashcon I played a new one to watch out for on Kickstarter— “Dragonriders”. Think Dragonlance meets Wings of War. I lost spectacularly the first time, with my gold dragon taking out my ally (a silver dragon), and an enemy red dragon before spiraling headfirst into a storm conjured by an enemy blue. Kazaapp! It was a lot of fun. Wasn't there an SSi gold box game like that? Dragonstrike is virtually unplayable. And believe me I played it a lot and tried really hard to like it. It was too far ahead of its time, the graphic capabilities weren't ready for what they were trying to do. I wonder if it could be made now? Are there any modern video games where you are flying on a dragon in aerial battles? |
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Post by dicebro on Aug 28, 2023 12:41:13 GMT -6
Are any of these other fantasy wargames that have been mentioned compatible with D&D? This is a very good question. Possibly deserving of its own discussion. ‘I’m currently mashing OD&D with rules from First Fantasy Campain, Worlds without Number, and Martin Hackett’s book “Fantasy Wargaming” |
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Post by DungeonDevil on Aug 28, 2023 12:46:50 GMT -6
Thank Crom! I searched around, but the links I tried were dead. Maybe they changed their URL? |
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Post by jeffb on Aug 28, 2023 13:37:03 GMT -6
Everything you need to run your PC is on the cards. You have to understand about 2 pages worth of general combat rules otherwise. I hated 2e what it came out. A couple years ago I won some of the Player's Options books in an auction, I didn't want the 2e books it was some other stuff in the lot I was after. However, once getting the books I read through them and was very impressed. So I did a deep dive on 2e and now I really like it. Not that I want to play it, but there was a lot of good stuff there I missed in the 90's. I'm wondering if a similar thing will happen with 4e. I despise it now, but when I'm in a retirement home* and someone starts up an old school 4e D&D campaign I might have my mind changed. *Actually, I hope my kids don't do that to me.I recall hating the PO books as well. I ended up getting a set around 2k3 as part of a collection and gave them another glance through and was surprised how much of the combat book made into 3.x I'd never run 4e RAW again as I'm not a minis and grids guy*, but I basically 13th Aged the system before 13th Age came out and we had a bunch of fun with it. * Play, yes...Run? No. |
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Post by tkdco2 on Aug 28, 2023 14:26:54 GMT -6
I don't the use Players Option books. I like 2e, but I stick to the core rules. I used to like kits, but I don't need them as much as I used to.
I was curious about the Battlesystem game, but I never found a copy, and I wasn't actively gaming when it came out anyway. I have tried the BECMI mass combat system, but I found it unsatisfying. Most of the system is calculating the troop strength on each force then determining the outcome on a single d% roll. Not very exciting, IMO.
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Post by tdenmark on Aug 28, 2023 18:54:00 GMT -6
I don't the Players Option books. I like 2e, but I stick to the core rules. I used to like kits, but I don't need them as much as I used to. I'm not into kits, I prefer classes. Just plain old classes. However I don't mind the occasional option to branch within a class. For example if a Fighter can choose to focus on melee or ranged. Or a ranger can be more about hunting and tracking or about affinity with nature (ie. a bit like a Druid). But to me kits over complicate and break the game, they'd be better off as just optional classes. I do like Backgrounds that confer small benefits. (non-professional skills from the DMG) |
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