Quote from: Azraele;1028008I'll admit, I haven't run any numbers on the claim. As a matter of fact, I was basing my statement on the following quote from the book (p.70 in my hardback)

"The battle ratings in the Roster were calculated by running the creature's Domains at War. Battles characteristics through a formula that weighed formation, cleave factor, and other factors."

I generally trust Macris to have done his math and done it well, but admittedly I'm going off faith there (he doesn't provide this formula, to the best of my knowledge)

In general Macris knows his stuff and in every respect except for the die roll itself he got it covered. The damage done by 120 guys taking a whack isn't a linear probability but a bell curve. But using a d20 the way Macris did is a more playable than the chart lookup that Battlesystem has you do.

I think the best mass combat system for a roleplaying game is 3rd edition Chainmail, particularly if you adapt the core mass combat rules to work at several scales other than 20 individuals per figure (i.e., the same mechanics can apply to anything from 1 individual per figure to a company per figure or more, with some tweaking of the length scale of 1" and the time scale of one turn). The strength of the game is that it is sufficiently abstract to be fast playing, but maintains significant tactical decision making, movement, formations, and the 'rock/paper/scissors' element of contests between units with very different capabilities. Also, it supports stats for many unit types of interest (including fantasy monsters) and many of the spell casting actions that are important to large fights (lighting, fireball, etc.). And, there is the heritage of connection to a well known roleplaying game system. My preferred way to use it is paired with D&D (obviously), but not using the man-to-man rules (which are effectively replaced by D&D's standard combat system) nor the fantasy combat table (ditto).

The system is particularly great for dealing with D&D fights that involve a couple dozen combatants - a scale where even the faster playing OSR versions of D&D start to drag and resolving a fight might take an hour or more. As with basically every other rpg out there, these situations take something that should be dramatic, exciting and fun and turn it into a slog of literally hundreds of to-hit and damage rolls. If you use Chainmail mass combat, adapted to a scale of 1 individual per figure, you can approach the fight as a skirmish war game that will resolve itself in 3-4 turns, each of which is exciting, fast and has both sides making dynamic decisions that feed off each other.

It is pretty disappointing how few games out there come close to this system. Even systems that were intended to update and expand early Chainmail introduced what I consider to be a wretched, game ruining feature: constant, fiddly book keeping. Chainmail has no book keeping. Neither do most other good hex and chit tactical war games (e.g., Panzergrenadier). Because book keeping sucks and is a huge drag to the flow of play.

What I would love is a game that adapts Panzergrenadier's basic system of movement, activation, actions and command to a fantasy skirmish combat system. That would be terrific.

In my old group, War Machine was the go to system even though we played AD&D 1e. When I DMed, I liked to use 1e Battlesystem and when I had the Buck Rogers XXVc game I used it for fleet battles. In my BECMI/RC group, the DM had a... different approach. In that game we were Thyatian legionnaires and probably one of the most fun wars we had used Seige of Jerusalem by Avalon Hill.

Mind you I also played quite a bit of Advanced Squad Leader, as well as Battletech/Mechwarrior. I like mass combat that runs like a war game.

Quote from: Electric;1027987As a perennial player I have no experience running mass battles but I do have an anecdote about how the mass combat in Paizo's 'Kingmaker' killed our campaign. Most of the players, particularly our party barbarian, found the settlement management system boring and convoluted so we relegated that whole process to one player. In (I think) part two of the campaign there is a barbarian horde that attacks the party's settlement. We had a great time running about readying defences, preparing contingencies and orders of battle and the like. As the marauder army charged our position the party barbarian was excited to lead a unit of defenders into glorious battle. At this point the GM pulls out the mass battle system and the session just dies in the arse. I remember the crestfallen look on the barbarian player's face when he realised that he wouldn't actually be doing any fighting.

Yeah, I've been that dumbass GM who pulled out a mass combat game when the players had come to play D&D. It's a common failing (qv Philotomy's post above yours, no offence mate ). IME the vast majority of RPG players have zero desire to play a minigame; they want to play their PCs in the battle as if it were any other D&D/RPG scenario.

Am I a high level commander or the supreme commander, or am I just a grunt in the field or low level commander?

If I have some say in how the whole battle goes, break out the miniatures wargame rules and let's get down to it.

If I'm mostly just trying to keep me and my lads and lasses alive, let's RP it.

I found that Mentzer War Machine worked great in classic D&D and similar systems. I might use it in 5e D&D. It didn't work so well in 4e D&D which is a very Narrativist, anti-simulationist game; it felt *wrong* in 4e that the pcs could defeat their own foes yet still lose the overall battle with a bad d% roll.

I love them. I consider them integral to pretty much any campaign I run. I've bought some RPGs/supplements just to read the mass combat rules.

A disconnect here is that most of the folks explaining why they don't like mass combat rules are assuming a situation where the character is a tiny part of a massive battle. But there are many scales of mass combat, ranging from things that might be addressed by standard personal combat rules but are really awkward and slow because of their scale, up to the multiple-legion scale battles people are describing. Skirmishes, platoon-level engagements, company level engagements, battalion engagements, etc. When two companies face off, your character's actions matter, but if you try to resolve the action with standard personal combat rules it will take hours and be repetitive and boring. I think these are the sorts of situations where a mass combat system is terrific. And, what a tiny player character experiences in a huge battle is a local environment that is also sort of like a squad or company scale skirmish - just one that is subject to the flow of larger scale events. That too is a good place for mass combat rules that work at the appropriate scale.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1028042A disconnect here is that most of the folks explaining why they don't like mass combat rules are assuming a situation where the character is a tiny part of a massive battle.

Personally, no. I'm assuming the PCs are typically the leaders and champions of their side.

I ran a session where One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Orcs were slain. I used Swords & Wizardry, my Majestic Wilderlands supplement, the AD&D Battlesystem 1st edition rules.

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Today I have enough orc miniatures that I could do the above without tokens. I made a good deal on a large quantity of D&D miniatures.

Does battlesystem resolve things based on formation-level hit points, or is it more like Chainmail's treatment of units and casualties?

Quote from: Larsdangly;1028068Does battlesystem resolve things based on formation-level hit points, or is it more like Chainmail's treatment of units and casualties?

Battlesystem units are composed of miniatures at a 10:1 scale for most creatures, 5:1, 2:1, or 1:1 for larger/high HD creatures. A unit maneuvers and fights as a single entity, and has an Attack Rating based on its THACO and modified by some other factors. It makes a single 2d6 attack die roll on the table shown above, yielding a number based on the unit's damage type (d8 if armed with long swords, for example), and multiplied by the number of actual figures in the unit attacking (in melee contact or shooting missiles). Enemy figures are removed by figure depending on how much damage is done in the attack.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1028018The strength of the game is that it is sufficiently abstract to be fast playing, but maintains significant tactical decision making, movement, formations, and the 'rock/paper/scissors' element of contests between units with very different capabilities. Also, it supports stats for many unit types of interest (including fantasy monsters)....

Yes. I just can't get very excited about systems that are simple exercises in arithmetic abstraction.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1028032Am I a high level commander or the supreme commander, or am I just a grunt in the field or low level commander?

If I have some say in how the whole battle goes, break out the miniatures wargame rules and let's get down to it.

If I'm mostly just trying to keep me and my lads and lasses alive, let's RP it.

I heartily endorse this distinction.

Quote from: S'mon;1028030IME the vast majority of RPG players have zero desire to play a minigame; they want to play their PCs in the battle as if it were any other D&D/RPG scenario.

I sometimes wish it were not the case, but for some years now, most of my players fall into this category.

I did enjoy miniature rules at one time.  We used predominantly Chainmail, 1st ed. Battle System, a few borrowed rules that I've forgotten, and our own aborted attempt to use a mix of D&D and the Titan board game rules and counters.  Now, it would bore at least two-thirds of the players silly, such that we don't do it at all.

Quote from: Electric;1027987As a perennial player I have no experience running mass battles but I do have an anecdote about how the mass combat in Paizo's 'Kingmaker' killed our campaign. Most of the players, particularly our party barbarian, found the settlement management system boring and convoluted so we relegated that whole process to one player. In (I think) part two of the campaign there is a barbarian horde that attacks the party's settlement. We had a great time running about readying defences, preparing contingencies and orders of battle and the like. As the marauder army charged our position the party barbarian was excited to lead a unit of defenders into glorious battle. At this point the GM pulls out the mass battle system and the session just dies in the arse. I remember the crestfallen look on the barbarian player's face when he realised that he wouldn't actually be doing any fighting.
The system felt far too abstracted and fiddly. Maybe our GM wasn't particularly conversant with the mass combat system before the session but looking back I wish he had used the method S'mon suggested; consider preparation, the lay of the land, the forces at play, and allow the dice to account for the vagaries of chance. And somewhere in there give the barbarian his chance to roll some dice and kill some marauders.

I have only GM'd one mass battle and i basically turned all units in minions and had the PCs running around battling major NPCs. It kinda worked from memory.

I think, like your barbarian player, I would want a mix of (a) 4+ on a d6 and this squad kills that squad, (b) also small scale personalised skirmishes played out like normal combat, plus (c) a big table of awesome random events that gets rolled on from time to time as the party scampers from the ruined tower, to the west gate, then back across the bridge to the overrun merchants quarter, etc.

I would not want it wholly abstracted. I'd want a mix of "zooming in and out" so to speak, with cool (and terrifying) random shit happening in between. It's a mass battle - chaos reigns - the PCs are not in control!