Running Mass Combat

[the Jester]

Are the War Machine rules available anywhere as a pdf or anything?

Edit: Hey, Nebulous, nice avatar!

 

[IronWolf]

Actually, WOTC have already told us that Heroes of Battle precisely WILL NOT have any sort of mass battle system included, which is unfortunate. Outside of a feeble attempt to work mass battles into the the minitures game, WOTC have apparently decided to cede the subject matter to third party publishers.

Ooops, my fault...

 

[Davek]

I briefly looked at the Black company mass combat rules and one of the things I liked was the 'Advantage' mechanism. This was over and above the initiative mechanism.

Initiative is a function of reaction/action.
Advantage is a function of exploitation of those actions/reactions.

A unit can lose initiative but still gain an advantage ie. side A reacts very quickly , faster than side B, but does so in a reckless manner while side B has a more measured approach.

 

[Nebulous]

Are the War Machine rules available anywhere as a pdf or anything?

Edit: Hey, Nebulous, nice avatar!

Same with you Jester!


Oh, yeah, Black Company mass combat. Forgot about that one.

 

[radferth]

I agree the OD&D Companion rules War Machine is good, and what I would use if I needed to randomly generate the result of a battle. As far as battles with PCs are concerned, I just use the regular rules to run the portion of the combat directly around them and extrapolate to the rest of the battle. I come up the with foes they (and perhaps some troops they command) will face and what objective they will be trying to achieve, decide what the best case result is (e.g. if the PCs win with no casulaties then their side routes the other side) and what the worst case result is (e.g. if the PCs are TPKed or forced to flee in short order then the opposing side digs in and the PCs side is forced to withdraw with heavy casualties). Then I play out the PCs' combat. This has made for great gaming session, and the players like knowing they made a difference in the battle. Of course this may not at all address what you are looking for, as it requires a scripted set of possible outcomes to the battle, rather than playing out the battle itself, but if means I only need a set of two or three divergant plotlines depending on the battles outcome rather than needed to play out the whole battle to see what shape each side ends up in. If I had a PC who was really interested in army command, I suppose I would have to find some minatures type game to use, but that is not on the horizon. If I had to on short notice, I guess I would use the troop vs troop on the back of the old old old Chainmail rules. (That system in brief: you roll a number of dice depending on your troop type and the opposing troop type, you need a certain number on each dice to kill one of the enemy.)

 

[Nebulous]

War Machine has popped up a lot in this thread. I really wish i had seen it way back when.

 

[S'mon]

Are the War Machine rules available anywhere as a pdf or anything?

Edit: Hey, Nebulous, nice avatar!

You can get the OD&D Rules Cyclopedia on Ebay or Amazon z-shops, they include a copy (I bought one recently) - you can probably get the Companion rules likewise. It is based around a Battle Rating + d% roll, with modifiers (x 1.5 troops = +15, x2 troops = +30, x3 = +45, x4 = +60, x5 = +70, x6 = +80, x7 = +90, x8 (max) = +100).

I did some testing yesterday re 3e conversion, a simple way to set Battle Ratings by challenge rating is:

Force with average CR 1 = BR 100 (Troop Class: Average) and scale from there, with doubling the threat = BR +30, ie:

CR 1/4 = BR 40
CR 1/2 = BR 70
CR 1 = BR 100
CR 2 = BR 130
CR 3 = BR 145
CR 4 = BR 160
CR 5 = BR 175
+1 CR = +15 BR

Once you've got each side's BR + mods, add d%, highest total wins; marginal victories cause one side to fall back in good order, victory by big margin causes heavy casualties, routs etc.

 

[S'mon]

Of course War Machine is not designed as a tactical combat simulation, and isn't very suitable for small battles involving high level PCs - in D&D a 15th level party can defeat an army of a thousand or so. "Heroic acts" by PCs can give their side a +20 modifier to the d% roll. Running large War Machine battles (tens or hundreds of thousands of troops) I ask the PC Wizards "Are you using up your spells in this battle?" - if they say yes their side gets a mod, typically +5 to +10, +2 per additional caster. In a small battle (thousands of troops) the mod would be +30 or more - a single Wiz-15 can wipe out a substantial proportion of an army that size.

Edit: The last War Machine battle I ran IMC was the climax of the campaign, it involved 116,000 Mongali (Mongols) vs 306,000 allied feudal forces; PCs were around 16th level, it lasted 2 days game-time before the Mongali were driven off (leaving around 100,000 dead from both sides) - there were a lot of d% rolls but we were able to play this out in under an hour.

 

[S'mon]

If I had to on short notice, I guess I would use the troop vs troop on the back of the old old old Chainmail rules. (That system in brief: you roll a number of dice depending on your troop type and the opposing troop type, you need a certain number on each dice to kill one of the enemy.)

I use this for skirmishes (under 100 troops/side): roll a d20 per attacker, they need a certain number to kill a defender. I use "average number of rounds in standard rules+1" as the chance to kill - so if they would normally kill defender in 3 rounds, that's a 1 in 4 chance, or 17-20 on d20. Gives reasonable results & greatly cuts down on the bookkeeping. If the chance would be less than 1 in 20, use the regular combat rules.

 

[Thunhus]

War Machine rules have some big holes. Army of 8st level characters are slightly better than 1st level characters. But army of 9th level characters (+200 BR) are much better than 8th level. That leads to high level (9+) small units that are almost unbeatable.

Thunhus