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<blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 2247780" data-attributes="member: 463">Hi, er Robert.&nbsp; Interesting post.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Re the above - in the scenario I'm thinking of, where I used a homebrew minis system (which hyper-accurately modelled the D&amp;D rules raised to a company scale), there were maybe 3000 orcs, goblins etc vs around 1800 human knights, pikemen, some dwarf infantry et al.&nbsp; This is what I'd call a small battle - in a skirmish with only a few hundred combatants I'd normally just use regular D&amp;D rules (worked fine in 1e) or maybe my quick skirmish system above if I didn't want to track hp.&nbsp; The PCs were around 12th level, 2-3 were in command positions, 2 were spellcasters who hovered over the battle blasting things,&nbsp; 1-2 had no command role &amp; no way to be assigned one.&nbsp; Most of the PCs stuck together in a group, too scared of the BBEG to split up.&nbsp; The battle took 4 hours or so, the rules worked ok but it was considered unfun.&nbsp; By contrast where I ran a battle with 422,000 combatants using OD&amp;D War Machine, it took less than an hour, the players all got to have an effect on the outcome (by making mods to the d% rolls) and it felt much more like a &quot;proper D&amp;D session&quot; to me.I think your approach worked because you were running a very small battle with low-level PCs - but this would have worked using regular D&amp;D rules anyway.&nbsp; For me the problem is high-level PCs, especially on a small to mid-sized battlefield with a few thousand troops.&nbsp; I don't have a perfect solution but War Machine certainly works great for big battles, I can probably get it to work ok for small ones - better than any minis-based system I know, anyway.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="S'mon, post: 2247780, member: 463"] Hi, er Robert. Interesting post. :) Re the above - in the scenario I'm thinking of, where I used a homebrew minis system (which hyper-accurately modelled the D&D rules raised to a company scale), there were maybe 3000 orcs, goblins etc vs around 1800 human knights, pikemen, some dwarf infantry et al. This is what I'd call a small battle - in a skirmish with only a few hundred combatants I'd normally just use regular D&D rules (worked fine in 1e) or maybe my quick skirmish system above if I didn't want to track hp. The PCs were around 12th level, 2-3 were in command positions, 2 were spellcasters who hovered over the battle blasting things, 1-2 had no command role & no way to be assigned one. Most of the PCs stuck together in a group, too scared of the BBEG to split up. The battle took 4 hours or so, the rules worked ok but it was considered unfun. By contrast where I ran a battle with 422,000 combatants using OD&D War Machine, it took less than an hour, the players all got to have an effect on the outcome (by making mods to the d% rolls) and it felt much more like a "proper D&D session" to me. I think your approach worked because you were running a very small battle with low-level PCs - but this would have worked using regular D&D rules anyway. For me the problem is high-level PCs, especially on a small to mid-sized battlefield with a few thousand troops. I don't have a perfect solution but War Machine certainly works great for big battles, I can probably get it to work ok for small ones - better than any minis-based system I know, anyway. [/QUOTE]

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