D&D General War! What is it Good For (in your campaigns)?

[Lyxen]

never did see that one. The Battlesystem 2E one wasn't too bad, it kept everything flowing pretty smoothly (unlike the 1E version).

My main problem with the Battlesystem is that it uses miniatures with a set scale, and it's hard to represent really large armies with it, it does not scale properly. I't also absolutely dependent on a map and is really a wargame in its own right.

The War Machine is completely different, it's both much simpler in the sense that you don't need a map or figurines, it can be TotM, and it scales really well, you can manage any sort of army. The tactics are also cool and leave a large place to intervention by the PCs, in terms of spying or taking out leaders. It makes it much easier to blend with more standard D&D adventures.

 

[Voadam]

When running Lord of the Iron Fortress I had an army of a half a million orcs camped outside the military planar gate city when the party arrived. Part way through their investigations in the city the orcs attacked with complicity from one of the factions of the city and it was all out battle with high level and mid level and low level NPCs as the party worked to get to the gate for the next step in their investigations.

Mostly narrative with a few fights the party was involved in that let me pull out a 17th level orc barbarian stat block among others.

 

[David Howery]

My main problem with the Battlesystem is that it uses miniatures with a set scale, and it's hard to represent really large armies with it, it does not scale properly. I't also absolutely dependent on a map and is really a wargame in its own right.

the one time I ran it (the 'Rorke's Drift' scenario), I used the counters that came with the game (maybe the 1E game? don't recall), and just drew up the fort on a big sheet of poster board. Nothing fancy, but it worked...