What´s your favourite system for Mass Combat?

[Dausuul]

No less unsatisfying than spending an hour roleplaying with the BBEG before a fight and getting no bonuses for fighting him. If my hour of roleplaying with a general earned me a +2 bonus to my armies attack, it sounds like I did my job.

This is more the equivalent of handling the BBEG fight with a single die roll and a handwave. If your players don't want to play out the BBEG fight, that's a good way to do it. But if your players want to participate directly in the combat, a more robust system is called for. Similarly, if the players in a group like to participate in leading armies and commanding battles, you may need something with a little more crunch.

I second the War Machine, at least as a starting point. It has enough crunch to be engaging, without being a whole wargame in itself. I've been toying with the idea of designing some kind of system along those lines--fairly abstract, not trying to simulate every advance and retreat, but with enough detail to give the players meaningful decisions to make.

 

[Krensky]

Personally, I like Adamant's Narrative Combat for mass combat and large scale battles.

 

[Jhaelen]

I say, keep it simple and just wing it.

This. I've yet to see a mass combat system I'd want to use. Part of the reason is probably my missing co-sim background. I've never been fond of pushing armies around, so it's not an aspect I'm looking for in a rpg. I'd rather focus on the stuff that directly involves the VIPs, i.e. the PCs.

 

[scourger]

Savage Worlds has good, simple mass battles rules that integrate seamlessly with the personal scale rules. We've used it to effortlessly pan to the mass battles where all the players were able to contribute and then zoom in on their individual skirmish level with specific foes. The only drawback is that the mass combat rolls can be a little too abstract and still give lethal results to an individual hero. But, that's war.

Also, I think Judge Dredd d20 has some big combat rules, maybe in one of the supplements. I used it for another d20 game to simulate the big battle, again before zooming into the player characters' fight with the main foe.

 

[Ariosto]

I like different rules sets for different subjects and different treatments of subjects.

The abstraction of a DBA variant such as HotT delivers a thoroughly different experience from Swords & Spells or Chivalry & Sorcery or Battle System or Rules According to Ral (each of which has its own distinctive touches).

Star Guard, Legions of the Petal Throne, Striker, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, The Soldier's Companion and so on are somewhat attuned to the assumptions of a particular milieu.

There are tons of free rules sets to be found online via, e.g., freewargamesrules - Home.

To make a recommendation, it would be a big help if you could narrow down what you are looking for. What would you like or find helpful? What would you dislike or find unhelpful?

 

[Ariosto]

I'd rather focus on the stuff that directly involves the VIPs, i.e. the PCs.

King Arthur Pendragon has Battle rules that do that.

 

[Mallus]

Savage Worlds has a pretty good Mass Combat system built in.

I've looked them over and am itching to try to them out. My group's got not one, but two "on hiatus" D&D campaigns which we might convert, both could benefit from a good set of mass combat rules.

I'd love to play out CITY vs. Empire of the Three Pillars of Heaven! Out of curiosity, can SW handle Godzilla-sized creatures?

 

[slwoyach]

Risk.

 

[scourger]

Out of curiosity, can SW handle Godzilla-sized creatures?

Yes. In one of our games, the climax involved the heroes in the middle of a fight between an alien queen and a t-rex. So, Savage Worlds can scale up to any size. The only drawback is that Toughness increases with size, so it becomes a game of shooting & shooting until the open-ended die rolls finally produce a big enough result to put down the big bad creature. To counter-act that effect, you might want to give the creature a vulnerability to something or a weak spot that is harder to hit but causes more damage. Artillery or jets work too, I suppose.

EDIT: It was Aliens vs. Predators now that I think of it. But, they were all tougher than the heroes. Once they finished their battle, the players finished the queen before she could make her escape; but it took that one final lucky shot.