Chris Knapp
First Post
A few years ago, One Bad Egg put out a mass combat supplement called Hard Boiled Ideas: Armies. The idea being that each unique combat unit (whether your scale calls for platoon, company, or army level) to be a single "monster" with a stat block, represented by a single token or mini on a square battlegrid. You take turns just like 4E, and follow the same general rules with a few exceptions (no op attacks usually, all misses should do some damage, etc.) The grid scale changes based upon whatever scale you are representing. A square can be 50 feet for platoon level actions or 1 mile for army maneuvers. The time scale also changes based on scale from 1 minute per turn to a few hours or days. Once you have the scale selected, you create "powers" for your units. I've found that a basic melee + 1 additional encounter or reaction power per unit works fine and keeps the battles from getting bogged down. Ranged attacks are often reduced to range 2 or even considered melee if the scale is large enough, or for army scale, not used at all. The last consideration is how unique creatures are handled. A single dragon might be a unique "army" itself, but with drastically reduced HP and damage to account for scale.
