Quote from: danskmacabre;828929I've used a mass battles boxed set called "War Law" that works with Rolemaster.

Ah! My eyes are bleeding! I actually own, and have attempted to use, War Law. Calling it detailed is something of an understatement. Good to hear it's actually fun.

Quote from: Bobloblah;828901Please tell me that's not actually your Mordheim table - I'd really rather not hate you.

I wish, it'll be about a year before I get to that point. But I'm working on it. I'm doing 15mm scale for Mordheim though, so bigger city, smaller figs. Found a company that does great 15mm Ratmen, for my Skaven contingent.

Quote from: Bobloblah;828900I've never played Army of Darkness, but it seems to be much beloved. Why? What's so great about it for mass battles?

It's very good at simulating mass battle while simultaneously making player choice count for something and allow player characters to get involved in fantastic one on one battles with heavies amidst the action. I adapted the system for my FASERIP retrovamp, Phaserip, as can be seen in the thread of that title.

Quote from: TristramEvans;828941It's very good at simulating mass battle while simultaneously making player choice count for something and allow player characters to get involved in fantastic one on one battles with heavies amidst the action. I adapted the system for my FASERIP retrovamp, Phaserip, as can be seen in the thread of that title.

If I remember correctly, the man who created it went on to create Savage Worlds.  Shane Lacy Hensley is the writer of both games.  So if you can't find a copy of the Army of Darkness book (wish I still had my hard copy) you can get the same mass combat system from any Savage World's Core Book.

Quote from: Bobloblah;828935Ah! My eyes are bleeding! I actually own, and have attempted to use, War Law. Calling it detailed is something of an understatement. Good to hear it's actually fun.

Yeah, I hear you. Fortunately, all the people I was running RM for knew RM very well, so took to War Law fairly quickly, as it wasn't just me trying to work out how it worked.

Also, some of the players in my RM campaign played a lot of wargames anyway.

The nice thing about War Law is that it can be played with counters on an 8.5 x 11 hex grid.  Sure you might want to do bigger battles but for a lot of games it makes for a nice little side board to the roleplaying action rather than requiring a full table.

Quote from: TristramEvans;828941I adapted the system for my FASERIP retrovamp, Phaserip, as can be seen in the thread of that title.

Yes, I've been following your Phaserip thread. I'll have a closer look at that section to get a sense of it. I'm a huge fan of FASERIP (although I've been using ICONS these days), and I like a lot of what you've done.

Quote from: danskmacabre;828952Yeah, I hear you. Fortunately, all the people I was running RM for knew RM very well, so took to War Law fairly quickly, as it wasn't just me trying to work out how it worked.

Also, some of the players in my RM campaign played a lot of wargames anyway.

No doubt that helped. I think I'm the only one left in our group who has ever played Chartmast-I mean, Rolemaster. You know, I love the game, particularly in its MERP incarnation, and wanted to run it again, but character generation alone is a real barrier to entry (as I derail my own thread).

Have you ever used Sea Law?

Quote from: David Johansen;828984The nice thing about War Law is that it can be played with counters on an 8.5 x 11 hex grid.  Sure you might want to do bigger battles but for a lot of games it makes for a nice little side board to the roleplaying action rather than requiring a full table.

This is very true, and is one of things that originally convinced me to buy War Law.

Birthright is one of my players favorite for mass battles.

I know another player who liked the mass combat system in BECMI or Cyclopedia. Not sure what it was called. Warmachine?

Another player liked the Melee/Wizard combat rules for before it evolved into the TFT RPG.

Yet another was really into Mighty Empires from GW.  GW rethemed it into Planet Empires apparently.

Quote from: Omega;829149Birthright is one of my players favorite for mass battles.

Oh, yeah! Forgot about this one. Birthright, as a complete package, was pretty cool. Definitely an interesting departure for TSR, and it turned the game into something resembling Diplomacy.

Quote from: Omega;829149I know another player who liked the mass combat system in BECMI or Cyclopedia. Not sure what it was called. Warmachine?

Yup, Warmachine (and Siege Machine). Loved this at the time, particularly as compared to Battle System. Very light, abstract system for resolving battles between fantasy kingdoms. It did have a few quirks, but still...

Speaking of War Machine and Battle System, my go to replacement for these is now Domains at War from Autarch. It's nominally for Adventurer Conqueror King, but it would work for any TSR-era version of D&D or close clone. It has two possible ways of resolving battles, one more abstract in the War Machine vein, the other a hex-and-counter wargame as 1st edition Battle System was (although the two games don't really resemble each other).

I haven't yet used the hex wargame as part of an ongoing campaign, only the abstract resolution. However, I have played the hex version as a standalone wargame, and it is excellent. With the PDF of D@W: Battles (covers the detailed wargame) only $7.50, I'd say it's potentially worth picking up on its own for the fantasy hex wargame

Domains at War also has really good coverage of topics beyond the battles themselves (e.g. manoeuvring, scouting, supplying, and sabotaging armies, and so on) which can be used to really ground the battles in the larger campaign (or ignored, if you just want a straightforward clash of arms). It handles heroes leading armies, and the impact they can have on battles. Sieges, and how to resolve them abstractly, in detail, or a combination of the two. Different scales, from 30-man units up to units nearly 2,000 men strong. Dozens of standard units. Rules for building any arbitrary unit from D&D statted monsters (e.g. ghouls riding nightmares, an orc chieftain riding a wyvern, a unit of elven spellcasters, an elephant carrying ballistae, a mixed unit of dwarven spearmen and centaur bowman... you get the idea). I really can't say enough good things about it.

Full Disclosure: I was a backer of the Kickstarter, and I offered and did some of the proofreading and editing on D@W.

Quote from: Omega;829149Yet another was really into Mighty Empires from GW.  GW rethemed it into Planet Empires apparently.

I'm not sure about this. Originally, Mighty Empires was a standalone, big-box game from GW that could be used as a campaign system for WHFB. You built a map out of cardboard hexes, moved plastic unit markers around, built capitals and other structures, engaged in espionage and magic (oh, yeah... you could also fight battles); it was pretty cool, although not great as a standalone game (and campaigns with WHFB took forever due to the length of a game of Warhammer and no enforced endgame).

More recently, GW put out a box of injection-molded plastic hex tiles with which you could make a campaign map for WHFB. They also included some incredibly minimalist campaign rules in the box, but the new Mighty Empires had none of the charm of the original. The components themselves are decent, though. They've also since made a WH40k version, which included different tiles (e.g. hive cities, manufactorums, space ports, etc.). This would be the Planetary Empires you're referring to. It's also nothing like the original Mighty Empires game.

Another good skirmish wargame set is Heroscape. And it has that D&D extension as well.

The 3d terrain is pretty neet too. Was a great buy for the price when it came out for those starters.

The D&D set was geared for cavern/underdark adventuring. Later sets expanded indoor and out.

Dark Albion will have a very simple, very abstract system of handling large-scale battles.

GI Joes and BB guns is still the best way. Plus the occasional book of matches and can of hairspray to simulate flamethrowers.

Quote from: Matt;829337GI Joes and BB guns is still the best way. Plus the occasional book of matches and can of hairspray to simulate flamethrowers.

That is how my little brother lost all the hair on his arm. Except he was using a can of bug spray...:nono:

Quote from: Omega;829340That is how my little brother lost all the hair on his arm. Except he was using a can of bug spray...:nono:

And for urban warfare we used Lego men in a Lego city plus BB guns, etc. indoors--pockmarked walls from ricochets was an unintended consequence.

We used to have the Crossbows & Catapults game. Apparently its been re-released as Battlegrounds. Now with cannons!