[ToySoldier]

So my game has taken a turn towards a massive style war, with the players in general's positions over a large number of units. And instead of having it a head on battle with generals on generals...I'm trying to find an engine or a system to manage the players units so that battles can be had between platoons/squads/companies/battalions, etc...

Anyone here ever try something like that? If so, how'd you do and what would you change?

If not, does anyone know of any resources that may be able to help me?

[Dthclaw]

Two books which I would highly recommend right off the bat for this type of gaming situation:

Heroes of Battle (for more traditional DnD style stuff; rules are decent)
Warcraft: Alliance and Horde Compendium (Sword&Sorcery published; may require some adaptation, but more in-depth rules for what you're looking for)

As a DM, I would try to avoid such a play style unless all your players want that kind of game. Such a system, regardless of what set of rules you implement, has the potential to bring a game to a show-stopping halt as the mechanics are worked on. Even with an intimate familiarity with the rules will not negate this, so be careful about making large-scale combat mechanically rather than narrative.

And welcome to the site

[ToySoldier]

Thanks for the tips, and yes all the players have decided that it'd be an interesting turn of events, (we're all military guys so we'd like to see how knowledge of unit movement and such would work in a game)

I'll take a look at those books, and thanks for the welcome!

Dthclaw, on Oct 22 2006, 04:46 PM, said:

Two books which I would highly recommend right off the bat for this type of gaming situation:

Heroes of Battle (for more traditional DnD style stuff; rules are decent)
Warcraft: Alliance and Horde Compendium (Sword&Sorcery published; may require some adaptation, but more in-depth rules for what you're looking for)

As a DM, I would try to avoid such a play style unless all your players want that kind of game. Such a system, regardless of what set of rules you implement, has the potential to bring a game to a show-stopping halt as the mechanics are worked on. Even with an intimate familiarity with the rules will not negate this, so be careful about making large-scale combat mechanically rather than narrative.

And welcome to the site

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Welcome to our corner of hte internet, Toy Soldier. Another two books I would recommend just to get some ideas from are AEG's War and this crazy little book I stumbled across one day called Tome of Battle: Fields of Blood (not to be confused with the WotC Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords, which has nothign to do with mass medieval combat rules). Both have some interesting ideas in them and seem to handle things fairly well. They also go into a fair amount of depth with regard to dtails usually forgetten such as supply chain management (soldiers can't fight if they don't eat), and really good stuff on seige warfare and costs of war. Also, just as a DM, I would recommend reading Sun Tzu's Art of War. It will help you with your strategizing and depending on teh roles your players are playing, can really challenge them.

[ToySoldier]

Thanks for the suggestion on books, they've helped alot and I've developed my own system for running it. Later on I'll have a full write up and post it.

Sun Tzu's The Art of War is excellent, I always loved it.

Thanks again for the suggestions, and as I get a chance to play test this new system I've developed I'll be sure to put it out here for criticism.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Awesome, man. We love to criticize things. Err, I mean, we'd love to see what you came up with! Yeah, that's it.

[Axel]

The system I used for doing that just treated each battallion as a character and employed the standard combat rules. Fast and easy.

[ToySoldier]

Hey guys,
So...the ending of the campaign went well, having used the books recommended here and some of the ideas.

I ended up for basic units, treating them as a single character with a certain amount of HP, Armor, and Damage and applying standard rules, I found that to be the best for basic units (Infantry, Cavalry, Scouts).

Of course, each unit had it's own specialty on the battlefield, and would recieve bonuses depending on what unit/units they were attacking. (i.e. Cavalry vs Infantry gains +2 to BA, and +5 to AC, or something like that).

It was a very exciting, and fast paced 4 sessions for this battle/war to be worked out/resolved, and for an ultimately surprising ending.

Thanks for the help!

[Dthclaw]

Sweet. Glad our advice helped

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Glad we could be of some help. Any more questions we can try our hands at?