Handling mass combat

[Red Traveller]

Hi,

I'd be interested to hear how people manage larger scale combats and if there is a system available which combines RQs blend of melee and magic. I recently ran an encounter for 5 players with their 20+ followers/allies against a similar sized enemy force, and whilst it was fun for them it was a nightmare for me to manage. I know there is a proposed Skirmish ruleset on the horizon (has been for some time now) and other Ancient period wargames rules (which just don't feel RQ to me).

Any suggestions or pointers would be very gratefully received. 

 

[RandomNumber]

2 hours ago, Red Traveller said:

Hi,

I'd be interested to hear how people manage larger scale combats and if there is a system available which combines RQs blend of melee and magic. I recently ran an encounter for 5 players with their 20+ followers/allies against a similar sized enemy force, and whilst it was fun for them it was a nightmare for me to manage. I know there is a proposed Skirmish ruleset on the horizon (has been for some time now) and other Ancient period wargames rules (which just don't feel RQ to me).

Any suggestions or pointers would be very gratefully received. 

 

I can thoroughly recommend "Ships and Shield Walls" for TDM's RQ6 by Jon Drake, Pete Nash and Loz Whitaker. This has very accessible rules for running battles at a fairly abstract level and is pretty cheap.  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/130245/Ships--Shield-Walls?term=ships+and+shie

I'll declare a conflict of interest - Jon Drake (author of the Korantia setting for RQ6/Mythras) is a good mate of mine from when we started playing RQ2 back in 1980/81. Even so, the rules stand up, IMHO.

 

[Red Traveller]

Hi and thanks for the suggestion. I will take a look, but do they cover the magic which is such an integral part of RQ?

[RandomNumber]

14 minutes ago, Red Traveller said:

Hi and thanks for the suggestion. I will take a look, but do they cover the magic which is such an integral part of RQ?

There are no specific rules or features added for magic - our campaigns were always quite low magic.  I agree that magic for mass combat or magical units would be a fascinating addition. It would be simple enough to rustle up enchantments, battle standards and spells that modify aspects of the mechanics e.g. unit morale, competence, damage etc as a very straightforward first step.

[Red Traveller]

Just trying to pre-empt what my players will no doubt ask 😂 

 

[David Scott]

The key to RQ mass combat is the Battle skill. The skill is in the core rules, but its rules aren't described. The skill first appeared in Different Worlds 28 (April 1983), and had a simple results table:

Roll Type	Result	Earned Skills
Critical	Fought well, and with notable heroism	Best 3 weapons, POW. Battle goes up 5% automatically.
Special	Fought well	Battle, weapon, POW
Successful	Fought competently	Battle, weapon
Unsuccessful	Saw action	Battle
Very Poor (opp of special)	Fought poorly, took wound	Battle
Fumble	Character killed	None

For historical battles, there was a modifier +/- depending on what side you were on. This should all look familiar if you've used the family history section

This was clearly developed into the Battle skill of Pendragon, the rules expanding (If you have that, it can be used with little modification).There's a simplified modular system in Beyond the Wall (1995):

 

Basically the player group experiences a small section of the battle that contributes to the outcome.

Now have a look at what jeff wrote here about running the Battle of Queens:

 

 

[Red Traveller]

Interesting. My players are also wargamers so I was thinking of using Principles of War Ancients as it covers the classic ancient period, and homebrewing magic into it. But looking at Ships and Shieldwalls I can see a lot can be carried over. I especially like the Battle Actions concept.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

The key to RQ mass combat is the Battle skill

Our group disliked this system immensely because there was near zero player agency.  You essentially pick an augment, roll it, get told any bonus depending on which side is preordained to win, then roll Battle once, with extreme "small sample size luck".

That said, we don't have anything better for abstract mass combat.  We prefer to have the adventures do an "important scouting mission" or "hold this narrow pass" or similar (e.g. Duel at Dangerford) where they get to have agency and use many more of their skills.

[Red Traveller]

Players in my group like the grand scope of taking command of significant forces, and as I've said, are also fairly regular wargamers. So they have pretty much evolved past the small action point, although the core of the campaign remains individual level scenarios. The overall campaign arc will naturally lead to bigger and bigger actions as they progress to leading their various factions, so satisfying both elements is a bit of a juggling act. Hence looking for a wargame system that caters for individuals influencing teh battle.     

[wombat1]

When I had to do a battle for my Cthulhu Invictus game (Germans with a po' attitude team up with Mythos cultists and everybody goes over the frontier), I found that DBA/Hordes of the Things could be adapted to what I wanted (with some increase in the number of bases so that every player in the campaign could get a little  force.)

Given what you describe, could SAGA reasonably be adapted to your needs?  It posits a "hero" and  his warband, which could be expanded out to "heroes" and their somewhat smaller warband, well, actually the guy who carries the sacks and the other guy who leads the donkeys, but they also seem to have a module now for magic.

https://www.grippingbeast.co.uk/Saga.html

 

 

[Arcadiagt5]

9 hours ago, Red Traveller said:

Hi,

I'd be interested to hear how people manage larger scale combats and if there is a system available which combines RQs blend of melee and magic. I recently ran an encounter for 5 players with their 20+ followers/allies against a similar sized enemy force, and whilst it was fun for them it was a nightmare for me to manage. I know there is a proposed Skirmish ruleset on the horizon (has been for some time now) and other Ancient period wargames rules (which just don't feel RQ to me).

Any suggestions or pointers would be very gratefully received. 

 

For what it’s worth here’s my experience with The Battle of the Queens: 

 

[Arcadiagt5]

6 hours ago, David Scott said:

Now have a look at what jeff wrote here about running the Battle of Queens:

 

 

Something I relied on heavily when I ran it, and one of the reasons I'm really looking forward to the RuneQuest Grand Campaign.

[svensson]

Groups I've played in abstracted battles using several criteria:

- Average aggregate AP of each force vs. Average aggregate weapon damage.

- Battle skill rolls for mundane tactical advantages [terrain selection, maneuvers, etc.]

- Aggregate POW vs. Aggregate POW for magical advantage.

- Crazy PC ideas that just might work

- Apply a rough percentage of casualties

- Then set up a PC combat based on the casualty percentage.

[Dissolv]

I posted a bit about this topic here:

 

I definitely try to stage mass battles by doing smaller battles first, and with the PC's in non-leadership positions.  This sort of sets ground rules and expectations.  Bonus points if they see their leaders fail, and learn a lesson for when they are Rune level and in charge later on.

Just three weeks ago I ran the Battle of Iceland. I do not use the rules in the Main Rule book, and originally intended this to be a miniatures session using TTS!   Sadly despite the fact that I have painted both sides for his, including personalities and giant Chaos horror, due to the constraints of Zoom it was run in old school, oral narrative fashion.   However that method still works, was extremely epic, and took a very lengthy Zoom session to resolve.  Here is how I did it:

1) I set the tone well in advance.  The players have been gaming weekly since May 2020, and have been involved in quite a few cattle raids, clan vs. clan skirmishes, a Yelmalian phalanx vs. Troll mobs throw down in Pavis, and knew the basic gist of mass combat.   The conflict between King Broyan and the Lunars in Hendrikiland had been the subject of news and rumors for months.  When the Windstop hit, the players were given impossible options, and rose to the occasion.  Specifically they were asked to choose between their kin, their clan, and the cause.  The PC's scrambled to find a way to save everyone....but....we'll get there later.

2) The Battle itself had the players in mid-level leadership positions. They weren't top tier heroes just yet, but were well respected and certainly better than the rank and file.  They acted as Captains of men, but still were being directed to carry out battlefield tasks by superiors.  They were effectively throwing the weight of around 100 Thanes, nearly half of whom were Humakt Initiates, and therefore had magic.  Because of their unit's great relative power, they received a place of honor (read: Danger). 

3) The battle itself was a series of narrative events, player decisions, and sharp combat.  Their first task was to defeat the Beryl Phalanx, who could not be allowed to use their anti-"Ram people" magic.  The best combat PC led the charge, covered by the PC archer, and backed by the sole Rune level PC, the Grey Sage.  In a tough combat where most of the clan(s) magic was spent, the Beryl phalanx was crushed before they could form ranks, the archer PC managed to down the best enemy Priest with a couple of critical arrows, and the combat PC was able to heroically slay the Beryl Phalanx commander in hand to hand combat twice (thanks to the Grey Sage Dismissing every protective spell cast by or upon the commander).  After that there were a series of battlefield tasks to deal with -- cut off the Lasdag Lions who were moving to flank the army, protect the (civilian) sleepers from Lunars intent on killing them, save Hendrikiland militia who were neck deep in angry Lunars, meet up with Broyan, that sort of thing.  In between breathless rushing from task to task I would give them a snippet of the events in the battle.  The lightning used against Broyan, spotting their clan's former Chieftain who had been driven out by the Lunars, the arrival of the sky people, that sort of thing, but generally fairly quickly.

4) The climatic finale was the Chaos beast (which I made a thing that grew stronger and larger as it absorbed the bodies of the dead as it mucked around the battlefield.)  Finally the Grey Sage stood forth and used a temple treasure -- an enchantment of Impede Chaos of tremendous magnitude.  Then he did his level best not to die while being attacked by 20d6 damage attacks with Lhankhor Mhy knows other effects.   When the combat PC realized that he had magic again he dumped 13 points into Lightning and seriously wounded it.  Eventually the mercenary Sun Domers showed up and everyone held their breath.  The group had taken serious losses and were out of magic.  The NPC thanes had dragged the combat PC off the field to save him, and no PC had any Rune or Magic points left to do much more than the exhausted thanes might do against the massed pikes and Lightwalls, which would be to run in and die.  However the bargain had been "no Chaos", and to everyone's relief and amazement, the Sun Domers hurled pikes first at the chaos horror, and eventually ended it.

 

If you notice this resembles a Heroquest in that it is a narrative encounter with a series of stations each with different tasks to fulfill.  In many ways I find that "real world" Heroquests are the best ones, as you shouldn't need to always travel to another plane to be the Hero.  You can be heroic right here in the Middle World, and while the rewards may not be quite so great as a Heroquest proper, the landscape is more understandable, and the rewards are real all the same. 

A major difference is that the players had quite a lot of followers to manage, which in the game session were broken up into elite warriors (Humakti generally), good warriors (the highly skilled and well geared but magic-less Orlanthi), special skill NPCs, which were mainly hunters and ranger types, but also included a support group of Priests.  At different points in the night all of those sub-units had to be managed, even if just loosely in the abstract.

 

[soltakss]

19 hours ago, David Scott said:

The key to RQ mass combat is the Battle skill.

That is fine for seeing what happens to an individual in a battle, but is not much use when determining the outcome of a battle.

19 hours ago, David Scott said:

The skill is in the core rules, but its rules aren't described. The skill first appeared in Different Worlds 28 (April 1983), and had a simple results table:

Roll Type	Result	Earned Skills
Critical	Fought well, and with notable heroism	Best 3 weapons, POW. Battle goes up 5% automatically.
Special	Fought well	Battle, weapon, POW
Successful	Fought competently	Battle, weapon
Unsuccessful	Saw action	Battle
Very Poor (opp of special)	Fought poorly, took wound	Battle
Fumble	Character killed	None

For historical battles, there was a modifier +/- depending on what side you were on. This should all look familiar if you've used the family history section

I would assign every Unit in the battle a Battle skill and have them roll it, using the table above.

It is then possible to narrate the outcome of the battle according to the results.

You might need several rounds to determine what happens.

So, at a very simple level, you have the Bluebottle Clan fighting the Bleuejay Clan. Each has a Fyrd and Thanes, counting as two units.

• Bluebottle Fyrd has Battle 40%, rolls 30, fought competently.
• Bluebottle Thanes have Battle 60%, rolls 10, fought well.
• BlueJay Fyrd has Battle 30%, rolls 90, saw action.
• Bluejay Thanes have Battle 70%, rolls 100, killed.

So, what happened in the battle? The two fyrds met in combat and fought each other with no clear result, but the Bluebottle Fyrd probably won the day. the two units of Thanes fought, but the Bluebottle Thanes fought well and devastated the Bluejay Thanes. It may be that the unit was destroyed but not all Thanes were killed, each individual Thane should roll the Battle skill, but with a big penalty, to see how well they did.

More complex battles have more units and several rounds to see what happens.

[Red Traveller]

Thanks for all of the really enthusiastic and constructive responses, for which I am very grateful. I should have really made it clear that what I am looking for is a set of rules or suggestions for use in a tabletop mass battle rather than abstracting the result of a battle. I guess we just enjoy shoving masses of figures around like a Poundland version Alexander the Great. 

I'm sort of swerving towards a hybrid version of Principles of War meets Ships and Shieldwalls, but the magic is still a stumbling block.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

Years ago I broke out my old DBA ancients figures and jury rigged a system where the players were "Blades" or "Spears" or "Archers" (including mages were mainly "Archers") whatever, generally "Superior" grade.  It was a one-off so I mainly made things up on the fly and occasionally fudged.  Worked o.k. but there was no wild enthusiasm by our group to develop it further.

[David Scott]

You might also be interested in Hordes of the Things (fantasy wargame rules), which has a Glorantha army list and the Gloarmy pages:

http://hordesofthethings.blogspot.com/2013/08/gloranthan-army-lists-for-hordes-of.html

http://gloarmy.free.fr/hottarmylist.htm