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Old 10-10-2018, 09:05 AM   #1
bluekitsune13
 
Join Date: Feb 2018
Default What would be the best way to stage a mass battle?

I've been attracted to the Fantasy Trip system for years. I've just now gotten back into it after hearing about the Kickstarter. I really want to use the system with my old Warhammer miniatures. I don't find the cardboard counters appealing. While I know you can have some really in depth small skirmishes, I was thinking about how you could really dial it up. I like the look of mass battle games like Warhammer, but I don't often like the rules. I'm kind of looking for something halfway between TFT and Warhammer.

If you were to create profiles for all the fighters in a game, upwards of 50 or so, then that would be a lot of record keeping. So it got me thinking... how can you keep TFT mechanics, but also have dozens more fighters in the game?

One thing I thought of was to include extra fighters as their own entity, separate from normal TFT fighters. They activate at the end of the round after all normal fighters, and don't follow normal rules for attacking and being attacked. To simplify things, perhaps they only have one wound each, so they are easy to kill.

Has anyone tried doing something like this before?
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Old 10-10-2018, 09:57 AM   #2
platimus
 
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Default Re: What would be the best way to stage a mass battle?

Interesting puzzle. I've never played Warhammer. I'm also not sure what you are proposing to handle the situation. I have thought about a similar situation in a game I was trying to create once upon a time though. Here's an idea...(you may have ruled this out already but throwing it out here in case you haven't)...

In terms of the battlemap and figures placed on the battlemap, everything is the same as normal TFT. In fact, the mechanics of attack, movement, etc. are the same as well...

Each Hero or Wizard on the map represents a squad of figures. You decide for yourself how many figures that actually is. The Hero is the leader of that squad. They do what he does. They all have the same basic characteristics as the Hero in terms of weapons/shields they are wielding and the skills for those weapons. You only need to create one profile (for the Hero) if using the Simple Version below. If you use the More Complex Version below, you'll need to create two profiles. One for the Hero and one to be shared by all figures under his command (same as Hero's stats but 1 or 2 points lower for each stat).

Simple Version
Each "Hero Squad" (HS) will have "Hit Points" (HP) equal to the Hero's ST times the number of figures under his command. When a HS attacks another HS, use the Hero's stats, etc. Each HS gets two attacks. One for the Hero and one for his squad. The damage inflicted by the Hero is doubled. The damage inflicted by the squad is normal. Deduct damage from the HS HP.

(More Complex Version coming in another post...)

Last edited by platimus; 10-10-2018 at 10:03 AM.
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Old 10-10-2018, 10:02 AM   #3
platimus
 
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Default Re: What would be the best way to stage a mass battle?

More Complex Version
Keep track of damage separately for each figure in the HS. Roll the Hero's attacks/damage separately. Roll each of the other figure's attacks/damage separately if you wish. If you don't want to do all of that rolling, roll one attack for all of the "underlings" and multiply the rolled damage by the number of "underlings" still alive. ***EDIT TO ADD*** Deduct Hero damage from Heroes first. Deduct "underling" damage from "underlings" first.

If the Hero dies, promote one of the squad members to "Hero Status" but he keeps his "underling" stats for the rest of the battle. If he survives, you can "upgrade" his stats/skills with the XP earned from the battle. Note that upgrading a Hero automatically upgrades his "underlings" as well. they will have the same skills as the Hero but their stats will always be 1 or 2 points lower.

Last edited by platimus; 10-10-2018 at 10:57 AM.
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Old 10-10-2018, 10:59 AM   #4
platimus
 
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Default Re: What would be the best way to stage a mass battle?

Quote:
Originally Posted by platimus View Post
More Complex Version
Keep track of damage separately for each figure in the HS. Roll the Hero's attacks/damage separately. Roll each of the other figure's attacks/damage separately if you wish. If you don't want to do all of that rolling, roll one attack for all of the "underlings" and multiply the rolled damage by the number of "underlings" still alive. ***EDIT TO ADD*** Deduct Hero damage from Heroes first. Deduct "underling" damage from "underlings" first.

If the Hero dies, promote one of the squad members to "Hero Status" but he keeps his "underling" stats for the rest of the battle. If he survives, you can "upgrade" his stats/skills with the XP earned from the battle. Note that upgrading a Hero automatically upgrades his "underlings" as well. they will have the same skills as the Hero but their stats will always be 1 or 2 points lower.
I'm seeing lots of different ways to provide variation on this depending on how simple/complex one wants to make it and on how many figures will comprise a squad. I have no idea what number to pick for myself, so would love to hear what someone has in mind for the number of figures under a Hero's command...
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Old 10-10-2018, 10:17 AM   #5
RVA_Grandpa
 
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Default Re: What would be the best way to stage a mass battle?

Quote:
Originally Posted by platimus View Post
Simple Version
Each "Hero Squad" (HS) will have "Hit Points" (HP) equal to the Hero's ST times the number of figures under his command. When a HS attacks another HS, use the Hero's stats, etc. Each HS gets two attacks. One for the Hero and one for his squad. The damage inflicted by the Hero is doubled. The damage inflicted by the squad is normal. Deduct damage from the HS HP.
I've never tried a mass battle, but I like this option.

It reminds me of days gone by when my friends and I played RISK and had "generals" for our armies as we attempted world conquest. Glorious!
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Old 10-10-2018, 10:39 AM   #6
platimus
 
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Default Re: What would be the best way to stage a mass battle?

Quote:
Originally Posted by RVA_Grandpa View Post
I've never tried a mass battle, but I like this option.

It reminds me of days gone by when my friends and I played RISK and had "generals" for our armies as we attempted world conquest. Glorious!
Thanks! Myself? I'm more partial to the simplified version of the "More Complex Version" LOL I hope that made sense!

I played Risk but it was long ago. I don't remember having "generals". If ever play again, I'll think about adding it!

Last edited by platimus; 10-10-2018 at 10:49 AM.
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Old 10-10-2018, 11:02 AM   #7
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: What would be the best way to stage a mass battle?

The game needs a skirmish and/or mass combat system, analogous to the role Chainmail played for 1E AD+D. It could be done really well by approaching it as just another compatible table-top hex and chit board game, like Melee and Wizard (i.e., 20 small-format pages of rules). If I were doing it I would draw on the Panzer Grenadier series of games for ideas re. uniting, command and control, movement, actions, etc. It is a WW2 genre board game system that has nothing to do with TFT but has some core mechanics ideas that would work very well in a system designed to mesh with TFT.
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Old 10-10-2018, 11:07 AM   #8
The Wyzard
 
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Default Re: What would be the best way to stage a mass battle?

Quote:
Originally Posted by bluekitsune13 View Post
To simplify things, perhaps they only have one wound each, so they are easy to kill.

Has anyone tried doing something like this before?
Tons of RPGs have stuff like this. Usually called "minions" or "mook rules" or the like.

What I might do is something like...
Mook figures have the same armor and weapon options as any other figure, have the same stats, and act on adjDX as normal.
They are removed from combat as though killed if they take even 1 point of damage that gets through their armor.
Any damage they deal to a non-mook figure is reduced to 1, if it is more than 1 after all other reductions (from armor, etc.) are made. This single point of damage can be doubled or tripled by critical hits.
Groups of up to six identical mooks can (and should) make a single attack if they are all within range of a single target, using the best adjDX of any of the mooks, with each additional mook granting +1 to the DX of the attacking figures.
(Example: If you have six mooks in leather armor with broadswords and they surround a PC, then the one in the PC's rear hex can make an attack with +5 to hit, in addition to the normal bonus for attacking from the rear. This is instead of rolling out six separate attacks.)

I'm not saying this is a *good idea.* It would make the game feel a lot different if the world is made up of scads of mooks who can be mowed down, and a relatively smaller number of serious "named" opponents who are much more dangerous and difficult to defeat. It also makes area-effect damage much more useful.
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Old 10-10-2018, 12:15 PM   #9
larsdangly
 
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Default Re: What would be the best way to stage a mass battle?

Personally, I think any skirmish or mass combat rules for TFT should maintain the game's overall power level, lethality and balance between PCs and other things. That is, I would never use a mass combat system that achieved rapid combat resolution by having NPCs or monsters be 'mooks', unless PC's with similar overall capabilities were also mooks.
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Old 10-10-2018, 12:51 PM   #10
platimus
 
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Default Re: What would be the best way to stage a mass battle?

Simple Version #2
Scale 1 hex = 1 megahex
* Turn length = 15 seconds
* Disengaged movement restricted to 2 hexes
* Squad size = 6 + 1 Hero = 7
* Hero has 6 lives.

In terms of the battlemap and figures placed on the battlemap, everything is the same as normal TFT. In fact, the mechanics of attack, movement, etc. are the same as well except "Disengaged" movement is restricted to 2 hexes.

Each Hero or Wizard on the map represents a squad of 7 figures (one megahex). The Hero is the leader of that squad. They do what he does. They all have the same stats, talents, spells, weapons, armor, etc. as the Hero/Wizard.

Handle combat as if only the Heroes and Wizards are there. When a Hero takes damage, he has the option of sacrificing a life (under his command) instead to negate that damage. When a Hero is killed, he is replaced by one of these lives and the battle continues.

Scale 1 hex = 7 megahexes
* Turn length = 45 seconds? 5 minutes? I don't know...
* All movement restricted to 1 hex
* Squad size = 49 + 1 Hero = 50
* Hero has 49 lives.
(rest is same as above)

Whatever the scale, you can choose the level of detail you want to have for the underlings/mooks/squad-members/lives.

EDIT
It occurs to me that someone may read this and think I'm proposing to stage mass-combat with just 2 figures on the board. Nope. At least 1 figure per unit/squad type in your army. Two units of shieldmen, two units of spear-men, 4 units of foot-soldiers, 2 units of archers, and maybe 1 unit of cavalry could comprise one of the fighting armies. That would be 11 figures on the board for just one side of the battle. The opposing army could have a similar makeup giving a grand-total of 22 figures on the battlemap....22 figures representing 154 individual figures/men using the 1 hex = 1 megahex scale or 22 figures representing 1,100 individual figures/men using the 1 hex = 7 megahexes scale.

Considering every member of a squad to have the same stats, talents, spells, etc. as the Hero leading the squad is a simplification to reduce book-keeping. If the current Hero dies, you can promote one of the "lives" to "Hero Status" and he can have the same stats, talents, spells, etc. as the previous Hero. However, I think it would be more interesting for the "replacement Hero" to have one less stat-point and/or talent/spell than the previous Hero. Of course, there is a limit to just how low you can go based on the type of unit the squad is supposed to represent.

Last edited by platimus; 10-10-2018 at 06:07 PM.
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