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Hobgoblin · 09-19-2019, 02:35 PM

I'd go with Skarg's (1) above and use a massed-battle wargame to fight the battle. (My recommendation would be Hordes of the Things.)

But then I'd have a set of potential hex-based TFT scenarios for a 'PC-scale' resolution to the battle. These would take account of the battlefield terrain and the winner/loser status of the 'goodies' and 'baddies'.

So, I'd have the battle played to a climax one way or another, and then resolve the 'personal stuff'.

The way that I'd do this is to work out a (lightly sketched) series of potential settings, one for each major area of the battlefield (woods, village, riverbank, marshes, whatever. These would essentially just be set-dressing, but the players don't need to know that!

Then I'd design encounters to reflect probable outcomes (essentially the villains have won, but the PCs are hiding on the battlefield among the corpses of their shattered regiment OR the PCs have won and are pursuing the routed villains through whatever type of terrain the unit was resolved in).

So, I'd have the shape of the wargame determine how the TFT-level encounter begins. And I'd have suitably interesting elements to throw in (either the PCs or the villains flee to seek refuge in a chapel in the woods (haunted?) or a an old woman's cottage (not all it seems?) or whatever. You'd only need a handful of these to allow the course of the wargame battle to shape the RPG climax.

I'd also work out a table of 'flavour elements' that I could pick from to reflect the course of the battle. Here are some examples:

A wounded enemy soldier pleading for water
Looters from the local community rifling the corpses of your men
Wolves/vultures/ghouls devouring the fallen
The huge corpse of a fallen enemy behemoth (dragon, giant, whatever) - to act as an obstacle/terrain item in the encounter with the chief villains
Your men torturing (or being otherwise unethical towards) enemy prisoners
As above, but vice versa (the PCs see this from cover, presenting them with a dilemma ...)
A traitor on your side congratulating the victors
One of your commanders taken captive (again, a cover-breaking dilemma)
A distracting opportunity for loot

And so on ...

I'd favour Hordes of the Things for the encounter as battles take about 45 minutes - so you could use it to introduce the session and then have the RPG stuff take up most of the time. But any fast-playing wargame rules would work. I'd use something that's quite abstract or 'zoomed out' - so that you don't need to worry about what's actually happening to the PCs during the battle (if their unit is destroyed, they start the RPG session having fled or hiding; if their unit drove all before it, they might be riding round surveying the site of victory).

09-19-2019, 02:35 PM	#5
Hobgoblin Join Date: Aug 2019	Re: Suggestions for Mass Combat…? I'd go with Skarg's (1) above and use a massed-battle wargame to fight the battle. (My recommendation would be Hordes of the Things.) But then I'd have a set of potential hex-based TFT scenarios for a 'PC-scale' resolution to the battle. These would take account of the battlefield terrain and the winner/loser status of the 'goodies' and 'baddies'. So, I'd have the battle played to a climax one way or another, and then resolve the 'personal stuff'. The way that I'd do this is to work out a (lightly sketched) series of potential settings, one for each major area of the battlefield (woods, village, riverbank, marshes, whatever. These would essentially just be set-dressing, but the players don't need to know that! Then I'd design encounters to reflect probable outcomes (essentially the villains have won, but the PCs are hiding on the battlefield among the corpses of their shattered regiment OR the PCs have won and are pursuing the routed villains through whatever type of terrain the unit was resolved in). So, I'd have the shape of the wargame determine how the TFT-level encounter begins. And I'd have suitably interesting elements to throw in (either the PCs or the villains flee to seek refuge in a chapel in the woods (haunted?) or a an old woman's cottage (not all it seems?) or whatever. You'd only need a handful of these to allow the course of the wargame battle to shape the RPG climax. I'd also work out a table of 'flavour elements' that I could pick from to reflect the course of the battle. Here are some examples: A wounded enemy soldier pleading for water Looters from the local community rifling the corpses of your men Wolves/vultures/ghouls devouring the fallen The huge corpse of a fallen enemy behemoth (dragon, giant, whatever) - to act as an obstacle/terrain item in the encounter with the chief villains Your men torturing (or being otherwise unethical towards) enemy prisoners As above, but vice versa (the PCs see this from cover, presenting them with a dilemma ...) A traitor on your side congratulating the victors One of your commanders taken captive (again, a cover-breaking dilemma) A distracting opportunity for loot And so on ... I'd favour Hordes of the Things for the encounter as battles take about 45 minutes - so you could use it to introduce the session and then have the RPG stuff take up most of the time. But any fast-playing wargame rules would work. I'd use something that's quite abstract or 'zoomed out' - so that you don't need to worry about what's actually happening to the PCs during the battle (if their unit is destroyed, they start the RPG session having fled or hiding; if their unit drove all before it, they might be riding round surveying the site of victory).