"Line troops in fantasy skirmish rules?" Topic

Ok, I only have mage knight as a personally played reference to skirmish level fantasy games.

How are standard line troops handled when there are less then 20 figures to a side?

Are they all concidered to be single fighters or are they still in loose formations?

Usually, they are treated as individuals with the option to operate in small groups. Confrontation allowex modeks to operate individually, but activated by type in groups of up to three.

Welcome to the wide world of Fantasy Skirmish. There are so many different skirmish games that you'll find it varies quite a bit.

As punkrabbit says, sometimes the rules allow for individual operation. I think (not sure though) that reaper's Warlord game also operates like this.
Often, however it's fixed one way or the other.

In Song of Blades and Heroes which uses around 7-12 minis everyone operates individually. Sometimes you can use a leader to activate a group of models, but after activation they still operate individually.

In "Of Gods and Mortals" which uses 20-30 minis per side, line troops operate much like larger games where they move and fight in fixed units.

ok, that does help. Working on a game idea, but had no idea how to proceed with the cannon fodder troops.

In Warmachine, your units have leaders that provide a control area for the troopers to stay in formation. They also have other reasons to keep some troops in tight formation like the Shield wall formation or with the Defensive line ability.

In Song of blades and heroes, you can have leaders give orders to groups of troops so they can move more coherently.

While, in mordheim, they all activated individually.

In LOTR Strategy Battle Game, figures are deployed in groups, but once on the table operate individually. The rules favor keeping troops together so they are often moved in "units"

Xin