"Good rules for really large armies?" Topic

Recently I've been looking at some fantasy and mythological ancients rules sets for 15-20mm scale mass combat games. I've noticed that many rules sets seem to be designed for fairly small armies. At 15-20mm scale you'd think these games would allow for armies larger than your standard Warhammer army by several magnitudes, but most seem to be a fraction of the size. Are there any good rules sets out there that allow for really big armies? Something that works well with giant epic battles, like the big battles in Lord of the Rings, or a mythological version of the siege of Troy?

Big battle DBA or HOTT. LADG too. 24-36 stand armies are easily run. If you think of a unit as 3-6 stands even bigger is manageable although bow range gets a bit distorted with the altered scale. It is mportant to realize that ancient battles even with huge armies historically lacked the command control to have more than a few maneuver elements.

Ed at Battle Valor Games has a pretty good fantasy ruleset aptly named "Battle Valor". I haven't played them (not enough painted miniatures) but read through them and like what I saw. I also watched a very large battle take place at one of the HMGS conventions and people seemed to enjoy them. The best part is that the basic rules are free over here:

battlevalorgames.com

I hope to publish mine in a week or two.

David F Brown

Hostile Realms from Piquet

Ral Partha's Chaos Wars comes to mind. It's very fixed on twelve infantry or six cavalry to an element. You roll 1d6 / 1-3 for armour and that's how many casualties are inflicted. -1 for every two infantry or one cavalry the unit has lost. Moral is a similar 1d6 roll. Dead simple.

Mantic's Kings of War is definitely intended for a hundred or more figures on a side in units of 10, 20, or 40. It's an ultra streamlined Warhammer style game but units don't lose fighting power as they take casualties except when they're shaken and don't fight at all which will happen more often as they take casualties. It's fast and fun if perhaps a bit too simplistic.

link

I would recommend Hail Caesar Rules. Hope it helps.

As always, comments are appreciated.

Take care

Andy

I'm using Commands&Colors Ancients rules/cards for fast play with some Battlelore magic grafted on. Currently, I'm experimenting with some custom tactics cards that give each army/race more flavor. I use the CC:A because I like the linear aspects and leader influences that aren't in Battlelore.
I'm with you on battle size. You mention big battles in fantasy and people think of 12-units per side or something. As a Napoleonics gamer, anything less than about 30 units (not stands -- so about 120 stands) per side is a skirmish to me! One of the advantages of 15mm is to field larger armies. I have good sized dwarf and orc armies that I'm deploying in a test game this weekend (hopefully).

well, tshryock, this should be of interest to you then:

link

C&C games (especially Battlelore) have been my favorite miniature games (once I 3D them) for some while. I'm already collecting 1:72 minis for this.