"battlelust: worth to buy if you have harn rpg books?" Topic

I am curious about this ruleset, but a friend of mine owns the harn rpg manuals. I would like to know if the battlelust miniatures ruleset has something more than the rpg combat rules; if I can make a skirmish game with 50 minis per side with a simple version of the rpg rules, or if I need the battlelust ruleset

Can't say what it covers compared to the RPG, but I've always read positive reviews of Battlelust (and have considered picking it up a few times).

If just for completeness

Interesting choice of names. We used Battlelust back in 2001 for our 15mm-10mm SciFi mass combat system.

SInce this refers to RPG, it sounds like skirmish to me.

I liked some of the concepts in Battlelust. Just be warned, the game (unless they have changed things) is OK as long as you don't have folks using heavy armor. IIRC two fully armored knights could break several weapons pounding away at each other and do little or no harm to the other combatant.

The system has more than a little RuneQuest in it but runs a lot smoother and has some combat rules that go way beyond RuneQuest.

I, however never bought any Harn stuff, so I cannot help you where the integration issue is concerned.

mjc

Hey RudyNelson,

The copy of Battlelust I have is copyright 1992, so you might want to check your trademarks…

Battlelust is a good medieval/low-magic skirmish system that uses a Harnmaster "Lite" form of combat that integrates into the Harnmaster RPG, but is also stand-alone. It has a lot of material that is useful for doing military campaigns -- troop types (Human, Elf, Gargun, Dwarf), raising and maintaining troops, etc. Given that it uses a variant of the Harn combat system though, when playing my group developed some house rules to reduce the fumble/crit effects in the game, enhacements to the morale and command system, and so on.

True roderick. Mine is a subtitle text. the full title is Supereme Warlord: Bloodlust tactical Fantasy rules.

My comment was indicating how the term bloodlust brings to mind Fantasy combat with no quarter given or asked for.

I don't have the Harn stuff but have Battlelust and like it. The comments about heavy armor are true. We played with 50/side and it worked but we also had "teams" of 3 on each side; that sped up the play as things moved quicker.

thanks a lot for your answers. I just wanted to know if I could save the money in the ruleset by using the rpg rules for big skirmishes

What edition of Harnmaster does your friend have? The reason I ask, in the 2nd Ed., under Combat 19, there is a 2 page quick combat system (which is a highly simplified version of the rpg combat) This Quick Combat system is the core system used in Battlelust. So technically, you don't really need to buy Battlelust. However, as GamerX mentioned, it has useful material on military campaigns and organsiation, and also comes with sheets of data cards for all different types of troops. In Battlelust, you have a data card for each figure on the table, which details armour rating, weapons, etc. You could prob. make your own, but the sheets of cards are quick and easy and useful, as the information for rank and file is already on the cards. Hope that helps a little!

thanks a lot. Greghallam, I have readed those pages, so thanks very much, because if battlelust is just that, I donīt need it.

I was looking for some kind of "runequest-thing" for big skirmish.

No worries ghostdog. Battlelust is a good sturdy set of dark age/medieval skirmish rules, for , I reckon, 30-40 figures a side. But if you're looking for a RQ-thing, then Battlelust is not it, its exactly the quick combat system of HM.

Sorry to be a little late on this thread, but, I just thought of something else that you might want. If you are doing large battles, there is a fan made set of rules to go with Harnmaster called "Field of Honor – Mass combat rules" You should be able to download them from somewhere.

The rules are for abstract battles, and I don't think that they will work as wargame rules though.