If you're looking at old SPI games with armies, leaders, magicians, etc, try Albion.
For some reason it never got very popular at the time, but that might also be because SPI folded not too long thereafter, so it never received any errata or further development afterwards.
Interestingly, a guy did an expansion for it called Fornaldor which basically added new species (mermen, giants, dwarves, etc.), a few new spells, new magic items, and a map that covered Sweden, Norway and Finland.
A game publisher picked up Fornaldor a few years ago and, I think published it (maybe even kickstarted it?), but I already had several copies from the original author and didn't like how they re-did the counters, so I never purchased a copy.
Hi Jeffrey,
Are any of these games you mention in print anywhere? I wouldn’t
mind looking at them, but don’t want to pay some huge price on eBay.
***
My goal was if the players have a mercenary company (or join one),
there is some way to measure both the combat ST (in several categories),
and ways of judging the command and training quality of the company. I
wanted to discuss officers and NCO’s separately. Morale is important.
Thru some not too complex process, turn this into a counter for the
war-game.
Play the game, and make sure that the damage to the counter can
be reflected back to the characters that make it up.
I want the counters to be much more complex than TLoU, so that
more of these details can be captured. I’m thinking oversized counters
and hexes, say hexes 3 cm across, with counters 1.5 by 2.5 cm. Have
the letters and numbers large enough that home made counters with
pen and pencil crayon are practical.
The game can stay fairly simple, lots of numbers on the counter do
not need to have super complex rules to run them.
Terrain in the game would be fairly complex, lots of varieties.
Different fantasy races get bonuses in different terrain, etc.
During game play, having 1 or 2 status counters per company is OK.
(We have a small number of companies so a couple counters each to
show their status can work.). Maybe one counter to show it deployment
& offensive status, and one counter showing damage / negative effects.
***
The size of the campaigns would be small. Companies are 30 to 50
people. 5 to 10 companies per size. (A LOT of ancient battles were
under 500 people, huge armies of thousands or tens of thousands of
people were very rare. Also I want the adventurers to feel like they are
not meaningless in these conflicts.)
Debating command and control. Easiest thing to do is say wizards
have solved the problem. Likely something more realistic would be better.
Card driven like the Command and Colors style games? Maybe you give
your orders, and cards say how quickly / confused the orders are carried
out?
Perfectly willing to use dice. Different type of dice. Lots of dice if
needed.
Outright destruction of units is very rare. Usually cohesion is lost,
morale collapses, and the unit runs. That said, individuals in the unit do
die. Depending on command and control, beat up units stop responding
to orders well.
Logistics… very simple or mostly ignored completely. The units
are so small, that big logicist trains are not needed.
***
I would like to make this game work with a wide variety of RPG’s,
but this makes how to handle magic really difficult. In high fantasy type
games (e.g. D&D), a high level wizard can destroy 500 typical soldiers.
In lower mana areas wizards might be pretty insignificant. How to
handle magic is the thing I’m least sure about.
Thoughts on the subject would be welcome!
I’m tempted to just use TFT (since this is the RPG I play), but that
would make the market for this game tiny, and if I’m going to go to all this
work, I would like it to be useful to lots of people.
***
I got a book, “How to Make War: A comprehensive guide to modern
warfare” by James F. Dunnigan, which has a lot of statistics on conflict
and discussions of how various elements tie into making an effective
fighting force.
Reading this book, made me think about how cool it would be to
have a several companies under your command (each with all stats
written on a 3 by 5 inch index card), and play out battles with them.
After the battle, you look at the results, and modify the card for your
company. (These troops are blooded and more confident. But you lost
a key NCO, so training will be harder in future.)
Note, not all companies need index cards (just YOUR companies).
NPC companies are just counters.
***
Anyway the key things I’m thinking about are:
— Small scale battles, 200 to 500 people on a side. Several companies
each.
— Full color maps on 8.5 by 11” paper, or 11 by 17” paper. This make it
easy for people to create and print out new maps. For larger maps put a
couple of small sheets beside each other.
— Fairly detailed notes on each company. Different companies are quite
different from each other. Info on company fits on index card, from index
card counter in game is created.
— The ability of events at the RPG level of play to effect the companies
and vice versa.
— Adventuring parties can be directly used as tiny companies. Or maybe
as commanders / bodyguards / command staff.
***
Anyone think this sort of game would be cool?
Anyone know of a game with this sort of scale?
Warm regards, Rick.