Dark Sun battlesystem games - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Dark Sun battlesystem games

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
Mulhull
Apr 15, 2007 22:17:30 Does anyone still play battlesystem? I think mage knight is the favorite now, but anyway I thought about making some a scenario/battle.

I call it hunters and raiders. A elf tribe comes across a thri kreen one (actually, think thri kreen hunt in small packs, so we'll say several packs) in the desert. The thri kreen want to chow down on the elves and the elves are left to defend themselves, which they probably can, with defilers and psions and whatnot.

Either way, I think it would make a good battle. For the thri kreen to eat and the elves simply to survive as thri kreen don't care for material things and wouldn't have any valuables.
#2
j0lt
Apr 15, 2007 22:20:18 Battlesystem? Is that like a precursor to D&D Minis?
#3
Mulhull
Apr 15, 2007 22:28:38
Battlesystem? Is that like a precursor to D&D Minis?

It's a system for making fantasy armies and such out of D&D figures, basically converting it to a wargame format. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlesystem. Here's the book I have on it.

http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/dd1/bs2.jpg
#4
zombiegleemax
Apr 16, 2007 3:27:44 Hi,
A long time ago my group and I tried to play a massive battle between Raam army and Tyr free army. It was a siege of Tyr by the Raamish, and resulted in Abalach-Re being destroyed (it was the culmination of a three years old campaign, and I diversed from the official timeline after the crimson legion defeat by Hamanu).

The battlesystem rules were very bad, the pace was slow, and they where cumbersome. When I started playing Warhammer, I got further insight on just how not friendly and slow they are.

My way to resolve big battles since then, was to play it on a tactica map, showing large formations as marks, and the tactical moves of the various units. Worked quite well.
#5
dirk00001
Apr 16, 2007 10:18:42 I use the Cry Havoc rules for large-scale battles - it is very customizeable to different situations/battle sizes (there are 3 sets of rules - one for unit-scale combat, one for army-scale, and one to handle an entire, extended war). It's written by Skip Williams and is purposely meant to interact with the 3.5e rules, so with just a few minutes of work you can figure out the stats for your PCs/NPCs for use with these rules.

So far I've ran 1 battle and been a PC/unit leader in another unit-scale battle using these rules, and in both cases it involved around 400 individuals (counting both sides, combined), including various creature types, cavalry, spellcasters, psions and "heroes" (PCs/unique NPCs), and in each case took about 4 hours to run...which included the learning curve as only myself (in my battle) and my DM and I (in the other game) knew the rules. Once you know the differences in the rules system battles go as quickly as a normal D&D battle would go, and in some cases even more quickly.
#6
monastyrski
Apr 16, 2007 11:50:10 I had some Battlesystem-resolved combats in the DA adventure. Battlesystem is more playable indeed, than the MH rules.
#7
zombiegleemax
Apr 17, 2007 1:12:05 I like the D&D system. Which was in the Companion Box set. I forget what it was called. We used the Battlesystem one once, it was fun because that's all we had.
#8
ruhl-than_sage
Apr 18, 2007 18:51:07
Does anyone still play battlesystem? I think mage knight is the favorite now, but anyway I thought about making some a scenario/battle.

Mage Knight keeled over and died actually.
#9
Kamelion
Apr 19, 2007 7:10:32
I like the D&D system. Which was in the Companion Box set. I forget what it was called.

The War Machine, I think. That was pretty cool. I use Cry Havoc as well - it has various levels of detail, one of which is very much like the old War Machine. I did use Battlesystem back when playing 2e (I had the older boxed version with the counters and minis and stuff) but preferred to free-form my large battles. I most recently used Cry Havoc to do the battle at the end of Road to Urik - worked pretty well.
#10
dirk00001
Apr 19, 2007 10:15:39
... I use Cry Havoc as well - it has various levels of detail, one of which is very much like the old War Machine. ... I most recently used Cry Havoc to do the battle at the end of Road to Urik - worked pretty well.

The "scaleability" factor of Cry Havoc is my favorite thing - being able to go from unit-scale down to a regular D&D battle then right back up to unit-scale/unit-time is great. At some point in time in my current campaign I even plan on running a war that starts at the "battle" level, then breaks down to unit and finally regular scales as the PCs wade into the enemy lines. In theory it'll work just fine and sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaking of which - what part of the Cry Havoc rules did you use for RtU, the battle-scale? If so, how did it work? I haven't used those yet - read them and think they sound good, but reading is definitely different than doing...
#11
Kamelion
Apr 19, 2007 11:52:12 I used the battle rules at 1:10 scale, iirc. It worked well, but I did strip out a bunch of the command options to speed up play and avoid requiring the players to read up on them before play. I basically wanted the players to be able to just play as normal and make command decisions as normal without needing to take new rules on board. With a different group, it would be worth taking the extra time to allow them to familiarise themselves with those additional options, but you'd need a group more interested in the wargaming side of things, which is not the case with my current group.

Beyond those tweaks, it worked well. It does require a fair amount of prep time, as you need to stat out the unit sheets, but once that is done it runs pretty much like a regular combat (albeit a large one). I think the battle features about 300 warriors on each side, with about 8 or 9 individual commanders (including PCs and NPCs). Using counters really helped speed things up as well (as opposed to marking postions on the battlemat with pens) and laying out the terrain beforehand, but those are more general points unrelated to Cry Havoc. The fact that it bears a strong resemblance to the standard combat rules, along with the fact that you can assess the effectiveness and wound levels of units very easily with the check-boxes on the unit sheets (which can also be downloaded from Malhavoc) made it run pretty smoothly. I'd use it again readily (although the next large battle will be more freeform, as I want to explore some of the ideas in Heroes of Battle, rather than get all tactical again). But I'll make use of it again at some point for sure.
#12
dirk00001
Apr 23, 2007 10:14:42 K, that's basically how mine went as well - we used the command rules, and I messed with the magic/psionics and "heroes" rules a little to bring it more in-line with how my games tend to go (each unit had at least 1 individual/unique NPC commander to give them orders, and the only magic/psionics used were also done by individual creatures to prevent the somewhat-silly "everyone must target the same enemy" rule). On the other hand I've got a group that likes getting into the nitty-gritty of rules, be they "regular" RPG or more wargame-ish, so there was definitely a difference there between our two games.
#13
elondir
Apr 25, 2007 8:12:51 Dragon Kings had Battlesystem stats for various units.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Mulhull Apr 15, 2007 22:17:30	Does anyone still play battlesystem? I think mage knight is the favorite now, but anyway I thought about making some a scenario/battle. I call it hunters and raiders. A elf tribe comes across a thri kreen one (actually, think thri kreen hunt in small packs, so we'll say several packs) in the desert. The thri kreen want to chow down on the elves and the elves are left to defend themselves, which they probably can, with defilers and psions and whatnot. Either way, I think it would make a good battle. For the thri kreen to eat and the elves simply to survive as thri kreen don't care for material things and wouldn't have any valuables.
#2 j0lt Apr 15, 2007 22:20:18	Battlesystem? Is that like a precursor to D&D Minis?
#3 Mulhull Apr 15, 2007 22:28:38	Battlesystem? Is that like a precursor to D&D Minis? It's a system for making fantasy armies and such out of D&D figures, basically converting it to a wargame format. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlesystem. Here's the book I have on it. http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/dd1/bs2.jpg
#4 zombiegleemax Apr 16, 2007 3:27:44	Hi, A long time ago my group and I tried to play a massive battle between Raam army and Tyr free army. It was a siege of Tyr by the Raamish, and resulted in Abalach-Re being destroyed (it was the culmination of a three years old campaign, and I diversed from the official timeline after the crimson legion defeat by Hamanu). The battlesystem rules were very bad, the pace was slow, and they where cumbersome. When I started playing Warhammer, I got further insight on just how not friendly and slow they are. My way to resolve big battles since then, was to play it on a tactica map, showing large formations as marks, and the tactical moves of the various units. Worked quite well.
#5 dirk00001 Apr 16, 2007 10:18:42	I use the Cry Havoc rules for large-scale battles - it is very customizeable to different situations/battle sizes (there are 3 sets of rules - one for unit-scale combat, one for army-scale, and one to handle an entire, extended war). It's written by Skip Williams and is purposely meant to interact with the 3.5e rules, so with just a few minutes of work you can figure out the stats for your PCs/NPCs for use with these rules. So far I've ran 1 battle and been a PC/unit leader in another unit-scale battle using these rules, and in both cases it involved around 400 individuals (counting both sides, combined), including various creature types, cavalry, spellcasters, psions and "heroes" (PCs/unique NPCs), and in each case took about 4 hours to run...which included the learning curve as only myself (in my battle) and my DM and I (in the other game) knew the rules. Once you know the differences in the rules system battles go as quickly as a normal D&D battle would go, and in some cases even more quickly.
#6 monastyrski Apr 16, 2007 11:50:10	I had some Battlesystem-resolved combats in the DA adventure. Battlesystem is more playable indeed, than the MH rules.
#7 zombiegleemax Apr 17, 2007 1:12:05	I like the D&D system. Which was in the Companion Box set. I forget what it was called. We used the Battlesystem one once, it was fun because that's all we had.
#8 ruhl-than_sage Apr 18, 2007 18:51:07	Does anyone still play battlesystem? I think mage knight is the favorite now, but anyway I thought about making some a scenario/battle. Mage Knight keeled over and died actually.
#9 Kamelion Apr 19, 2007 7:10:32	I like the D&D system. Which was in the Companion Box set. I forget what it was called. The War Machine, I think. That was pretty cool. I use Cry Havoc as well - it has various levels of detail, one of which is very much like the old War Machine. I did use Battlesystem back when playing 2e (I had the older boxed version with the counters and minis and stuff) but preferred to free-form my large battles. I most recently used Cry Havoc to do the battle at the end of Road to Urik - worked pretty well.
#10 dirk00001 Apr 19, 2007 10:15:39	... I use Cry Havoc as well - it has various levels of detail, one of which is very much like the old War Machine. ... I most recently used Cry Havoc to do the battle at the end of Road to Urik - worked pretty well. The "scaleability" factor of Cry Havoc is my favorite thing - being able to go from unit-scale down to a regular D&D battle then right back up to unit-scale/unit-time is great. At some point in time in my current campaign I even plan on running a war that starts at the "battle" level, then breaks down to unit and finally regular scales as the PCs wade into the enemy lines. In theory it'll work just fine and sounds like a lot of fun. Speaking of which - what part of the Cry Havoc rules did you use for RtU, the battle-scale? If so, how did it work? I haven't used those yet - read them and think they sound good, but reading is definitely different than doing...
#11 Kamelion Apr 19, 2007 11:52:12	I used the battle rules at 1:10 scale, iirc. It worked well, but I did strip out a bunch of the command options to speed up play and avoid requiring the players to read up on them before play. I basically wanted the players to be able to just play as normal and make command decisions as normal without needing to take new rules on board. With a different group, it would be worth taking the extra time to allow them to familiarise themselves with those additional options, but you'd need a group more interested in the wargaming side of things, which is not the case with my current group. Beyond those tweaks, it worked well. It does require a fair amount of prep time, as you need to stat out the unit sheets, but once that is done it runs pretty much like a regular combat (albeit a large one). I think the battle features about 300 warriors on each side, with about 8 or 9 individual commanders (including PCs and NPCs). Using counters really helped speed things up as well (as opposed to marking postions on the battlemat with pens) and laying out the terrain beforehand, but those are more general points unrelated to Cry Havoc. The fact that it bears a strong resemblance to the standard combat rules, along with the fact that you can assess the effectiveness and wound levels of units very easily with the check-boxes on the unit sheets (which can also be downloaded from Malhavoc) made it run pretty smoothly. I'd use it again readily (although the next large battle will be more freeform, as I want to explore some of the ideas in Heroes of Battle, rather than get all tactical again). But I'll make use of it again at some point for sure.
#12 dirk00001 Apr 23, 2007 10:14:42	K, that's basically how mine went as well - we used the command rules, and I messed with the magic/psionics and "heroes" rules a little to bring it more in-line with how my games tend to go (each unit had at least 1 individual/unique NPC commander to give them orders, and the only magic/psionics used were also done by individual creatures to prevent the somewhat-silly "everyone must target the same enemy" rule). On the other hand I've got a group that likes getting into the nitty-gritty of rules, be they "regular" RPG or more wargame-ish, so there was definitely a difference there between our two games.
#13 elondir Apr 25, 2007 8:12:51	Dragon Kings had Battlesystem stats for various units.