Emerald wrote:mlangsdorf wrote:The reason I am certain that you can have that is because I have been running a Fantasy Mass Combat game for the past year using an abstract mass combat mini-game with tactical choices, and the PCs do win a lot of their battles in the preparation and they win and lose some of their battles on the field, due to luck of the dice.
Would you mind giving an overview of how this system works (or pointing us to it if it's online somewhere) and walking through a basic example, like deaddmwalking did with his?
Sure. It's GURPS Mass Combat (
http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-mass-combat-1) with some minor house rules.
Forces (armies) are composed of elements that represent roughly 10 men or one vehicle. Each element has a troop type (heavy infantry, light cavalry, spellcaster, miner, heavy artillery, etc) that determines their basic troop strength, mobility type (foot, mounted, wheeled, etc), and any special classes they have. Special classes are Air, Armor, Artillery, Cavalry, C3I (communication and command troops), Engineering, Fire (archery), Insubstantial (spirits and elementals), Reconnaissance (scouts), and Spellcasters, and you get bonuses in the strategy contest if you have a significant edge in relative troop strength in a special class. Some troops can also neutralize a special class, such as Pikemen are anti-Cavalry, so they prevent your opponent from getting the bonus but don't let you get the bonus. And troops can have other special abilities, like Terrain Adaptation doubles troop strength in the appropriate terrain or Night means they don't suffer penalties for fighting in darkness.
I'll take a fairly simple battle from a recent session. General Aisling is in command of a light cavalry force that is being sent behind enemy lines to cut their line of supply when she runs into a group of enemy centaurs with a similar mission.
Aisling's force is ~1000 horse archers with basic gear and inferior training, 30 light infantry dragoons with the best possible gear and special forces training, 60 mediun infantry dragoons with fine gear and veteran training. She is a PC, and by herself counts as 10 light infantry dragoons with special forces training plus some special communication abilities and is accompanied by another PC, who is super strong warrior mounted on a dinosaur and basically counts as an armored car. Aisling's force has troop strength 350, 15 Armor, 315 Cavalry, 10 C3I, 300 Fire (Archers), 310 Reconnaissance. Aisling is a skilled general with Strategy-17, Intelligence Analysis-15, and Leadership-21.
The enemy force is around 400 3rd line centaur militia. Overall, they have decent equipment and average to poor training, but centaurs are effectively horse archers and get extra bonuses in the forest they're fighting in. They have a base troop strength 350, 350 cavalry, 350 fire, 350 reconnaissance, all of which is doubled for centaurs fighting in the woods. Commander Fiona is pretty good with Strategy-14, Leadership-14, and Intelligence Analysis-10.
The battle begins with a Reconnaissance contest, which is a contest of Intelligence Analysis. Aisling doesn't have a 2:1 edge in Recon troops, and gets no bonuses. The centaurs are all Recon troops which is a +2 bonus, they're twice as fast in the woods as Aisling's troops for another +1, they have a 2:1 advantage in Reconnaissance troops for another +1, and they're centaurs in the woods for another +4. Aisling rolls decently and the centaur commander blows her roll, so what should have been an easy ambush for the centaurs turns into pitched battle on Aisling's terms. An ambush would have forced Aisling to use the Rally Strategy and suffer a strategy penalty on the first round as well as negating some of Aisling's C3I advantage; a pitched battle lets either side choose the best strategy for them.
The first round, Aisling chooses to Raid, which is "hit the enemy hard without trying to hold ground." Aisling gets a +2 bonus when performing Raids, and would get some more bonuses if she had a 2:1 advantage in Cav or Recon, but she doesn't. Fiona chooses to Attack, a straightforward general advance which doesn't give any bonuses, but increases her bonuses for next round if she wins this round. She also gets +1 each for a 2:1 advantage in Cavalry and Fire troops (but not Recon, that only counts in the Reconnaissance contest). Aisling gets another +3 bonus for unopposed C3I and +3 for unopposed Armor. Neither side has enough troop strength advantage to get a bonus. Both commanders roll Strategy + bonuses and get average results, so Aisling rolls 15 points under her modified skill and Fiona rolls 6 points under her modified skill. Aisling gets a decisive victory for the round and takes 5% casualties while the centaurs take 25% casualties. If Aisling had used an attack strategy, she would have gotten a +2 position bonus (PB) on subsequent rounds to represent gaining ground, but you can't get PB from a raid.
On the second round, the centaurs are in bad shape. Fiona chooses a Mobile Defense, falling back to reduce her casualties. This gives her a +1 bonus to Strategy, +1 more for her Cavalry superiority. Aisling attempts a flanking maneuver, which is an Indirect Attack that gives her a -2 penalty on her strategy roll. Each side is at another -1 per 5% casualties, so Aisling is at a net +3 and Fiona is at a net -1. Again, average rolls, so Aisling rolls 10 under and Fiona rolls 2 under. Indirect attacks double the margin of victory, so Aisling wins a crushing victory: 0% casualties for her side, 30% casualties for the centaurs (the Mobile Defense reduces casualties by 5%), +4 PB for Aisling (the Mobile Defense gives up more ground).
On the third round, the centaurs will go into a Full Retreat, hoping to escape before dying. Aisling chooses to Parley instead, hoping to get the centaurs to switch sides. If Fiona chooses to accept the Parley, the battle stops while the two sides talk; if Fiona keeps running, then Aisling's Parley becomes a Defense strategy and there isn't a battle because defense strategies can't fight against retreat strategies. Fiona chooses not to talk and the battle is over.
Aisling won and can apply magical healing and reorganize her troops to halve her casualties. She also has the option of holding the field to reduce her casualties by another 5%, or pursuing and inflicting another 5% (plus bonuses if she had Air or Cavalry advantage) casualties on the enemy. She chooses to pursue. By the time the centaurs finally break contact, they've suffered 60% casualties (including prisoners and unrecovered wounded), leaving 160 battered centaurs fleeing into the woods. Aisling resumes her march north, confident that her own militia forces can handle the remaining centaurs when they trying to cross a river on the plains warded by fortress. The entire experience took 8 hours (2 hours per round plus 2 hours of pursuit).
This was a battle that could possibly have gone the other way: if Fiona hadn't flubbed the reconnaissance contest, she could have ambushed Aisling and gotten bonuses for terrain while negating some of Aisling's C3I bonus. A tactical victory for the centaurs on the first round would have given them 10% casualties to 15% for Aisling's force and let them grind away at Aisling's force over several rounds. It wouldn't have been an overwhelming victory at any point, but the centaurs didn't have to lose.
Anyway. We've done fights from a half dozen PCs fighting 100 orcs to 4,000+ infantry and cavalry being besieged by 5,000+ infantry, cavalry, and flying demons to 5,000+ infantry fighting 8,000 zombies and wraiths backed by 2,000 orc infantry and powerful wizards. The system isn't perfect and we've tweaked it here and there, but the basic concept of total troop strength plus category advantages turns into bonuses on a strategy contest influenced by the broad type of tactic you're employing has worked pretty well.