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username1
2018-12-01, 02:22 PM
So I have lots of miniatures for use with dnd, but are not part of a war game. Are there any good general rules out there for playing war games with these minis. Of course I would have to create their customs stats, or if the system used 5e stats that would be great. Anyone know of a rule system for this? Thanks

Nifft
2018-12-01, 04:10 PM
There's the official one:

D&D Minis was a D&D-centric war-game with armies generally priced around skirmish combat.

It was okay.

Aresneo
2018-12-01, 06:46 PM
Brikwars (http://brikwars.com/) is intended to be played with Lego minifigures but can be used with pretty much anything.

JAL_1138
2018-12-01, 06:56 PM
Savage Worlds is usable for skirmish-scale wargaming. There are optional rules for sieges in the Fantasy supplement, and I think some rules for even more massive combats than the system can normally support floating around somewhere.

“Battlesystem” was a set of mass-combat/wargame rules for AD&D 2e that could work too.

5e D&D has mass-combat rules in an Unearthed Arcana somewhere or other.

Jay R
2018-12-01, 11:24 PM
D&D uses miniatures because it grew out of a miniatures wargame.

I would go back to the game's origins, and use Chainmail.

Pauly
2018-12-02, 01:28 AM
So I have lots of miniatures for use with dnd, but are not part of a war game. Are there any good general rules out there for playing war games with these minis. Of course I would have to create their customs stats, or if the system used 5e stats that would be great. Anyone know of a rule system for this? Thanks

Do you want a skirmish system (individuals fighting individuals) or a battle system (units fighting units)?

For a skirmish system the Middle Earth system published by Games Workshop is easy for roleplayers to come to grips with and has plenty of support. (GW is notoriously expensive for models, so all you want is the rules).

If you want massed battles I would actively avoid Warhammer or any Warhammer based system.

Mutazoia
2018-12-03, 09:38 PM
Well, you could always go to the original source and pick up a copy of Chainmail (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17010/Chainmail-Rules-for-Medieval-Miniatures-0e?it=1)

Pauly
2018-12-03, 09:56 PM
Well, you could always go to the original source and pick up a copy of Chainmail (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17010/Chainmail-Rules-for-Medieval-Miniatures-0e?it=1)

Please don’t. I have played it. It is poorly written, inconsistent and uses antiquated rules concepts. There are many modern wargames which do a far better job.

Jay R
2018-12-04, 12:11 AM
Please don’t. I have played it. It is poorly written, inconsistent and uses antiquated rules concepts.

Ummm... This thread is for people who play D&D.

Pauly
2018-12-04, 12:42 AM
Ummm... This thread is for people who play D&D.

Recommending chainmail as a wargame is like recommending 1st edition D&D as an rpg. Almost anything else available in the modern market is better and the only reason to play it is nostalgia.

D+1
2018-12-04, 10:38 AM
Recommending chainmail as a wargame is like recommending 1st edition D&D as an rpg. Almost anything else available in the modern market is better and the only reason to play it is nostalgia.
Then nostalgia FTW.

Jay R
2018-12-04, 11:11 AM
Recommending chainmail as a wargame is like recommending 1st edition D&D as an rpg. Almost anything else available in the modern market is better and the only reason to play it is nostalgia.

It's a little more accurate to say that anything else available in the modern market is more appealing to modern mass-market tastes. The reason to play older versions of D&D, or Chainmail, is because some people have different tastes than you do.

I certainly agree that more people prefer the modern games -- that's why I said, "mass-market tastes" above. But I've played both original D&D and 1st edition AD&D in the last decade, and enjoyed both.

Mutazoia
2018-12-05, 12:12 AM
Please don’t. I have played it. It is poorly written, inconsistent and uses antiquated rules concepts. There are many modern wargames which do a far better job.

That's a bit like saying "Don't drive a '65 mustang. A 2018 Prius get's much better gas mileage."

Pauly
2018-12-05, 01:09 AM
That's a bit like saying "Don't drive a '65 mustang. A 2018 Prius get's much better gas mileage."

No, it’s like saying don’t drive an Edsel. There are exactly zero reasons to be nostalgic about chainmail as a wargame.

Knaight
2018-12-05, 01:33 AM
There's tons. Go to wargame vault, tick the search boxes for free and pay what you want, and take a look at what comes up. There will be lots and lots of options.

Personally I'm kind of fond of Combat Reaction 3, mostly because the morale simulation layer can be a lot of fun.

Saintheart
2018-12-05, 01:49 AM
Or hey, just go real oldschool and look up HG Wells' Little Wars. :smallbiggrin:

Jay R
2018-12-05, 09:44 AM
No, it’s like saying don’t drive an Edsel.

A perfect analogy. The few remaining Edsels are highly sought after by car collectors today, and the people who love them really love them.

It's a small audience, but a real one -- just like Chainmail.


There are exactly zero reasons to be nostalgic about chainmail as a wargame.

There are exactly zero reasons to tell people who are nostalgic about Chainmail that there is no reason to be. The mere fact that you have people to say it to is proof that your assertion is false.

Nostalgia doesn't work that way; it's intensely personal. You may not share my nostalgia for Courageous Cat, the George Reeves Superman, Fireball XL-5, 60s TV theme songs, Diana Rigg in The Avengers, or even early D&D and Chainmail. You may tell me that there is no reason to feel that way. But my feelings remain nostalgic anyway.

You may have no reason to be nostalgic about it. But other people do, and you cannot demand that they share your tastes.

HouseRules
2018-12-05, 05:22 PM
Since Chainmail is like recommending 1st Edition, ....
Sword and Spells is also like recommending Original Edition, since it is a replacement for Chainmail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_%26_Spells
Miniatures Handbook is like recommending 3rd Edition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniatures_Handbook

Mordar
2018-12-05, 06:54 PM
Savage Worlds is usable for skirmish-scale wargaming. There are optional rules for sieges in the Fantasy supplement, and I think some rules for even more massive combats than the system can normally support floating around somewhere.

“Battlesystem” was a set of mass-combat/wargame rules for AD&D 2e that could work too.

5e D&D has mass-combat rules in an Unearthed Arcana somewhere or other.

Not that it matters too much...but I think Battlesystem was for AD&D, not 2e.

I only say that because (a) I own(ed) Battlesystem, and (b) I didn't have any 2e items back then.

- M

Lord Torath
2018-12-05, 07:27 PM
Not that it matters too much...but I think Battlesystem was for AD&D, not 2e.

I only say that because (a) I own(ed) Battlesystem, and (b) I didn't have any 2e items back then.

- MThey updated BattleSystem for 2E AD&D. And released a Skirmish version. Non-affiliated link (http://www.waynesbooks.com/Accessories.html#bs).

Chromat
2018-12-06, 02:24 AM
There is FROSTGRAVE system that's decent, for all your spare fantasy miniatures.

Pauly
2018-12-06, 04:14 AM
There is FROSTGRAVE system that's decent, for all your spare fantasy miniatures.

I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, but never played it.

JAL_1138
2018-12-06, 11:22 AM
They updated BattleSystem for 2E AD&D. And released a Skirmish version. Non-affiliated link (http://www.waynesbooks.com/Accessories.html#bs).

Thanks for the link, that’s a handy resource for someone looking to fill out a collection. Interesting/aggravating that they used the same ISBN for the 2e version as the 1e version. I never had the skirmish supplement, I’ll have to seek that out.

Jay R
2018-12-06, 02:08 PM
Having spoken out about the worst part of Pauly’s position, I think it’s only fair that I also defend the best part of it.

Chainmail is not a popular game now. In fact, it never was. And it wasn’t made with the professional quality we expect of a game today, in the modern world in which high quality publishing is so easy. It was typed on a typewriter, not polished on a word processor. Chainmail was written on the assumption that the rules wouldn’t cover everything, and the referee would make all the hard calls. And it had a very small target market: people deeply into military history and simulation wargames. These people knew enough about the actual battles to make judgment calls on the fly, when something came up that the rules didn’t cover. “These rules may be treated as guidelines around which you form a game that suits you. It is always a good idea to amend the rules to allow for historical precedence (sic) or common sense -- follow the spirit of the rules rather than the letter.”

If that doesn’t appeal to you, then Chainmail is probably not for you. Find a fully written modern game that tries to answer all rules questions, if that’s more to your liking. Most people will prefer that.

Pauly was completely correct when he wrote, “It is poorly written, inconsistent and uses antiquated rules concepts.”

But it is also fascinating for the small audience it was written for.

It was never for very many people. But there were a few of us who bought it and original D&D, and loved these games, and understood that they were just game systems – the referee was in charge of making a real game with it.

We bought them, played them, and loved them. And because we did, game companies were born, and grew, and flourished. That’s why you have modern games that are well-written and professionally produced, with modern rules concepts.

You’re welcome.

Mordar
2018-12-06, 02:25 PM
We bought them, played them, and loved them. And because we did, game companies were born, and grew, and flourished. That’s why you have modern games that are well-written and professionally produced, with modern rules concepts.

You’re welcome.

QFT. I wish more people would understand this in general. If modern entities see further, it is only because they stand upon the shoulders of giants. Consider that before bashing the pioneers of any industry or art form.

Also, I love the OP's idea in general and would very much enjoy a minis game using all of my old AD&D models (that isn't just running a big battle using AD&D rules). Now I feel I must find my Battlesystem box.

- M

Knaight
2018-12-06, 04:27 PM
QFT. I wish more people would understand this in general. If modern entities see further, it is only because they stand upon the shoulders of giants. Consider that before bashing the pioneers of any industry or art form.

The pioneers aren't being bashed here, just their products - because what's not being understood is that people are actually seeing further by standing on the shoulders of giants. The pioneers consistently get the credit they're due, because the evaluation of their designs includes a lot of slack given to them working without the corpus of knowledge we now have.

2D8HP
2018-12-10, 05:34 PM
....Nostalgia doesn't work that way; it's intensely personal. You may not share my nostalgia for Courageous Cat, the George Reeves Superman, Fireball XL-5, 60s TV theme songs, Diana Rigg in The Avengers, or even early D&D and Chainmail. You may tell me that there is no reason to feel that way. But my feelings remain nostalgic anyway.

You may have no reason to be nostalgic about it. But other people do, and you cannot demand that they share your tastes.


Emma Peel?

They were still re-running those episodes in the 1970's when I was a kid (and also the George Reeves Superman's, and even the Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon's) but Dianna Rigg was something else, as were both
Eartha Kitt and Julie Newmar as "the Catwomen", but Barbara Feldon*as "Agent 99" was my fave on re-runs.

The only one not from re-runs (at thr time) to earn my um... admiration was Louise Jameson as "Leela" on Doctor Who.

In movies back then Jenny Agutter as "Jessica" in Logan's Run (and again in American Werewolf in London!), Caroline Munro as ""Margiana" in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and Helen Mirren as "Morgana" in Excalibur.

In recent movies it's. ..

...Helen Mirren in every last scrap of film she's ever been in, I mean damn!

Oh I got Chainmail (and Swords & Spells!) as well, they looked cool but I never got to try them, the only miniatures games I got to play were Car Wars, G.E.V. and OGRE.

Warhammer has been real popular, maybe try that

Pauly
2018-12-10, 07:20 PM
Emma Peel?

They were still re-running those episodes in the 1970's when I was a kid (and also the George Reeves Superman's, and even the Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon's) but Dianna Rigg was something else, as were both
Eartha Kitt and Julie Newmar as "the Catwomen", but Barbara Feldon*as "Agent 99" was my fave on re-runs.

The only one not from re-runs (at thr time) to earn my um... admiration was Louise Jameson as "Leela" on Doctor Who.

In movies back then Jenny Agutter as "Jessica" in Logan's Run (and again in American Werewolf in London!), Caroline Munro as ""Margiana" in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and Helen Mirren as "Morgana" in Excalibur.

In recent movies it's. ..

...Helen Mirren in every last scrap of film she's ever been in, I mean damn!

Oh I got Chainmail (and Swords & Spells!) as well, they looked cool but I never got to try them, the only miniatures games I got to play were Car Wars, G.E.V. and OGRE.

Warhammer has been real popular, maybe try that

2 thumbs up for the Emma Peel and Leela references. The only remaining question is who did you want to be - Bodie or Doyle?

Warhammer is the biggest Fantasy Wargame in the market. It has the advantages of having many players and a rich and detailed setting.

The disadvantages are:
- expense. Their products are all at the high end of costs.
- marketing. GW’s marketing approach is that their most profitable customers are teenagers who will play their system for 2 years. Therefore every new expansion is deliberately designed to be slightly more powerful than the last.
- rules. The core rules are very old, but they do the job. However there are many, many, many special rules and abilities that modify the core rules. It is very confusing to keep up with these extra rules. Especially as each new expansion adds another layer of chrome.
The community - you can find groups of mature adults having fun, but there are many groups dominated by spotty whiny teenagers.

To me Warhammer is one of those games you have to be hardcore about to enjoy, casual players often find it very frustrating.

Lord Torath
2018-12-11, 09:13 AM
I'd also recommend avoiding Warhammer. Complex, hard to adjust to D&D-stats, etc.

If you don't mind adjusting for descending Armor Class, the 2E Battlesystem has rules for converting D&D stats to Battlesystem. I suspect that 5th Edition stats would convert fairly painlessly.

Calthropstu
2018-12-11, 11:26 PM
I'd also recommend avoiding Warhammer. Complex, hard to adjust to D&D-stats, etc.

If you don't mind adjusting for descending Armor Class, the 2E Battlesystem has rules for converting D&D stats to Battlesystem. I suspect that 5th Edition stats would convert fairly painlessly.

I recommend avoiding warhammer because it requires massive investment to both play and continue playing. They change the rules every few years, and then all your books are useless. Your great army has been nerfed to crap because they wanna sell more minis... So you get rid of your old army to get a new one and 3 years later, those old minis are good again. And you pull out your hair in frustration.

Edit:
I recommend, if you want to play warhammer, just get the bases. Get pieces of paper, write the titles of what they are and presto. Download an old version as a pdf and presto... You can't play in a tournament, but you can certainly have fun with your friends.

Mordar
2018-12-13, 01:55 PM
The pioneers aren't being bashed here, just their products - because what's not being understood is that people are actually seeing further by standing on the shoulders of giants. The pioneers consistently get the credit they're due, because the evaluation of their designs includes a lot of slack given to them working without the corpus of knowledge we now have.

To a degree I absolutely understand what you are saying...but even the phrasing you are using suggests exactly the bias about which I was expressing dismay.

It's like saying "Flyer was a terrible aircraft. No vectored thrust, no fly-by-wire, no integrated trailing edge flaps. But gee, it was nice of the Wright Brothers to give it a try. I'll try to cut em some slack."

Bashing Flyer completely misses the value of the creation, and the incremental improvements made by modern manufacturers are simply not in the same class as the pioneers.

That doesn't mean the incremental improvements aren't important, or that those products are somehow not-wonderful...just that they need to be gauged differently than whole-cloth invention, and the differences between Iteration 999 and Iteration 1000 needs to be judged differently than the differences between Iteration 1 and 2.

FWIW, I did kind of mean the products as the pioneers, not necessarily just the people themselves.

- M

Knaight
2018-12-13, 03:05 PM
To a degree I absolutely understand what you are saying...but even the phrasing you are using suggests exactly the bias about which I was expressing dismay.

It's like saying "Flyer was a terrible aircraft. No vectored thrust, no fly-by-wire, no integrated trailing edge flaps. But gee, it was nice of the Wright Brothers to give it a try. I'll try to cut em some slack."

Bashing Flyer completely misses the value of the creation, and the incremental improvements made by modern manufacturers are simply not in the same class as the pioneers.

Yet in the context of actually using the Flyer as a transport plane today every one of those criticisms absolutely apply - especially given that we're looking at the equivalent of people looking at a Boeing 747 and saying "the Wright Flyer was a better plane", or "Wilbur and Orville wouldn't have used the design, it must be wrong". That's just not true, we've learned a lot about aviation and modern planes are genuinely better vehicles than early planes in functionality. That just doesn't diminish the work of early aviation pioneers, because when they made their planes they did it without the knowledge and infrastructure that makes modern planes possible. Acknowledging the better functionality of modern planes isn't "bashing" older ones. Neither is suggesting that if you want a one person vehicle to use for personal transport you should maybe use a Cessna or something instead of the Wright Flyer.

Mordar
2018-12-13, 03:23 PM
Yet in the context of actually using the Flyer as a transport plane today every one of those criticisms absolutely apply - especially given that we're looking at the equivalent of people looking at a Boeing 747 and saying "the Wright Flyer was a better plane", or "Wilbur and Orville wouldn't have used the design, it must be wrong". That's just not true, we've learned a lot about aviation and modern planes are genuinely better vehicles than early planes in functionality. That just doesn't diminish the work of early aviation pioneers, because when they made their planes they did it without the knowledge and infrastructure that makes modern planes possible. Acknowledging the better functionality of modern planes isn't "bashing" older ones. Neither is suggesting that if you want a one person vehicle to use for personal transport you should maybe use a Cessna or something instead of the Wright Flyer.

I think we're not far apart...and please don't think that I am specifically singling you out on this. While it was Pauly's comments that precipitated the discussion (and they don't go quite as far as many others we have seen in GitP), it was Jay R that said something that echoed with me, and your response to my post was engaging. So I hope you don't think I am painting you specifically or unfairly.

A Cessna 172 Skyhawk is a bijillion times better plane than the Flyer in any reasonable modern metric. The hundreds/thousands of engineers and fabricators that were involved in the evolution of Cessna aircraft all played a part in making it better. They have reason to be proud of their end product. But without Flyer (and contemporaries) those improvements and evolution don't happen. That's why we know Orville and Wilbur but not the folks that lead the 172 development. So it appears you and I can appreciate both aircraft. But I wish more people could as well.

So Chainmail or Jason and the Argonauts or Looney Tunes might rightly be said to have been improved upon by "modern" releases, I think far too many people (perhaps people exposed well after the origination of those products) miss the fact that they were important and innovative and laid the groundwork for whatever hip, current (and quite possibly really really good) miniatures game, action adventure special effects movie or animated show might be the thing today.

Maybe I'm just feeling old. Yup, get off my lawn, shovel my driveway...all that stuff.

- M

Knaight
2018-12-13, 03:55 PM
So Chainmail or Jason and the Argonauts or Looney Tunes might rightly be said to have been improved upon by "modern" releases, I think far too many people (perhaps people exposed well after the origination of those products) miss the fact that they were important and innovative and laid the groundwork for whatever hip, current (and quite possibly really really good) miniatures game, action adventure special effects movie or animated show might be the thing today.

Maybe I'm just feeling old. Yup, get off my lawn, shovel my driveway...all that stuff.

This looks like our core point of contention. I don't see people missing the fact that they were important at all - just pushing back on the idea that they're still the best, or the even more common idea that they should set restraints on everything that comes later. The Lord of the Rings is an excellent fantasy novel, the idea that writers need an excuse not to put orcs in their fantasy novels today and aren't writing real fantasy unless they do is abject nonsense that needs to go away. Hell, this is an RPG forum - how often have we seen something to the effect of "That's now how Gygax says to do that, therefore you're doing it wrong"? The guy's due respect due to starting a genre I love, the games I love within it wouldn't exist without him, and I frankly couldn't care less about what Gygax felt was proper.

jayem
2018-12-13, 06:19 PM
The pioneers aren't being bashed here, just their products - because what's not being understood is that people are actually seeing further by standing on the shoulders of giants. The pioneers consistently get the credit they're due, because the evaluation of their designs includes a lot of slack given to them working without the corpus of knowledge we now have.

The other thing is that the pioneers were building to different constraints. An F16 would drop like a stone if it were flown at speeds the Camel is perfectly fine with, and basically couldn't land anywhere. The biplane is (more or less) the right shape* until you have faster engines and definitely the wrong shape for jet engines.

I don't know what the anology with miniatures is (except that perhaps if you're going somewhere without a PC to remember all the stats it might be worth reconsidering Chainmail). Though of course then there's the helicopter analog....


*Looking it up it's technically because you can make the (half sized) wings (and hence the plane) lighter, if they had magic material a monoplane would have been better.
But in any case the flight designers wouldn't have been helped by someone going back in time and saying "have you tried this shape".

Knaight
2018-12-13, 06:35 PM
The other thing is that the pioneers were building to different constraints. An F16 would drop like a stone if it were flown at speeds the Camel is perfectly fine with, and basically couldn't land anywhere. The biplane is (more or less) the right shape* until you have faster engines and definitely the wrong shape for jet engines..

I'd largely put those within the same category of getting better at aviation. Part of why modern planes work better is because they use modern engines, modern materials, etc. The blackhawk would have been a mess of a plane if made with early 1900's steel instead of titanium, and literally couldn't have flown without cutting edge computers. The technologies all feed into each other, which feeds back into the whole concept of slack being given when comparing to modern standards.

Rhedyn
2018-12-18, 09:52 AM
Savage Worlds has a free download (https://www.peginc.com/store/savage-worlds-showdown-2/) to use their game as miniatures war game instead of an RPG. The testimonials I've heard from Wargamers has been positive.