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Postcards from the Edgeby Jon BlythA New Year, a new wildly optimistic idea… As some of you already know, I have recently been searching around for a set of 15mm Fantasy rules. The reasons for this are of course many-fold and not entirely based on rational thought (it is me, after all). Primarily I am looking for battles involving hordes of orcs sweeping down out of the hills and crashing into a wall of thousands of armoured men and elves, and 15mm looks to be a better option for mass battles. (OK, I admit it. I saw Lord of the Rings and loved it!). With 25mm, both the price and space required for large-scale (sic) battles is prohibitive. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a set of 15mm rules to my liking. It seems to be a pretty-much overlooked option for wargamers despite the wide range of figures available. The best I've seen so far is the new Demonworld set from Hobby Products in Germany. They cover all the options very well but are hex-based (they sell a range of hexed terrain maps), are already spreading rules across publications (they sell army books for each race), and their rules are often specific to types of figures (they sell their own range of expensive 15mm fantasy). Hmmm… a combination of Games Workshop marketing and Teutonic efficiency. Truly scary! Can anyone recommend rules for 15mm fantasy? ? (Please, not DBF or HOTT). Any experience within the club of "Armies of Arcana" by Thane's Games, or "Fantasy Rules!" by Chipco? Failing this, what I'm now considering is the truly barmy enterprise of writing my own set of rules, incorporating the best bits out of the various rules I have used for other scales/periods. For example, I like the variety of races/units in Warhammer and their specific strengths/weaknesses, but don't like the overkill of some of the more powerful ones. Also, the magic can be over the top compared to combat results, and the overall system is too complex to simply "scale-down". I think there should be some kind of command chain for mass battles, in line with most historical rules sets (although there should probably be "exceptions to the rules" in a fantasy milieu). And some randomising of morale values is fun as well (in the ECW rules used by me and Den, you don't know the exact morale of your units until they have to start testing). And so on… For anyone who's interested, I would welcome suggestions for what I should
be considering. If I get anywhere with this project then next up will be sorting out peace in the Middle East…or converting the UK to the Euro…or persuading Paul H to play Warhammer… |