Battlefield Berlin Forum

I was very much inspired to see members of the club creating their own wargames, and thought I would give it a go myself!

For the past half a year now I have been writing and doing some small play testing of my own rank and flank fantasy system (with the above not very catchy title). The general idea is to create something that plays quickly and with mechanics I have find appealing from many historical wargames.

I'll put some of the core ideas of the game below:


- I wanted to introduce some command and control mechanics. Armies are broken down into smaller groups of a hero and 2 - 3 units of followers (like a noble summoning their personal troops to be a part of their masters larger army). When play alternates to a player, they can use their heroes to activate all their followers through different commands (move, shoot, charge, etc.). Units out of range have to 'act on initiative' after everyone else, and may not do as you want them to if they are outside your control range. For example, if you leave your archers out of command range, they are probably going to shoot at whatever is closest to them!

- A multi-dice system. Perhaps a bit blasphemous for some but the strength of a unit in combat is hard to make interesting on a D6 imo... so instead this system uses many dice types from D2's all the way to D20s (theoretically). When units attack they don't roll dice for every model, only per ranks; a large unit of weedy goblins may roll 3D3, whereas a small elite unit of highly skilled elves might roll 2D6. I have found so far that this makes combat simple while showcasing the strength of some units over others, and keeps truly horrific 'swings' one way or another to a minimum.

- Skirmishers play a key role in determining how much control of the battlefield a player has. At the moment, the player with the most skirmishers engaged with the enemy has more control over whether they wish to go first or not, as well as determining key objectives on the battlefield. The aim is to make skirmishers use on the table more strategic, rather than annoying and 'gamey' roadblocks. Skirmishers are very fragile, and liable to being wiped out by proper formations.

- Lastly, the role of characters is critical. The army general is the only unit in the game who can order anyone about; their troops won't listen to one of their underlings, but they can boss their inferiors minions around! Heroes also have 'Destiny' points, which can be spent by them to influence die rolls they have to make (such as an attack or rolls for initiative), or get them out of perilous situations. Naturally, their are plenty of magic wielders as well but that is very much in flux in the rules currently.

I am currently working my way through my goblins and humans, and can hopefully start running some play tests and demos before the end of the year!