Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Maybe this is a step closer to having a D&D wargame?

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/unearthed-arcana-when-armies-clash

There have been mass combat rules since the beginning of the game. The D&D miniatures game from 3.5 could be turned into a proper wargame with some work, I suppose?

D&D is the hipster of miniatures war gaming. D&D was doing it before it was cool.



On a more serious note, the game was originally adapted from wargaming. It eventually had its own "built for the game" set of miniatures wargaming rules released in the '80s. Said rules were sold under the name of "Warmachine".

Obviously, they won't be reusing that name any time soon...

Er... wasn't Chainmail the original war game, and D&D spun off of that?

 streamdragon wrote:
Er... wasn't Chainmail the original war game, and D&D spun off of that?

Correct. The original D&D was essentially an adaptation of the Chainmail rules. But in the late '80s, Chainmail was gone. A new set of miniatures rules - called Warmachine - was written to handle mass combat in AD&D.

There was actually during the D&D minis prepaint line an actual mass battle book that came out using the 3/3.5 rules offshoot of that game. It was released before the second or third set of minis and actually had preview pics of upcoming stuff a few months in advance. I only played it once but the DDM rules didn't translate very well IMO to mass battles. I was a big fan though of the skirmish rules at least until they scrapped 600+ minis and their rules with the switch to faux 4th edition.

 warboss wrote:
There was actually during the D&D minis prepaint line an actual mass battle book that came out using the 3/3.5 rules offshoot of that game. It was released before the second or third set of minis and actually had preview pics of upcoming stuff a few months in advance. I only played it once but the DDM rules didn't translate very well IMO to mass battles. I was a big fan though of the skirmish rules at least until they scrapped 600+ minis and their rules with the switch to faux 4th edition.

There were actually a couple 3/3.5 mass battle rules, including one written for the Warcraft supplement that basically treated regiments as individual characters.

While I'm not personally familiar with them, I believe you that there were multiple 3rd party rulebooks using ogl d20 for mass battle but I suspect the OP was referring to official wotc ones. Wotc came out with the DDM mass battle rules during third and so did TSR (twice iirc) during 2nd ed. Its not unreasonable to think that they'll try yet again despite their relative lack of success (both compared to other mass battle games and the RPG predecessor). In any case, it can't hurt to have the option so I say go for it wotc!

Eumerin wrote:

A new set of miniatures rules - called Warmachine - was written to handle mass combat in AD&D.

I think you're getting mixed up there, War Machine was the name of the non-miniature based mass battle mechanic in *Basic* D&D.

The AD&D Miniature ruleset was BattleSystem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlesystem