Anyone ever use HERO to make a skirmish game?

[Sam On Maui]

I’m a hobby painter, and while I’ve got one main game (Warmachine(, I like to paint other minis from different games.

 

it occurred to me I don’t know if any kitchen sink style skirmish games, and I was thinking that’d be a lot of fun! Especially if I could create my own units. There are some out there that allow for that, but they’re generally attached to a specific genre.

 

So I’m looking for more, but one idea that came up was using HERO, GURPS, Savage Worlds, etc., to do try this. Has anyone done that before? I know HERO is a toolkit, so ditching stuff that’s not necessary ought work, but... hrm... there’s a lot to consider in regards to implamentation.

[Zeropoint]

Savage Worlds as it currently exists evolved directly from the rules for Deadlands: Rail Wars, and still works great as a miniatures-based combat game, or so I hear. I haven't actually tried it. They've also got a version of the rules specifically for minis combat on their site; look for "Showdown" under the Savage Worlds products.

 

Having said that, you could certainly use Hero for skirmish combat! Just use the normal rules and don't worry about any skills, perks, or complications that won't apply in combat. You'll have a very detailed skirmish game that might be a bit slow-playing, but all the rules you need are already there in the core Hero books. If you try this, please report back with your results; I'd love to hear how it went!

[dsatow]

 

Hero, IIRC, did have mass combat rules sometime before 5th but it wasn't used very often.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

Fantasy HERO, in every incarnation, ever.

 

Except possibly 6.  I'll have to re-read 6 to say for certain.

[assault]

Heavy use of Mook rules would help. Having to keeping track of Recoveries would generally be a Bad Thing, although a very simplified Recovery rule might be OK.

 

Essentially, the trick would be to find a way of reaching the same results as the full rules most of the time, with a fraction of the effort. Say, the same result 80% of the time with 20% of the rules.

 

That said, "skirmish games" cover a lot of ground. They can involve half a dozen characters/units per side, or a hundred.

 

You could virtually use the full rules for the smaller games. It's the bigger ones where you really need to cut things down.

[Scott Ruggels]

 Worked fine in 3rd edition HERO as a Skirmish game. That's how we sort of played the combats out in some of the "Mercenary based"  Espionage, and Danger International games. Only about 20  counters in the board, and only 6-8 PCs.  Worked fine, and got very detailed.  We did the same in a Military based star hero campaign as well.  Equipment was different, but pretty much base, stock HERO. Not familiar with 4th and beyond. But i would assume it's the same. Never really did any Mass combats in HERO though, but I am used to complex situations in war games like all the 15mm Napoleonics I used to play in High school. Donald Featherstone's Rules might help for hints on medium and small unit engagements. 

[Doc Democracy]

You might want to take a look at Car Wars, a great skirmish game that has a Champions supplement....

[IndianaJoe3]

3 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

You might want to take a look at Car Wars, a great skirmish game that has a Champions supplement....

 

Autoduel Champions is currently available as a PDF. I should note that it was for a much older version of Car Wars and will require adaptation.

[Ninja-Bear]

It was either Fantasy Hero Companion I or II had Mass combat in it.

[LordQulex]

I've tried to do it for High Fantasy, and Sci-Fi settings. The truth is, you don't want a kitchen sink game. In case you don't want to read the rest of my explanation, you'll want to look up the rules for "Hordes of the Things." It's a tabletop war game that separates units into archetypes and those archetypes have costs. They're big claim is that you can play HOTT with any models and it works.

 

I have a friend that works in design and she said to me when designing a game, start from the bottom and build up. If you include every rule under the sun that you love and the game is unplayable, it becomes difficult to decide which rule to exclude. But if you start with a basic idea, and it's playable, you can add rules you enjoy until the game is too cumbersome. Then simply remove the last rule you added and you have a playable game with some mechanics you enjoy.

 

HERO System works as an RPG because I only have to keep track of one character's BODY, STUN, END, ammunition... Even as a GM I tend to fudge these things with minion NPCs because it's simply a ton of bookkeeping. If you're interested in a more complex Mordheim, Kill Team, X-Wing, Infinity, Malifaux, etc., go ahead. You'll be keeping a binder of 8-12 character sheets with tactical level statistics and skills. You can even develop an economics system to recruit new members and give existing ones experience points. I'm simply going to tell you in my experience trying to do this, you will be pitching a lot of the bloat rules in favor of what it is you are trying to do - put minis on the table, and kill them. 

[Killer Shrike]

I sort of did, actually; back in...I think 2003...I wrote up alternate mass combat rules as I did not like the official version in FH 5e. If you ping my email I'll send you a copy of it to use or discard as you see fit.

 

 

[Killer Shrike]

On 1/17/2019 at 8:21 PM, LordQulex said:

I have a friend that works in design and she said to me when designing a game, start from the bottom and build up. If you include every rule under the sun that you love and the game is unplayable, it becomes difficult to decide which rule to exclude. But if you start with a basic idea, and it's playable, you can add rules you enjoy until the game is too cumbersome. Then simply remove the last rule you added and you have a playable game with some mechanics you enjoy.

Your friend is correct. Thus my quote, taken from the humorous but surprisingly accurate book Systemantics...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics

 

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.
- John Gall