Dragons of War (1985) included a battle to hold a pass, while Dragons of Deceit (1985) introduced aerial warfare. Meanwhile, TSR was already telling an epic story of warfare in their Dragonlance adventures, so the rules in Battlesystem were a natural addition to that module line. Mines of Bloodstone (1986) and Bloodstone Wars (1987), some of TSR's most famous epic adventures, soon followed. TSR reused the original name of the game system for the first Battlesystem adventure: Bloodstone Pass (1985). Nonetheless, TSR supported it strongly during the rest of the AD&D 1st Edition era by featuring it in numerous modules. Though TSR had planned to support Battlesystem with optional miniatures produced by miniatures great Duke Seifried, TSR's miniatures manufacture shut down just as Battlesystem was released. This emphasis allowed for the best-ever integration of tactical level warfare into the D&D game. Designer Niles said that they tried "to maintain the spirit and, as much as possible, the letter of the AD&D game rules throughout." In fact, Battlesystem was sold as an AD&D game expansion, not a standalone game. Much like Swords & Spells, Battlesystem's mass combat rules were extrapolated from the core AD&D rules. Instead it was a box packed with cardboard counters that represented a wide variety of fantasy units. Unlike Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy Battle (1983), Battlesystem didn't require players to have miniatures. Though Douglas Niles' wargame began life under the name "Bloodstone Pass," it was released as Battlesystem (1985). However, War Machine was soon eclipsed by AD&D's own mass-combat system. It was an interesting variant to the tactical warfare that had been the heart of D&D warfare in Chainmail and Swords & Spells. It took weeks to gather armies, which were then moved around large maps, where hexes represented 6 miles each. The War Machine rules operated at a strategic level. These Companion Rules allowed players to rule their own "domains" and also contained D&D's first major mass-combat system of the 1980s: "War Machine." This gave Basic D&D the opportunity to explore more innovative styles of gameplay, beginning with Frank Mentzer's D&D Companion Set (1984). The War Machine & The First Battle System: 1984-1988īasic D&D was TSR's bestselling line in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but shortly thereafter AD&D eclipsed it. These newer games embraced the individual characters that made D&D unique, leaving behind the armies and warfare that were D&D's ancestral heritage D&D wouldn't return to these battle grounds until it had fully become its own game, a decade after its creation. After its publication, OD&D was reincarnated as AD&D (1977-1979) and Basic D&D (1981). However, D&D's first warfare system proved short-lived.
This resulted in the release of Gary Gygax's Swords & Spells (1976), a successor to Chainmail's mass-combat rules that used some of the same movement and formation mechanics, but which adapted combat more directly from D&D. In its earliest days, OD&D even used the Chainmail combat rules, which theoretically meant that early OD&D allowed for an easy integration of man-to-man and army combatbut most players used OD&D's "alternate" combat rules because the Chainmail connection was a bit vague.Īs OD&D evolved through supplements such as Greyhawk (1975) and Blackmoor (1975), it truly became its own gameand less compatible with Chainmail.
Here a figure could represent a single personperhaps a wizard or a hero!ĭave Arneson used modified Chainmail rules in his Blackmoor games, allowing individual characters to fight armies and to adventure in dungeons, which in turn helped lead to creation of the original Dungeons & Dragons (1974) game. In Chainmail, each miniature represented 10 or 20 men, but some "man-to-man" variants suggested rules for a 1:1 scale. It evolved directly from Jeff Perren & Gary Gygax's Chainmail (1972), a tactical combat game for medieval miniatures. Meanwhile, D&D has usually focused on more personal adventures but from time to time, it too has crossed over into the great battles of epic fantasy. Howard's Conan stories (1932-1936), armies advanced across the Hyborian lands. In The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), ents assaulted Isengard and orcs besieged Lórien, while in Robert E.
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Fantasy literature is full of mighty armies marching across medieval landscapes.
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