Chainmail (Gygax & Perren) - The Unsung Virtues

It has been discussed to exhaustion how these medieval rules were a crucial influence in the genesis of Dungeons & Dragons. This is not the purpose of this post. I will focus on its virtues strictly from a wargaming perspective as a mass battles ruleset.

Chainmail contains a variety of rules. I will only discuss point 1 in the following list:

Medieval mass battles rules
Siege rules.
Man-to-man (skirmish) medieval
Jousting rules
Fantasy additions to mass battles rules and sieges

It is history of gaming how Dave Arneson meshed 3 with 5, added Hit Points and created the concept of RPGs. There is plenty of books and articles discussing this. On the contrary, I will highlight 3 sub-systems of the mass battles rules that I think deserve more attention.

WEATHER

This table in my opinion is pure genius. So simple, dynamic and elegant. It can be overlaid into any ruleset. I would only add perhaps the possibility of mist (reduced visibility) in the cloudy table. One can note some subtilties in the table. For instance, rainy spells are more fleeting than clear weather (two arrows leading out of them vis a single arrow)

FATIGUE

The BIG missing factor in many rulesets. How often do we see a flank advancing as trailblazers without pause or units charging turn after turn? The concept is great, but I admit that the implementation is clunky and hard to track. Luckily it can be simplified easily keeping the same outcomes. Moving adds 3 points of fatigue, charging 4, and meleeing 5. Each time a unit reaches 15 points it is fatigued. One turn stationary clears fatigue. Again, this can be added to any ruleset.

POST-MELEE GRANULARITY

OK, the formula seems complicated, but it is just explained poorly. The formula is better explained (and actually quite simple) in the retroclone Grognard. But the highlight for me is the rich diversity of outcomes in step 4 and how morale plays into it. This subsytem allows for the eventuality of a hundred elite bastards (5 figures in the 1:20 scale of the game) holding a flank. Metal!

In short, this ruleset strictly from a wargaming perspective (even if D&D had never been invented) is great and innovative.

For this post I used as a reference the 2nd edition (1972)

Comments

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