New to GM'ing but ambitious. I want to setup a game where the PC's act as a party but also act as commanders to minion groups. A bit like Spellforce , Mount & Blade Warband or if anyone remembers it Kingdom Under Fire.

The continent is at war and the players are tasked with regaining lost territories from a rival faction.

Battles will be a hybrid of of a miniature wargame where they will instruct minion groups against the GM's minion groups made up of troop types such as Speamen, Skirmishers, Swordsmen, Archers, Cavalry etc and then players can choose to 'zoom in' and take control of their characters on the battlefield or the GM can choose to 'zoom in' if they feel that there is a narrative opportunity.

I want to try to use Genesys for both styles of battle

My questions are:

1. Are there any good resources for creating the minion groups, I've looked through the Core Rulebook , expaned and ROT and also looked at AoR - Lead by Example and I can't really find any easy, hard & fast rules for creating large minion groups of say 30+ minions
2. Is there anything I should consider to ensure that both aspects of gameplay are fun and inclusive for all PC's?
3. What would be the best way to handle wound thresholds, soak and dmg with larger sized minion groups?
4. is there a better way to do this than using Genesys for the battles?

I'm new to tabletop gaming and have never played anything like Warhammer, but I've been playing FF Star Wars and Genesys for a year or two, so it's really the only system I know and understand.

Cheers

Me personally, I would go with the mass combat rules from Lead by Example (Star Wars). It's the only published set of rules that covers groups of 30+.

The next closest thing would be squads/squadrons, found in the Age of Rebellion game master's screen and one of the two Clone Wars books (don't remember which), but it's limited to less than 30 (I think 10ish).

This. And the adventure Onslaught at Arda I has a scene where a mass battle happens beside the actions of the characters, if I remember correctly. But the characters there don't lead the battle per se.

Remember that Genesys is a narrative system, and things like these should be resolved narratively by Leadership or Warfare rolls. Minion groups of more then five members are beside the scope of the rules in my eyes.

Minion groups really shouldn't be more than 5 minions each. If you want a mob , though, make it a rival and give it the Swarm ability: a crap-ton of silhouette 1 soldiers can be represented by one silhouette 3 swarm rival.

On 8/4/2020 at 3:23 PM, c__beck said:

Minion groups really shouldn't be more than 5 minions each. If you want a mob , though, make it a rival and give it the Swarm ability: a crap-ton of silhouette 1 soldiers can be represented by one silhouette 3 swarm rival.

I love this idea! Using the silhoutte to dictate the force size. Are mob and the swarm ability core mechanics?

7 minutes ago, marklgz said:

I love this idea! Using the silhoutte to dictate the force size. Are mob and the swarm ability core mechanics?

Just read up.on these and it seems like a possible fit for my idea. I think the swarm ability but also teeming threat could work, as the mob could engage all PCs and friendly NPCs at once.

Thanks for the idea!

14 hours ago, marklgz said:

I love this idea! Using the silhoutte to dictate the force size. Are mob and the swarm ability core mechanics?

The Swarm rule first appears on page 188 of the core rulebook, Nanoswarm adversary.

It also appears in several other adversaires in pretty much every published book, so there's a lot of inspiration for overwhelming force-type ideas!

There are also the Phalanx rules for swarm type situations in Rise of the Separatists.