Masse d’Armes

Masse d'Armes

I’ve been thinking about game rules quite a bit over the past few weeks (which prompted my Midgard review last post!), and have been reading rulesets not so much to play them, but to think about wargaming rules in general. In so doing I came across a subset of wargaming rules written as pamphlets or zines published by individuals (mostly on itch.io), in the vein of some lightweight roleplaying games that have become fairly popular over the last few years. These generally seek to address issues they see with big rulebooks in the role-playing and wargaming worlds, which is that there are just too many rules in games, and they can be stripped down while keeping their essence. This lightweight approach to rules is quite compelling for me, as my game time is much reduced these days and I don’t really enjoy re-learning complex rules every time I do get to play. More importantly, I found seeing “regular people” produce their own rulesets quite inspirational and I decided to give it a shot myself.

The result of this is Masse d’Armes, a small ruleset for playing out skirmish games (~4-8 models) in settings both historical and fantastical. It’s fine for any setting where the technology level is blackpowder era or below, and has rules for magic for more fantastical settings. I’ve put up the latest version of the rules over at https://lair-of-the-lagomorph.itch.io/masse-darmes as a free download, it’s likely to get updates sooner or later, but at least I’m past the constant tweaking phase.

The game itself is derived from quite a few other games I enjoy playing, making use of mechanics or mechanics inspired by other wargames and role playing games. The basic concept is that of opposed rolls, where models add a characteristic die (d6 to d12 depending on skill level), to their weapon die (also d6 to d12). Highest roll wins, and the amount they win by determines the outcome. This means combat is resolved in a single roll and makes the game quite quick. Shooting and magic are variations on this theme.

Assembling warbands is quite straightforward too, there are no points, players simply add traits to their models to represent equipment/skill/abilities up to a maximum of 15 traits. Models must have at least one trait, so players can either have a few models with many traits or many models with fewer traits.

Overall I think the rules are simple and the games pretty quick. If you’re interested do check them out, I’d love to get some feedback from people outside my gaming group!

With the rules in place I decided to put a warband together as a fun small painting project. This warband is quite elite with only 4 models. The leader is the seer with Sorcery d10 (3 traits), then two heavily armoured knights with weapon die of d10 and great weapons (4 traits each), and a heavily armoured knight with weapon die of d8, hand weapon and shield (4 traits).

The Seer model is from Bad Squiddo Games which I’ve had for a little bit, and this seemed like a great time to use it. Yes that’s a giant’s eye she’s holding! The knights are Perry Miniatures, from their Agincourt French Infantry set, with some Warhammer mace heads (for the great weapons), and a mace from the Morannon Orcs from MESBG. The shield is from Wargames Atlantic’s Foot Serjeants set.

I decided that the knights are there to form the bodyguard for the seer and added some eye-related iconography to tie them all together. They were quite fast to paint, and I enjoyed myself throughout the process (kit bashing and painting!).

It’s been fun looking at other aspects of the hobby, and to think about how a game could work given my own preferences. I’ll keep working on Masse d’Armes, and might even try my hand at some other games in the future. If you do read the rules, let me know what you think!

11 thoughts on “Masse d’Armes”

    1. Thanks John! I suppose it might be a bit of a stretch to assume wargamers have these on hand, they’re much more prevalent in role playing games! Let me know what you think when you’ve read the rules, would love some feedback.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  2. When I saw the title, I thought the rules were going to be in French! 🙂 That would be a proper challenge for me as my speaking skills are not too much better than a 9 year old’s and my French translating skills are just a bit better but not much!

    To be a bit more serious, this is very intriguing and I think its commendable that you made your own set of rules as well! I’ll give the rulebook a read this week and let you know my thoughts after that. I’d love to give them a try in the future and I’m curious what other games you might be considering too!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. I gave it a once over and it seems like an interesting system, both familiar and distinct from the few rulesets I’ve tried. The production quality is excellent and looks very professional. It reminds me a bit of an RPG supplement since its in black and white as well.

        In terms of using the rules, could someone use them if they don’t have many buildings? My fantasy terrain is limited to trees, hedges, and crop fields as best as I can recall and I wasn’t sure if that would fare well with these rules considering the Mordheim inspiration or not. If I can use those, then it wouldn’t be too hard to try the rules out, I would think.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Thanks for having a read and the comments back!
        No need to have buildings, really anything to add cover and/or block line of sight is useful. Think of it in the same way you play fallout, open ground slightly favours shooting but not every model will be armed for range so it’s not a big issue really.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. That makes sense to me. I’ll see if I can’t find some time to try the rules out in the coming weeks. Things have been busy and I have less free time than I’d like but it’d be a good excuse to get out some MESBG minis and terrain that haven’t seen use in many years, if nothing else. I’m happy to share thoughts on the rules after a game as well, if you’re interested.

        Liked by 1 person

      5. Sorry for the slow response! I’ve been dealing with an injury that kept me away from all the fun things in life unfortunately. I’ll definitely report back once I’ve had a chance to play. At that point, I may send you an email or something as that will probably be a better way to share it than a WordPress comment but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it!

        Like

Leave a comment