I must admit that I have never paid much attention to whatever mass combat rules there was for D&D, so I can’t really compare or evaluate if OBE simply ripped off ideas from previous editions. What I can tell you is that with Hard Boiled Armies, they have created an elegant and smooth rules-set to guide us through mass-combat in our campaigns. At the core, it’s extremely simple. Units in combat are created and treated like characters. Then we are given some tools to figure out, depending on how big a battle and how big a battlefield we are aiming for, how long rounds, encounters and days are. We get a bunch of ideas to translate the 4e-isms such as encounter and daily powers into military happenings, how to adjust speed relative to the battlefield and last but not least how to figure out how long short and long rests are. They touch on the translation of special moves like grab, conditions, ranged attacks (if a square on the battlemat is 10 miles, maybe that range 10 on a power does not quite work as it should . Actually, while I could go on and on, because they do touch on quite a few relevant and diverse things on the 24 pages (the last 11 are devoted to the map used with the mini-battle-adventure included), but I think I have said enough already. I mean (and this is totally made up on the spot, it’s not from Hard Boiled Armies), with a few changes, that 1st level rogue with deft strike becomes a 1st level army of 10000 men with perhaps a light cavalry that strikes out quickly, surprising its enemies. Kill the fluff; use the crunch (with a few modifications). It’s very 4e and I am definitely going to try it.
Rating:* * * * *
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