The great thing about reading all this material about the IFW/LGTSA/C&CS is that it implies that there were a great number of amateurs writing and iterating on rules. While these efforts extend beyond Lake Geneva and the Twin Cities, these places occupy our minds as we build up to the advent of D&D in 1974. Our subject this time is Chainmail, which Perren and Gygax collaborated on.
Now, these rules were changed over time, but were generally known under the LGTSA name, those same rules which were used for the Great Kingdom setting which the Castle & Crusade Society created. Incredibly important for us, and I found this by accident today, is that Dave Arneson said BLACKMOOR began there with his plot of land:
I’ve already shown that Arneson himself said numerous times, and with no ambiguity, that these rules, these Chainmail rules, were the rules basis for his Blackmoor campaign. This should be the final nail in the coffin that Arneson’s game was sui generis, but it still remains that the dungeon expedition idea was his.
He therefore began the setting in collaboration with Gygax.
Let me say a few words about the book itself. It’s set up into four main sections:
Rules for Medieval Miniatures.
Man-To-Man Combat.
FANTASY SUPPLEMENT
Tables (Appendicies like the Fantasy Combat Table.)
What I find interesting from where I am in time right now is that the book manages to convey quite a bit with its number of pages. Being an Old World player myself, this feels strangely efficient. With that, I find it interesting that the first rules brought up are about the turn sequence, then terrain, then movement. Considering that its authors were rather big nerds in a hobby full of them, I have to admit they’re training the new player to think about the terrain and their troops’ movement first. While someone may want to talk about all the swag and gear their level 4 wizard may have in a game, it means nothing if the player does not understand the effects of terrain on movement and line-of-sight.
Surprisingly, much of this feels familiar. Rolling for morale after losing a battle, with the results changing depending on both the outcome of the melee and also the number of men involved. Leadership effects from one’s commander, who joins a unit. Movement seems much faster, by comparison, and the game seems to present two options for giving orders: The Move/Counter Move System and The Simultaneous Move System. In the latter, orders are given and movement is done in half increments to check for unordered charges. The Move/Counter Move System has the familiar resolution of first turn by a roll off, then one follows the turn order. Then, in a delightfully Basic element, you re-roll the dice for the next turn to see if last will be first and first last.
The scale of the game is also quite interesting, with the typical infantryman being on a 1 figure to 20 men scale (1:20 in the notation). Battle is generally done by figures, then a combat chart is looked at for the number needed to kill the figure. Casualties are then compared and flanks are taken into consideration. Actually, one horrific thing is that when you’re hit in the rear you do not get to attack back on that turn. Facing matters a lot here, people. Despite giving suggested points values, Chainmail does not really give one an idea about how big a battle should be, though table sizes do get suggested, like a 3’x5’.
The fantasy supplement is really what we are here for, though the game is solid on its own, even with its ambiguities. Here, we get our Heroes and Superheroes, and are told about how they fight “as four figures” which means he gets extra attacks. These attacks can also be proportional depending on the classification of the hero, which costs points. There are also saving throws mentioned for spells, which are done on 2d6, where a Hero would need a 9+ to survive a lightning bolt. Might be the first time in a long time where that spell felt deadly.
Heroes are incredibly difficult to kill in non-fantastical combat (think Conan, of course!), and really what you want is to engage these independent characters in duels to take them out. Although, sniping with a wizard seems awesome.
How critical this table is to D&D is hard to overstate. When I was first trying out The Basic Expert’s Wight-Box, I took things rather slowly and asked some questions after my party wiped because of the number of attacks a troll got. 6 attacks with +3 to-hit on the first was killer, but if a character were of Hero status, then effectively they enter this fantastical combat above, and the troll would only get one blow against him, which would increase survivability by a great amount. By Chainmail, they would have the melee capability of six Heavy Foot, which translates into six dice per troll…and they fight in formations. A troll horde in Warhammer is bad enough.
Beyond Wight-Box, I also spoke with AlchemicRaker about his Old Lords of Wonder and Ruin, which is specifically a re-organizing of Chainmail for clarity’s sake, and I have to say that it does succeed. Chainmail had a particular audience already tuned into the Napoleonics of the day or games of a more granular nature. There were of course going to be assumptions made about what players would know or could infer. To my surprise, Chainmail would also be played at the D&D Mansion in Hollywood, which Flint Dille mentions explicitly, so this game had some pull in either its presentation or the feel of it.
As I said, it does feel familiar.
You might enjoy taking a look at Midwest Fantasy Wargame: The Primeval RPG - I just released it on itch. I take a deep dive into First Fantasy campaign (among other sources). Although I was able to put together a combat system based on Totten / Strategos, it is pretty clear from the lack of evidence to the contrary that Chainmail was always the engine under the hood.