Swordpoint or To the Strongest

[Tonhel]

Hello,

I am interested in what people find of those two the most interesting ruleset?

I.e in basing, rules complexity, and most important armylist building options. What is the most verstaile ruleset to represent:

* Early Imperial Romans + enemies
* Late 10th - early / mid Anglo-Saxons / Normans etc.. (Upcomming Victrix range)
* Early Hundred years war.

I like the basing system that To the Strongest uses, but I find the armylist building a bit confusing.

Now the heresy comes, but for gaming I mainly play Age of Sigmar and 40K. Although my biggest interest in painting are medieval miniatures. I am working on several warbands for Saga and Lion Rampant and now I would love to slowly prepare an army for a mass ranked historical ruleset. My gaming history exist completly of Games Workshop for many years. So for me the armylist for the Strongest looks very strange and barebone.

[A Lot of Gaul]

Having played both Swordpoint and To the Strongest!, first let me say that both are excellent rulesets, and tremendous fun to play. Swordpoint uses a traditional system for measuring movement and missile ranges, while TtS! uses a grid system. I find the latter to be simpler and less ambiguous. The rules mechanics and army list 'style' for Swordpoint may be more familiar to you, since Swordpoint was designed by the same author as Warhammer Ancient Battles 2.0. Both are historical rulesets, and so have army lists based on similar historical sources.

[Tonhel]

@A Lot of Gaul, thank you for the answer. I am looking at the To the Strongest armylist excel files. It does feel a bit short. How do they Swordpoint armylists compare?

[Charlie_]

I think the Swordpoint army lists will be more familiar to you with a GW background. They have what I consider unnecessary details like the exact armaments of units, often quite bizarre interpretations of historical sources...... (for example because there is reference of Burgundian longbowmen being armed with 'two handed swords' or something, i.e. longswords, Swordpoint decides to equip them with TWO HANDED WEAPONS with STRENGTH BONUSES!)

[fred]

TtS lists, are really quite simple, and perhaps are presented in a bit to basic a format. They really are just basic lists in a spreadsheet, there is very little narrative or explanation, and sometimes there is a lot of variety within the list. But on the other hand they are quite straight forward once you understand one, the others follow.

I don't think TtS is really built around list building and army lists. The lists are just guides to give you a reasonably realistic force for a given period. We played a WoTR game this week, and used the lists as a starting point, but happily extended things to fit our figure collections better. But there were a couple of bits we missed, but they weren't significant to the game.

I think as Charlie says TtS is more concerned with the big picture, and the differences between troop types are often quite small ( a single +1 on a 10 point scale, is typical).

[Tonhel]

Thank you all!

Yes, I think that for a newbie when the rules and the period are new. I.e if you want to start a new army and only have a basic knowledge of the timeframe it's to difficult with the The Strongest armylist to build an army.

Swordpoint armylists seem more newbie friendly and while I haven't bought the rules yet. It seems that you can buy equipment. Which ofcourse in the grander scale of the battle not so important, but for list building it's fun. While for TtS you can only differnate units by making them veteran.

I have a couple of footsore Norman archers, so if I am correct they have to be 4 on a 40mmx40mm base for Swordpoint?

[Charlie_]

Do you know exactly what period you want to do?

With historicals, it's generally better to forget about army lists when you start out. Do some research on your chosen period / era, find out what sort of troops would be appropriate, buy some minis and get painting! Think about how you'd arrange them into an army for games at a later date.

You mentioned Normans - if you're thinking of Normans circa 1066, well get yourself a load of Norman cavalry, Norman infantry, and a few skirmishers/archers/crossbowmen, and you can't go wrong. Whatever ruleset you later choose to use, I'm positive your Norman collection will be easy to mould into an army for that game...

(The truth is most different armies from one period wouldn't have differed much. I mean some might have more cavalry, or more archers, etc..... But beyond that, a knight is a knight, whether he's French, English, Italian, Spanish.... It's wargaming that often likes to add all sorts of extra things to make different armies distinct, different equipment, different stats. Take the 100 years war, English and French armies. English armies would usually consist of two elements - longbowmen and men-at-arms, who would dismount to fight as infantry when they could. French armies would consist of men-at-arms, either mounted or dismounted, and other 'lesser infantry', including crossbowmen, handgunners, and longbowmen in the later period. That's about it. An English man-at-arms would be just the same as a French man-at-arms in the big picture. Other European armies of the era would be more or less made up of these same two elements as well - men-at-arms and infantry. The ratios of men-at-arms to infantry, and whether the former preferred to fight mounted or dismounted, could well vary from nation to nation, and be dictated by the scenario played.... But really you don't need 'army lists' for each nation.)

HOWEVER... the one caveat is basing. Fortunately MOST historical games aren't fussy about how you base your units. Swordpoint apparently DOES require a certain way of basing, but happily that means if you base them for Swordpoint they can also happily be used for other rules which are more flexible with basing (To The Strongest, Hail Caesar, etc). The reverse might not always be true.

Having said that though, I know what you mean when you say doing army lists is fun.

[Tonhel]

@Charlie_,

Great post!

Well at Crisis I bought a set of Victrix Early Imperial Romans, so that is a given that I want to do an army for them, but my main interest is Late Dark Ages to mid /late Middle ages.

I have most of Claymore Casting Early HYW, but I am still in doubt if I will keep them based on 25mm rounds or base them as a big unit.
Also when Victrix releases their Dark Ages range, I will buy them all and those will be for mass ranked battles.
V&V miniatures, I really like, but their range is to small for mass ranked games.
And as latest, I will defintilty start a late HYW army when the Perry's release their beautiful cavarly.

While I think Swordpoint is maybe more my playstyle, I have decided to go for TtS, simply because you base your unit on a big base and imo that will look great and more dynamic... I don't like i.e with Swordpoint that foot skirmishers are only 2 à 3 figures on a 80x40mm base.

Thank you for your answers!

[meninobesta]

if you don't  want to base your model individually, then the DBx/FoG/AdlG approach (60mm wide bases and depth is a bit flexible, for 28mm) will be the most reusable
since most rules use the same bases or some kind of variation

[Axebreaker]

@Tonhel

Impetus also has the large dynamic basing that might interest you.

Christopher

[Tonhel]

This is getting complicated. 

So what is yours favourite ruleset? How its based / looks on table and good armylist?

[Tonhel]

What is the biggest base size that I can use and how many figures can be on it so I have the biggest choice of rulesets to play?

[SteveBurt]

For 28mm figures, basing everything on 60mm wide bases will allow you to play To The Strongest, DBA, DBMM, Field of Glory, Armati, Hail Caesar, Lost Battles and probably a bunch of others.
40mm square will let you play Swordpoint, To The Strongest, Hail Caesar, Lost Battles.
TTS, Hail Caesar and Lost Battles don't really care how your figures are based, the others do.

[A Lot of Gaul]

The biggest practical 'diorama' base size for 28mm figures is probably 120mm wide, which would work just fine for Hail Caesar, Impetus or TtS!

As Steve indicated, 60mm wide bases can be used for Ancient & Medieval Wargaming, Armati, Civitates Bellantes, Classical Hack, DBA, DBMM, Field of Glory, Hail Caesar, L'Art de la Guerre, Mortem et Gloriam, Pulse of Battle, TtS! or Triumph! OTOH, 40mm wide bases will work well for Hail Caesar, Swordpoint or TtS!

My own personal favorite is TtS!, as the core mechanics are quite simple, and yet provide for great tactical depth and decision-making possibilities. The tabletop armies look impressive, and you can build armies that are as large or as small as you wish. The army lists are not 'pretty' - just simple Excel spreadsheets - but they are free downloadable files, and contain all of the troops types needed to build a historically viable army. Most importantly, TtS! is fast, furious, and tremendously fun to play.

[Tonhel]

I bought To the Strongest. At first glance it doesn't look simple. Do you use 15cm or 20cm grid?