Whats your favourite set of rules?

[Osmoses]

But I have been glancing at Sword and Spear with interest. Slightly disappointed that it didn't get more attention in this thread. Can I ask if anyone has tried it, and what they did or didn't like about it?

I really liked Sword and Spear, though we didn't play much of it here before moving on to 'To the Strongest.' As far as game design goes, it's really good. There are loads of decisions to make in the command phase in how you allocate command dice. The games we played were all really enjoyable and swung back and forth. As it's a generic set, there will always be some periods that it won't work well for, it worked fine for our Arabs vs. Turks Crusades, but maybe wouldn't for other periods. IIRC we found the ability of commanders to rally units in combat too powerful, but that's easily remedied.

IMO, the best thing about the game is how orders work. The system is very abstracted but if you don't mind this, then as a game there is a lot there in terms of decisions to make every turn, and planning for future turns etc. I'd thoroughly recommend playing S+S if you get the opportunity, because it's one of those games that you might just absolutely love. There's a battle report here from our Crusades-era game which describes some of the mechanics:

https://wargamesasp.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/sword-and-spear-and-some-bows/

[Sunjester]

This has been a fascinating thread to read through. It shows that rule preferences are such a personal thing and that the quest for an "ultimate set of rules" is doomed to failure!

I'm using various rules at the moment, depending on the size/period of the game.

For smaller battles Lion Rampant, any thing from Anglo-Norman to Wars of the Roses. At the Tring Club we have also had some successful larger battles with 72 points a side, in 3 commands. We have played these size games with 2 players and 6 players and they were great fun for everyone.

For larger battles in the Crusades it's Soldiers of God. A great set of rules which everyone I've played with has enjoyed. We have also experimented with these rules for the same era in Eastern Europe with Mongols and Russians and have been happy with the results.

I haven't dug them out for a while, but for large battle Wars of the Roses we were using Warmaster Medieval. I've been looking at Hail Caesar and will be trying a game next month.

Saga was quite popular at the club until I introduced them to Lion Rampant, now it is very rare to see a Saga game being played. I tried it but personally I didn't like it. To me it always felt more like a fantasy set of rules rather than a historical one, with invisible ambushers, magic bows and teleporting units.

Also, we are wargaming butterflies at our club and I think Saga required too much investment in time and money. To play the game well you really need to know your own battleboard backwards, and those of your opponents. That requires a degree of dedication (obsession?) that I remember seeing in the more successful players when I was involved in national wargames competitions back in the 1980s, most of us could not be that bothered as we seldom play the same rules in 2 successive weeks. The need to invest over £100 just in rule books and dice before the cost of armies put me off as well.

[Charlie_]

The only thing I didn't like about it is that the games table is spoilt by the presence of a lot of dice. And these have to be on-table because they refer directly to the unit they are with and how they can activate and fight. Most of those dice are removed straightaway during the phasing player's turn but some stay on as reaction type dice. I prefer my games table to be uncluttered with such paraphernalia so I have quite a low threshold about how many counters and such things should be on-table, so many may think that the number of dice isn't so bad.

Ahhhh.... dice and counters.

A lot of people I've seen seem to really dislike rolling any number of dice over five! Personally I have no problem with rolling a hand full of dice, and don't think others should either : ) Quickly rolling 20 dice, picking out the 1s and 2s, or whatever.. easy. BUT then I do agree that having to roll again, and then some re-rolls, and then the other player has to roll loads..... Just to determine how many have been shot by arrows... That is daft! I think just a 2-roll system, say roll to hit and then roll to save, with most 'handfuls' being up to a dozen dice at most (with occasionally more for huge units of archers or whatever) is just right.

But counters... I really dislike cluttering the table up with counters (be they dice or whatever) and find that is a BIG turn-off for me when looking at  rule system.
I even find having well-made casualty markers quite annoying, or at least having to count them up and giving them some important meaning, rather than just having them scattered about randomly as scenery.

[Argonor]

I think just a 2-roll system, say roll to hit and then roll to save, with most 'handfuls' being up to a dozen dice at most (with occasionally more for huge units of archers or whatever) is just right.

I heartily agree on that, and it is one of the features I like about God of Battles - and although being a fantasy rule set, it can easily be played without the 'fantastic' and very random elements, which we often do. Rerolls do occur, though, when using 'Miracles' (magic).

But too many dice rolls to determine the outcome of combat is to me a killer that slows down the action and hampers the pace of the game. Probably one of the reasons I never really got into WFB. That, and the IGOUGO turn sequence. I know, SAGA also has that feature, to some extent, but a player turn rarely takes half an hour with endless rules discussions and flipping through rules and supplements  

[Endman]

Blood Eagle is probably my favourite set of rules at the moment. (Totally nothing to do with it being a really small number of figures, no sir.  )

I've heard a lot of people be sceptical about the IGOUGO form of the rules, but with such a small number of dudes I think it makes sense that everyone just gets to act without much impediment. Although the inclusion of a Blood Bowl/Open Combat-esque turn-over system would be nice. I might have to houserule that and see how it works in my next game.

I'm big on narrative play, campaigns and individual heroism, so small-scale skirmish is perfect for what I want out of a tabletop game.

[Argonor]

Blood Eagle...
I've heard a lot of people be sceptical about the IGOUGO form of the rules, but with such a small number of dudes I think it makes sense that everyone just gets to act without much impediment.

Which is normally referred to as Alternate Activation, as opposed to IGOUGO where one side moves/fights (in each phase, if any) with everything before the other gets to do anything (save rolling saves).

I prefer Alternate Activation over IGOUGO any time - IMO gives much more tense games. When Warzone first came out, I loved it, and promptly got me a small army painted, whereas 40K and WFB never really inspired me to get a force painted up, even though I own several editions of both rules.

[Gracchus Armisurplus]

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with IGOUGO formats.

When turns take a long time with no interaction from the inactive player, that's bad. And when a player can take decisive action without the inactive player having a chance to respond, then that's bad too. And these are problems you're more likely to see with IGOUGO formats, but they're not integral to the format.

For instance in SAGA, my opponents turn only takes minutes. And when it's his turn, I still have to decide whether or not to trade offence for defence in combat, whether or not to use any SAGA abilities I have loaded on my board, and how to spend my opponents fatigue.

[Sunjester]

Which is normally referred to as Alternate Activation, as opposed to IGOUGO where one side moves/fights (in each phase, if any) with everything before the other gets to do anything (save rolling saves).

I prefer Alternate Activation over IGOUGO any time - IMO gives much more tense games. When Warzone first came out, I loved it, and promptly got me a small army painted, whereas 40K and WFB never really inspired me to get a force painted up, even though I own several editions of both rules.

Me too, I had 3 or 4 factions for 1st Edition Warzone. Sadly long gone now, I didn't really like the reboots, so I sold them. I've still got my Chronopia stuff!

[SteveBurt]

Sword & Spear is a very good set of rules; the activation system means  both players are involved all the time.
The combat system is simple and effective, and there is lots of interesting decision making.
There are a couple of things which we didn't like so much:
1. The occasional time when one player gets all the activations, and the other has to sit there and do nothing
2. Light troops only get to shoot & evade if they have an action dice; this makes them very vulnerable (especially as they have so few hits). Some sort of auto-activation for lights would make them better.

We've also moved on to 'To the Strongest' for ancients battles. This also has a nice activation system, lots of interesting decisions, is more streamlined, and runs very fast (the grid and the cards speed things up a lot - it's amazing how long some people roll dice, which then end up cocked).

[fred]

Our gaming group has spent the last couple of years thrashing out a set of home brew rules for big fantasy games - and a few interesting things have come out of this process - along with a lot of sweat, frustration, but not blood!

When people say they really like a certain mechanism or part of a game - they often don't mean this. They really tend to mean they like how a bunch of stuff comes together, but tend to identify that by a particular mechanic. This makes it really hard to take bits from different games and mash them together to make a new game, as you end up going down a number of dead ends lead by something that initially seemed really important, but ultimately turns out that it isn't.

Everyone has certain game effects / mechanisms that they really can't stand - its trying to avoid these as they tend to be deal breakers, and once someone has spotted something they hate, its really hard to get them to see past it as they keep coming back to this 'thing'.

IGOUGO - this is interesting as we started with random activation (like Bolt Action's dice in a bag), and alternating activations (like Epic) but we ended up going back to IGOUGO as this seems to work better for big multi-player games (at least with my group!). Perhaps because people actually seem to like to have some down time on the other player's turn to have a chat, make a drink etc. Or perhaps some of my group just have really short attention spans!

But the key drivers for IGOUGO where around speed of play - we can have several players on one side all executing their moves simultaneously - there is also no analysis paralysis which happens a lot when playing with alternating activations as you need to decide which activation is the best choice each time. Also for quite a lot of rule mechanisms we found IGOUGO was better for determining durations and other factors.

Buckets of dice - I tend to prefer rolling a good number of dice at once, it tends to even out results to be a bit more average/predictable. In Kings of War 10 - 20 d6 per attack is not uncommon, sometimes up to 60 dice for rear charges or hordes in the flank. One thing to speed this up is to have dice in 10s of different colours. We have found multiple dice slow things down massively - not least for a few players who can never seem to tell a d8 from a d10. One of our group hates Frostgrave for the opposed d20s - he feels this is just a total lottery - the rest of us seem more able to see it as an indicator that combat can be really dangerous, or someone will just miss you. But this does indicate the problem of single dice rolls, which can give very spiky results.

Anyway enough rambling.

[MGH]

Our local group really loves To the Strongest. I'm actually so satisfied with it, I am done looking at other rules.

That is not to say if I am at a convention and a game I signed up to play has a different set of rules, I wouldn't play the game. Try anything once.

[Vulture]

Having tried many sets over the years my favourites at the moment are:
a)  To The Strongest
b)  Lion Rampant.
As posted on another thread, about to try out Dux Britanniarvm, a rule system I hear good things about.

[Vermis]

Which is normally referred to as Alternate Activation, as opposed to IGOUGO where one side moves/fights (in each phase, if any) with everything before the other gets to do anything (save rolling saves).

Not that we're not on the same page, or that it changes anything; but on the face of it, don't 'alternate activation' and 'IGOUGO'  mean the same thing?  I wonder if 'unit activation' or 'army activation' would be clearer. Probably not.

Who was asking about a game that was inbetween the complexity of Deus Vult and Lion Rampant?
Well, I'd recommend Dux Bellorum. It does focus on the dark ages rather than high medieval period, but you can jimmy some medieval knights out of it (give them Imposing Cavalry).

That was another one I looked at for me anglo-saxons, but never got around to. I think I'll keep it though - less space and weight.

Thanks to all for the opinions on Sword and Spear. Much appreciated. But I gather I should divert some attention to To The Strongest?

[Polkovnik]

don't 'alternate activation' and 'IGOUGO'  mean the same thing?

No, they don't mean the same thing. IGOUGO means that one player has his complete turn, then the other player. Alternate activation means that one player activates a figure or unit, then the other player, until all figures or units have been activated.

[Gracchus Armisurplus]

Does anyone have any opinions on L'art de la guerre? It seems fairly popular locally.