Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Age of Myths, Gods and Empires => Topic started by: VonAkers on 09 April 2025, 12:22:11 PM
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Hi Guys .
I cant seem to find any Ancient Wargames Rules that I am happy with .Some seem ok others ..well not so much.
I am after 5 things
1 Realism/ Historical
2 Reasonable Playability.
3 Fog of war ( ie I dont want total control .. or i would play chess , )
4 The period is 450BC TO 050 BC ( Pelopenesian War/ Greek Punic Wars / Punic Wars
5 Reasonable time frame 4/5 hours .
Your Thoughts Please
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I reckon Big Battle DBA (i.e. multiple commands) covers all of those points. It's perhaps a little short on the playing time, but if you use expanded armies - say 18 elements per command rather than 12 - and three commands per side, you'd get a very good afternoon's game.
To the Strongest ticks all the boxes too, I think. It's great.
Both games strike me as impeccably researched (your points 1 and 4), and they're both fast-moving with simple core mechanics (points 2 and 5). Given all the "don't knows" regarding ancient warfare, their level of abstraction is a strength rather than a weakness, I think. The PIP dice and cards, respectively, give you your fog of war (point 3).
And, of course, you can use the same basing for both games.
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What do you consider "Realism/ Historical"? Which rules meet or fail to meet this criteria? I generally assume that Realism = Simulation. And that will be at odds with #2 Playability.
To The Strongest has been mentioned (and Hail Caesar accomplishes the same goals through different means), easily meets #2-5. I'm not sure if either game meets the #1 Realism/ Historical criteria.
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The ones where you bash your opponent with a metal bin lid while poking him with a billiard cue. :)
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How on earth could you even begin to judge which is the most realistic!?
A totally pointless endeavour.
The problem is, we don't know the actual flow and dynamics of an ancient battle. And never will. We have no idea what an actual battle really looked like nor how it developed and progressed. The reality of ancient battles will remain ever elusive.
So instead of chasing the most realistic, look for the one that gives you the kind of game you enjoy and most fits your own interpretation of what an ancient battle was like. Which is not the same thing at all.
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Hey Dice Roller
Troll Alert ... lol lol
Do you play Chess Perchance ... lol lol lol lol
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I reckon Big Battle DBA (i.e. multiple commands) covers all of those points. It's perhaps a little short on the playing time, but if you use expanded armies - say 18 elements per command rather than 12 - and three commands per side, you'd get a very good afternoon's game.
To the Strongest ticks all the boxes too, I think. It's great.
Both games strike me as impeccably researched (your points 1 and 4), and they're both fast-moving with simple core mechanics (points 2 and 5). Given all the "don't knows" regarding ancient warfare, their level of abstraction is a strength rather than a weakness, I think. The PIP dice and cards, respectively, give you your fog of war (point 3).
And, of course, you can use the same basing for both games.
DBA and even the latest of the DBx series or ADLG don’t do a good job of handling Roman manipular legions, at least not with lists that separate the hastati/principi from triari into separate stands. The roles of second and third lines and their interaction might be abstracted to within a single blade stand, but what then do you consider the heavy spearmen stands, you still have in the list?
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How on earth could you even begin to judge which is the most realistic!?
A totally pointless endeavour.
The problem is, we don't know the actual flow and dynamics of an ancient battle. And never will. We have no idea what an actual battle really looked like nor how it developed and progressed. The reality of ancient battles will remain ever elusive.
So instead of chasing the most realistic, look for the one that gives you the kind of game you enjoy and most fits your own interpretation of what an ancient battle was like. Which is not the same thing at all.
Oh, I think we actually do have some idea of the actual flow and dynamics of an ancient battle, and a pretty good one at that. The flow and dynamics of battle really hasn’t changed that much at least until the rifled musket makes an appearance and firepower starts to erode the power of shock and mass. None the less, basic military principles regarding economy of force, mass and maneuver hold true forever, even if dispersion and engagement distances change.
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This depends a lot on what you deem as the target for your points you want. Some may say DBA etc are unrealistic, with their command items and hiding details as an example. For that we really do not know the details of the Roman way of fighting, so how to model this. So how they do that may be good or very poor depending on your viewpoint.
After all Rome won more wars because of various factors outside the tactical battle level vs being that devastating tactical force a lot of the time. Our knowledge of the details of battles at a tactical level prior to the printing press is pretty light.
So, a lot of this depends on what you want out of a game for things like the types of forces it will cover etc.
That said, I suggest trying various sets and see which one you (and your fellow players) like.
We did that a few years ago (we tried DBA, ADLG, Sword and spear, Hail Ceasar, impetus, To the strongest, hanibal, Mortum et Glorum) and our group at the time settled on ADLG. Although various people liked some bits of specific rules more than others this was the overall one we liked (or more likely had less real diislike than any others). All have their good and bad parts but this one hit more highs than lows for our group.
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Vonakers, to be honest I haven't played any other "big battle" sets of rules since I opted for "To the Strongest" ( TTS) back in about 2016. They certainly tick your boxes regarding playability, fog of war, time period and length of game. I'm no expert on ancient combat but I haven't met anyone who says they don't tick that box as well. As they cover from Bronze Age through to the 15th century they might not be granular enough for some regarding the detail of a specific period, but I have happily used them for the Greek and Persian Wars, Successors and the Punic Wars....plus other periods up to the Wars of the Roses. The other great thing is that they don't force you to adopt a specific basing convention, as long as your units fit in the grid system they use. Thus you can always try something else . My original armies were based for Impetus using 12cm wide bases and these fitted perfectly into a 15cm grid. Having "bigged up" TTS I will say that Hail Caesar, Swordpoint and Sword and Spear have stood the test of time and seem to have a loyal following. I have a mate who swears by "DBA/Big Battle DBA" but I haven't played it for nearly 30 years. I can still recall it being demo-ed by Phil Barker at the Society of Ancients Conference in the late '80s or early '90s.
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Oh, I think we actually do have some idea of the actual flow and dynamics of an ancient battle, and a pretty good one at that. The flow and dynamics of battle really hasn’t changed that much at least until the rifled musket makes an appearance and firepower starts to erode the power of shock and mass. None the less, basic military principles regarding economy of force, mass and maneuver hold true forever, even if dispersion and engagement distances change.
Scholars would disagree with you.
No one actual knows how Greek warfare worked and there is hot debate about it. Many people think the Osthmosis (sp) is not how it really worked at all. In Roman warfare, no one actually knows how the famous Triplex Acies (sp) rotation actual works. Again, there are several theories, but no one really knows. That is just Greek and Roman combat, not all of Ancient warfare. If we get beyond Greeks and Romans, no one really knows how Bronze Age Chariot Warfare worked at scale either.
There is still a lot of discussion about impulses vs. lines vs. nodes vs. something else in Ancient warfare and no one really knows the answer and we probably never will. Therefore, what the OP is really looking for is a game that reflects their understanding and Point-of-View of how ancient warfare worked.
I am guessing, they have a "traditional" view with a cohesion of the battle lines as paramount. If that is the case, ADGL and DBA-alikes are a good way to go. However, I could be wrong.
I know Wars of the Republic and Men of Bronze is not for you, because I made them and I do NOT follow the Battle Line dogma when I designed them. The design also leaned into some ideas to make a better game and force choices that have also not been popular with more traditional wargamers either. I am kind of regretting both those choices, as it has definitely impacted the sets popularity and how gamers react to it. So, do not choose those games! :)
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> Scholars would disagree with you.
Yes, some scholars very well might but there is a very strong consensus, even if a few cranky scholars holdout noisily about some little pedantic detail or not.
As a former professional military officer, i can say that the dictates of drill to maximize mass where and when needed, keep positive command control, preserve the ability to maneuver to attack gaps and flanks, address fatigue within the line by bringing reserves to stressed points in the line or the arrival of a surprise in a pre-radio environment where combat remains mostly within immediate reach of a proximate and usually visible enemy are all quite understood, and it’s rather easy to garner what an ancient leader might have had to do to address these problems. Nothing really changes.
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I know Wars of the Republic and Men of Bronze is not for you, because I made them and I do NOT follow the Battle Line dogma when I designed them. The design also leaned into some ideas to make a better game and force choices that have also not been popular with more traditional wargamers either. I am kind of regretting both those choices, as it has definitely impacted the sets popularity and how gamers react to it. So, do not choose those games! :)
What is this battle line dogma you refer to? Could you elaborate?
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Hi Guys .
I cant seem to find any Ancient Wargames Rules that I am happy with .Some seem ok others ..well not so much.
I am after 5 things
1 Realism/ Historical
2 Reasonable Playability.
3 Fog of war ( ie I dont want total control .. or i would play chess , )
4 The period is 450BC TO 050 BC ( Pelopenesian War/ Greek Punic Wars / Punic Wars
5 Reasonable time frame 4/5 hours .
Your Thoughts Please
Probably as impossible as finding the "perfect" set of Napoleonic rules judging by the proliferation of rule sets and what dedicated Nappy players tell me....
Realism - you probably need to explore Phil Sabin's rules - Lost Battles, Legion and Strategos as these aim at "simulating" ancient battles, but possibly too predictable for 3...
Rules which give a good "game" while producing broadly historical results - Command & Colors Ancients; To the Strongest - these hit the unpredictability side while also producing a better simulation than you may think..
Despite the comments on Big Battle DBA - I think you would be better playing standard DBA but with big Impetus sized bases - gives you more figures but doesn't get bogged down with individual elements and multiple PIP throws.....
One of the better older sets is Shieldbearer - one of the few that would allow 1,800 Companions to seriously mess up 30,000 Persians; maybe not much fun for the latter.
A friend of mine constantly tells me about his set, available free here:
https://www.foggofwarminiatures.com/download-the-rules?srsltid=AfmBOoqpr49Z5j9m6wmvmHa33xZaq2K8Gi9WgNN8sfDLmK8iofyhOwxp
Neil
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Despite the comments on Big Battle DBA - I think you would be better playing standard DBA but with big Impetus sized bases - gives you more figures but doesn't get bogged down with individual elements and multiple PIP throws.....
Neil
That's certainly a good call, fun and spectacle-wise, but it would tend to give you an hour-long game and so fall foul of 5. (Of course, you could always play several games in the time slot...)
The other thing is that doubling the frontage doubles your movement (in BW) and effectively halves the depth of the table, which would tend to make the game even quicker (30 to 45 minutes, perhaps). So the case for Big Battle is that it gives you a longer game and allows you to keep something like the intended table depth.
The big bases would look fantastic, though!
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Wow Guys
Thank you all for the Prompt and Enthusiastic Responces , you are all Awesome.
I will try a Slightly Modified Hail Caesar , and also try TTS, and advise.
Cheers
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Hi Guys .
I cant seem to find any Ancient Wargames Rules that I am happy with .Some seem ok others ..well not so much.
I am after 5 things
1 Realism/ Historical
2 Reasonable Playability.
3 Fog of war ( ie I dont want total control .. or i would play chess , )
4 The period is 450BC TO 050 BC ( Pelopenesian War/ Greek Punic Wars / Punic Wars
5 Reasonable time frame 4/5 hours .
Your Thoughts Please
Archon, the ancient period version of Piquet, gets the balance between playability and historical accuracy about right. Our small group have always found the games very entertaining and appreciated the options in the rules to tweak the character of armies in relatively subtle ways to reflect our historical understanding. Archon definitely ticks the box for fog of war. The card-based turn sequence eliminates the tedious certainty of when movement, charging, melee and morale tests will happen.
Time wise, we have played12-16 units a side games in 3 to 5 hours and larger games in a day. Main focus has been Punic Wars and Successors but also used successfully for Bronze Age chariot games.
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For me I really think Advanced Impetus fits your needs, particularly for the Greek Persian wars and Roman Carthaginian period .
Large diorama basing of units, no fussy casualty removal, light infantry are useful, troops can move swiftly if well drilled and well lead, impetuous troops charge Willy nilly, cavalry move rapidly, always a chance of disorder, command means something, morale is everything, uncertainty on a dice roll, generals can be rated, wing commands etc.
I returned to ancient gaming with them and have never changed my opinion of them.
Big battles or small battles can be played between 1 hr to 4 hours with a result. Good campaign system and well supported.
My two cents
Cheers
Matt
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That's certainly a good call, fun and spectacle-wise, but it would tend to give you an hour-long game and so fall foul of 5. (Of course, you could always play several games in the time slot...)
The other thing is that doubling the frontage doubles your movement (in BW) and effectively halves the depth of the table, which would tend to make the game even quicker (30 to 45 minutes, perhaps). So the case for Big Battle is that it gives you a longer game and allows you to keep something like the intended table depth.
The big bases would look fantastic, though!
I think the problem with tripling DBA to produce Big Battle DBA doesn't stop the manoeuvring of individual elements to gain an advantage. In DBA that's 1/12th of your force, in BBDBA 1/36th yet the effect and result is the same.
In an army of 36,000 men 3000 v 1000.
I understand the desire to upscale DBA, but BBDBA needed work - what we got was DBM...🙄
It also allows the "firework" effect where elements separate off for advantage when maintaining a battle line was essential. This is a failing of a lot of ancient rules, Impetus, Armati, WRG and most older sets.
I'm a bit puzzled why someone wanting a "historically realistic" set of Ancient rules would consider Hail Caesar; ever since WHAB these fall under the "game" tradition rather than simulation......
Horses for courses I suppose.....
Neil
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Methinks there is no such thing as realistic rules. A wargame is not a simulation, it is an interpretation.
In most cases this means the view, vision, and preferences of the author. I struggled with this and ended up writing my own rules (The Warrior, which is a supplement for the ancient and medieval period to Der Söldner) and based these on the MATRIX wargaming concept in such a way that players can play the game based on their interpretation of history…
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You won’t get a set of rules to ‘realistically’ simulate ancient warfare. Best off finding a set you enjoy playing.
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You won’t get a set of rules to ‘realistically’ simulate ancient warfare. Best off finding a set you enjoy playing.
Yeah, I tried telling him that and he threw a wobbler.
Oh well.
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I think the problem with tripling DBA to produce Big Battle DBA doesn't stop the manoeuvring of individual elements to gain an advantage. In DBA that's 1/12th of your force, in BBDBA 1/36th yet the effect and result is the same.
In an army of 36,000 men 3000 v 1000.
I understand the desire to upscale DBA, but BBDBA needed work - what we got was DBM...🙄
It also allows the "firework" effect where elements separate off for advantage when maintaining a battle line was essential. This is a failing of a lot of ancient rules, Impetus, Armati, WRG and most older sets.
I see what you're saying, but isn't this largely offset by the bigger table and the command-based PIP allotment?
When we've played BBDBA (actually BBD3H2 - so perhaps there are some HOTT-related wrinkles in there ...), we've played on a 6 x 4' table, and the game has essentially been command vs command, at least for the first half. With the rules for demoralised commands (which are quite punitive), I don't think you can generally afford to treat elements any differently from in a single-command game.
Oddly enough, one of the things I like best about the DBx family is that it tends to support the preservation of the battle line. But perhaps I'm missing the 'fiddly' potential of zones of control and so on because most of my opponents are sufficiently casual players that they can't exploit such things!
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I think you have hit two points:
- Your group has made adaptations to vanilla BBDBA
- You play with a like minded set of individuals
First, I have nothing against DBA or BBDBA - it's what brought me back to ancients. That first edition was seismic; here was WRG and Phil Barker with a 2 page set of rules that were simply genius.
Played them to death.
Like most, I wanted more toys on the table - looked forward to DBM and was sadly disappointed.
BBDBA seemed to offer an alternative, as did the suggestions for historical battles. The problem was it was just using the basic DBA rules with more individual elements. The assumption was that most would be forced to move and fight in groups, but the reality was it simply played to the "element fiddler" - that person who was obsessive about angles and measuring and moving single elements to gain the best advantage.
Such people seem to have taken over DBA from all the additional text allowing this or forbidding that.
If BBDBA had gone another way - increasing the base size to something like Impetus and worked around armies of say 12-24 elements - more thought could have been put into command and control - PIPs are all very well for basic DBA, but are erratic - 1 move only one group can move, next six; it encourages that gambler attitude and planning move to move.
As I say, it's horses for courses at the end of the day. Who you play is often more important than what rules you play....
Neil
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Really interesting reading through this thread. Glad that a solution has been found for the original poster.
Personally, I believe that the only way to approach this kind of question is to decide what your own particular interpretation of your chosen period's warfare actually is. Do you stick with the traditional theories on which countless rules have been based, or do you find yourself angling for something different because you just see something particularly interesting in some of the newer theories?
Personally, I'm really enjoying reading Hans Van Wees' 'Greek Warfare, Myths ands Realities' which is 20 years old now but presents a rather different picture of early phalanx warfare to that portrayed in most rules I've played over the years. Similarly I'm really enjoying the work of several authors who are challenging the long-held perceptions of early Roman warfare and the way these combine with Van Wees' thinking presents a fascinating alternative narrative around warfare in the Mediterranean in the 5th - 3rd centuries BC.
Quite how these can be portrayed in wargames rules I don't know but it's fascinating reading and all makes far more sense to me than the traditional narratives do. For me the reading, the research, the pondering and the debate combine into one of the joys of the hobby...
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Personally, I believe that the only way to approach this kind of question is to decide what your own particular interpretation of your chosen period's warfare actually is. Do you stick with the traditional theories on which countless rules have been based, or do you find yourself angling for something different because you just see something particularly interesting in some of the newer theories?
Indeed. It seems to me that "we don't know and we'll probably always be wrong" is no more or less believable than "we have a good idea and anything challenging it (whatever "it" is) is probably wrong" are both just statements of position; they're not arguments. I think there's certainly merit in having the debate, but if we're just looking for games we like I think my preferred approach is to have a good commentary from the author. Namely, state what they're seeking to have their games do, and what the model they're trying to simulate - if any - is.
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I think you have hit two points:
- Your group has made adaptations to vanilla BBDBA
- You play with a like minded set of individuals
You're dead right on the second point - and I'd agree that that's how DBx (and any) rules should be played.
I'm not so sure about the first, though. I just checked the DBA rulebook (page 15), and it's as I remembered and as we've played: a command that loses a third of its starting elements (a few exceptions aside) is demoralised, which is a hugely punitive condition. And two demoralised commands out of three loses you the game. So there's every incentive to keep your elements formed up for mutual protection.
That's the point I was attempting to make earlier: you don't have a 36-element army that allows you to do fiddly things (because you can lose 11 elements before losing the game); you have three commands that can't afford to lose more than three elements each (typically - there can be uneven splits). So it's more like three conventional games side by side than one with a more flexible, granular army.
Also, the 6' x 4' table is what the rules seem to be pointing to for BBDBA: twice the regular width and a bit more depth if you want.
As I say, it's horses for courses at the end of the day. Who you play is often more important than what rules you play....
Absolutely!
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I hold the view that every player has to define what realism is on their own and then find a rule set that caters to it. Is Diplomacy really any more or less realistic than DBx or Hail Caesar or TTS, given the scale each is intended to model?
I mean, you have to address the premise that the general has a birds-eye view of the battlefield and that commands will cause strict and exact movements in response to any sort of direct order is so divorced from the reality of that time period before moving on. These days people don't seem keen on triple blind games with written orders that are adjudicated by some sort of umpire or referee whose official battlefield view will not exactly match any of the active players. And if you're starting from a premise that doesn't match how the commanders of various battles actually fought, how important are more fiddly details like the tactics of smaller formations like line exchanges?
So right from the get go you have to figure out what abstractions are important to you. Is it to simulate the outcome of a battle, such that pitting two armies with their historical orders of battle against each other in historical terrain creates a perfectly historical result? Is it to get the feel of what a general could and couldn't do? Is it a more game-like abstraction that creates merely "plausible" battle outcomes? Do armies have to be symmetrically balanced, or historically appropriate pairings? Do you care about the movement of large formations or even entire armies, or is it more relevant to zoom in on the action of the smaller logical units (a line/troop/platoon/etc)?
Once you know higher level what you want, then you can start picking out quibbles about details like line rotations, terrain rules, effectiveness of massed or individual missile fire, etc.
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You're dead right on the second point - and I'd agree that that's how DBx (and any) rules should be played.
I'm not so sure about the first, though. I just checked the DBA rulebook (page 15), and it's as I remembered and as we've played: a command that loses a third of its starting elements (a few exceptions aside) is demoralised, which is a hugely punitive condition. And two demoralised commands out of three loses you the game. So there's every incentive to keep your elements formed up for mutual protection.
That's the point I was attempting to make earlier: you don't have a 36-element army that allows you to do fiddly things (because you can lose 11 elements before losing the game); you have three commands that can't afford to lose more than three elements each (typically - there can be uneven splits). So it's more like three conventional games side by side than one with a more flexible, granular army.
Also, the 6' x 4' table is what the rules seem to be pointing to for BBDBA: twice the regular width and a bit more depth if you want.
Absolutely!
I suspect we don't necessarily disagree (the limitations of electronic discussion).
What I would say is that 2 directly influences 1; I have played DBA with different people who interpret the rules in radically different ways.
I suspect you have a short-hand for your games that all the players subscribe to - your groups interpretation of the rules if you will.
Imagine introducing a player who wheels and manouvres his individual elements to gain an advantage in his command; questions every move of his opponent; introduces radically different interpretations and ultimately wants to exploit the rules to win.
Now play that game for several weeks......
It's partly why I haven't played DBA in a long time.
I think BBDBA is as good as anything, as long as the players play it in a certain way; I do think it could have been better! ?
Neil
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I suspect we don't necessarily disagree (the limitations of electronic discussion).
What I would say is that 2 directly influences 1; I have played DBA with different people who interpret the rules in radically different ways.
I suspect you have a short-hand for your games that all the players subscribe to - your groups interpretation of the rules if you will.
Right - I see where you're coming from.
Imagine introducing a player who wheels and manouvres his individual elements to gain an advantage in his command; questions every move of his opponent; introduces radically different interpretations and ultimately wants to exploit the rules to win.
Now play that game for several weeks......
It's partly why I haven't played DBA in a long time.
Ha - that sounds hellish! Yes, we play to see the story of the battle play out. And while we've often played D3H2 with purely historical troop types, it may be that the HOTT influence is a curb on excesses (because dragons and flyers are perfect, in HOTT or D3H2, for hoovering up oddly positioned elements).
I think BBDBA is as good as anything, as long as the players play it in a certain way; I do think it could have been better! ?
Have you seen the new DBF? We haven't played it yet, but it's probably the clearest and cleanest iteration of the rules family yet. It's fantasy but allows for purely historical battles and forces too.
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Hi Guys
Once again thank you all for your replies, you are Awesome.
Panzer 21 does bring up a good point about "Trying to Find the Perfect Napoleonic Rules", is rather hard .
However I have played some Really Good Napoleonic Rules that I was ever so happy with, Ancients not so much .
I really like TTS for the Punic Wars , but for Hoplite Warfare it seems a bit Bland / vanilla.
Does anyone know where to Get a Copy of "The Mutford House Rules "for Hail Caesar?.. that isnt from Bloody Scribbed .. lol lol
Cheers
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Hi Guys
I hope you are all well.
After reading all replys , I think I see a side thread here .
I have played DBMback in the day and always thought it was much better than DBA , however the trend in this thread always seems to head towards DBA rather then DBM ?
Why.?
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Shorter time to table may be a factor. Even aside from the smaller number of bases per army (usually) the relatively prescriptive lists in DBA tend to reduce the army planning, etc. I used to describe DBA as the crack cocaine of tabletop gaming.
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Vonakers, as I said in my earlier post I can't really comment on any other ruleset other than TTS....certainly the rather arcane debate about DBA. Strangely enough I only sold my 20+ year old DBA armies last year!
I think your comment about TTS and Hoplite warfare is probably fair, we made the same observation about TTS and Wars of the Roses and have never used them for Dark Age/Early Medieval shieldwall armies . It, and I suspect other generic/wide-ranging time span rulesets would struggle with symmetrical armies. There are some periods that seem to need more "period specific" concepts adding eg Heroic leaders/characters in Midgard .
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What a seriously interesting thread! I‘ve come along this discussion with myself and wargaming buddies several times and never found a real solution. For smaller scale battles (my favorite), Chariot Rampant works quite well, to add something noone has mentioned, yet.
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Hi Guys
I hope you are all well.
After reading all replys , I think I see a side thread here .
I have played DBMback in the day and always thought it was much better than DBA , however the trend in this thread always seems to head towards DBA rather then DBM ?
Why.?
I suspect it’s a data input issue… the community who played DBM have I suspect largely moved onto other rulesets in the (erm..) almost 20 years since DBM was in its heyday, whereas there is still an active DBA community out there, in part as DBA is still a “living” ruleset with commercially produced updates.
So, there’s just more people around on this particular forum who will pop up to advocate for DBA, and not so many who would advocate for DBM.
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DBMM, the successor to DBM, is better for historical refights. More nuanced and has things like stratagems. But… it is a pretty complex ruleset; unless you plan to play it regularly, DBA is much easier to pick up after not using it for a while.
I still quite like Fields of Glory, which has some nice mechanisms, but is can get a bit fiddly when units don’t line up as battlelines clash.
To the Strongest is my go to set these days; very playable, and historically plausible outcomes.
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DivisMal
I too liked Chariot Rampant , they are quite good for a Skirmish Game .
However if you like them , may I suggest you would love Midgard Rules.
We used them for Trojan Wars and they work Far better then anything else , especially for the Heros .
Cheers
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DivisMal
I too liked Chariot Rampant , they are quite good for a Skirmish Game .
However if you like them , may I suggest you would love Midgard Rules.
We used them for Trojan Wars and they work Far better then anything else , especially for the Heros .
Cheers
I already have them. The Midgard rules are my new love! I haven’t tried them yet, but they motivated me to massive rebasing! I love so many things about Midgard…I just need to play it :)
In a way, it also has some kind of realism. And this is not meant ironic.
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Perhaps the discussion has been diverted by mention of ‘realism’, I prefer Phil Sabin’s term, which is ‘accuracy’. You don’t need a game to be a simulation to achieve a degree of accuracy but it does depend on what accuracy you are after. More discussion here http://thetacticalpainter.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-can-wargame-be-realistic.html
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I prefer if they have a Point-of-view on things ought to be in their game, and follow through on it.
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I always liked the term verisimilitude over realism, or even accuracy. Plausible is good enough.
Realism as a term nowadays gets conflated with granular( or sometimes overly granular) attention to detail which usually adds friction to play but is not necessarily more realistic in outcome or in the recreating of the role and capabilities of the player as an army commander.
Details are sometimes the necessary scope of a player, but not historical army commanders themselves who were not terribly concerned with formations , specific units or the methods of attack by units beneath the immediate sub-commander’s control or could know with any precision how well a unit is doing or not in terms of morale or casualties or for that matter even its position for analyzing the need of reserves or not. The affairs of captains and colonels are not even the concern of generals and marshals much less a player in the role of army commander.
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Hi Guys
Thank you all very Much for the Imput and your thoughts.
I am going to try Hail Caesar First up with , with a few House Mods, and they do say tweak them to you own designs ...
I feel there are 2 areas with HC that I have concerns about.
1 Shooting ,
In HC causing a single 6 hit from shooting can cause Catastrophic Morale results ( test and possible rout ) to even Elite Undamaged units .
This seems unrealistic and gamey to me ( I dont want to play a game of who rolls the best dice ) & as most shooting in my period 400 to 200 BCin the Hoplite Period , IMHO is not that effective ( some exceptions of course)
So I would "Trait up "using HC existing rules and make all HI and MI "Steady " ,hence 2 dice rolls of 6 are required to Test for morale(until shaken ) , this is far less random , but Shooting can still Damage units and wear them down .. easy .
Movement
For me this does not seem right , its so random and often Hi Formed troops can move nearly as much or Further ?? then mounted with no Penalty, & Troops can be fighting in the First Turn of a game ...if it was Chess the Pawn would sometimes move further then the Queen .. .lol
This is an easy fix I just expand out the existing HC 12 Inch Proximity Rule , and Introduce a March Rule for Infantry .
So Infantry move One move only as standard , and 2 Moves on a March rule , all units Stop within 12 Inchs of any Enemy( inc Cavalry ) .
This means that Combat starts in Turn 3 and 4 , not 1 or 2 , and Heavy formed Infantry dont scream around the Field like Cav or on a Random Favourable dice roll much better than even Cavalry..
I do realise I have changed the movement of HC alot .
However this game is designed for lots of Troops played in a short period of time ( an evening )
This movement option only adds a couple of extra Moves to that time frame , and as "äpproach Moves " they are quick moves , but will allow the different troop types a more realistic representation .imho
I shall report how it goes .
Cheers
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Really interesting reading through this thread. Glad that a solution has been found for the original poster.
Personally, I believe that the only way to approach this kind of question is to decide what your own particular interpretation of your chosen period's warfare actually is. Do you stick with the traditional theories on which countless rules have been based, or do you find yourself angling for something different because you just see something particularly interesting in some of the newer theories?
Personally, I'm really enjoying reading Hans Van Wees' 'Greek Warfare, Myths ands Realities' which is 20 years old now but presents a rather different picture of early phalanx warfare to that portrayed in most rules I've played over the years. Similarly I'm really enjoying the work of several authors who are challenging the long-held perceptions of early Roman warfare and the way these combine with Van Wees' thinking presents a fascinating alternative narrative around warfare in the Mediterranean in the 5th - 3rd centuries BC.
Quite how these can be portrayed in wargames rules I don't know but it's fascinating reading and all makes far more sense to me than the traditional narratives do. For me the reading, the research, the pondering and the debate combine into one of the joys of the hobby...
Hi all,
I’m really enjoying reading this thread. I’m painting medieval and ancient armies that I want to return to wargaming with. Love reading about rules to play and of course the history of ancient warfare. ANDY, thank you for your input on your enjoyment of reading about ancient warfare. I’m going to seek out your suggested reading on hoplite battles, and would you kindly share the authors you are reading on Roman tactics? I would so love to also read that. Last I read was Adrian Goldsworthy writing about Hannibal’s victory at Cannae.
Thanks all for the ideas and polite discussion, I really must get painting 😇
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Hi all,
I’m really enjoying reading this thread. I’m painting medieval and ancient armies that I want to return to wargaming with. Love reading about rules to play and of course the history of ancient warfare. ANDY, thank you for your input on your enjoyment of reading about ancient warfare. I’m going to seek out your suggested reading on hoplite battles, and would you kindly share the authors you are reading on Roman tactics? I would so love to also read that. Last I read was Adrian Goldsworthy writing about Hannibal’s victory at Cannae.
Thanks all for the ideas and polite discussion, I really must get painting 😇
Jeremy Armstrong: Early Roman Warfare - start there!
Also, if you DM me an email address I have some academic articles downloaded that I can send you that you might find interesting that take it all further.
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Perhaps the discussion has been diverted by mention of ‘realism’, I prefer Phil Sabin’s term, which is ‘accuracy’. You don’t need a game to be a simulation to achieve a degree of accuracy but it does depend on what accuracy you are after. More discussion here http://thetacticalpainter.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-can-wargame-be-realistic.html
I cannot disagree! Otherwise Phil will be disappointed lol But certainly he made a well considered point on the term, also because realism is a word everyone use for a different meaning.