"Men In Metal" rules - a blast from the past?

[brasidas19004]

Stumbled across these on Amazon.  43 years of tabletop miniatures and I've never heard of them.

"Wouldn’t you rather fight a battle than take part in an accounting exercise? You hold in your hands a set of rules extensively edited and re-presented to the wargaming and fantasy role-playing game community. With Men in Metal, you are traveling back in time to the 1970s. Experience the rules that dominated the British wargaming scene, and migrated to the Midwestern United States via the subscribers of Slingshot and the Wargamer’s Newsletter. If you read closely enough, you may just recognize some pieces that still exist in old school recreations of the most beloved fantasy role playing game."

And:

"The rules that are the basis of Men in Metal were released in 1969 after two and a half years of research, experimentation, discussion, and play testing. Those rules quickly gained widespread acceptance through the miniature wargaming world, especially in the UK, and quickly became the acknowledged standard for ancient warfare tournament play."

Looking at some of the mechanics at WargameVault, they seem a lot like WRG Ancients, lots of reaction tests and modifiers.

Has anyone here played them?

[Warren Abox]

Haven't played them, but I'm familiar with the author. Rodney Hampton has put a lot of work into researching and demonstrating pre-1970s wargame rules over on YouTube.  He has a lengthy playthrough series of Strategos, the 1880s American Army wargame by Totten.  Which is also notable because it's the war game that inspired the Twin Cities gaming group that included Dave Arneson.

Anyway, he as much as confirms your suspicions in this video:

https://youtu.be/qHll4rBHids?si=k3ZErCI-bG7H8vek

[carlos marighela]

Didn't he team up with Mel Brooks to do a Robin Hood set of rules? Robin Hood, Men in... something or other.

[Rick]

I'd never heard of these rules either, my earliest recollections of wargaming rules are the WRG ancients set which were not just the standard, but very nearly the only set of ancient rules available at the time. How things have changed, with the explosion of wargame rules, we're somewhat spoiled for choice in most genre's.