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Author Topic: Another "What Rules?" Thread  (Read 1276 times)

Offline Ninefingers

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 248
Another "What Rules?" Thread
« on: September 18, 2021, 08:20:30 AM »
For a long time I've been putting on games at the club using Lion Rampant, using figures spanning from the Punic Wars to Late Medieval. These games have gone down well with other members because the rules are easy to learn. The problem with LR is that it can get a bit creaky the larger the game gets.

What I'm looking for now is an easy-to-learn set of mass battle 'Dark Ages' set. I've got To The Strongest, but I'm not sure that the grid and playing cards will go down that well. Hail Caesar, although fairly simple, isn't really the way I want to go. I want lots of dice rolling and figure removal rather than unit removal.

To this end, can anyone suggest a ruleset that would be suitable?

Offline SJWi

  • Mastermind
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Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2021, 08:40:36 AM »
Ninefingers, as a devotee of TTS I can't really advise anything else but might suggest you look at "Swordpoint" by Gripping Beast , "Sword and Spear" sold by Great Escape Games and potentially the historical version of "Kings of War" by Mantic Games. The first two sets are now on V2 so must be popular, plus are well supported with books or downloads of army lists. However, I think they work using unit removal. whilst I am pretty sure KoW uses figure removal.

I think Gripping Beast have an embedded explanatory video about Swordpoint on their website

Good luck with the search     

Offline fred

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Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2021, 10:10:23 AM »
KoW is unit based - and whilst and interesting game, its not particularly historical in the way things play out.

My group like TTS - and its later variant For King and Parliament. For TTS we have used d10s for combat, initial with remote games, but we quite like it and will probably keep if for face to face games. The cards work well for the command mechanism though - you can get small cards, I got 6 packs off eBay for about £5.

We have played a lot of Hail Caesar, but moved onto other rules. Some of out group struggled with the give an order, then execute appropriately even if you didn’t get enough orders on the dice to do what you wanted.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2021, 10:18:57 AM by fred »

Offline bong-67

  • Librarian
  • Posts: 143
Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2021, 12:40:56 PM »
Try Clash of Empires, also by Great Escape Games.  I used to play it and it gives a good game.  It's one of the successors to Warhammer Ancient Battles so has single figure casualty removal.  The rules are quite well wrtitten and nice and tight.

Offline OB

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1603
Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2021, 12:49:24 PM »
Try Comitatus by Simon MacDowall.  It is available as a pdf and, I think, a soft back book. 

It gives a lively and fun game and MacDowall knows his stuff-plenty of flavour. He has a website called Legio you can check out if it seems like your sort of thing.

Offline Codsticker

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Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #5 on: September 19, 2021, 03:32:21 AM »
I want lots of dice rolling and figure removal rather than unit removal.

To this end, can anyone suggest a ruleset that would be suitable?
Sounds like WAB to me. So either Clash of Empires as bong-67 suggested or War and Conquest by Rob Broom.

Offline Norm

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Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #6 on: September 19, 2021, 05:34:33 AM »
At the moment, I am enjoying Sword & Spear (2nd edition) by Great Escape Games and it works to cover a lot of different situations. It ticks your bock for dice rolling as it has some clever dice mechanics, both for combat and also activation. It doesn't however tick your box for casualty removal, as the unit takes hits (usually 3 or 4) before being removed from play as a routing unit.

The set is cost effective, self contained one off buy, with army lists up on the web.

Offline SotF

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 962
  • Shadow Of The Future
Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #7 on: September 19, 2021, 05:40:34 AM »
For a long time I've been putting on games at the club using Lion Rampant, using figures spanning from the Punic Wars to Late Medieval. These games have gone down well with other members because the rules are easy to learn. The problem with LR is that it can get a bit creaky the larger the game gets.

What I'm looking for now is an easy-to-learn set of mass battle 'Dark Ages' set. I've got To The Strongest, but I'm not sure that the grid and playing cards will go down that well. Hail Caesar, although fairly simple, isn't really the way I want to go. I want lots of dice rolling and figure removal rather than unit removal.

To this end, can anyone suggest a ruleset that would be suitable?

Depending upon how you up the sizes of things, you might consider remaining with Lion Rampant and going with larger unit sizes to represent the strength of them rather than the normal scaling. It's something I've done with various other rulesets in the past and seen done...I've done it with Dragon Rampant using smaller scale minis with larger numbers of them for the same effect. It's abstract enough that doing so doesn't really require any rules changes beyond how many models might represent strength there if you want to really heap them on. It ends up looking very impressive as well.

Offline bigredbat

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Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #8 on: September 19, 2021, 07:35:29 PM »
Quote
I want lots of dice rolling and figure removal rather than unit removal.

Maybe go oldskool, back to WAB? I think that did that very well, and there's a lot of good material. I only played a couple of games back in the day, but I bought most of the period books for the eye candy.

Offline Cat

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Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #9 on: September 19, 2021, 08:47:06 PM »
I recommend older skool: Rules According to Ral for the best fast play figure removal game I've ever played.  The rules were a freebie handout by Ral Partha.  Later reimplemented by Chaos Wars with fantasy content added (and still in production by Ral Partha Legacy).  A great rules kit easily tweaked to taste with a pencil.
 
Scans of the original rules sheet are on BGG:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18455/rules-according-ral

Typed out version here:
http://mainly28s.com/rules/0FANT.Ral.Partha.html

Chaos Wars here:
https://ralparthalegacy.com/collections/all

Offline Atheling

  • Elder God
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Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #10 on: September 20, 2021, 10:35:48 AM »
Maybe go oldskool, back to WAB? I think that did that very well, and there's a lot of good material. I only played a couple of games back in the day, but I bought most of the period books for the eye candy.

I'm with Simon on this, WAB worked very well for the "Dark Ages". With heroic characters etc. Having said that I would consider toning down the characters a little if using the Shieldwall supplement if cross pollinating with El Cid and especially Age of Arthur.

One way of doing this is to limit the percentage that can be payed for for characters and dropping the number of attacks by one for Shieldwall vs the rest.

All the WAB supplement books and rulebooks are still available for a reasonable price, except the duology of WAB V.2 and the Armies of Antiquity V.2 which can be expensive. Especially Armies of Antiquity V.2. The Armies of Antiquity V.2 book is available as a download on the Warhammer Historical Wargaming or the Warhammer Ancient Battles V2.0 (I forget which).

Personally, I prefer WAB V1.5 as this tends to give better games and the lists are not too vanilla.

We still play WAB V 1.5 at the club quite regularly (at least the last time I was there which was over 18 months ago!)

Offline Dr. Zombie

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3089
Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #11 on: September 20, 2021, 11:07:00 AM »
Another vote for WAB.

But I must urge you to give To the strongest a spin. I was very skeptical about the grid and the cards. But it really does work a treat. 

Offline Atheling

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    • Just Add Water Wargaming Blog
Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #12 on: September 20, 2021, 12:10:37 PM »
Another vote for WAB.

But I must urge you to give To the strongest a spin. I was very skeptical about the grid and the cards. But it really does work a treat.

Yes, WAB and Simon's Too the Strongest (a great set-) are worth a go it's been a number of years since I've played but we had some great Late Medieval games at the club a few years back.

I it certainly a little premature to mention James Morris' Midgard rules as they have not been released as of yet but they certainly seem to be great at reflecting the heroic ethos of Early Medieval/Dark Ages battles.

Having said all of this, the thing to do I would suggest, is to decide on what sort of scale you want your battles to be and go with a ruleset that fits.

Offline Ninefingers

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 248
Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #13 on: September 21, 2021, 07:32:59 AM »
Thanks for all of the suggestions. I think I am going to give WAB a go, I have a copy of it and we used to play it back in the mists of time...

Offline Lowtardog

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 8262
Re: Another "What Rules?" Thread
« Reply #14 on: September 21, 2021, 08:25:54 AM »
At the moment, I am enjoying Sword & Spear (2nd edition) by Great Escape Games and it works to cover a lot of different situations. It ticks your bock for dice rolling as it has some clever dice mechanics, both for combat and also activation. It doesn't however tick your box for casualty removal, as the unit takes hits (usually 3 or 4) before being removed from play as a routing unit.

The set is cost effective, self contained one off buy, with army lists up on the web.

I'd go for sword and spear, it's unit based so no casualties, no figure count perse so you can create movement trays.

 

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