What are the Top Things that Attract You to a Rules System?

[Khusru2]

First & foremost, it must be a period I'm interested in. With scale & basing agnostic. It is relatively easy to memorise the basic rules, combat, movement, etc. Lastly, to be a believable but fun game.

[Luigi]

I want rules that will scale up to the point where I can play games with thousands of figures on a ballroom floor with a rule book thick enough to allow me the option of beating the author to death with it if the rules significantly disappoint!

Me and you Ithoriel, but as Fred pointed out

this needs a set of rules that is geared to this.

otherwise you really end up with a

game that looks absolutely splendid but is a chore to play.

[Dolnikan]

Me and you Ithoriel, but as Fred pointed out

otherwise you really end up with a

I fully agree. I love huge games with huge armies (I'm currently building one for my medievals and that's going to be a very long term project. But the problem then is finding the space, the people, and everything else. Especially because I just can't really seem to succeed at finding many historical wargamers around these parts. It's only ever Warhammer and specifically 40k.

That has nice aesthetics but as a game it just doesn't do it for me. It's too much a competition in rolling dice and then rolling some more. A pretty boring experiences altogether.

Other things I really enjoy in a ruleset is if basing is simple and preferably compatible with other systems. I prefer it if the exact base size doesn't matter too much because no one has the time to rebase and all that. Except maybe for people with way too much time on their hands.

I also like it if it's an interactive game where both sides constantly get to make decisions and you don't spend half an hour or more where all you do is roll dice because your opponent tells you so. Generally, I like it if the resolution doesn't take too long so the focus can be on actual decisions and movement.

[Ockius]

1) I like a bit of ‘granular’ character to each army’s units - so that some troops are better quality than others. Not a fan of army lists that have mostly generic troop types.

2) I want results that seem believeable. Or a ruleset that can be modified in game with sportsmanlike Co-players so that events work out believably (eg: there’s no way your artillery could have turned their guns that quickly on skirmishers emerging from a wood behind them; or ‘let’s face it, your plate-armoured men at arms falling back into a river have drowned’). In this sense, I like the Hail Caesar/Pike and Shotte games.

3) A game where tactics should be intuitive and a good overall strategy works - instead of games where a rote-learnt knowledge of units’ special abilities and skills is how to win (puts me off Age of Sigmar whenever I olay it).

[tikitang]

The one thing that's really important is basing; lots of games aren't basing agnostic. That doesn't mean you can't play those games with different base sizes to the prescribed ones, but either you'll have to change the bases of all units proportionately or you'll be changing the game quite fundamentally.

I have to admit, this concept is something I don't understand at all!

I have never come across a game which isn't "base agnostic". Then again, I'm an exclusive "tea-tray/postcard" wargamer, where perhaps bases aren't important. Outside of trying to make armies rank up, shoulder to shoulder (in which case, I can see why squares of a certain size, depending on troop-type, would be useful) why is base-shape/size important? How does it affect the game in any significant way?

Song of Blades and Heroes is an example of a game that might take longer than five minutes with pen and paper (though the extensive troop lists at the back of the book offset this), but the online warband builder means that it's almost instant.

Unless you're me, and you spend hours agonising over all the possible options, in which case, it's one of the slowest 'time to table' examples there is!

[DivisMal]

I have to admit, this concept is something I don't understand at all!

I have never come across a game which isn't "base agnostic". Then again, I'm an exclusive "tea-tray/postcard" wargamer, where perhaps bases aren't important. Outside of trying to make armies rank up, shoulder to shoulder (in which case, I can see why squares of a certain size, depending on troop-type, would be useful) why is base-shape/size important? How does it affect the game in any significant way?

Unless you're me, and you spend hours agonising over all the possible options, in which case, it's one of the slowest 'time to table' examples there is!

The whole DBx series prescribes very exact bases for your elements, otherwise the rules don’t really work. Warhammer is also quite strict in basing. Just bring Orcs based on 20mm instead of 25mm each into a competitive environment!
Actually with the exception of the Rampant series and Of Armies and Hordes, only skirmish games like SoBH or maybe AoS in it’s early versions most rulesets demand rather specific bases for individual models or elements. I’ve played Fantasy Warriors, Chronopia, Demonworld, Warhammer, 40k and many more. They all had prescribed base sizes.

Edit: only now saw your question about game effects: in Warhammer and Co they are important to calculate the number of attack die, in DBx bases are important for maneuvering and push-back distance, in orher games (Confrontation for instance) they determine how many enemy models may attack a model.

[tikitang]

In Warhammer and Co they are important to calculate the number of attack die, in DBx bases are important for maneuvering and push-back distance, in other games (Confrontation for instance) they determine how many enemy models may attack a model.

That makes sense. I am a newcomer to wargaming really, and have only joined in the post-SBH era. Every ruleset I've tried has been totally disinterested in which miniatures you use and on what bases they're on, so the idea that other wargames care about base-sizes or types at all is something I've always thought a bit strange, but it makes sense in light of what you've said.

I am slightly taken aback by the number of people responding to this post who seem to want to play games with half a dozen figures on a tea tray using a set of rules written on the back of a post card.

Reading back through the posts, I honestly can't see anyone other than myself who is expressing an interest in games of that particular scale! However, I'm owning this concept from now on and even considered buying a tea-tray for wargaming in!

[Hobgoblin]

That makes sense. I am a newcomer to wargaming really, and have only joined in the post-SBH era. Every ruleset I've tried has been totally disinterested in which miniatures you use and on what bases they're on, so the idea that other wargames care about base-sizes or types at all is something I've always thought a bit strange, but it makes sense in light of what you've said.

Just to expand on what DivisMal said, set base sizes are generally the norm in rank'n'flank/massed-battle games (grid-based games being the main exception); in skirmish games, base sizes are largely irrelevant.

In massed-battle games, this tends to come down to the number of troops that can occupy a given frontage. Heavy infantry will be packed more densely than skirmishers. In DBA, for example, four heavy infantry typically occupy one 'element' base while the same base would contain only two skirmishers. In games with individual basing, the bases are often bigger or smaller to reflect the role of the troops.

Oddly enough, these base sizes have been fairly consistent over the decades: there are observable 'lineages', with lots of games using the DBA standards of 40mm for 15mm elements and 60mm for 25-28mm. With individual basing (WRG lineage?), 20mm was the standard for 25/28mm troops - with heavy infantry and skirmishers on smaller and bigger bases, respectively. Warhammer was - originally - no exception: on page 28 of Tabletop Battles (1st ed), you get the base sizes for various troop types. Humans are on 20mm squares unless they are 'shock troops' (15mm) or skirmishers (30mm). As you can see, those correspond exactly to the DBA standard (so four 'shock troops' to a 60mm frontage, three medium/light infantry and two skirmishers).

So important are base sizes in rank'n'flank that they have sunk whole miniature ranges - most infamously, Warhammer's Fimir, who were sunk when they received beastman-ish profiles but were issued with 40mm bases (beastmen would have been on 25mm squares). This meant that they offered too few attacks and too little resilience for their expanded frontage.

[ithoriel]

Reading back through the posts, I honestly can't see anyone other than myself who is expressing an interest in games of that particular scale! However, I'm owning this concept from now on and even considered buying a tea-tray for wargaming in!

In my own defence, I did own up to a significant level of hyperbole.
I look forward to your posts, in the"Post a picture of the last game you played" thread, showing off your tea tray battlefields! 

[tikitang]

So important are base sizes in rank'n'flank that they have sunk whole miniature ranges - most infamously, Warhammer's Fimir, who were sunk when they received beastman-ish profiles but were issued with 40mm bases (beastmen would have been on 25mm squares). This meant that they offered too few attacks and too little resilience for their expanded frontage.

Interesting! So immersed have I been in the world of skirmishing I had never really considered that as an issue.

As a side note, I had always thought the Fimir were sunk because of their problematic back-story, rather than their base sizes!

I look forward to your posts, in the"Post a picture of the last game you played" thread, showing off your tea tray battlefields! 

You can count on it!

[Hobgoblin]

Interesting! So immersed have I been in the world of skirmishing I had never really considered that as an issue.

As a side note, I had always thought the Fimir were sunk because of their problematic back-story, rather than their base sizes!

I don't remember anybody caring about that in the 80s: I think it just fitted in with their creepy, folkloric image and connection with the Fomorians (and the Fimir are no worse than the broos, who were and remain extremely popular foes in wargames and RPGs).

I can distinctly remember performing the calculations and being disappointed at the profile/base relationship - and I think it's quite well attested that this was the big issue for sales.

[DivisMal]

Just to expand on what DivisMal said, set base sizes are generally the norm in rank'n'flank/massed-battle games (grid-based games being the main exception); in skirmish games, base sizes are largely irrelevant.

In massed-battle games, this tends to come down to the number of troops that can occupy a given frontage. Heavy infantry will be packed more densely than skirmishers. In DBA, for example, four heavy infantry typically occupy one 'element' base while the same base would contain only two skirmishers. In games with individual basing, the bases are often bigger or smaller to reflect the role of the troops.

Oddly enough, these base sizes have been fairly consistent over the decades: there are observable 'lineages', with lots of games using the DBA standards of 40mm for 15mm elements and 60mm for 25-28mm. With individual basing (WRG lineage?), 20mm was the standard for 25/28mm troops - with heavy infantry and skirmishers on smaller and bigger bases, respectively. Warhammer was - originally - no exception: on page 28 of Tabletop Battles (1st ed), you get the base sizes for various troop types. Humans are on 20mm squares unless they are 'shock troops' (15mm) or skirmishers (30mm). As you can see, those correspond exactly to the DBA standard (so four 'shock troops' to a 60mm frontage, three medium/light infantry and two skirmishers).

So important are base sizes in rank'n'flank that they have sunk whole miniature ranges - most infamously, Warhammer's Fimir, who were sunk when they received beastman-ish profiles but were issued with 40mm bases (beastmen would have been on 25mm squares). This meant that they offered too few attacks and too little resilience for their expanded frontage.

As always, some nice background, that finally let me understand the suggested basing for WAB and Hail Caesar. That’s why 15mm is actually an option!


Concerning the Fimirs, I also had the impression that they had become to „adult“, but never understood it when you had witches bathing in human blood, cannibals and sex-demons in the same range!

[Hobgoblin]

Concerning the Fimirs, I also had the impression that they had become to „adult“, but never understood it when you had witches bathing in human blood, cannibals and sex-demons in the same range!

From Graeme Davis (]http://realmofzhu.blogspot.com/2013/01/origin-of-species-fimir.html[/url][/color]):

The popularisation of Fimir wasn't helped by a communications foul-up when Nick Bibby took over making the miniatures from Jes - Nick made them all Ogre-sized, compared to Jes' and my idea that they should be Orc sized. So we had big, expensive miniatures with low game stats, and nobody bought them. Sigh.

The Fimir backstory may have counted against their inclusion in fourth-edition WFB (aimed more at kids?), but I don't remember anyone being bothered by it at the time. After all, GW was producing RuneQuest at the time, broos and all! And didn't GW/Forgeworld bring Fimir back fairly recently?

[tikitang]

The Fimir backstory may have counted against their inclusion in fourth-edition WFB (aimed more at kids?), but I don't remember anyone being bothered by it at the time. After all, GW was producing RuneQuest at the time, broos and all!

They even included Fimir in the original HeroQuest in 1989, even more aimed at kids!

And didn't GW/Forgeworld bring Fimir back fairly recently?

They did, but it was over a decade ago now.

[Wirelizard]

My off the cuff response to the original post...

1. Do the rules appear to do a good job representing what's unique about their era/theatre/genre/whatever?

2. Do the rules get the hell out of the way and let you just play the game? I do not want to be consulting 8 rulebooks, 15 PDFs, and a website-based FAQ every 90 seconds.

3. Do the rules keep most players involved most of the time?

I prefer skirmish or "big skirmish" games myself, prefer alternate activation systems to "I move and fight my entire army, then you get to do things with your surviving units" (so, cards or chit draw or dice-for-activation systems), but ultimately I'll play nearly anything presented to me that looks interesting, although I'm choosier about what I'll invest my own time and cash in!