Help with just about everything War of the Roses

[Dukewilliam]

Men,

I know little and less regarding this fascinating period. I mean, I know the basics, but not much else, especially when gaming the period.

The only rules set I know is NMtBH or DBx. I'm looking to do 28mm skirmish or small battle. Any recommendations for a rules set?

Is Perry the default choice for minis? I'm not sure of any other plastic makers for this period. I don't mind metal figs as long as they are not cost prohibitive. Recommendations?

And the banners!! A beautiful period to highlight heraldry. Who's a good maker of banners for this period?

Thanks for helping a noob out.
Steve

[rumacara]

Steve, how many figures are you thinking on use per side?
That would help with the rules choice.
Perrys are a choice, Front Rank sold by Gripping Beast, Wargames Foundry, Talos Miniatures. There are others but honestly i cant remember the names of the manufacturers.
The rest i cant help for i know almost nothing about the conflict.

[armchairgeneral]

As Rumacara said, Perry, Front Rank and Wargames Foundry for figures.

I would recommend Lion Rampant. Easy to learn and fun to play. For games of 40 - 80 figures a side though you could go much larger with a few simple house rules.

[Jack Jones]

For a near perfect mix of historical narrative, information on equipment and attire, liveries, banners etc, I would unreservedly recommend The Wars of the Roses: The Medieval Art of Graham Turner:
https://www.studio88.co.uk/acatalog/The_Wars_of_the_Roses_the_Medieval_Art_of_Graham_Turner.html

Don't overlook the lengthy discussion of army composition right here:
https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=59060.0

The recent Hail Caesar: Wars of the Roses supplement from Warlord Games is a great primer too, recommended even if you don't plan to use the rules.

Perry Miniatures figures are great. The plastic sets have extensive options for pose, attire, and weaponry, but don't overlook the metal sets.

They have recently been complemented by a range of dollies by Steel Fist Miniatures, which provide options for spare arms and heads from Perry plastic sets. Have a look at the rest of their range too:
https://steelfistminiatures.com/collections/late-medieval

Athena Miniatures have some nice sets:
https://www.athenaminiatures.co.uk/browse/cat6776949_4617752.aspx

Ragged Staff have a small range of 3D printed figures, which are very finely detailed and look fine with Perry Miniatures metals and plastics:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/RaggedStaffMinis

Front Rank (available from Gripping Beast) have a a fabulous range of chunkier sculpts (Perry are slim by comparison), including some rather nice cannon and various supplies. Well worth a look:
https://www.grippingbeast.co.uk/Front_Rank_Figurines--category--600.html

Not to forget (because I did) Wargames Foundry:
https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/men-at-arms

Have a look at the widely acclaimed Pete's Flags for standards, banners, and flags:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/petes_flags

Little Big Men Studios (available from Victrix) also have a range of standards and livery badges:
https://www.victrixlimited.com/a/search/transfers-all?filter_faction=War+of+the+Roses

Freezey Water has an extensive range too, but I am not familiar with them:
https://www.ebay.com/usr/lincoln131

Others here will have recomendatons and favourites, I'm sure.

Cheers
JJ

[SJWi]

Duke William, as regards a ruleset you might want to check out "Never Mind the Billhooks" and "Ruckus". The former need about 100+ figures per side the latter are real skirmish. They are a bit more lighthearted than most rules but give a good game.

[OB]

Should you fancy 15mm QRF have a very nice range of figures.

As others have said "Billhooks" will give you a good game.

[Ragnar]

Midgard is a neat, sandbox set of rules that capture the flavour of medieval warfare, very nicely and has available (IIRC) lists for WOTR.

[Legiox217]

I can't recommend Front Rank highly enough for War of the Roses. I am just working through putting together their entire range, and the sculpts are simply fantastic. Minimal cleanup was required, very little gluing (just pikes and crossbows really), no drilling. A very nice range, and fairly broad in scope. It doesn't have quite as an extensive range as Perry, when combining both all the plastic sets and the metals, but it is quite large. Standard infantry you are getting 108 unique sculpts, for cavalry there are 28 with a mix of heavy/light/command, 10 unique horses, 8 crew for the two guns, with mantlet available, 5 personality packs that cover a couple of the major players and some generic leaders and casualties, plus wagons/accessories etc.

That being said, Perry are great. I wouldn't trade my FR metals for Perry metals with a gun to my head, but they are lovely in their own way. And if you don't mind plastics, you can bulk up the force quickly and play around with some kitbashing. It also can fill some more obscure gaps in the FR range, or you could simply use them to flesh out the characters, as Perry has a wide range of the nobles both mounted and on foot.

As for gaming rules, can't help too much other than I have NMtBH and it looks fun, as well as Ruckus (12 model small scale version).
Also keep an eye out for Ecorcheurs by Dr, Rob Jones. A skirmish game coming from Gripping Beast this summer which looks extremely promising. It will cover the period. Game size is around 20 per side iirc.
Lion Rampant 2 if you want something simple and basic.
Saga Age of Chivalry looks fun.

As for literature, the best one stop shop for the period from a wargaming perspective is likely the often recommended "Military Campaigns of the Wars of the Roses", by Philip A. Haigh.

Also recommend the Freezywater pamphlets for heraldry, livery, battle scenarios, and more. Can be hard to find.

Also, "War of the Roses: Heraldry", by Mike Ryan Jones, Bob Pritchard

For inspirational photographic books of modern re-enactors, I can highly recommend:

-Medieval Military Costume: Europa Militaria Special No. 8 (Europa Militaria Special, 8 )

-The Medieval Soldier: 15th Century Campaign Life Recreated in Colour Photographs

For flags, I do not think you could go wrong with Flagdude.com

Good luck! I just dove into this recently and its been fascinating stuff.

[Cholmondely Percival IV]

Another set of rules to consider is Test of Resolve which is designed specifically for the WotR and has three scenario books for all of the major battles.

https://testofresolve.com/?v=7885444af42e

[Byrthnoth]

I'm also in the process of putting together some miniatures for the Wars of the Roses.

I am currently at the 'how do I base these?' stage of the project ? element bases (60mm wide) look really good, but individually based figures are a bit more flexible. I'm leaning heavily towards the element bases, since most of the rules I'm looking at with individual casualty removal (eg. Lion Rampant, Billhooks) can accommodate multi-based figures easily enough. It's really just Saga that really wants individually based figures.

For rules, aside from what everyone else has mentioned, there's also Simon MacDowall's 'Tree of Battles' -- https://www.legio-wargames.com/tree-of-battles. I haven't tried anything yet, but I have Billhooks, Midgard, LR and ToB in my sights.

For history/reference, it's a bit of a weird period because scholarly works seem unusually happy to hang out their biases in terms of being Yorkist or Lancastrian/Ricardian. The Graham Turner book is a good introduction to the period and the art is inspirational, and the reference section gives you next steps if you want more reading. If you're a podcast person, 'the History of England' has an in-depth (like 18 hours?) series about the Wars of the Roses. For me it hits the right balance of presenting the narrative while also touching on the historiography (both contemporary chroniclers and modern historians) without getting bogged down ? https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk.

[Cubs]

Another vote for Perry's plastics, just such good fun to build into unique positions and such good sculpts. As for building a collection, my own method is to pick some figure from the WotR (or make up your own) and begin to build a small retinue around them.

[Dukewilliam]

Men,

Thank you; I knew you wouldn?t let me down. Lotsa research to do now, thanks to all of yinz.

Cheers,
Steve

[Deucey]

Im building up Perry’s myself. Im going to be using Test of Resolve. Maybe Lion Rampant too?