What are the Most Realistic Ancient Wargames Rules

[VonAkers]

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 ..
Cheers

[VonAkers]

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.?

[Pattus Magnus]

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.

[SJWi]

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 .           

[DivisMal]

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.

[madaxeman]

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.

[SteveBurt]

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.

[VonAkers]

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

[DivisMal]

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.

[TacticalPainter]

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

[Easy E]

I prefer if they have a Point-of-view on things ought to be in their game, and follow through on it. 

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

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.

[VonAkers]

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 .. .

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
 

[SpaceArmada]

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 😇

[guitarheroandy]

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.