What is the best set of rules for this period?

[Dale Hurtt]

I am surprised no one has mentioned the classic The Sword and the Flame, along with the variant The Sword to Adventure, which covers the small wars of 1908-1931 (especially the North-West Frontier). I am going to use it for Central Asia vs. Russia for The Great Game skirmishes.

[shakespear]

Where can you get a copy of setting the east ablaze?

[Ignatieff]

Caliver books sell them, also through Amazon

[Leapsnbounds]

I agree that The Sword and the Flame variant "The Sword to Adventure" is the set I like the most. Easy to use and it is the rules that I grew up with on the Northwest Frontier.

[Alcide Nikopol]

I can strongly recommend Pulp Alley. We use it for multiple periods and it never disappoints. These rules have reignited my love of miniatures gaming.

[tony6655@outlook.com]

I'm using the first edition of StEA and in the points section (appendix one) "modern tactical training" costs + 1 point BUT I can find no other reference to it, ( or advantage to having it) in the rules. Have I missed something ?

[Andreas Johansson]

Searching for the original Back of Beyond on BoardGameGeek, I stumbled across three apparently-obscure sets sharing variants of the title:

Interesting Times in the Back of Beyond
Back of Beyond Strange World
Back of Beyond Skirmish Rules

Thought I'd ask if anyone here knows anything about any of them?

[Andreas Johansson]

I'll take that as a 'no' 

Returning to games people here have heard of, do I gather that both CLA and StEA are meant for relatively large numbers of figures, like dozens or hundreds?

[Shardifier]

I think 30+ per side seems reasonable? I believe Ignatieff has mentioned having hundreds per side with StEA. Are you looking for smaller skirmish-y type rules?

[Andreas Johansson]

I think 30+ per side seems reasonable? I believe Ignatieff has mentioned having hundreds per side with StEA. Are you looking for smaller skirmish-y type rules?

Thanks for the reply

Yes, I'm looking for low figure counts. I've got way too projects ongoing already, so any foray into BoB better be modest, at least initially. 30 figures a side would be around the upper limit.

[Shardifier]

I'm more of a Back of Beyond reader than gamer right now, but I imagine Setting the East Ablaze could work for that.

If you're a Facebook person, join the group in my signature and ask - there's a bit more activity there than on here!

[Andreas Johansson]

I'm more of a Back of Beyond reader than gamer right now, but I imagine Setting the East Ablaze could work for that.

If you're a Facebook person, join the group in my signature and ask - there's a bit more activity there than on here!

Thanks again. I think I'm actually already a member of that fb group, but didn't think to ask there.

[trev]

Hi Andreas,

You might be better posting this as a new question as I missed it several times up here in the stickies. 

CLA is the original Back of Beyond rule set and StEA is probably the obvious first look for the period currently.  I've not played CLA but I think it is the same as StEA and uses 10+ figure units.  So 30 a side is going to be a small game without much flexibility.  I expect you could reduce the the figure count easily enough though, perhaps by only taking off figures after multiple hits.

Perhaps a better option for small skirmish games is Fistful of Lead.  The basic rules are 1 for 1, so you're gang is only five or six figures but the neat turn sequence using playing cards lets multiple players each have a gang whether allied or in opposition.  These rules were originally designed for Wild West but they have expanded and the core mechanics are a lot of fun and work with just about anything you can think of.  Perfect for Ostern scenarios obviously but I've seen them used for undersea divers, WW2, Horse and Musket and fantasy to name a few.  We played Werewolves vs British army in a homage to the film Dog Soldiers and it worked great, even if my poor squaddies were eaten just before dawn. 

try these links for FFOL
https://wiley-games.myshopify.com/
https://oshiromodels.wixsite.com/oshiromodelswebshop/rules

If you want something a bit bigger FFOL has a bigger battles expansion that uses the core mechanics for units instead of individuals.   We played that with 5 figure units.

You can see our Dog Soldiers and a FFOL:BB Russian Civil War games here
https://thebitsbox.blogspot.com/search/label/Fistful%20of%20Lead

Another option if you like the Lion Rampant series is the men who would be kings. 
https://ospreypublishing.com/the-men-who-would-be-kings

The main rules are 12 man foot units and 8 man cavalry but they have a small skirmish variant in the main rules that uses half sized units.  That will work for 30-ish figures a side.  They are for Colonial era rather than RCW but can be converted.

There are other options, the Song of ... series and Pulp Alley spring to mind but above are the ones I've played.

Cheers,

Trev

[Andreas Johansson]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, maybe posting in this thread wasn't the best idea.

10-figure units don't sound like a good fit for the size I'm imagining, no, and I'm not big on fiddling with rules before I've played them as written. So CLA and StEA are perhaps someting to look at later, if I get bitten big time by the BOB bug.

Fistful of Lead sounds like something to look at.

I played Dragon Rampant once, seemed pretty neat, but some brief looking around the web suggest that even the skirmish version of The Men Who Would Be Kings easily runs well over 30 figures for low-quality forces.

I like SOBAH, so Flying Lead (the "shooty" version, for settings were firearms dominate close combat weapons) should be worth checking out.

[VonAkers]

abikapi2
This is an easy one ...
Two words.... BOLT ACTION
It works very very  well , in fact it is better at WW1/ Back of Beyond stuff , than WW2 ..imho.
Cheers