Whats your favourite set of rules?

[Gracchus Armisurplus]

I am also looking forward to learning more about the upcoming Swordpoint "big battle" rulebook from Gripping Beast, which is due to be released in November.

Yeah, I can't wait to see 'under the hood' of Swordpoint. I like what I've heard so far, but who knows how it will work in practice?

[wrgmr1]

Our group plays Armati 2 for ancients, medieval and renaissance.
Our group is lucky enough to include Chris Leach, who is a co-author of many rule sets published by Arti Conliffe. I daresay Chris has been a driving force for many of these rule sets, including Shako 2 and Armati 2.

Cheers,
Thomas

[julesav]

Wrgmr1 - I only have first edition Armati. We have tried playing it but we always seem to divert back to DBA.

Charlie_  I cannot ever recall playing WRG Ancients with written orders and I played with some of the 'leading lights' of the Society of Ancients at the time (Mid to late 1970s at South London Warlords). As far as I can remember I played 4th Ed onwards, so maybe written orders predate that?

Some of my pals are very keen on WAB. But they play Crusades era, so the games suffer from lack of published 'official' army lists -  leading to an entirely 'Religious Orders' force on one side, with a Muslim war elephant in the line up for the 'Saracens'! It always strikes me that WAB is a game of what happens in the middle 2" (only) of a DBA board.

Every game system involves certain abstractions and it's purely a matter of taste as to what ones you can accept and those that are 'deal breakers'.

[halesturm]

I have to echo other comments that this thread is definitely interesting and opens ones eyes to the various rule sets out there.

I've tried Saga and couldn't get on it with too well mainly due to the battle board mechanic and "creative" history with some of the factions.

I'm currently reading through both Deus Vult, which seems overly complex, and Lion Rampant, which seems quite basic.  I dont quite have the model count for a crusader force for DV yet but can comfortably play LR with them.  However, I'm now working on a Arab force to compliment the Crusaders.  Given I'm likely to play the rule sets with my 6 year old, I'll probably settle on LR.

Does anyone know of a rule set that sits in between DV and LR in terms of complexity?

[SteveBurt]

If you are specifically interested in the Crusades, Shattered Lances, by Brendan Moyle is very good.
Outpost Wargames Services stock them in the UK

[Codsticker]

Does anyone know of a rule set that sits in between DV and LR in terms of complexity?

Basic Impetus?

Is there any way of trimming down Deus Vult?

We have played quite a bit of Lion Rampant and enjoyed the games for what they are: small, fast games without any sort of pretense of simulation.

[Stecal]

Impetus has been our goto game for several years with several forays into Hail Caesar.  We particularily like the big, no-BS basing and simple maneuver.  In the past we tried the control freak napoleonic maneuver style of gaming with WRG, FOG & ADLG, but it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth as someone always turns into rules lawyer.

[Osmoses]

Does anyone know of a rule set that sits in between DV and LR in terms of complexity?

There's 'Soldiers of God,' which is Warwick Kinrade's card-driven Crusades set. From what I can gather of Deus Vult, it would be more straightforward while still giving a good 'period feel.' There's also 'Ironbow' by Perfect Captain, which has the virtue of being free (the authors ask that you make a donation to charity). Ironbow's a bit more complex, but, as it's free, you can have a look at it and see if it's your thing. You can download it from the 'Perfect Captain' website.

Both these sets have the virtue of having a 'raid' scale of game, so you can get started with relatively few figures.

[Madhouse Workshop]

I like big rank and file.  Really enjoyed WAB 2.0, loved playing the game with my Vikings and my Roman armies especially.  I'm looking forward to seeing Swordpoint.

[Theoden King]

For big battles: Armies of Arcana all the way.  Lots of tactical flexibility and options and I have never played or found anything better.  Lots of simultaneous combat and that is important because I despise turn based games where you just have to stand there an take it

For larger warbands: Saga, though I don't mind Lion Rampant.

For small warbands:  it is a tie for me between the Ganesha Games rules and Blood Eagle.

I have plenty of minis for large scale battles, but I prefer the skirmish games these days due to time constraints.

[halesturm]

Thank you for the replies, I will take a look at some online reviews of the mentioned games.

Related, today I received an email from Mantic for KoW Historical- another to keep an eye on!

[Craig]

Let's see;
For big battles I would highly recommend 'To the Strongest' by Simon Miller. You can comfortably play a satisfying game with hundreds of miniatures in an afternoon.
Mantic have just published a historical version of Kings of War for medium sized battles. If it plays like the fantasy version, then it could be well worth a look.
And then we are into skirmish, except that we are not. Saga and Lion Rampant are excellent games but not, in my mind, skirmish games. They are what I would describe as 'small unit action' games.
Of the two I would run with Lion Rampant as it is fast and furious, whereas the issues with the battle board mentioned above can make Saga a bit unwieldy.
As for true skirmish, i.e. individual figures, no units, then I would naturally plump for my own rules, Blood Eagle 

[Charlie_]

I'd be interesting in hearing people saying EXACTLY what they like in medieval era wargame rules.

Since I've been browsing this forum for the last year, I've come to learn a lot about the state of wargaming these days, and what people like and don't like (I was out of the hobby for a long time until this time last year). It seems to me that most people like games that a fun, fast and not too overly complex. Skirmish seems to be the most popular form of game. When it comes to big battles, it seems everyone likes smooth, streamlined rules without individual model placement / casualty removal. The old Warhammer Ancients system and its derivatives have massively fallen out of favour (I grew up on Warhammer Fantasy myself, so am most familiar with that sort of system but am entirely aware of its many weak spots). Nobody seems to like I-go-you-go turn systems.

Im working on my own ruleset myself. It's not for commercial purposes - just for me and my gaming group, and if anyone else is interested in it then it's a bonus. I've thought long and hard about what I want and don't want in a game. I perhaps go against the grain, because I want a large-scale mass battle game with ranked up units, WITH individual models and casualty removal. Am I the only one who still wants that? But at the same time, my ruleset doesn't use I-go-you-go, has what I think is a quite neat unit activation system and turn sequence, and is almost completely cut of unnecessary 'special rules' for different units and such.... Making room for what I'd like to think are some elegant, hopefully quick to grasp rules that focus on the flow of battle and realistic troop movements rather than looking up unit stats and abilities all the time. I think most importantly, I want people to look at a game and at a glance be able to see what is happening, the strengths of both armies, and how the players have successfully (or unsuccessfully) manoeuvred their troops...
But considering that it's for individually based models in both ranked-up and open-formation units, a la Warhammer, I dunno if anyone else would ever be interested in it!

[Vermis]

I perhaps go against the grain, because I want a large-scale mass battle game with ranked up units, WITH individual models and casualty removal. Am I the only one who still wants that?

Not if War and Conquest and Clash of Empires players are anything to go by, IIRC. (And I think Warhammer Historical closing down very soon after releasing WAB2 might've left a sour taste in many mouths)

My first wargaming experiences were of Warhammer, but I didn't grow up with it and all the nitpicking mechanics soon annoyed me. I tried WAB2 some time after that, thinking it was power creep and special rule spam that spoiled the fantasy game for me.
Nope, turned out it was the basic Warhammer engine itself. Fiddling about with individual models in so many ways - who's in range; who can shoot; who's hit; who can attack; how many attacks does the champion get; does the champion attack with a different strength or initiative or whatever; how many dice; who's hit; who saves; who has to be pulled out of the back rank; how many are left in the back to arbitrarily count as a rank to add up all the ranks to add a single pip towards combat resolution... well, you get the idea with that. It quickly did my head in, in what was supposed to be a mass combat game dealing with whole armies, or at least sizeable chunks of them.
It didn't help that my brand new WAB army were anglo-saxons from the Shieldwall book. Casualty removal (and unit reassembly) is even less fun when you have to pick models out of a tangle of spears in the middle of a mixed thegn/ceorl unit.

I quickly found I preferred more streamlined games, and elements - unit bases or multibases - for anything bigger than a 'big skirmish' or platoon sized game. (Heck, I'm multibasing some Dragon Rampant units anyway) GW actually helped me with that too, through Warmaster and especially Epic, which also gave me a liking for command & control, and resource management mechanics. And there's little things like Hail Caesar's approach to mixed thegn/ceorl units, where the unit plays at thegn-strength until it's shaken. Just lets you get on with the game, IMO. Pity I never got around to using it.

I've sold and posted both my WAB2 and HC books in the last couple of days, and it'll probably be a looong time before I get back into medieval gaming; so after all that ranting, I don't really have a horse in this race. But I have been glancing at Sword and Spear with interest. Slightly disappointed that it didn't get more attention in this thread. Can I ask if anyone has tried it, and what they did or didn't like about it?

[Gracchus Armisurplus]

Warhammer and the rules that derived from it are painful. Treating each model as an individual, working out which models can attack, who they can attack, what modifiers they get, etc, and doing this multiple times for a single combat phase is just like pulling teeth.

But then you look at GWs War of the Ring system and you've got a great, streamlined game that still uses individual models.

I have several things I want when I look at a game. Do the rules produce sensible results on the tabletop? For instance, in Warhammer you'd often find the most effective formation, especially for weaker troops, was a long column. Where in reality, a formation that exposed it's flanks like that would be easy meat. Do the rules present meaningful choice at every turn? Like how do I allocate my SAGA dice this turn, or how am I going to spend my Might/Will/Fate in Lord of the Rings? Are the rules as simple as possible, while retaining factional diversity? Again SAGA is a great example of using dead simple core mechanics that you can write out on a single page, while simultaneously making every faction feel different.

If a game can strike a balance between those three key elements, then I'm happy with it. But I find too often a game will focus too heavily on one aspect and ignore the others. Like a game that strives for historical accuracy but becomes boring and complicated as a result, or a game that is fun and challenging but loses any kind of 'historical' (and I use the term loosely) credibility.