Medieval Era Systems – Skirmish and Large Battles

[phaidknott 7023xp 1]

Cry Havoc (and it’s supplements) remains a firm favourite. And can be easily turned into a “3D” version by adding some 28mm minis. It should certainly scratch that skirmish level niche for medieval gaming.

http://www.cryhavocfan.org/eng/suite/howmuch.htm

Bigger Scale? I’d probably be looking at using the renaissance rules by George Gush. Although a bit later in period (just leave out the later arms and armour) these always played a bit better than the WRG ones written for the period (or possibly I just played the Gush rules a lot more and am more familiar with them).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wargames-Fifteenth-Seventeenth-Centuries-1420-1700/dp/1326628275/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537588827&sr=1-1&refinements=p_27%3AGeorge+Gush

Warning, these are a product of their time, so might seem a little “rules heavy” in this day and age. Still always had good games with them.

 

 

[fioreParticipant 829xp 0]

I had my first game of Dragon Rampant yesterday and had a great time.  It’s very simple, but had lots of fun and dramatic moments. It flows well and the rules don’t get in your way. It is the fantasy extension of Lion Rampant, but has a few additional rules that could easily be ported back for use in historical games, like the multi wound figure thing. I like the size of the games – around 50 figures is a satisfying level.

I used it to play a Game of Thrones battle and it was great. I think it is also a system that can be used as a tool box, you can easily add house rules to it or layer on a bit more complexity to the basic structure if you like.

For example, we wanted to give the players a way to mitigate the risk of failed activations, since these end your turn. So we gave the generals Command Points, which allowed them to allocate a few rerolls to units at the start of the turn to help get the key activations off. Also added a decision making point for the players.

[innes 11111xp 0]

Skirmish:

Saga is brilliant. Will be even better at the end of november when the scenario book comes out.

Lion Rampant is good too, but it was the first in the series and later iterations(pikeman’s lament and dragon rampant) are a lot better. House ruling some of their rules back into Lion Rampant could work though.

Otremer, also from osprey, seems like it could be fun. Very small  scale skirmish, only about 5-10 warriors per side. I’ve got the rules and minis just haven’t had the time to play.

Larger sized battles:

Warhammer Ancient Battles. Very good. Basically Warhammer 7th edition(the best in my view) but without the heroes, monsters and magic.

DBA/DBM. I loved DBA back in the 90s. Very abstract though. DBM felt more like a proper wargame but i remember it taking ages for a game. They’ll probably feel a bit dated now, definitely a different style of wargame.

Hail Caesar. Good and quite fast-paced. Rulebook needs a rewrite though to make it a bit more accessible. Much like Warlord have just done with Black Powder.

Kings of War Historical. Not played it but seems popular.

Deus Vult and Swordpoint. I am always tempted to pick these up but there is a definite lack of info about them (demo vids/battle reports/etc).

I have heard good things about L’Art de la Guerre and Soldiers of God. Not played them myself though.

[oriskany 60771xp 0]

It’s an old system, but still the best for historical medieval wargames … don’t laugh … but TSR’s Battlesystem, originally written for AD&D 2nd Edition.  Sounds crazy, I know.  But the fantasy element is easily removed if you want, the point conversion and unit construction lists allow anything from 500 BC to 1500 AD (iron weapons to very primitive firearms), and at 1 figure = 10 men, allows for decent scaling.

If it has one weakness, its it limit in scale, it realistically only allowed battles of a couple thousand men.  But for larger skirmishes to small battles, it really is still the best.  Not overly abstracted (Saga) or overly simplified (Kings of War), not overly fantasized or “heroic-sized”  (WHFB) … just stick to the 2nd Edition of the TSR Battlesystem and you won’t go wrong.

[bvandewalkerParticipant 2077xp 0]

Well no one has mentioned “Burn and Loot” by Fireforge yet, I own that game and have yet to play it, but it might be what you are looking for as it is skirmish game that you can play larger or smaller depending on the number of points, it is terrain heavy however (part of the game is the set up of the terrain) and the rules where written in Italian first and it sort of shows rhythm wise though not horribly so.  Another rule set I don’t see is Two Hour Wargames’ “Swordplay” which is a free to download skirmisher , you may want to check them out since they have rules for WWII as well: http://twohourwargames.com/swordplay.html

Kings of War, WHAB, Soldiers of God (I am interested in that one too, even though I am more of a fantasy fan), Deus Vault (again interested due to the faith system),  Saga and the rest mentioned are all pretty good from what I have heard. Clash of Empires is really good if you want to have a rule set that can cross over Fantasy and Ancients. Iron Bow seems to cover nations outside western Europe which is always a plus and it is free, so you don’t really have an excuse to not read it at least. You can even change most generic fantasy rule sets (LOTR or Song of Blades and Heroes) to historical gaming simply by getting rid of the magic and none human races (you may want keep certain exotic unites like ballista, chariots, or elephants if they show up depending on what part of the world your game set in and replace the none humans with suitable historical factions).

You can check this website for more rules sets, some of them even have demo videos and reviews:

https://www.wargamevault.com/

Since You couldn’t find any battle reports Deus Vault check this Finnish guy’s blog out and ask him if would recommend it:

https://25yearsofminis.blogspot.com/search/label/Deus%20Vult

He also has a report for Burn And Loot:

http://www.sagatapestry.com/2014/09/aar-strathclyde-v-franks-in-backs-to.html

And Saga:

https://25yearsofminis.blogspot.com/search/label/Britannia%20Saga%20Campaign

For more Saga reports I am surprised none of you mention The Tapestry site:

http://www.sagatapestry.com/2014/09/aar-strathclyde-v-franks-in-backs-to.html

[nogbadthebad 5771xp 0]

Can I throw To the Strongest into the mix? Like Dba it covers from biblical to medieval but uses a grid rather than a table. All the army lists are free download, and rather than dice you use playing cards…

What are people’s thoughts on Fields of Glory? I own them but never used in anger…

 

[torros 23816xp 0]

@nogbadthebad

 

Yeah. To the strongest is a  great game. I’ve seen it played on hexes as well

 

Haven’t played FoG in some years,couple of people I know play V3 and are still undecided on it

 

If you just want to play WOTR then Bloody Barons by Peter Pig aren’t bad

[torros 23816xp 0]

@phaidknott I’d forgotten about them. I left with a friend when I moved overseas for a bit. Must get them back. I had some of the standard games figures many years ago

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