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My brother and I both like the idea of historical games, both the idea of recreating battles or doing "what if" scenarios with historical forces (neither of us are insane sticklers for historical details), we both specifically like Rome, Ancient Greece/Macedonia and the like (also Ancient China circa Three Kingdoms era, a personal favorite of ours). Many years ago we both played Warhammer but we've since lost all of our figures and the like so are starting from scratch. We'd ideally like to avoid games that require a large investment to build an army in the similar vein of WHFB or 40k as we don't want to spend a lot of money building a force.

He especially likes games that rely on strategy and tactics in order to win versus army list building. We're looking at something that doesn't take the Warhammer-like four hours or so to play and we have a smallish (like 4x3 perhaps?) dining room table that we can commandeer for use as a game table. I've been doing a small bit of research but I'm overwhelmed for choices at the different historical games available, and unsure which one suits my taste. I've read up on De Bellis Antiquitatis, Field of Glory and Hail Caesar thus far, with thoughts being as follows:

DBA: A little hard to understand, but seems to definitely be for quick games and require actual strategy versus "I picked better units than you, so I win" kind of things which appeals to us both (I've read a few things comparing it to Chess). The smaller table that we have seems to suit this as well, but it seems a little hard to find miniatures and terrain in the USA? I've seen a few "DBA army deals" that have like 9 or 10 units for $50 but I thought DBA was 12 units, so it looks like buying let's say a Roman army and a Carthaginian army (we'd likely start with the Punic Wars, me as Carthage and him as Rome) isn't enough to play? I'm having trouble actually finding what I need for this though, as it seems to just be a single rulebook but I've also seen a rulebook and I think four army lists books (that use some weird abbreviations it seems).

Field of Glory: Seems more complex and from a brief glance it seems like it requires a fairly large investment of troops? The book looked very nice (lots of pretty pictures!) and the bits I saw seemed similar to what I had read for DBA, but again not sure where to look at what I need or where to begin with troops; I think it might be like DBA in that you can get miniatures from various sources as long as they are mounted on a certain kind of base? I saw something for Flames of War I think like that, using plastic soldiers from various companies and just mounting them on a specific base and being able to use them for the game, versus a specific range of miniatures.

Hail Caesar: To be blunt, looks like Warhammer Armies: Ancient Rome (which it might be, since I think it was written by Rick Priestly?). I've heard the rules are good but it seems to be laid out similar to WHFB with all of the related drawbacks (e.g. expensive miniatures, focus on list building versus strategy), although having a specific range of miniatures is nice.

Out of these is one considered more modern/better than the others, keeping in mind that we have small space, don't want to spend a lot of cash and want something relatively quick that relies on strategy? DBA seems to fit that the best, but it almost seems like FoG is an updated version of that, so I'm not sure.

I disagree on the Hail Caesar assessment. You can use any miniatures, and scale, to play HC. Army list building is an afterthought to the ruleset (as it's written for scenarios) and there's no such thing as an overpowered unit - all the points values in the supplemental army lists seem pretty tight. It's very much a tactical game, emphasizing maneuver over uber-unstoppable-units. It kinda plays nothing like Warhammer Ancient Battles (the successor to WAB is a game called War & Conquest, written by Rob Broom, who wrote WAB) Hail Caesar covers everything from ancient up to medieval / pre-renaissance (at that point you'd switch over the Pike & Shotte then Black Powder). Since basing is set by 'guidelines' then you can use any size base/miniature, really. Big armies with lots of dudes looks impressive but you could easily play the game with 4 figures on a 80x40 base.

I personally don't like the rock/paper/scissors approach of DBA, I like even an outmatched unit having somewhat of a chance to do something, and HC allows that.

The official Warlord miniatures are quite nice and very cheap (120 plastic Romans in an army deal for about 90 bucks) if you prefer 28mm. Several manufacturers make cheap plastic 28's - Warlord (Imperial Romans, Caesar Romans, Greeks, Celts, Macedonians, etc), Victrix (Greek Hoplites and Spartans), Gripping Beast (Vikings, Saxons), Conquest (Normans), Perry (War of the Roeses), Wargames Factory (Samurai/Ashigaru, Persians, Romans, Greeks, Vikings, Saxons, and more), etc, covering multiple periods.

Of course there's plenty of cheap 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 1/72 if you'd prefer that route - and I can always recommend Old Glory Miniatures if you don't mind metals. You can join their Old Glory Army for $50 for a year and you get 40% off all their miniatures, so packs of 30 metal 15mm figs for about ten bucks (or about 20 bucks for a pack of 30 25mm figs) www.oldglory25s.com They have a huge range of ancients including Han chinese, Seleucids, Carthaginians, and so on - http://oldglory25s.com/index.php?cat_id=159&catname=%27Ancients%27

I would agree with most of what judgedoug has said about HC, we have fun and generally well balanced fights most the time we play. The rules do lend themselves to any base size or scale as the only important thing is being able to tell the middle of a unit.

I play in 6mm as this is by far the cheapest option if you want large units, we base an average unit on two 60mm x 30mm bases, larger war bands and phalanxes being based on four.

My first army was a Imperial Roman at 600pts, it consisted of 21 units each roughly being 48 men with some larger for auxiliaries and smaller for cavalry, but in all if you went for a head count it meant i was fielding an army of just under 400 men, that is the nice thing about 6mm, armies feel like armies not just a few men lined up neatly.

They are also easy and quick to paint once you get used to it.

From Baccus the miniatures to make this 600pt army cost £47 (about $80), while there are other manufactures out there Baccus in my experince are routinely good across the range, other companies i have found a little hit and miss. Also if you mix companies you might have some scale issues.

https://www.baccus6mm.com/index.php

I'll have to give HC another look then, been reading up on it and it seems to be relatively fast as we'll with better rules than the abstract DBA.

Would a small table be enough for 15mm or would 6mm be better? As stated above we only have a relatively small rectangular dining room table (approximately 46x32) with which to use to fight battles.

Very few historical games have dedicated miniature manufacturers. In fact, the only ones I can thing of that sell boxes/blisters for present units are Flames of War and Napoleon at War. You could argue Warlord does the same with their game systems to a lesser extent as well.

This is both a blessing, as it generally makes historical figures pretty cheap to source, and a curse, as if you don't know exactly what you're looking for, it can be hard to find the right (and the right amount) of figures.

As for finding figures for DBA, Corvus Belli (the same guys that make Infinity), make pre-built DBA army boxes in the $50 range.

http://infinitythegame.com/store/en/51-dba

Fields of Glory of glory, to make a HUGE generalization, could be consider DBA on a larger scale. They are different rulesets, and most people who like one are vehemently against the other, but the basic concepts are roughly the same. Many manufacturers such as Old Glory and Essex make 15mm FoG army bundles, but since they're a lot more figures, they're a lot more expensive.

DBA can be easily played on a two feet square space with 15mm scale troops.

Get DBA and the WADBAG explainer guide from Fanaticus.org, which makes the rules into plain English.

http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/
http://www.wadbag.com/DBAGuide/

The DBA book is complete in itself, containing all the army lists (100s of them!) and a campaign set-up.

Build a couple of armies with 15mm figures. It’s probably best to get a matched pair, such as Romans and Carthaginians. The lists give information on historical enemies. You can play with completely unhistorical opponents, such as Incas versus Old Kingdom Egyptians, but it won’t always be a fair match.

DBA armies will cost you about $40-$50 each in 15mm, depending on exact composition. A complete army generally consists of about 15 units because most armies have some optional troops although the on table army will always be 12 elements (bases).

Lots of companies offer ready-mixed army packs for the DBA lists. It’s best to buy the whole army from one manufacturer so the models will be compatible in style and size.

You also need to buy or build a camp element as they are not usually supplied in the army packs. Fanaticus.org has a lot of good ideas for themed camps.

If you like DBA, you can upgrade to larger games by playing Big Battle DBA, or with the v2 DBMM. rules, which are an expanded version of DBA using the same core mechanics. DBMM v2 is easier to understand than original DBA, although it's a bit more complex, because it is written clearer.

If you dislike DBA though, the base sizes used in DBA/DBMM are compatible with nearly all other Ancient/Mediaeval wargame rules except Warhammer, so you can easily move on to something else like Impetus or Field of Glory.

If you want a really small, cheap game, you could try 2mm scale figures, which come moulded as blocks of troops. You can buy a pair of armies for probably $30 including postage, and they will be enough figures for a good sized battle in any rule-set. 2mm figures can be played in a very small space, or you can base them in multiples on 15mm scale bases to create a densely packed element that really looks like a full battalion.

http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/index.html

Rules wise, do most of the games work similarly? I'm at this point torn between looking at DBA or Hail Caesar for the rules since as I understand it I could reasonably use the figures no matter the game.

We will likely start with Roman and Carthaginian and expand out from that as we like.

I would add Pendraken to the to list http://www.pendraken.co.uk/

The figures are 10mm, the service is excellent, and it has a very friendly and helpful forum.

Have you looked at Basic Impetus? Its a free version of Impetus. I have not played it, but I've heard a lot of good things about it.
http://www.dadiepiombo.com/impetus2.html
http://www.dadiepiombo.com/basic2.html

Being restricted to 4x3 table, you may want to focus on 15mm. If you had access to a bigger table, I'd recommend Hail Caesar and 28mm.

15mm seems good (so does 6mm but maybe a bit too small?). I have heard you can use Hail Caesar rules with 15mm or even 6mm but unsure of the conversions needed.

I will check out Impetus as well, mostly what I'm looking for is something fairly rules light but allowing for strategy and tactics and that can be played somewhat fast as opposed to ponderous 3-4 hour games a la Warhammer.

HC is a unit based game, meaning that any two armies with the same unit size can play a game. For 28mm I play infantry with a unit size of 160mm x 60mm, but you could just as easily play 15mm at 80mm x 30mm (or 40mm x 20mm) and cut the movement rate from 6 inches per move to 3 inches.

It seems rather odd that in response to a request for an inexpensive wargame, people respond by suggesting a £30 rule book, with supplements costing a similar amount..

Anywho.... for those who don't want to spend more on books than figures....

West Craven wargames club have sets of rules for various periods, http://www.wargameshop.co.uk/rules.htm - there are two sets of ancients rules, they are free and rather good.

Most rules can easily be adapted to different scales of models by changing the movement and shooting distances. It is pretty much standard in historical games, actually, as the 25/28mm, 15mm and 6mm scales have been around for decades. The rules normally give the proper measurements for different scales.

So it looks like I should try to find some versions of the different rules and see which I like better, and go with that?

Biggest thing at the moment is trying to find good comparisons of the different rules, so I don't have to spend a lot of money on 3-4 rulebooks, but there seems to be almost as much variety with available rules as there are miniature companies!

Historicals is full of competing rulesets. I think most long running hobbyists buy and use a variety during their lifetime.

The WADBAG version of DBA is free, so that is a good starting point. Basic Impetus is free too.

That gives you two different rulesets to read and compare as a start.

After some perusal of online information it seems like Hail Caesar is what we want, as after having a talk we decided that we don't want rules abstract enough that all units are treated the same across armies - we want some variation between units and armies so for example a highly-trained Roman Legion's units should be better than another army's infantry that isn't as disciplined but the other army can make up for it in other aspects.

From what I read DBA and Impetus are a little more abstract than that, having only limited unit types without having differences for armies (but I could be wrong as I didn't read in-depth yet), which neither of us find to actually be realistic.

The Romans in the Punic wars were not highly trained, they were a citizen militia... but no matter.

Enjoy your games.

WayneTheGame wrote:
After some perusal of online information it seems like Hail Caesar is what we want, as after having a talk we decided that we don't want rules abstract enough that all units are treated the same across armies - we want some variation between units and armies so for example a highly-trained Roman Legion's units should be better than another army's infantry that isn't as disciplined but the other army can make up for it in other aspects.

From what I read DBA and Impetus are a little more abstract than that, having only limited unit types without having differences for armies (but I could be wrong as I didn't read in-depth yet), which neither of us find to actually be realistic.

That is correct about DBA. A "psiloi" light infantry unit will act the same whether it is Balearic slingers, Libyan javelinmen or Welsh longbowmen.

Well trained close combat units like Roman Legionaries would be "blades", "spears" or "pikes" depending on their main weapon. Untrained close combat units are "warband".

DBMM breaks down each general class of troops into up to four subclasses with different characteristics.

It's such a shame that WRG went entirely down the DBA road, instead of having DBA, DBM, and the general set of rules.

Oh for the days of having an unreliable allied general who couldn't cross the centre line of the table...

People still play WRG 6th and 7th, of course.

I think Phil Barker had got bored with that line of rules philosophy, though. WRG 7th was rather different to 6th in some of its mechanisms -- fatigue points rather than casualty removal, for example -- which a lot of players disliked.

There's no doubt the DBA idea has been hugely successful. We see the PIPs concept used in other modern rulesets like the Polemos series.

DBMM seems fairly successful, although there isn't a clear front runner in modern (hah!) Ancients.

try Sopry dux bellorum...there dark age briton but people have adapted them. A single base hase about 10 inf/6 cav and you have about 8-12 bases per side. suit warbands ie battle of Maldon rather than Hastings
good luck!

Lot'sof interesting stuff here at my favorite price point!

http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/ancient.html

WayneTheGame wrote:
15mm seems good (so does 6mm but maybe a bit too small?). I have heard you can use Hail Caesar rules with 15mm or even 6mm but unsure of the conversions needed.

I will check out Impetus as well, mostly what I'm looking for is something fairly rules light but allowing for strategy and tactics and that can be played somewhat fast as opposed to ponderous 3-4 hour games a la Warhammer.

The simplest conversion for playing HC at 10mm or 15mm is to treat all "inch" measurements as "cm" instead. Doing so will effectively let you take, say, a huge game that was on a 10' by 6' table at 28mm and scale it to fit on less than a 4'x3' area, so your kitchen table would be just fine for even the grandest of conflicts. 15mm terrain is also nice n' cheap (woodland scenics makes packs of 38 trees for less than 30 bucks)

A game with "warhammer" sized armies will probably take you about an hour. One of the great things about HC is being able to field a table full of figures - easily 5 times the size of warhammer armies in terms of models and units - and get it done in the same if not less amount of time.

6mm minis have been mentioned earlier in the thread and I have looked over Baccus's site and they look awesome!! Are there any other great 6mm manufacturers out there though? I love the price also, I figure I could easily acquire two armies that I could let buddies use to play against.

Would a game like Hail Caesar convert over to 6mm? Or can another knowledgeable individual recommend rules that are not very abstracted and are more granular in nature.

Sandinistato wrote:
6mm minis have been mentioned earlier in the thread and I have looked over Baccus's site and they look awesome!! Are there any other great 6mm manufacturers out there though? I love the price also, I figure I could easily acquire two armies that I could let buddies use to play against.

Would a game like Hail Caesar convert over to 6mm? Or can another knowledgeable individual recommend rules that are not very abstracted and are more granular in nature.

Useful link for 6mm - http://6mm.wargaming.info/page9.shtml
Useful link for 10mm - http://www.ricks-warmaster.com/ricks_links.htm

One thing to bare in mind when playing with smaller scales is that if you use rules that require figure removal the basing and storage can get very fiddly. Also there is no need to convert the rules, as you can just use the 28mm base recommendations but put two or three times the recommended number of figures on each base, which provides a great visual spectacle.

Sandinistato wrote:
Would a game like Hail Caesar convert over to 6mm? Or can another knowledgeable individual recommend rules that are not very abstracted and are more granular in nature.

Well Warmaster Ancients was specifically designed for 10mm and was the pre-cusror "ruleswise" to Hail Ceasar.

Warmaster Ancients uses "standard" "WRG" base sizes for 15mm scale. They take advantage of the 10mm scale by putting more figures on a base. The same idea can be done with any other ruleset, and you could convert up to 28mm scale base sizes and use even more small scale figures, as suggested by Baccus in their website.

The rules are OK but never took off in a big way due partly to the lack of support. I think only one army book was published. You could convert lists from other games though.

So "Hail Caesar" is a kind of 2nd edition Warmaster Ancients? I might bag a copy just for comparison's sake.

Here's some tidbits from Rick Priestley when HC was in development

http://www.warlordgames.com/10059/hail-caesar-more-from-rick/

From a quick skim it looks like the Hail Caesar bases are not compatible with standard WRG bases.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
From a quick skim it looks like the Hail Caesar bases are not compatible with standard WRG bases.

Don't frighten the horses with the perennial basing question.