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Hi all,
I've been looking into historical wargames and was wondering if any one knows about any games featuring the Celts (hopefully post roman when they fought the saxons) and if anyone knew where i could find a celtic shield wall?

Thanks!

For rules you can use Warhammer ancients, there is a supplement for very late Roman/Post Roman, cant remember what its called, Shield Wall I think.

Figures? OOOO there are some really, really nice ones out there.

Artizan Designs, Westwind Productions, Gripping Beast all do fantastic figures for the period and all are very reasonably priced. Foundry do a nice range but they cost a little more.

From my experience most of the major ancient rule sets can be used for a wide range of time periods. Now, getting a hold of ancient rules in Canada, let alone a gaming group is another story. (If you have a source, let me know).

The big ancient rules that I know of are DBA/M, Warhammer Ancients and Fields of Glory. If you want more information than you'll ever need on historical rule sets, etc... check out The Miniatures Page

As for Celts, I know Warlord Games has some 28mm figures. The pictures look nice, but I've never seen them in person. The scale of model you use will limit the rule sets you can use (although many are flexible), so if you buy models first make sure the rules support that scale and vice versa.

What time frame do you have in mind? Usually, when folks talk about Celts they are referring to the tribes in France (Gaul) which the Romans made a habit of fighting (most famously by Julius Cesare).

If you want to fight Saxons - sounds like you are talking about 500AD or so.

For Warhammer Ancients, the Age of Aurthur (500AD) book or even Shieldwall (800AD) would work for you.

Aldramelech wrote:

Artizan Designs, Westwind Productions, Gripping Beast all do fantastic figures for the period and all are very reasonably priced. Foundry do a nice range but they cost a little more.

Thanks I'll check these out, any clue if they offer a shield wall?

Specs wrote:From my experience most of the major ancient rule sets can be used for a wide range of time periods. Now, getting a hold of ancient rules in Canada, let alone a gaming group is another story. (If you have a source, let me know).

The big ancient rules that I know of are DBA/M, Warhammer Ancients and Fields of Glory. If you want more information than you'll ever need on historical rule sets, etc... check out The Miniatures Page

As for Celts, I know Warlord Games has some 28mm figures. The pictures look nice, but I've never seen them in person. The scale of model you use will limit the rule sets you can use (although many are flexible), so if you buy models first make sure the rules support that scale and vice versa.

Thanks if only I had a group, I mainly just want to play my brother, or some friends.

RanTheCid wrote:What time frame do you have in mind? Usually, when folks talk about Celts they are referring to the tribes in France (Gaul) which the Romans made a habit of fighting (most famously by Julius Cesare).

If you want to fight Saxons - sounds like you are talking about 500AD or so.

For Warhammer Ancients, the Age of Aurthur (500AD) book or even Shieldwall (800AD) would work for you.

Yes I'm talking about around 500 AD so I'm going to check out the Age of Aurthur

This might be of interest to you:

http://www.grippingbeast.com/shop.php?CatID=421

All of the figure ranges I mentioned above have the figures you need to make a sheildwall.

Pricey, but a good line

http://wargamesfoundry.com/historical_ranges/single_packs/ancients/celt/

Impetus is a pretty solid ruleset, which can cover any historical period you care to name. Basic Impetus is free as well, and there are an enourmous amount of pre-made army lists for almost all of the historical periods covered by it [Basic Impetus].

I actually started a similar thread a few months ago and got some KILLER advice and some links to some really informative websites. The link to the thread is http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/323327.page . Hope this helps!

There are various options for Ancients.

Most rulesets cover all of history from 3,000 BC to the advent of useful gunpowder in the late 15th century. They are generally divided into two classes by the dimensions of the base used for the figures.


Warhammer Ancient Battles
28mm. A kind of skirmishy/battle level game with lots of individual figures, lots of hero and flag type options, and generally similar rules to WHFB/WH40K.


Everything Else
Characterised by near standardisation on specific base sizes per scale. Once you have based an army for one of these books, it will work for the others with only minor allowances.

Wargames Research Group Ancients 6th Edition
Not many play these anymore and they are OOP.

Wargames Research Group Ancients 7th Edition
Not many play these anymore and they are OOP.

Warrior
A modern, US based version of WRG 7th.

De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA)
A fast play set of rules from the WRG guys. You only need a small army of 12 bases of figures. Each base has from 1 to four figures on it. (One elephant, or up to four close order infantry). If you have an army with a lot of options, you will need to have eight or so more bases. Very cheap and easy to do in 15mm, and you can make a matched pair of armies.

De Bellis Multitudinis (DBM)
A ruleset that marries the core mechanics of DBA with the points system and large army size of WRG 7th. It has largely been superseded by...

De Bellis Magistorum Milites
A development of DBM/DBA. Covers large armies and has a points system. It is currently in competition with...

Field Of Glory
A high production value ruleset done by Osprey Books and Slitherine Software. Innovative mechanisms, blah blah blah, combine to produce a relatively simple and highly playable set of rules for competition and larger battles. Good, but quite expensive if you buy all the army books. You can get them on Amazon.

Impetus/Basic Impetus
I don’t know much about these but they seem to be fairly well thought of. The Basic Impetus rules are free, so you can download and try them easily.

Warmaster Ancients
Based on Warmaster (Fantasy) and using somewhat different mechanisms to the other rules mentioned above. They are nominally intended for 10mm figures, but convert easily to 25mm, 15mm or 6mm as do all the other sets mentioned except for WHAB. Although it’s a GW associate production, the rules owe little or nothing to Warhammer.


These are the main rulesets. There are various other skirmish sets which might fit your requirement.

What most Ancients players are looking for is a set which allows any army from pre-Renaissance history to contend against other such armies on a relatively even field, even if they are completely separated by time and/or geography. In other words, you can play Sumerians vs Wars Of The Roses, or Incas vs Imperial Roman, and have a reasonably fair battle.

This works if you make certain assumptions and compromises.

OTOH there are dedicated rulesets or army books for specific periods which add a bit more local colour to things.