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Hello all,

I browsed google for a bit but didn't find any games that didn't involve a 2d 'board' or hexagonal movement. I was wondering if there's any warhammer-esque 28mm American Civil War or Victorian. I know these models get produced by people like Perry so there has to be games like this somewhere.


Any guesses folks?



cheers all,
DaBestest

Heaps of em.

The most popular Civil War are "Fire and Fury" and "Johnny Reb".

"The Sword and The Flame" is popular for Victorian / Colonial era.

I would second The Sword and th eFlame. A bit old, been playing the game since 1981 or so, but that is because it is so simple. The mechanics are quick and easy. THere are a tone of mods for it also. It is at its core a skirmish level game. It makes those Zulu games easier to play. They do make a larger scale game, but I have no experience with it.

Also a fan of The Sword and the Flame. I've only played it at 10mm though, and I can't remember it if scales to 28mm?

If you want vaguely Victorian era (ie: guys in pith helmets and red jackets) but with a steampunk lean there is Dystopian Legions from Spartan Games, basically a skirmish version of their Dystopian Wars naval game.
http://www.spartangames.co.uk/games/dystopian-legions

Osprey Publishing are releasing a set of victorian sci-fi rules called "In Her Majesty's Name" in May 2013.

R.

Fire and fury's site says it's intended for 15mm.

Any civil war that's exclusively 28mm? I'm not good enough at painting to go below that scale.

That dystopian skirmish game I found a few days ago, looks awesome! Reminds me of Warmachine.

Also with Fire and Fury they say that they're designed to re create 'portions' of larger battles? Does that mean their rule set doesn't support full scale engagements? That's really what I'm looking for(maybe not Gettysburg full-on combat, but close!) in a civil war game. Skirmishes just don't do it for me.

Lots of good info, thanks guys! Does Perry Miniatures sell a rulebook, or just minis?

Cheers!
DaBestest

EDIT: Also Johnny Reb looks to be only set for 15mm or 25mm pieces too.

The Perrys just do minis so far.

R.

Exactly how big a battle (as in how many figures per side) are you going for?

Most historical rulesets that are "designed to recreate portions" are still taking on pretty big battles.

As regards to the request in your OP, unfortunately you're not usually going to find mass battle rules a'la 40k or WHFB in 28mm historical games because the scope of a table sized battle in 28mm just isn't that big. Battles in 28mm on a standard table usually don't get beyond a couple platoons per side.

If you want a "full scale engagement" you're probably looking at 15mm or smaller, and even then when recreating battles with hundreds (or thousands) of men, you're probably going to be operating at scope of 1 man equaling 5, 10 or even more figures. As far as skill, it doesn't take more skill to paint smaller armies, you just have to accept more abstraction.

Also, are you looking for a historical game, or an alternate history game like steam-punk?

Well, so long as it's 28mm and includes over 100 on each side, I'd be ok with it. I come from my only tabletop game, 40k, where I use an infantry-only army, so needless to say I'm looking for big, BIG battles. My 3,000 pt IG list has over 300 guardsmen, plus heavy weapons etc.

So yeah, a few regiments on each side I guess? Really it's an excuse to paint up regulars, militias, zouaves, etc. so I can have the proper 'flavor' for both sides.

The '1 man is 5' risk rules I'm trying to avoid, even if it means smaller battles. It's why I never got into epic... I think 28mm is the perfect combination of small enough to play big battles and big enough to be immersed and connected to individual soldiers.(I always get a tear in my eye when my regimental standards fall for my IG. which always seems to be turn 1)

I'd be open to listen to what you've got on steampunk or historical. I've only ever played 40k(plus a game of fantasy) so this is a learning experience! And while I'm at it, any quasi-historical game that could include nations into the ACW, like britain or france, would be awesome too. So long as I can play my beloved Confederate Irish, I'm game to game.

Though primarily, ACW is what I'm looking for. And perry miniatures are just so cool looking! Is there any game that has sortof an open-top limit? Ex: 40k is supposed to be 1500, but if you wanted to and had a big enough space, you could make it 20,000, and the rules transfer flawlessly. So even if the game says it can't support it, would the rules be able to?

I feel like I'm jumping back and forth between topics, sorry about that!

Oh, in case this matters, I have a very large living room that's nearly devoid of furniture. So increasing battle sizes is not a problem space-wise. I just need to buy more grass mats, and whatever game I decide on needs to have rules that can reflect the change in scale.

Cheers all, and again, thank you for the responses. Great info, I love this forum.

DaBestest

In that case, I'd definitely recommend asking here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/82.page

and here: www.theminiaturespage.com

For what little I can offer you...

As for limit, no game has a size limit, but every game has a point at which it takes so long to play that people rarely do it. Very few gamers can say -with a strait face- that 40k rules transfer flawlessly to large scale games. There's a reason that apocalyplse battles take all day and almost no one does them. But I digress...

As for your 100 figs per side, that's definitely doable (and probably much larger) with historical periods where there were rank and file formations. ACW, Napoleonics, Medieval, Ancients, etc.

I think that "Black Powder" by Warlord games might be what you're looking for. It leans more toward eurpean wars, but will cover ACW and other musket wars, 1700-1900, and should accommodate the number of figs you like. I've not played it, but it's by Rick Priestly and Jervis Johnson (yes that Rick and Jervis!) and actually had the involvement of the Perry Brothers. Reportedly it's a very playable, popular-level game and not weighed down by too much rules minutia. I don't think it would have any difficulty accommodating non-historical match-ups. My one caution for you -coming as you do from a 40k background- is that it is not a competitive tournament ruleset. It relies on the players to agree on the scenario and forces involved rather than convoluted points systems.

Here's a perspective on it from the designers.

http://www.warlordgames.com/136/warlord-games-announces-black-powder/

If I were to go into 28mm historicals, I'd definitely be looking at the various rulesets by Warlord.

Best of luck with your search.

There's a historical sub-forum on Dakka? I feel so juvenile all of a sudden.

Alright I'll do that!


Thanks for the help all.