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Hi. I mainly play 40k but history, especially Ancient, and Medieval History, have always been my first love. Can anyone suggest a good war-game for one or both of these periods?
Thanks in advance
Venser

I've searched for a good set for a while. I've heard excellent things about Warlord Game's Hail Caesar, which covers both those periods, and I've used Basic Impetus, which is the free abridged version of the full Impetus rules for ancient and medieval combat... Both of which are supported by tons of free army lists so you can build good historical armies. I can't recommend it enough, though some people aren't fond of one base = one unit. Here it is: http://www.dadiepiombo.com/basic2.html

Basic Impetus is a good place to start as it's free and takes a lower figure count.

It is stand/element based though, so you'll need to decide whether or not you'll want to go ahead and base all the figures on one base or do some sort of movement tray solution.

Impetus is also good because the bases are dioramas and while you may want a number of miniatures on there to signify exactly what the base is, it doesn't require specific figure counts and the like.

Here's an outline of the basing:

http://www.dadiepiombo.com/basi2.html

I (and lots of people) actually do 28mm on the 80mm base sizes recommended for 15mm. If I'm doing really close order shield walls, I'll put 5 (or 6 if they fit and don't look too cramped) miniatures across and do two rows. Base depths don't really matter to the game, so I do pretty much all my chariots on 80mm x 80mm squares, cavalry on 80mmx80mm and infantry on 80mm x 40mm and skirmishers on 80mm x 20mm.

I'm the driving force behind historical in my circle of gamers. I paint up two sides to a battle and run an event and invite people to play. So I'm not really worried about whether or not I'm going to meet someone with 120mm wide bases as I'm not basing to fit in with an existing player base.

Thank you for the suggestions Vortrey and frozen wastes

Have you given any thought about what period interests you specifically?

 frozenwastes wrote:
Have you given any thought about what period interests you specifically?

I prefer the Classical period as ancient Greece was what really got me into history, but any period before the 1700's interests me to.

That works pretty well, as Basic Impetus has lists from ancient Egypt all the way to the late 1500s I believe... As well as a supplement called basic Baroque which adds additional rules and lists for all conflict up to 1700, so, you'd be perfectly fine with just that set.

Ancient Greece offers a great era for gaming. You have Greek city states fighting one another. You have them fighting the Persians as well as other peoples of the northern Mediterranean.

Were you thinking of going with 28mm (like 40k) or something smaller? If 28mm, I'd probably recommend Victrix plastic kits as a place to start. There are lots of great options for 15mm (same scale as Flames of War) as well. Even 10mm and 6mm have some pretty good offerings to choose from.

28mm Victrix (plastic):


15mm Xyston: (note that spears are sold separately)


10mm Pendraken:

To be honest, I haven't thought about the scale. But thanks for all the help.

There are some relevant threads here...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/521073.page

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/517734.page

Wait, how has no one mentioned Saga yet?

I've only played a few games now, but I'm basically hooked. Since it's a skirmish game it may be a bit more familiar to you than 'blocks of troops' type games.

Heard of Saga, not played it. I used to play Mediaeval skirmish games. Skirmish has the advantage that you only need a small number of figures.

Saga is really solid. If late antiquity or the early medieval period grabs you, it's definitely worth checking out. I went with recommending Basic Impetus over Saga because it's free and covers a wide range of historical eras while Saga is not free and is narrow in it's historical scope.

I think that the thing is that there were quite huge differences between Ancient and Medieval warfare so a ton of rulesets will cover that. It's a HUUUUGE timeframe with equally big changes in warfare, army sizes, tactics, campaigniing and even communications.

That said, I'd second Impetus (either free or full). Recently got into it, works really well and leads to credible outcomes and satisfying battles.

Hail Caesar is a really nice one as well if you're into larger battles. If you go 28mm scale though, keep in mind that large tables are in order.

I also recommend looking into DBA. Excellent, quick, fun little system. Very worth checking out. Unfortunately it's not really written in human language but people wrote up whole pdf documents for translating the rules into something understandable.

About Saga - yes, I agree that it's solid. I only had one game so far but I have to say that I was a bit underwhelmed. Saga is very much on the "game" end of the spectrum. On the plus side, people quickly convert it into playing ANYTHING really. War of the Roses, Napoleonics, modern day Afghanistan, and so on. This probably illustrates how it's not exactly incredibly period specific. That's all done through the battboards. I'm sure that the game gets much more interesting with scenarios though. It IS a good, solid set of rules and good fun with an interesting new mechanic built in.

If you're into campaign play and Dark Ages/Arthurian Age gaming with a bit more historical "meat" to it, give Dux Britanniarum a try as well. You can use the same minis you use for Saga mostly.

Thank you for all the help guys! I appreciate it!

Just another quick word on skirmish.... I recently bought a bunch of the Perry European Mercenaries, and I've been using Song of Blades and Heroes to play skirmish games with them. Excellent system, and with a bit of tinkering, it provides a nice historical game too.

The world is awash in Dark Ages gaming right now. Dux Bellorum by Osprey Publishing is another battle game set in that period. When I'm not using my early Medieval stuff for Impetus, it's my game of choice. It works well for any period covering smaller battles where each base can be 50-100 soldiers rather than 500+.

It's cool that Saga can be transitioned into different periods by changing the battle boards. They're pretty central to play, so that makes sense.

Vortrey's idea of taking a simple skirmish game and getting a box of plastic 28mm infantry and starting with that is a great one. If you want to lower the time from entry to a given period to getting a game on the table, he has, by far given the best suggestion.

If you're looking for a servicable, but free, alternative to Song of Blades & Heroes, check out FUBAR Medieval.

http://thegamesshed.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/fubar-medieval/

It's certainly a starting point and if it's not *enough* than you can go looking for a more involved or better designed rules set.

Changes I'd make for ancient Greece:

Only take weapons and equipment shown on the models. So no crossbows, composite bows, long bows, halberds, etc.,,.

The Hoplon shield is not a normal shield and would grant a further improvement in armour. So a hoplite with no armour plus a hoplon has a 5+ save instead of a 6+. The smaller shields held by light infantry would be the normal shields the rules represent.

Linothorax is medium armour. Recent studies have shown that it could stop period arrows and strikes with almost all period weapons. So a armoured hoplite in Linothorax with their eponymous hoplon would be a mighty 2+.

Heavy armour and full plate isn't available.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try them out!

@frozenwastes: Yeah, the basic core rules of Saga are very generic. It all comes down to the battle boards really. Love your idea about Song of Blades and Heroes. I have to admit that I never played it myself but at this point I heard so much good about the game from all kinds of sources (also some of which I trust

One game that people I know have been looking into recently is Field of Glory. I haven't had a chance to play myself yet, but I have the rulebook and Storm of Arrows (Medieval era expansion) it seems like a pretty flexible ruleset.

It'll work with any scale models too, so that's a bonus!

I tried Field of Glory and it's a bit on the heavy side, too much tables/modifiers to check, slows the game a good bit
decent but not awesome

 Sigur wrote:
@frozenwastes: Yeah, the basic core rules of Saga are very generic. It all comes down to the battle boards really. Love your idea about Song of Blades and Heroes. I have to admit that I never played it myself but at this point I heard so much good about the game from all kinds of sources (also some of which I trust

SoBH is a very light and fast game. It uses a lot of common mechanics and there's not a huge amount of stats. There definitely seems to be more going on with Saga and its battle boards and the various things that ends up producing. I'd recommend SoBH, but it's definitely in the "very approachable and good for new wargamers" camp. When I run SoBH events at a local con each year, I always mark them as events for all ages as even a 7 year old was able to pick it up without too much trouble.

I've been looking into Saga lately when I found out that there are a surprising amount of players for it in my area.

Just wondering though, I've found the models below for pretty cheap, could someone whose played some historicals in that time period tell me if they are suitable as SAGA miniatures?

The time period of the Dacians in that Warlord set are from a lot earlier (700+ years) and on the other side of Europe. If you were doing Saga in late antiquity rather than the early medieval the oval shields might be appropriate, but the two handed weapons (dacian falx) really aren't. By the time you have Viking raids, shields have generally gone round rather than being oval and the weapons were dominated by swords, axes, and especially spears.

That said, you'll need to decide for yourself what you want to do. Given how wide the Roman world was, you could say an imaginary tribe from northern Europe adopted the falx scythe for agricultural purposes and then used it in war. And the keeping of the oval shields longer than other peoples. Sort of your own made up dark ages people group. But historically, the Dacians just don't fit with the rest of the nations in Saga.

 Dakkamite wrote:
I've been looking into Saga lately when I found out that there are a surprising amount of players for it in my area.

Just wondering though, I've found the models below for pretty cheap, could someone whose played some historicals in that time period tell me if they are suitable as SAGA miniatures?

Spoiler:

No. Try these: http://www.greatescapegames.co.uk/miniatures/miniatures-clash-of-empires/ancient-and-medieval.html?limit=25

Are there fan made SAGA dice and cards/play mats for the Samurai box sets in that link?

FWIW, check here: http://studiotomahawk.freeforums.org/japanese-saga-f23.html

Gripping Beast's plastic kits are the best value and easiest way to start a SAGA force. One box will basically do it - 44 figures!

UK - http://www.grippingbeast.com/shop.php?CatID=2431
US - http://www.architectsofwar.com/grippingbeastplastics.aspx

SAGA is a fine skirmish game with Clash of Empires and Hail Caesar ticking the box for larger battles.