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Just looking through the Saga stuff and I'm wondering what's everyone's favourite historical wargame?

Should I buy a Saga 6-point Viking Warband, or should I go for what you recommend?

Uhm... What do you want to play?

Because if you want to play a 28mm, warband based, skirmish wargame set in the Dark Ages and looking to recreate the epic stories from that period, then by all means, get some Vikings and play SAGA.

If you want to fight regimental battles in the American Civil War... don't get SAGA.

 infinite_array wrote:
Uhm... What do you want to play?

Because if you want to play a 28mm, warband based, skirmish wargame set in the Dark Ages and looking to recreate the epic stories from that period, then by all means, get some Vikings and play SAGA.

If you want to fight regimental battles in the American Civil War... don't get SAGA.

I'm just asking for everyone's favourites so I can trawl through them, I guess.

Also, American Civil War doesn't quite do it for me, I'm sorry to say.

Well I quite enjoy Pike & shot by Warlord games, its a rather easy to learn and fun game to play. And it also gives you great flexebility when it comes to modeling and painting. You also have Hail Caesare from same company, witch is also a great game witch dose not take itself to seriosly, nore dose Pike & shot for that matter.

Warmaster Ancients is a reasonably good large scale game. The command system is not new any more, but is still nifty. Primarily played in 10mm but can also be done in 6mm, 15mm, or even larger if you want. However going to 25/28mm you may want to look at Hail Caesar! or Warhammer Ancient Battles instead. Each block of troops you buy will be 3 bases, with 10-16 infantry per base or 3-4 cavalry per base. My small to medium sized point Teutonic Knights has something like 2 Teutonic Knights, 2 Crusader Knights, 2 Light Cavalry, 4 spearmen, 4 crossbowmen, 2 commanders, and a general (think I've got a few more light cav, but cannot find my list at the moment). Which means ~48 cav models, 4 blocks of 36 spear, and 4 blocks of 27 crossbow, plus the commanders. Even at 10mm a lot of figures.

Blitzkrieg Commander plays like the WW2 sibling to Warmaster ancients, and can use any scale. Our group uses 1/285th stuff, but I think it would work just fine with 10 or 15mm stuff. The orders mechanic will be very similar to Warmaster, but things like artillery, tanks, towed weapons, and more all change the pace. We've usually got ~15-20 armored vehicles on each side, plus transports, plus towed artillery, plus infantry.

Bolt Action is a fairly well written and balanced set of WW2 rules for smaller, skirmish type WW2 games (look up Gajo Games and they have rules mods for Bolter Action-40k Bolt Action, and WW1 Bolt Action). The pinning mechanic is nifty, and the order sequence is fun and refreshing. It isn't the most historically accurate game ever made, but I enjoy it. A Lt., probably two or three 10 man squads, a few support teams of 2-4 guys and a gun, transport or two, and a tank for a reasonable game size.

Wings of Glory/Wings of War is a great dog fighting/air-combat game. It can be as simple or complex as you want, has loads of pre-painted stuff, plays quickly, and does fairly well with up to 10-12 players (haven't been able to play anything larger than that personally). Generally 1-2 planes per player

Saga is an excellent rule set. Official rules cover Dark Ages through Crusades, but there are loads of unofficial battleboards that represent Greek, Roman, Japanese, Arthurian, and more. Studio Tomahawk actively encourages this customization, which is nice to see. Very good rule set, and the fatigue system is fun. Somewhere between 25-41 models a side

Ronin is an excellent feudal to late 19th century Japanese skirmish game. Primarily focused on Samurai, it can easily handle up into the late 1800s. It is also flexible enough that you could adapt it for other periods if you desire. Generally small model count, such as 6-12 models a side.

I haven't played yet, but the rules look good:

Muskets and Tomahawks, which is French/Canadian Wars and the Revolution. Has rules for spotting, random unit activation (up to a point through a deck of cards), firing lines vs skirmish, and overall seems to capture the feel of the time period


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Trondheim wrote:
Well I quite enjoy Pike & shot by Warlord games, its a rather easy to learn and fun game to play. And it also gives you great flexebility when it comes to modeling and painting. You also have Hail Caesare from same company, witch is also a great game witch dose not take itself to seriosly, nore dose Pike & shot for that matter.

I've just picked up Hail Caesar!, but it looks reasonable so far. I haven't done much more than skim it, but it is starting to sound like a spiritual successor to Warhammer Ancient Battles and Warmaster in some respects.

Pick a war. Do you like Knights and the pageantry of a medieval army? Imagine yourself a roman general or do you like to hear the cannons roar like Napoleon!! Some of us love to see 20 tons of steel rolling around the table like Patton. Historical wargaming babeeee!!

Battlegroup. Because its tits.

But yeah, second Jedi's enthusiasm for historicals. So much awesome stuff out there.

Sounds like the tagline for our next advert...


For me...

Battlegroup
Maurice
Soldiers of God
Longstreet

Where to begin?

For Napoleonics, Lasalle.
For ACW, Longstreet.
For War of 1812, probably a toss up between Rockets Red Glare and Black Powder, but I'd like to give British Grenadier a try at some point.

For WW2, Flames of War or Bolt Action, but there are a bunch of others I'd like to try.

I find it a difficult question. As a long term historical player I have never thought of the hobby in terms of games but of rulebooks. If you have a set of 1/3000 scale WW1 naval ships, you can play with any ruleset on the market, and there are several of them. The same is generally true for whatever genre, period or scale you want to play.

I have always been interested in different levels of games; skirmish up to the largest battles.

Another problem is that rulebooks tend to go out of print and even out of fashion. Stars 'N' Bars is IMO a very good set for ACW, but modern players spurn the quick reference tables and it has been OOP since the late 80s. However, the 15mm army I painted to go with that, rebased for Fire & Fury (now also OOP), is also compatible with Longstreet, released in 2014.

So I would repeat the advice from others to think about the period and scale that interests you rather than a specific game, then do more focussed research.

Another factor is that compared to GW prices, most historicals are astonishingly cheap, especially the smaller scales like 15mm and 6mm, so it's easier to think about doing several different genres.

+1 for Bolt Action

The beauty of historicals is as Killkrazy implies, one set of miniatures but endless sets of rules and games to try out with them.

Dont like the game rules?

Buy another... but all the time only set of miniatures.

Hail Caesar does follow in the footsteps of Warmaster Ancients. It's a great game for large battles, think nothing of putting a few hundred figures on the board & still be able to finish in a single evening. Its also a good convention/club game in that you can teach the basics in less than 10 minutes.

 RexInvictus wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:
Uhm... What do you want to play?

Because if you want to play a 28mm, warband based, skirmish wargame set in the Dark Ages and looking to recreate the epic stories from that period, then by all means, get some Vikings and play SAGA.

If you want to fight regimental battles in the American Civil War... don't get SAGA.

I'm just asking for everyone's favourites so I can trawl through them, I guess.

Also, American Civil War doesn't quite do it for me, I'm sorry to say.

-SAGA, for Dark Ages Skirmish.
-Regimental Fire and Fire for ACW - I had plenty of fun playing that.
-For WWII, I'm stuck between Flames of War and Battlegroup, but I haven't played either in a while. I'm currently looking at Hail of Fire as a replacement, and have been writing army lists for the game based on FoW's Forces book included with the big rulebook.
-WWII naval, I enjoyed playing General Quarters 3, after getting my head around the charts.
-Ancients, I've picked up DBA 3.0, but I need to get a game in before a verdict can be given.
-I've also got Blucher for Napoleonics, and I need to run a game before I can really say anything, but I can find anyone saying anything bad about the ruleset.

Pick a time period.
I am a fan of both Flames of War and Bolt Action. Depends on if I want mass armies or platoon vs platoon battles. I generally do not play competitively but for fun and having cool looking tables with soldiers and tanks on them.

BA (and I assume the other Warlord games) is fairly simple to learn and plays pretty quick. Its also fairly cheap. I just bought a full Japanese Naval landing force with shipping for under $175 bucks. That 68 28mm infantry guys, 2 mortar units, a special weapons blister(flamer, sniper, and friends) an HQ, a field gun, a car, and a tank.

FoW can be cheap or expensive. There are tons of 15mm companies out there enabling you to do what you want in that respect.

I don't play other historicals so I cant comment on them.

Col. Dash wrote:

BA (and I assume the other Warlord games) is fairly simple to learn and plays pretty quick. Its also fairly cheap. I just bought a full Japanese Naval landing force with shipping for under $175 bucks. That 68 28mm infantry guys, 2 mortar units, a special weapons blister(flamer, sniper, and friends) an HQ, a field gun, a car, and a tank.

Warlord always has great deals, whether it is on starter armies or shipping. All of their new multi part plastic releases are wonderful.

Historicals are a bit different than sci-fi or fantasy.
Your miniatures aren't tied to a ruleset, your ruleset is tied to your miniatures.

Sort of like what Kilkrazy has written.

If your friends/clubmates are playing something, ask them to teach you and see if it is something you are interested in.

For me, my interest in history guides my collecting and playing, not really my interest in a ruleset. I'm luck in that my club has people that collect just about everything, so there is always someone who's got miniatures for some period and we can play it out. But I personally only collect miniatures for periods I am interested in and look for rules that I like to fit the collections. A good rule is to collect two sides so that you don't have to rely on someone else collecting opponents.

I think if it isn't something that you are going to enjoy learning about, it isn't something you are going to enjoy collecting. Pick something that you can be passionate over.

Really fancy Saga but at the moment I've been playing bolt action with 15mm minis.

Bolt Action is both my favourite historical miniatures game and favourite miniatures game overall. It is so easy to learn and play and it is very forgiving, making it really nice for casual gaming, but it also has a pretty solid points system for pick up gaming.

I also really like Battlegroup, which is a mite harder to get into but well worth the effort. Battlegroup has the very best and most beautiful rule books in terms of total quality. If you are interested in WW2, you can easily read them just for fun.

Bolt Action for WW2

and Ga Pa for WSS

and I wish Thomas Arnfelt had somehow expanded Ga Pa to other periods, or gotten picked up by a major publisher, because Ga Pa is fething awesome.

Bolt Action, since it's the only historical rulesets I've yet, thought the 6mm Genpai war [Imperitus] some guys were playing at my club looks interesting.

• Hoplon for Ancients and Medievals.
• General Quarters for WWI to Modern Naval Combat (I think it does Pre-Dreadnoughts as well).
• Seastrike for Cold War era Naval Combat
• Mein Panzer for WWII Ground Combat.
• Task Force for Cold War period "Modern" Warfare (Korea to the collapse of the USSR).
• Close Action or Bloody Broadsides for Napoleonic Era Naval (a looong time ago I sculpted the ships for Bloody Broadsides - I keep pestering him to let me re-sculpt them).

I know that I used to play an Ancient's Naval game, and a Civil War to Pre-Dreadnoughts Naval Game (Ironclads! That was it!).... Can't recall the other one, though.

Presently, Bolt Action followed by The Sword and the Flame.

Try Chain of Command instead of Bolt Action...

I've not heard much about Chain Of Command. How does it work?

Platoon level skirmish.
2-3 squads plus supports.
Throw (normally) five dice...
Activate a team on a 1
Activate a squad on a 2
a junior leader on a 3
a senior leader a 4
collect 5s towards a Chain of Command attribute,
if one 6, nothing, two, phase again, three 6s, turn end, four or five special occurrence.
And nothing starts on table!
They have a website, search for "TooFatLardies"...

Are we talking a complex platoon level ruleset like Warmahordes or a company level complexity game converted into a simplified platoon level set like Bolt Action?

I've never met Warmahordes but CoC's not a complex set, just different.
I would recommend it, but them I'm biased!
I've played plenty of CoC and BA and I prefer CoC.
The game is less balanced, but skewed against both players!
Two sides of 50 figures (25/28mm or 15mm) would easily give you a game, and you need no tools but the rules, dice and a tape.

And if you start playing Chain of Command, you can be one of those people, who, when someone says the words "Bolt Action", feel compelled to talk about Chain of Command. Not that it's any good, or anything - as far as I can tell, most people do it because they need to justify having purchased another mediocre TooFatLardies ruleset.

So - is Chain of Command for you? If you like your miniatures games to play like they were designed in 1995 by people dissatisfied with how tin flats are being phased out in favor of miniatures with proper proportions, and to look like they were designed, again, in 1995, in Paint Shop Pro on Windows 3.1, sure. It's one of those games where the publisher excitedly exclaims that 2,000 copies have been sold despite most purchases having put on a bookshelf and then sold for $2 at a wargaming flea market ten years later.

You good sir have earned a sigging. That was just.... I don't even know how to decribe it.