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Ahh I found it fascinating, aside from the battlefield Britain series there isn't really anymore I can recommend, maybe Terry Jones Barbarians?

I've had a look at the British podcast you guys recommended, very interesting.

Found this too, for Ireland in the Middle Ages.
http://irishhistorypodcast.ie/2010/03/19/episode-1-barbarians/

You might find his accent a little odd if you're not used to it, fair warning!

Thanks! I'll toss some episodes on my mp3 player for my next painting session.

First off, hi guys, first post in the historical section. I'm not really a "historical gamer" so I feel kind of strange posting here, but the thread title inspired me to read the whole thing (really interesting post about Japanese military tactics on the first page).

For me to pick a favorite it would have to be either air combat (since I'm an aerospace engineer and airplanes are awesome) or naval combat (since my dad and a lot of my friends are in the Navy, and pirates are awesome).

I'll separate it out and say I'd really love to try some kind of game describing air combat around Korea-Vietnam era. All kinds of barely tested new tech that didn't really work right, and the lousy environmental conditions made matters worse. My absolute favorite would be something involving all the bleeding edge/just plain weird airplane tech that came about (or would have if the projects weren't scrapped) in the very last days of WWII/immediately afterwords, but that wouldn't really be "historical".

Naval combat is really open ended for me. Pretty much anything from galleys up past radar gunnery has been at least a passing interest of mine. From a historical game perspective though I think I'd quite enjoy the classic "cannons and sailcloth" era with the British fleet and pirates in some tropical colony somewhere.

Valiant Enterprises makes some 1/1200 Spanish Main ships. They paint up pretty well considering their small size:



From: http://scarybiscuitsstudios.blogspot.ca/2011/01/spanish-main.html


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Langton also do a line of ships that require more assembly but have finer parts:



They're definitley pricier, but come with photo-etched brass sails and more parts than the cheaper Valiant ships:

http://www.rodlangton.com/anglodutch/adlist.htm

Great idea for a thread! Lots of good stuff posted already.

For me its several periods that stands out as interesting. Here are a few of them.

The roman Empire in all its shapes and forms.
I have over the last two years been slowly working towards a rather large army of Legionaries with Auxiliary support, the models I have used all come from Warlord Games that makes some really fantastic sets with a large number of figures in each box. They also look brilliant when painted, even by a painter of dubious skill like me. Also the chance to watch my men go up against Barbarians in their hundreds makes me smile, have had good luck with the game in my local club too.

The Thirty years war
Now this is a real gem of a period, it shows just how far people will go just for religion. And how far some will go to oppose those who seek to force their values and beliefs upon another nation, the army of my choice in this period is the royal Swedish army, easy to paint and hits like a hammer upon the table.

Golden age of Islam
A nice period if one wishes to step outside the armies and periods on typically stick to. This time of history also allows me to indulge my love of painting cavalry in all shapes and sizes, although after painting horse number hundred and fifty the novelty gets a bit old

World War 2, any sort of knight, barbarian invasion, that sort of thing (though most fantasy games cover that itch for me).

The thing I'd love is a good, solid skirmish/squad based moderns ruleset, describing the exact same reasons that Filbert described. I'd like to bring CoD to the tabletop if I could.

Trondheim wrote:
The Thirty years war
Now this is a real gem of a period, it shows just how far people will go just for religion. And how far some will go to oppose those who seek to force their values and beliefs upon another nation, the army of my choice in this period is the royal Swedish army, easy to paint and hits like a hammer upon the table.

Obligatory Sabaton Youtube video (turn on CC for lyrics):



The Thirty Years war is also an ideal time for all sorts of skirmish gaming. Society basically collapse in many areas and you have roving bands of apocalyptic witch hunters, brigands, mercenaries and more, Towns and cities garrisoned by soldiers where both the soldiers and the inhabitants think the others are damnable heretics. There's room for pretty much any scope or size of battle. The Thirty Years War is pretty much the perfect case study for why separation of church and state is a good idea.

 frozenwastes wrote:

Trondheim wrote:
The Thirty years war
Now this is a real gem of a period, it shows just how far people will go just for religion. And how far some will go to oppose those who seek to force their values and beliefs upon another nation, the army of my choice in this period is the royal Swedish army, easy to paint and hits like a hammer upon the table.

Obligatory Sabaton Youtube video (turn on CC for lyrics):



The Thirty Years war is also an ideal time for all sorts of skirmish gaming. Society basically collapse in many areas and you have roving bands of apocalyptic witch hunters, brigands, mercenaries and more, Towns and cities garrisoned by soldiers where both the soldiers and the inhabitants think the others are damnable heretics. There's room for pretty much any scope or size of battle. The Thirty Years War is pretty much the perfect case study for why separation of church and state is a good idea.

You sir have earned a automatic pass into Valhalla! And beer is on me for all eternity. But yes, I have at the moment a few upcoming games of Pike& shot so it will be interesting to see how it goes against those fanatical Catholics. And you pretty much nailed the point I tried to make

After you factor in deaths from disease and starvation the death toll of the Thirty Years War was a bit over 2% of the world's population. The war also served as a "never again" inspiration that lead thinkers like Lock and later (and more strongly stated) Voltaire and Rousseau to advocate for the separation of church and state. As well Kant's placing of religious sources of information below thought and nature. Much like how WW2 has served as a "never again" inspiration for the prevention of ethnic cleansing.

This is also the time frame that inspired the original Warhammer Fantasy world. The storm of chaos where the Catholics were replaced by Sigmarites and the Protestants by forces of chaos coming down from the north. One thing that I've discovered since largely switching to historicals is that most sci-fi or fantasy is pretty derivative of human history. We write what we know.

My mother was actually born on Dyrøya in Troms and came to Canada as a child after the Nazi occupation of Norway ended.

Indeed I think it was one of the few if not the sole event that changed Europa for the better, although the process to get there was absolutely horrid and meaningless. As I see it the feeling the survivors was left with was that religion was not worth laying your homeland barren and devoid of life.

And yes, it seems all fantasy games set in a world poluated by humans mirror events in ages past. Iys really quite interesting as you pointed out, and my humble salutations to your mother then. Troms is a place in Norway that is very near to my hearth.
On a side not what army if any do you play in the Thirthy year war?

I do skirmishing mostly, so I have a smattering of things. Mostly I do "behind the lines" type scenarios where a given municipality or town is now ruled by the enemy. Or an attack on a village by a band of brigands/witch hunters. I don't think I have enough of any given nationality to make an army, but the largest amount of stuff I do have is for Hapsburgs in Bohemia, but we're still talking less than 15 figures.

Ah i see well it seems we play different scales of battle then, I prefer big swirling battles myself. I find such events joy to recreate on the tabletop alongside a good opponent. But skirmishes can be fun too, particular cavalry skirmishes . For me the largest force I have is by far my Swedes and respective troops from both Norway and Finland as auxiliaries

I like WW1. There a lot of scope for very advanced tactics in that setting.

I really like my Napoleonics and WWII miniatures, though I haven't really played with either.

For periods I like ancient Greeks, the Age of Alexander, and the World Wars, though I read damn near anything about military history I can get my hands on.

For a general history podcast I really enjoy listening to A Podcast History of Our World. It's not military history, and it's pretty general, but it is well done.

http://podcasthistoryofourworld.blogspot.com/

This thread has been inspiring me to read up about a lot of different periods of history, thanks guys!

Man, the Thirty Years War was BRUTAL. We never really learned about it in school.

It makes me think the paint schemes on the troops I see from that era are far too clean. I'd want to paint Landsknecht as much more dirty and battered looking.

I'm all for the Roman Empire in the age of the conquests and wars that made It so big and strong.
i love the advanced style of life for that period and the engineering that helped It.

 Da Boss wrote:
This thread has been inspiring me to read up about a lot of different periods of history, thanks guys!

Man, the Thirty Years War was BRUTAL. We never really learned about it in school.

It makes me think the paint schemes on the troops I see from that era are far too clean. I'd want to paint Landsknecht as much more dirty and battered looking.

Yes it was extremely brutal and well, the bright colors where used to tell foe from friend. And it also signaled your bravery

Yeah, absolutely. I just imagine those bright colours would be mudstained and bloodstained pretty fast!

 SelvaggioSaky wrote:
I'm all for the Roman Empire in the age of the conquests and wars that made It so big and strong.
i love the advanced style of life for that period and the engineering that helped It.

Ancient Rome is definitely one of the big five when it comes to historical wargaming. Ancient Rome, World War 2, the Napoleonic wars, the American Civil War and the English Civil War.

You can't really go wrong with Rome, whether it's the Punic Wars with the republic, later imperial conquests or late antiquity as Rome ends up being ruled by various foreign tribes while paying lip service to the east.