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From this thread (if you wonder what the hell I'm talking about!)

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/300428.page#6388076

Was thinking of getting some 'Front Rank' Medievil-era miniatures to go alongside the Perry 'Agincourt' miniatures. Does anyone have both and can comment on their scale/proportion?

Here is the link to the website: http://www.frontrank.com/4_lev2_Medieval.asp I know both are 28mm, but also that the Perry ones have very realistic proportions so how well they would match with Front Rank was probably my main concern.

Also, remember seeing in another thread about an adaptation of the 'Ronin' skirmish rules for later medievil period. Has anyone tried this and would care to comment on how the rules move across?

The Front Rank stuff looks pretty good to me, if I compare it my Essex Minis WoTR figures.

I can't comment from personal experience, though.

If you are very concerned, you could buy a box of Perry models to compare with the Front Rank. Even if they are a bit different, it probably would not notice if you made all your Hobilar Cavalry from one range, and all your Billmen from the the other range.

Can the war d the roses plastics from perry be used in the 100 year war? Don't know much about the differences between the two.

Thanks for the comment Killkrazy. Have noticed that you can actually buy the Front Rank miniatures in singles so I could just buy a couple and try them out.

Out of interest what are the Essex miniatures like? I've read that they are 25mm, is the change in scale very noticeable?

Carlos13th - I would say so, yes. the WoTR follows on pretty much immediately after the hundred years war, although obviously even within that time frame there were changes in armour styles, weaponry and clothing throughout the period. If you think though of Agincourt as being one of the focal points of the hundred years war, then you immediately think of 'longbowman' as being one of the distinguishing features of that battle - think those WoTR plastics would be perfect for that.

 carlos13th wrote:
Can the war d the roses plastics from perry be used in the 100 year war? Don't know much about the differences between the two.

It depends on which period of the 100 years war you are talking about. The later 100 years war overlaps with the WotR so there is no problem. Purists might raise an eyebrow at using them for the early period... but then it is a personal choice if you want to get involved in that kind of daftness or just want to build an army you like for the game you want to play.

re OP: Front Rank figures tend to have had a hearty breakfast compared to most other ranges, but they mix well... not the same period but here's a blurry picture of Front Rank, Perry, and Eagle Napoleonics that may be useful.



As for Essex, I can't say I have used their 25mm figures but I don't see a problem. Having a mix of short and tall figures, and different clothing, in a group is an advantage from my pov. Especially in a medieval army.

 carlos13th wrote:
Can the war d the roses plastics from perry be used in the 100 year war? Don't know much about the differences between the two.

They can, there really isn't the much difference between the two periods, at least between the latter stages of the 100 years (Ended:1453) and the Wars of the Roses (started 1455) I tend to go with the rule of no great helms or big shields in the wars of the roses. Swords and bucklers were around (but never ever used as a primary weapon on the battlefield, they were side arms) Gunpowder had been in use for a while by the end of the 100 Years so theres no problem with using it in the latter stages of the war.

However it does depend on what period of the 100 years war you are gaming, since the war began in 1337, so while the Perry billmen box would be fine, you'd not be able to use the handgonnes from the Mercenaries box for example. Plus Helmet styles would change from 1337 to 1453, however there are standards, the Kettle helm for example, had been around for years before the 100 years and was in use up to the second world war. But Perry's always produce a lot of different heads with different helmets, so personal research is needed, just reading through an osprey book, of googling pictures contemporary pictures of the period you are gaming.

I have seen Front Rank mixed with Perry's and they did seem okay together. I didn't get to see it cloes up however as it was part of a display game at a show, so all i can say is from afar they look okay.

Thanks for the information guys.

Flicking through the ronin rules Pacific I cant see a conversion being all that difficult.

Swap Spears with Yari
Katana for short sword maybe
Nodaichi for Great swords
Teppo for crossbow?

Introduction of shields may be a problem. Maybe have normal plate as medium aromor and consider heavy armour to be people with sheild and plate?

The Essex figures are more of a 28mm scale than proper 25mm, actually. A lot of the range are quite old -- I have a WoTR army by Essex bought in the early 90s. The figures are "characterful" by modern standards, so you may want to get a few examples before investing heavily, and compare them with the Perry and the Front Line models.

As regards the look of the equipment, the 100 Years' War lasted about 100 years (duh!), so some aspects of equipment and organisation changed during that period. Knights armour changed the most, compared to archers, billmen and hobilars. As mecrovamp said above, early WoTR models would be fine for late 100YW.

Another factor is that during the 100YW armies were in the field for much longer than the WoTR, and no doubt got a lot less "uniform" due to wear and tear. The WoTR armies were largely composed of liveried retinues of major barons, whose troops would probably have looked a lot tidier and brighter due to the short length of campaigns. But that is a style thing.

Thanks for the feedback and comments guys, extremely useful!

Got some of the Perry miniatures and have been having a play around with how the rules work, they are a lot of fun! I love that each combat becomes a tactical challenge for both players. A couple of thoughts on how to translate the setting across to hundred-year war period, any comments would be greatly appreciated!

Disclaimer: Difficult to know exactly when to set this, and what period of the hundred year war, but I've thought around mid 14th century (and the battles of Crecy/Pottiers). Also it's quite possible that bows/crossbows should be much more effective than they are in Ronin, although this has to be weighed against game balance. I thought it best to leave things quite open for the time being.

Unit types: Think this is fairly straightforward, in terms of how levels (in terms of professionalism) of soldiers and their rank translate between Tokugawa Japan and HYW (Hundred year war)

Rank / Japan / HYW
1. Peasant = Peasant
1. Ashigaru = Light infantry/Brigan/Levy
2. Ashigaru-Gashira = Billman/Yeoman (not completely sure about name - rules wise these guys are slightly better soldiers than rank 1, to represent a more 'professional' soldier, and have access to slightly better equipment)
3. Samurai = Man at Arms
4. Hatamoto (leader) = Knight/nobleman (slightly better ability than man at arms, options for special skills/equipment & foot/mounted etc.)
5 Bushou (lord) = Lord/noble

Weapons.
As Carlos13th has said, these are mostly explanatory (in the cases of dagger, knife etc.)
Other variations I can think of, and where weapons can be grouped together:
2H axe, Poleaxe, 2H mace/club, lucerne hammer: -1 Initiative / +1 attack roll, (slower but damaging)
Bardiche/Halberd: +1 initiative (-1 after first round) / +1 attack roll
Spear: +2 initiative (-1 after first round) / +1 attack if mounted
Pike/lance: +3 initiative (-2 after first round). / +2 attack if mounted
Crossbow: As rules for Teppo (musket) in Ronin?

Shields
Been thinking about how to implement these, as obviously they are much more of a feature of European combat.
Options I've thought of so far:
1) Just +1 to armour
2) A 'parry' ability. Shield holder can force attacker to re-roll one attack dice, but must accept re-roll. Must decide re-roll before defence dice are rolled, (meaning that defender has to choose whether an attack is going to be deadly or not)

Armour
This one again illustrates a difference. Western chain and plate mail as worn by professional soldiery (the Men at Arms) would have offered more protection than that worn by a Samurai.
Different options I've thought of how to do this:
1) Keep the same (going on the reasoning that weapons generally evolve to be able to beat the armour they are being used against)
2) Add +1 armour for 'heavy', or make a new category 'heavy/plate'. This would then make an armour table of
0 = 'skyclad'/in hands of God
1= light (hardened leather)
2 = medium (studded leather, some chain/hardened leather, helmet/shoulder added protection)
3 = heavy (Chainmail, some plate and plate helm - kettle helmet/conical/spangenhelm etc.)
4 = heavy/plate (mostly encased plate with chainmail underlay, enclosed helmet - bascinet etc.)
However heavy/plate should perhaps impose an encumbrance penalty. I've read various bits and pieces about it, and it seems current thoughts are that (for the HYW period at least) that a lot of the guys fighting were as tough as nails, and could fight much more effectively than we might expect a 'modern' person to be able to. However, if you're talking 40-50kg for armour that has to slow you down. Possibly, model may not 'run'? Alternative would be to reduce move from 6" to 5" and also remove 'run'?

Special Rules
'Disarm' can stay the same I think.
The Samurai special ability 'collect head' I don't think is really fitting for HYW period. What about a 'capture'? This would fit with the historical setting, where a big potential income for men at arms was capturing their counterparts, and then ransoming them back. Also, the kind of skirmishing/raid type battle that is taking place in this HYB skirmish-level game. Would also fit that men at arms will only try and capture high-ranking enemies, poor farmer Muggins in his pig-skin hat probably isn't going to be afforded that luxury..

Other
There are other elements of rules that could be translated (in terms of faction) but right now I've just lumped everything in to one list. Of course there is room there for other bits to be introduced for specific areas.

Any thoughts on this, or if anyone has anything else they think they would add, would be extremely grateful for any input!

The cross bow having the same rules as the Teppo would be pretty ideal tbh. A big flaw with the crossbow was that it took a while to reload. Same thing with the Teppo/musket.

In terms of armour I would keep them the same if at all possible and just make the assumption that the weapons do the same kind of damage. The less you mess with the rules the less you will mess with the balance of the game. If you start giving everyone extra armour you will find people much harder to kill.

The capture prisoner instead of collect head would work well. As you said a peasant would be worthless as a randsom but a lord would be worth a lot.

 carlos13th wrote:
The cross bow having the same rules as the Teppo would be pretty ideal tbh. A big flaw with the crossbow was that it took a while to reload. Same thing with the Teppo/musket.

In terms of armour I would keep them the same if at all possible and just make the assumption that the weapons do the same kind of damage. The less you mess with the rules the less you will mess with the balance of the game. If you start giving everyone extra armour you will find people much harder to kill.

The capture prisoner instead of collect head would work well. As you said a peasant would be worthless as a randsom but a lord would be worth a lot.

I don't have the Ronin rules, but from what I can gather of looking at information online, crossbow = teppo would be pretty reasonable. Crossbows were known for their armor penetrative ability, slow reload, and ease of use.

I've been on a very slow Saga build, and I've been thinking of looking a Ronin as a way to represent some Dark Age or even classical small scale skirmish so that I could play with much fewer minis and get going.

Dane Axes or similar in place of Nagniata
Swords/Maces/Axes in place of Katana
Bow = Bow/Yuri
Spear = Yari (dur, really spear = spear)

Keep armor similar: Chain/shield as heavy and on down

I'm not even looking at adding rules for shields and the like, just a straight up cross over in terms of models. Something to run Saxons vs Romano British, or Vikings vs Saxons, or Normans vs Vikings, or any mix of those.

In a similar fashion, could you adapt it for Greek/Roman/similar warfare?

I'd struggle with the Teppo (although a few early armies had the 'bellybow' or early form of the crossbow, such as Alexander), but could just leave that out of classical games.

I've heard there are different lists in the game to represent different factions, any word on this?

Could just do a sheild as Heavy Armour, no shield but mail as medium and no armour as no armour

Think that looks just about right Maniac_nmt. My only concern of representing Dark Ages combat is that it won't let you use a 'shield wall', something which would have featured if you had any significant number of units. Maybe come up with some extra rule for if shielded guys are stood in a line together?

Yes there are different factions in the Ronin book.. standard 'Buntai' (mix of leading Samurai and Ashigaru), peasant forces, Ronin & bandits, warrior monks, even Chinese and Korean etc. The rules seem pretty flexible though, I'm sure you could adapt it quite easily.

There are a bunch of resources on the Osprey site which are pretty useful
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/articles/osprey_wargames_resources

Are you playing with enough models that a shield wall would matter? Most sites seem to imply that 5-8 models is the normal battle size, which would be to small for a shield wall to matter.

I will have to pick a copy up after all and look through it.

Considering that in multiple participent battles you are meant to split models off into sensible pairs when possible I dont think that a sheild wall type of rule will work.

Most games of ronin tend to have between 5-12 models I think. Depending on what buntai you are using.

Yes, that's very true actually! Scrap the shield wall idea (or at least wait until you are playing with enough miniatures for SAGA, and can make a shield wall that way! )

I still think it would be nice to have some special ability conveyed by a shield. I wrote this as an idea for a shield effect above. Having had a couple of quick games I don't think it would slow it down too much, and might make an interesting mechanic.

Parry ability. Shield holder can force attacker to re-roll one attack dice, but must accept re-roll. Must decide re-roll before defence dice are rolled, (meaning that defender has to choose whether an attack is going to be deadly or not)

That could work. As long as the points value of a shield is appropriate to reflect that ability.