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I am talking with my brother about dabbling in historical wargaming to supplement our Warmachine games and have been looking around at some candidates and figures (I'm really tempted by the 1/72 scale cheap plastics from Caesar and HaT, but 15mm also looks good albeit slightly more expensive). He and I would only play versus each other, likely in some kind of rudimentary linked campaign with several battles, although details on this haven't been formed yet. We are likely to do Rome vs. Carthage, or possibly Egypt vs. Hittites which is something else we discussed.

I am in particular looking for a set of rules that meets the following criteria:

1) Not overly complicated to learn
2) Encourages/allows for tactics
3) Allows for army building to represent different types of force disposition
4) Can be played on a smaller table (maximum of 4x4)
5) Games take around 2 hours or less to play

Bonus: Has some way to differentiate the commander for narrative purposes

is there anything that meets that criteria? I have looked at DBA but that doesn't meet #3 as you always have roughly the same 12 elements, so it seems like campaign would get fairly boring since it's basically the same armies facing each other over and over again with only terrain layout changing, but otherwise I really like the quickness and overall cheapness of DBA.

EDIT: To clarify I mean an actual armies-based game, not a skirmish type game between warbands. We want to fight out the Punic Wars or the Battle of Qadesh, for example.

Have you looked into Saga from grippng beast?
It is not ancients but Dark Ages
Quick to learn, fun to play not bogged down by rules and yet still tactically challenging.

Check out www.grippingbeast.com and the main US supplier is at www.architectsofwar.com and go to their historical section to check out game. I highly recommend it.

Also check out Viv in Australia on youtube with his handle Knights of Dice for gameplay examples and rules breakdown. Really informative stuff.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mkEfcCSOlB8

Also warlord games has ancients at 28mm scale and has rules but I haven't played their games yet. Best of luck in your search.

Cheers!

Yes, I secon SAGA, or if you want a larger battles game, maybe Hail Cesar

Archon Timatron wrote:
Yes, I secon SAGA, or if you want a larger battles game, maybe Hail Cesar

Yeah I specificially meant an actual battle game, not a skirmish like SAGA. I'll look at Hail Caesar but I thought that was intended to be played on a Warhammer-sized board (i.e. 6x4)

Most larger scale games, such as DBMM or Field of Glory, give you more flexibility in troop choice than but it comes at the expense of a larger army with more figures requiring a bigger table, compared to DBA.

The way around this is to play using 6mm or even 2mm models and make all the base sizes and the distances smaller.

Clash of Empires is good, as is everything mentioned above.

If you want to play larger battles Mantic's Kings of War works well. There are a number of unofficial historical lists for it.

Here is a site with some good lists.

http://www.hourofwolves.org/?view=articles&which=KingsOfWarHistoricalAncientCombat

I agree on Kings of War. It's simple and pretty flexible and has, as said, plenty of fan lists available. They would be good starter rules for getting into historicals, being free and all.

When it comes historicals the rules are secondary, really. Agree on the period, get the minis that you like and then you'll have plenty of rule sets to try out.

WayneTheGame wrote:

Archon Timatron wrote:
Yes, I secon SAGA, or if you want a larger battles game, maybe Hail Cesar

Yeah I specificially meant an actual battle game, not a skirmish like SAGA. I'll look at Hail Caesar but I thought that was intended to be played on a Warhammer-sized board (i.e. 6x4)

It's also intended to be played with 28mm models, so if you're going with a smaller scale you can also reduce measurements, and the table size.

Something about Ancients is that there are any number of army books that have been published over the years and they don't vary an awful lot from one to the next because no-one ever discovers for example that the Romans didn't have legions or whatever. So, if you get some of the old list books you can look up lots of different armies and convert them into the rules you want to play.

Have a look at Swords and Spears. Played a few games recently and really enjoyed it.

http://polkovnik.moonfruit.com/sword-spear/4583102656

Sword and Spear is really good. I'd recommend that for sure.

Another one I'd recommend is adapting Dux Bellorum by Osprey Wargames to other eras. For example, Ancient Sumeria:

http://sumer2sargon.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/warrior-kings-rules.html

War of the Roses:

http://scyldandseax.blogspot.ca/p/dux-britanniarum-in-15th-century.html

I have actually bought the Sword and Spear rules, haven't looked at it a lot yet. I really do like how you can build your own army, makes the idea of campaigns a little less boring than using roughly the same 12 elements every game. Plus the rules seemed relatively straightforward and I liked the Bolt Action-esque "action dice" mechanic.

Sword & Spear reviews:

https://meeples.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/sword-spear-the-holy-grail-of-ancients-rules/

http://nickthelemming.wordpress.com/2014/08/06/sword-and-spear-a-review/

http://woodrowswarstore.blogspot.ca/2014/08/a-review-of-sword-spear-wargames-rules.html

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=354231

http://ytg.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=160:swspreview&catid=50:historical&Itemid=74

Did they all get free rulebooks?

It's entirely possible.

From the author's website wrote: ******************Get a free hard copy********************

If you have purchased the pdf and write a full and detailed review* of Sword and Spear and post it online, on a blog or on a wargames website such as TMP, I will send you a free hard copy of the rules. You will just have to pay the postage.



*To qualify you must have played before reviewing and the review must be of a decent length, say 1000+ words.

Although I really do like this policy:

If you purchase the hard copy I will also send you the pdf. If you have already purchased the pdf and then you purchase the hard copy, I will refund you the payment for the pdf.

Both policies are very impressive. I wonder if they accept non-English reviews for non-English sites.

Very possible that you may want to use smaller scaled figures to play Commands & Colors: Ancients. It can be played on hexes on a tabletop like these fellas:

http://ponatowskislegion.blogspot.com/2012/09/command-colors-ancients-in-miniature.html

Game and its expansions come with pre-made historical refights and orders of battle tailor made to those fights. Plenty of fan made stuff out there and you could tailor things as you wanted for general fights/historical matches you wanted to do.

Just a thought.

C&C: Ancients is a great way to go. Rules PDF here if people are interested in checking it out:

http://www.gmtgames.com/living_rules/CC_Rules_2009.pdf

Aesop the God Awful wrote:Both policies are very impressive. I wonder if they accept non-English reviews for non-English sites.

Couldn't hurt to ask. And if you have issues, you could always post it here in English. Dakka isn't a small community.

L'art de la Guerre, now also available in English might be the way to go. I did not try it yet but only heard good stuff abut it. It seems to take elements of FG and DBX, while being resolved in 2h. ne nly needs about half a FoG 800 points force or some more elements than the usual DBA army. It costs 34 Euro, hardcover, and contains all army lists.

http://www.artdelaguerre.fr/en/index.php

That looks rather interesting.

Shiny.

S&S's combat looks interesting (despite descriptions, I think I might like it better than Saga and BA's systems) bit I could certainly go for the simplicity of L'Art de la Geurre's take on it too. Other than that, they look fairly similar. Is anyone in a position to clarify any further differences between them?

Not me.

The only thing I can add is that there are a lot of games that use the same base size as DBA (originally WRG Ancients) so if you base your figures for any one of them they will be compatible with all the others.