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I've pretty much finished collecting my 40k and WFB armies and wanted to start into playing some historicals. I am interested in the ancients time period, and the English Civil War. That being said I have a few questions that I thought Dakka may be able to answer.

What rulesets are most commonly used?
Which are the best, and why?
Are there forums for historical gamers?
Any players (or stores) in the South San Francisco Bay Area?

Thanks in advance.

Welcome to historical wargaming, theHandofGork.

I'm personally not into Ancients/ECW (yet), so you may want to take my answers with a grain of salt.

1. What rulesets are most commonly used?
As far as I know, the most common and "traditional" rules for Ancients is DBA (De Bellis Antiquitatis).
Wikipedia Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bellis_Antiquitatis

However, WAB (Warhammer Ancient Battles, published by GW) seems to be gaining quite a lot of followers recently. Since you're coming from a GW background, this may be a more comfortable option for you.

2. Which are the best, and why?
I don't think I'm qualified enough to answer this question. I'll skip this one.

3. Are there forums for historical gamers?
You bet! TMP (The Miniatures Page) has an excellent forum, which IMHO is the best there is for all historical wargaming.
Link: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/

Any players (or stores) in the South San Francisco Bay Area?
I don't live in the States, so I'll have to skip this one too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, I forgot to add FOG (Field of Glory). This seems to be an up-and-coming ruleset that covers Ancients and Medieval warfare, published by Osprey.
Official Link: http://www.fieldofglory.com

From what I hear, quite a number of gaming clubs are switching from DBA to FOG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
With regard to question #2 (Which are the best, and why?), I've managed to find pretty comprehensive reviews for both DBA and FOG.

Review of DBA: http://www.deepfriedhappymice.com/html/rd_dba.html

Review of FOG: http://www.deepfriedhappymice.com/html/rd_field_of_glory.html

As for WAB, I think you'll already be aware of its strengths and weaknesses, as it is essentially a tweaked version of WHFB 5th Edition, with all magic-related stuff removed.

In any case, I believe the TMP boards will be your friend if you're going into historical wargaming.

Cheers!

theHandofGork wrote:Which are the best, and why?

No such animal. Maybe if you give an idea of what you were looking for in a rules set I could give some direction.

Do you want simplistic, abstracted, detailed, beer & pretzels?

theHandofGork wrote:Are there forums for historical gamers?

TMP is great!


Not sure about ECW, but ancients I could give some input on.

Interrogator-Chaplain Severus

Field of Glory has beta rules for English Civil War era. IIRC they are Field of Glory Renaissance. Played them last weekend. They were awesome.

The pistolier cav units make the game play in a unique, interesting way compared to the regular FoG ruleset.

The Pike and Musket units feel different. And are kinda neat.

My fave historicals are Field of Glory. I have tried others, but they feel too clunky.

I prefer smooth playing games that can finish in 2-3 hours. Like Flames of War.

There is a set of WH ECW.