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I'm looking for a decent ancient battles system. I want to collect an army of either Ancient Gauls or Irishmen. What's a good bet?

If you're interested in a slightly later period, the Dark Ages, I'd advise Dux Bellorum. At the moment I'm building three armies for it, Saxons, Vikings and Irish. The rules are cheap, about twelve pounds sterling, and there'll be no follow on books to buy. One advantage of it is that you can build an army quickly, with around forty models per side. If you add a few more bases to an army you could use it with the (free) Basic Impetus rules, add a good few more and you can use them for Hail Caesar. Hail Caesar is my favourite rule system, but the armies required are very, very big, so starting from scratch could mean it's a long time before you get a game in.

If you are looking for a more competition based system along the lines of what GW and Warhammer Historical used to offer then I would recommend War and Conquest by Scarab Miniatures.
The rules are £28 (£25) from them direct at a show and unlike a lot of systems the army lists are completely free online. Currently they claim that 300 lists have been produced for a variety of different periods as well as a Napoleonic and Seven Years Expansion.

How big is very, very big for Hail Casear?

Another good option for something abit different than your normal standard war game is Gripping Beasts Saga game, based around the dark ages. (If that interests you)

Not to expensive to get into as you only need a handful of miniatures to really get started, although the dice are over the top expensive(although it's easy to make your own)

SAGA looks very interesting and fun.

For all the games you guys mentioned am I able to use any miniatures for the games and am I able to easily expand my army?

For saga as long as they are 25/28mm size you can use any of the dark age armies using whatever miniatures you choose. For my armies I've got a mixture of Gripping beast figures, Warlord figures and a few others. There's no rule saying you've got to use a certain companies figures.

It can't be too profitable for a company to produce these games then - most of the wargaming company's revenue comes from the sale of miniatures instead of rules. Seems odd . . .

I would use fields of glory, as the rules allow you to fight from biblical all the way through to the wars of the roses

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
How big is very, very big for Hail Casear?

Ideally you'd need at least nine units per army. It can be done with fewer, but the rules aim at that size. A unit would want, in 28mm, at least twelve or so miniatures. It can be done with smaller groups, but it's a game designed for big forces, with lots of bodies on the field. Lovely rules, they play wonderfully, and perfect for people who already have a lot of toys. But if you're starting from scratch and trying to build two forces so you can drag someone else in for a game, well, it won't be scheduled for next week.

The games of HC we play use about 250+ 28mm figures per side. But that's based on infantry in 8x3 units and cav in 6x2 units. The game is all unit based - you could easily play with half sized units each a single rank & cut your figure requirements down to a handful.

I recomend Hail Ceaser, it takes some time to build a army but its worth it. Great game

I also play Hail Ceaser but I play in 15mm. Love it to death great game and it's quick to learn but time & work to master (everything a good game should be lol). If you go with 15mm check out www.Warweb.com under old glory. They also carry your 25-28mm stuff to. Another good one is www.thewarstore.com they have a ton of 28mm ancients as well.

An idea for HC is to go with 20mm metals or plastics .i got a macedonian and a rep,rome army from newlinedesigns ,they do army deals that work out pretty good i think it was about £60 for my macedoians .even cheaper if you wanted to go with 20mm plastics which arent all as naff as you may first think .so the price of the rule book plus say £60ish on a army and your foots well in the door for under £100 .id bring the movment back in line with pike and shotte giving them 6" ,i think that works best in pike and shotte which iv played a fair few games of now .we use WAB for our ancients games or anything up til P&S after that WAB kinda falls apart.sadly you can no longer get the rules unless your willing to pay over the odds online.and when we play 20mm using those rules esp for ancients we make bows short bows bringing them in line with slings and the cav base is 20x40mm thats it .


i think saga is a great way into historicals for people new to that side of wargaming .gripping beast do some very cool figs and have starter armies for the main factions .the historical wargames podcast did a recent show all about saga maybe you should check that out and see if it sounds like your kinda thing .my advice to new gamers would be start with saga esp now lists are coming out .build up your warband and have fun with your m8s doing it ,then shop around for a set of rules which suit you and your friends style of play .theres are some very good rules out right now but they are aimed at different types of gamers .again you could check out that historical wargames podcast lol and yes that is its name .so give saga and gripping beast a look .oh meeples and minatures is another podcast which covered it and may well have an interview with one of the guys over there .

Not BIG on HC... as I like to play points games as well, and they are REALLY meant for large games.

Field of Glory, Impetvs, or DBMM is the way to go if you really like a detailed game that is fun as well. They do NOT play like WAB though... figures are mounted on the common WRG method for the most part.

I am changing over to 28mm gaming myself, and am looking more towards the Clash of Empires rules, and War & Conquest (both more like the old WAB rules). These rules are FUN, but play in a different style to the above rules.

Well the model count problem in HC can be solved by halving the unit sizes. So the standard unit of 16 becomes 8 for example.

I've just started looking into Ancients as well for something different to play and was wondering if Clash of Empires (Great Escape Games) is any good as the second expansion is the time line I was looking into playing.

Also whats the best minis to get after playing other wargames and being mainly a painter its quite important to me. So far from what I've found on the web Warloard Games looks to have the best, maybe with some extras from Red Box Games where I can fit them in.

You've got three good choices for Ancients/Mediaevals -- 6mm, 15mm and 25/28mm.

Clearly the large scale gives you the most scope for detailed painting and flags, etc.

6mm can look very nice as an "en masse" presentation using the base size for 25mm and many more figures. (There is even a 2mm scale which is super 'masse' but not widely played.)

15mm is a good compromise between space/cost and detail.

10mm and 1/72 scale are also worth looking at for cheapness.

If you go for 25/28mm I should look at Perry Bros and Wargames Foundry as well as Warlord.

Essex Miniatures have a very large range though rather old fashioned.

There are various other manufacturers if you look around the Web.

Hey, KK - FoG just came out with their v2 set of ancient rules. Does it improve upon the first version and worth picking up?

I have not seen it yet, but I will have to pick up a copy. I hope the army lists are not invalidated as I have four or five of those books.

I've just ordered Hail Caesar. Will I need the army list books as well, or are there lists in the main manual?

There are no lists in the main book, which isn't a problem since it's fairly simple to organise to fair and balanced opposing sides from the book.

Originally Hail Ceaser was never going to have army lists and it was going to be entirely gentleman's agreement.

Saga is brilliant if you are interested in a Skirmish style game. I hope GB expand it to other periods.

Afraid I can't help you for a big battle type games as I've not played one since WAB folded.

 LuciusAR wrote:
Saga is brilliant if you are interested in a Skirmish style game. I hope GB expand it to other periods.

Arent there fan rules for other periods? I cant remember, maybe I'm mixing it up with Kings of War Historicals

I have also taken the plunge on the Hail Caesar book due to the current 1/3 reduction onthe Warlord site (got the classical supplement as well, and Black Powder).

Looking forward to finally using my Romans as Romans! (they're usually Mantic Twilight Kin)

Ah didn't realise they were on offer, thanks very much for the pointer!

I picked up the Hail Caesar book recently (Damn you, HBO's Rome!) and flipped through it some yesterday. Very straight forward rules, from what I can see. I don't know if I'll actually make an army or not, I was just curious about it and Amazon had it for a good discount.

If I were to play, I'd probably get that starter set they recently came out with.

Ah you mean the one with the Gauls and Romans? yes that does look like a good deal, although do the Gauls have any unit beyond 'screaming semi-naked barbarian?' I can see them being a hard-sell to get someone to play compared to the Romans

I love Celtic history, I love Celtic mythology, I love Celtic culture, I love the Celtic religion, I love the way they thought - I love the Celts.

That's why I'd do Gauls.

And there's nothing stopping you from buying a unit of tougher squads or some archers to balance the two armies. Not that I know much about Hail Caesar game balance yet.

The models for both factions in the starter set do look good, though. Not a bad place to start at all, I think.