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So I play Flames of War, but I'm looking to start bleeding over into other eras of history and I'm wondering what the 'safest' era would be to buy?

Napoleonic? 100 years war? US Civil War?

How do you more experienced historical gamers decide what army you're going to buy? Do you just pick an era and build two armies from the opposing forces so you can just grab someone to play against?

If there is a historical group near you that you'd like to play with find out what periods they're into and see if that appeals to you.

If you want to play with friends who will be making their own armies talk it over and find a historical time period you all have an interest in.

If neither of the above pick your favourite time period and make two armies. Or find some miniatures that interest you and then learn about that period of time. that's always a good one as well. I had no idea about the war of the roses, at all, but after the perry's started releasing those amazing boxes...

The two most popular eras are probably Napoleonic and Ancients/Mediaeval. A&M can be subdivided into periods such as biblical, Greco-Persian wars, Imperial Rome, and so on.

These are both available in numerous rule-sets and scales ranging from skirmish to (in Napoleonics) battles up to 500,000 men.

Ancients & Mediaeval is also very widely played as a competition genre.

There are various reasons why you might pick one of these, but many other periods offer their own attractions, so maybe you can think about what might appeal, like uniforms, mass battles, classical history or what-not, and give us some idea about that and we could make a better recommendation.

usually I go from one extreme to another. For example I had been building up 2 WW2 Eastern front armies using the Rapid Fire rules for about a year, once this project was finished I then decided I had grown bored of tanks/guns and so built a DBA Achean army, using Homers epics for information on the troop types present at the mystical 10 years Trojan Wars. I then felt I needed some guns again and my friend introduced me to a ruleset called Forlorn hope, so using that set I began to play the English Civil War

@Wana10, the Perry Brothers also got me into gaming the Wars of the roses, as well as the American Civil War.

To be honest my advice would be find a period you think you like to model. if you do not like painting masses of figures all different colours, medieval is not for you. If you enjoy a period where one side is a uniformed, army the other a ragamuffin mob, try the Boer Wars or the Romans in France or Britain.

See what historical fiction or films you enjoy and take inspiration from that, I began collecting Napoleonics because of Sharpe and Hornblower, and The Chinese Civil War because of the film assembly, It's always good to have somebody to play against, if not build 2 smaller armies that were opponents, you can usually persuade a sci fant gamer to give it a go, you never know you may have a recruit!

Hope I've helped!

The best approach for historicals is to take complete ownership of the project and don't rely on existing player bases or hoping you'll stumble across people who are also interested in the same period. Plan on making an army for each side and hosting/putting on games as a gaming event that people can participate in.

With this approach, you can go with what interests you and if you do even a reasonable job on your miniatures, pick an easy and fun rules set and do participation games at local clubs, stores and conventions, you'll get interest.

My new pet project is early bronze age in the middle east. Individual city states fighting for farm land, water and other resources. There will also be Martu/Amorite raiders and the like.

Unless you've got someone who is serious about playing a period with you, pick whichever one appeals. Pretty much what's already been said. It might even be smart to try skirmish games in a period to test the flavor before going in full, though some periods (Napoleonics especially) base almost the entire feel of the period around big blocks of troops. Find what interests you.

If you build a matched pair of armies it goes without saying that you want to use rules that need smaller armies, such as DBA, and probably go for 15mm or 6mm, otherwise the expense and sheer amount of painting will overwhelm you.

Since you are American, you might want to look into American Civil War. We are in the middle of the 150th anniversary at the moment, so there should be more interest around.

There are active threads in this forum discussing Napoleonics and 15mm ACW.

ACW wargaming is going through a bit of a golden age right now. Probably fueled by excellent 28mm plastic miniatures that entered the market a few years back.

http://www.thewarstore.com/PerryBros28mmAmericanCivilWar.html

Don't be afraid to do the scale you want. You know from doing Flames of War what painting 15mm is all about. One thing you may want to try to avoid is any "full sized army" idea. For example, if someone got into Flames of War and thought that they need a "full sized army" to truly play the game, they might miss out on some fun 500 point games.

If you take the popular rules set "Black Powder" and look up some scenarios and whatnot to find out what a full sized ACW game is, you might find the figure count to be exceedingly high. Waiting to get that all done might delay things a long while. Especially if you decide to do one force and then the other. "I only have another 100 Confederates to paint and then I'll start my Union!" When the person could have just painted up a box of Confederates and a box of Union miniatures and started getting things on the table.

Its easy...

Just choose whatever period of history interests you the most.

Cool. Just dabbling into the information right now, and it is unreal how many different rule sets are out there!

My main focus in history is more Ancient Greece, so particularly them I suppose. It may be fun to try out an Athenian Army against Sparta and her allies prior to the first Persian invasion. What would a good ruleset be for that, and do you guys have recommendations on the miniatures?

If you want to do 28mm, definitley look into Victrix's plastics. If you want 15/18mm, I'd recommend Xyston. For 10mm, you can rarely go wrong with Pendraken. If you want to go with 1:72/20mm plastics, Zvezda makes fantastic figures.

For rules I'd recommend starting off with Basic Impetus. They're free and there's a full version of the game if you ever want to get it.

EDIT: Links:

Basic Impetus: http://www.dadiepiombo.com/basic2.html

Victrix Hoplies: http://www.victrixlimited.com/online_shop/index.php?cPath=59
In the US the War Store carries them but they are currently out of stock

Pendraken 10mm: http://www.pendraken.co.uk/Ancients-c9/Greek-sc24/

Xyston 15mm: http://www.scotiagrendel.com/Xyston/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2_3_6_24
In the US Brookhurst Hobbies out of California carries them: http://www.brookhursthobbies.com/Product-Listing.cfm?C=4&D=1302&N=10&S=&M=XYSTON&SD=GREEK
NOTE: They don't come with spears in hand but they sell packs of very nice wire spears that won't deform

Zvezda: http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=335 and http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=1848 and they have a couple Persian sets as well.
In the US the War Store carries them, and most hobby/model shops should be able to get them in http://www.thewarstore.com/ZVEZDAPlastics.html
NOTE: 1/72 plastics require a slight adjustment of techniques from hard plastic and metal miniatures as they are made of a more flexible plastic. Let me know if you want more info on that.

godswildcard wrote:
Cool. Just dabbling into the information right now, and it is unreal how many different rule sets are out there!

My main focus in history is more Ancient Greece, so particularly them I suppose. It may be fun to try out an Athenian Army against Sparta and her allies prior to the first Persian invasion. What would a good ruleset be for that, and do you guys have recommendations on the miniatures?

I would recommend DBA, since they are very simple to learn and use, and the standard armies are small. They use a base system, with a number of figures denoting what the figures are, e.g bases with 2 models on are usually cavalry or skirmish troops, while bases with 4 models on them are usually line infantry. The standard army uses a base number of 12, allowing the player customization within their list.

The advantage of the rules allow you to get into a period cheaply with small armies (though the rules cater for a lot of different scales I would recommend 15mm or lower) My Achean army for example has a whole 44 figures in it. Once you have the desired army(s) you can then choose to expand the army to 24 bases or start a new army/period. My 44 figures from Museum miniatures (a company I do not recommend) and Essex miniatures cost about £20.

The rules themselves can be got off Ebay for £2-£5 and so if you don't like them it's not a pocket buster. Version 3 is also due out soon.

The downside is they are simplistic, but they cover pretty much from the early Egyptian wars up to the latter end of the 15th century and thanks to the small scale of the armies you can play a decent sized engagement on a 2' by 2' board within a decent amount of time (unless like me and my fellow DBA players, most of the game is spent yakking about nonsense!)

For miniatures I would recommend Lancashire games, Essex miniatures (Bit flat though) Peter pig, Irregular miniatures Donnington miniatures (bit dated though) just type 15mm Spartan into google and see what comes up.

Hope that helps

You'll be painting a lot of 'em, so pick figures you want to paint.

If you do go with DBA, I'd highly, highly recommend reading the Unofficial Guide to DBA before you read the actual rules. DBA is one of the few rulebooks in miniature gaming where reading it will help you understand the game less. It's very precise and the author means exactly what is said, but it completely and totally sacrifices communication to actual people in favor of precision and brevity.

http://www.wadbag.com/DBAGuide/

i agree with frozenwastes . pick a period you really like and do it all your self . do not rely on others , or you will never reach your goal . i startedwith 28mm napoleonics . now im doing ACW . lot of work , but a lot of pay off . im currently using black powder , due to its simplicity . easier for other players to jump in and start leading minatures on the table top . i also do the zulu wars . fun stuff . welcome aboard the historical train ..


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Inspirational stuff MattRender!

Are the wheat fields made from some sort of carpet or welcome mat?

Black Powder by Warlord games is a solid rule set with a good number of players world wide when picking a rule set I often ask myself how many people would be across the table from me??? BP has a high count in the way FOW does finding a FOW game is as easy as finding a 40K game Battlefront as done a amazing job of promoting ww2 gaming. Black Powder its easy to follow & understand rule set, the current 28mm plastic kits are making the era of black powder a easier genre to game in from both a player base stand point and variety of models/ nations available. Another thing to consider is warlord is a company who's planning to be around and support the player/fan base and is working with retailer and gaming conventions across the globe. if that matters to you its just something to think about

DBA is a solid rule set but I found finding players can be a little tricky and is not a game supported by a ton of stores, it really excels in the gaming club format as a comparison and is darn cheap to play all depends on what you want and what you have around you for a fan base.




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Try this yahoo group too we all a friendly bunch
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BlackpowderNE/


Founded to energize and organize the Tabletop Gaming & Reenactor groups, people with an interest in the history of the wars of the 18th and early 19th Century. Our primary goal is to support Gaming related events throughout the Northeastern USA, and coordinate group activities, play games,and make some friends! Our goal is helping to connect players for games and events. Check this site for news and info. If you’re a player sign up to find opponents & places to play