The historical figures inventory covers all pre-20th century rules.
I know this cutoff is pretty arbitrary, but I had to make some choice.
The historical figures inventory covers all pre-20th century rules.
I know this cutoff is pretty arbitrary, but I had to make some choice.
It should be noted that steampunk, alternative history etc. are included here. That is also the reason why there is a section for air warfare rules here.
Major supplements owned for each game are also listed.
Osprey came out with another Napoleonic ruleset. Haven't read these yet.
Chipco's renessaince rules. Older ruleset than FR, has a certain DBA feel. Very simple and elegant (the ruleset has a whopping 12 pages). I never really got around to collecting figures for this period so this ruleset remains unplayed.
Daniel Mersey's Arthurian game. Looks a bit difficult to set up, though.
ACW skirmish rules with optional rules for some other periods. Despite being skirmish, the figure requirements seem to be on the high side, 100+ individually mounted figures per side. I read them long ago but don't really recall all that much about them. Some card-based mechanics.
These rules have an identity crisis. They're supposed to be skirmish rules for small forces, but they have rather strict army composition rules like a mass battle game, e.g. you can't send a cavalry unit to scout alone, they have to take infantry with them.
Not really a big fan of these.
Chipco's medieval ruleset. It shares a lot with FR! and I got these because I like those rules but I've never actually played these.
Phil Barker's ancients-lite game is in my opinion the better game. Sadly, it is also let down by the writing and the basing.
I bought the updated edition.
DBM. I hate the writing, I hate the basing, I hate the millimetrics. Yet this is a ruleset every serious wargamer should have. At the very least the army lists are a very useful reference.
Osprey's three musketeer rules. These are a variant of their Ronin samurai rules, which I did not like at all. I'm having serious doubts whether these can actually handle the subject matter in the style I'm looking for.
Another Victorian sci-fi skirmish ruleset. Looks reasonably fun for a quick game, but I never got around to playing it.
Classic Napoleonic rules. I got this for reference mostly.
Gladiator rules. Much-lauded back in the day, but hard to get in Europe. I bought them when I finally spotted them on sale, but haven't really read. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on campaign play and maintaining your stable of fighters -- don't know how much fun a single duel really is.
The ancients ruleset of the Black Powder family. Similar rules, similar considerations and similar attitudes. Had my first game of this and I'm not really sold on them yet. These rules really need an umpire to work.
Osprey's small format SYW rules. Haven't read these yet.
I bought these for Project T. Haven't played them yet, but I'm planning to. Retaining the Italian abbreviations in the English edition was not a masterstroke in my opinion, though. Element-based.
Colonial Skirmish rules from Chris Peers. Pretty fun, but the rules are a bit ambiguous in places and some of the scenarios seem to lack basic playtesting (like the ones where it is patently impossible to reach the target area in allotted time regardless of enemy action). Did I say some? Actually I meant most of them.
Osprey's new steampunk skirmish game. Looks pretty neat, it's a simple d10 -based system for relatively few figures. There is also a complete build system, so you can stat out your troops pretty freely and calculate their cost instead of being shackled to the pre-defined troop types.
Also refreshingly, it is not a derivative of the Warhammer hit-wound-save -system.
I'm running a mini-campaign with this and the kinks in the system are starting to surface. The activation system grinds to a halt as figure count increases and I'm not entirely sold on the balance of the build system either. But it's still pretty good. Better than the alternatives? Better marketed, definitely, at least.
I've always been interested in the Seven Years' War.
Pirate variant of LotR/LotOW. I haven't actually played these, but I have a feeling the rule mechanics will fit this genre better.
Wild west skirmish. I stopped playing this game when I realized adapting an essentially melee ruleset (LotR) resulted in a game where you run around trying to knife people instead of shooting them.
Chipco's fast-play Napoleonic rules. I think this is their first published ruleset. I got several microscale army sets for this, my thought being to use them on a large chess board or similar.
Osprey's small format medieval rules. These actually look pretty fun and contain some new ideas, but I haven't had the time to play them yet.
Osprey's medieval rules now in hardback. The same rules in a nicer package for all practical purposes.
Sadly, not an original but the 2004 reprint. These rules are actually pretty radical, they're completely diceless for one. If I could just get those spring-loaded cannon from somewhere I'd try these out. I do also have Floor Games, but as it doesn't really have anything in the way of actual rules I don't list it here. Oh, wait, I already mentioned it. Darn...
French and Indian War skirmish rules. I bought them for scenario ideas since they were on sale for next to nothing. Haven't had the chance to read them properly yet. Rather thin booklet.
Osprey's colonial adventure rules. Tried a couple of games, they seem ok.
Quick-play battalion-based Napoleonic rules. I never really played these.
Wargames Illustrated put out a new set for Wars of the Roses. Haven't read it yet.
Chris Peers' pirate rules published by Osprey. I put them here because the main emphasis is on man-to-man action, but they do contain ship-to-ship rules as well. I guess I need to get pirate models at some point...
Osprey's crusader warband rules. Haven't taken a closer look at these yet.
Pike & shot rules from Osprey. Haven't checked them yet.
The pike and shot rules of the Black Powder family. Similar overall feel, but I haven't read these yet.
I ordered this ancients ruleset direct from the author when it was really difficult to find any historical rules over here. He offered to sell me just the file but I insisted on a printed copy, which is why I actually found these rules now some 20 years later. The rules are written for DBx basing, which pretty much killed it for me. Never really played them.
Osprey's new samurai skirmish rules. I tried them but I didn't like them. The combat system relies too much on armor, the system has "obvious best weapon" syndrome and even the author doesn't seem to know how his system is supposed to work (example in WI article contradicts published rules).
I got these because I wanted to play Seven Samurai, but the rules just don't work for unarmored combatants. Whoever gets to strike first wins.
Dark Age skirmish rules. Looks like fun, I painted up a starter set and played a couple of games. It's a very different game and centers very much around the battleboard, which is essentially a force-specific collection of special rules. Now that the number of different factions is going through the roof, so is the number of special rules you have to memorize to stay competetive... I'm feeling my interest in the game wane.
Another classic Napoleonic set I got for reference.
Osprey's Napoleonic monster hunting game. Hmm... is there a pattern here?
The land rules to go with Sky Galleons of Mars / Ironclads and Ether Flyers. They can be played as completely normar colonial rules without any of the fantasy stuff, but they are pretty old school rules.
The Napoleonic variant of the Song of Blades and Heroes engine. I got these because there was a sale on Lulu. It uses quite a lot of space describing Napoleonic army organization, which seems funny for a game that uses maybe a dozen figures per side -- and there is no requirement for them to belong to any sensible unit. Under standard rules, your "army" could easily be a hussar, a dragoon, two grenadiers and a line infantry officer.
The classic colonial rules, at least for Americans. I've played these quite a bit but they are not really to my liking. Relatively high figure requirements. And I really don't think the TSATF mechanics are directly applicable to every other genre as well.
Art Conliffe's been a mixed bag for me. Crossfire was brilliant, Spearhead had some good ideas and then this? What were they smoking? Wearing a straight-jacket feels liberating compared to these rules: your army must be exactly like this, you can only fight these very limited opponents (e.g. the Indians can't even have a civil war, they must always fight Alexander and Alexander only, Romans and Parthians can't fight because the game can't cope with it etc.), you always deploy in a certain way and then pretty much roll forward and roll dice. Complete with bendy spear pictures. Actually, I liked the way skirmishers were handled, but that's really the only positive thing I can say about these rules.
Honestly I got these because they are grid-based. Let's see how they work out..
I got these rules in my previous search for ancients rules. They do have a number of interesting concepts, but after a couple of test games I did not fancy them that much. The rules are element-based and use rosters. They are also built around simultaneous movement, which may cause issues. Combat is very deterministic with dice roll modifying the results only slightly. Units with higher combat strength will grind their lesser opponents to dust almost invariably, but they do take some attrition so the fifth wave of barbarians might actually fight the weary legion on more equal terms. The army lists tend to be on the restrictive side with lots of compulsory elements.
There is also a fantasy variant of these rules, but I didn't get them.
Frank Chadwick's big battle black powder rules. I kinda liked these actually, but actual play was derailed due to figure requirements. Also, it is a roster-based game.
Steampunk skirmish rules. Looks like clean simple fun with rather small figure requirements, but I never actually got around to playing these.
Another of these late replacements for WAB. I had a test game of this and it's pretty ok. Does suffer from some ambiguities and I'm not sure the play balance of the army lists is really up to snuff. But on the plus side all the army lists are free on their web site. No more books to buy. For me, it unfortunately still has the things I don't like about WAB - sensitivity to basing scheme, individual figure removal etc.
Classic old school ancients/medieval rules. Bought these for reference at some point, but barkerese makes it hard to even read them.
The WRG renessaince rules from 1979, not by Phil Barker which makes it instantly much more readable -- still it doesn't mean I've really read them.
Warhammer without the magic and everyone has S3 and T3. The books are beautiful to look and present useful research applied to gaming, but I'm not all that hot about the actual rules. I've played these a few times, but I find the lack of actual battle lines not to my taste. Pretty sensitive to basing, says the guy with the 80mm wide chariots...
Large scale ancients and medieval ruleset. I bought these just before they stopped selling them. Nice-looking books, shame about the rules. Even if they were still supported, I don't think these fit my idea of ancients warfare, starting with the almost complete lack of actual battle lines for one.
The English civil war variant of WAB. I haven't played these as I don't have any figures for the period.
The warmaster historical variant, designed for 10mm mass battles. I thought about getting into it but I really didn't want to start another scale and that was that.
Osprey's ancients game, related to the hoplite one.
Too Fat Lardies cowboy game, derived from their tank duel game What A Tanker. Haven't played it yet, but it looks interesting.
At one point I was looking for galley warfare rules and bought everything I could find. This set by Navwar was one of them. I read it, but didn't like them enough to play. I still haven't found galley rules I really like. The subject is hard to do because it relies so much on who gets to ram.
Dystopian Wars is really a large scale land/air/sea steampunk ruleset, but I put it here because I was most interested in the ships.
I also got the updated set from WarCradle Studios.
Finally a sailing game that doesn't require actual knowledge of sailing! This Osprey rules set looks pretty interesting, I should probably start painting my ships finally...
Age of sail rules. Despite the name they are more for small actions of a few ships, even duels. Sadly, all my sailing ships are still way back in the painting queue, so I haven't gotten around to playing these. I really do want to try them out.
Peter Pig's ACW riverine rules. Played them a couple of times, they're pretty funky. Not sure if I really like the virtual hexes and it's hard to balance the small battles. Never tried the land rules but they do present interesting ideas. Naturally written for a scale pretty much no one else offers.
Essentially ACW riverine rules really even though it does have stats for oceangoing ironclads of other nations. Percentile system, including damage effects. Never played them.
The naval extension of SGoM. Some rules (mostly crew) are abstracted to be able to play with actual naval vessels. The rules are pretty solid and can be played without any of the fanciful stuff, but getting figures for this era can be difficult. And sinking large ships can take a long long time. The campaign rules look pretty fun too, actually, I've been itching to try them out.
Rod Langton's galley rules. Way too detailed for my tastes, never played them.
I've been looking for ancient galley rules that actually work. These look like they could fit the bill. The solution to the basic problem of ramming-based combat is really simple, actually.
Now I really need to paint up stuff to test these...
Rod Langton's age of sail rules. Way too complex for me, especially given I know absolutely nothing about sailing (and these rules don't really waste space explaining either).
Pre-dreadnought naval rules. As I've mentioned, actually finding models of pre-dreads can be pretty hard. Never really played these.
Napoleonic naval rules. Haven't really read these.
Victorian sci-fi aerial warfare. Pretty fun looking small ruleset, I essentially bought these as a lighter alternative to SGoM, but never actually got around to playing them.
Got the combo pack for this at 1/3 price.
Osprey's new flying ships game. I haven't read it yet.
As a long time Barsoom fan, how could I resist flying ships on Mars? I even managed to suppress my disgust of hexes for this game. It's pretty fun and we played it quite a bit back then.
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