This section covers 20th century and slightly beyond.
This section covers 20th century and slightly beyond.
Major supplements owned for each game are also listed.
Another one of Osprey's budget rulebooks, this time a derivative of the Song system. Haven't really read these yet.
Talk about hard classification, these rules cover everything from fantasy to sci-fi, from small skirmish to big vehicles. You can build pretty much anything you want and have a game. Just don't expect too much realism out of it.
Peter Pig's modern Africa ruleset. Designed for 15mm armies. The second edition has better production values than most PP rules. Way better.
I read these and they seem workable though I do wonder about the infatuation with the 2d6 vs. 1d6 mechanic. I'll need to paint up a couple of sample armies and try these out.
Tank war in the desert by Daniel Mersey. I need to take a closer look at this.
A pulp era role-playing game that spends a whole lot of effort denying that it's really a RPG. I guess it can be played as sort of RPG-lite/skirmish game, but it really requires the adventure to be any fun.
Osprey's WWI fantasyu crossover game. Interesting premise, but requires as lot of painting since I don't have WWI armies ready. Let's see...
WWII skirmish ruleset. I read through it, but it was much too detailed for the level of game I was looking for. Might work with a handful of figures (every figure has separate dynamic hit points). I was looking to put basically all of my roughly one hundred russians on the table and I definitely do not want track individual wound levels for them.
They were on sale, what can I say?
Actually, these rules are an evolution (no pun intended, by me at least) of the Starship Troopers game. They seem pretty fun in a simple beer and pretzels kind of way. I think I'm going to try them out at some point.
Osprey's modern skirmish rules. I didn't like the idea of marking facing on my models, so I did not play these.
The original modern adaptation of the Warmaster rules. I bought these because I liked the Cold War Commander variant and because I was looking for different rules for my FoW troops.
Later I got the new 4th edition rules.
Warlord's super popular WWII rules set. I've been playing this quite a lot lately. Not my favorite, but it kinda works.
Modern variant of Blitzkrieg Commander. Large scale battles, I've played a couple of games and these seem to be pretty fun. The rules take a little adjusting to and they could be clearer in places, but on the whole a pretty good set. Relatively abstract, definitely not for rivet-counters.
Yes, I said PDF rules don't count for now, but I actually got a print-on-demand copy from Lulu.
These rules are pure brilliance! Just don't muck them up with vehicles. These are for infantry and the occasional off-table artillery barrage. However, you need to understand a few key points about the rules to arrange the scenario correctly. If you fail to do this, you will come out thinking these rules suck like a hoover on steroids. The rules are for WWII, but they are fairly abstract and could be used to play modern firefights easily -- as long as you keep vehicles, air support etc. out of it.
This is actually multi-period, but I'm sticking it here because it's mostly gun combat. It's actually a co-op game with the enemies controlled by the game system.
The 15mm WWII game. I never really played FoW 2nd edition. I bought the rules and started collecting my forces, managed a couple of test games and then they came out with the 3rd edition rules.
For some reason I thought I had to get the latest edition of these. I even bought the ruleset after getting my complimentary mini-rulebook. I've mostly played Vietnam games but I'm starting to think this game has way too many special rules for my tastes.
The basic rules are pretty ok and workable, why does it have to be burdened with tons of special rules?
Ok, I couldn't resist free rules so I picked up the update set. And some North Africa books, maybe I can get a game together now.
Looks like someone had the same thoughts about the game as I did, because this version is significantly streamlined. For now, at least.
This is the modern-ish adaptation of the Song of Blades and Heroes game engine. I like the activation system idea, but I'm not so sure about the rest of it. I bought these because I heard about them in a podcast. They seem to be a little over-detailed, leaning towards RPG-lite more than tabletop game.
What is this? Supplements A-F and then R? Force on Force is a very good modern skirmish game. It's a lot of fun, but it really requires a scenario to play. Very small figure requirements, I don't think this game really scales all that well. Some event card rules are also a bit funky and prone to abuse.
Warhammer takes on trenches! Haven't really read these, but they seem to be related to 40K rules.
Osprey's large format gangster rules. These look pretty okay, actually, but I don't have any gangster minis ready. Probably should get some Copplestone ones, they look great as always.
Peter Pig's Vietnam rules, with their normal production quality. Could we please at least have the cards as downloadable PDF? I already bought the rules and I'd like the play them. This is a very different sort of ruleset, instead of pitched battles it portrays patrol actions. For most of the game the opposition is in hiding and mostly just pops up for ambush. Lots and lots of dice rolling, but not in the buckets of dice sense. Almost anything you do, you have to roll for, including movement.
WWII game in the micro series. Seems to be relatively high level, but I've never really played these.
Quite frankly, I bought these rules because they came with figures and they were on sale. Haven't read them.
I thought this was a scenario book but it's actually a multi-period ruleset.
I thought this was a scenario book but it's actually a multi-period ruleset using hexes.
Rather detailed man-to-man skirmish set. I think it's too detailed for me.
The WWI variant for Command Decision. Never actually played these and given that quite frankly I am not the biggest fan of Command Decision, not very likely to ever play.
Low level WWII fantasy skirmish. Yes, fantasy. Don't let that fool you though, this is a solid fun ruleset. You can easily just ditch all the magic potions and play this as a historical ruleset.
This has probably the highest production values out of all my Peter Pig rules. I really got these to get ideas for a square-based game but they look pretty interesting.
Osprey's new Pulp adceventure rules. Haven't read them yet.
I heard a lot of good things about these rules, but getting them from the states was difficult and I didn't want to get the PDF. Then I located a supplier in UK and promptly bought the whole set.
I read the rules and they seem very good. Simple, clean, no-nonsense. Quite frankly, I like these better than In Her Majesty's Name. Gotta give them a whack soon.
WWII rules. I'll need to take a look at these.
WWII big battles. This game hinges on having accurate maps of the gaming table and even then it can be iffy without an umpire. The rest of the rules are pretty simple. I actually kind of like the idea, but really pulling it off in a game is a totally different matter. We did try these a couple of times.
My main problem with Flames of War was how they constantly kept upping the complexity of the rules with more and more additions and exceptions on top of exceptions. Team Yankee is a simplification and I decided to give it a read at the very least.
I also got two random "army books" that were in stock at my local, they're ridiculously cheap for the quality. And then I got the rest...
I have also listed 'Nam and the new Fate of a Nation games here -- even though they are technically standalone games, they are also very much in this family of games.
Pretty nice boxed game actually.
An earlier incarnation of the WRG WWII rules. Never actually played these.
Essentially Phil Barker's WWII ruleset. Lots of tables. Never actually got around to playing these.
Phil Barker's modern rules. This is pretty recent, it's from 1993. I haven't really read them. Platoon to battalion level it says on the cover.
Osprey's modern horror rules. Maybe I'll run a special with these...
Interwar ruleset. Seems to be modified from A Very British Civil War to cover all interwar conflicts. Haven't really read them, though.
This is actually the CinC reprint of these classic rules from 1975. They're pretty good fast-play rules, but their failing for me was the limited amount of ship stats presented - you were supposed to make up the rest based on your research I guess.
This is also the CinC reprint of these classic rules. The WWI variant was published later and is sometimes a bit illogically called General Quarters 2. It has some minor changes in rules but essentially it's the same game.
There is also General Quarters 3, which I think is a total rewrite of the previous games. I was thinking of getting it, but didn't for some reason. Might have been a price issue.
A small ziploc naval game. It came with counters but obviously could be played with miniatures too. I read them while back, but didn't like them enough to play. My main interest was in WWII, I mostly bought these for completeness.
A small ziploc naval game. It came with counters but obviously could be played with miniatures too. I read them while back, but didn't like them enough to play.
Whew, what a name. I got these rules by Navwar when I was thinking about getting into coastals. Then I didn't and never played these rules. It is a fairly good source for information on the small vessels in any case, this scale stuff usually gets ignored in Jane's and such.
I did something I thought I would never ever do: I got interested in modern naval gaming and got these rules. They actually seem pretty good, so the next step is getting some models and trying them out.
WWI and WWII naval rules. I bought these because they were on sale and battleships were my first love (or was it dinosaurs? pretty much the same thing). Haven't really read them yet, though. I moved the WWI variant here as well even though it is a self-contained game.
Got the combo pack for this at 1/3 price.
These rules were not easy to get. I think I had to order them directly from the author. I tried them a couple of times, I bought a big pile of 1/72 biplane models but in the end the hexes killed it for me. I really really hate hexes.
Air combat rules 1914-1953 it says on the cover. At one point I was looking for dogfighting rules and possibly bought these to look at. Never played them.
Another set of rules with the same name! This one is Peter Pig's WWII dogfight game. I must admit I've never played these. But they're kinda cute: spiral bound dot matrix printout straight from 1987.
Early jet age dogfight rules. Then again, they came out in 1983 and claim to cover up to 1985 so the author must have been in the know about these things. Never actually played them. Yee-haw, phased movement, brings back memories.
WWII dogfight rules. Hex-based, which kills it for me. Oh, and this game only covers Battle of Britain. Not sure if there ever was a sequel.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Copyright 2003-2021 Mikko Kurki-Suonio
Sucks!
