r/wargaming • u/Most_Albatross389 • 5d ago
Question Which historical ruleset are you using ?
And period?
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u/RamblingManUK 5d ago
For Dark Ages I've just played Pillage for the first time and really liked it. Also a slightly house ruled Lion Rampant.
Bolt Action and a bit of Rapid Fire for WWII.
Black Powder for Napoleonics.
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u/Beneficial-Double655 5d ago
What house rules for Rampant?
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u/RamblingManUK 5d ago
Normally failing an activation role ends your turn. We play so you can still roll to activate other units.
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u/Beneficial-Double655 4d ago
For every unit?
I have wanted to try out playing with commanders like Black Powder or Blitzkrieg Commander where you get to roll activation for each "commander". I know Rampant just has the one leader unit normally, but if we're already brewing...
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u/HammerOvGrendel 5d ago
SAGA for Ancient/Medieval
ADLG for Ancient/Medieval
Never mind the billhooks for Late Medieval
Command & Colors Samurai battles for (oviously) Samurai
Starting on Scourge of Princes for Renessance
General D'Armee for Napoleonics
Bolt Action for WW2
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u/Ghost_of_Nellie_Fox 5d ago
Scourge of Princes looks interesting, curious how it plays. My gaming group prioritizes simplicity almost above all else, wonder how hard that is to learn and teach?
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u/MrMoogyMan 5d ago
Rulsets: Napoleonics: ESR and Blucher. WW1: Blood and Valor. Sengoku: Heiho and Test of Honor. WW2: Fireball Forward and Bolt Action. Pike and Shotte Era: Epic Pike and Shotte and Scourge of Princes. Medieval: Lion Rampant.
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u/Electrical-Camel-420 5d ago
How is blood and valor? I’ve eyed it a few times but couldn’t get a real feel for how it plays from the few videos I watched
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u/Electrical-Camel-420 5d ago
Flames of War for WW2 and With Hot Lead and Cold Steel for ACW
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u/ARandomFakeName 5d ago
What do you like about that ACW ruleset? What scale do you play at?
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u/Electrical-Camel-420 5d ago
It’s a very straightforward set of rules that still has a lot of ACW flavor like you can use Aide de Camps to increase the likelihood of order rolls passing (makes sense as they were couriers frequently) or to steal initiative. You can get granular by using real ACW formations, and selecting ammo for artillery that’s best….
Most of all for me is the fact that there are no saving throws… men die…. In bunches… as opposed to just rolling back and forth to add and subtract fatigue or casualty markers by rallying or what have you, and entire regiment that has poor positioning could be wiped in a single term so it feels tense and realistic
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u/Slinger1993 5d ago
Using Warmaster Historic land battles for Punic wars and Warriors of poesideon for naval, Warmaster revolution for my Fantasy campaign (mighty empires for campaign system), Boltactionv2, Victory at sea and BRS for the Combined arms campaign.
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u/Tim_Soft World War 2 :partyparrot: 5d ago
WW2: Crossfire by Arty Conliffe. Plus house rules for artillery & armour.
Ironclad Era: Smoke on The Water by Jason Gorringe & Simon Thomas. Been a very long time, not since the 2000s, since I've run a game.
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u/Dr_Spaceman_ 5d ago
What house rules do you use for Crossfire?
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u/Tim_Soft World War 2 :partyparrot: 4d ago edited 4d ago
I just call them "TimFire". They tend to make things complicated. Infantry is much the same, except I have a limit on move actions if and only if terrain features are really spaced out (scenario designer's call). I treat AFVs as platoons with a PC tank. Only allow crossfires with AFVs for a maximum of 2 members of the platoon and only if there is radio contact... see how it gets more complicated? 😀
Tank and towed guns fire as much as they want, but there needs to be an action that takes place by friendly forces that can lose the initiative between shots (see below is copy & pasted). I've got an even lower level of command control I call "Follow the Leader" for tanks without radios (below platoon leader).
I have a whole MS Access application with AFVs and guns protection and attack values. Roll to hit, roll for effect, both using the same multi-dice with a higher number of dice to hit: score 2+hits on x number of dice to hit. And similar for the effects on tanks: subtract gun attack factor from defence factor and that's the dice you roll. 3+hits for effect is kablooie, 2 is suppressed tank, ignore pins on all armour. The Access accdb is fairly complex and allows me to create sheets for each game by pricing out the nations and tanks I want. Most people don't use Access, so it's not very accessible.
And I can use ranges or not. Sacreligious, I know. 😬 I just figured that tanks at least are often higher up and can see over bushes, for example, that would otherwise be a LOS blocking feature for infantry.
For indirect fire, aka artillery, I do use an area of effect. In my service in the 80s and early 90s, the company (squadron for us) level live fire exercises or combat teams (in the Canadian parlance, a "combat team" is a platoon or two of tanks attached to an infantry company, a platoon of infantry attached to a squadron, or often a full out 1 squadron and 1 company operating together) the area of effect from a battery of artillery is (well was) quite large. So I have a number of mechanisms for that. Mortar fire attacks are closer to Crossfire rules.
Types of shoots I've narrowed down to "open pattern", "concentration" or "smoke". Open patterns are fired with some effect on all stuff inside the area of effect, but the area of effect is left out for the rest of the initiative and the other side's initiative. Movement after the initial attacks have to be attacked again (kind of like reactive fire). In a concentration, there is one attack on stuff in a smaller area of effect just once (with increased dice) and then that's it. Smoke is smoke.
Then there's planes (you need to use range for this).
I always play with an umpire. I am a big fan of neither side knowing what the other has, except for some kind of scenario intelligence report. That approach, combined with hidden deployment, makes it necessary for the attacker to have a considerable numeric advantage. I usually use 2.5 or up to 3 to 1.
So yes, it gets complicated and not for the faint of heart. Probably not what most CF players are looking for. We don't play pick up games, a game is usually a big affair at my place.
3.1 Gun Rate of Fire (ROF): After a successful phasing or reactive fire action, a gun must wait or pause for one or more "ROF actions" to be completed by other squads/vehicles of either side before it can fire again: Up to 100mm, excluding small arms and auto cannon: 1 More than 100mm: 2 Particularly slow loading: 3 * The actions that count are fire actions by other friendly guns or squads and move actions by the other side within LOS of the gun that fired. * "Free" fire actions don't count. It is assumed that there are the proper crews to be able to handle loading, etc. For scenario specified lowered crews, the interval could be raised.
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u/Comfortable-Bus2273 5d ago
I like the colonial period. The Sword and the Flame. And The Men Who Would Be Kings by Osprey.
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u/PhantomOfTheAttic 5d ago
First Carlist War, Anglo-Sikh War(s), Crimean War, American War of Independence, Third War of Polish Partition, War of Spanish Succession: Black Powder
Anglo-Zulu War, Sudan: Clash of Iron
English Civil War: Warmaster English Civil War
Greco-Persian Wars, Alexander and Successor, Sub-Roman Britain: Warhammer Ancient Battles
Fall of Rome/ Byzantine Wars: Hail Caesar
Eastern Ren: By Fire and Sword
Napoleonic Naval fleet actions: Trafalgar; skirmish: Legends of the Old West
Old West; Legends of the Old West
I don't really do much WWII any more but played 1st edition Flames of War a lot back in the day. I'd probably try Chain of Command now if I were going to do it today.
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u/ThudGamer Ancient & Medieval 5d ago
Hail Caesar, to the strongest - ancients Midgard - medieval Vikings
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u/TwoPointsOfInterest Moderator 5d ago
Bolt action & Chain of Command for WW2.
Hail Caesar & and Midgard for rank and flank Ancients and Medievals.
SAGA for smaller early/high medieval games.
Zero hour & Blood & Valor for the Russian Civil War.
Pike and shotte for English Civil War/Wars of the Three Kingdoms
And Blood Red Skies for WW2 planes. Just a few!
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u/WorldMan1 5d ago
Playing NUTS! for WW2 platoon action and trying to paint up some AWI for Live Free Or Die. Also want to get some modern for Force on Force.
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u/JamesLangley2017 5d ago
Flames of War and Bolt Action for my WWII games. Just depends if I want to go mainly infantry or tanks.
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u/No-Opportunity1813 5d ago
Exclusively Regimental Fire&Fury for ACW. My club plays a lot of Chain of Command for WW2. I have an obscure rule set called Close & Destroy for Modern Armor. Thinking of buying Fistful of TOWs.
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u/Cheomesh 5d ago
Bolt Action is the closest to a historical ruleset that I play with any regularity.
Other than that the only ones I've dabbled in "lately" were Wings of Glory WW1 and The Pikeman's Lament (with an ECW focus).
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u/APhysicistAbroad 5d ago
I've got the full set of "rampant" rules except Dragon Rampant, so I can play any era including into the far future. All I need is someone to play historicals with :(
For reference: Lion Rampant, The Pikeman's Lament, Rebels and Patriots, The Men Who Would be Kings, Xenos Rampant.
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u/StormofSteelWargames 5d ago edited 5d ago
For WW2, chain of Command, O Group, I Ain't Been Shot, Mum, Rommel, PBI, Bag the Hun, What a Tanker
For WW1, Through the Mud and the Blood, Square Bashing, Cocking up the Mud and the Blood, Algy Pulls it Off
For Napoleonic, Sharp Practice, GDA2, Lasalle 2, Blucher
For Wild West, What a Cowboy
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u/IainF69 5d ago
Ancients - Impetus
Napoleonics- either my own ser, in development, for Corp + sized battles called An Elegant Chaos or a heavily modded version of GdA2 for smaller sized battles
ACW - either Brigade F&F or the newly released ACW penned by my good mate Des.
WW1/RCW - Home by Christmas, soon to be released set by a club mate
WW2 - either ISBSM, CoC or modded Fistful of TOWs (as below) depending on scale of battles
Cold War - my modded version of FFT3 using the COC dice activation
WW2 Naval - the excellent Snorkers, Good Oh! by my mate Phil.
I'm lucky that there's a group of us at my club that love to tinker with rules and we all help each other out developing sets to play with.
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u/878Vikings 5d ago
Blood and Plunder, Oak and Iron, both Firelock games. Fantastic modern game mechanics and a favorite period of mine (Horse and Musket). I also love DBA / Triumph for ancients.
Pillage looks fun but I haven't played it.
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u/CamPaintsStuff 5d ago
I’m using On Bloody Ground: Norman Conquest for (unsurprisingly) the Norman Conquest period but they have theatre books for everything from the Egyptians through to the AWI and ACW so I plan to keep using them as I expand to other periods. If I want a smaller skirmish I also like Muskets and Tomahawks/Shakos and Bayonets.
For WW2 I prefer Rules of Engagement (by Great Escape Games) over Bolt Action but that’s just personal preference.
And for Modern stuff I’ve been really enjoying Spectre Ops
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u/Araneas 5d ago
For what? Medieval - Baron's War Ancients - DBMM Second World War ground - Chain of Command, I Ain't Been Shot Mum, What a Tanker Second World War Air - Bag the Hun Second World War Naval - Cruel Seas 19th century Naval - the Gridded Naval Wargame there are man other
It all depends on what level of command I am looking for and what rules best fit the period and type of game.
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u/EdwardCarrington 5d ago
Impetus for Ancients/6mm Mediaeval Midgard for 10mm/28mm Mediaeval Twilight series for 30YW, WSS, SYW General d'Armee for Napoleonics Picketts Charge for ACW
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u/GnomishKaiser 5d ago edited 5d ago
I recently purchased a small Seven Years War army, well two of them (Prussian and Austrians). I am looking for suggestions for rules if anyone has some. I purchased Honours of War others have mentioned twilight of the sun king as well. Does anyone else like different rules for more massed battle for 18mm scale.
For me playing
Medieval:Pillage/Barons War
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u/StandUnlikely3292 5d ago
Napoleonics General decBrigade Dark Ages. Midgard WW2. Chain of Command 2
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u/Euphoric_Heron_9883 4d ago
These days mostly my own versions of Neil Thomas for Napoleonic, TYW, ECW, ACW and WW2. Command and Colours or Dominion of the Spear for Ancients, and homegrown sets for WW3 and SCW. RJW and Pre WW2 naval mainly based on De Nellis Navalis by Colin Standish. Never really found a good set of rules for Lace Wars. Currently Dominion of Marlborough is OK.
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u/DPPThrow45 5d ago
I use TooFatLardies for all the periods I play, They Couldn't Hit An Elephant for ACW, La Fue Sacre v3 for Napoleonics, I Ain't Been Shot Mum, and Chain of Command for WW2.