"Weapon Categorizing-Important or Not?" Topic

I've been working on what I hope will be a simpler fantasy wargame( for individually based models, anywhere from 15mm to 28mm really ) , and I keep wondering: how much do people care about different weapon types? Most fantasy movies don't care about the relative merits of a spear vs. a sword, so do most fantasy gamers need to see a huge number of weapon types in their games other than sharp thing, bigger sharp thing, and shooty thing?

Contrast say, HotT or Heroscape with Mordheim or this: link

As I was painting up a 40K figure a few minutes ago, I was a little sad that all the power weapons are essentially the same thing now. I kind of wish that there was a difference. Power axes used to be pretty scary, chainswords were better than regular old knives etc.

But, that game has changed and the size of forces fielded now require simplicity… so I guess it comes down to how long you want the game to last, and how many figures are on the table.

My trouble right now is stemming from the fact that while most fantasy figs are modeled with shields and swords, a Greek Hoplite has a more efficient weapon setup: spear and shield. Giving a 1-hand spear an advantage is more realistic, but seems to disadvantage most fantasy figs, so I'm considering making all 1-handed weapons(swords, axes, etc.) the same.
Right now I have the following groupings:
-Great Weapon(battleaxes, etc.)
-2-handed Weapon(katana, glaive-thing)
-Hand Weapon(sword, axe, club)
-Lance
-Pike

so I'm not sure if I should put spears with Pikes, Hand Weapons, or introduce yet another category, which in turn is making me question if I even need this many categories.

You may want to add dagger/improvised. You could merge 'great' weapons with '2-handed'. Differentiate Pikes only if you are doing massed combat. YMMV

When we wrote Warrior Heroes Armies and Adventures there was a lot of player interest in showing the differences between weapons, and their interaction with armor etc.

However for a miniatures game, IMO, it is not necessary.

That orc using the weapons and armor he is cast with has a definable level of skill. That elf cast with different weapons and armor also has a definable level of skill.

The designated skill level is a constant as during the course of a tabletop battle, figures are not recast with different weapons and armor.

So the figure with the greater skill level with his preferred weapon/armor suite is more likely to win.

It's that simple really.

Not sure if it would fly though.

Bob

In our home rules AD&D Battlesystem we enjoy being able to take any weapon from the Dungeons & Dragons universe and assigning that weapon to a unit. It adds distinctiveness! Yet it all boils down to what Bob said about skill level with preferred weapon.

I see fantasy as being historicals plus magic and some weird stuff.
So I would suggest a look at DBM and or Impetus.
Impetus lite is a free download.

First question: how many models per side are you resolving attacks for?

If that number is more than 50, then you could probably get away with 4 categories: Improvised, basic hand weapon, 2-handed, and spear/pike.

Less than 25, you could add some more detail levels.

I was thinking around 30-50 models a side; my brother and I are getting some LotR stuff, and since I like designing games I thought I would make a game that could be played with 1 or 2 boxes of minis aside.

I like one of the rules in the LOTR game by GW. Hand weapons are all the same, but figs armed with spears can fight in 2 ranks. Figs armed with pikes can fight in 3 ranks. That gives the spear a little edge over the sword if fighting in massed units.