"Best Ancients Ruleset for Historical Battles?" Topic

Imagine that you want to play game based on an actual battle from history. Which ruleset would you use?

Depends on the battle…

For Crusades, Shattered Lances.

FoG: it's what I'm using now. I'd vote for anything else?

Tactica.

I like BBDBA with scenario specific rules. I also like Lost Battles as is.

Joe Collins

Shock of impact

Field of Glory also.

Impetus, Warhammer Ancients, and Hail Caesar, in that order.

Australian Tactica

Big Battle DBA with scenario specific rules…or has someone said that?

Impetus or Hail Caesar.

Hail Caesar or Ancient Warfare by Terry Gore.

Still rooting for FoG.

so far, tactica 2 for classical ancients
shattered lances for feudal crusades
coimmitatus for dark age
Armati for the broadest spread of army types

basically it depends on the armies you are playing – some armies just dont work in some rules sets as they should

War and Conquest – simply the best rule-set on the market, give it a go for yourself.

Raglan

I've used DBMM at the Society of Ancients battle days and it's given a good result so far.

DBMM does just fine. We have done a couple of Greek battles and they worked very well IMHO that is what they are best suited to do as some of the anomalies associated with the generic troop type mechanism is minimized by having historical opponents

Command & Colours tabletop variant

First I look for any perios specific rules such as shattered lances. If not I look to see what set best reflects what I want to achieve. I expect to have to tweak 3000BC to 1500AD sets for specific periods/battles

Most of the quoted rulesets are intend for competitive play, so, IMHO, not suitable for historic battles recreation.
I'd say Archon II from Piquet.

Sandro
Florence
Italy

I think it does depend a bit on the period. Also, different rules are often highlights different parts of ancient battle, so some rules do some things better than others, but then do things worse than others. Not being well versed in how ancient battles went, I would have to say Lost Battles, Rally Round the King, Armati 2, DBM and Warrior all seem to capture different flavours of ancient battles and do the bit they capture well. There may be more that I haven't played that could be good too. There may be more I have played too but I'm coming down with a cold, am tired and can't think well enough to answer better.

Hail Caesar is by far my favorite ancients rule set for playing historical battles.

I know many people think of Field of Glory as a tournament only rule set, but my group recently did a recreation of the Battle of Magnesia, and we thought that it worked marvelously. For a quick AAR on this event, see link

I also think that Hail Caesar are great rules for recreating battles. Another part of my group tried them out for the Battle of the Sambre, and we all had a blast. For more info, see link

In my opinion, the perception that a set of rules is aimed for tournament play or not has very little to do with whether it can be successfully used for historical battles. That has more to do with the scenario designer and the attitude of the individual players.

Peter C
Sword and Sandal Gaming Blog
link

Lost Battles

BBDBA
DBM
DBMM
DBA

BBDBA or Impetus

Lost Battles, obviously.

The answer is unlikely to be the same as 'best set for tournaments' TMP link I'd have thought.

DBA and Armati are not bad for historical games. Despite being my prefered tournament game, FoG is not that great for historical games unless you import mess a fair bit of active umpiring.

Hail Caesar, too, if the scenario is well worked out.

Impetus, it plays fast and gives a historical feel. Here is my latest AAR on the battle of the Granicus:
link

FoG although most would work if played in the right spirit. Ancient gaming is usually ruined by inappropriate match-ups and tournament-based gamesmanship exploiting the loopholes.

The full version of Impetus seems to recapture historic results more often than not. So for a historic refight it would seem to be the most reasonable choice.

I found some of the replies interesting.

Shock of Impact – It has some interesting ideas but I didn't find them actually playable.

Shattered Lances – Tried these and again they have some interesting ideas but I found them fundamentally flawed.

Lost Battles – Pretty simplistic.

FOG – boring.

DBA – nothing historical about it.

Warrior – Sorry but with the rules over 125 pages I don't think so.

I've heard good things about HC and I play Impetus which I highly recommend.

BBDBA with some modifications works well. Goes quick and is easy to learn.

War & Conquest is my new favorite!

I'm a big fan of the Strategic Initiative and how skirmishers work in W&C.

Another for BBDBA with special scenario rules.

WRG 6th.

Someone has already mentioned the Society of Ancients battle day, there is information about this event on their website. This day looks to recreate a specific battle using many different sets of rules. It is always a challenge to do so as specific battles sometimes introduce problems not covered by the rules. One of the first problems is translating the numbers of troops in to the units required by the rule sets. DBMM and DBA do this easily because the armies are composed of elements/ bases instead of units. How the various rules sets did is written up in Slingshot.

Lost Battles – Pretty simplistic.

But extremely elegant and VERY well researched.

Too subjective. Every rules set I've seen, including my own, can be "gamed" by imaginative players. So, none or all. Take your pick.

Any WRG set up to 7th.

FOG for me. FOG is not solely "intended for tournament play". The rules mechanisms are based on known historical interactions so it should be fine for recreating historical battles as well as equal points pick-up or tournament games.

Australian Tactika
WRG 5th or 6th edition

Someone has already mentioned the Society of Ancients battle day, there is information about this event on their website.

And pictures from this year on the Shows North blog TMP link
(direct: Ancients on the Move)

Thanks

You can find out more about the Society of Ancients on the website soa.org.uk

The Perfect Captain rules tend to be very period specific.

I would use the rules that the players in my area prefer, and fit them to the scenario. The current situation (and for many years) in ancients purports to give a framework that crosses all eras of "Age of Muscle" conflict… which is entirely bogus-- maybe fun but bogus. A scenario builder has to understand that and allow the nuances that favor his period for any ruleset.

For example I would not play the same DBA game for Gaugamela that I would for Agincourt…. that's silly-- but players do that in tournaments in points games. In historical scenario matches- equal points goes out the window. Pharsalus is not an equal pointed match- even if the troops were mostly the same types, neither is Cannae.

I feel any ruleset can be adjusted to give great historical games. DBM can do Magnesia, and so can WAB… but they are not 2k armies on each side. Part of the play balance for historical recreations is to decide who gets the experienced players, and who gets the novices in a multi-player game.

The key component of any game in my opinion is that there are players on each side that understand the ruleset. and the period specific rules are imbedded by the scenario designer. Breaking out a new ruleset just to have a more "historical game" is often a swift way to get everybody to actively hate the new rules.
JJ

A quick and easy solution to doing this is to use the command and colors board game rules. The rules are free on line and so are a wealth of scenarios. There are numeruos groups who use these rules for figure gaming. How to do so is here.

link

And so are all the rules and scenarios.

I've not done so but I have made use of their scenario battle orbits. Notably Magnesia. Perhaps someone who has done so can comment.

For Punic Era I use Classical Hack or Ancient Warfare by Terry Gore.

VR
James Mattes