"Hittites " Topic

I want to war-game the earliest wars of antiquity, as it must be the Hittites and Lydians, and second empire Egyptians. as at Kaddish. Or it could be the Chaldean and the Meditates, or the Sumerians and the Elamites.

But, they are all are matched so evenly, but with a sort of twist of their tactics that could, or did won their victories. What war game rules do you think would accurately reflect the subtle differences in the armies of that time.

We know who won, but could it have be different Tolstoy told us that this moment, as you are reading this, is now fixed in History, and cannot change, but we war-gamers have always wanted to show how it can be different. We are players and actors in the wonderful pageant of life in history.

What figures are there to help to accomplish this Any responses would be greatly appreciated.

ETeu

I am leaning towards 28mm for the earliest periods.

You'll want to place a lot of chariots, so I would choose 15mm. For me Bibical Hack manages the similarities quite well, or if you want to go a bit more mainstream Impetus.

We know so little about any of these armies really. Subtle differences in tactics? Anyone's guess!

Ganesha's Song of Sword And Spear is in the playtesting stage. Call it a large skirmish game.

Copes well with chariots and lots of opportinity for things to go wromg and it 'aint "yougoIgo.

Please have a look on me blog- link

Our group is planning Kadesh for March 1st in 28mm. We use Aramati 2 rules. I'll try to post some photos.

Newline do some nice Hittites in 28mm – Sculpts are 'good enough' in my eyes and they paint up quickly and easily.
and they are properly good value for 28MM…
Here's my DBA army – not that great at modelling the subtleties of biblical armies but fun.

The army list book "The Dawn of War 3500 to 1500 BC" distinguishes "military cultures" for each army, rating them strategically and tactically. The first will have influence on the type of terrain the battle will take place, the latter who will pick sides and deploy first. If the corresponding rules themselves (Halsall, Trevor "WARLORD Ancients and Dark Ages Warfare") will give you any more subtle differences in tactics (or an enjoyable game) I can't tell, although the rules tend towards the more detailed systems with a lot of potential for such differences I guess. You can find them on caliverbooks.com (but note that these rules are generally not very well known or mentioned here or elsewere).

There is a rules set called king David for biblical era stuff. Meant to be good, but I have never tried them.
Phil

I'm doing a Middle Assyrian Army in 28mm, circa 1300 BC. The period during and after the fall of the Mitanni Kingdom is quite interesting. I like this army and period because there is a lot of possible clashes with the Hittites, Egyptian, Babylonian, Hurrian and other kingdoms. A great period to game.

I am a great fan of Impetus and we use these rules for our Biblical games.

Isn't King David from the guys who (then) wrote Impetus? And WCTFreak did mean "Holy Hack", I think.

We use Field of Glory & plastic (with some metal) figures.

Here's our big game from last year:
link

It was NKE being attacked by a Hittite/Mycenaean/Sea Peoples' army.

The posters above have covered tha gaming aspect of this very well, but I'm surprsed that WAB and War and Conquest have not been mentioned, since I found WAB did a pretty fine job of giving a picture of chariot warfare.

If you want to delve into a deeper understanding of the Hittites, the best books if you can find them:
The Kingdom of the Hittites
Life and Times in the Hittite World
both by Trevor Bryce

Cheers

Answering the "best rules" question always requires more questions,
" How many models/figures do you have?" and " what level of complexity do you prefer" and "do you mind a little "gaminess" in your rules if it makes it a more fun game?"
If you want a little more complex game that will allow you to better differentiate army differences tactically, then I would definitely vote for Field of Glory.But this game has a learning curve and once you master it, can take over 3.5 hours with a standard 800 point army.
For a simpler (but definitely not simple) game I would go with Armati 2.
It is a really excellent game that plays in half the time of FoG. However, many players get frustrated at the (probably realistic) difficulty in maneuvering under these rules, as they are more used to the more wide open approach that other rulesets allow.
Impetus is popular and gives a fun game, but the "reaction" possibilities seem a bit gamey to me and give the ancient commander a little too much
control over his units IMHO. But thats part of what makes it so much fun.
For chariot armies ,definitely FoG or Armati 2.

Might of Arms works too.

We find that by restricting army sizes to 650 points or less we can easily finish a game of Field of Glory in 2 hours.
We play in 28mm on a 6x4 table, so more troops wouldn't really fit anyway.

FoG handles chariot warfare quite well, and Hittites and Egyptians have armies which handle quite differently, so it makes for a good matchup.

Building Hittites, Assyrian and NKE in 6mm using Irregular and H&R. I think a few are also Rapier or Bacchus. Rules are DBMM. May use WRG 6th edition or a specialist rule set.

I do Biblical in 6mm for DBD using Bacchus and Irregular. Elephants and chariots look good at this scale.

I second James Wood – 6mm lets you play with epic amounts of chariots (or elephants)

Those Newline figures above look very good and well presented. Good paint job and basing.

I use the DBMM and DBA rules. But I don't think we know what the subtle differences were in this period, so I'd say chose rulesset based on what gives a good game and local player base.

My favorite figures for the period is the Chariot 15mm line (now sold by Magister Militum).

War & Conquest makes use of Battle Objectives to determine the victor as an alternative to the straight forward 'crush your opponent' option – I have also started writing a series of historical battles with their own tailor made Objectives, one for Megiddo appeared in a recent issue of Wargames Soldier and Strategy

If you would like to read a battle report complete with photographs of Egyptians versus Mycaneneans using 28mm miniatures and the War & Conquest rules, you can find the files here link

This will give you a reasonable explanation of the rules and chariots in particular – different from some other systems

War & Conquest is currently on a special promotion online (£20 plus postage/shipping), which will be finishing next week, so if you like what you read and want the rule set, now is a good time!

Our next UK gaming day/weekend is on the 22/23 February, details on our website and forum.

I really like the period and most of my armies are 28mm Foundry as that's my personal preferred scale. Old Glory also have an extensive range.

A number of other companies also make great miniatures in 28mm, well listed here, we (Scarab) have started Egyptians and Hittites, but other commitments have meant we haven't added to the ranges yet, but will finally do so during 2014

I hope some or all of that helps you!

Kind regards
Rob
scarabminiatures.com
warandconquest.co.uk