 ochoin  | 29 Mar 2014 5:58 p.m. PST |
I've been enjoying popping in on this board lately to see the work shown. Can I ask a dumb question? Can you game with flats or are they strictly for show? |
| Allen57 | 29 Mar 2014 6:06 p.m. PST |
One of the early books on wargames was illustrated with an AAR of an ancients battle using flats. In this day however they are a bit pricey for compiling a wargame army. I think they are pretty neat myself and have several hundred prepainted bought back in the 60's. The problem with mine is they are spread all over history so you I don't really have enough of any one type to make up an army. |
| Cyrus the Great | 29 Mar 2014 6:22 p.m. PST |
Yes, you can game with flats. Tony Bath ran his Hyboria campaign using flats. |
| Ed Mohrmann | 29 Mar 2014 6:41 p.m. PST |
A gaming colleague of long-standing has flats and has
gamed with them. |
| cavcrazy | 29 Mar 2014 7:03 p.m. PST |
I believe that I have seen someone on TMP who games with flats…..SYW maybe? |
| ochoin | 29 Mar 2014 7:53 p.m. PST |
Thank you for the responses. I think flats have an amazing charm (probably preaching to the converted here) & I must think of getting some. |
| Dave Jackson | 29 Mar 2014 9:14 p.m. PST |
Don't know why you can't. If you can game w/green plastic toy soldiers…..! |
| Rudi the german | 30 Mar 2014 2:54 a.m. PST |
The wargame was invented for flats. I own serval rulesets written for flats from before ww1. The tinsoldiers museum in Kulmbach has one complete room on wargaming with flats. Remenber that 120-150 years ealier this was the only thing to use… link
link Gamers and collectors, who did not lose their collections in ww2 nor did not sell it gave them to this museum, which is the biggest in the world for flats.
YouTube link
I grow up doing it …. And was really fun.
I believe that there are MORE figures avalable in flats than in any other scale and that the flats are more historically correct than all the stuff on the market today. Remember they were made in the time the people wore the uniforms and they have a 200 years head start on the 25mm or a 220 years on the 15mm!
I have a small collection of flat tinsoldier rule sets printed between 1880 and 1960 and they are really fun to read.
Remeber that H.G. Wells book "little wars" was just one book printed in the UK and that he compared his work in the appendix with Kriegspiel which was at this time allready invented for 130 years!
link
The tmp member Crogge is still doing it and might be the expert in this topic.
It is not a dumb question …. It is more like: did people really used telegaph for communication instead of mobilphones? :))
Greetings and have fun….. :) |
| Yesthatphil | 30 Mar 2014 5:25 a.m. PST |
Yes, although it is not common in these days of the dominance of the round figure … I sometimes use modern conventional rules, just swapping to flat figures – here is my Egyptian/Nubian DBA game …
and here some Greek and Persian commanders from my version of Plataea (player with Neil Thomas's AMW) …
It keeps the collections alive and affords a striking look to the battlefield displays … Phil
Ancients on the Move |
| Frederick | 31 Mar 2014 7:59 a.m. PST |
For sure you can – I think Charles Grant did some of his classic battles with flats |
| Bumbydad | 03 Oct 2014 9:10 a.m. PST |
This is way tardy to the party, but yes, I have lots of flats, of a kind: the American Revolution and Imperial Roman figures they used to sell in the backs of comic books. They are actually pretty nice figures, all things considered. At present I am relying on Morschauser's old rules, but I'm always on the lookout for other sets. There are also a large number of people who use 40mm flats made from Prince August molds. For example: link |
| Asterix | 12 Oct 2014 7:05 p.m. PST |
My brother and I (inspired by the chapter on Tony Bath's wargames in Donald Featherstone's War Games book) have been wargaming with flats for over 40 years. They fight just as well as Rounds and photograph better! |
discovers a better way to fill in hollow plastic bases.
