"Please Recommend a Set of Big Battle WotR Rules" Topic

I have nearly finished painting two 6mm WotR Armies but I don't have a ruleset and it isn't a period I've played much of before. Can anyone recommend a good set of rules for the period's big battles before I base them all up?

Will DBM//DBA/Impetus give a good game? Or are some of the more period specific rules better?

Period specific are not de facto better.

link If I do say so myself, and I do, these work very well for WotR. Even though the cutoff year says "1460", the English armies list goes from 1250 to 1485; the year of Bosworth is not coincidental….

DBA3.0 works well for WOTR. So does Hail Caesar (with a few period tweaks).

Hail Caesar.

We used Poleaxed 2 from the Lance and Longbow Society for our big Towton game that did the rounds a couple of years ago. They worked very well, although some interpretation was required at times. They are not rules for the micro-manager though. It takes time to send orders to your troops and time for them to interpret them and act on them. This means that you cannot respond quickly to what your opponent does. They also encourage you to keep your troops together in three or four divisions rather than running them around all over the place. Even if you do not get the rules or do not use them, the Lance and Longbow Society sourcebooks detailing all the battles for the Wars of the Roses are a must-have if you want to have a pop at historical battles.

For more general rules, I really like Impetus. It gives a good fun game without the geometry problems of the DBx series. You can download Basic Impetus free from the link below to see if you like it and want to invest in the full rules:
dadiepiombo.com/basic2.html

I generally prefer period specific rules because they are designed to provide a game with the feel of the period, but you may want to have more latitude in your gaming, and as GWA notes, just because they are period specific does not mean they will be well designed. That said, Poleaxed 2 works.

Have a look at A Coat of Steel, a free set available from The Perfect Captain. Innovative mechanics and excellent period flavour. We rate it as one of the best rules systems we've played in any period.

the [Freezywater] sourcebooks detailing all the battles for the Wars of the Roses are a must-have if you want to have a pop at historical battles.

link including free sample pages …

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Martin Sephenson
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It gives a good fun game without the geometry problems of the DBx series.

The changes to DBA3.0 mean that there are much less "geometry problems" than in earlier versions.

If you want your battles to conform to the battles of the period, which, to be honest are not tactically challenging, then you will not go far wrong with Poleaxed. The game element focusing on the death or wounding of commanders.

If you want a warGAME and the chance to micro manage units then you will go for something else.

Flower of Chivalry by Canadian wargames group

Another vote of Coat of Steel

+1 for A Coat of Steel by The Perfect Captain (very period specific with campaign rules to match). Best part they are free (plus printer ink for the very well illustrated cards)

Also Flower of Chivalry is good for general late medieval battles. Trick is finding a set. Good for Scottish/Welsh wars as well.

Another vote for coat of steel, the first set of rules I have encountered that actually make a battle feel like it is taking place in the period, the game does something "new" by making the way battles of the period were conducted the core. rather than most rules which use nifty dice mechanics and then as a collateral affect use then to resolve periods features. So I always feel I am playing the rules first and fighting the battle second. CoS Feels like you are fighting the battle first.

I will add another vote for Big (or Giant) Battle DBA 3. This new version works really well for big battles. How many stands of figures do you have?

With the 6mm figures you can put more on a base for DBA and get a great mass effect. with 36 or more stands per army, on the table top, you get a really nice effect for battles. Many nuances of the armies are not wanted in a giant battle.

The DBA 3 WotR armies are quite nice and if you increase number of figures per base and use 36 bases per army, you get a great effect. I have done this for ancient battles, and think 6mm dense packed elements for medieval would be great. I have only done 25mm WotR games which play well but do not have the good look of the smaller scale.

send me an email, beattie at umich dot edu and I will send you the army list for these armies,

The final rules are posted at
PDF link

Bloody Barons are as period specific as you can get and the rules include scenarios for almost all the battles. Although designed for 15mm I am sure you could easily adjust them for 6mm

Highly recommended

Might of Arms and/or Hail Caesar are probably worth a look.

Doug

Tree of Battles by Legio Wargames. Excellent, free and designed for War of the Roses.

Dunno much about the WOTR myself, but a mate of mine does and he organised a huge game using Hail Caesar and it worked really well…

Bloody Barons (Peter Pig)looks interesting. I own it but have not yet played it (piles of unpainted minis the hold-up).

Another vote for A Coat of Steel. Fine rules.

Bloody Barons is certainly a good system, and we played that regularly until we discovered A Coat of Steel.

The perfect Captains set captures the period wonderfully .
Tried Bloody Barons ,they are drivell

Thanks very much for all of the informative replies, I will look into all the recommendations.

@Bobgnar:

I will add another vote for Big (or Giant) Battle DBA 3. This new version works really well for big battles. How many stands of figures do you have?

With the 6mm figures you can put more on a base for DBA and get a great mass effect. with 36 or more stands per army, on the table top, you get a really nice effect for battles. Many nuances of the armies are not wanted in a giant battle.

Well, I haven't based most of them yet, but I guess there is enough for 30 or so elements per side if using quite big bases (typically 24-36 foot soldiers on a 60mm x 30mm base). I'm not absolutely tied to basing them in that way, although I'd prefer to use bases that size in anticipation of one day the Polemos WotR rules being released.

Regards

If you are waiting for Polemos, and want to go ahead base for that, you might want to look at the free Kings of War rules by Mantic Games.

PDF link

These are designed for fantasy, but you could just use the human troop types and drop the magic. Meanwhile, you have a rough and ready, quick play game which removes whole units, not figures or stands.

An example of play:
YouTube link

Obviously you will want to do some house rules – ie no missile troop charges on steady enemies for example, but it is a quick, decisive game which will let you base your army in anticipation of Polemos, and hey – they are free!

Bloody Barons by Peter Pig. Also Medieval Warfare by Terry Gore is very good.

I just took a look at Coat of Steel. Wow, yalk about detail. I will have to change my vote to Coat of Steel.

Another vote for A Coat of Steel. We use the rules and love them.