"New to the period" Topic

I am just coming off a Holiday in the UK and find myself interested in gaming either the war of the roses or 100years war. What rules work best and how many and what type of figures do I need to get started? Which is better 15s or 25/28s? I appreciate any sage advice in advance.

My rules work for any scale and any basing sizes, link I like 25s but put up with 28s, and I am a sage who believes the larger the miniature the more realistic it will be, but one must be practical….

War of the Roses will be easier to paint as there was less heraldry shown and more plate armor. Same figures from the WotR can be used for any Western European army of the period.

I personally like 25/28's and would recommend Perry Miniatures plastic figures. You can supplement them with their metals. Front Rank also makes excellent figures for the period, but you can't mix them with Perry. Also, Foundry old Late Medieval figures are excellent and will mix with Perry. All of the manufacturers I mentioned make almost every figure for the WotR and don't need to be mixed.

I should also mention Old Glory. Normally, my first choice, but some of the models are just barely OK compared with Perry, Foundry and Front Rank. However, I've seen them really well painted and they looked great. OG also has some exotic troop types that others don't have. They mix with Perry and Foundry.

For 15's I would recommend Essex range. I've painted Peter Pig, Minifigs and others from that period, but Essex are my favorites.

There are rules that claim to be specifically for this or that medieval period. Yet they can be used for other periods as well. I played Warhammer, DBx, FoG, Armati, Tactica and other generic ancient/medieval rule sets. All of them can be used for your period as they recreate it with period troop types, armor, etc.

DBA and Hail Caesar both work quite well for WOTR.
Perry plastics make WOTR in 28mm very affordable. Nice figures too!

Depends if you like horses or not. WOTR battles were fought almost entirely on foot!

There is also a pretty neat adaptation of Dux Bellorum to WotR. I'm not sure DBA actually works that well. A bit too generic and simplistic methinks.

Viper guy; see if you can find a local war gaming group, and if you can somebody should be playing "DBA". Those rules are some what generic, but should give a basic starting point for which direction you might want go. IMHO start with 15mm figures and buy some banner,instead of trying to paint the heraldry on the figures.

I use 6mm WotR from Baccus and the Impetvs rules, works fine for me and allows me to have decent sized battles

I'm not sure DBA actually works that well. A bit too generic and simplistic methinks.

Not at all. DBAv3.0 handles the longbow/men-at-arms matchup very well and there are subtle nuances in the way the game plays. DBAv3.0 is much better in this regard than previous versions IMHO.

The Society of Ancients did Bosworth using DBA v3.0 as their show game last year.
link

I am planning to use DBA v3.0 in a big battle format to recreate some of the other WOTR battles.

Just getting started in this period at our club. We are giving The Perfect Captains " A Coat of Steel " rules a go this weekend. Also looking at "Poleaxed" from Lance and Longbow Society.
As for figures, decided we wanted big armies (Towton has to be re fought!) so it's 10/12mm scale for us, with figures from Kallistra and Pendraken.

What rules work best

There was a thread last week on here about 100 years war rules: TMP link

As to what rules are best, it depends on what you want from a game. What type of game do you like to play? I could tell you that my Sword & Spear rules TMP link are the best, and I think they are, but if you want a game where you take turns to move all of your troops, then you will not like them.

As for figures, decided we wanted big armies (Towton has to be re fought!) so it's 10/12mm scale for us

We did Towton in 6mm with about 18000 figures on the table using Poleaxed. The Poleaxed rules provided a fun game that could be played in a day at a show while still having time to talk with spectators, so I reckon that means Towton in about 3 hours without interruptions. If you play more quickly you might get the time down. We certainly managed to complete the battle each day of each show that we attended with it. For this reason, as well as the rules' focus on period flavour, I would recommend Poleaxed for the Wars of the Roses, and possibly also for European late fifteenth century in general. Photos of the game and some discussion about it at the link below:
towton-2011.blogspot.co.uk
If you decide on Wars of the Roses, I highly recommend getting the Freezywater sourcebooks from Vexillia or The Lance and Longbow Society.

"Front Rank also makes excellent figures for the period, but you can't mix them with Perry."

IGWARG1, are the Front Rank minis too big to mix with other manufacturers?

FR are chunky, with big heads and beefy bodies. Perry are lanky and long legged. Others may be few mm taller or shorter than Perry but the same general build. When looking at the figures on a wargaming table its size of heads that matters for compatibility, IMHO.

Saying all that FR are extremely well sculpted and easy to paint.

Thank you, IGWARG1. I've long admired them, but they may have to be scattered as character figures. WOtR is one of those periods I have wanted to do for decades, but get perfectionist paralysis when I actually look at -doing- it.

Although they are not from the medieval ranges, there are some comparison photos of Front Rank with other manufacturers here. May be of some help…

link

Thank you all. Great advice and points to consider.

Wukong…wow.

Can second (third?) the recommendations for Perry Plastics (they are about to add HYW to the WORs line). Front Rank are fantastic though a bit bigger (nothing I can't live with).

Re DBA – by all means get a copy of DBA3.0, we specifically worked on the HYW/WOTR periord and get the rules to work much better. Huge improvement over DBA2.2 (which I do not recommend for this period).

Have never managed to find any 15s I liked for this era – recommend 25/8s.

Welcome to a great historical period!

TomT