"Popular rules for medieval skirmish" Topic

By skirmish I'm talking about up to about 50 figs, individually based. Because that's what my armies are.

What ones are you playing? I want to compile a list to see what rules I can check out along with thrones I already play.

I have:

Songs of blades and heroes
Lion rampant
The Hobbit sbg (minus magic)

What do you enjoy playing?

Cam this be made into a poll to? How do I do that please?

Saga Crescent & Cross

Can this be made into a poll too? How do I do that please?

Start a thread on the TMP Poll Discussions board.

Lion Rampant

I downloaded Lords and Servants the other day when Wargames Vault had a sale. They're by the same guy who wrote Impetus. They're more a true skirmish game than Lion Rampant and look pretty interesting but I haven't had a chance to play them yet.

My vote goes towards SAGA – great competitive game.

The Rules According to Ral

Lion Rampant

Lion Rampant

Lion Rampant

Mine, The Art of War. Designed to play "man to man", individually based figures: yet the scale is army level. "We" the designers like skirmish games, and believe that massive battles are actually a collection of individual encounters, and in most cases have that appearance. "Locked lines" can alter this appearance, but not the fact that individuals face other individuals where they stand in the battle, fight, win and die as individuals. So pulling individual figures creates that "feel". By largely ignoring the designed scale of the game, and treating each figure as one man, the massed combat game works very well as a skirmish game and it plays quickly….

You might be better to just make your own rules, but it depends very much on what you want from the game. if you want something with a derring-do Hollywood flavour Lion Rampant might be just the job.
It also depends on what you mean by medieval and where you are going to set your battles. In the 13/14th century (at least) in western Europe most of the fighting is about small actions and mostly that means modest forces of mounted men-at-arms, and never the sort of 'big army made small' that generally finds its way to the wargame table. You'll know the sort of thing I mean – a force with half a dozen men-at-arms, a dozen spearmen and a dozen archers with a few unarmoured peasants with sticks.

God for Harry, England, and St. George (Featherstone).

I humbly offer my own Sword and Dagger rules. link

Yet another vote for Lion Rampant.

Lion Rampant

Lion Rampant

Is Lion Rampant a skirmish set?

It uses units. Figures have to stay in units. Saga is pretty much the same, though figure placement is important.

JohnG

Think I like Lion Rampant a bit more than SAGA.

'Is Lion Rampant a skirmish set?'

Well, yes and no: it purports to represent small actions in which each figure represents one man, and yet actions are performed by the unit rather than the figure, and the only function of individual figures is to delineate the boundaries of its amorphous units. Even the number of surviving figures in a unit is abstracted to either more than half or half or less. Thus you see gamers misapplying it by trying to play mass battles with it, and ending up with a diminished version of these with no facings, flanks, formations, or manoeuvre; none of which negates its value if approached on the terms articulated by its author.

Contrast this with the converse philosophy behind 'The Art of War' and WAB and its successors: mass battle games that use skirmish game conventions.

It's a funny old – wargames – world!

Well, yes and no: it purports to represent small actions in which each figure represents one man, and yet actions are performed by the unit rather than the figure, and the only function of individual figures is to delineate the boundaries of its amorphous units. Even the number of surviving figures in a unit is abstracted to either more than half or half or less. Thus you see gamers misapplying it by trying to play mass battles with it, and ending up with a diminished version of these with no facings, flanks, formations, or manoeuvre; none of which negates its value if approached on the terms articulated by its author.

Contrast this with the converse philosophy behind 'The Art of War' and WAB and its successors: mass battle games that use skirmish game conventions.

It's a funny old – wargames – world!

No kidding! What makes a skirmish game a skirmish game has been the centre of more than a couple of our discussions over the last few years.

Not sure Lion Rampant knows what it is either.

It is not a man-to-man game in the sense that one figure fights one figure taking into account individual armor weapon etc. Take a look at Battlelust for that.

Lion Rampant can work as a small unit game. Not a bad idea as many Hundered Years war fights were at this level. It does need a flank/rear formation rule to work at this level (flank/rear/formation is important down to a very low level in muscle power battles). Also to get a more skirmish feel and get rid of one of its odd abstractions just count the number of figures for combat (so a unit with only 8 guys left rolls 8 die not the standard 12). This also allows for units of different sizes so they all don't come in 12 or 6 figure standard packages. (Those starting at 6 like Knights of course get 2 die per figure).

See my earlier article a Weekend of Lion Rampant.

TomT

HYW fights at this level tended to be men-at-arms only and generally on horseback.

So won't most rules allow you to use an all mounted force? The ones I use don't prevent that. Are there any rules specially written for this type of skirmish only on horses?

By ""skirmish"" I think the opening sentence explains what I meant?

Seems like we are all after something different, but the riles I have already probably cover what I want.

SAGA allows all-mounted forces for some armies, it just depends on the list. I know you can have an all-mounted Saracen army, and probably can have all-mounted Christians of some variety.

All depends on what we mean by 'medieval' as well. A skirmish action between 14th or 15th Century English and Scots (or within England or Scotland for that matter) would be limited to mounted men-at-arms, but that might not be the same for 11th C France or 15th C, Italy.

Why would a "skirmish" be limited to MAAs? Archers were included in retinues as regular troops too. I believe that poorer landholders would make use of lesser quality troops, which might include their own demesne….