"Best set of Medieval Rules?" Topic

I've been thinking of getting into Medieval Wargaming for sometime now but I can't afford 15mm miniatures and I don't have the painting skills to paint up 2 Armies(French and English)so I'm thinking of getting the plastic figures from Zvezda,Italeri etc and eventhough I can't paint plastic figures because of all the problems with painting the figures(since they can't take/hold paint)I would just mount them up AS-IS.

So if I can get enough of the plastic figures the next step is finding a good set of Medieval rules so what would be the best set of rules out there.

Start with Lion Rampant from Osprey Games. Low figure counts so you can start relatively quickly and cheaply.

Thanks Dale I'll check those out.

What about printing out topdown pictures of units ( for example you can get them from the junior general website) and sticking them to mdf bases and using them in a big battle unit based game ? Personally I would think that would be more aesthetically pleasing (and cheaper) than unpainted figures.

Who said you can't paint plastic figs? There are numerous techniques, and many threads on TP on how to use them.

Rule recommendations depend on the size of the game you want to play. Skirmish level? 1-to-1 figure representation? Or are you looking to play bigger battles like Agincourt or Poitiers, where you command a medieval army, and a "base" or stand of troops would represent a block of a couple hundred men?

6mmACW in all my previous interests which were:

Napoleonics
Samurai
Ancients

I was always starting small and getting bigger as I went for example with 15mm Napoleonics my goal was to build a French Corps(1'st Corps Waterloo)and I did that along with building/painting Prussian,Russian,Austrian,French Allied and others.

But at least at the time I had a good number of fellow gamers who I gamed with and we had very good battles.

For the Samurai I mostly bought painted figures from others and I built up a decent number of 15mm Samurai(2,000 figs)and I did several good games but I never was able to do those big battles like Sekigahara since I would've needed a whole lot more figures.

As for my Ancients eventhough I had 2 Roman Armies and a Carthaginian army it never really went that far.

But last year I had to sell off the last of my French Napoleonics,Samurai and Ancients because my Beloved Cat passed away and I needed to get money for her burial.

Now to the present with regards to Medieval I first would like to get enough figures(French and English)to do some small games to get me started and then if I could get lucky to aquire 2 Painted Armies in 15mm I would like to try some bigger Battles like Agincourt for example.

Pan Marek with regards to painting plastic figures I've read about many techiques regarding cleaning plastic figures and I've also talked to friends who tried to clean/paint them but to NO success so if you can point me to a sure fire way to paint the plastic figures I'll listen.

Scrub with toothbrush and warm water with a drop of detergent. Rinse. Let dry. Spray with Krylon or Rustoleum paints for plastic. Let dry. Paint with whatever paints you like on top of that. Varnish.

Before the invention of the Krylon and Rustoleum paints for plastic, I could never get paint to hold to soft plastics. They work magic.

Oh, and DBA works great for medievals. If you like, later you can expand to multiple armies for big battle games.

Flower of Chivalry is my choice for the middle ages

I will second Lion Rampant. I liked them after reading them and after playing them they are a definite keeper set.

While Lion Rampant is a good rule set which I own and have played, just be advised that it is more of a small scale skirmish type game devised to cover the raids and small actions that occurred throughout the medieval period. It may not readily expand enough to be able to play larger set-piece battles.

Jim

Yeah, if you want to do larger battles then Lion Rampant is not the way to go. But it is a great way to get gaming with those miniatures if you base them singly and use movement trays when you decide to go to large battles with multi-figure stands. Sort of a way to progress through games of various figure scales as you build your collection.

These days, unless I am doing 6mm, my plan is always to build for skirmish, build for large skirmish, then build for battles. Sometimes the plan even works!

I like Tactica with a few mods.

A friend told me about another Medieval set of rules called "Revenge" by Emperor's Press does anyone know about these rules?

We just did Brunanburh, Bouvines, Enguingatte and Verneuil with DBA 3.

They all worked very well.

I have picked DBA 3 for my Ancient and Medieval rules…

Check out the battles here… complete with OB, map, and special rules…

link

Joe Collins

I second Tactica Medieval for large battles, and Lion Rampant for skirmishes

A friend told me about another Medieval set of rules called "Revenge" by Emperor's Press does anyone know about these rules?

My understanding is that those were released sometime in the 90's and might be difficult to find these days. I have never read them myself.

I suggest you start with Lion Rampant and Perry 28mm Plastic Sets.

Here is my Agincourt project.
link

You can build a Lion Rampant English Army at Agincourt 1415 with one Perry box.
link

Perry also do plastic French Infantry
link

Perry do metal figures for mounted knights and characters,
link

Plastic 1415 mounted knights are due to come in 2017.
but you could substitute these WOTR period knights for now
link

Rule choices depend on how much history you want in your game. DBA is easily tweaked to suit a particular conflict, as are the army lists…for example you would 't want to use the 'Scots Common' army list if you're a history geek. Lion Rampant can be good fun, but, as the author points out it's more a kind of medieval fantasy….and nothing wrong with that.

Griefbringer I now have a copy of Revenge and I'm slowly going thru it.

Mick in Switzerland I'm getting a copy of Lion Rampant but regarding the minis I don't think I could hope to paint the figures myself if I could get them.

I have a friend who is a very good painter and he told me that he had several boxes of Perry Knights and after looking thru them he said that he couldn't hope to build them let alone painting them.

So I think that my best hope is to buy painted figures but finding them for the right price that's the tricky part.

uglyfatbloke I do agree with you regarding rules I remember when I was doing 15mm Napoleonics that I had several sets of rules including Empire,but then when I was doing Samurai the rules I used were Killer Katana's which worked very well so I'll just have to see which rule set would work best for me.

Not surewhat the problem with 1:72 plastics is: undercoat them with Humbrol plastic enamel, paint normally with whatever you prefer (modellers' acrylic of some sort?*), then varnish – they'll last for decades (my early stuff is still useable after 40 years) …

Personally I'd go with DBA … you'd get both start up armies out of, what?, 3 boxes? … maybe 4?

Build up 12 element commands as you go … the game then gets bigger (multiple commands) as you add to the collection.

Phil

Check out Captains and Kings by Two Hour Wargames.

It's designed for solo play, includes rules for sieges and has a complete campaign system.

Yesthatphil please tell me what do you use if you don't have Humbrol plastic enamel?

Also would it be possible to provide some pictures of some of your painted plastic figures?

I ask this because I've never seen any painted plastic figures that can take paint and keep it from flaking off after it dries ireguardless of what you do to clean them before painting them.

Tekawiz I'll check out Captain's and Kings.

Hi GG, I haven't done any pics of my 1:72 plastic figures recently but have a look at Will's blog …

That's the kind of thing, no?

Humbrol is easy to get … many other people use car primer (I'm sure Will's blog will have plenty of up-dates …)

Trebian has a slightly different style (with tinted varnish to add durability – never seen his paint come off, that's for sure )

Another vast collection … try wargamingfor grownups/plastics for tips …

Hope that helps

Phil

Thanks to Yesthatphil for pointing you my way on painting 1:72 figures. The definitive post for my method is: link

Paint has come off a figure or two. In most cases it came off as one piece held together by the varnish, so I was able to superglue it back on the figure.

Yes, you read that right.

@Queen Catherine: Not a medieval game that one. That's Gaugamela re-fought using Neil Thomas' AMW (Ancient and Medieval Wargaming).

My Medieval Plastics can be found on this link: link

Because I'm English and didn't want to be accused of being cliched my medieval collection is 11th/12th century Spanish not Crecy/Agincourt. Obviously.