"Rules for Early Dark Ages" Topic

I have been using Pig Wars for skirmish gaming with my Vikings, Saxons, Carolingians, and Byzantines but now have enough figures that I would like to expand to larger battles. What rulesets are popular and what army lists are available for the period around 700-900?

Being unfamiliar with Pig Wars, I don't know how large "larger" might be, but Saga is popular for what I'd think of as mid-size battles (maybe 50 singly-based figures per side) in that period.

Comitatus is regarded as one of the best rules for this period link

To The Strongest are good fun. They have no specific unit size but are definitely 'battle rules'. Games are played on a square gridded surface. Great fun, plays at a good lick, no disputes and would work very, very well for that period.

I really like Dux Britanniarum from TFL.

link

DBA is no longer a terrible choice for this period, since Version 3 came out, and if you're looking for games where each stand represents a great many men.

Though frankly it works out ok if you imagine each stand as a ship's worth of men, even though that's 1/10th the nominal scale of the game.

Warhammer Ancients is still popular for this period. And war and

Impetus works well for dark ages battles I would said.

Also look at Dux Bellorum (different game and for bigger battles to Dux Britaniam) and Comitatus which is mentioned above.

Saga is for similar battle size to pig wars.

I'm into dark ages / medieval, here's what I got:

for LARGE battles:

War and Conquest
Age of Empires
Hail Caesar (my favorite)
Sword and Spear (also my favorite)

for skirmish:
SAGA (very good)
Blood Eagle
Open Combat
Lion Rampant (also very good)
Lord of the Rings (no, really, it's pretty good).

I'm partial to Dux Bellorum. It specifically deals with the early dark ages of Britain (but can be used for the continent), I feel it gets the troop types and fighting qualities right. I like the slog of combat it creates and gives a great game.

700 – 900AD falls within the mid to later Dark Ages.

Another vote for Dux Bellorum and Pig Wars depending on if you want element based gaming or single figure based gaming.

Where I wrote war and above, I meant to write…

War and conquest

Thanks for some of the ideas. Since Pig Wars is a skirmish game, all of my figs are based as singles. I was thinking that for larger games, I could use trays.

At the moment I can field around 100 figs for each of the army types I mentioned.

Comitatus looks interesting. Does it have a specific figure scale?

I will recommend Comitatus. It is set up specifically for this time period. There are aspects in the rules that tailor it to this period, rather than a rules set that spans 3000BC to 1500AD.

You can use any scale figures. The key is a consistent base width. I use 28mm, but could shift to15mm or 6mm. I would just use a smaller standard base.

The Art of War is designed around individually based figures. There is a "Dark Ages" armies list appendix.

Longships by Peter Pig is specifically written for the dark ages. It includes battles and raids

typical army has 5/7 units.
Details of mechanisms are on the PP website

martin

I would recommend Hail Caesar Rules. Hope it helps.

Take care

Andy

Another vote here for Dux Bellorum, a really nice rule set that is easy to get into but with a good deal of depth and flavour.

Also look at some of the rules on the free wargames site plus also the legi site as there are samples of Comitatus rules

Dux Bellorum and To the Strongest.

Dux Bellorum as written only covers the pre-Viking era, so you'll need to use one of the unofficial variants in circulation or come up with your own house rules to extend it beyond 800AD.

Does anyone know where I can get Hail Caesar and the Dark Age supplement for a good price?

I have to give a shout out to Dux Bellorum. It's meant to be a battle set rather than skirmish. Don't be put off by the dates in te rules. It can easily be used for Vikings vs Saxons. and it gives a good game.

I recently purchased Dux Bellorum and have been reading through the rules. I can say really like what I am reading and find the rules easy to follow and understand. I have also looked over previous posts on this game and it looks like it is highly regarded by those who post about it.

The game seems to capture the special characteristics of warfare in this time period more than the general Ancient/Medieval rules out there.

I will be doing my first game soon. I will be doing it solo with my Late Imperial Romans versus Goths. Goths are not an army in the book, but the existing army list for Early Saxons can easily be used for any migration period warband army.

I am using 28mm figures on 120mm Impetus sized bases. 6 x 4 foot table.

I have trying to find a rule set to play Ancient and Medieval war games for some 40 years. I've tried almost every rule set published. Even published one, but the first one I liked was an 8 page set of free rules called "Warhammer" which I still have. but now I only play "To the Strongest" great fun and no after action headache.

I have Dux Bellorum and although it is really for late/post-Roman Britain I think it is easy enough to tweak the lists for the later early medieval period.

If you want historical accuracy you need that after-action headache.

I think the better way to say that
"In my opinion -if you want what the author views as historical accuracy…."

it is a game -games are not bastions of historical accuracy .

Comitatus is a great option