"New Skirmish Action Rules - What Periods Besides WWII?" Topic

Gamers trying my Skirmish Action WWII rules have asked me for other periods. Everything from Korea (so they can use their WWII minis) to Nam and modern day Iraq and Afghanistan. There has even been mention of Wild West (not all Cavalry vs Indian battles were Custer sized – many were small skirmishes) and Late 1800 Colonial Warfare. So putting aside the question of have you played or do you like my rules for a moment, which of these periods holds the most interest? Perhaps even some that I have not mentioned. Welcome your thoughts and comments. Cheers! Lee

FIW

I can't stand any rules set that requires guys in ranks or where I have to worry about road formation versus firing lines.

But I would play the hell out of a FIW skirmish game!

There are loads of skirmish rules for every period imaginable, FIW included.

But if you have a new mouse trap (and I'm working on one myself) it will adapt to loads of periods.

One thought: if you go the black powder era it is easy to tweak at that level to cover everything from 1700-1900…

WWI, SCW

WWII first, followed closely by the Cold War period – Northern Europe, post-WWII.

Modern

Colonial Africa from 1850ish is a good one. Basic Victorian era stuff is a good bet, everybody fighting everybody in lots of nasty parts of the world that only empire builders gave a damn about.

Fatman

I quite like New Zealand wars for skirmish. The period makes for good skirmish games – tracking who has loaded their musket, plenty of hand to hand and guerrilla warfare.

I play the rules I wrote for the period when I do game it, which isn't very often these days.

Doing SCW and Korea should take little tweaking, so those are good starts.

NKL AeroTom
Any war were the favourite weapons were the shotgun and the hatchet is made for skirmish. ;)

Fatman

Agree with Weasel, Korea and Spanish Civil War should take very little tweaking for a WW2 ruleset.

Depending on how your rules work, you could probably push forward through Vietnam and up to today.

It's when you start pushing back in time that things can get messy. For example, the colonial version of Force on Force needed a whole new stat added to the game (melee skill versus shooting skill), because most colonial opponents were not great shots but were terrifying melee fighters.

How about modern Africa?

What about Arthurian..using the TFL Dux rules.

P.

All conflicts from the interwar. Historical and imaginative.
Free korps battles in the streets of Berlin and against German invaders.
Russo Polish battles
Back of beyond
Russian Civil War
Irish war for independence
Spanish Civil War
Very British civil war

Those are just the ones I have figures for, there must be others.

1. Vietnam skirmish rules
2. World War 1
3. Modern

I can't help but think Lee that Modern would be disgustingly bloody. But I think your gaming system works perfectly with flow of play and the time period. I played at you at OMM that Saturday and the first thing I thought to myself is how well your rules would work for modern gaming.

Yes, enjoyed gaming with you! Probably the number one request of people during games I've run has been Modern. Closely followed by Nam. I personally would love to do Wild West lol. I wanted to ask the question here with a more varied audience to see if there were additional ideas. I have all of the weapons aka Army Lists worked out for both Modern and Nam so "time to table" would be fairly short. Appreciate your thoughts! Cheers! Lee

It's no secret I write my rules to play like the movies. Wasn't in WWII or Korea or Nam (I was on a DDG chasing Russian subs) so my "vision" of battle is what I have seen in the "good" war movies. Saving Private Ryan. Band of Brothers. A Bridge Too Far. And I keep seeing the fights from Last of the Mohicans in my mind … Ref FIW posts earlier. Very tempting! Lee

Vietnam!

I did up a nice st of Napoleonic Skirmish a few years ago based on the TSATF rules system.

They work very well for the time period.

If interested contact me off site and I will send them.

Bob Henry
badbobalbino@aol.com

Something super Modern, possibly
- SWAT vs Sophisticated Russian Mafia (like ex-Spetsnaz)
- Russian special forces vs Crazy Facist Military Russian supremacists
- FBI vs Crazy Facist supremacists
- European integrated special forces vs Crazy Facist Islamists
- Ex-US SF Military vs Crazy Facist Federal Forces (FFF)

Scenarios to play:
-Free the hostages
-Re-capture nuclear sub
-Re-capture nuclear power plant
-Eliminate the president
-Capture the president
-Protect the president
-Liquidate the hostiles
etc…

Wild West is VERY accessible, especially to kids. They just "get it" that guns have six shots and that guys wear cowboy hats and ride horses. Also, it's a lot of fun robbing banks and causing general mayhem.

And older guys like it, too.

Westerns are easy to do as pick-up games, and they tend not to have complicated objectives, plus even if each player is running a small gang, they tend not to have complex, coordinated movements, which again makes them very accessible to kids and newbies.