"Help Me Find a Ruleset?" Topic

Hey everyone. I hope I'm not committing any faux-pas by posting this soon after joining, but I have been having a certain craving for 15mm historical wargaming and my friends do to. But we need help.

15mm wargaming has got so many things going for it:

1. The miniatures are inexpensive.
2. There are oodles and oodles of companies and sculpts to choose from.
3. With the proper technique, painting is a breeze.
4. Doing huge scale battles is so much easier when individual soldiers are multiples to a base and (if you really want to go HUUGE) you can pack WAY more models on the board for a massively epic looking battle.

However, there is one really glaring problem… I'm lost on what rule-set to use. There appear, at a cursory glance, half a metric -ton of different rulesets and I just frankly do not have time in a life with mortgages, job, and school to read, playtest, teach people, and play people to see if just one of the bajillions of certain rulesets listed on this website is good for us or not.

But I CRAVE the opportunity to march a massive hoard of 15mm Christian Crusaders over someone…ANYONE really and my friends want to join me but I am generally the one who helps teach the others new games; which wouldn't be an issue if I wasn't so lost… So, if you people have it in your hearts to help me with suggestions, I would be infinitely grateful.

I have a few things I have been able to eke out from my research to help guide you guys' suggestions, which I will list from most important to least important.

1. Complexity. This is very important. If we are going to commit ourselves to playing historical we want to be sure our armies are individualized and that this individualization matters. Our unit choices and how we arm those units should have a good deal of impact on the game. We play Classic Battletech all the time so difficult rulesets don't scare us.

2. The game flows well. Meaning we could finish a game (with some practice, of course) in less than two hours. Longer games can certainly be suggested, especially with more complex and intricate systems, but we would prefer to not have to bring an overnight bag for a weekend of ONE game.

3. Not restricted to a specific era. It would be great to have this as those who I will be playing with want to play things like cavemen, Samurai, and ancient romans. IF there is a ruleset that has army lists from different eras/regions that would be freaking awesome. We're not above a little "wyrd war"

4. One minaiture = one soldier. If at all possible we would like to avoid "representation stands". My players and I agree that the concept of a stand of 3 men representing 10 or 30 guys breaks our immersion, so a game with one-mini-to-one-solider physics is greatly suggested.

5. Multiple miniatures per base is preferable, but Penny or washer basing for individual soldiers is OK if the ruleset flows well.

I hope that helps, and I'm excited to be part of the TMP community!

Lion Rampant !

Hmmm. Good luck, but I think you may want to carefully re-examine your requirements. Think about what size board you'd need to represent a Republican Roman and a Carthaginian army, say at 1:1, and how much of that individualization you're going to miss if all you have room for on the table is a single homogeneous unit of each army. And if each casting is a single man, your ground scale will let many weapons shoot all the way across a decent-size table, making maneuver difficult. How big a table can you regularly use, by the way?

Suggestion: one group of armies, two sets of rules. If your thing is individually-mounted 15mm ancients, find one good set of skirmish rules which will let foraging parties and outposts clash. Then find another set which will let a few castings stand in for a unit, and let you fight a full-size battle. (Might want to look at movement trays here.)

Lion Rampant might very well fill one of those slots. I enjoy it myself. But it doesn't cover the span of time you discussed, and I wouldn't regard it as complex. (For me, that's a bonus. Complex and done in two hours is asking a lot of a set of rules.)

Lots of things are possible in miniature warfare, but they aren't all possible at the same time.

And welcome to TMP!

a massive hoard of 15mm Christian Crusaders

finish a game (with some practice, of course) in less than two hours.

Best of luck with that one …

I would however suggest "To the Strongest"

You couldn't find a more mutually exclusive set of preconditions if you hired a bunch of consultants.

+1 Winston.
Using a 1:1 scale for big battles means it will take your two hours just to set up! In my experience 1:1 figures scale games need to use no more than about 50 to 75 figures, so Lion Rampant, Saga or Dux Bellorum might satisfy that part of your brief.
If you want to play the bigger battles, by which I mean battles that would have involved a few thousand to tens of thousands of men, you have to compromise and use rules where a figure represents anything between 20 and 100 men. I think Basic Impetus might suit if you want to play a relatively short game. I also like Sword and Spear and there is something to be said for Hail Caesar, but a reasonable sized battle will take several hours to play to a conclusion with these rulesets.

Lion rampant!!!!

Oh, be fair, Winston. Consultants could be a little worse than this, and any government office could do much worse.

There's nothing wrong with wanting mutually exclusive things starting out. The problem comes when you insist on them later after you should have learned better. And as Alternate points out, there are dozens of rules sets out there each of which swear blind they'll deliver everything on his list.

Ottoathome years ago did a little glossary of wargame terms. Maybe we can get him to do an update, to include such things as "historically accurate fast play" and "works with any basing."

I agree with what has been said above – many of your requirements do not work together.

Not restricted to a specific era. It would be great to have this as those who I will be playing with want to play things like cavemen, Samurai, and ancient romans. IF there is a ruleset that has army lists from different eras/regions that would be freaking awesome. We're not above a little "wyrd war"

Most big battle ancients rules cover the period from 3000 BC to 1500 AD. They give army lists and points so you can play relatively balanced games with any army from any era or location within that period. However, they will not meet these requirements:

we want to be sure our armies are individualized and that this individualization matters.

Generally in big battle rules, the army list will tell you what type of troops you can have, but a Greek hoplite spearmen will operate in pretty much the same way as a dark ages or medieval spearman.

One minaiture = one soldier. If at all possible we would like to avoid "representation stands". My players and I agree that the concept of a stand of 3 men representing 10 or 30 guys breaks our immersion,

Well if you want big battles you have to accept that it's not going to be possible at 1:1 scale. And it's not going to be 1 stand represents 10 men either – more like one unit (of say 10 – 20 figures) represents 500 – 2000 men.

If you want a smaller scale (skirmish) type game where one figure does represent one soldier, there isn't actually that much choice, and the rulesets that are available don't cover a wide period and are only suitable for up to around 50 figures per side. Generally these type of games are played in 28mm.
If you want this type of game then I would recommend Saga, which covers the Dark Ages and Crusades, and certainly gives you a different feel for each army, but it is more of a fun fantasy game with historical armies, rather than a historically accurate simulation.

Here are some previous related threads:
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When various conflicting goals appear one has to choose. You saying: "But I CRAVE the opportunity to march a massive hoard of 15mm Christian Crusaders over someone…ANYONE". Since this is my feeling too (nothing is more beautiful than the sight of large armies)I wonder if rulesets like Lion Rampant with 15mm will be sufficient for you. A "massive hoard" would look like this: link
It is of course impossible to use individual figures (;-)), but as I said: with conflicting goals a choice has to be made.

For a big battle – not 1 to 1 – I enjoy Medieval Tactica

Does it have to be 15mm? You could probably fit a couple of hundred 6mm infantry on a 28mm Impetus-style base, 120mm wide. That may not be 1:1, but it's mass

Sounds to me like classic Warhammer or Warhammer Historical is what your looking for. Just leave out the magic and monsters.

Warhammer ancients seems like it'd get the closest to the most of the requirements.

What about "Burn & Loot" or Saga. They're not exactly the more "universal" ancient rules, and they're usually 28mm, but individually based 15mm would work just as well.

Although I'll echo others' comments and say that large scale battles, 1:1 scale and a couple hours play are not exactly compatible. That said, I'd go for Saga. It's pretty quick to play, has some real tactical depth, unlike Lion Rampant, and although I don't think a figure sale is given, it feels like 1:1 to me. Mind you, one of my opponents says it has the feel of large scale battle to him.

Look at link
"Our main product is Skjaldborg. Skjaldborg is a set of large scale skirmish rules for Ancients to Medieval wargaming. You can also re-fight larger battles using it with multi figure bases."
Read through them but didn't play. Seemed interesting to me.