"Best rules for SKIRMISH style Renaissance games ?" Topic

Im think of doing some Portugese in N.Africa , Spain in Americas ,or Spain,French,English,Dutch etc in N.America or something else odd . A skirmish game with a couple hundred figures or less would be great .

Skirmish with a couple hundred figures? I thought skirmish was around the 5-20 range. What scale? What level of battles (clearing/searching houses or taking a city)?

1 to 1 scale or rules that are more for company level fights !

The pikemen's lament gives a fun game. The number of figures per side is usually less than about 50 or 60.

Someone else recommended Pl for my South East Asian games, Siamese v Burmese 16th and 17thC

There were adaptations for "The Sword and the Flame" that pitted Aztecs vs Spanish and at least one other including Malays, etc in South East Asia – I recall the latter one had some cool canoe/boat rules.

A free rules set that had skirmish rules for relatively large numbers of figures adaptable to the 16th and 17th centuries is "Why Must We Fight, Tribe Against Tribe" and its supplement "The Forest is Vast." These rules were originally designed to simulate inter-tribal warfare during the Age of Exploration (or before and after). It also has rules for European troops.

Lo and Behold they are still around. link

I was slightly wrong, the designer made them for settler vs Amerind wars and also the Maori Wars in NZ, but they would likely play well as Portuguese in N Africa, or Spanish in the Philippines and so on.

I've had them for a while, but haven't played them, but the native side seems like a lot of fun. Your braves don't necessarily do what you want them to.

What about Irregular Wars ? It was written for these sort of conflicts. link

I believe Amazon can supply printed versions if PDF isn't your thing.

Pikeman's Lament or Irregular Wars were my first thoughts too, though there are a few Renaissance adaptions for Sharp Practice 2 around as well.

For much smaller skirmishers (6-15 figures per player), some of the "Song of" line could work, a retro-fitted Song of Drums and Shakos, or Flashing Steel.

Irregular Wars is an element based game with small forces, well under the couple of hundred figures per side, maybe 50 in a large army.

Many years ago in Wargames Illustrated Chris Peers published an adaptation of his 'In the Heart of Africa' Darkest Africa skirmish-style (it uses individually based figures and simple, 'skirmishy' mechanisms, but isn't a skirmish game) small battles system for Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors versus various South American native empires/tribes. The series of articles included combat rules, army lists, and a campaign system.

The rules translate easily to other contemporary parallel settings, such as the East Indies.

The largest armies (native, of course) would be around the hundred figure mark.

The Perfect Captains Spanish Fury: Actions might be worth looking at.

link