"your favorite rules for any era and any setting" Topic

What are your favorite rules, for any era, any setting? By that I I just mean a simple "all things being equal, I'd rather play X than anything else."

Without a doubt Bag the Hun.

Pony Wars! Best fun ever.

Well the answer is, "It depends." Right now I would say my favorite is The Men Who Would be Kings. It checks off all the boxes for large skirmish Colonial Era and even Pulp that I would like to game.

AK47 the original version

The Sword and the Flame

Oh, drat. Depends on time, opponent and just flat what I'm in a mood for. Let me throw out several to make sure they get included in the poll:
Ancient/Medieval/Fantasy: DB series, especially DBA and HOTT for small castings and Mersey series, especially Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant for larger ones.
Horse & Musket--Wessencraft Corps Level for small castings and Charge for Dummies or Charge! for larger ones
Age of Rifles: On to Richmond. Maybe Stonewall Brigade.
Colonial: TSATF.
Modern/SF Ogre for smaller castings.

Yes, I know: nothing I'm really happy with for modern/SF skirmish or even really WWII stand=platoon. But I haven't given up yet.

Sword and the Flame

WW2: NUTS (Skirmish), PanzerKorps (Divisional)
Ancients/Dark Ages: Dux Britanniarum

Rules According to Ral

Depends on if I am hosting or playing – but generally any of these 4

Sword and the Flame
Fire and Fury
Died for Glory
Cavaliers and Roundheads

Neil Thomas

Saga

To the Strongest

PigWars
Wesencraft Rules
Full Thrust
Battleground (by Regiment games, not Easy Eight)
Firefight (Alternative Armies)
HomeGrown pulp rules for pulp Sci Fi

To the Strongest!

Fantasy/Ancients/Medieval Grand Tactical: Warmaster
WWI Air: Wings of War/Glory
Spaceships (Fleet combat): GOBS!
Spacefighters: X-Wing, 1st ed.
RPG: D&D (BECMI)
SF armor: Ogre

Really don't have any other "rather play X" rules for tabletop genres, though I do have some "rather not play Y" rules I can think of!

Anything Daniel Mersey, pretty big fan of Fire and Fury.

One Hour Wargames

The Sword and the Flame

Tercio: Liber militum, and the expansion Kingdoms.
By Fire and Sword.
Blucher.
Warmaster.
Savage Worlds.

Have to say I'm having fun with Age of Sigmar and A Song of Ice and Fire mini game.

The Sword and the Flame

Bloody Barons, Ga Pa, Maurice, Sail and Steam, Chain of Command, What a Tanker, To the Strongest, Dirtside II, Gruntz, Full Thrust. These are a few of my favorite rules.

ACW – Johnny Reb – really has the feel of the period
Colonial – Sword and the Flame – just FUN
Fantasy, Old West – Home brew

The Sword and the Flame (and variants)
Yellow Ribbon (still the only Indian Wars rules where Indians act like Indians).

Love Fire and Fury brigade rules for ACW

Bloody Big Battles!,
Et Sans Resultat,
General Quarters 3

Pretty much 90% of what I game these days is one of those 3.

Home Mod of Pz8 Division Level Second World War Rules
One Hour Wargames
Frostgrave

For 19th and 18th Century massed battles the soon to be released A Gentleman's War.

SAGA

Depends on the era really.

But Bloody Big Battles, Pikeman's Lament, and To the Strongest get the most play from me.

For 19th century rifles type games its "Charge of the Light Brigade."
For 18th century muskets its Fife and Drum miniature rules. Easy to learn, fun fast game and very adaptable.

TSATF DBA/HOTTS

Chain of Command, Maurice, Sharps Practice, Black Powder, Impetus and SAGA.

Christopher

QILS, but I designed it to be that way, so … yeah.

Space 1889 and THATF inherently lead to fun games for me.

MechWarrior (and all the clixy games, really) has some nice non-linearity built in at basically no cost to the player, which makes for a lot of fun, too.

Dragon Rampant and all rules based on these

Shako 2.

SAGA, Blue Max

Disposable Heroes, TSATF.

TSATF and variants, Disposable Heroes.
same as Chuckaroobob, but different order of preference!
:-)

Napoleonics – SHAKO 2
ACW – Regimental Fire & Fury
WW2 Platoon level – Fist Full of Tows 3
WW2 skirmish – Bolt Action
Modern Warfare Platoon level – FFT3
WW2 Naval – GHQ Micronaughts
Age of Sail – Heart of Oak

Sword and the Flame
Bolt Action

ACW – JR II, On to Richmond
ACW Naval – Age of Iron
Colonial – TSATF
Wild West – Desperado, Desperado II
WWII Skirmish – Wally Simon's(can't remember the name)
WWII Armor – Tank Charts? (last played in the 80's so not sure of the name)
AWI – The British Are Coming, Loose Files

But, as many have said, it is the players and not the rules the majority of the time that make for a good game.

Dave

King of the Battlefield 18th century rules
- Played regularly since 2002.

Others include
AdlG
AK47
Dragon Rampant
Soppy Fokkers
WH40k 9thEd v grandson

Bluecher
Bloody broadsides
Blue max
SOBH
BBDBA /AdlG
2HW
Bolt Action tweaked

Carnage & Glory II

The Sword & The Flame
Limeys & Slimeys
Fast Play ACW