"Which Rule System for 7YW?" Topic

Want a Rule System for Mass Battles!

Well now this is a good question!

There are several good rule sets out there – we right now are using Black Powder but have used Volley and Bayonet; we prefer Black Powder

As well there is Warfare in the Age of Reason, which we liked and used for years as well as Age of Honour, the SYW variant for Age of Eagles which is the Napoleonic version of that Civil War classic Fire and Fury; if you like Fire and Fury Age on Honour (Honor) would be a good system

"Twilight of the Soldier Kings" by Nick Dorrell.

Koenig Krieg with maneuver unit being battalions/regiments.

2nd for Koenig Krieg

Volley & Bayonet…hands down.

Joe Collins

If you like old school rules like "Charge" or "The Wargame," you may like "Batailles de l‘Ancien Regime" by Bill Protz.

Available here:

link

Ken Bungers "Tricorne"

Age of Reason.
Played it just last night.

Volley and Bayonet if you're interested in full battles.

'A Glorious War' works well. I had 3 large games in the past 6 weeks:

Final Argument of Kings by the late Dean West.

Tell us more, ochoin. Your link says nothing about the rules.

Twilight of the Soldier Kings – easy for newbies to learn.

Apologies, coopman.

"A Glorious War" (quote from Wolfe) is a home-groan set of rules of surpassing quality & great playability.

I call them "fast play" so although there's a fair amount of "chrome", they're very bloody & you can get a result from a 300+ figure a side game in about 3 hours.

They're very popular here (ie in my house) but don't get the recognition they deserve elsewhere.

Core rules are 14 pages long. Beautifully & clearly written.
The desktop publishing has been remarked on ("Dad, these are well set out." by an unbiased observer).

I know the author well….very well…extremely well….and can attest to his game-making acumen & quite inspiring scholarship. *

* in the interest of full disclosure, money changed hands before I wrote this post. I treated myself to a Doppio before I sat down to the computer.

This is indeed an interesting question, and in my experience it depends on what you want out of the game. Koenig Krieg is a dedicated grand tactical system, and good if you want to represent a whole lot men with comparatively few figures. I've only played it a couple of times, and found it a bit fiddly, but there might be a new rules edition out that makes game play clearer. Die Kriegskunst (not a particularly felicitous name) on the other hand is for folks who want to show off their beautiful figures in a more battalion level battle. To be honest, Dkk has more of the look of a massed battle than KK, but has much more unit tactical game play. Both rules sets, imo, have reasonably steep learning curves, at least by contemporary standards. Maurice is an interesting possibility, but I've not played it -- a very different sort of game in the "if you like that sort of thing" mode. I think any of these would give you a fine game but I would personally recommend Koenig Krieg if you are after the "big battle" SYW experience. Oh also for what it's worth, I game the SYW in 15mm, which I think is ideal for KK; die Kriegskunst works fine at that scale but is intended for the bigger models.

Now if you are more interested in a lot minis on the table in a club environment, when learning the rules might be an issue, I would go with Black Powder. There are some excellent house rules available online that give the game a more linear 18th-C. feel, and you can get through a very large game in six hours or so. The various DBx rules are fine as well, if that's more your thing. The nice thing about BP is that basing is almost never an issue, but all of the rest of these rules have basing requirements of varying degrees of stringency.

And Ochoin -- beautiful armies and table! Such forces must certainly accompany excellent rules!

Thank you, sir. I like to kid myself your observations about my SYW gaming are true.

We use "honours of war". Quick and simple rules.

Have a look at Might and Reason. Brigade level rules. Been around for a while, but still work well and you can game any SYW battle in an afternoon. We do have some some house rules for command and control.

King of the Battlefield. Been using it for years. Gives a good game and historical battles can be refoufht in an evening.

Might and Reason for full battles.
Honours of War is a nice system and easy to learn
Piquet Field of Battle is also good if you like the Piquet system

Is Volley & Bayonet still available ?

The question is, how big are the games you are planning? Big means different things to different people.

I'd use Piquet Field of Battle, or possibly Black Powder for big battles. Big to me, is something like these:

Or do you mean a big skirmish game like the one for Muskets and Tomahawks.

I'm a big fan of Might & Reason for fighting large scale battles in the 7YW. If I want to go smaller I'll use Carnage and Glory II.

You can download my Der Alte Fritz rules for free on the Fife and Drum Miniatures web site. Click the link below:

link

The rules fit onto one side of a standard letter size sheet of paper and I have been using them at conventions for over 20 years. They are fast play and extremely easy to learn, the latter of which is a must for a convention game.

We used to use Age of Reason all the time. We think it caught the feel of the period. However, we found the "charge" rules to be WAR too complicated. We never got to a definitive battle resolution in our normal 4-5 hour gaming period (including setup).

We moved on to Black Powder because of its ease of use, but you definitely want to get the "The Last Argument of Kings" supplement or develop some house rules to capture the feel of linear tactics with limited maneuverability vs. the more Napoleonic feel of the basic Black Powder rules.

As ever, the best rules are the rules you like the best.
Write your own like Der Alte Fritz or our club is my suggestion?

I really like Honours of War, very fun system. We have played some big games 60+ (Bat/Reg) a side. I really like the simple command system and the combat system gives for quick results.

What are you looking for in the set of rules? Detailed Combat mechanics, 48 figure battalions, Command level?

Chris

Have been using "Age of Reason" for over 30 years. Plays fast, looks good and is well supported by the authors.

Dan

Der Alte Fritz! – TMP link
Rank & File also works nicely as does Honours of War.

Volley & Bayonet is still very available… as well as both SYW source books.

link

link

Also available from very fine retailers.
onmilitarymatters.com

Joe Collins

I still like WRG. TMP link

Herky, you failed to include your own rules in there, don't be so modest, they are a fine set, simple to understand but detailed enough to reflect the flavor of the period.