"Best Osprey Rules – Any Period?" Topic

Curious, of all the Osprey Publishing rulesets, which one is "best" overall, considering all periods and scales?

You define "best" but I suppose I means some combination of popularity and market acceptance, quality of writing, excellence in mechanics, historical fidelity, playability, etc.

I define best as "Worth spending my money on" , so I did purchase The Men Who Would Be Kings, with intereset in Absolute Emperor. I do watch videos and read Blogs before buying. The rules are low cost so I don't expect excessive detail. I go into this knowing TMWWBK rules need a better QRS so I will down load the one from Little wars TV

Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant are worth the money.

I agree with both of the above posters about "The Men Who Would Be Kings" and the "Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant" rules. I can also add "Rebels and Patriots" to the list.

Jim

Of those I've tried, Lion Rampant (1st Edition.) "Best" can be tricky, but only Lion Ranpant and Dragon Rampant made it as rules I keep and use with certain armies.

A kind word in passing for Rogue Stars: a truly wretched set of rules, but a very nice scenario generator. Even bad rules can sometimes be worth owning.

I have only played Rebels and patriots, and I enjoyed it. I intend to start running some games with it.

Lion Rampant gets a lot of good reviews, but I have never played it or any other set in the Osprey stable.

I have played LR, R&P and Fighting Sail.

Personally I like LR and it was popular enough to spawn other rules and a hard back 2nd edition.

I also like In Her Majestys Name (although that doesn't seem to be listed on the Osprey site at the moment).

I have…umm…about a dozen of the rule sets I think.

Some I will probably never play. No, I will never play them.

I want to play – Men of Bronze, Broken Legions and Of Gods And Mortals.

I'm intrigued by Castles in the Sky – I have three similar rulesets already, but, well, there's a sucker born every minute and I'll probably buy them eventually.

Absolute Emperor I have heard good things about and I hope I'll give it a try.

Rogue stars was on my give it a trylist – I think I will at some point. Hopefully not too wretched.

I am 20thmaine and I am a rule buying addict…..

I have them all. The one I play regularly and will go back to is Dux B. Thoroughly recommended.

I like Black Ops. It's a bit too complicated but can be good games.

Does Frostgrave count? I love LR/DR and just picked up second edition but have to confess that I've played Frostgrave the most! Of course, its fantasy not historical….

Only with adjustments

The Silver Bayonet

Frostgrave, L&R and TMWBKs get my vote. I think R&P would make that list based on a reading, but need to play it to be sure. Im hopeful for the Pulp Rules coming this fall….and also plan to look at Stargrave.

The Men who Would Be Kings. Without a doubt. The first ruleset my "big brain" was able to grasp , little bits of humor sprinkled throughout, plus colonial film recommendations are a plus.

Just so you understand that "best" is very subjective, I love Rogue Stars and think it's one of the best, and I think that Lion Rampant is fundamentally broken.

I do play Of Gods and Mortals alot. It has some quirks (such as Legends are very fragile against each other), but very enjoyable.

Fighting Sail is good for what it is designed for (quick games with lots of ships) and the released amendments improve it.

On the Seven Seas is not good. The Fear and Greed mechanic seems innovative, but it doesn't work (I have no idea how they playtested this), plus shooting is ineffective and close combat brutal. I've not tried the naval part of the rules, maybe that is where it shines.

I really enjoy Pikeman's Lament, Lion Rampant, Rebels and Patriots and Dragon Rampant. I've been playing them for years.

Lion Rampant Dragon Rampant Men who would be kings

platypus01au: curious, why do you consider Lion Rampant "fundamentally broken?"

20th, by all means give Rogue Stars a try. I felt the scenario generator was worth the price. But as a game system, I felt the markers/bookkeeping were unacceptable.

For LR/DR, I need three types of tokens, and no unit will ever have more than two. With 100 castings on the table, you might have 10 markers and no other records necessary.

Rogue Stars suggests 20 markers per five man squad in three colors for three conditions, which might not be enough depending on character traits and die rolls. In addition these, there must be records of locations of hits (injured or severed limbs) and there are a host of unique conditions--blind, entangled, dropped weapon, hidden, and prone are the obvious ones--which have to be recorded somehow. I'm told Andrea Sfiligoi has used a much cleaner, simpler system in other rules, but at this stage I'd not buy other rules from this author if they were shrink-wrapped.

But that's me. Clearly it hasn't discouraged Platypus.

LR and Dr for me, and Gaslands.

@robert piepenbrink

Thanks for the comments – it does sound a bit clunky. Quite odd as Andrea Sfiligoi usually produces quite clean systems – The "Songs of…." rule series is his, and even the historical spin offs are quite straightforward. A bit weird, because you build (for example) Napoleonic "Warbands" which one has to then either not worry about or mentally justify as a rag-tag patrol or survivors making their way back from a bigger battle. Or just produce a coherent warband – like 4 cavalrymen, or 8 infantry from the same regiment.

@Royston Papworth I'd forgotten I have Dux B (somewhere) – I'd sort of decided it looked a bit heavy going, but maybe I should give it another look.

@platypus01au – I'm really going to try Of Gods and Mortals – I bought the figures I needed and some Gods (!), but they never marched to the front of the painting queue.

I've enjoyed Honours of War quite a bit. We've used it for SYW, AWI, and also adapted it for ACW play.

I'm going to say 'Zona Alfa'.

Anyone really surprised?

The ‘Rampants'

Ronin/En Garde has potential, but is a bit clunky in the combat resolution.

I only have one Osprey rulebook
. Absolute Emperor, it put me off buying any others.

I've got the Pirate one (can't remember the name) and In Her Majesty's Name. Both I've toyed around with but no significant gaming.

I did just pick up A World Aflame to play some Spanish Civil War with. Looking forward to that.

I wrote a detailed answer, but it got clobbered.

Rogue Stars. This is much more of an RPG-lite than a pure miniatures game, so if you don't like that, then that is understandable. You don't put the markers next to the miniature. You have a card for each character and you put the markers on that. I use dice of different colours to track Stress, Pins and Wounds.

Lion Rampant. The mechanism can't cope with clumping. To lose a game, or to see your opponent lose a game, because they can't roll over a certain number five or six times in a row, isn't a test of skill.

We absolutely love Dracula's America. The core rules allow you to play 'vanilla" western games or weird west games. Vampire gunfighters, shape-shifting natives, zombie Confederates--such a cool game!

I think Dragon Rampant is the only one I've actually played.

Draculas America

Bolt Action

Toyed with In Her Majesty's Name. Worthwhile. Ronin was a fight simulator looking for a skirmish game.