"does how the miniature is equipped matter?" Topic

In your games is the fighter represented considered to be equipped exactly as portrayed by the miniature?

This would seem to apply mostly to 1:1 skirmish games, I suppose, although there is/was a convention that, e.g., a knight with a sword is assumed also to have, or to have had, a lance as well.

My Texas rangers carry a variety of weapons, especially in the 1838-1843 period when revolvers were coming into use but by no means standard. My melee rules add dice for every loaded gun, so a double-barreled shotgun counts as double a single shot musket. If loaded.

So are the miniatures in your games just placeholders, or do players need to examine the little guy to see what he is actually carrying?

Well, with individually-mounted castings for skirmish/RPG use it's mostly what they're actually carrying, though knives are presumed. ("It's 1183: we all have knives!") Hedges:
1) Mersey-style rules are not "skirmish/RPG" for these purposes. A battalion of 24 musketeers has 24 muskets for game purposes, even though one figure's carrying a drum and two are officers.
2) Weapons types are few and obvious--pistol, rifle, SMG, rocket launcher, flamer for SF. I wouldn't want multiple types of pistols on such a program.
3) Specializations have symbols which are painted on the edge of the base--crosshairs for snipers, for instance. A boss once told me "the shortest pencil is better than the longest memory" and this is more so if other people are involved.

The miniatures are tokens, ideally they are cast with what they have but it's not mandatory. I try to avoid obvious confusing situations but I'm not going to buy figures for every eventuality. I haven't seen a situation where someone uses a figures visible gear to trick someone.

Robert, yes, and it's the dark ages and we are barbarians'! Great play and then film.

Good idea about e.g. sniper status as a symbol on the bases, though mine are probably too flat for that.

I am currently working on a melee system in which each side rolls some (large) number of d6s, which accrue based on (among other factors) weapons type. So a five shot revolver actually adds 5d6 where a flintlock pistol adds one. and after the initial clash weapons are unloaded and the fight continues, if it does, with knives and teeth!

Striker, I once played in a WRG ancients tournament against a jerk with Japanese samurai using two-handed cut and thrust, the super weapon, except he had not bothered to glue the weapons in to the hands. So first melee I said "they have "other weapons'", right? "NO, 2hct!" But hte rules say armed as portrayed. Splutter splutter. The tournament officials chuckled -- he was widely known to be an asshole -- but let him get away with it and he went on to win the tournament.

I can buy, and have bought, packs of Warlord, Knuckleduster, Foundry etc Plains Indians.
One figure out of 6 has a bow. One might have a lance or coup stick. Others will have pistols, muskets, Remingtons, etc.
we tried ONCE. WYSIWYG. What you see is what you get. Talk about tedious. It works only with a limited number of figures.

Then we tried "half of the figures shoot with bow, half with rifle". What the figure was actually armed with was irrelevant. When you start with more than 20 Indians, that speeds up play.

With V1 of Sword and the Flame, Larry Brom gave a scenario with 10 British and 20 Afghans. That was, I guess, the cinematic level he envisioned.
But, later I did games with 800 figures on the table. Tedious!
But 800 Fighting Englishmen fixed that. It kept the general principles, but smoothed over the necessary tediousness.

I think this is personal preference and situation dependent, but my general answer would be: make sure to tell your opponent what's going on, and then just play the game. It's essentially the same as the proxy question.

WRG Ancients Tournaments did indeed have assholes. I wasn't all that fluent to be one, but to my regret, I tried. Mea culpa.
What really made me ashamed was trying to declare a charge from a retiring unit in the WRG Gush Renaissance rules. It was a flawed reading, but I tried! To my shame.

For the Texas Rangers with pistols, I came up with something.
Remember that only specific units had the .36 five shooters. But as quickly as they came in, the Rangers went back to the old way. 🤷
Here is what I want to try. Say you have 5 units of Rangers. Roll a die for each unit to see if they get the 5 shot pistols (purchased from the bankrupt Texas Navy!) or the muzzle loaders.

At one time we played alot of RWNN (Rules with No Name). I printed up a bunch of 3/4 inch chits with a drawing/name of various weapon types. If a cowpoke/gunslinger picked up or began with a differnet weapon than shown on the figure the proper chit was placed on/near the figure base. Players had to declare which weapon was actually in hand or being switched during their turn phase. Players usually handled 1-3 figures.

GRINGO40s, which I highly recommend and know the OFM also has, specifies for each ranger figure exactly what he is armed with. Of course in a big game we lump stuff together, but if I am doing a skirmish with a dozen to a side I certainly can distinguish and, as others have said, to each his ever-loving blue-eyed own.

John, my brother and I for many years played endless WRG ancients games but only against each other. So when we finally had occasion to play in some convention tournaments there were all sorts of rules interpretations we had never encountered. I don't think either of us ever won a game in maybe 2o attempts. Do you remember the "cheesy whip" in which a cavalry wedge magically hits a flank with an inch of exposure?

For me, visually I feel what they are armed with is what they have to fight with. I can't play with a figure armed with a spear and then say no it actually is armed with a bow. Just me.

doc I had that maneuver pulled on me in my very first (almost the last as well) WRG tourney. It was by the organizer/referee who was also playing. Strangely enough he won it and his best friend placed second. Move along! Nothing happening here.

@Grattan54
When you have fewer than 20 figures, WYSIWYG works fine.
More than 50 figures, and it can take all day to adjudicate.
That's me. YMMV

Doc. In a weekend long tournament, there was the Thursday night rules seminar. We were playing "the most heavily play tested set of rules ever". So, we had to determine which revision level of this edition we were playing, the date of the Amendment Sheet, and the postmark on the "letter from Phil". 🙄
I played against a guy who would turn his phalanx 90 degrees, march his single figure based guys onto my flank, turn back to the desired formation and charge. With a pike phalanx unit. And he and his buddy were running the tournament.

My friends were playing in a Flames of War doubles tournament. They were facing Finns. The Finnish army had historically captured *2* KV1 tanks. Each player took the company that had these tanks. So, their "army" now had *4* KV1 tanks.

Hell with tournaments. I just discovered that the SYW Reichsarmee had 2 regiments from the Archbishopric of Würzburg. Both with beautiful flags and uniforms, of course. The childish tee hee pleasure of saying "Archbishopric" has moved them to the painting queue. The history of them says, "Although Reichsarmee, nevertheless they performed adequately." Thats all I ask. I don't need to dig for obscure rules to twist. I just want to move the approved distance and roll high.

Shag, yes. Oh yes.

John, yeah, that is what we ended up saying too And the "letter from Phil" was a real thing..

No, it does not. They are armed with what I say they are armed with. Now, if I am playing a skirmish game and I have a character that I want to have a shotgun (but don't have any shotgun armed figure) , I will try to find a rifle armed figure to show that the character has a shoulder arm.

79th, yeah, the best we can do is the best we can do.

Exactly? No.

I'm sure the idea that I've taken six shots but the bandolier strap on my figure still has ten extra shells, so I have ten extra shells appeals, but …

A less extreme example is figures with longarms and handguns have either longarms or handguns, respectively. This rifle vs that rifle is rarely a distinction. Different forces might have different weapon stats for their rifles, but not necessarily corresponding exact weapons.

Sometimes, if the scenario calls for it, longarms might be rifles, shotguns, and SAW. If I can't do an exact match, I will at least have figures with different combat capabilties carrying visually obviously different weapons.

I do have a set of postapoc survivors, four of each character figure with one version: unarmed, pistol, rifle, and close combat weapon. I also have a set of civilians with two of each character figure: human and zombie. I guess that counts?

Yes indeed, and is exactly the sort of thing now possible with conversion of 2d to 3d and then 3d printing.

And my attitude towards weapons is pretty much the same as yours, long arm vs pistol, but not more detailed than that EXCEPT that the revolvers were such a huge change from flintlock muzzle loaders.

EXCEPT that the revolvers were such a huge change from flintlock muzzle loaders.

Mostly figure clothing/uniforms splits those, too. There was some overlap, but not a lot. In the 1840's you might have one side with one and the other with the other.

I don't know of armies (maybe some militas) that would have both in the same force. If there are, I'd love to know because that sounds interesting.

Here is the distribution of revolvers in early Texas:

TMP link

I mostly play battle level games that don't care in the first place if you're armed with a sword or a lance.

But when I play 1:1 skirmish, I try and adhere to wysiwyg wrt weaponry.

Conformist, yes, and I like the players having to LOOK at the figure I laboriously painted -- and that someone sculpted -- instead of just treating them as tokes, and wysiwyg encourages that.

For me, equipped as seen.

I remember an AAR of a game in the Courier where an unarmed figure that was guiding the group suddenly turned struck down one of the party with a spear.

Lots of jokes ensued as to where the spear had been hidden!

Some details only I would notice.
I read Empire of the Simmer Moon and saw a few videos about how the "average" Comanche could hold up to 5 arrows in the bow hand. This gave them a rapid fire.
So, I took a Gringo40s bow armed Comanche horseman, and superglued a few "arrows" to his bow hand.
That's the only figure I did that with.
A very strict WYSIWYG reading would say that he was the only one allowed that … trick.
I think not. 😄🍺