"WOTR's Rule Set?" Topic

Who makes a good ruleset for either 28mm or 18mm WOTR's?

We use the command and control system from piquet and the combat characteristics from Armati.

If you would like a set give me your e.mail and i'll send them to you.

Peter Pig's "Bloody Barons" give a great game.

Hi

Days of Knights is great fun and works really well.

Vis Bellica is also extremely good for this era.

I have also been using Arcane Warfare (although the rules say they finish before the start of these wars) with very good results.

John

WAB/Armies of Chivalry has a bit of a following. There's a mailing list at WABMedievalBattles@yahoogroups.com which has many familiar TMP names on it…

(not played it myself yet on account of not having many figures on account of not allowing myself to buy another era when I have very literally CRATES of unpainted stuff…)

Bloody Barons, good fun and quick play. If you are new to the period they will keep your enthusiasm. If I was starting out I would start there. WAB will not give you the period feel and PPs rules give a good mix of period specific rules and fast play.

I use WAB Armies of Chivalry and like the feel. I will also pick up Bloody Barons at Cold Wars and give it a try.Day's of Knights is good for WOTR, but can't find any players.

Poleaxed from Lance and longbow

Poleaxed is a nice set, but you will need several hunderds of miniatures per side! It is an "old style" rules set (which doesn't mean it is bad).

We play Armati 2, or sometimes WAB with the Armies of Chivalry supplement. Armati 2 being the most played lately.
The nice thing about Armati is that you can start playing when you have around 50 – 60 miniatures a side, and then boost your army to full force, which is around 250 miniatures a side.

Most important, have fun in your games!
Wim VdB

More info on Armati 2 can be found at Warflute.org.

I have several Armati armies from 'chin to Saracens and am a big fan. War of the Roses, in my opinion, is the BEST era for these rules.

I have large York and Lancaster Armies (you have diffent, subtle variations in the lists) and these games are excellent. Have fun.

I second Armati II.

I second chriscos and play WOR in Armatti 2 with him at the club. Armati seems right for WOR. Now if I can only get him to play 28mm Warhammer , Armies of Chivalry.

It's been a long, long time, but we had a blast playing WOTR using George Gush's Renaissance rules back in the mid-80s.

I hear good things about Bloody Barons from Peter Pig and I may jum into it some day.

Bloody Barons from Peter Pig is excellent but I have to say that the ony period that I think DBX works well for is wotr. I tend to use the set age of chivalry from the canadian wargames group as this gives you the problem of not having exact command over your subordinates.

Day of Battle works and there are some WoTR Domians on the website (www.dayofbattle.com)…Chris P.

I bought a copy of Bloody Barons at the Enfilade! 2006 convention in June. After giving 'em a read, I think they are definitely the way I will go. Nice flavor for the period and simple mechanics.

Flower of Chivalry is a classic set.

Medieval Warfare is also quite good.

Poleaxed 2 is the way to go in my opinion. You can also cheat and scale down the contingent sizes, we currently play usin 5 figure frontages which nicely fit on a games workshop (can't believe i typed their name) movement tray and give a reasonable size and look to the contingent. Instead of 32 figures per contingent we use 20 meaning more contingents for your money and since both sides uses the same basing technique it doesn't alter the game balance at all. Another plus is the figures are also based individually for WAB or can be used on trays for armati, dba, dbm or days of knights with no problems as well.

I go with Poleaxed 2, (and do use Armati at times)

I want to vote for Bloody Barons too!

I,ve tried Dbm, Armati,Days of Knights and now Bloody barons. Bloody barons has my vote. I,ve heard good things about Piquet though. cheers

Try Might of Arms or Poleaxed 2.

Poleaxed 2 for 10mm & Armies of Chivalry for 28mm

Poleaxed 2, a set of rules designed for the period by guys who have done thier reaserch and it shows in some of the intresting concepts in the rules.
William

"Medieval Warfare" by Terry Gore, best by FAR! He also does a WotR scenario book that covers all the major battles of the period. Its a win win situation!

Can all the mentioned rules also used for the late 15th century in western Europe (burgundians, Swiss etc) or which rules could be used for these wars?

Gents, not familier with all the rule sets above (although have seen the Bloody Barons AAR on the battle reports page).

Rules for the Roses would have to take into account the importance of characters. Is this possible with say Warhammer that uses a point system? Warhammer has a General and a Battle Standard (Battle Standard could be a lesser lord/Earl/Duke). However in most battles you would three to four characters a side.

If we look at First St Albans;
Lancaster- Henry VI, Northumberland, Clifford and Sommerset.
Yorkist- Duke of York, Warwick and Salisbury.

How many points should be assigned to characters and what importance should they have on the game? What do you think?

"Can all the mentioned rules also used for the late 15th century in western Europe (burgundians, Swiss etc) or which rules could be used for these wars?"

Medieval Warfare has lists for both armies (as well as their tradtional enemies, HRE, Austrian, French Ordonance, etc…).

"Rules for the Roses would have to take into account the importance of characters"

Medieval Warfare covers this in 2 ways. "Heros" may be purchased for points in army which gives the unit he is with a morale bonus. It is an optional rule.

Leaders ratings may be assigned or diced for. The better the rating, the more they can attempt to do during a turn.

Its a great set of rules, but then I'm a Medieval War Whore.

Re: Medieval Warfare:

games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SAGAWarfare/

link

"WARS OF THE ROSES: Scenarios for Wargamers: Gore T any rule" by Saga Publishing

Has anyone tried Piquet Band of Brothers 2?
Not easy to get hold of but I understand it's something different for this period.

I bought it, read it, have not played it, did not agree with some of the army lists, and still prefer Medieval Warfare.

what period does Medieval Warfare cover?

450AD to 1515AD, per the author. But I use them for 16th Century Samurai Battles with good results and little to no modification. Italian Wars could easily be done with them too.
They also have "Ancient Warfare", which is essetially the same rules but for armies pre-450AD, and "Renaisance Warfare", which is self explanatory.

The (2) army list books for MW are great. They are currently being re-worked for the latest edition of MW (released by The Foundry).

WHICH WOTR??!! ROSES OR RINGS!!?? MY HEAD! MY HEAD!

Here is link to Saga Publishing, which produced the original Medieval Warfare and the WotR battles/ scenarios books. The WotR books also includes conversion info for Warhammer and DBM rule users too.

I'm ordering up the figs for Barnet this week!

Templar, if you are on the Medieval board it should be WAR of the Roses. If on the Fantasy board it should be War of the Rings. Seams that a lot of people get confused, my self included.

Sorry, forgot the link (doh!):

sagapublishing.homestead.com/products.html

While I don't play the WOTR, I did pick up the Field of Glory army list book for the period (Storms of Arrows). The lists seem very complete and FoG is an very well put together set of rules gaining ascendency in the gaming community.

I'm a bit surprised by the strength of Armati and MW on this topic. I played a lot of Armati but have given up on it since I find the overall system a bit of a bore. Games become very predictable. I played MW a while ago and while the system has certain strengths it really felt like I was playing modified WRG 6th. With all respect to MW lovers, I think rules systems have moved beyond this point in development.

Is there a rule set out there where the figures don't have to be on mass bases? Maybe something like Warhammer minus the formal ranks.

"Is there a rule set out there where the figures don't have to be on mass bases?"

Yes. The Art of War link is designed around individually based miniatures. Actually the bases are a set size, and you can put many or a few or one mini on them, as there is room for them, depending on the scale of minis you have.

DBA is excellent for The War of the Roses. You can play all the battles in a night, in the standard game, or you can go to Big Battle and have fun with one battle. Here is a nice site that give some background

link

Another vote for Bloody Barons. Although I have yet to play them, they are specifically modeled on The Wars of the Roses, and seem very simple to grasp.

I have designed my WOTR armies for Fields of Glory with a proportion of 2 archer bases to 1 polearm base. I've also used FoG base sizes. Would this present any problems when playing Bloody Barons?

The problem is forming two ranks of polearm men would be difficult as the Peter Pig figures have poses which prevent this, the bills and poleaxes are all held in a jabbing forward pose and they would just look wrong, but one rank of bill/poleaxe men behind two ranks of archers who are on bigger bases anyway fit fine and match the proportions that seem to appear in contemporary records and in most army lists.

The Peter Pig figures really are excellent by the way, some of the nicest I've ever owned.

"I have designed my WOTR armies for Fields of Glory with a proportion of 2 archer bases to 1 polearm base."

2:1 seems a bit high archer:polearm ratio for WOTR. The records available to us indicate 1:1 was more the norm.

"I have designed my WOTR armies for Fields of Glory with a proportion of 2 archer bases to 1 polearm base."

2:1 seems a bit high archer:polearm ratio for WOTR. The records available to us indicate 1:1 was more the norm.

Perhaps so Mike but I am constrained by army lists and that does bring up two points.

Firstly, if what you say is correct, why have the writers of FoG and DBM lists gone for the 2 to 1 ratio? One assumes they have done their research.

Secondly, if I am using FoG for the majority of games, there would seem little point in aquiring surplus polearm men that I won't be using.

It just so happens that I agree with you, 2 to 1 does seem a little high, battles were decided by hand to hand combat, not archery duels. Having said that, it is only my retinue troops (York, Warwick and Edward Earl of March with York's guys morphing into those of Fauconberg with a change of command stand) that have a 2:1 ratio. When I include the Northern Border billmen and spearmen, the proportion of archers to melee troops in the army as a whole comes down to something more like the 1:1 ratio that you suggest.

To return to my original query, does anyone know if FoG basing has any effect on playing Bloody Barons?

"When I include the Northern Border billmen and spearmen, the proportion of archers to melee troops in the army as a whole comes down to something more like the 1:1 ratio that you suggest."

Ah, that makes more sense.

For those of you using Medieval Warfare, are you using the most recent publication of the rules from Foundry Press? If so, are they much different than the earlier published versions?

gregoryk

Using most recent version that I picked up at Amazon for a nice discount.

Somewhere in here is a description of the slight differences in the rule versions:

TMP link

Does the Perfect Captain have something for this period? -Their rules are excellent.
Mind you Bloody Barons-bloody brilliant-I just don't know whether to go 15 or 28mm.

They are woking on a set and should be released soon. However, what they have is great campaign game for the period. It seems that it will tie into the miniature rules.
William