"Still using WRG 6th" Topic

We have started going back to WRG 6th for 15mm while still using WAB for 25mm. The games have been going great and seem very "realistic" compared to other rule sets. Makes many rules seem dumbed down.
Infact the only reason we stopped using them was that no one else was and got caught up in new rule sets must be better. What you then get is change for the sake of change and money making.
In my period (biblical) all those light infanry only armies can easily be changed to warbands to allow better games etc.

I certainly enjoyed WRG games (5th & 6th) far more than I do anything selling at present, with the exception of 'Big Battle DBA'.

You can get WRG 1st and 2nd edition rules for free at Free Wargames Rules.
Are they very different from 6th?

raducci – yes, they are.

We've always used WRG 6th, never having made the change. I like them and try to pick up copies at con flea markets, etc., so that I will always have a set when mine wear out.

Good for you. I liked them too, and hated "being left behind".

I liked 5th and thought I'd dig them out and try them again after many years. Then I noticed I had a set of virtually unused 6th so gave them a try instead. Had a game that had 3 moves and lasted 7 hours so went back to writing my own ancients version of Fantasy Warriors.

If you strip away the pre-game stuff and do away with simultaneous moves, it speeds the game up considerably. A great deal of the time consuming complication (written in mind-blowing Barkerese) is due to the rules trying to cope with simultaneous movements and especially the contacts resulting from it.

Doug

I've recently given up on all "current" ancient rulesets and gone back to WRG 6th.

I didn't think anyone around here was old enough to remember WRG 6th…

First set I played was WRG 5th.

Now get off my lawn!

I didn't think anyone around here was old enough to remember WRG 6th…

I've just finished reading the "Too old for painting and gaming" topic and now this…!

I started with 2nd Edition WRG Ancients and that was after several years just playing Napoleonics.

Stop depressing me – oh, and let's have more respect…

Doug

Nowt wrong wi' 'em 'sept for bookeepin'

At the risk of drawing the OFM's wrath, I gotta say I that I thought 7th was a major improvement over 6th. Less bookeeping, fewer sleazy tricks, faster play, less needless complexity were all features I liked (altho 7th was still a complicated beast). Diff'rent strokes, I suppose. I have a lot of fun playing FoG and don't miss 6th, Warrior, DBM, WAB, Armati, or DBMM one little bit.

Was 6th the one with Fatigue points? Has been a while…

Simon

The 7th had fatigue, or fatty goo as we were wont to call it. I never did quite understand them.

WRG 1420-1700 rules (written by George Gush, but with similar mechanics to Barker's ancients rules), are still worth playing 30 years on. The essential difference is that Gush, a college lecturer, used the Queen's English instead of Barkerese

I played a game of Gush's rules a 16 years ago that had been modified to remove casualty bookkeeping. I always thought WRG6th would have benefited from the same treatment Adam

I agree the rules need a lot of re reading and change of text to make them more understandable but still they give a great game.

I liked 6th and played them a fair amount then 7th came along and turned me off ancients completely.

DBA brought be back, DBM got me hooked then I finally got bored of DBx and ended up with FoG which to be honest to me feels a lot like a cleaned up and updated 6th.

I always found the 13 men at factor 6 cause 43 casualties bit really rather silly (why not 44 or 42) even if it was good fun.

If you want to modify 6th to remove book keeping just roll a D20 whenever you have an odd number of casualties and if you get less than the number lose an extra figure. It worked really well when we ran things that way in the past.

I preferred 5th, though.

What langauge where WRG written in?

There was plenty wrong with 6th – right from the troop scale to the idea that we have any idea how many men a volley of pilum might kill or incapacitate.

sure they worked as a rule set, but most people who played & have moved on have never missed them.

Aloysius, I cannot remember ANY edition of WRG Ancients that featured volleys of pila.

IIRC I started with 5th edition. I enjoyed 5th through 7th, but haven't been able to face any similar, serious, rules, since.

Simon

I liked 6th and played them a fair amount then 7th came along and turned me off ancients completely.

That was me too, but I never really got into the tiddlywinks feel of the DBx sets, and I found the obsession with petty geometry in those rules to be out-and-out repulsive.

FoG is pretty interesting, though none of the armies I have painted are featured in any of the list books yet, so I'm still waiting! Soon, though -- I have Nubian, Red Ti and Burmese armies (fingers crossed on Red Ti, fairly sure about the other two).

"What langauge where WRG written in?"

Surely

"What language were WRG rules written in?"

They were actually written in quite good English. Unfortunately the readability level was rather advanced.

Nubian or Early Moors is in the Rise of Rome book. I've only a few finishing touches on my 6mm version of it. I'm planning on fielding it Saturday, If you mean the Christian Nubians, I believe they are due out in one of the next two books.

FOG is a tough set to learn, but when I started and saw the ancient players convert from WRG6 to 7, I just couldn't convince myself that it was worth the effort.

I still prefer the WRG 5 and 6 rules generally. I had hopes for Warrior but they managed to add enough complications for not much value that I don't play them.

I really had the 'Army fits on 12 stands' approach of DBA. Armies, even modern ones with very detailed TO&E tables do not go into battle the same way all of the time so why force an army from the ancient period to do that. And don't make my Cataphracts into Knights! The may not have been much historical accuracy naming a troop type Light Heavy Infantry but how is Fast Warband, or what ever any better???

Time for my meds now…

wballard- given your preferences, I'm surprised you have not found Field of Glory of interest.

The most playable advance from 6th was Might of Arms.

Still is

John you got a bonus for pila in close combat from 5th on IIRC – there was a factor for swordsmen, + a factor for having pila too…and a different factor if you had JLS (Javelin-Light-spear).

The difference in caualties caused by the soword alone and thoe caused by the sword + thrown weapon is what the "volley of pila" inflicts.

But the principle applies to all weapons – pila, javelins, bows, slings, firearms of the later part of the era, and indeed to hte melee weapons too – we have no idea how many casualties they inflicted in a given time frame – usually we don't know how many casualties they inflicted at all and can't even seperate "battle" and "pursuirt" casualties for the losing side.

Trying to put such accuracy into a game is just wrong when there's nothign to base it on.