The Ultimate Historical Gaming Thread

I approve of this plan and wish to subscribe to your newslett.. er... blog.

 

I certainly like the sound of this, though what will this League of Local Gaming Groups consist of? Will it be some sort of forum, chat or Facebook group? How will those who sign up be able to interact with each other to make friends and strengthen the ties of the League?

And if you're looking for assistance with the creation of PDFs for Ancients, Dark Ages, Medieval and Pike and Shotte periods, I'd be happy to lend a hand in recommending game systems and ways to get started for these eras.

 

Initial thoughts are A: simply a listing on my website with contact information and assistance from myself in providing materials, low cost miniatures.

A Facebook page, with associated groups linked to it, would be the next step. then the chats can be local but I can still assist with moderation and other questions.

Sponsored painting contests, hobby goals, etc are also pie-in-the-sky thoughts

 

Again, I like this idea. What ruleset do you recommend for running a Byzantine remnant Kingdom?

 

Interesting question.

It depends on whether you want to play the Eastern Roman Empire or early Byzantines up to the 1000s (in which case I'd suggest a Dark Ages ruleset) or a Byzantine army from 1100 onwards (particularly a Crusades-themed one), in which case a Medieval ruleset is more up your alley. Also it depends upon whether you want to play mass battles, big skirmishes/small battles or small-scale, individual model skirmish.

 

I was going to ask, skirmish or massed combat?

 

Neither. I want to run one of the kingdoms that arose after the 4th Crusade sacked Constantinople, like Trebizond or Epirus.

 

Then it'll be a Medieval ruleset you'll want.

Are you aiming to build an army for a mass battle, a big skirmish/small battle or individual model skirmish?

 

at this point a smaller skirmish

 

In which case I can think of three that are likely to be up your alley:

• The Barons' War, though originally created to simulate skirmishes and scuffles between the retinues of English Barons during the eponymous conflicts, has recently released an expansion book called Outremer, which changes the arena to the Crusades. I don't know for sure if there are rules for Byzantines in it but it'd probably be easy to mod a Byzantine list from the many different Crusader army lists there are in it. This game seems to straddle the line between properly small skirmishes and small battles, with as few as 15 figures a side still being a viable way to play the game, and the option is always there to build up the number of Groups of 3-5 men you have under your command as you accumulate more figures, with the only caveat being that the game takes longer to play.
• Saga: Age of Crusades is another game set in the Crusades, and this one definitely does have rules for Later Byzantines in it. However it lies more in the big skirmish/small battle territory than The Barons' War (with most units being 8-12 men strong and armies having at least three units), and my personal misgivings against SAGA as a whole include the weird points system (1 point for a whole unit of men? Heresy!), the fact that every faction has the same troop types (hearthguard, warriors and levy, just with slightly altered configurations in some cases) and that some of the ability names on the battle boards could have been a lot more imaginatively named. However, if you can get past those things then it certainly seems to offer a unique gaming experience.
• Outremer: Faith and Blood is a game from Osprey that will certainly satisfy your itch for true small-scale skirmish, with 3-12 individual figures per side and campaign-based gameplay. There don't seem to be any defined rules for Byzantines in it (there only seem to be rules for Militant Orders, Crusaders and Saracens), but again I wouldn't be surprised if it is easy to use the existing miniature profiles to mod rules for Byzantines.

Hopefully one of these will be what you're looking for.

 

WW1 Bosnians are now part of the scouts out line.

I have them in my store on preorder. physical models.

 

After a long time in releasing sets for Ancients and later Dark Ages, Victrix is going Medieval, with some really nice-looking Bretonnian Knight Proxies High Period Medieval Knights:









And some Muslim Infantry that can be used from 7th-8th Century Dark Ages up to the Crusades:




@Tk'ya'pyk they're also planning to release Byzantines at some point along in the future.


I'm most interested to see what else they can come up with for this range, Victrix sculpts are always very good quality, and are always in glorious plastic.

 

They can be on the large side of 28mm historcials though.

Regardless, i think these dethrone fireforge.

 

Well actually, Fireforge's older Medieval models are closer to the true 28mm scale adopted by companies like Warlord and Gripping Beast, so they certainly still have a use alongside Victrix's models if the latter do experience scale creep, so both can coexist with each other. Not to mention that they should have some interchangeability with each other.

 

To be frank, fractional scale differences don't matter in the grand scheme, as the population has varying height ranges.

 

https://mcdougalldesigns3d.com/blog...war-and-why-different-types-of-plastic-matter

I decided to do a small review and write a little bit about different types of plastic

 

Anyone else here having issues with accessing the Warlord Games website? It started for me yesterday afternoon and I just keep getting 'This site can't be reached'.

EDIT: It looks like they've taken down their old store.warlordgames.com link and replaced it with shop.warlordgames.com. Strange, but there we go.

DOUBLE EDIT: They've been having DNS issues with their UK webstore, and have redirected UK customers to their European shop link while they fix it.

 

Went to a favourite Wargames Convention today, and grabbed some Wargames Atlantic Goths to be Welsh-ified:


Also played a demo game of 28mm American Civil War using some homebrew rules:



My father's dreadful luck with his dice rolling contributed enormously to the mounting pile of dead-or-fled Confederates one can see accumulating in the top-right of the photos.

The chap who ran the game very kindly allowed us to walk away with a couple of free copies of the ruleset, so my quest to find an ACW ruleset to use with the free sprues of Warlord Epic Battles figures I got at this convention last year is finally at an end.