Any 1-to-1 Historicals?

[SaintRigger]

I do really well with the classical warfare, but I suck on toast when it comes to Medieval Total War.

 

I've never used the pigs or dogs very effectively, personally.

Elephants are also the bane of my existence in all wargames.

[Lars Porsenna]

I tend to do OK no matter the era. With Medieval armies, the approach has to be different, since you typically don't have skirmishers (or if you do, no many), foot can vary from abysmally poor to "better than the Romans" and cavalry is much more powerful. FREX, when playing Medieval games, I tend not to keep cavalry in reseve, but put them on the flanks. Then, if I can, I'll either charge enemy cavalry, Charge archers, or setup a flank charge. That'll do a number on formed infantry...

 

Damon.

[Chrome]

LMAO! I read the subject line and thought someone was looking for 1:1 scale models!

 

I was gonna send them here - http://www.tanksforsale.co.uk/

[VelveteenRabbit]

Least someone was on topic! Thanks for the link... Heh.

[SOldcorn]

The problem with 1 to 1 historicals is the number of figures you need. Just look at the romans for a simple example. Roman century = 80 men (not 100), 6 Centuries = 1 Cohort (480 men), apart from the first or prima cohort that was 10 centuries (800 men). 10 Cohorts = 1 Legion (5120 men). On top of this you have all the Auxila.

 

Now a battle would involve one or more legions. The battle of Carthage had it is believed 40,000 Romans vrs 90,00 Carthaginians have funny painting that lt . Or the battle of Thermopylae sees still around 7000 greeks in total fighting against well quotes go from 100,000 Persians to 1 million. Small battles would still be hundreds or more people a side. Only when you get to modernish times do you really see battles with small numbers of troops per side. Warhammer Ancients to me still has a maybe 1 : 10 ratio on figures, because units of 20 men make no real sense. So if you truly want 1 to 1 look for skirmish rules because that is what these battles would be.

 

A good set of skirmish rules are GWs Lord of the rings, there are some adaptations to other systems for this already. Also I imagine you could take Warlord and adapt that.

[Forlorn Hope]

Now a battle would involve one or more legions. The battle of Carthage had it is believed 40,000 Romans vrs 90,00 Carthaginians have funny painting that lt . Or the battle of Thermopylae sees still around 7000 greeks in total fighting against well quotes go from 100,000 Persians to 1 million. Small battles would still be hundreds or more people a side. Only when you get to modernish times do you really see battles with small numbers of troops per side. Warhammer Ancients to me still has a maybe 1 : 10 ratio on figures, because units of 20 men make no real sense. So if you truly want 1 to 1 look for skirmish rules because that is what these battles would be.

 

In general I agree, especially with the examples/periods you are citing. The argument has been made, though, that some of the battles in the Middle Ages involved considerably less people than was previously thought, and that the idea of an "army" could be relatively small. I think if we think on the side of feuding by local castellans, Cattle Raids, Tax Collecting, etc., then 1-1 historicals makes much more sense, but definitely in a skirmishy way. What I think historicals in the pre-modern period needs, however, is some way to represent rough flocks of folk who can nevertheless arrange themselves in some kind of formation at or near the point of contact with the enemy.

[SaintRigger]

As far as rules goes - there is always Free Wargame Rules which has a BUNCH of options for gaming - you might be able to fnd something in the level you want -

 

http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/

 

I guess what I don't understand is really what difference it makes if it is 1:1 or 1:something else? Like if I am playing Civil War games - and a regiment takes casualties, and I have to remove or cap a figure - how it really affects the game play - if that makes sense? To me, the unit took a casualty be it Private Meatbag or 20 Meatbags - the effect is the same.

 

 

Or are you more looking for a skirmish type game where one model = one man - so if you are playing WWII you'd play at a squad level or say french and indian war you'd have a handful of troops on either side in the woods.

[VelveteenRabbit]

It only makes a difference if you're looking at the terrain as being representative of what is actually there. Whether a 2" wide model river is actually representing a 12' wide stream or a 200yd wide river really does make a difference in terms of game effect. Least in my mind! And yes, I guess I was talking about skirmishing games with historicals...

[SOldcorn]

It just comes down to what you want to do for a battle. At our gaming club we play a fair amount of ACW games. We recently did the battle of Gettysburg. Now this battle had 90,000 on one side and 70,000 or so on the other. We played it on about a 20 foot long table and about 8 foot across, using 6mm scale figures but on bases suggested for 15mm. Thus where in the suggested scale a base would have 3-4 models on it in 1 rank, ours have 8-10 in 2 ranks. In total we had about 5,000 figures on the table (yes about 500 bases). So the scale was 1 man = 32 real soldiers. All the terrain was in scale as much as we could achieve.

 

I am very slowly working on some Napoleonic scale 28mm figures to try and do a skirmish game based around the Sharpe Novels, where especially with the early books the actions are small scale. These are 1 to 1 scale games and the terrain will be roughly in line with that.