Grids?

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Fraid grids just dont grap me....

[fred.]

old topic but what the hey....

I am investing a lot of time into gridded wargaming currently with several cloths bought (yeah I know lazy....) and trying out of several rulesets for the ultimate 'Dark Age' feel....even written my own set

I'm a fan of gridded games (and for that matter non-gridded ones!) our group really likes Rommel and For King and Parliament, we quite like To the Strongest, but just haven't played it that much. We did toy with a home brew gridded set, but found it didn't quite work - ranges and LoS were awkward once over a couple of boxes. But then we used some of the gridded ideas to help with the non-gridded version - principally defining the centre of formations, rather than worrying about individual models.

[Macsen Wledig]

its not everyone's cup of tea and I for one am not going to ram it down other's throats 

as I get older I am less able to handle complex numbers, complex rules and movement vagaries. The other thing is I am now heavily (and I mean heavily) into 10mm so feel that I want something that is pleasing to play and not overburden my old brain PLUS I can potentially use whatever base size and depth I like since I mainly play solo

[Norm]

Hi Macsen, thaanks for waking this thread up

Since this thread started 3 years ago, I don't think much has appreciably changed (Surprisingly to me). A raft of rule writers did not follow the 'To the Strongest' trend, but neither has the hex / square lost ground. Peter Pig are still supporting the square and Battlescale have started producing some nice 80mm resin tiles. To the strongest remain very popular.

But I note that the revised La Salle rules did not pick up a square habit, so author Sam did not think the merits of his Rommel would have enhanced the napoleonic game (which saw some quite big changes) and I can't think of another commercial set that adopted the grid since.

I still do a lot of boardgaming and at the moment I am after the figures side of my hobby providing a more old school visual approach as the counter-balance to the regularity of the grid - however, having said that, I am just waiting for the sun to go off the sun lounge, so I can get a game set up in there for a game and it will be on Kallistra hexes.

[Macsen Wledig]

truly woken up....

I am looking at what rulesets/how easily can be converted to grid use. Of the ones I have scanned, Age of Hannibal by LWTV seems the most straight forward

[Raider4]

There's an early version of the portable wargame for ancients available at http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~warden/BlogFreeDownloads/FreePWAncients.pdf. Might be worth looking at?

[Macsen Wledig]

thanks, appreciated

[Norm]

Do you have aa favoured period?

[Edmund2011]

Hi Norm (and rest),

Thanks for the thread. Time ago I read it and arouse my interest in wargames with grids, so I read some rules and played Battlecry, Memoir 44, C&C Ancients and Strategos/Lost Battles.

Reading again this has renewed my interest. I feel they can be faster than traditional sets with rulers, and that would be great for me. Also, thinking about Strategos, it gives big battle commander point of view which focus on big areas so you don't need to manage exact positioning of every unit.

Apart from TTS and H&H does anybody know if there are any similar ruleset set in the Middle Ages?

[hammurabi70]

old topic but what the hey....

I am investing a lot of time into gridded wargaming currently with several cloths bought (yeah I know lazy....) and trying out of several rulesets for the ultimate 'Dark Age' feel....even written my own set

http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=19731.0
This may, or may not, be of interest.

[Norm]

Hi Norm (and rest),

Thanks for the thread. Time ago I read it and arouse my interest in wargames with grids, so I read some rules and played Battlecry, Memoir 44, C&C Ancients and Strategos/Lost Battles.

Reading again this has renewed my interest. I feel they can be faster than traditional sets with rulers, and that would be great for me. Also, thinking about Strategos, it gives big battle commander point of view which focus on big areas so you don't need to manage exact positioning of every unit.

Apart from TTS and H&H does anybody know if there are any similar ruleset set in the Middle Ages?

C&C now has a Medieval module. I am not aware of any medieval figure specific rules that are designed for grids other than the ones put out by Kallistra. It might be worth scanning through the back catalogue a Second Chance Games for a true boardgame system that covers the medieval system and then taking that to your figure games.

[steve_holmes_11]

Hi Macsen, thaanks for waking this thread up

Since this thread started 3 years ago, I don't think much has appreciably changed (Surprisingly to me). A raft of rule writers did not follow the 'To the Strongest' trend, but neither has the hex / square lost ground. Peter Pig are still supporting the square and Battlescale have started producing some nice 80mm resin tiles. To the strongest remain very popular.

But I note that the revised La Salle rules did not pick up a square habit, so author Sam did not think the merits of his Rommel would have enhanced the napoleonic game (which saw some quite big changes) and I can't think of another commercial set that adopted the grid since.

I still do a lot of boardgaming and at the moment I am after the figures side of my hobby providing a more old school visual approach as the counter-balance to the regularity of the grid - however, having said that, I am just waiting for the sun to go off the sun lounge, so I can get a game set up in there for a game and it will be on Kallistra hexes.

The little set of grid rules that I regularly examine has shown little movement.

Strategos:
Isn't going anywhere.
Though I admire the concept, I find the writing and gameplay impenetrable.

Peter Pig:
My first exposure to grid wargames, and still a big supporter.
I find the writing is idiosyncratic almost to the point of off-putting.
Also rather fussy about issues that ought to disappear when using grids (Grid size and unit composition).

To The Strongest / King and Parliament:
Extremely well written and presented, proving that grid does not equal a reading challenge.
To the Strongest seems to be suffering the fate of many competition ancients sets - constant modification.
This has turned a rather easy read into a challenge of referencing and indexing.
It remains to be seen whether version 2 can resolve the pile of updates into something as elegant as version 1.

[Chris Pringle]

For C19 and Napoleonics, "Bloody Big BATTLES!" works well on a grid. Since movement and firing are all calculated in 3" increments, it translates readily to 3" squares or hexes. I've seen both applied since lockdown forced us all to try remote gaming (grids are helpful for that too).

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
https://groups.io/g/bloodybigbattles
BBBBlog:
http://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/
BBB on FB:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1412549408869331

[Macsen Wledig]

http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=19731.0
This may, or may not, be of interest.

thanks 

[Leman]

I think grids are great. They certainly help get most of the rainwater off the streets.