Renaissance Armies.....and rules

[freddy326]

Okey Dokey, it's time for a couple of new armies and I was thinking of French Wars of Religion (hugeunots/Catholic League etc). Would the Pendraken figures cover the major combatants and mercenaries? I was thinking of using either Impetus or Spanish Fury, any thoughts one way or another on those?...and importantly what basing are people using?

[goat major]

I nearly went this way before getting waylaid by LOA.

Dont know about either of those sets of rules, but FogR gets good reviews (better than its ancient cousin it seems)

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Basing - 40mm frontage - depth your choice. Have played FOG, and FOG-R, good game.

IanS

[FierceKitty]

There are plenty of good figures, although I'm not sure what you'd use for Hugenot cavalry. I have two Italian wars armies, and the only troop type that was a problem was the genitor.

[Aart Brouwer]

There are plenty of good figures [...] the only troop type that was a problem was the genitor.

What did you do? I reckon if I needed Jinetes I would buy Stradiots and cut off part of their lances and file away the lower sides of the shields to get the heart shapes.

As for rules: in my view there are no good rules for Renaissance. Impetus and Impetus Baroque are elegant, but simplistic as well as competition-driven. FOGR and Spanish Fury are much too complex for my taste, DBR is unwieldy. It's a real pain. Warlord are working on a Renaissance rulebook in the vein of Black Powder and Hail Caesar, which might be good.

If it isn't, I'm going to go for my own house rules called Victoria! which are only 3 A-4 sides long and still allow for very complex situations. Good rules should take their cue from chess: simple principles that allow for huge variation and complexity.

Cheers,
Aart

[Blaker]

I like using DBA-Renaissance, Reformation and Restoration (RRR). Fluid, non complex, quick games, uses 40mm frontages standard, armies are small enough that you can paint up several different armies. Biggest headache is the 126 pages of Army Lists   

Both the rule adaptions and army lists are free downloads at the FADBAG yahoo group, I think it stands for Florida Association of DBA Gamers   

cya

[Aart Brouwer]

I like using DBA-Renaissance, Reformation and Restoration (RRR). Fluid, non complex, quick games, uses 40mm frontages standard, armies are small enough that you can paint up several different armies. Biggest headache is the 126 pages of Army Lists   

Both the rule adaptions and army lists are free downloads at the FADBAG yahoo group, I think it stands for Florida Association of DBA Gamers   

cya

IS DBA RRR (which I don't know) very different from DBR? To me DBR feels unhistorical (teh weak pikes) and is awkwardly written to say the least.

Cheers,
Aart

[FierceKitty]

I made up genitors from Irish light horse, with shields from lentils filed flat and with a few notches cut in the rim for the lobe effect. They pass muster (although perhaps when the Aztecs come out this Christmas, there'll be a few missing Spanish types to go with the Tlaxcalans).

[DanJ]

As for rules: in my view there are no good rules for Renaissance

You could try Maximilian! a DBA type game for the Renaissance and are available as a PDF from Blackhat miniatures for about £6.  They use 24 element sized armies as a basic force but two or three forces can be easily linked for a bigger game.  Bases are 40mm frontages and 15/20mm for foot and 30mm for mounted although as long as the two sides are basicaly the same it doesn't realy matter.

[FierceKitty]

DBR can be made to work better if you are willing to rewrite the bits that barker wrote when he was drunk.

[DanJ]

DBR can be made to work better if you are willing to rewrite the bits that barker wrote when he was drunk

Barker wasn't drunk, he just has a special relationship with the english language.... he doesn't like it 

[Hertsblue]

DBR can be made to work better if you are willing to rewrite the bits that barker wrote when he was drunk.

Agreed, and provided you don't have play with a rule-mechanic who insists on interpreting every sentence literally. 

[lentulus]

I am not sure that it is so much that Barker is a bad writer (his introduction to ancient wargaming was quite readable), as that he firmly believes that he can write a sentence that no-one can misinterpret.  That is just plain a mugs game.

I'm going to switch my 15mm Renaissance over  to Impetus.  The pike block picture on my top level blog http://broadfront.blogspot.com/2011/10/gaming-weekend.html (plus the fact that they gave a good game - fun and felt right) should help explain why.

[FierceKitty]

Barker wasn't drunk, he just has a special relationship with the English language.... he doesn't like it 
[/quote]
He didn't like mathematics either. Remember the instructions to subtract -1 and -2 for a 3rd and fourth rank respectively of enemy pikemen? (Please, Brer Fox, don't attack me with a four-deep pike block!)
Or history, if we note that there were seemingly no flank marches or irregular troops for a few centuries. Or consistency, as you may recall from five editions where pikemen couldn't use shields, then a sudden switch to being able to.
  Etc, etc, and so forth....

[freddy326]

At SELWG yesterday I bought an Elizabethan tudor army and on getting home ordered up the PDF of Maximilian... basing will be on 40mm frontage with a couple of options for depth. Now, can anyone recommend a decent book on the combatants that will hopefully include troop types and also some idea of how to paint them?

I'm rather short of any info about this period of history!

Any advice on which Pendraken figures I can use for Reiters and Millers would be great, is pike and shot infantry and equipment basically the same between french Catholic, Hugeunot, English etc?. I'm assuming that the Landsknecht range are ok for the mercenary armies that were around at this time?.

thanks!