I'l play anything Skirmish - any period where individual figures get to do something usefiul. Usually it's TFL games, ancients with Pax Britanium, Nappies with Sharp Practice, WWII with Chain of Command, put there's loads of possibilities with Saga, the USE ME system, Crooked Dice games or just plain old SNAFU.

As a result, however, I am selective in periods in that I know next to nothing about small unit actions in some periods, so I do tend not to expand on the period expressely covered by the rules...

So you could say I prefer periods I have rules for 

Fun interaction with other gamers is tops for me, often the game is immaterial, the challenge & banter is often more fun than the period

Cheers
Ian

Whatever my mates are playing, with one exception which shall be nameless

As for a single favourite I'll cheat and say Ancients, giving me an huge swath of history from circa 3500 BC to, depending on your definition, AD 410 or 1066.

If pushed for a single timeframe I'd go for Crusades, FK has summed it up nicely...

QuoteCrusades appeal; partly because my militant atheism enjoys the spectacle of religious fanatics ignoring the few good teachings in their holy books and ripping creation apart to glorify the Creator, but also because I'm a sucker for horses in footcloths, levies in turbans, crossbows, and the Romans maintaining a precarious balancing act for centuries

Also the armies are very diverse, with different social and military traditions.

I tend to focus on what I am involved in at the time so I have a very wavering interest. I was weaned on 25mm Napoleonics back in the early 70's, then got into WW II at most levels, then back to Napoleonics in 5mm, then Ancients and so on. So i would say in order of preference, Eastern Medieval from the rise of the Mongol Empire and all that that encompassed. Then Napoleonic because of the uniforms, grand manoeuvres et al and then WW II for its speed and sheer diversity of weapons and machines. I do dabble in a lot of other periods though but they would be my top three.

MickS

I'll try anything once and if it gets my interest then I'm in.
Don't excommunicate me but currently I play:
WW2 in 15mm and 28mm
Star Wars X-Wing
ECW

Going by the various Rules I own and having ACW and SYW armies (and formerly Napoleonic and 'ECW' ones), my main fix has to be the era of mainly 'one shot' Black Powder weapons, specifically field actions (i.e., not sieges) fought between Western armies.

As for WW2 or Fantasy, I have played WW2 board and computer games and enjoyed them. I also have The War Of The Ring board game which I have also enjoyed. Wouldn't be averse to trying the Late Roman Empire when the Romans didn't appear to have it all their own way (suggesting more balanced battles?). Also like the look of some air war games.

Having said all of that, tellingly, if I ever work up the courage to start a new project, I have a feeling it will be ...... Black Powder again!   

This is tough.   :-

1) Ancients - seeing large blocks of colorful Greek Hoplites arrayed on a battlefield makes me smile.  I think this will be my next project.  Unfortunately none of my local gaming buddies have any interest in this period, so I'll be painting all the armies and most likely painting it solo.  Looking forward to tackling this in 10mm.  My 15mm Gauls & Romans were sold a good 8 years ago when DBA and Ancients in general died in my local area.

2) ACW - spending part of my youth growing up in Mississippi I was surrounded by reminders of this war.  We often had picnics at Vicksburg and would tour the battlefield.  Ignoring the politics of this war, it holds a lot of fascination and nostalgia for me.

3) Napoleonics - this was my first introduction to miniature wargaming.  My father and I had already been playing the cardboard chit style wargames, but I wasn't aware of miniatures until one day I went into a game store and saw a Napoleonic battle being played.  I knew that would be my hobby some day.  Unfortunately it doesn't work on a kid's budget so that would be put on hold for a good number of years....

There are other periods that tickle my fancy, but the above are my top 3 and reason I try to go to a convention once or twice a year just to play them with similarly interested folks.

I tried to resist chipping in but I can't ...

Later 19th Century all the way, at the entire-battle scale.

To explain its place in my affections, I can do no better than the essay I put in the front of the BBB rulebook:

===

The important battles of the late nineteenth century involved armies of up to 100,000 men or more, on battlefields 10 miles wide or more. We were tired of trying to recreate them with rules that needed 20 players to wargame on a basketball court for a week. With BBB, you can fight a major battle to a conclusion in an evening, get a clear result, and gain a real understanding of the historical event.

The sample scenarios included in this book are nine of the largest battles of the Franco-Prussian War. Fight them all in sequence as a campaign, and you will also get an appreciation of the course of that war. A companion scenario book, Bloody Big European Battles, covers other major late nineteenth century conflicts such as the Crimean War, the Italian War of 1859, the Austro-Prussian War, the Russo-Turkish War etc.

Why is this period so interesting? To answer that, consider the Napoleonic era which precedes it. By 1815, after 25 years of continuous continental warfare, broadly the same weapons and tactics are common to all European armies (albeit some are better at using them than others). The 'holy trinity' of protection, mobility, and firepower, as embodied by the three arms of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, is in perfect balance, making battle a kind of complex exercise of rock-scissors-paper between very similar forces.

But as the century wears on, disruptive technologies appear: breech-loading rifles in the 1840s, breech-loading rifled artillery in the 1850s, machine-guns and repeating rifles in the 1860s. And not only weaponry, but also railroads, steamships, ironclads, the telegraph, observation balloons ...

And while technology develops apace, most nations spend most of the time at peace. Consequently, each time a war breaks out, the protection-mobility-firepower equation has been modified, and each time, the armies engaged have to learn new lessons the hard way – in some cases, the wrong lessons, which then cost them dearly in their next conflict.

The bad news for the troops is that constant improvements in weaponry mean that maneuver under fire becomes more and more difficult, and battle gradually reduces to a contest between firepower and protection. This eventually reaches its apex in the static trench warfare of the First World War, with mobility squeezed out almost entirely.

But the good news for wargamers is that, for the few decades we are interested in, tactical maneuver persists. War continues to be decided not by long weeks or months of attrition across hundreds of miles, but by decisive clashes between whole armies lasting usually no more than a day or two. These are fought on battlefields just a few miles across, making it possible to capture an entire battle in one tabletop miniatures game.

Furthermore, the evolution of weapons and tactics means that many of these conflicts pit opponents of very different character against each other, making for some fascinating interactions at the tactical level.

===

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BBB_wargames/info
http://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.co.uk/

Nice and simple then:

Couldn't possibly do the first one.

What gets me excited, in chronological order:

Hellenistic period.

Post-Roman Britain

Wars of the Roses

Great Italian Wars

Seven Years War

American Civil War

Wars of Italian/German Unification

World War I Belgium 1914

Consequently if I had to ditch anything it would be Imperial Rome, Feudal Middle Ages, ECW, WSS, WWI Eastern Front, WWI Middle East.

Quote from: Leman on 17 March 2017, 05:17:25 PM
Great Italian Wars

I always forget about these until I see someone gaming/painting it and then my interest gets rekindled!