Fire & Fury seems to work well with most horse and musket rules and I am adapting them for the Sudan/colonial period.  You could borrow mechanics from it for ancients and renaissance as well.

I know they're full of holes, but DBR are fast and easy, and you can tinker with them a bit to make them more plausible.

'Do you think it will ever be possible to have one basic set of rule mechanics that with obvious amendments that could span the ages?'

The Principles of war set of rules does a good job of this in my opinion. So far they have Renaissance, 18th Century and 19th Century with an unbuplished Ancient/Medieval set on the Yahoo site. Rules that span the ages may not be everyones cup of tea but I find them useful as I only have one set of core mechanics to learn. As Nik points out, the same can be said of the Warmaster engine which also gives a good game.

What about Forlorn Hope?  I know nothing of these rules but they are available from On Military Matters and there are several supplements.

Just received 1644 from Amazon on Saturday, quite right Steve a good book worth the money for the pictures and campaign information alone. Thanks for the tip. Just noticed that there will be a Field of Glory rule system for the 30year & EC wars. It will be a three way competition between 1644, Warmaster (thanks for the info Nik) and FOG. From what I can gather FOG will be available in September.

Just received 1644 from Amazon on Saturday, quite right Steve a good book worth the money for the pictures and campaign information alone. Thanks for the tip.

No worries Bertie; and glad you liked the book :-)

I find the colour plates alone extremely inspirational and really sets the tone nicely for the period.

*sighhhhhhs*  but me being me, I find it really hard to use anyone elses rules for long, so I`ve gone back, and even now I am (finally) adding the finishing touches to my own ECW rules.... I`ve even added an Imagi-Nation section so I can play "what if" battles and campaigns when I get the urge. However, I can see no findimental problems with 1644 (the title "1644" is a little bit strange, seeing as the rules cover Elizabethan, all three Civil Wars and right up to the Monmouth Rebellion) but they are a bit clunky and fiddly in places - a hang over from the pro Warhammer fistfull of dice enthusiasts I suppose :-)


Steve

Quote from: sixsideddice on 20 May 2010, 07:41:03 AM
However, I would highly recommend 1644 by Rick Priestley, which seems to be a Foundry publication, and not GW.

I was so impressed with the book I am seriously considering using the rules for my 10mm ECW games, and dropping using my own.... something I never do, as I have always used my own creations for everything I do. But I simply can`t ignore these others are utterly inspirational and wonderfully addictive to read â€" like a favourite book under the pillow and always close to hand.

The conversion from 28mm to 10mm would be extremely easy... just change inches to centimetres and away you go; plus the interior artwork alone makes this book an inspiring guide for matching uniform colours, flags, terrain ideas, and a whole host of other theme and atmosphere builders for the reader to build upon.  The book even contains a sample of a fictitious mini campaign, and really goes to lengths to try to show the new ECW gamer how to get the most out of this genre of gaming.

1644.... check it out, I don`t think you`ll be disappointed.

Looked through it last week amd it's indeed really nice with a lot more info beneath the rules.

Just to throw my tuppence worth in, try Regiment of Foote by Peter Pig http://www.peterpig.co.uk/ £9 a copy. It's warmasterish enough to keep Nik happy, but the bit that I like is that you can make up a beatifully formed (yes there is a points system) army, but the pre-battle campaign system means that it could be radicaly changed by the time it gets to the battlefield. Some of it might never get there, some of it could turn up late, some of it might be so disheartened by whats happened en-route that its quality has dropped, etc. During the battle there's a countdown going on every turn, so youre never certain how long the battle is gonna last, so the attacker cant hang about, you have to get stuck in from turn 1, also deployment is so close that theres little chance of changing it. It's a ruleset thats just made of WIN!!!!!!!!!

I like it so much I bought the other 4 sets in this stable, Washingtons Army, Bloody Barons, AK47 and Civil War Battles, lots more 10mm stuff to buy

Gordon

Interesting Gordon...I did have a quick flick-through of Bloody Barons a couple of years ago at Legionary & was interested...but then got sidetracked by something else 

You say they are warmasterish-enough - is there uncertainty around command & control as well? (that's a biggie for me...) - the campaign system sounds great too, I like the idea of that *very* much as it would certainly add an element to my (predominantly) solo gaming.

Generals quality + unit quality + modifiers dice roll to activate a unit, then a d6 for number of actions, close enough??

Gordon

Interesting...might just pick up a copy to see 

I am a huge fan of the Peter Pig rules. They have command rolls to activate units similar to Warmaster, but with no decrease for mulitple orders. As previousley stated though the roll depends on three things.

1. Quality of the general, usually between 1 and 3. 1 being best.

add that to

2. The quality of the unit you are trying to motivate, again rated between 1 and 3.

add that to factors for

distance between the general and the unit, +1 for every complete 3"

+1 if an order passes through line of sight blocking terrain (like a wood)

The number generated must be equalled or rolled under on 2D6. If you do, the unit is activated and you then roll 1D6 for action points, letting you move, shoot, charge, change formation etc. If you roll over the number your general fails to motivate and can't issue any more orders that turn. Units that are unmotivated are aloowed 1 'residual' action point to move a bit or doing something at least.


I have been involved in playtesting the last four  rules sets they have released (there is a picture of me in Washingtons Army )

Regiment of Foote was the first set of rules they released using this game skeleton. The unique pre game sequence that basically sets up the 'on table' game is excellent and basically involves detailing your armys march to the battlefield and the characters they meet along the way such as 'Sir Fleming Nadger'.

The style is certainly less polished than other rulesets with occasional typos and grammatical errors, but we are talking about a very small company who produce what I feel are the most innovative rules out there at the moment. their Samurai battles set ''Battles in the Age of War'' are great. ''Regiment of Foote'' are my favourite ever set of ECW rules.

I have a small blog which hasn't seen much action for a while where I discuss some games I played using there rules at

www.seanswargames.blogspot.com

Tell me more about the Samurai set Sean, PBI or RoF type rules?

My butterfly mind just had a little Eastern moment.

Gordon

Just re-read your post Sean, I believe that you got one bit wrong, the activation roll, it's equal to or OVER the number. Otherwise we'd all be using grade 3 generals (incompetent buffoons) and grade 3 troops (raw) and commanding the ones furthest away from us just to get the number up to 12ish.

Gordon

I guess it depends upon what size battles you are wanting to play and paint up.

We use a variant on the DBA rules called DBA-RRR. They are a good set for us since we like the smaller armies, only need 12 bases per army, battlefield is 24in by 24in or 30in by 30in, games are over in about an hour or less and we can build/paint several armies for the cost of one arny from other rule sets.

Only problem is you have to have a copy of DBA to use the rules and I hear they are starting to be hard to find.

The DBA-RRR, Renaissance, Reformation and Restoration, start around 1494 up to around 1700, the variant rules are 3 pages, the army list for that range of years is 56 pages long.

If anyone is interested, feel free to email me and I can send the PDFs to you, just remember the army list is a big file 
cya