Hail Caesar
Designed by Warlord games, and released in the Autumn of 2011, this is a very recent set of rules, allowing you to play games using 28mm scale miniatures. The rules are very simple, requring few dice to use and play, with units being used as units and no individual models are removed from the block of troops as you play, and there are volumes of army list books being released over time. At this moment there is the rulebook and the first army list volume; which includes 63 army lists for ancient armies, with the second volume covering the period from the dark ages to the early medieval period. A second army book containing army lists for the classical and early medieval period is also available from Warlord Games.
Having played a game of this, it's style of play reminds me of Kings of War by Mantic Games, with units having a stamina value, which decreases each time the unit takes a hit, with a certain number meaning the unit becomes shaken, and thus less effective, continued hits can lead to the unit being destroyed or fleeing the field.
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| Example miniature from the Warlord Games 28mm Imperial Roman Range |
Field of Glory
A variant system for Ancient and Medieval wargaming, it consists of a main rulebook and several variant army/era books containing army lists. It doesn't require a set scale for the miniatures, but states it is most used with 28mm, 6mm and 15mm scales. The rules are, in my opinion much more complicated when compared to Hail Caesar, and battles require a "supply camp" to be fully modelled and represented on the tabletop.
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| The Main Rulebook for Field of Glory |
Warlord Games first ruleset to be published, set roughly between 1700-1900 AD. It covers the time when muskets and early rifles were the primary weapon for most forces in the world, and wars including; The Napoleonic Wars, The American Civil War and Sudan (As made famous in Dad's Army in Cpl. Jones anecdotes). Anything past this period such as the Boer War or WW1 and the rules don't lend themselves to it.
The style is similar to that found in Hail Caesar and is not a definitive ruleset for every possible scenario that could arise, it covers moving, shooting, close combat, orders and basic formations. However, some of the ranges and distances require altering for smaller games (E.g. Not on a 8' x 10' board).
I'm currently in the stages of preparing for games of this in the Napoleonic Wars using 10mm scale miniatures. I did for a while contemplate using 28mm for Black Powder, but decided this was never going to be a practical scale for the size of battles fought during the Napoleonic Wars, where thousands of men took to the field, although even in 10mm troop numbers per unit will be much smaller than their real life counterparts. I'm looking forward to this as it's a much bigger challenge to my skills as a wargamer, collector and painter. 10mm is far smaller than what I've been used to and thus comfortable with. British will be my force, and I shall as time goes on be trying to match a friend of mine, who has already got 27 battalions of French assembled with the aim to reach 100, around the number that took part in the Battle of Salamanca in 1812.
Bolt Action
Warlord Games 28mm World War 2 miniatures game; the main rulebook contains all you need to play the game, including 4 Late War army lists for NW Europe. These will be supplemented by a further set of supplement army books for each nation. Armies are composed in a similar fashion to 40k, some components are mandatory, a Lieutenent and at least 2 sets of 5 Man Infantry sections, but after that, any additions are purely left to the player to choose from the army list for their appproriate faction.
Without a doubt one of my favourite games, having taken part in my first tournament/campaign for any wargame in Summer 2015 in Pegasus Hobbies and Games in Monmouth thanks to this game. Whilst history can be moulded to field utterly random units, I like my vast infantry forces for both Britain and Germany, whilst picking the odd tank or transports for my units to add to the force I deploy for any given game. Infantry can be, just like in real situations, either fall below or exceed the standard expected of them.
A slight amount of stereotyping led to me assuming my Italians would be far less effective than my Germans, but a game where one under-strength unit held despite a large number of pins (gained due to being fired on or attacked, with more for bigger weapons), they held their ground, and exceeded my expectations, defeating more than any other unit in that game.
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