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Devlan Mud posted:WW2 has limited content, so they'll probably do Pacific at some point. I wouldn't count on it being any time in the near future though, they've got plenty of European stuff to cover yet. The entire Early War third of the war, to mention one thing.
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Jan 16, 2010 00:48
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Lord Commissar posted:Man, I have no idea at all who I'd play in Early War. The French were beaten by superior strategy and superior tactics, not superior equipment. The whole "lol French can't fight!  " attitude is pretty much only an American stereotype, and I think there's quite a few Europeans who would like to try them out. If nothing else because of the very clear feeling of trying to do better than the historical commanders with the resources given. Same goes with the Polish, underdog armies have a knack at getting fans.I finished cleaning up my Germans today, it's 100 infantry mixed with NCO's, submachine guns and MG-42s. I'm reading Festung Europa but I'm new at this, is the MG bases just 4 riflemen and a submachine gun, or is it riflemen and a MG-42? Or are the MG-42 only used in the heavy plutoons, and just two guys on a small base? lilljonas fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Jan 16, 2010 |
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Jan 16, 2010 10:37
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Field of Glory writeup Field of Glory is a game of historical battles, currently ranging from biblical era to the age of early firearms. Field of Glory Renaissance is in beta stage, and will start to cover a couple of centuries after that. FoG is one of the most discussed releases of historical games the last couple of years, for two reasons. First of all, it is backed by Osprey Publishing, universally known amongst historical geeks for their gazillion books on military history. The other reason is that it is a points based system with much in common to what you see in Fantasy and Sci-Fi games, a design choice that Flames of War has shown to be effective in today's market. Army lists are released in sourcebooks with a major theme, like "armies around Middle East during the Crusades" or "Dark Age armies in North-West Europe". Even if the ruleset is pretty new these books have been released with an impressive speed, and by now most of the popular historical armies (and quite a few less popular) are covered.  Armies in FoG are made out of Battlegroups, which are usually 4 to 8 bases, with 2 to 4 miniatures on most bases. A starter army can easily be 100 miniatures or more. The basing system is the same as for DBx. The game system can be used with any scale, though 15mm seems to be the most popular followed by 25/28mm.  FoG in 28mm can require some space If you read my DBA writeup, you should know that units are far more detailed in FoG. You have your unit type, such as Medium Foot, Heavy Foot or Light Cavalry. This affects how you deal with terrain and such. Then you are either Drilled or Undrilled, affecting how disciplined your troops are at doing complicated manouvers such as turning while marching. Then you have the quality of troops: are your awesome knights just bragging Poor or are they actually Superior? Superior quality troops gets rerolls and just generally gets the job done better. Then you have a value for how armoured they are (armoured, protected etc) and finally armament (heavy weapons, swordsmen, light spear, offensive spear etc.). So while a DBA unit can be summed up with "Spearman", a FoG unit can be Medium Foot, Drilled, Average, Protected Light Spears. This means that there are more stats to keep track of, but also helps making the different armies feel different even if they might all be carrying sticks and spears. The second big difference is the point values. Army building is actually very easy compared to say, Warhammer. Your army will have a certain required core troops, and then a bunch of extra choices. A base will vary in price depending on how much bling you add to them: knock your knights down from Drilled to Undrilled might save you a point but cause problems when you want them to do anything but charge straight forward, while giving your Gallic Warbands some more armour will make them last better in a fight but also cost more points. Battlegroups also comes in variable sizes, like 6-12 bases, and your army will usually have a maximum amount of every troop type. So you pick your Battlegroups, you kit them out like you want, and you choose the quality of your commanders. If you want to add some colour to your army you can usually add allies from other related lists. Allies, and even some troop choices, will be based on historical dates. So your Crusader army might or might not be able to have Saracen allies depending on what year you play. And you might or might not have access to unit choices depending on dates. A typical example is a Carthaginian army that can have Elephants at first, but once Hannibal has been rampaging around Rome for a while he loses that choice but gets access to imitation legionnaires and heavily armoured gauls instead.  Manouvers in the game are also more complicated than DBA. Moves have a level of complication that are dependent on what unit type you have and whether they are drilled or not: everyone can walk forward without problem, but while drilled skirmishers have no problem waltzing in eights in difficult terrain, just trying to wheel twice can be tough on undrilled pikemen or elephants. You'll need to roll command rolls to do difficult things, and here it makes a difference if you have an Inspired Commander like Julius Caesar or Hannibal babysitting your troops or if you just picked up some backwater bum of a sargeant. Combat is also more complicated, and is all about bonuses and maluses. Everything that tips the combat in your favour adds to your dice rolls on the attack: outnumbering your opponent, flanking them, having better armour or having a preferable choice of weaponry. Unlike Warhammer a winning result will usually not kill enemy bases. Instead you are more likely to just make them disrupted, which makes them even worse at fighting, then fragmented, and finally broken. Thus you are usually involved in slow drag-out battles of attrition between big infantry blocks, which is very true to the Ancient battlefield.  What I like with FoG: The points based system for making armies is very helpful for people like me who started out playing Warhammer. Lots of historical systems will just say "oh, 12 500 spearmen attended this battle, figure it out", while making FoG armies is simple. The backing from Osprey makes these books way better designed than your average historical rulebook. The only books I've seen that are better are IMHO the Flames of War books. FoG rules are clearly written and easy to grasp. It's accessible to buy. Many 15mm makers and even some 28mm makers have FoG starter armies for sale, and sometimes even Battlegroup sets. FoG has become one of the really big sets in the UK for Ancients, maybe even the biggest, and the miniature producers are happy to sell big-rear end sets to people. The sourcebooks are widely available at all online stores with miniature rules. It's accessible to collect. Say I play a DBA army with Byzantines. That's just about 20-30 bucks and a dozen bases to paint. Then I get a Crusader army to set up fights between them. Another 20-30 bucks, a dozen bases to paint, and now I have two entire armies for DBA. From here it's not a far step to add to my Byzantines to beef them up into some battlegroups, and I can use the Crusaders as allies. So while getting enough miniatures to play a game of FoG can be 70-100 dollars and 50 bases to paint, you can make it into sizeable bites through DBA. Units are more detailed than DBA which gives armies more of a soul. Disorganized but powerful barbaric spearmen fight very different from disciplined ranks of Greek hoplites in FoG, without having as long a statline as Warhammer. FoG armies have the bulk where it actually starts to look like an army. Stuff I don't like: It takes time and money to collect a FoG army, even in 15mm. After a year I still lack two bases of light cavalry and two bases of heavy cavalry for my Carthaginian starter army. It takes time to play. Sometimes it is fun to sit down and just play a long, high tension game, but I find that I rarely have the time. I usually play on work days when I just have a few hours of game time available. FoG can easily take 2-3 hours, not to mention setup time. In that time I can get in two DBA matches and still have time to paint and talk bullshit with my club mates.  All in all, I think it is a game that is worth checking out if you are into big battles in the Ancient or Medieval eras. The basing means that you'll probably need to make a bunch of movement trays if you usually play with WAB 28mm miniatures, and if you are starting out I would highly recommend 15mm instead of 28mm unless you go with plastics because it will get expensive. The frequency of releases means that there's already a better coverage of armies lists than WAB. But if you just want to chuck loads of dice, you might want to look elsewhere. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Jan 17, 2010 |
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Jan 17, 2010 00:53
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Arquinsiel posted:Nah, they were beaten because nobody would ever try the same invasion plan twice right? Anyway, modern warfare is too dependant on tanks. Nobody can get tanks through the Ardennes..... *cough*Afghanistan*cough*  Anyway, a friend just got an order from Crusader Miniatures and Artizan Designs, and he's pretty stoked about both. Good choices for 28mm I guess.
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Jan 17, 2010 07:18
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Lord Commissar posted:What! Ok, this isn't historical, technically, but I want it: http://www.ambushalleygames.com/ambushz.html I haven't played AA, but from what I gathered from the write-up it really does sound like one of the better systems for a game of zombie apocalypse survival, with random zombie reinforcements and all.
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Jan 18, 2010 21:41
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Lord Commissar posted:Scale Creep miniatures may be selling a bunch of stuff on clearance: Legio Heroica has some nice 15mm medievals, some discounts would be nice.
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Jan 19, 2010 18:17
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Guildenstern posted:I'd love to get into historicals and have tried once, but I'm having a hard time finding a decent, fast-playing ruleset for Napoleonics. Are there any decent adaptations of DBA into the horse & musket period out there? I love its rules in principle, but my historical interests encompass primarily the early modern period. Pre-gunpowder stuff just has no appeal to me. Yes, there's DBR, which is for the post-gunpowder era. I haven't tried it, but it looks pretty much like ordinary DBA with some unit types removed and some added. It's not as widely played as DBA, but there are some players out there. The 28mm plastic Napoleonics from Perry Miniatures and Victrix looks really nice, but at the same time I think 10mm or even 6mm looks more "Napoleonic" to me. All that massed infantry. But then again, check out the French heavy cavalry and hussars previews:   EDIT; oh crap, DBR seems to cut off about a century before what you are looking for. Well, there's some very simple fan made Napoleonic DBA rules out there: http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/periodadaptations/NAPOLEONIC%20DBA%20RULES.pdf lilljonas fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jan 22, 2010 |
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Jan 22, 2010 18:26
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DBA has pretty much every army you can imagine connected to the Crusades in the rulebook. Like my Later Crusaders: For Field of Glory, you are looking for the Swords and Scimitars sourcebook, which covers: EARLY CRUSADER LATER CRUSADER FATIMID EGYPTIAN GEORGIAN SELJUK TURK CUMAN LATER ALAN ALLIES KOMNENAN BYZANTINE CILICIAN ARMENIAN SYRIAN STATES ARAB CITIES BEDOUIN KHWARAZMIAN AYYUBID EGYPTIAN MIDDLE SERBIAN MIDDLE BULGARIAN MEDIEVAL CYPRIOT POST LATIN CONQUEST BYZANTINE LATIN GREECE ILKHANID MONGOL MAMLUK EGYPTIAN For miniatures I really like Mirliton's 15mm later crusaders, and for 28mm I think Perry Miniature makes some really nice early crusaders. Khurasan Miniatures have some nice miniatures too, and many of their ranges are from around that region. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Jan 23, 2010 |
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Jan 23, 2010 00:01
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Jarofmoldymayo posted:Awesome. DBA is cheaper. You only need one book that cost like 10 bucks, and the picture I posted is an entire Crusader army with all options you'll ever need. This means that it is pretty cheap to buy the miniatures too, most manufacturers will sell you an entire DBA army set for 15-50 bucks. This means that you can buy the rules, two opposing armies (to lend to opponents who don't want to buy an army at once themselves) and still spend less than 100 dollars. If you are a somewhat dedicated painter you can also get them painted within two to three months. FoG armies, however, start out at about three or four times the size of the army I posted. This means that it is more expensive to buy the models, with starter army sets usually costing 75-130 bucks. It will also take far more time to paint them. Additionally you will need to buy both the rulebook and the crusade book, both of them more expensive than the DBA book. So it is a much bigger investment both in money and time. Now, FoG has some good points. It is more of a big army game with lots of miniatures lining up for a battle that takes several hours. You'll need a big playing areas, lots of miniatures, and time. The end result is a pretty nice big battle game, I think. DBA on the other hand is a bit like chess: it requires fewer miniatures, only a 2'x 2' area, and it is over within an hour. And it makes for a good fast game. So both are good, but in completely different ways.  Some 15mm Seljuk Turks The good thing is that both use the same basing system, so you can easily start out by buying the DBA rulebook two opposing DBA armies, say early crusaders and seljuk turks. Now you have a cheap entry point to the historical hobby, and an extra army for your friends to try the game with. You still haven't spent all that much money, so if you hate it you can just sell them on e-bay and your wallet won't cry. After that it is pretty easy to slowly add battlegroups for a FoG army. A Battlegroup is usually about 12-24 models, so just pick up enough blisters to fill out your DBA units to proper battlegroups. In the meantime you can pick up the rules and proxy units with bases that you just write unit types on. Now you have a small and fast game (DBA) that you can play while collecting your big army game (FoG), instead of sitting on a pile of lead for a year while painting.  28mm Persians based for Warhammer Ancient Battles Things to keep in mind: historical manufacturers normally sell their miniatures without bases, since basing systems are different from game to game. A good way to pick up a bunch of bases for cheap is Litko. 15mm scale FoG and DBA use 40mm wide bases. The depth depends on what kind of unit it is: heavy infantry on 15mm deep bases, almost all other infantry on 20mm deep bases, cavalry on 30mm deep bases and artillery and elephants on 40mm deep bases. Buy a whole bunch so you can proxy FoG armies. If you have decided what kinds of armies you are most interested and in what scale, and I can try to give you the lowdown on what companies you should check out. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 10:07 on Jan 23, 2010 |
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Jan 23, 2010 09:49
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Jarofmoldymayo posted:After talking with a history buff friend of mine, I'd kinda like to also look at 13th century pastoral nomad minis, but I have no idea where to look. Central Asian nomads like Mongol or Turkic tribes? Middle Eastern nomads like some Turks or Arabs? Or even northern African nomads like Berbers or Tuaregs? lilljonas fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Jan 24, 2010 |
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Jan 24, 2010 00:56
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Jarofmoldymayo posted:I was thinking Mongol. First, if you have two dollars to spare, I'd recommend downloading episode 12 of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History for getting in the mood of collecting a bunch of steppe nomads. Also check out the movie Mongol, which isn't the best movie in the world, but it has some great steppe scenes. The great thing about Central Asian nomads is the versatiliy of miniatures. As Dan Carlin points out in the radio show, the fact that living condition stayed very similar in the Central Asian plains for thousands of years means that people lived similar livestyles. They dressed pretty much the same way, dressed in the same clothes, and waged wars the same way. A Hun overrunning a Roman border fortification would even look a lot like some of the steppe nomads pressed into service by the Soviet army in WW2 to harrass retreating German soldiers. The great thing about Mongols is that their army was built up by tribes and kingdoms they had conquered. The actual Mongol part was relatively small. So you can bulk out your army with Cumans, Alans, Turks, Koreans, Chinese, Khwarezmians, even Arabs, and still be historically correct. If they are on a horse and they have a bow, chances are that you can use it in some way. Another advantage with collecting Mongols is that the core army that you use for the Mongol Conquest type of army can easily be changed into Ilkhanid Mongols or Timurid Mongols if you feel like it, and want to get away from the big hordes of light cavalry in favour of adding some exotic troops like elephants. I'm currently looking at Mongols myself and I must admit I haven't decided what company to buy from. But here's what I've been looking at. Bear in mind I'm only looking for 15mm: Alain Touller. He has nice Mongols, and with his very nice Timurid elephants his miniatures could be used for all kinds of Mongol armies. However, looking for feedback on his miniatures online he seems to be a weird French hermit who you can't really trust to deliver them in a reasonable time. His shipping outside France is also very expensive, it's not like I'm spending 12 euro to get some test miniatures. Essex, which is sort of the old big historical company. They don't have a proper Mongol range but they have several different middle eastern types that could work: Cumans, Georgians and some Ilkhanid Mongols. Now, Essex are sort of OK and rather affordable, but I'm not exactly jumping up and down with glee over their casting quality. 15mm.com I have no idea about this manufacturer and have heard nothing about them, neither positive nor negative. They seem to be reasonably priced and ok sculpt wise, disadvantage here being that they just come in a single pose for each pack. Some like to have units that look identical, some don't. I'm in the latter camp. Museum Miniatures are cheap, but I think so-so quality sculpts. Wide range though, and I think they have the best looking trebuchets out there if you want some artillery in your army. Donnington pretty so-so. Difficult to say if the thick paint jobs lets these minis down. Black Hat is cheap. Especially if you buy their bulk deals. Not the best quality ever but affordable. Mirliton is one of my favourite companies, but unfortunately the only thing usable here is their Turcopoles. Old Glory 15mm is also cheap, especially their big army deals. I also think they look pretty well actually, and if you live in the US they are one of the very few choices where you won't end up paying shipping over the pond. If I end up buying a while Field of Glory army at once, it will probably be from them. Minifigs also have mongols but I'm not even linking them since I think they look like crap. I'll keep on looking since I haven't found a perfect range yet. A good way to start looking if you are new to the hobby and don't know of many companies is the Madaxeman.com, which has quite a good list of 15mm historical companies and some feedback on them. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Jan 24, 2010 |
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Jan 24, 2010 12:02
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Lord Commissar posted:In IRC we were coming up with some scenarios/forces for Ambush Alley that would be less offensive: Peacekeeping in Western Africa, like the Cote D'Ivoire Civil War. You have so many factions you can work with: UN troops, Loyalists, French military, various rebel factions, Belarusian mercenaries, Liberian fighters etc. You can do force on force between the more well armed and organized factions, or "rebel rabble" vs. UN for something more similar to the typical style of AA. Pretty PC compared to most of your options there. The minis are generic enough for you to be able to reuse them to play in other African civil wars (Zaire, Sudan, even South African gang violence or apartheid era civil disorder). Also there's tons of reading to do on the civil war, and I think it is easier to wargame than say Zaire or Sudan.
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Jan 25, 2010 17:16
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In the end, I think the important think to keep in mind is that historical wargaming is closely connecting with doing research on the conflict. Even if you are playing British colonial troops shooting down waves of Zulu warriors, it's also means that you read up on the conflict: who was involved, what their aims were, why it ended like it did. Playing those British colonial troops does not mean that you condone what the British imperium did, but it most likely means that you know more about that part of history than 98% of the people around you. Educating yourself about history is a good thing, and understanding nationalistic ideas from other people's points of view makes you less likely to uphold uninformed jingoistic bullshit ideas yourself. Compare that to your average FPS game that require absolutely zero understanding of the conflict that is represented. It's not about celebrating an historical conflict. Painting WW2 Germans doesn't make me root for them. But it sure makes me more informed about the harsh reality of WW2 and why doing all that again would be a horrible thing.
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Jan 25, 2010 18:15
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I open my postbox and what do I see? 96 samurai, staring at me:  The 6mm madness begins! also enough bases to last a long time, including FoW bases: 
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Jan 27, 2010 19:41
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Reading up a bit on train scales, it seems like ZZ would be right on the money (1:300) but that it is an incredibly obscure and new scale. I have no idea how good Z scale (1:220) would look next to 6mm figures. If it does work, then there's your goldmine for modern buildings. If you have a train hobby store in your area you should take some figures there and compare. EDIT: progress report on my own 6mm samurai: doing great, about halfways done already with the first hundred guys.
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Feb 1, 2010 23:19
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I got the two blisters I ordered from Quick Reaction Force today, Carthaginian infantry command and Numidian light cavalry to finish off my FoG army. The Numidians were nice and all, but the foot infantry were huge! They might even rival Xyston in the biggest 15mm miniatures I've seen. But I ended up getting a lion handler with a lion and a mohawk, so maybe I shouldn't complain. Except from the gigantism they were nicely detailed sculpts.
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Feb 6, 2010 00:01
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Lord Commissar posted:I wouldn't say "worst", especially as far as miniature manufacturers go. At least they have pictures of their stuff, and many of them are linked to articles about the minis themselves. FoW homesite is loving space age rocket engineering programing compared to Museum miniatures and Irregular miniatures. And I'm pretty sure there's far worse examples that I have managed to forget through heavy drinking after browsing them. http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/ http://www.museumminiatures.co.uk/ (Dave's super nice if you contact him for orders though, so I wouldn't talk poo poo about his company. It's just that his site is pretty bad) lilljonas fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Feb 8, 2010 |
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Feb 8, 2010 23:44
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Here's my "proof of concept" first stab at 6mm samurai. I went with basing them for DBA or FoG, but they should work for Killer Katanas 2 too. A funny thing to note is that Shogun: Total War was based on Killer Katanas, and these small miniatures sure resembles the tiny sprites of the early Total War games. I could have squeezed in 16 samurai on each base, but I think even 14 looks very crowded for a 15mm depth base. Might have even less per base on less hardcore units. Almost done with my 6mm samurai, I only have to finish the bases. I can't decide whether to try with ordinary static grass or if I should order something smaller for them. Since it is sort of a proof of concept thing I went with two different colours, but both of them from the Takeda armies:  Red guys, representing units of Amari Torayasu.  Green guys, representing units of Takeda Katsuyori, the sorry man who lost against Nobunaga at Nagashino.  All of them. I must say that they look pretty good, and this is just 6 bases of them. There were about 12 guys left after basing that I'll save for retainers to put on cavalry bases, since Japanese cavalry fought in mixed formations of both riders and foot soldiers.
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Feb 10, 2010 20:13
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Serotonin posted:Nicely done mate. How did you find painting them- was it as bad as you thought? It was really easy actually, with the only really difficult part being the back banners. The areas you paint are usually just require a dot of paint and then you move on. I followed that up with a single highlight for each colour that was even faster, like mere seconds per model. So it was pretty simple, but the ultimate example of batch painting.
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Feb 11, 2010 09:26
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Danger - Octopus! posted:Are you basing the little samurai guys by covering the base in spackle then pressing the figures into it? They come on strips of four, and the strips are actually kind of thick. I cut the strip so that each one stands on a little square, pour on a bunch of PVA on the base, and then position the models on the base. The problem then was that the thick pieces of strip were very visible, so I took some green stuff and evened it out around the corners. You can still see the empty space between the squares inside the unit if you look closely, but it's pretty much impossible to see from even a short distance. So good enough for me. Not that you mention it, just pushing them down into a layer of spackle sounds much better and easier too.
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Feb 12, 2010 00:18
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Danger - Octopus! posted:I've got something like a hundred 6mm infantry to base so am going to be experimenting! What period? And well, my 100 infantry only lasted me six bases!
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Feb 12, 2010 09:38
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Lord Commissar posted:I wish I could play in this: That... that doesn't actually look too hard to pull off. Don't give me stupid ideas now.
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Feb 14, 2010 19:11
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Lord Commissar posted:drat it. Bonus points if you get some painting done during jury duty. Extra bonus point for a picture of the reaction from your fellow jurors as you paint commies in court.
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Mar 4, 2010 08:35
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Barry the Sprout posted:My friend uses Essex Miniatures, here's a link to their 15 mm range: Baccus makes 6mm Prussians: https://www.baccus6mm.com/index.php?content=products/napoleonic&detail=napoleonics Integrated bases are pretty easy to hide. Fastest is to just fill up a little bit with sand around where the miniature meets the base. If you want to put in some more effort you can even it out with green stuff while basing them, or put some filler on the base and squeeze the models on. Green stuff is not so pricey since you need so little of it, one strip will last for whole armies. For integral bases in 28mm I will even it out with green stuff:  Integral bases in 15mm I will even out with green stuff if I can be bothered or if the bases are very tall, otherwise I will just paint it over with glue and sand:  Glue and sand  Green Stuff This far 6mm has been most problematic, since the base is so large compared to the model due to the tiny size. These are done with Green Stuff:  Myself, I just can't decide if I should go ahead with these 6mm on 40mm wide, 15-30mm deep bases as above, of if I should go for bigger bases. The latter would be far more dioramic and impressive, but would use about twice as many models, almost twice as large a playing area and I would need to buy a lot of new bases. Smaller bases are also better for the only games I have that cover the period, so I would have to look up other rules sets too. Gah! So there are all these disadvantages of going with larger bases, but just look at it! http://dereksweetoys.com/?p=21#more-21 I have 55 USD on my paypal and an itchy trigger finger, I just need to decide how to do it.
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Mar 10, 2010 09:38
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Lord Commissar posted:I got to play the infantry scenario in the Open Fire! box set (FoW) today. I think I'm starting to get a grasp of these rules. FoW seems to be catching on real well at my club, where all other historical games in eras I actually care about have failed. drat you Nazi tanks!  On the plus side I finished two more elephants, I'll try to take pictures tomorrow.
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Mar 14, 2010 23:43
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I just ordered some 300 more itsy bitsy samurai. Oh my. At least the weather is starting to get nice enough for me to spray paint primer. Looking at Killer Katanas, I will need roughly 200-250 bases to properly play out a major historical battle. That means... about 2500 painted miniatures all in all. Help me.
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Mar 18, 2010 17:01
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Elephants! No static grass yet, but they are elephants!  And they have company:  Now I'm really close to having painted all my Carthaginian stuff. I painted some more cavalry but I haven't based them yet.
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Mar 22, 2010 06:29
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ExtraNoise posted:So after reading this thread, I've gotten pretty excited about Trafalgar. But, as a complete newbie, I have some questions. I would say that 1:1200 is the best scale if you want to create a small armada, like 3-10 ships, and play through it relatively quickly. 1:2400 would be a better scale if you want to try to recreate actual major naval battles with several dozen ships on each side. 1:1200 is more fiddly than 1:2400 because there are so many more details and so much more room for adding things like rigging and stuff. It looks nicer IMHO but it is more work. As for playing online, I don't think there's a VASSAL module for Trafalgar or anything like that. It's also far, far less likely to be played at a game store since it is quite a niche game. The best way would be to either talk a friend into getting a rival fleet (3-4 ships is enough to start) and go from there, or get two small fleets yourself and get someone into playing. The rules are far less complicated than a game like 40K, so don't worry too much about it. I ordered from Rod Langton. I ordered one of the starter sets, and it includes ships, sails, ratlines and bases, so you're pretty much set. What you will want to buy after that is some good thread at a sewing shop (not cotton!). If you buy single ships is it more complicated. The hull listed are just that, the hull. Then you will need a set of sail, where there are different sets of sails depending on how many sails are raised and the size of the ship. Also you might want additional pennants, ratlines, bases and all that. Trafalgar does have a point based system where you build army lists just like in other Warhammer Games. This is also true to most other historical games, even through some grognards don't like to play "fantasy" battles. Actually, that's the only way I play Trafalgar since I don't have the time or the ships for a major, historical battle. The Langton starter sets are roughly 800-900 pts, which I think is a good level for a 1.5-2 hour sea battle, depending on how things goes. There are quite some leeway for how you make your navy, including special character captains and ships, allies and privateers. So yes, you can make a Swedish navy fighting a harbour defence against an American fleet and their pirate allies. As for threads for rigging, the most important thing is to not use cotton since it will slack after a short while. Synthetic threads like nylon works, so does silk threads. I use silk and I like the results, but it is not available in all stores. You can make your sails out of paper or whatever, but it will not look as good. If you buy sails made out of metal they will include about as much metal as the actual ship, and if you buy them from etched brass then you are looking into some specialized production. Naval battles is also a very niche part of wargaming so I don't think any of these companies sell the amounts that things like WW2 Germans or Greek hoplite does. But yeah, each ship is pretty pricey, which is another reason why I recommend starting players to go for small, 3-6 ship fleets. As for solo games, I have never tried it. The more historical the game, the more likely you are to find rules for it. I also think it is more common in chit games than miniature games, and I think games like GMT:s Great Battles series have rules for it. Basically you have a completely historical deployment to begin with, with a set of specific rules for how troops should move, and then you just play out the battle according to that. I have no idea either, but hey, I played chess against myself too. When I was 7.
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Mar 31, 2010 07:47
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Serotonin posted:The best games I have found for solo play are Warmaster based ones, such as Warmaster, the Commander series of games (blitzkrieg, cold war and future war) and Ambush Alley. I reckon Black Powder could work well too. Yeah, I can really see Ambush Alley work as solo with all that random deployment stuff. But for most other strategic historical games it is all about luring your opponent into unfavourable situations, and in those cases I just don't see the point of playing solo. EDIT: Oh, now I remember playing dad's Cry Havoc system games a lot as a kid on my own, and that was pretty fun actually. It's a pretty neat hex and chit game where each guy has his own picture, and as they get wounded and stunned and such you turn them over or use other chits where they look increasingly hurt. I'd love to try out a small scale modeling project of that one day, even though it would require four miniature for every foot soldier, and six (?) of every mounted one. Hmm. Maybe not such a good project. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Mar 31, 2010 |
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Mar 31, 2010 08:03
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ExtraNoise posted:Thanks for the great replies, guys. Seriously helpful. The main reason all the warhams use magnets is to be able to switch weapons, especially in 40K. So instead of making two tanks with different guns for those times you want to field something else, you just drill holes for magnets. As the number of plastic kits increased, so did the use of magnets, since magnetizing metal kits is not nearly as simple. The other reason is to put magnets on your bases, so that you can store and transport them in things like toolboxes. I use flat magnet pads (you can find them at places like Litko) for all my 15mm and 6mm stuff, and for my boats. This works since they are not that heavy compared to how large the bases are. Then I just chuck them in square tin cookie boxes and I never have to worry about storing or transporting them. However, I haven't found a good way to do it with my 28mm, since there is so much more weight on a rather small base, and I'd need far bigger boxes than for my tiny 15mm and 6mm minis. And finally it's just nice to annoy your SO by arranging Hannibal's march over the Alps on your fridge.
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Mar 31, 2010 21:09
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No Pun Intended posted:Did you do this? If so that is awesome. I can't do it properly because the elephants are too heavy to be held vertically by the magnets.  But yes, I can use a bunch of semi-nude angry Celts when I need to put a note on the fridge, and it is indeed awesome.
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Apr 1, 2010 06:49
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I finally got started on some FoW myself, I'll be painting some late war germans in scraped together, irregular winter outfits. I'm not that into WW2 wargaming, but hell, it's a system that is actually played on a weekly basis at the club by several players, so I might as well try it.
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Apr 4, 2010 10:51
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Devlan Mud posted:I just finished painting the core of a US rifle company, on monday I get to put them up for sale since there's no way I can afford the support I'll just paint up the infantry I got for free and then borrow the loving expensive tanks and poo poo. 
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Apr 4, 2010 10:56
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Serotonin posted:Just don't by FOW official miniatures. Plenty of other cheaper options out there. Real wargamers gather beer cans for cash and only play with 1/72 plastic kits inside their cardboard box homes. E: 20 ragtag krauts painted, pics tomorrow. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Apr 4, 2010 |
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Apr 4, 2010 21:08
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Don't show me shermans, I just played my first FoW game and lost horribly as the Americans just drowned my in them. "Oh, you killed eight of my Shermans? Here's some more!" The reason I lost though was that I didn't know how simple it is to take objectives in FoW, and the drat Americans just entered my rear with five truckloads of GIs. That's when I was told the objective rules, with me having nothing that hadn't been torn to shreds by Sherman machineguns in range. Serves me right.
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Apr 6, 2010 22:35
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Devlan Mud posted:125 bucks is a really good intro price, I'd say go for it. 2k for my late war GIs is looking close to 300-350 more bucks. I thought my infantry Germans would be cheap until I tried the game and realized how many toys I'd want them to lug with them into battle. 
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Apr 7, 2010 21:36
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I broke down today and painted almost fifty bases, DBA and FoW and some 28mm guys. drat what a chore. But now I just need to get some static grass and my Carthaginian army will be smoking hot. Well, at least it will be big. Speaking of that, anyone have experience in finding and using shorter than normal static grass? The normal stuff works for 15mm, but I think it will look silly on my 6mm. Baccus sells it in a basing kit, but I don't really need the paint and the sand part of that kit, so 14 quid is a bit dear for just static grass. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Apr 11, 2010 |
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Apr 11, 2010 20:47
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DeceasedHorse posted:I was wondering if anyone could reccommend a good set of Napoleonics rules? I've gotten on a bit of a Napoleon binge lately instead of just reading about World War II obsessively like I usually do and it would be cool to find a game that also fulfills this urge. Ideally, I would like something in 15mm and with a points system and generally good for pick-up games. Basically like Flames of War, if that's possible. Black Powder looks like it might cool, but it seems like it would require a lot of work in rescaling everything and dealing with the fact that there are no points costs (as far as I know) would seem to me to make playing quick pick-up games pretty difficult. Plus Jervis Johnson's track record isn't exactly what I would call stellar. Have you checked out Lasalle? I haven't tried it so I can't recommend it or anything, but from what you say it sounds a bit like it could be up your street. Has an army builder, allegedly 2-3 hours, a dozen units per side, should be decent for pick-up play. EDIT: I looked for reviews and stumbled unto this, where grognards lament that no-one plays games that takes more than three hours anymore, that it is too simplistic and doesn't take ALL THE HISTORICAL FACTS into consideration and the prospect of a game together is celebrated with a "Good! Then there will be two people here that can read and understand more than one page of rules". So really, it might just be similar to FoW. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Apr 13, 2010 |
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Apr 13, 2010 05:20
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So I had some 50 bases worth of historical miniatures lying around with unpainted bases because basing is boring. I finally got around to painting them up, so here's some pictures. They all lack static grass and such, but they are ready for the tabletop: First off, my first attempt at FoW. I'm doing Late War infantry Germans, with rag-tag uniforms etc. I don't really care about WW2 history from anything but a strategical level, so these will be ahistorical as gently caress (a German player that is not a fluff nazi!  ). But the game seems pretty nice.  First five bases, I'll throw dead grass and snow on them later when I'm done with more bases. I have another 15 or so half painted. I'm finding these to be incredibly fast to paint.  6mm is going strong, here's my first camp. Got some 200 infantry and 50 cavalry in the mail this week that I just sprayed, so this army should be tripling in size pretty soon.   I finished all kinds of Carthaginians, even if most of them are chaff units of old Chariot Miniatures that I got for free from a friend at the club. But they bulk out my army enough for me to finally have a completely painted playable Fields of Glory army. Here are some horrible pics of them. They still need more elephants though. Most of all I'm looking forward to crushing puny Roman cavalry with these dudes, with proper Corvus Belli cavalry to the left and some smaller ones that might be Chariot Miniatures to the right:  I also did some civilian Japanese from Museum Miniatures if I ever decide to do some kind of skirmish scenario for a con or similar:  I also tinkered a bit with a 54mm samurai that I have had lying around for almost a year and a half now, mostly details left though: 
lilljonas fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Apr 15, 2010 |
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Apr 15, 2010 09:45
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Lord Commissar posted:Nice game, hurt wallet It's a nice game, where are you planning to get your boats?
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Apr 16, 2010 15:36
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