Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The search for Renaissance rules continues....

The Swiss say "Give us some Rules!"

People you this blog probably know I have a large Renaissance era figure collection that's been sitting idle for years awaiting a ruleset worthy of them. I playtested two, Tactica Renaissance, which played alright but lacked any fun command and control, and Renaissance Warmaster, which was also OK, and won between the two but wasn't quite there.
So, on the recommendation of a few people on the Lead Adventure Forum, I ordered Renaissance Principles of War. I ordered directly from Principles of War in the UK. Six weeks and 3 unanswered emails about where my order was later, I finally ordered from Noble Knight here in the US an got it 2 days later. I got a refund from PoW the next Monday because they were out of stock. Thanks for the quick response!
Now to the rules. They're everything I hate in a ruleset: written orders, convoluted combat sequence, rosters, lots of different die sizes, and the list goes on. Positive aspects: Single stands for units so you can use any scale fig you want, and lost of army lists.
The quest goes on. Renaissance warfare is very close to Classical Period. So maybe it's finding rules I like for classical and adding mods for Renaissance. I really enjoy Command and Colors. That could be easy to fix. I'll keep everyone updated on my quest.

Unpainted Gendarmes waiting for rules worthy of them

9 comments:

  1. You could do worse than to try Armati rules. My old club uses them for English Civil War and they give a quick, clean game with a real feel for the period. The rules stretch right back through the Renaissance and cover your forces.

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  2. Try White Mountain. It's C&C for renaissance. We just did a game of it with miniatures.

    http://www.miniaturewargaming.com/index.php/mwg/comments/white_mountain_board_game/

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  3. Armati - that brings back memories...

    In addition to White Mountain, have you considered a mod of Sabin's Lost Battles for renaissance?

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  4. Mr. Retzer, you are a gentleman and a scholar.
    -J

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  5. El Gregp,
    Read some about lost battles, but sounded more like a simulation than a wargame. Be willing to give it a try if I can find it.
    -J

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  6. Have you considered the IMPETUS rules? There is a free simplified version of the rules ("Basic Impetus") that is quite popular . . . and depending upon just what armies you have, may already be covered:

    http://www.dadiepiombo.com/basic2.html

    The free version is at least worth a quick read . . . and I understand that the full version has a lot more "command and control" and other richness to it.


    -- Jeff

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  7. Good because the Basic set has none which is why I never delved into it past the Basic. Alas I get paid but once a month, so I'll have to wait until the end of the month to pick up the full version.

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  8. How about Piquet? It's got simple combat and lots of fun command and control issues. Does use multiple die sizes though.

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