Friday 13 June 2014

ECW rules suggestions sought etc

My morale with regard to my Work is  three ones on three D6 in WRG 6th edition terms if you know what I mean. I have been cheering myself up by singing that old Sealed Knot favourite "Babylon has fallen..." from my days in Manus O'Cahans .
It got me thinking about all the  painted ECW 28mm lead in the garage- loads of Scots,Highlanders and Irish.
Any suggestions for good, simple "Old School" rules  for skirmishes or bigger battles?
BTW Babylon seems to be continuing,as I write, and has certainly not fallen ,much to my disappointment...

6 comments:

  1. Donald Featherstone's "Wargaming Pike and Shot" is a good bet. Clean, simple rules which give a good flavour of the period. John Curry recently released the paperback version which is available on Amazon, but it's a bit expensive.

    http://www.amazon.com/Donald-Featherstones-Wargaming-Revised-Edition/dp/1446637476

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  2. Not sure about the rules (I like WRG Renaissance for any game) but possibly With Pike and Musket by Charles Wesencraft. I can still remember the worlds to Babylon from my Knotting days....... a stirring song.

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  3. It very much depends what sort of game you want, but I'd suggest you might look at the following:
    ECW Rules by John Armatys on Wargame Developments' website.
    Graham Evans' Victory Without Squares from his Wargaming for Grown Ups blog.
    If you contact me at arthur1815ATyahooDOTcoDOTuk, I'll gladly send you my Memoir 1643, based upon Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame rules.
    The Perfect Captain has rather unusual, but definitely Old School style rules, and a very atmospheric campaign system.
    Of the commercial sets, I'd recommend Real Time Wargames' This War Without an Enemy: simple rules, suitable for small battles and a nice campaign system - better than that in Peter Pig's Regiment of Foote, based on the county of Worcestershire.

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  4. Hi,

    I would second the recommendation to look at John Armatys's "Pike and Shot". It runs to 11 pages, but a lot of that is organizational stuff that is not central to the rules themselves.

    I would definitely NOT recommend "Pike and Shotte", the Black Powder off-shoot. It purports to be a type of Old School rules, but true or not, it does not even remotely resemble warfare in that period. My group tried them a half dozen times, and could not make sense of them. We all finally sold our copies of the rulebook.

    Best regards,

    Chris Johnson

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  5. If you can find them there are 2 sets of genuine "old school" rules for ECW that spring to mind. There's the Bayonet ECW set from the 1970s favoured by Stuart Asquith & Terry Wise's ECW & TYW set from the 1980s.
    I played the latter a lot, quite bloody & with some odd bits but they work.
    I have a copy of the Bayonet set somewhere, from a bundle of old rules. Look like a good workable OS set.
    Tried WRG (yawn), Charlie Wesencraft's (odd basing) & various others without success when I played ECW.
    I think Foundry republished 1644 at some stage, which were a dedicated ECW Womblehammer type game predated P&S.......
    the TW set also cater for the wars in Scotland, but bows are deadly or so I'm led to believe.......
    Neil

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  6. I would second the vote for Terry Wise and the ECW / TYW set. I had (may have) a copy somewhere. I also have the Chas Wesencraft book but I've not read it in a long time, though I do recall that 'odd basing' thing he had in all his rules. Might see if I can find it later.
    Tom

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