LOL cannot stop myself from adding after you mentioned Shock of Impact, everybody I knew after they played it once started calling it the Dull Thud of Impact.
Yep, i know a lot also that did the same as you. The competion circuit got smaller and smaller. Our club was about 33 members strong. For several years during 6th & 7th edition heydays we would regulalry have 20+ members playing in the competitions around the country. Then when 7th sorta stopped being played, we all just stopped going to competions. At the club, the "old guard", thats me and others stayed playing 7th. The younger members went onto DBA and DBM, others stopped playing ancients all together. We also noticed a decline in membership of the club, which again i know happened at other clubs. It appears that once there was nothing to aim for, we just had the club night, and played any game anyone wanted, other than fantasy, as there was a separate fantasy club. The games for some just got boring, no practice leagues, no competion games to build your skill level to, so it just became another game night.
Same here, purple primer (by Airfix none the less), fifth edition with compitition play, then sixth, then seventh: wtf.. oh ok, DB......... ETC Continue to play 7th when I can; however the other current scourge of the hobby is the games must be simple (rules) to play and be of a short time span, so most grand size game of any period tend be few and far between even in a club setting. I am currently trying a mix of old rules with armies taken from DBA3, Huns v Juan-Juan II/80d v II/38 (both steppe terrain) with the armies blown up to 1,000 pts fifth edition rules. If you use the 6th edition army lists, Hunnic (79 no allies) v Chinese border nomad (62 read all the notes). Good times to review and experiment.
Thanks for the coms. Modern gaming is odd to an old timer like me. What i find fascinating is the need to have masses of dice. I was watching a wargame on utube the other day and although it was a "serious" historical game, the rules fairly complicated, the masses of dice just brought it down to such a basic childlike level (I understand this comes from playing fantasy games ?). Any way the 2 players were collecting buckets of dice, 12 to 15 D6 each for a few cavalry, rolling all of those, seeing how many 5 or 6's he could get. Then the other player picked up another handful of D6 to see how many he could save. Then wash and repeat for the other guy, after this "simple" 6 figure combat, that is only 6 figures on each side, they set to with even more D6 dice to roll to find out the morale of the combat.. I was exhausted just watching it. As to play time it is a big discussion amongst our players. We do not understand this drive for quick games, who is pushing for this. If its the wives (I doubt it) then male players need to grow a pair. If its indiviuals, then why the need for a rushed game. I am retired now, as are our other players. We play on a Wednesday or a Saturday. Play time is usually from around 10.30 am to around 7.pm. Thats set up and pack away. We would play longer, and do on occasions but as a not all of the players are local we take into account driving home time. When working it was similar timing but only on a weekend, or a Friday night. We have played through a Friday night on occasions i once got home at 6am, was knackered then all day saturday. Its not a weekly thing we do try to play every 3 to 4 weeks, meaning 15ish times a year thats not much out of 365 days.
@@OW... The dice thing is really down to warhammer, a bucket load to hit, another to turn hits to wounds, then more to save.... This "Tin of Terror" syndrome allows all bad choices / lack of knowledge / incorrect tactics to be blamed on bad dice rolls; all these players should try a game using arthur taylor's rules from the 70's....
I agree that to settle on one set of rules is hugely helpful in getting to know them better and getting the most out of them. I have multi period interests and also do a wide range of boardgames .... which all together comes to too many different rulesets to have to learn and so 2020 has seen me start to streamline collections and try to get more games to the table with less divergence in sets.
@@WARdROBEPlaysWWII I counted up my Ancient / Medieval sets the other days and I have 11 modern style sets, to that I have just added MeG, the whole thing is just ridiculous really, so I am at the start of my journey of slimming that down to 3 and from there the tough decision of picking one will happen. With boardgames, for the past 2 years I have totally re-organising my collection so that it strongly emphasises 'series' rules, so one rulebook serves multiple volumes of the game and that is starting to bear fruit. For figures, I have similar choices to make for WWII, ACW and Napoleonics, so 2021 will be an interesting year. I look back to my early years of wargaming and the simplicity of one favoured ruleset and a smaller collection overall brings a stark contrast to today's distractions.:-)
I remember when WRG 7th came out. Holy cow what a sea change! Norman HK in wedge, charging imperiously felt like Norman knights! My late Romans still sucked of course, and I've never forgiven Phil Barker for not letting bolt shooters on carts fire overhead, which was clearly a late Roman tactic. Yep 30 years later and I'm still mad ☺️ I'm with you on DBA I have never liked that game. On the other hand 7th edition with 3,000 points of Persians versus 3,000 points of Alexander's Macedonians makes an awesome game. A block of phalangites that looks like a block of phalangites, and enough Persian infantry with bows to actually do some damage. Great fun for large battles. I never played competitively with wrg 7th, but I sure enjoyed just playing a good ancient war game with them. DBM, meh.
If i recall that was a gripe of ours about the bolt shooters, having to place artillery with firing lanes to avoid your own troops, a bit like Napoleonics.
After learning a bit about how battles were actually fought I got very disenchanted with WRG in the early 1990s, and jacked in wargaming altogether. In the last three or four years, I came across Sharp Practice and the Too Fat Lardies’ game systems which are so much less restrictive and rewarding, and dare I say it, realistic. So, I’m happily back in the hobby again. The Lardies don’t as yet cover much of ancient warfare so I’m still looking for a rule-set to play my old 15mm ancient armies. Just came across Phil Barker’s most recent production: DBMM 2.1 (released in 2016) and I must say it’s extremely tempting. Certainly a huge improvement on the 7th Edition and DBM in terms of realism.
@@OW... || I agree, DBM was also too small for me. However, DBMM seems to be a vast improvement and caters for much bigger armies, with much more realistic command & control mechanisms.
Really great and insightful post. I’m all over the place with rulesets these days. We tend to stick to one ruleset to, but its a period that I’ve got a passing interest in, so tend to never invest much time in really learning the rules. Tend to roll the dice and take it from there 🤣
Thats what i find with "wargames youngsters"... Its no ones fault it is because there is no single unifiying set of rules anymore. Back in the day there was only WRG 6th or 7th, as i say in the VT...where ever you went in competions those were the rules used.
@@OW... yep now rule sets are part and parcel of generating money etc.etc. Don’t get me wrong some are needed, but there are others that are just cashing in
Excellent stuff,very interesting . I tend to play with a set of rules while making notes on things i could try out and possibly change . My latest effort to try out is if two matching units begin melee with each other , they fight for one move then work out the dice the next move. Opens up the chances of flank attacks, support etc.I really enjoyed the vid.Thanks very much . PS , DBA and DBM suck !
I think Phil wrote DBA for a one off event and it worked so well developed it. I have also fallen for the new rule trap, are there more rules than players now. Ask 100 wargamers and you will get 100 different replies.
LOL cannot stop myself from adding after you mentioned Shock of Impact, everybody I knew after they played it once started calling it the Dull Thud of Impact.
Nice, not heard that about it ;)
Great video! me being a younger wargamer it's especially interesting to see how it was back when the hobby was in its beginning phases
tks HP, yep a different world back then, but old folks always say that :DDDD
I never moved on from WRG rules and just stopped playing. Still got my miniatures, perhaps one day I’ll finish painting them.
Yep, i know a lot also that did the same as you. The competion circuit got smaller and smaller. Our club was about 33 members strong. For several years during 6th & 7th edition heydays we would regulalry have 20+ members playing in the competitions around the country. Then when 7th sorta stopped being played, we all just stopped going to competions. At the club, the "old guard", thats me and others stayed playing 7th. The younger members went onto DBA and DBM, others stopped playing ancients all together. We also noticed a decline in membership of the club, which again i know happened at other clubs. It appears that once there was nothing to aim for, we just had the club night, and played any game anyone wanted, other than fantasy, as there was a separate fantasy club. The games for some just got boring, no practice leagues, no competion games to build your skill level to, so it just became another game night.
Same here, purple primer (by Airfix none the less), fifth edition with compitition play, then sixth, then seventh: wtf.. oh ok, DB......... ETC
Continue to play 7th when I can; however the other current scourge of the hobby is the games must be simple (rules) to play and be of a short time span, so most grand size game of any period tend be few and far between even in a club setting.
I am currently trying a mix of old rules with armies taken from DBA3, Huns v Juan-Juan II/80d v II/38 (both steppe terrain) with the armies blown up to 1,000 pts fifth edition rules. If you use the 6th edition army lists, Hunnic (79 no allies) v Chinese border nomad (62 read all the notes). Good times to review and experiment.
Thanks for the coms. Modern gaming is odd to an old timer like me. What i find fascinating is the need to have masses of dice. I was watching a wargame on utube the other day and although it was a "serious" historical game, the rules fairly complicated, the masses of dice just brought it down to such a basic childlike level (I understand this comes from playing fantasy games ?). Any way the 2 players were collecting buckets of dice, 12 to 15 D6 each for a few cavalry, rolling all of those, seeing how many 5 or 6's he could get. Then the other player picked up another handful of D6 to see how many he could save. Then wash and repeat for the other guy, after this "simple" 6 figure combat, that is only 6 figures on each side, they set to with even more D6 dice to roll to find out the morale of the combat.. I was exhausted just watching it. As to play time it is a big discussion amongst our players. We do not understand this drive for quick games, who is pushing for this. If its the wives (I doubt it) then male players need to grow a pair. If its indiviuals, then why the need for a rushed game. I am retired now, as are our other players. We play on a Wednesday or a Saturday. Play time is usually from around 10.30 am to around 7.pm. Thats set up and pack away. We would play longer, and do on occasions but as a not all of the players are local we take into account driving home time. When working it was similar timing but only on a weekend, or a Friday night. We have played through a Friday night on occasions i once got home at 6am, was knackered then all day saturday. Its not a weekly thing we do try to play every 3 to 4 weeks, meaning 15ish times a year thats not much out of 365 days.
@@OW... The dice thing is really down to warhammer, a bucket load to hit, another to turn hits to wounds, then more to save.... This "Tin of Terror" syndrome allows all bad choices / lack of knowledge / incorrect tactics to be blamed on bad dice rolls; all these players should try a game using arthur taylor's rules from the 70's....
Many thanks for the input, its what its all about..
I agree that to settle on one set of rules is hugely helpful in getting to know them better and getting the most out of them. I have multi period interests and also do a wide range of boardgames .... which all together comes to too many different rulesets to have to learn and so 2020 has seen me start to streamline collections and try to get more games to the table with less divergence in sets.
Sounds a wise move Norm...
What are you settling on Norm?
@@WARdROBEPlaysWWII I counted up my Ancient / Medieval sets the other days and I have 11 modern style sets, to that I have just added MeG, the whole thing is just ridiculous really, so I am at the start of my journey of slimming that down to 3 and from there the tough decision of picking one will happen.
With boardgames, for the past 2 years I have totally re-organising my collection so that it strongly emphasises 'series' rules, so one rulebook serves multiple volumes of the game and that is starting to bear fruit.
For figures, I have similar choices to make for WWII, ACW and Napoleonics, so 2021 will be an interesting year.
I look back to my early years of wargaming and the simplicity of one favoured ruleset and a smaller collection overall brings a stark contrast to today's distractions.:-)
This video helped me connect the dots between Chainmail and Barker’s earlier editions. Thank you.
You're very welcome!
I remember when WRG 7th came out. Holy cow what a sea change! Norman HK in wedge, charging imperiously felt like Norman knights! My late Romans still sucked of course, and I've never forgiven Phil Barker for not letting bolt shooters on carts fire overhead, which was clearly a late Roman tactic. Yep 30 years later and I'm still mad ☺️
I'm with you on DBA I have never liked that game. On the other hand 7th edition with 3,000 points of Persians versus 3,000 points of Alexander's Macedonians makes an awesome game. A block of phalangites that looks like a block of phalangites, and enough Persian infantry with bows to actually do some damage. Great fun for large battles. I never played competitively with wrg 7th, but I sure enjoyed just playing a good ancient war game with them. DBM, meh.
If i recall that was a gripe of ours about the bolt shooters, having to place artillery with firing lanes to avoid your own troops, a bit like Napoleonics.
After learning a bit about how battles were actually fought I got very disenchanted with WRG in the early 1990s, and jacked in wargaming altogether.
In the last three or four years, I came across Sharp Practice and the Too Fat Lardies’ game systems which are so much less restrictive and rewarding, and dare I say it, realistic. So, I’m happily back in the hobby again.
The Lardies don’t as yet cover much of ancient warfare so I’m still looking for a rule-set to play my old 15mm ancient armies. Just came across Phil Barker’s most recent production: DBMM 2.1 (released in 2016) and I must say it’s extremely tempting. Certainly a huge improvement on the 7th Edition and DBM in terms of realism.
DBM, a bit to small for me, i like large units and large armies where possible.
@@OW... || I agree, DBM was also too small for me. However, DBMM seems to be a vast improvement and caters for much bigger armies, with much more realistic command & control mechanisms.
Really great and insightful post. I’m all over the place with rulesets these days. We tend to stick to one ruleset to, but its a period that I’ve got a passing interest in, so tend to never invest much time in really learning the rules. Tend to roll the dice and take it from there 🤣
Thats what i find with "wargames youngsters"... Its no ones fault it is because there is no single unifiying set of rules anymore. Back in the day there was only WRG 6th or 7th, as i say in the VT...where ever you went in competions those were the rules used.
@@OW... yep now rule sets are part and parcel of generating money etc.etc. Don’t get me wrong some are needed, but there are others that are just cashing in
Very nice really enjoyed the chat and the look at all these different rules sets, all the best Garry
Many thanks
Interesting video. My problem with WRG rules was always the huge time spans some of them covered- or tried to.
Yes i know what you mean...
Excellent stuff,very interesting . I tend to play with a set of rules while making notes on things i could try out and possibly change . My latest effort to try out is if two matching units begin melee with each other , they fight for one move then work out the dice the next move. Opens up the chances of flank attacks, support etc.I really enjoyed the vid.Thanks very much . PS , DBA and DBM suck !
tks Den...
I would suggest the follow-up to DBM, which is imaginatively titled DBMM. Not tried it yet but it does look quite promising.
I think Phil wrote DBA for a one off event and it worked so well developed it. I have also fallen for the new rule trap, are there more rules than players now. Ask 100 wargamers and you will get 100 different replies.
Good point Chris, i think you may be on the case.
AUDIO is not very audible
Hi, agreed for some reason it was poor that day...operator error i think ;)
Enjoyable.
tks..