Battle of Flodden Rules

[Amblingalong]

I'm hoping someone could point me in the right direction for a set of rules for the battle of Flodden.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Lion Rampant will give a good basic set for small scale battles. Sword and Spear should work for larger battles.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

MeG works pretty well

[Amblingalong]

Thanks for the responses, I should probably should have also asked what base sizes I should go for.

[Orcs]

I'm hoping someone could point me in the right direction for a set of rules for the battle of Flodden.

A dangerous question.

Ask three wargamers what rules for a period. You will get 5 different suggestions, along with 20  questions about - What scale figures, What size of battle you wish to play, the figure ratios. How are you going to base them etc.

This will then be followed with advice giving you at least two answers for each question they asked. 

[Sean Clark]

Orc has it right.

If a group of wargamers decided to take up chess, they'd have house rules, points systems and terrain on the board within a couple of hours.

For my 2p, I'll throw in something simple like the Neil Thomas Rules family. Either One Hour Wargames or the Ancient/Medieval rules he wrote. I suggest these because they are simple, easy to learn, but give a decent game.

Of course, you could always fall back on the likes of DBA, Hail Caesar or just about 1,001 other sets of rules. Unless you find someone who has actually played Flodden - it's all a bit of guesswork I'm afraid!

Anyone for chess?

[fsn]

My answer to which set of rules is right for me is, of course, the set of rules I write. 

Admittedly, as a solo gamer that's easy to say, but at heart you have movement, morale and mangling. Decide  what level you want - skirmish to army - and so how big your units are and off you go.

The difficult thing (and I found it with Flodden) is capturing the feel of the period.  Dark Age warfare for me is nasty, brutish and short; Napoleonic is elan followed by fumbling around in the smoke; and WWII tank warfare is all about observation and getting in the first shot on target; I don't have enough of a sense of Flodden to make it different from Agincourt.

[FierceKitty]

Orc has it right.

If a group of wargamers decided to take up chess, they'd have house rules, points systems and terrain on the board within a couple of hours.


Anyone for chess?

Indo-Persian-Spanish chess? Indian Shatranj? Japanese shogi, tsiu shogi, dai shogi, tai shogi? Chinese xiangchi? Korean xongwen? Burmese sittuyin? Thai makruk? I understand there are interesting Mongolian, Abyssinian, and Malaysian variants too. Fairy chess? Australian beer chess (I bet it exists)? German Kriegspiel chess? Blindfold chess? Multiple-board simultaneous chess? Washington Square hustler chess (=if you cheat and get away with it, it doesn't count as cheating)?

[mmcv]

My answer to which set of rules is right for me is, of course, the set of rules I write. 

 this seems to be more and more the direction I end up going in, particularly when picking conflicts that don't always fit exactly into the popular periods.

[Amblingalong]

Thanks again guys for the response and information.

[Ben Waterhouse]

Indo-Persian-Spanish chess? Indian Shatranj? Japanese shogi, tsiu shogi, dai shogi, tai shogi? Chinese xiangchi? Korean xongwen? Burmese sittuyin? Thai makruk? I understand there are interesting Mongolian, Abyssinian, and Malaysian variants too. Fairy chess? Australian beer chess (I bet it exists)? German Kriegspiel chess? Blindfold chess? Multiple-board simultaneous chess? Washington Square hustler chess (=if you cheat and get away with it, it doesn't count as cheating)?

My father invented a sort of three dimensional chess using a sort of see through Perspex
Multi story car park looking thing. It didn't catch on...

[Ben Waterhouse]

Oh, and to add to the question try Furioso rules...

[streetgang]

I tried Flodden many years ago with DBR, It wasn't a bad experience and it felt fairly accurate but the rules weren't my cup of tea.

If I was to do Flodden, I would probably got with To The Strongest, especially if you plan to game it solo. Pendraken has a nice range and 10mm does well for big bases (diorama style) with a decent amount of figures).

TTS is grid based, things like ammunition are limited in supply and it can capture the effect of deep pike formations or smaller skirmish groupings.

[Last Hussar]

Sorry, a chess board shouldn't have terrain on it? But that's where my pawns hide from the knights.

[Big Insect]

I'm a bit late to this conversation but I'd thoroughly recommend Field of Glory Renaissance (FoGR) from Osprey (or you can probably find a set of rules & army list booklets 2nd hand - try Partizan Press)

I've played many renaissance rules over the years - from Newbury 'Fast-Play' (OOP), Tercio (OOP but a very good solid set, if you can find a copy) through to George Gush's rules (OOP) and DBR, but in my mind FoGR not only plays very well, it also looks on the table like a renaissance battle should visually (IMHO) and formations behaves very much like I feel they would have done historically.

I play 15mm & 28mm Renaissance and use a Tudor English (Flodden era) army in 28mm. It has its challenges but I think it captures the transition of technology and tactics very well.
Basing is the 'standard' 40mm frontage for 10mm/15mm and 60mm for larger scales. Bases are combined into formations to create Keils or Tercios etc.

There is also a new Art de la Guerre supplement to upgrade these excellent Ancient & Medieval rules to a Renaissance set, but for Flodden you could easily use the basic ADLG v.4 set - I use them for fighting Early Italian Wars and they work well.

Hope that helps
Mark