Favourite Rules

Just the five?

I was reading David Crook's Wargaming Odyssey earlier today in which he has come up with his top five favourite sets of rules. I wondered whether I would be able to arrive at a similar list. Tough choices. However, you need to set appropriate criteria. In my case, as I rarely play anything straight out of the box, my favourite rules are those which I have plundered most for ideas. These are, basically, the ones I have carried around with the the longest and which are therefore the most widely traveled.

1. Battle: Charles Grant

I have carried this around since I bought it in Scotland about 45 years ago. This drove my early "proper" gaming. The original Meccano Magazine articles are available (officially of course) on the web.

2. Warring Empires: Chris Pringle

This set me off on the 19C gaming kick. Highly innovative rules which led on, unfortunately, to Principles of War by people that missed the point of the original set. Nice to see Chris return to 19C in Bloody Big Battles. However, these are still available from Irregular for a fiver!

3. AK47: RFCM

That's Mr Pig to you and me. No picture here because the cover of the first edition is pretty naff. Great rules and ones which I much prefer to the later second edition. probably the only set of figure gaming rules I'm happy to use without some sort of grid. Also, a top choice as the basis for a future WW2 set.

4. Volley Fire: Nick Bouette

An unusual basic set of rules using card activation and a small 6 by 6 grid.

As you can tell, these are getting a bit knackered. I get these out very now and again for inspiration.

5. If I had got Blucher this would be number five but I haven't so it is probably PBI second edition by RFCM: You never know, this might arrive for Father's Day (hint). Otherwise, its the second PBI which I still think is probably one of the best small unit WW2 games going. Playing it reminds me of reading 18 Platoon by Sidney Jary.

That leaves a lot out including Bruce Rea-Taylor's OMG game, Rapid Fire, Clive Lane's hex grid rules (still in the garage) and many others.

In case you were wondering, I'm still working on the Neuve Chapelle game which is coming on quite nicely, hence limited recent blogging.