Bloody Barons for other theatres of War

[Greenpeiper]

My friends and I have extensive collections of  15thC figures in 15mm but we use DBMM rules. We are looking for something different to play using our armies. Would it be possible to use Bloody Barons for say Later Hungarian (Black Army) v Later Polish for example??
Also as i said we use DBMM so re basing is not an option, if both sides use same basing protocols could Bloody Barons work??

Many thanks for your attention and hopefully answers

[Colonel Kilgore]

My take on this is that:
a) at one level, you can use whatever you want in terms of figures
b) but you will end up with very much a Wars of the Roses feel of battle in terms of largely infantry, with integral bows
c) a big difference would be for any armies that have significant cavalry (e.g. Polish?), they won't behave in a "normal wargaming" way (e.g. DBMM and similar) as they are much more of a one-off (if you're lucky - more if you're really lucky) shock weapon rather than a manoeuvring force
d) conclusion: if it's a WOTR-style of battle you want, use Bloody Barons. If you don't, then it might not work so well
What do the other play testers think?
Simon

[Nick]

I agree, cavalry is the issue.
Unless you have armies with a very small amount of cavalry, and additionally you are prepared to accept that even those might not turn up to the battle, then the new BB won't work out well for you.
(but it is brilliant for WotR !)

Nick

[Leman (Andy)]

I agree. My limited knowledge of Polish and Hungarian medieval armies is that they were cavalry heavy, whereas the WoR had very few battles involving cavalry, especially after the debacle of Blore Heath. The bulk of the infantry fought as mixed bill and bow units, with a small number of handguns evident and a growing number of spear/short pike-armed troops as the war progressed. Furthermore the basic premise behind most of the the RFCM rules is that they cover either a specific conflict or a style of warfare within a particular period, eg Viking raids, the AWI, the SCW, so that those particular styles of combat can be explored in depth. For me this is the strength of these rules, but it does mean that it is difficult to represent troop types that did not appear in those conflicts. I would suggest two things - either consider the first version of Bloody Barons, which is still available and included rules for particular troop types, eg missile heavy units or close combat heavy units, as well as rules for heavy and lighter cavalry (but not missile armed cavalry). the original BB rules used standard measuring rather than zones, except in the deployment phase. Alternatively, if you are looking for a more generic set of medieval rules which use squares for movement you could look at To the Strongest, which does allow for armies with more cavalry units.

[Greenpeiper]

Thanks Lads
It is as I suspected which is a shame really.....from what I have read so far it was the pre-battle stage that piqued my interest, with units not turning up or turning coat and focusing on supply etc etc.

Not sure it is worth purchasing the rules just to use that section.

Not sure I could justify to the long haired general forking out for a whole set of new figures (not for a while anyway) 

Cheers

ps how critical is base sizing, could we use DBMM bases (doubling up on usability of figures)

[John Watson]

I have Swiss and Scots which would work reasonably with BB rules, I think. Neither army has much cavalry.
Regarding the rules I think BB would need considerable rewriting. I also don't think the old version of BB would be any good.
However you could look at the Peter Pig Samurai rules which are essentially medieval rules which cater for more cavalry biased armies.

[Colonel Kilgore]

@Greenpeiper: the one piece of good news for you here is that base sizes are largely irrelevant. You could easily use DBMM base sizes for Bloody Barons.

Simon