Gosh with the house and job and baby there hasn't been much time for prepping the hobby area but I've been managing a little bit every few days. The wife, bless her, took all of the cardboard and extra trash out of the hobby area man cave / thousand legger ville for me the other night which was a nice surprise.
Of late I've been thinking about rules that I like and don't like. There's always an obsession to have a "definitive" rules set when you don't play regularly at a club. For me, when I did have a gaming buddy or 3 to play with, there were our favorites and then ones we always wanted to explore.
When you play solo, you have only your own ideas and curiosities to satisfy. That being said, it's quite hard for me now to decide on a "definitive" rules set (or if i even need one?). I have my "tried and true" rules that have served me well in the past. Like a well-worn tool they are always there in a pinch when I need them and I have a great familiarity with them.
Some would say then, why do you even need a "definitive" rule set? I guess that the answer is probably "no, you don't" but then I wouldn't have a good blog post either...
Volley and Bayonet seems to be a good fall back rules set for me. I always end up going back to it after however long a hiatus. Same with Guns of Liberty (tactical AWI). GHQ WWII MicroArmour makes a really great WWII miniatures combat rules set, as does Spearhead.
Blitzkrieg Commander is one of my favorite WWII rules sets to play with. Granted, I don't really know the scale or level of command it represents, but it is alot of fun.
Shako for Napoleonics is also hard to beat for playability.
GHQ's modern system though? Not as well liked by me. Fire and Fury too - which used to be an absolute staple of mine, has also fallen by the wayside.
Seek Out, Close With, & Destroy makes a great game for toy soldier battles, but I don't care for the sequence of play and the lack of reactions.
Reactions you say? Great segway into my next topic which are rules sets that seem to be hugely popular now. Reaction tests are hard to beat for intensity and randomness in games and Force on Force makes a great game. General De Brigade and British Grenadier are wildly popular (I own BG and have not played it yet). Same with Grande Armee which I have not played yet. Black Powder isn't a bad game, but it's missing something, that is somewhere in between Guns of Liberty and Volley and Bayonet.
So I guess the point of all this rambling is the fact that I started out in search of a definitive rules set but ended up with more questions than I initially began with.
The question still stands though - do you need a definitive rules set? Or are you happy with a few or more than a few??? The roll makes the sandwich and obviously the rules make the game.
Here are a few of mine:
AWI: Guns of Liberty
SYW Volley and Bayonet
Napoleonics: Shako
ACW: Volley and Bayonet
WWII: BKC, Spearhead, GHQ WWII Microarmor
Modern: SOCW&D, Modern Spearhead, Cold War Commander, Fistful of TOWS, Force on Force.
Basing becomes the biggest question of the post. Commiting to a rules set, in many cases, commits you to a basing scheme. So finding the best rules is important if you want to get a project done! In my case, having found a "general" basing scheme, I can move forward with a scheme that's applicable to most rules that I like. But finding that golden rules set is crucial to basing my troops and finishing a project.
take the AWI for example. I like the Guns Liberty Rules set, which has troops based in files, with many stands for a Battalion. Volley and Bayonet is another favorite - where each stand is a Regiment! There's no way to substitute for those 2 rules sets because the Regiments in V&B are 3 inches long!!! Food for thought...