'New Rule Sets' In Da House!

I've finally got around to picking up a couple of new(ish) rule sets that I'd been meaning to do do for a while.

The first set. Hail Ceaser, is probably familiar to most.

I hadn't intended to pick these up as I've enough rule sets as it is, and most of my historical opponents (not that i've been fighting historically, but you know what I mean) are using the Impetus rules and we're all enjoying these. Indeed, most are getting involved in the new tournament scene in Scotland, which is surprising, especially for me. Also, I had pidgeon-holed these as being 'Ancient' rules, a period I don't really play at all.

What decided me to get these rules was the number of blogs about which talk about using these rules for Italian Wars games. And that did peak my interest so, long story short, I picked these up on Amazon for a reasonable price. Having only appeared in the post this afternoon, I've not had time to go into them in any detail, but they do look interesting, though obviously aimed at a more ancient-ish audience, they do jump into the Dark Age and Medieval periods, though no mention of handguns and arquebus yet.

I'll do a bit of digging and reading up on this one but so far I think a reasonable addition to the old library in any event.

The second rule set ordered and arriving toiday was a set I knew more about, Tomorrow's War.

These have been planned for a while and now that I've got them, I'm looking forward to try them out. Again, a few club members already have these and so should produce a number of games in the near future (pun intended).

Lot's of eye candy as can be assumed with a rule set now adays, and a considerable amount of reading, which probably isn't usual. They do seem to use a couple of paragraphs where a short sentence would do. But still, they promise to produce some interesting games.

I did notice, while taking the books out of the packaging that they were both pretty weighty tomes and both hard bound, that most new wargames rule sets I've seen for a year or so are now of this type. A trend which I think is coming from RPG gaming where most rule sets are now like this (and there's a huge amount of them out there!) and one I don't think is a bad thing.

The number of rules I have bought over the years whether poorly photocopied or printed and bound in a spiral binder or just soft bound and with even fairly limited light use soon show signs of wear and tear.

Yes, the high production values and hard binding puts up the cost, but comparing the £15 a soft bound, low page count rule set of maybe 5 years ago to the generally £25 hard bound, high page count rule set with lots of shiny, I think this is a trend in the hobby which is all to the good. I do wonder what the driver for this change has been though. I don't know if it's the guru's of the hobby who are involved in the production of these rule sets are often involved in the RPG scene and so getting cross fertilised as it were or just that the wargaming public is getting a bit more demanding for spending it's gaming dollar. Not sure.

Anyways, I'm off to have a read at my new purchases, but i'll report anon on my gaming experiences of these rules as they transpire, which will no doubt be soon. Likely first up will be TW and some urban mayhem. See you in the rubble...