eBook Ancient and Medieval Wargaming epub

Mr. Thomas Ancient and medieval Wargaming is about as good as it gets in wargames rules. The general period is subdivided into 5 sub-eras, all of which share generally similar mechanical rules. Around this frame the real joy of the book is constructed - period detail that is sensible, and dozens on dozens of army lists. What makes this combination different is that the rules can be easily understood by anyone, and yet there is considerable complexity - a complexity that comes from decision making, not rules generated minutia. You may wonder about what to do next, but you'll have no problems with 'how to' do it next. Likewise the rules make it plain that these are game rules - not simulations. It is refreshing to have a specific and carefully defined victory, not a 'We'll play until we're tired, or until our wives clear their throats one time too many...' In these rules there will be a winner and a loser in about two hours.
I've been a miniatures wargame for more than thirty years. This is the best twenty bucks I've ever spent!

This book is great, I have dumped all my old wargmes rules and now am using this one extensively, it is simple enough for me to remember how to play when I like, unlike all my other sets, which I seem to have to re-read over and over again before being able to play again but not with this book nor his previous book Wargaming and Introduction, which is a very good as well, hope to see some more from Mr. Thomas soon I hope. Get this one if your tired of re-hashing complicated wargames everytime you wanna game.

How's this for a criticism? There might be too much information here that results in a slower game. Still, I highly recommend Ancient and Medieval Wargaming for both the nubie and the hold hand.

Great introduction to Ancient and Medieval Wargaming, which continues to be a very strong topic of Miniature wargaming in general. There are a lot of rules already popular that have a large following, but not so much for the new comer, so this volume of introduction to the various sub-periods and rules and army lists for each is quite welcome. Plenty of inspiration for new comers, as well as a joy for old hands to read his design theory and army lists, as well as the history and coverage of tactics from a wargamer's perspective. A welcome addition to the shelf of any gamer interested in this period.

Excellent set of rules, simple and straightforward. Recommended!

I feel cheeted having bought this.
This is NOT a set of wargame rules, but rather a game that uses war terminology to make it seem like one is going to expereince something about the four periods of warfare it includes.

In order to understand the failure of this, and very many other sets of wargame rules going back to WRG in the 1960s, one has to look at the penultimate section titled Figure Sizes, Scales and Prices. This OUGHT to be in the introduction because for most wargamers the wargame begins with investment in the figures. However, the section doesn't deal with how the figure scales relate to the terrain and tme scales, the two factors that determine warfare

While I understand the desire to keep the rules simple so they are enjoyable, but the elimination of basic references of figure scale to terrain scale and time scale lead to deformation of what the participants represent and view. The outcome is therefore no better than a chess board.

For those interested, based on the given shooting distances and historical range of early composite bows, the GROUND SCALE for 15mm size figures (1:108) is 15 paces = 1cm (WRG 5th ed 37.5:1") (NOTE: 15mm is supposed to be the 1:100 METRIC scale i.e. 1 cm : 100 m, or 131 paces)
This means the discrepancy between the ground scale of these rules and the figures is ~ x10, i.e. the terrain is scaled DOWN x10 vs the figure size to ~1:1080, i.e. closer to the popular 1:1200 naval wargame figure scale. It is no wonder that the rules say there are only three types of terrain, hills, rivers and woods.
Based on the given movement of light cavalry, i.e. horses about 14 hands tall at a walk, the TIME SCALE is 2.5 minutes per turn. (WRG 5th ed. 0.5 min)
With each infantry base being 60 paces x 30 paces or ~46m x 23m, each base in the unit represents a nice round number of 100 infantrymen in close order, and a 'unit' is therefore an arbitrary 400 troops, with the FIGURE RATIO of 25:1 (WRG 5th ed. 20:1)

This lack of disclosure about what the wargamer's eye is about to be fooled in seeing when having a game is widespread in wargame rule writing, particularly in the Ancients to Medieval periods where many rules aim for the competition players rather than those who want to see some resemblance to history in their game. What is worse about this particular set is that it is really copied and pasted four times with monor tweaks, and sold as four times the pages. However, in reality it is not an inprovement on any other set of rules for any of these periods in any way shape or form.

It is therefore a patent lie that using these rules one will expereince the warfare as paractices by the great military leaders listed in the last paragraph of the Introduction, because 'armies' are limited to eight units, i.e. 3,200 actual troops.
These rules are therefore chess by another name.

Simply put, hands down my favorite book from Neil Thomas. Although I consider myself a fantasy wargamer first and foremost, I've always been interested in this broad historical period. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the rules that I've read for ancient/medieval warfare have seemed way too dense, fiddly, and cumbersome. There was never anything that really grabbed me and tempted me to branch out beyond fantasy wargaming; that is, until this book came along. Neil Thomas not only distills the history down into something enjoyable, but he provides an easy to understand and engaging set of wargame rules to play. Well done Mr. Thomas. Highly recommended if you're at all interested in ancient/medieval wargaming.