Ancients and Early Medieval Page
"English Civil War" (ECW) is, perhaps, a misnomer for this page. As well as the English Civil War I also wargame some of the battles North of the border.
The rules I use now are "De Bellis Renationis" (DBR), because it gives an easy to play game without book-keeping or long calculation. Before then I used Pete Berry's "Forlorn Hope" rules. I prefer the element system where individual casualties are not counted. If anyone does not like the element system or DBR, then I recommend that they try "Forlorn Hope". They are nothing like DBR, but are very well thought out despite that. I particularly liked the army lists. If I were to start playing ECW in 25 mm I probably use "Forlorn Hope" again.
The scale I use is 6 mm. I have considered using the 15 mm scale base sizes with multiple ranks of 6 mm figuresbut have not done so yet. Even with just one rank of 8 6 mm figures per element you have the very reasonable man to figure ratio of 12.5 men to 1 figure.
The English Civil War (and Montrose's royalist rising in Scotland) provide an opportunity to easily re-fight historical battles. By that I mean that there were many accounts and records of small battles. It helps that the records tend to be written in English. I am indebted to Stuart Reid for his well researched descriptions of the following battles in his various publications.
Here is a simple scenario for the battle of Wigan Lane: Wigan Lane The Parliamentarians always seem to win. Unfortunately Sir Thomas Tyldesley had the same problem when he tried it with Bob Lilburne. They could not blame that on DBR as it wasn't written then.
Here is a scenario for one of the Scottish battles: The Battle of Kilsyth
Also, try the "De Bellis Civile" booklets by Julian Lander. They contain a lot of scenarios fron historical battles for DBR. They are published by Keep Wargaming, The Keep, Le Marchant Barracks, London Road, Devizes, Wiltshire, SN10 2ER, UK.