@BlutsaugerI can absolutely respect your interest in historical wargaming. Both systems you mention are streamlined and good. Hail Ceasar ironically was written by Rick Priestley and is based off warmaster (warhammer's epic scale game). The thing with both games though, they are 10 or 15 mm and dealing with only stands of historical units. Very simple rules. There is no need for characters, monsters, magic, fantasy war machines etc not heroic scale tracking of wounds.
To be fair, HC in particular was designed for 28mm, and while there is no casualty removal there is still the need to track 'wounds'. But yes, it is that simplicity that I vastly prefer in a game, rather than the extreme (IMO) granularity of games like
WHFB. I think it's things like having so many different characters, and having them all compete fiercely that sort of ruins
WHFB for me. I mean, it obviously doesn't
ruin it for me since I still love and play the game. But too often I find, the game becomes a delivery system for the characters and the models just become wound counters for those same characters. And that problem stems, I think, from each character needing to feel distinct from his cousins despite having almost exactly the same battlefield role. So each author looks for a way to one-up the other characters, a way to make them unique, and frankly I don't think it really adds anything to the game.
Like in HC, there is one unit profile for heavy infantry. Hoplites, Legionaries, Huscarls, it doesn't matter. They all have the same profile, and while they might have a handful of special rules that differentiate them, they all operate in the same way. Now I realise that a historical game is different to a fantasy game because historicals don't need to contend with orcs and skeletons and elves, but I feel like too much emphasis is placed on making everything so wildly different. Orc infantry and Skeletons and Empire Halberdiers and Grave Guard should all work
roughly the same.
I think part of THAT problem is that there is too much granularity in the game. Take close combat for example. You could simplify it so that instead of comparing weapon skills, each model simply hits on a set roll. A Vampire might hit on a 3+ always, for instance. But what about when he is fighting a Chaos Lord? Well, instead of needing to roll to hit, then roll to wound, then take armour saves, then take ward saves, you could just give the Chaos Lord a Resilience stat. Say, 3+. So the Vampire rolls his attacks, and each score of 3 or more inflicts a wound on the Chaos Lord. Then the Lord makes his resilience checks, and rolls a dice for each hit inflicted. For each score of a 1 or 2, he takes a wound.
We've then eliminated several stats. Toughness, Weapon Skill, Armour Saves and eliminated the need for Ward Saves and Regeneration and a whole host of magical and mundane items.
This would mean, for Orcs and Elves and Humans, that there would only need to be one or two stats that should be adjusted to separate them from each other. Instead of having an entirely different profile, and then bukkake-ing special rules on top of them to make them special snowflakes.
Now, this is only off the top of my head, I'm not saying this would be the be all and end all, it's just an example of how a razor could be taken to the rules to produce a much more satisfying result, IMO.
Also, the troop interactions in
WHFB feel very gamey to me. Using charge redirecting units to pull enemy units out of position is frankly ridiculous. I mean, not always, but the instances where you line up the flanks of your wolf darts directly in front of the enemy to make them charge at a funny angle? That's ridiculous. There really needs to be some kind of proximity system.
And finally, I feel there's too much time spent figuring out how units line up, which models can attack which other models, etc. We all know how important it is to make sure our Wight King with Nightshroud is standing next to our Vampire Lord, and how important it is to place our characters at the edges of our units so they are less vulnerable to enemy attacks. Are these things that a general of an army should really need to concern himself with? Or should I be able to just get on with the business of commanding my troops? I really feel like I'm playing a game when I play
WHFB, as opposed to controlling an army or fighting a battle.
