Rules I play

Over the years I've played several rulesets, even if, looking at various wargame blogs, not as many as most wargamers have.

I've played DBA and especially DBM, Field of Glory and, for Napoleonics, Napoleon's Battles (1st ed, I also have 3rd ed but never tried it). Aside from Field of Glory occasionally, I don't play any of those anymore, mainly due to lack of time. I also have Field of Glory: Napoleonic, but never played it either.

Napoleon's Battles 1st ed

I've recently started playing with Neil Thomas' rulesets, which have become my favorite ones because they combine ease of playing, short time and - despite simplicity of mechanics - good historical flavor, better than many other more detailed rules. I own One Hour Wargames (pdf), Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe (book) and Simplicity in Practice (pdf of Battlegames magazine). I like NT's approach and his design notes are very good. I think he's still missing something about Napoleonic warfare (especially firefights dynamics, as I will discuss in the future), but for XVIII century or post-Napoleonic XIX century I feel he's mostly spot-on. I haven't tried his rules for earlier periods, but I might in the future.

Simplicity in Practice is inside issue 23 of Battlegames magazine

NT's rules allow me to play when I have few time available, and use my miniatures (especially plastic ones) with an "element" basing that I feel is better at representing historical reality from an army commander point of view. I have little interest in skirmish or one-division-a-side battles, while I prefer corps- and army-sized battles. And NT's rules are easily customizable (especially OHW) which help suit it to my needs where needed. So far, the only other rulesets that could mirror such a perspective would be Sam Mustafa's Blucher, which I actually hope to try sooner or later.