Haha, long time ago when I was a child I and my friend played games with plasticine soldiers (here are 2 very bad photos, I dont have an idea who is on the left, pictures were mixed somehow):
http://pleistorm.com/3d/klml3.jpg
Soldiers had weapons, there were strongholds, cannons, flags and rules and during the battle soldiers were heavy damaged. Dead soldiers can not be used again in other battles. My friends record was about 500 soldiers battle during the Ancient period, that was difficult because swords can penetrate your fingers... My record was about 1020 soldiers in a battle during the period 18-19 centuries. It was 3 days. Also we had battles between us.
And battles in paper, and other variants, maybe I should make a post for that. It is pitty I dont have other photos, he had few, but I dont have connection with him.
Battles usually started with artillery. The length of the cannon in centimeters were projected according a rules, for example that cannon close to us can shoot almost to the end of the photo, if it had a shell into it. You take the shell and throw it from your side, and where it stops (and the other player is doing the same), splash it and measure the millimeters in its diameter, that means X fingers width, then you smash such region around it with your hand (hitting bayonets and sabers was painful btw) only one time. Then the infantry starts shooting at close range in similar manner. If the bullet hit something you stick it into only one time, but sometimes the player fails and the bullet did a small damage. When bullets are over it is time for hand to hand combat. Both players catching a soldier in such a way from behind so the enemy can stub it, and we started stubbing and cutting at the same time. Sometimes the weapons hit our fingers and in Medieval battles it was worse because there were spears, armors and they were really hard. And other rules too.
The most hated rule was about the soliders head, if it drops for some reason he is dead. So in handcombat you can hit his hat and usually it will fly away with the head... Or you can catch the soldier in wrong way and his head is dropping down... sorry... That was excellent time! Computer games can not match that fun. And when I got a PC my first game was Cossacks