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03-05-2002, 11:24 PM

I am currently developing army lists for a set of rules that will be published in the UK by Foundry a metal miniatures company. 
 
Information on our rules and other publications can be found at the sites mentioned below. 
 
Regards, 
 
Perry 
 
 
SAGA's new website www.saga-publishing.com/ 
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Join our rules group at groups.yahoo.com/group/GoreAMwar

03-06-2002, 09:38 PM

I spent years boardgaming (to include the delightful solitaire "Fall of Rome") but eventually I tired of the growing complexity (enormous rulebooks accompanied by too much bookkeeping). A friend introduced me to miniatures & I never looked back. I find miniatures allow more flexibility and, of course, are nice to look at! The negatives include price, uniform research and painting (yech!). Miniature rules, like boardgames, cover a wide spectrum of complexity and detail. WRG's DBA is in my opinion an ideal starting point. Why? The battlefield is 2'x2'. So a great deal of room is not required. Each army is limited to only 12 units...this means you only purchase a small numbers of figures. The rules deal with all armies from the chariot era down to the gunpower era. Play is quick, I can solitaire a battle after work in less than 2 hrs. And, if you choose to use the smaller 6mm figures as a testbed your expenditure will realy be quite limited. Hope this helps...Best of luck!

05-19-2002, 02:00 PM

im thinking of getting into the punic/republican era, was wandering which companies were best, i dont personaly like foundry, gripping beast are more to my taste, although ive noticed if theyre painted badly they do look really bad. 
Saw an add for old glory stuff, and as the price is pretty reasonable thought i might go for them, any oppinions on them?

05-20-2002, 04:08 AM

OG's Republican Romans are fine. 
 
A friend of mine has a large Punic War Roman Army made up of the old Ral-Partha line, but those are difficult to find any more, and don't have the vareity that the OG figures do.

05-20-2002, 04:10 AM

OG's Republican Romans are fine. 
 
A friend of mine has a large Punic War Roman Army made up of the old Ral-Partha line, but those are difficult to find any more, and don't have the vareity that the OG figures do.

05-20-2002, 04:53 PM

im thinking of going for a 10:1 scale army, so old glorys great for that, well depending on money that is, might start with 20:1 scale so that ought to be 30 triarri, and 60 each hastati princepes and velites :, with some gallic and spanish cavalry, should look nice

05-20-2002, 10:27 PM

I'm just adding a vote for the Newline miniatures ( www.newlinedesigns.co.uk/ ). Very good miniatures, they paint up really well. Reasonably priced, too, and you can get army or unit packs at 60Ã‚Â£/14Ã‚Â£. I haven't actually seen the romans (yet!) but I have a good deal of the Carthaginian miniatures, and I'm very happy with them. Oh, yes, and they're 28mm so they go quite well with other manufacturers miniatures. I'm told that this can be a bit of a problem with GB, particularly the horses. On a final note, how many of the different minis you want depends very much on the game you want to organize them for.

Caius Fabius · 05-21-2002, 02:54 AM

I owned a war gaming hobby store for 7 years, but now that I am not in the business anymore, I can give some advice without anyone worrying that I'm trying to get their money. I will suggest that you deal with a local hobby shop and ask if the owner give you a discount for a prepaid pre-order. I used to give up to 25% off for regular customers who knew what they wanted and paid in advance. If not, find an online source that will make some sort of deal. There are also places where people sell or trade off their unused figures, painted or unpainted, for a lot less than retail. 
 
Amazon figures has some interesting stuff www.amazonminiatures.com 
including Republican Romans and gladiators and civilians. 
 
Old Glory Corp figures is good, some of their lines have better sculpting that others. Some packs of 30 figures have only one or two figure variations. They often do not come with spears in the package. Old Glory has a Marian Roman command set that was nice. 
 
If you are going to have a long term investment in 25-28mm, Wargames Foundry (UK) is well worth the extra cost. The figures are well researched and well sculpted. I like to mix and match, when possible, but my command figures are usually from Wargames Foundary (UK) They make emperors vignettes. 
 
It would be well worth your time to search the web for the Society of Ancients which has figure and rule comparisons and scans of the various figures, with a rather comprehensive list of manufacturers. . The figure sizes are mostly 25-28mm. Ral Partha was 25-26mm, Minifig was 24-25mm, Essex is 24-25mm (and they have more "fat" boys), while the old Citadel line of Romans was 24-25mm. "Just before class started, I looked in the big book where all the world's history is written, and it said...." Neil J. Hackett, PhD ancient history, professor OSU, 1987

05-21-2002, 02:28 PM

hmm i think ill go mostly for the old glory as theyre cheap and not bad, foundry are too big and too expensive, although if i was ever buying chariots then i might think about them, but im not. might put a few different companies stuff in for a bit of difference though

06-05-2002, 01:24 AM

My rather small collection consists mostly of Citadel minis, 25mm High Elves and Dwarfs for Warhammer Fantasy, and 10mm High Elves for Warmaster. I also have 1st century AD Roman legionaries by Old Glory in 15mm. Both manufacturers IMO produce quality minis, well sculpted with incredibly sharp detail. 
 
I've heard it mentioned that Warhammer is more akin to a skirmish battle as opposed to DBM's 'grand army' scale of warfare. While Warhammer focuses on the details like armour, weapons and other minute elements, DBM is said to be more abstract (not that I've ever played DBM, I'm merely repeating a common opinion). I agree with all these points. However I'm wondering if any of you here are familiar with Games Workshop's 10mm scale 'Warmaster'. It seems to combine the best of Warhammer and DBM, allowing for battles on an 'epic' scale while at the same time avoiding many of the complicated, 'realistic' rules of both games. Many Warmaster players have gone so far as to create army lists for historical wargaming. One of Warmaster's co-designers, Stephen Hess, has named his historical warfare system 'Ancientmaster'. 
 
Here's his website: www.brumbaer.de 
 
I for one can see the potential for Warmaster to become a recognised rules system with regards to historical wargaming, thanks to rules like Hess' Ancientmaster. I'm actually in the process of collecting an Early Imperial Roman Army using the Warmaster rules but creating my own army lists modelled after Hess' lists. 
Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/uauxilia.showPublicProfile?language=EN>Auxilia</A> at: 6/5/02 3:26:43 am

07-04-2002, 07:48 PM

Hi there 
first post 
 
I am a Warhammer Ancients player, primarily since I got into historicals thru Warhammer Fantasy. 
 
As for lead figures, the current favorite for most guys I know is Gripping Beast, size wise they fit in well with the new Foundry line and Old Glory, and are considered very good quality, (close to foundry) but still stay in OG price range. 
 
Personally I am using 20mm plastics, I want a large army and short of winning the lotto saturday night I will never have the cash :-) 
 
With Italeri re-releasing ESCI's EIR, Hat coming out with a new EIR line and others (dont remember) re-releasing Airfix's roman fort and minis its a good time to be roman 
:-) 
 
as far as figure scale I plan on doing a 1-4 scale cohort, ie 20 figs as a full century, so a full cohort plus auxiliaries is easily manageable, even a full legion if you have a couple years to spare for painting :-P 
 
on Warhammer Ancients, its no more a skirmish battle than DBx is, your average unit is 20-40 figures for infantry, 8-12 for cavalry, or 5-6 for light cav 
 
I have never played any of the DBx games. My only opinion on the matter is from watching alot of people play at various stores and conventions, it seems to bring out the rules lawyer in folks. WAB is definately not a simulation, no miniatures game is, WAB does lean towards "Hollywood History" and is easier to play for beginners, while still retaining enough complexity for the veterans. 
 
Dave Talley 
List Admin WAB Lite Yahoo Group 
where BBQ, beer and pretzels are the way to play

07-05-2002, 11:25 PM

Dave, I recommend you try Warmaster if you want to field at least one full legion with auxiliaries without breaking the bank or sacrificing your youth with decades of painting. The scale is 10 mm so the minis are slightly smaller than the 15 mm ancients range of most minis producers. Still, the detail is amazing for such a small scale and I must say that Games Workshop thoroughly deserve the credit they've earned as one of the best miniature producers in the world. The small size of the miniatures is a bonus when it comes to painting since it takes less time to finish off whole units. 
 
Conversion wise, I've managed to equate 1 actual miniature infantry soldier with 13 real life soldiers. With this as a guide, 1 unit of 36 models would be roughly equivalent to a cohort of 468 men (480 men in a cohort given that a cohort consisted of 6 centuries of 80 men each). An ala of cavalry with approx. 500 men would be roughly equivalent to 3 units of Warmaster cavalry (12 men a unit multiplied by 3 units multiplied by the conversion factor of 13 gives 468 ). 
 
The reason why I couldn't get the model numbers closer to the real world figures is because Warmaster has a rigid system of units and how many models make up one unit is predetermined. A unit of infantry has to contain 3 'stands' of 12 men each, and a unit of cavalry will always be made up of 12 models (3 stands with 4 models each). But the approximations are IMO quite satisfactory. 
 
So, with Warmaster the opportunity to raise a legion with 9 cohorts and 1 double century cohort, with 1-2 alae and possibly 1-2 auxiliary cohorts and 1 'unit' of auxiliary cavalry, is there for the taking. 
 
Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/uauxilia.showPublicProfile?language=EN>Auxilia</A> at: 7/6/02 1:34:54 am

07-06-2002, 05:45 PM

yeah 
but I like being able to 
1) see what I am painting ;-) 
2) remember the rules, dont wanna learn a new system 
 
WAB works for me just fine, and if I had my way I would be using Gripping Beast and Foundry 28mm figs, not the plastics 
Dave

07-06-2002, 08:23 PM

Is anyone familiar with the Ral Partha line of ancients miniatures? I don't own any, but currently they're the only other producers besides Old Glory whose 25-28mm minis I'm able to get hold of locally. From what I can see in the blister packs, the variety and detail is good but how does Ral Partha compare to companies like Foundry and Gripping Beast?

07-06-2002, 09:54 PM

from what I have heard 
RP was great in its day, but the 3 best lines are 
in order 
detail Foundry GB OG 
cost OG/GB tied and way in the back Foundry 
 
so the Foundry is great but very exspensive 
 
OG is relatively cheap and decent 
 
GB is almost as nice as foundry, but at OG prices 
 
if you are in the US try 
www.hobbyworkshop.com/ 
they are the official GB importer 
(no I dont work them) 
Dave

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