Warhammer Historical battles and mini\'s

[Anonymous]

Well, I'm getting into this from the "other side", my college buddy got me big into Warhammer Fantasy and 40K....Fantasy has really stuck with me (currently pouring my time into a good sized Empire army...lots of cannons)<br>
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Anyways, I somehow came across a page on Warhammer Historical Battles rulzbooks...And a friend of mine happened to have a copy and I borrowed it. I think I like!<br>
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Anyways, I'd like to hear some honest thoughts (pro and con, leave out the Fantasy and 40K banter I have enough myself) about GW rules and setup for "historical" wargaming, and where to get some good, "affordable" miniatures?<br>
...And if GW's stuff isn't up to par with other systems, I'd like to hear mention of others, just to explore.<br>
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The Church-O-Plano is a wonderful religion! I wonder if the company realizes how much we...Gamers...Keep them in buisness? (I can't imagine fishermen et. al. using those boxes!)<br>
-ANDY <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Salve,<br>
<br>
Well, I play WAB (Warhammer Ancient Battles) almost exclusively (and I'm part of the playtest team for the Punic Wars supplement), just so you're warned.<br>
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The way I see it the system's best points are: easy to learn and play rules (and you pretty much know them already), fast playtime, a good feel for the different armies (particularly barbarian type armies) and it's easy to adapt special rules for scenarios.<br>
"Bad" points: no real clarification of rules (though that is forthcoming) and price tag (you need fairly large armies to play, that could well be an advantage, though ;-)).<br>
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For figures I'm kinda partial to Newline (www.newlinedesigns.co.uk/), good figures that paint up really well, reasonably good selection of Roman and contemporary stuff. And they have some excellent army and 100-figure deals (100 figures for 60£).<br>
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I'll leave descriptions of other systems to other people as I haven't really tried them enough to say anything conclusive. <p></p><i></i>

[Rodicus]

Hi there,<br>
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Another good range of miniatures is from www.wargamesfoundry.com/main.asp . I think they sell other rule systems as well.<br>
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HTH.<br>
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--Rod <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info. Still willing to hear from others as well!<br>
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vale<br>
-ANDY <p></p><i></i>

[Caius Fabius]

We play WAB sometimes. It has a fun feel and doesn't use magic, except for some omens and stuff in the Macedonian supplement. We also call it "fist fulls of dice" but that doesn't make it any less fun.<br>
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You can play it with 25mm/28mm Amazon/Old Glory/Wargames foundary/Naismith/Gripping Beast/and so on figures, or 20mm figures (metal or plastic), or change the ranges and use 15mm or smaller figures. When Warhammer first came out, the boxed set included cardboard counters and all the rules in one box, so you could see if you like the rules using cardboard counters as well!<br>
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It is more tactical than "DBA", or but less realistic than some other games. For a slightly simpler but similar system you could look at "Age of Battles" from Zvezda, but the English translation may make you wonder from time to time.<br>
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For the feel of commanding an army, I prefer the "Piquet" rules sets, but then I designed and umpired/OPFORed too many US Army "wargames", studied a lot of historical battles. got shot at once or twice, and eventually stopped believing in the move-countermove format for a conflict simulation. (If I had listened to my first platoon sergeant, I would have been converted 10 years earlier! We had set up a lovely game of microarmor, and after watching us "play " for a while, he shook his head and said, "it don't work that way...")<br>
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I collect rules, so I have some obscure sets as well, but I won't bore you with stuff that came in and out of print in the 1970's <br>
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<p>"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</p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=caiusfabius>Caius Fabius</A> <IMG HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=10 SRC="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ROMANISROMANORVM/files/C%20Fabius%201988b.jpg" BORDER=0> at: 9/19/03 6:24 am<br></i>

[Anonymous]

Andy,<br>
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I have the English Civil War rules (only use them for 30 yrs. War though) but it's the same basic system for the Ancient battles.<br>
A point that was mentioned before, it requires lots of soldiers. Warhammer is designed to make you buy lots of GW's figures, at least the fantasy ones, so any other game by that system will have that built in. However, since I enjoy the modelling end of the hobby probably more than most, I like games that center on the miniature, not just 'stands' with figures being irrelevant athstetics. As far as the rules, they do a pretty good job of being realistic as well as fun and simple, in my opinion. I suppose as a wargame proper, they're quite unsatisfactory since there is no scale for time/space/minis vrs. soldiers. Another good point is that it doesn't matter how many figures there are per side, assuming times not a problem, the game works pretty good with a handful of units or with whole armies.<br>
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Jesse. <p></p><i></i>