Looking for inexpensive tactical ancients wargame

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**judgedoug**

For the games they play on their own games table, sure - but HC includes a nice chapter on base sizes and whatnot and the general idea is that it doesn't matter, as long as both sides conform to the same basing guidelines. A unit has x movement and y attacks and z whatever, no matter what basing methods or size miniatures you use.

**Kilkrazy**

That's not entirely true IMO.

Wider than normal bases make flank attacks less effective unless you increase the movement and shooting ranges to compensate.

I would argue it's best to stick to established conventions of base size, as that will maximise the pool of potential opponents.

**marielle**

I shouldn't worry too much about bases sizes, it's simple to work out how many troops should be fighting, and unless you are playing for a row of houses it is not something that will cause confusion.

The same goes for if you change rules and they recommend a different base size. Just play with what looks best, and works best, for you, and have fun.

**judgedoug**

Kilkrazy wrote:
That's not entirely true IMO.

Wider than normal bases make flank attacks less effective unless you increase the movement and shooting ranges to compensate.

I would argue it's best to stick to established conventions of base size, as that will maximise the pool of potential opponents.

What's established conventions, though?
My AWI are based 4-men to a 40x45mm base.
My WSS are based 4-men to a 40x40mm base.
My Greeks are based 20-men to a 100x80mm base.

I have never met anyone who refused to play based on the different of a few mm.

If the OP is looking for a game for his brother and him to play on the dining room table then it especially doesn't matter... I'd say get some packs of Renedra 100mmx50mm bases and glue models to those as that'd be the cheapest and easiest way to get gaming in pretty much any ruleset!

**Kilkrazy**

The established conventions for Ancients/Mediaeval games are the old WRG Ancients base sizes which are a 40mm width for an infantry "element" in 15mm scale (with various depths.)

These were taken over from WRG 6th and earlier edition, in which there used to be single figure removal so you had a frontage per figure. They have been used in all WRG rules since (DBA, DBM, DBMM, Hordes of the Things), and in Warrior, Warmaster Ancients, Field of Glory and Basic Impetus.

Those base sizes have probably the most stable base size conventions because of the huge and deep influence of WRG over the decades in the Ancients & Mediaeval period.

I agree most players won't bother to worry about a minor variation in base width. Base depth matters even less. However if there is a wide discrepancy it can actually affect the conduct of the game.

**marielle**

Indeed, and whilst not disagreeing - and perhaps even agreeing that it would be useful to follow those conventions - it can also be seen as the kind of 'button counting' that gets historical gaming a bad name.

**Kilkrazy**

Yes, the button counting effect depends on how people choose to play the rules.

My angle is that there is a de facto standard base size used by probably 80% of Ancients players. The only reason not to follow it is if you want to play WHAB, which has a load of differences.

After all, Hail Caesar can just as easily be played with the WRG base sizes as any other, and you get armies compatible with lots of other games too if you want to move around a bit.

**judgedoug**

It depends. I don't use those basing standards because I don't like any of the DBA/DBM/FOG/etc rulesets - too paper/rock/scissors simplistic "gamey" for my tastes. I think Mighty Armies does those rules better - as in, fast and simple.

But then again no one in my club plays any of those games either. So it's been HC/P&S/BP as they're super accessible, GaPa (my favorite historical ruleset), WHGW for WW1, Battlegroup and Bolt Action for WW2, FNG for Vietnam, WHOW/LotR for F&IW and Old West, etc etc.

**Kilkrazy**

It's best to adopt the same standard as everyone else in your local area.

**pinecone77**

WayneTheGame wrote:
My brother and I both like the idea of historical games, both the idea of recreating battles or doing "what if" scenarios with historical forces (neither of us are insane sticklers for historical details), we both specifically like Rome, Ancient Greece/Macedonia and the like (also Ancient China circa Three Kingdoms era, a personal favorite of ours). Many years ago we both played Warhammer but we've since lost all of our figures and the like so are starting from scratch. We'd ideally like to avoid games that require a large investment to build an army in the similar vein of WHFB or 40k as we don't want to spend a lot of money building a force.

He especially likes games that rely on strategy and tactics in order to win versus army list building. We're looking at something that doesn't take the Warhammer-like four hours or so to play and we have a smallish (like 4x3 perhaps?) dining room table that we can commandeer for use as a game table. I've been doing a small bit of research but I'm overwhelmed for choices at the different historical games available, and unsure which one suits my taste. I've read up on De Bellis Antiquitatis, Field of Glory and Hail Caesar thus far, with thoughts being as follows:

DBA: A little hard to understand, but seems to definitely be for quick games and require actual strategy versus "I picked better units than you, so I win" kind of things which appeals to us both (I've read a few things comparing it to Chess). The smaller table that we have seems to suit this as well, but it seems a little hard to find miniatures and terrain in the USA? I've seen a few "DBA army deals" that have like 9 or 10 units for $50 but I thought DBA was 12 units, so it looks like buying let's say a Roman army and a Carthaginian army (we'd likely start with the Punic Wars, me as Carthage and him as Rome) isn't enough to play? I'm having trouble actually finding what I need for this though, as it seems to just be a single rulebook but I've also seen a rulebook and I think four army lists books (that use some weird abbreviations it seems).

Field of Glory: Seems more complex and from a brief glance it seems like it requires a fairly large investment of troops? The book looked very nice (lots of pretty pictures!) and the bits I saw seemed similar to what I had read for DBA, but again not sure where to look at what I need or where to begin with troops; I think it might be like DBA in that you can get miniatures from various sources as long as they are mounted on a certain kind of base? I saw something for Flames of War I think like that, using plastic soldiers from various companies and just mounting them on a specific base and being able to use them for the game, versus a specific range of miniatures.

Hail Caesar: To be blunt, looks like Warhammer Armies: Ancient Rome (which it might be, since I think it was written by Rick Priestly?). I've heard the rules are good but it seems to be laid out similar to WHFB with all of the related drawbacks (e.g. expensive miniatures, focus on list building versus strategy), although having a specific range of miniatures is nice.

Out of these is one considered more modern/better than the others, keeping in mind that we have small space, don't want to spend a lot of cash and want something relatively quick that relies on strategy? DBA seems to fit that the best, but it almost seems like FoG is an updated version of that, so I'm not sure.

I'm a big fan of DBA, and you can use your armies a seeds for larger ones (or as allied attachments...) so I recomended it. Its been a while since I bought one but it used to be a "Army" would be a specific list with all or most varients in one box. So you'd pait and base maybe 16 bases for a 12 base army...

**Litcheur**

WayneTheGame wrote:
We'd ideally like to avoid games that require a large investment to build an army in the similar vein of WHFB or 40k as we don't want to spend a lot of money building a force.

To make long things short : DBA, WMA and FOG mostly use the same basing conventions. 40mm wide, 20mm deep for infantry, 30 for cavalry (20 for WMA, but 30 is fine too).
Which means you can use many different systems with the same minis.

Your better choice would probably be DBA, since it only requires twelve units. Paint them, play with them, and then expand your armies to play Big DBA, Quad DBA, DBM, WMA, FOG and/or HC.

About the scale... I would highly recommand 6mm. It's, by far, the most inexpensive scale. By the way, you won't field a couple of minis, you will field dozens, or even hundreds of them. It just looks great on a gaming table, and it's also surprisingly easy to paint.

I haven't checked all the available ranges (only Baccus), but 6mm players usually go for Baccus, Irregular, Heroic and Ross and Rapier.

And inexpensive means, well... an entire DBA Numidian/Moorish army (Polemos pack from Baccus) would cost you $20 (shipping included). Well, technically, it's not an entire army... since I've built 7 LightHorse, 5 Auxiliary and 8 Psiloi units with mine... it's bigger than a DBA army !

Another example. Yes, you can have two armies for less than $50. The carthaginian army actually has 16 units, including Light Horses, Warbands and Elephants.

I've completed more bases since the last update of that thread, but basically, the (unfinished) Roman army would look like this. That's what you'd get for $25.

And the numidian/moorish Polemos pack ($20)

Need more oomph ? You can then switch to Big DBA. Or Quad DBA : instead of fielding 1 base per unit, just double everything. Same game, 2x2 bases per unit, 4x4' (120x120cm) board, all ranges are doubled too.

That's one roman infantry unit. You'd get eight of them. 500+ infantrymen, more than 70 riders per army. And that army would cost you less than a WHFB rulebook.
By the way, the same army would allow you to play 1k WMA games, 300pts DBM games, etc.