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I've previously posted about various historical rules since I am becoming more and more interested in ancient and dark ages. Whenever I broach the idea of playing some historical games with my brother, the immediate thing is variety as we both used to play Warhammer and now play Warmachine/Hordes, so we're used to having various units that we can add to our army and in theory and unlimited funds never play the same army twice. A lot of historical rules that I've looked at, especially ones that cater to a smaller table area and faster play (e.g. DBA and similar) tend to be much more restrictive in army composition.

Is the idea of building out an army accurate, or is the more limited approach right? For example, looking at the DBA army list for the classical Marian Roman (v2.2 as that is the version I bought a while ago and not sure if it's changed in 3.0 since I haven't bought it):

1x3Cv or 4Bd (Gen)
1x3Cv or 2LH
8x4Bd
1x3/4Ax or 2Ps
1x2Ps

Did every roman cohort ever have this sort of composition, or is it a drawback being a game? It seems like it would be incredibly boring to play as you'd essentially be playing out identical battles, with only the terrain being different (assuming you didn't just play on a flat table as that also seemed common in the ancient world). This is the issue my brother has with most of the historical rules I've shown him: Coming from a Warhammer background and playing Warmachine, he isn't fond of the idea of inflexible armies because if we'd be playing against each other, well there's zero variety. If I play Marian Romans, for example, I'm always going to have 8 units of blades, I can't decide that for this battle I want to send a faster moving force to try and overtake the enemy and bring in additional cavalry instead, it's the same one cavalry, eight blades, auxilia or psiloi, another unit of psiloi. No matter the game, same thing and only terrain and tactics change.

Of course I know there's more than just DBA (one of the things that keeps bringing me back to consideration of DBA is that it's compact, relatively cheap and plays fast, which are all bonuses) but a lot of the rules that I see that aren't 28mm Warhammer-esque games seem to greatly restrict what you can field, and the more I think about it the more I wonder if that's actually an accurate approach and it's just that we're so used to the Warhammer style approach to army building that we're ignoring that. On the other hand, it does seem like it would get really stale really fast to just use the same type of list or have barely any variety (e.g. do I take an extra unit of archers, or an extra unit of spearmen) since nothing is really changing from game to game besides the terrain. In particular it comes up because my focus would be less on historical pairings and more on the concept of "imagi-nations" that just use an equivalent historical force for game purposes.

Does this just indicate that historical gaming isn't for me?

It's partly a limitation of the game. DBA and similarly small games don't have much variety in equipment and training. Bigger games like FoG might split that Cv choice into different cavalry options with different weapons, armour and training and give you more flexibility then building the army. It's also based on what the armies had historically, some armies like Marian Romans just have a large core unit type like Legionaries.

DBA 3.0 has a bit more variety from what you've listed. You can take a Elephant or Bolt Thrower or some more Cavalry but you're mostly just changing around a few slots that you have in addition to the Legionaries. If you want more variety then looking through the army lists to find that one weird country that can choose between almost everything is a option or picking a country that can morph into different but similar countries like one of the Greek Successors. DBA is cheap so what a lot of players do is just collection more armies, you can get one for the cost of 1 or 2 additions in other games. If you're in it for cost then the getting a complete army cheaply without needing to buy lots of extra options can be seen as a good thing.

I'm also looking to get into DBA, and recently picked up a copy of DBA 3.0 while visiting On Military Matters in New Jersey. I can tell you that the composition of the II/49 Marian Roman list is now:

1x Cv or 4Bd (Gen)
1x Cv or LH
5x 4Bd
2x 4Bd or 4Ax or LH
1x Ps or 3Ax
1x Ps
1x El or 4Wb or Cv or Art

So it seems that while the older 2.2 list can still be fielded, the newer list can field a great variety of unit types. And in a game in which your entire army is made up of 12 units, it would seem that even changing one option might have drastic results.

Definitely, I haven't picked up 3.0 yet as I'm not sure if I want to go that route. I think the issue is more my brother feels it's unrealistic to not have a lot of choices or be able to build an army, while i don't mind as much as long as I have some choices for example the 3.0 Marian Roman list is fine to me, as it gives me enough variety to change up my list.

I might have to convince him of it, because with a small gaming area I can't really do something that's large scale (I don't have a 6x4" table or even room for one if I did) and I want to keep things cheap since this is basically a side thing and there isn't an established group (at least none I'm aware of in my area).

The choice of DBA would basically be because it plays on a small table, plays fast and can be acquired cheaply, and it seems like it'd be trivially easy to invent custom scenarios and the like for campaign games. I've looked at a few other rules as well: Sword & Spear, Hail Caesar (too large I think), Neil Thomas, Rally Round the King, Field of Glory (too large), Basic Impetus, even the old Warmaster Ancients. Just finding the right combination is hard, especially since a lot of the figures come from the UK so while they might be cheap, they end up being expensive with shipping.

FWIW I was especially eyeing the cheap 1/72 plastics as the 15mm look nice but get costly with shipping when virtually all of them are overseas.

I don't have v3.0 yet either.

As said above, DBA is a set of rules for fast play with small armies and the army list restrictions reflect that.

There are various other rules for Ancients that have much larger armies and army lists, with more variability, however historical army lists on the whole contain the troops that were available historically at the time. An Imperial Roman army never would include peltasts or hoplites for instance, because the Romans simply never used these troops.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't have v3.0 yet either.

As said above, DBA is a set of rules for fast play with small armies and the army list restrictions reflect that.

There are various other rules for Ancients that have much larger armies and army lists, with more variability, however historical army lists on the whole contain the troops that were available historically at the time. An Imperial Roman army never would include peltasts or hoplites for instance, because the Romans simply never used these troops.

I'll have to run it by my brother. His argument isn't that he wants to take peltasts or hoplites in a Roman army, for example, it's more that he wants to be able to decide to, for example, send a fast force to intercept the enemy who is marching on a settlement, and then choose to have mostly cavalry (i.e. Equites) as a result of that decision, rather than have every battle be well I have two stands of cavalry, five stands of legionnaires, a stand of psiloi, etc.

While I don't mind, I'm more concerned with games becoming boring without the force variation, and every battle being the same thing roughly as we have the same forces. Maybe it really doesn't play that way, but that seems to be what his (and to a lesser extent my) concern is, since we'd mostly be playing against each other, with maybe being able to convince his girlfriend to play.

I think in that case, DBA's strength is that a complete army takes so little time and money - relative to larger games of various scales - that force variation comes from being able to field different nations and races. Instead of one big Roman army in 15mm, you could have 4 DBA armies, or more.

The DBA army is flexible enough to make the army for most major battles in the period.

There shouldn't be a problem using 1/72. The game has a larger scale measurement system for 20-28mm in addition to 15mm.

WayneTheGame wrote:


Is the idea of building out an army accurate, or is the more limited approach right? For example, looking at the DBA army list for the classical Marian Roman (v2.2 as that is the version I bought a while ago and not sure if it's changed in 3.0 since I haven't bought it):

1x3Cv or 4Bd (Gen)
1x3Cv or 2LH
8x4Bd
1x3/4Ax or 2Ps
1x2Ps

Did every roman cohort ever have this sort of composition, or is it a drawback being a game? It seems like it would be incredibly boring to play as you'd essentially be playing out identical battles, with only the terrain being different (assuming you didn't just play on a flat table as that also seemed common in the ancient world). This is the issue my brother has with most of the historical rules I've shown him: Coming from a Warhammer background and playing Warmachine, he isn't fond of the idea of inflexible armies because if we'd be playing against each other, well there's zero variety. If I play Marian Romans, for example, I'm always going to have 8 units of blades, I can't decide that for this battle I want to send a faster moving force to try and overtake the enemy and bring in additional cavalry instead, it's the same one cavalry, eight blades, auxilia or psiloi, another unit of psiloi. No matter the game, same thing and only terrain and tactics change.

Of course I know there's more than just DBA (one of the things that keeps bringing me back to consideration of DBA is that it's compact, relatively cheap and plays fast, which are all bonuses) but a lot of the rules that I see that aren't 28mm Warhammer-esque games seem to greatly restrict what you can field, and the more I think about it the more I wonder if that's actually an accurate approach and it's just that we're so used to the Warhammer style approach to army building that we're ignoring that. On the other hand, it does seem like it would get really stale really fast to just use the same type of list or have barely any variety (e.g. do I take an extra unit of archers, or an extra unit of spearmen) since nothing is really changing from game to game besides the terrain. In particular it comes up because my focus would be less on historical pairings and more on the concept of "imagi-nations" that just use an equivalent historical force for game purposes.

Does this just indicate that historical gaming isn't for me?

What is listed in the DBA army lists is the entire army and not just a cohort, or a part of the army.

The 12 Bases represent between 5,000 and 250,000 men, depending upon the army in question (it is a bit of an abstraction to allow coverage of such an expansive amount of time).

The rules do work for playing "Fantasy," but will require some thought to put into the armies (I have a set of DBA Armies for the LotR, which I am converting to 30mm (they were in 15mm).

There are other games, based upon the basic DBA rules' system, which allow for MUCH more flexible army building (such as the inclusion of a points system, and morale, and actual units).

But the armies built will be much, much larger (on the order of 100 - 300 figures).

One such rule system, which I have come to prefer, is called Hoplon.

It uses the basic elements of DBA, but includes various modifiers and characteristics for the "elements" beyond just the type.

For instance, in DBA, your Roman Legionaires are: 8x4Bd

In Hoplon your same Roman Legionaries:
Roman Legionaires:16 - 36 Reg Bd S(O), Pro2, H, Shk/Msl[pilum], LgC

Which breaks down to:

16 - 36 elements of Legionaires (in 4 - 9 units of 4 to 8 elements) - in the rules they would be:

• Reg: Regular Troops (they are drilled, regular soldiers used to serving in a standing army, or an army which has drilled soldiers.)
• Bd: Their troop type is the "Blades" which is used to fighting in close quarters.
• S(O): This is their moral grade, which is Superior, but might be OOrdinary
• Pro2: They are Professional Soldiers, more skilled than typical troops in both melee and shooting (or throwing of pila). this is what the "2" signifies. "Both Melee/Missle".
• H: They are Heavily Armored troops
• Shk/Msl[pilum]: They have a combat role that is both "Shock" or Melee, and "Missile", allowing them to use their missiles {plum} at a distance.
• LgC: They have a special ability in Combat which allows them to perform a Maneuver only typically found in there Roman Legions of this and the Early Imperial period called a "Cohort Substitution" which allows for a demoralized or "Shaken" unit to swap ranks with a fresh unit immediately behind it.

The game has a lot more flavor than does DBA, but uses almost the same basing standard (save that it puts 28/30mm troops on an 80mm frontage, rather than the typical DBx (DBA, DBM, DBMM) standard of 60mm, upon which few miniatures really fit very comfortably, and the 80mm frontage allows the easy substitution of WHFB Armies without need for rebasing or different (lower) numbers of troops.

It plays much like DBA, but rather than dealing with individual "Elements," you deal with collections of 2 to 12 elements in Units (typical Unit sizes are 4 to 8 elements - or, for Heavy Infantry: 16 to 32 figures, and 12 to 24 figures for "Medium" infantry - what DBA calls "Auxilia").

I have yet to see someone who played it not like it. It has just been getting people to try it that has been the problem.

MB

The big thing for us right now is no Warhammer style casualty removal, we like the base idea and also it allows more variety and also lends itself to cheap figs to minimize cost. Also table size as we don't have a 6x4 table, the largest we have is a 4x4 for playing Warmachine, so that rules out a lot of the larger WAB style games since they still want a big table.

The more I think about his wants the more I think it's not even realistic, I mean even though we'd likely do an "imagi-nation" type of campaign where if I play Romans it's not really Rome but a Roman-like civilization (more flexibility then, as we can do like Rome vs. Persia without any issues), historically armies didn't always have the flexibility to say they wanted to send only cavalry to this area, or no cavalry, etc.

WayneTheGame wrote:
The big thing for us right now is no Warhammer style casualty removal, we like the base idea and also it allows more variety and also lends itself to cheap figs to minimize cost. Also table size as we don't have a 6x4 table, the largest we have is a 4x4 for playing Warmachine, so that rules out a lot of the larger WAB style games since they still want a big table.

The more I think about his wants the more I think it's not even realistic, I mean even though we'd likely do an "imagi-nation" type of campaign where if I play Romans it's not really Rome but a Roman-like civilization (more flexibility then, as we can do like Rome vs. Persia without any issues), historically armies didn't always have the flexibility to say they wanted to send only cavalry to this area, or no cavalry, etc.

A 4x4 table will work for both DBA, And for Hoplon at lower point levels (300 - 500 pt armies).

There is also Hoards of the Things, which is based upon DBA, but with far fewer troop types, but including a point system. It is not too terribly difficult to work the DBA elements into HotT, to give a greater variety.

Both, though, use element removal, rather than individual figure removal. This is a sticking point for me as well. I have NEVER understood the obsession with "armies" based as individual figures. Armies are masses of people in units, which do not have the flexibility of simple large collections of individuals. The weapon is the unit itself, and not the collection of individual skills. Counter-intuitive, but supported by the facts.

But.... Any one of the rule sets will get you what you are looking for.

MB

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't have v3.0 yet either.

As said above, DBA is a set of rules for fast play with small armies and the army list restrictions reflect that.

There are various other rules for Ancients that have much larger armies and army lists, with more variability, however historical army lists on the whole contain the troops that were available historically at the time. An Imperial Roman army never would include peltasts or hoplites for instance, because the Romans simply never used these troops.

I'll have to run it by my brother. His argument isn't that he wants to take peltasts or hoplites in a Roman army, for example, it's more that he wants to be able to decide to, for example, send a fast force to intercept the enemy who is marching on a settlement, and then choose to have mostly cavalry (i.e. Equites) as a result of that decision, rather than have every battle be well I have two stands of cavalry, five stands of legionnaires, a stand of psiloi, etc.

While I don't mind, I'm more concerned with games becoming boring without the force variation, and every battle being the same thing roughly as we have the same forces. Maybe it really doesn't play that way, but that seems to be what his (and to a lesser extent my) concern is, since we'd mostly be playing against each other, with maybe being able to convince his girlfriend to play.

What he wants to do is play campaigns in which you have several DBA armies as your basic force and can mix and match the units to form taskforces for particular missions.

I think this is an absolutely fine way to play. IDK if it is historical but I wouldn't care myself if it gives a good game. The thing to bear in mind is that if you separate all your equites for a mobile mission, then clearly at the same time your infantry forces will be without their cavalry wing.

So, I would suggest you build a Big Battle DBA army which consists of three normal DBA armies, then use a variation of the campaign system to allocate the individual elements to task forces under commanders for different missions.

I reckon it would work very well, and still be cheap.

Not several DBA armies... I can't entirely explain it, he wants army building in the sense that there's flexibility in force composition. Personally I think he's just spoiled from Warhammer and Warmachine army construction, because I don't find it very appropriate to historical or quasi-historical warfare. Also there's the fact that it's not like we have huge collections to only field that stuff, so I think there's a disconnect.

I don't know anything about it other than it being a variant (evolution?) of DBA but DBMM seems like it has the same style as DBA but lets you build armies with points, and things like having a brilliant strategist as a general or a regular guy, that might be something to look at as that's the kind of flexibility we want, but I'm not sure if DBMM is a larger version of DBA or just a more advanced (complex?) set of rules.

I was also taking a look at Hail Caesar as I've seen that getting good reviews, but since I have very limited table space it doesn't seem like it would work well without a lot of customization, as the largest table I can manage is 4x4" and it seems to want at least 8x4". Also it seems to want a lot of figures, which even though I plan to use cheap figures can add up

 Kilkrazy wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't have v3.0 yet either.

As said above, DBA is a set of rules for fast play with small armies and the army list restrictions reflect that.

There are various other rules for Ancients that have much larger armies and army lists, with more variability, however historical army lists on the whole contain the troops that were available historically at the time. An Imperial Roman army never would include peltasts or hoplites for instance, because the Romans simply never used these troops.

I'll have to run it by my brother. His argument isn't that he wants to take peltasts or hoplites in a Roman army, for example, it's more that he wants to be able to decide to, for example, send a fast force to intercept the enemy who is marching on a settlement, and then choose to have mostly cavalry (i.e. Equites) as a result of that decision, rather than have every battle be well I have two stands of cavalry, five stands of legionnaires, a stand of psiloi, etc.

While I don't mind, I'm more concerned with games becoming boring without the force variation, and every battle being the same thing roughly as we have the same forces. Maybe it really doesn't play that way, but that seems to be what his (and to a lesser extent my) concern is, since we'd mostly be playing against each other, with maybe being able to convince his girlfriend to play.

What he wants to do is play campaigns in which you have several DBA armies as your basic force and can mix and match the units to form taskforces for particular missions.

I think this is an absolutely fine way to play. IDK if it is historical but I wouldn't care myself if it gives a good game. The thing to bear in mind is that if you separate all your equites for a mobile mission, then clearly at the same time your infantry forces will be without their cavalry wing.

So, I would suggest you build a Big Battle DBA army which consists of three normal DBA armies, then use a variation of the campaign system to allocate the individual elements to task forces under commanders for different missions.

I reckon it would work very well, and still be cheap.

This is an integral part of the DBA Campaign System, although you are taking it a bit further than what the author did (I believe the campaign system is from the Secondary Author, and not Barker).

You might want to make a list of Army Components, and then select from the disrete components, rather than being able to take just anything.

For instance:

You have (for a Dark Ages Period of roughly 600 - 100AD) a Byzantine Army, a Saxon Army, a Bulgarian Army, a Frankish Army, and one of the various Muslim Arab Armies from the period.


The Byzantine Army (Thematic Byzantine 650 - 988AD - minus Cv General):
3 - 5 Cavalry, 2 Cataphracts, 0 - 2 Pikes/Spearmen - the Skutatoi (v.3.0 lists them as spearmen), & 1 element of Archers (Psiloi or Bow)

The Saxon Army (Middle Anglo-Saxon 701 - 1044AD - minus Sp General):
8 Fyrd Spearmen, 0 - 2 Hearthguard Spearmen, 0 - 2 Lesser Fyrd Hoards, & 1 element of Psiloi Archers

In the Bulgar Army (Early Bulgar b/c options 675 - 1018AD - Minus Cv General):
2 Cavalry, 4 Light Horse Archers, 4 Spearmen as Medium (ax) or Heavy (Sp) Infantry, & 1 element of Psiloi Archers

In the Frankish Army (Carolingian Frankish 639 - 888AD - minus Kn General):
5 Knights, 4 Spearmen, 1 - 2 Psiloi Archers, 0 - 1 Light Cavalry, & 0 - 1 Peasant Levy Hoard

In the Muslim Army (Abbasid Arab 747 - 945 AD - minus Cv General):
• 747 - 835: 3 Cv Ghilman, 3 Archers (Bw or Ps), 3 Spearmen, 0 - 1 Warband (Bedoins, probably - can't recall the particulars of this list), 0 - 1 Medium Infantry Ax, & 0 - 1 Horse Archers LH
• 836 - 945: 3 Cv Ghilman, 3 - 5 3Bw Archers/Spearmen, 0 - 1 Psiloi Archers, 0 - 1 Heavy Infantry Spearmen, 1 - 2 Horse Archer LH, 0 - 1 Warband (again, probably Bedoins, or other Tribal Warriors), 0 - 1 Cv Ghilman, & 0 - 1 Medium Infantry Ax

In these, you will notice certain groupings, such as the Byzantine Cataphracts, Skutatoi, or Cavalry; or the Abbasid Ghilman; or the Saxon Fyrd; or the Carolingian Knights.

If you made your selections for building armies among the various "units" of the component armies, it would probably work out quite well.

We did something like this where we had a Fantasy Campaign where each "Kingdom" was broken up into territories, or fiefs, and each fief raised a specific set of troops.

Then, if you had conquered a fief (movement was by fief), then you could, usually, use the troops that were raised in that fief (there were exceptions, such as Elves and Orcs could not raise the troops from each other's fiefs, if conquered - making it more difficult for these groups to hold conquered territory of diametrically opposed peoples).

But there is no reason why you cannot do as you propose.

MB


Automatically Appended Next Post:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Not several DBA armies... I can't entirely explain it, he wants army building in the sense that there's flexibility in force composition. Personally I think he's just spoiled from Warhammer and Warmachine army construction, because I don't find it very appropriate to historical or quasi-historical warfare. Also there's the fact that it's not like we have huge collections to only field that stuff, so I think there's a disconnect.

I don't know anything about it other than it being a variant (evolution?) of DBA but DBMM seems like it has the same style as DBA but lets you build armies with points, and things like having a brilliant strategist as a general or a regular guy, that might be something to look at as that's the kind of flexibility we want, but I'm not sure if DBMM is a larger version of DBA or just a more advanced (complex?) set of rules.

I was also taking a look at Hail Caesar as I've seen that getting good reviews, but since I have very limited table space it doesn't seem like it would work well without a lot of customization, as the largest table I can manage is 4x4" and it seems to want at least 8x4". Also it seems to want a lot of figures, which even though I plan to use cheap figures can add up

If you are going to be using a more complex set of rules, based upon the same system as DBA, then you would do MUCH BETTER to go with Hoplon rather than DBMM. As I said before, Hoplon has a point system that allows even more flexibility than does DBMM.

During the Playtesting of DBMM (more on that later), everyone with whom I was play testing DBMM found Hoplon to be a better and more enjoyable game.

DBMM has the difficulty of being nearly impossible for a novice to learn without help from an experienced player.

The rules are written in a dense style by an author who is stuck in the 1970's as far as rules composition is concerned (where he insists upon not just avoiding, but refusing to use things like Bullet Points, because they increase the page count of the rules - he seems to think that printing is still as expensive as it was in the 1970s).

In fact, his writing style is so notoriously dense and opaque (difficult to read and parse - and technically, according to the English Professors at UCLA, is intentionally bad-form, written in a style that has not been used since the 1940s/50s, used by English English Academics to make their writing sound intentionally more complex than it is) that there is a term used in the gaming community for it: Barkerese.

And, you can currently get Hoplon for Free (the company who held the publishing license went out of business in the late 00's, and the author decided to just make the rules free, until such a date that a publisher wishes to re-print them).

But, if you wish to have a printed and bound copy of the rules, I can provide one (maybe two... I will need to see how many I still have - I wound up with the Stock of the rules in the USA. I used to promote it at Conventions), also free of charge.

You will find Hoplon to be free of the many Fiddly tricks and technicalities able to be exploited that are in DBMM. Hoplon also incorporate things that allow the incorporations of the "Stratagems" in DBMM with no problems (and, it has variable General Quality built into the rules).

Hoplon is also the same basing standards as DBA, save for being more flexible with 28/30mm figures (like WHFB figures), allowing them to be used more easily.

MB

• Full Disclosure: I was the primary Playtester of the DBMM 200 and DBMM400 games (the "Small" games). at these smaller levels, DBMM is a better game than it is for a full table, but it still contains a great many things that are fiddly, complicated, difficult to understand, and which easily break).

Hoplon is also usable at smaller point sizes, and on a 4x4 table (which is what I play tested the game on.

We intended to do a game called Hop-Lite, which was intended for use with armies of 250 - 500 points.

I finished the rules (there was literally one change - in how Units are constructed), but the smaller game did require the creation of new army lists to accommodate the smaller units, which we never got finished. It would not take much to finish out any required lists.

The Hop-Lite games are MUCH, much faster than the DBMM games of similar size, especially if you include the changes in movement distance that use base-widths instead of inches as the standard of movement. DBMM uses an "IGOUGO" system, where one player sits there while the other moves his entire army. Hoplon/Lite uses an Initiative system which usually sees the players alternating movement of commands/units, allowing for a player to react better to an opponent's move, rather than an opponent being able to completely cut off what would have been an appropriate reaction by a unit or command through the exploitation of the game rules.

Hoplon/Lite also contains a "Charge" phase which allows for counter-charges and evades, allowing for more flexibility, and behavior that more closely matches sources.

The DBA army lists are popular, but the game doesn't break down if you depart from them. I'd say just start trying things out. If the game can handle Old Kingdom Egyptians vs Hundred Years War French then things should be just fine if you want to take an element of mercenary hoplites in a Roman army. The game will still work. It even still works if you deviate from the 12 elements per side thing.

Thanks BeAfraid I'll check Hoplon out. Might as well look at a few rules and ultimately decide what I want to do!

Why not get Hordes of the Things (a fantasy version of DBA for the most part) and use historical type armies? It offers a bit more flexibility in army list building but uses very similar game mechanisms (though I don't have the current version I assume this is still true...)

That way you could field a mostly cavalry Roman force if you wanted.

 CptJake wrote:
Why not get Hordes of the Things (a fantasy version of DBA for the most part) and use historical type armies? It offers a bit more flexibility in army list building but uses very similar game mechanisms (though I don't have the current version I assume this is still true...)

That way you could field a mostly cavalry Roman force if you wanted.

I would second that.

I mentioned it before.

But HotT has a few downsides in a smaller number of troop types (such as "Riders" instead of Cavalry and Light Horse - And it has been so long since I played that I don't recall if Knights are even a type).

It does have the advantage of Heroes, Magic Users, Clerics, Lurkers, and other "Fantasy" types.

But.... I suppose that it would be pretty simple to just add the missing troop types from DBA into HotT (pretty much everyone I know who plays HotT has done this already)

MB


Automatically Appended Next Post:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Thanks BeAfraid I'll check Hoplon out. Might as well look at a few rules and ultimately decide what I want to do!

Currently it is only available via the Yahoo Group as a pdf:


https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/AMS_Hoplon/info


Or, if you PM me with an email address, I can email you a pdf copy of the rules.

They are tremendously flexible and robust rules (very hard to break or abuse).

MB

I think part of the overall issue is so many rules and so many are out of print, like on TMP which I frequent a lot you'll see references to systems that aren't around anymore, so it just makes the whole thing very overwhelming because I'm so used to having rules in print and available from a company. I guess that's the nature of the game with historical gaming though since it's gone on for decades and there's so much variety.

WayneTheGame wrote:
I think part of the overall issue is so many rules and so many are out of print, like on TMP which I frequent a lot you'll see references to systems that aren't around anymore, so it just makes the whole thing very overwhelming because I'm so used to having rules in print and available from a company. I guess that's the nature of the game with historical gaming though since it's gone on for decades and there's so much variety.

Lack of consensus is a problem.

Much of it is created by the lingering popularity of a small group of publishers from the early days of gaming, whose voice is now outsized.

DBA remains the most popular of "Ancients/Medieval" historical rules, but suffers from a lack of real scaleability.

DBM used to dominate, but the author refused to take seriously the criticisms, and "Gameyness" of the rules, which DBMM did little to fix.

FoG gave a playable game, which fixed many of the problems with DBA/M/MM, but lacked real flavour for the detail involved.

Hail Ceasar just perpetuated the problems with WAB, and the significant abstractions that create paradoxes of ground-figure scale.

Other rules systems departed too far from the basing standards established by either WAB or DBx.

Hoplon addressed many of these issues, but suffered from an intentional smear campaign by a group who did not like it for a variety of personal reasons that had little to do with the rules themselves.

And, on top of all this is the divergence of the DBx and WAB basing standards for 30mm miniatures (which fortunately about two or three systems address and correct by adopting the easier to use WAB frontage).

And... Technically, many of the rules are still in print, or available, even if not "sold" (They are simply available for free).

Regardless of what eventually emerges as the next industry standard, or widespread popularity..... I wish that it would hurry up.

I would really like to be able to play more often.

MB