"What is Warhammer Ancient Battle's Appeal?" Topic

Correct. But that still didn't stop this fellow from applying the name indiscriminately. I've seen it elsewhere as well. Maybe they just play with cheaters and cheesebags?

nazrat,

The main reason I stopped entering tournaments (especially GW tournaments) were the power gamers and rules lawyers. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that these folks have absolutely nothing else of consequence in their lives, and need some way to lord it over others to prove they are someone. Sadly, they only end up proving they are "something"….. :)

I have to deal with those sorts of folks in real life. I don't need to deal with them in my hobby.

respects,

The folowing is untrue:

"the true secret of WAB's appeal is that you can arm your General--be he Ramses, David, Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Sun Tzu, etc.--with a sword in each hand, thereby getting an extra attack when he charges into melee in the front rank & thus routs his foes; it's how all the great leaders won!"

There is plenty to criticize in any rules set, especially WAB.. when people just make stuff up then it makes one wonder what their aggenda is.

JJ

Don't worry Jeff – get Pontus back into the Successors book, then Mithridates' ability to swing from Chandeliers while wielding the Magical Sword of Certain Death and eating Strychnine will allow the loopers to have something to moan about.

Pat

TK-- I stay away from tournies for just that reason. Back when I DID do them I actually won the GW Warhammer Fantasy Grand Tournament in Baltimore, and using Dwarves, no less. I only won three of my five games, and what actually gave me the overall win was the high ratings on Sportsmanship and fair army composition. The guy who came in second won all five of his games overwhelmingly, but had the lowest Sportsmanship score in the event. He apparently was an ass in games, but since they used the Swiss system I never even came close to playing him so I can't actually say.

Since then I have dropped by various tournaments at HMGS conventions and it just doesn't look FUN to me. Too much angst and stress, I guess…

Sorry Nazrat. "herohammer" is a term I have been known to throw around. mebad. Although WAB is far better than the fantasy version it spawned from, I've seen players who use characters far too much for my tastes, and have played games where characters play far too big a part, even in WAB. And that wasn't what I was playing WAB for so it gnawed at me. To be fair, maybe I just got unlucky.

As for the character equipment, there may have been some humourous exageration on someone's part, but there are entries for characters that have a whole list of options, over half a dozen of them sometimes; some allowing Generals – of all people – to equip themselves with heavy armour and shield as well as a thrusting spear AND javelins, or indeed an additional hand weapon and throwing axe, and so on. WAB is very flexible and Very VERY generous and that is open to abuse by the unscrupulous. So humour aside, though it is not something I would ever do, overly equiped characters are actually very possible in certain army lists. I am afraid, JJArtist, that WAB DOES support the History channel approach to "leaders". Perhaps not in your works, but the lists do exist and the potential is there.

Fortunately I have not had that problem in a long time -maybe they were just a few isolated instances. For the most part I play with friends and family who play down the heroes and concentrate on the units so I get my historical fix now without fearing the heroes/characters.

Scutatus,

Every now and then I have run a battle where one side or the other (and sometimes both) is facing a legendary character. Caesar, Boudicea, Vercingetorix, etc. For these games, I prepare three sets of stats for the character. the first set represents how he sees himself. the second is how the enemy sees him, and the third is how he actually is.

Those stat lines are given to the appropriate player(s) and the actual stat I reserve for myself as the umpire. I will use one stat or the other depending upon the situation the character finds himself in. It's made for some interesting games :)

PS: I stole the idea from a set of rules for Napoleonic period horse racing in the Peninsula campaign, which were published probably 20 years or more ago in a Wargames Illustrated magazine.

Back to the OP's query; depends on why you play. If you want to re-reate history, play something else. If you want to have fun and play with historical minis, WAB is fine. I have played a lot of WAB and had a lot of fun. Fun is good.

WAB is sort of like a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost powered by an engine from a '50s era VW Bug. If chrome and beautiful surroundings is what you want and speed is secondary, go for it.

The guys who write the supplements do a very creditable job trying to make the clunky underpowered game system to the work they want it to do via special rules. One cannot but admire their persistence ansd dedication, they know their stuff and put in an enormous amount of work. I think WAB is a fine set for new entries into the hobby; I suspect that folks who get more serious about the hobby will want something that models combat a bit better, but that's just me.

If you want to re-reate history, play something else.

What should we play then, I wonder?

I think WAB is a fine set for new entries into the hobby; I suspect that folks who get more serious about the hobby will want something that models combat a bit better, but that's just me.

I happen to know quite some players who came to WAB via rulesets like DBM after years of playing this other systems. I tried that before I started WAB (never played WHFB). But aside from this somewhat judgemental tone, how serious can playing with toy soldiers get? Perhaps I am getting less serious as I get older ;o)

"Don't play in competition tournaments."

Although I don't myself, I have observed a good number of them, and have to say that WAB tournament players rarely exhibit the worst behavior of other rules' most aggressive tournament players.

It might be a simplistic comparison, but you don't see WAB on the list of the various "European" and "World" wargames championships. Few if any WAB players are obsessed with winning tournaments; they view them as just a chance to play some more games, with a different set of players.

"I happen to know quite some players who came to WAB via rulesets like DBM after years of playing this other systems."

I'm one. Cut dead and shunned like a pariah by some elements of the "serious" ancients wargaming community for doing it, too. Funny thing: I think *I'm* serious. But I do have a similar sense of perspective as Pijlie. I do not delude myself that I actually *am* Julius Caesar or Ghengis Khan when playing with toy soldiers on a tabletop.

Allen

"I do not delude myself"

------> I don't either… it's my job to make the other player think I am better than them…. if I win lucky then I'm like Caesar, if I win against a poor plan then I'm like Alexander, if it is a tough fight with no clear winner then I am like Pyrrhus….

Toy soldier gaiming is neither role play nor simulation to me. It's recreation-al.

Options for characters are simply defined by what was generally available to them in their period. Sadly many outsiders think they MUST be taken and must be tooled up to the max. It is rarely done that way in WAB. Some lists don't force characters at all, but tournaments kind of evolved a need for them to be included.

WAB plays just as good if you remove the big stat characters, some say better. Often by just assigning 'generalship and asb status to one unit', then players can remove the character models entirely. Its' up to the players to make the game fit their own mold, just as the developers have alwasy tried to fit it their own perception of their periods. Sadly it's the players themselves that insist that ancient games be playable across three millenia time periods, which ain't really the fault of the rules or the lists.

The best venues for WAB like any period are when reasonable time period matches are maintained. Byzantine vs. Sumer is not much of a game, and the problem with so many rules is that they make it a fair even playing field, which is silly. In WAB, Sumer vs. Byzantine is an uphill struggle (almost anybody vs. Byz is), which makes it more 'historically valid' than all these other games that make it fair and balanced. Nobody would expect much of the army of Frederick the Great matched up against the 82nd Airborne division….. and yet in ancients people fool themselves in to believing the technology of muscle and metal is constant.

JJ

Going back to the original question.

Fun