"WAB Starter Advice" Topic

Hi
The local club is moving away from warhammer fantasy to warhammer ancients and I plan on joining in but cannot decide on an army.
I have reduced a list of about 12 possible candidates to two – Early Imperial Roman ( or possibly Late Republican Roman ) and Hoplite Greek.
I am intrested in both from a historical point of view ,and from a gaming point of view the smaller size of the armies and their uniform appearance ( when compared barbarian armies )would make it easier and quicker to get an army on the table and playing ( which is what its all about surely ? )
Which would make an better army to start with ?

I recommend the Greeks. Romans take a bit of practice to make full use of their drill tricks, while the Greek phalanxes, love them or hate them, are a straightforward, line 'em up and mow down everything before you sort of army. Additionally, having the Greek oracles means never (or rarely) having to say you wish you had moved your phalanxes slightly differently.

One Greek player I read about (either here or the WAB list) had a priest and a set of goats to represent the uses of the Oracle. Use the Oracle ability, remove a goat…

Real men play Gauls!

mjc

I agree with Mulopwepaul. It takes a lot of skill to handle Romans on the wargaming table. Greeks are more straightforward. However, I heard that specifically "Roman" supplement is coming soon…

Your chums should stay within the same supplement, if you have an army from, say El Cid, it will not be balanced against a Punic Wars army

If it's a coin-toss to decide, I'd suggest going with the army least fielded by the rest of the club. I'd probably go with the Greek army, if it was my decision.

The main advantage to either Greek or Roman armies is that either may fight against it's own type. Thus, if other club members like what they see, then they, too, can field a similar army and be perfectly correct.

FWIW, same thing with the barbarians…

respects,

Whichever you choose,there are(or in the case of Greeks, will be) a load of nice plastics to start into the period.

I suggest the Romans. They are a reasonably forgiving army with the "Stubborn" rule, give a wide range of options for play/tactics, and have loads of "historical" opponents. I have both (Late Republican) Romans and Greeks, but if forced to have only one it would be the army of Caesar. Romans might take a bit more learning to play well I suppose, but that's part of the fun of the game I think.

Dave

Late Republican Romans or Early Imperials may be cheaper in 28mm

If you go for 1/72 Greeks

Both armies are not easy IMHO, due to relying on one type of unit heavily.

I can not advise you on WAB specifics, because I play other ancients rules. However, the advice that I give to anyone starting ancients is to choose the army that most grabs their imagination.

Best advice so far, Benedict. Pick an army that you will love even when it's losing.

Allen

It reads like he found two armies that intrigue him very much. And if he is anything like me, the one he likes better day in and day out would depend on the day of the week as much as anything. So with that, I would choose the army that is the best fit historically to the other armies the club is getting. If play style is a factor, you might want to examine which fantasy armies you play and whether you want to stick with that style or try something new.

To sum up what has been said, and to add a bit of my own:

Both Armies can field compact forces.

Both Armies can be uniform. The Romans more so here, but the Greeks have the potential to more beautiful.

Both Armies paint up quickly. With good transfers, you can whip out a great Greek or Roman army in no time. That is because for both of these armies outside of the shield, the figures do not have varations of color and the shield is so large it is the focal point of the figure. Dipped Greeks with Little Big Men Studios shields will make a pretty spectacular army. This has all to do the shield transfers.

Another note, the pre-painted Romans (both types you were angling for) from Old Glory are a good value for the price (with Old Glory Army.) The nice thing about that route is you can get them and play with them quickly. If you don't like that style of force, you are out very little time. Yes, there is the money factor, but my guess is you will own a Roman force in miniature at some time or another. Every war gamer I know seems to have at least one Roman force.

Both Armies can be expanded to include more diverse troops.

Both Armies have a good number of opponents including themselves.

For a new player, both armies will play about the same. Think dwarves without lots of missile weapons or a warrior heavy Chaos force with some marauder cavalry. There are subtle differences in play and the Romans are more maneuverable. For me, starting out, the Greeks are easier to play but over the long run, Romans are tactically more satisfying to play.

I played a Spartan army for a while, and lost a lot of games. We weren't playing in-period, and the lack of good cavalry and good archers was a huge problem. But, that was back when they only had one book of army lists.

If I were playing multiple periods and narrowed my army choices to what you have presented above, I'd probably go with late Romans. FWIW.

Thanks for the replies .

I should have clarified that the club members are building and planning a range of armies – Vikings, Carthaginians, Anglo-Saxon etc – so no one supplement/historical period.

As I said I like both armies equally. I was wondering which would be most forgiving to new player.

Now I think about it Late Republic and Early Imperial Romans have enough differences to make them separate options – so thats 3 I cannot decide between ! : )

It's been said, but let me add – unless you are very fond of your potential armies, try to choose one that comes from the same book as your opponent.

Wab supplements do not always play well with others. I love my Almoravid Moors from the El Cid book. It's a good thing I do love them, as they struggle to fight their way out of a wet paper bag against anyone not in the El Cid Supplement. Shieldwall is a particularly stong book, with a lot of strong armies that opponents will labour against, and the Byzantine book is similarly powerful. It was never really the Publisher's intention that this should be the case – but the army books were each written by enthusiasts pretty much on their own, so it was bound to happen. Oddly, the very worst offender is from one of the first books – the Fall of the West has won awards for unbalanced cheese-paring, and (IMHO IMHO IMHO) attracts the sort of people who like to win games in a manner similar to that for which and flies is proverbial.

One army that looks good, is sort of Greek, and does consistently well against all-comers is a Succesors Pike army. Plus you can have elephants, which is nice.

Pat

"…the army books were each written by enthusiasts pretty much on their own…"

Not all, Pat; not all.

Allen

Oh, sorry…

'…the army books were each written by enthusiasts, or miserable cynics pretty much on their own…"

Actually the Alexander and Hannibal books mesh pretty darn well together. But they were designed to do so.

From what I understand Byzantium: Beyond the Golden Gate and Shield Wall also work well together. I thought most armies from El Cid would work here as well. But on that point, perhaps I am wrong.

I feel both thematically and tactically, one will gain the greatest amount enjoyment from WAB by staying in period. Of course, everyone in our group has their own favorite period. We solved that problem by each of us getting armies from multiple periods. Personally, I can find at least one army in each of the WAB books I would love to own.

Again thanks for the suggestions and replies.

The club does seem to have focused on the Punic and Macedoninan wars and Viking era and some are already collecting multiple armies.

If Im right there is a version of the Hoplite Army List in the Alexander book which I will look into too, and I had the Caledonian army from Shieldwall on my list of possible armies .

As Homer Simpson said – " Im off to do some some serious thinking !"

From what I understand Byzantium: Beyond the Golden Gate and Shield Wall also work well together. I thought most armies from El Cid would work here as well.

For historicity perhaps, but in a game, those Spanish knigits and Byzantine heavies tend to roll up the cavalry-less northern types.

i always loved dacians.

or parthian…

romans are a classic, but everyone has them.

i would advise anyone to base their minis in a way that makes them compatible with the WRG basing scheme.

WAB is a fun game.
but i dount its for eternity.
there will be the moment where you will have the *urge* to play DBx or Impetus…

Totally agree with Thomas above – some of my most enjoyable WAB games have been between 'manipular' Republican Romans from Allen's HatPW supplement and Seleucids from Jeff Jonas's Successor lists (very nice of Jeff to upload those Seleucid and Ptolemaic lists to the WABlist, I thought). Great example of armies and special rules from different authors meshing exceptionally well.

Getting back on topic – my own preference would be late Republican Roman. The legionary core is tough on the table, and easily enough painted. The auxiliaries are still irregular at this time so IMVHO provide a little more colour and variety than the early Imperial Roman auxiliaries. Pretty sure they face a wider variety of opponents than the Imperials as well. Finally, the personalities involved – Marius, Pompey, Crassus, Sulla, Mark Antony, and JC himself – some very big names there!
On the downside, the official lists (choice between the WAB rulebook or the Consular Roman list in the 'Spartacus' supplement) are a bit 'vanilla-y'.

Cheers,
Paul.

Hi Paul

Have you got a link to Jeff Jonas's Successor lists? I have looked on the WAB Forums but could nt find them- must be looking in wrong section.

Did he also do a Pyrrhus list? With the mixture of figures I have I reckon that a Pyrrhic army would be best way of using as many as possible.

Cheers

James

The best choice is for players to decide on a historical period they like and make units for complimentary armies. This advice works for all periods and all rules.

Once a goal is set then players will then have access to friend's figures as the crossover process happens. Some people have more time to paint and grow their army faster, some have more money and can send stuff to professional painting sevices.

By having everybody on board for a period it's often possible for folks to pool models for initial games. The other upside is by doing this there is less of an outlay.

So, for example if the Mediterranean Wars for Empire period was chosen- roughly 356-146 BC, players have a lot of choices and developmental styles of armies, many of which can be built by using the same figures (nobody is going to argue if one uses Polybian legionaries for pre-Camillan era Romans).

Players can then choose to pool their efforts to make a Roman army, maybe each player builds a cohort of velites/hastati/principes/triarii that can be pooled together while everybody mostly focuses on their Greeks or Macedonians or Antigonids, etc.

That way a Roman player can be added and helped along.

The difficult issue is army building in 28mm and the cost and scope of effort. It takes some commitment to make a Greek 2000 pt WAB army, one must keep one's eye on the prize realizing that those 128 hoplites will get done, but it's best to focus on smaller games and build up, otherwise one can lose interest when the new shiny thing attracts everybody's attention.

So in summary:

Focus on paired historical enemies.

Start small and build up, use stand-ins if needed.

Play capture the bridge scenarios as well as pitched battles, you will find those types of games need fewer models and can be just as satisfying.

Pool efforts to help create other armies, those models used for the pool can then become the core of a future army for your collection.

In a points based game like WAB, it's best to focus on core troops first, and not the oddball stuff. It's better to have a phalanx, than just an elephant.

Elite troops are not always worth their salt in WAB (currently). Armies made up entirely of elites will suffer unless they can rest their flanks on terrain.
JJ

Thanks for the advice .

I added Mike Bruck's complied stats for HMGS east tournaments from 1999-2009. It seems fitting to reflect on these stats a bit since WAB will change with a new version of the rules. Thanks to Mike for spending time to compile these. It will be interesting to see how WAB 2 changes the dynamics, and if there are any shifts. I reckon I have some predictions, but will wait till we have the book to make them :)
My favorite stat: over 1800 games played in ten years, now that's a lot of fun, (and this is just singles).
JJ

link

JJArtist's comment from the 24th seems eminently sensible to me. I'd only add one additional thought: If possible, arrange for your two armies to be ones that can trade units back and forth, so that you can add them for a larger army against another player when needed, or split them for smaller games when you have to provide both sides. This works better in some periods than others, of course; Romans with a significant barbarian component give two distinct forces when split, but Greeks split are historical but not as visually distinctive.