"Does the world need another set of new ancient rules?" Topic

Can folks please stop writing new sets of Ancient rules and give us a break now. I note Tactica 2 is still to come out and possibly POW ancients!!

This is causing a lot of problems, at my club there is now no consensus on what set of rules to use. No one is willing to budge on the new set of rules they have just paid mega bucks for. In order to play a variety of opponents I now need to learn a variety of rule sets. Ho Hum.

I agree – and can people stop producing new Figures? There should be plenty by now.

(which ruleset did they pay megabucks for? I need to write the Author a begging letter. He won't miss a few mil)

Pat

I'm in the opposite camp. The more the merrier. Keep the new rules coming!

What leidang said.

Doug

What Doug and leidang said!

more, more, more!

What Doug, leidang and acarhj said.

Sid

I am firmly in the "more the merrier" camp.

After all, the world didn't need any of the old rule sets, either.

Cheers,
Scott

All this harmony! Quick! We must retire to the Napoleonic boards for an emergency dose of fractiousness and pedantry.

Doug

Maybe not the World at large, but for wargamers – why not? Either you like them or don't – no harm no foul – buy 'em if you think you might want to try out new rules – or use the ones you like. Hey, this is coming from a guy who just bought a used (& 1/2 priced) copy of WAB 2.0.

Yep, the world does. There is no 'definitive' set. Just a note, while I am generally an Arty fan Tactica 2 was originally titled Tactica 2000. I wouldn't hold my breath on their imminent release.

Thanks,

John

Yes

less bad rules and more good ones please.

All this harmony! Quick! We must retire to the Napoleonic boards for an emergency dose of fractiousness and pedantry.

Naw. I figure we can go to the Napoleonic Boards and plant flowers and trees. Maybe the change of scenery will brighten their day. It couldn't possibly make them any less fractious or pedantic.

Nooooo this post was supposed to discourage. The 'new rule set addiction' is far worse than I had imagined.

I agree with Wodensraven, but with a rebel yell!!!!!!!!!

Hi

The only way to get the rules the way you want is to write them yourself.

I do, you can too.

If you have people who refuse to play with you, it is because they are afraid of losing, meaning the win or lose is more important than the group and the game.

See how easy that is?

Rocky

Lets have a quick look at history:

There was DBM. For 15 years or so. thats gone now. Gone. There was WAB for the 28mm eccentrics, thats gone too. More or less.
So the wargaming world is in search of its new standard game, maybe we will find one, maybe not. All the same, the change has done a lot good: We have at least three flavours of rules to choose from now: Its basically FoG, Impetus or DBMM. The WAB crowd still is in search of a successor. New games can mix up this quite a bit, looks like HC is doing just that. If that makes for fun games, why not?

The point is: Development in rules is breathtaking these days and most of the changes actually are for the better – better written, more elegant, less cheesy etc. The general trend is clear.

Its a breath of fresh air every few months at the moment. Good times, I say.

WAB for the 28mm eccentrics

Guilty, as charged

Yes

Wargame rules are like the Kama Sutra. Find a position or two you like, but there's always something else to choose from or experiment with. The advent of new rules is always titillating.
From "Little Wars" to Jack Scruby to all the iterations of WRG and beyond, I've tried most (and some you have never heard of). The real pleasure is having an excuse to move the little lead men around.

This is causing a lot of problems, at my club there is now no consensus on what set of rules to use. No one is willing to budge on the new set of rules they have just paid mega bucks for.

I would suggest that the problem herewithin lies with your club members, not the rules authors.

As for my opinion, there is no such thing as too many rulesets.

These youngsters! Has hwrang never heard of WRG 1 to 7 before DBM?

There's nobbut wrong wi fowk writin' new rules. If there ony good fowk'll play'um. If they ain't they willna.

As if Newbury rules, "Shock of Impact", and "Classic Warfare" (TSR) weren't good enough. Sheesh.

Allen

'Wargame rules are like the Kama Sutra.'

Does that include the 'buttocks of death'?

And we need a new board for every one.

hwarang said "There was DBM. For 15 years or so. thats gone now. Gone."

Well, not quite… there are still DBM players and competitions around, in England, Australia and the USA. We're even keen enough to have come up with DBM 3.2, approved by one of the original authors. There'll be three DBM competitions next month alone, in southern England and South Wales. Not the 100+ player competitions of yore, of course, but still happily playing – and even recruiting.

Ahh.. Suggesting we don't need another ancients rules set is like suggesting you don't need a first round draft pick for your American football team. The problem is that with all the money spent on 'em you need to play 'em no matter how lousy they turn out to be.

No, Hail Caesar has arrived. Finished shut the door and seal the room. Set for life now. THE rule set has been released.

<the above is tongue in cheek>

<that means sarcastic>

<which means not serious>

As if Newbury rules, "Shock of Impact", and "Classic Warfare" (TSR) weren't good enough. Sheesh.

Baaaaah. Kids today.
Fast Play rocks.
If you don't go blind looking up whether a Bodyguard is a body or a unit, and the effects of such a distinction, you aren't playing Ancients.

In some ways I see this "Golden Age" of wargaming, where we have more choices than time and money as being somewhat of curse for wargaming in general.

The curse is that we are more critical. We are more critical of the miniatures being made, because they are never the height or size of what we own nor are produce by the manufacturer that we love. We are more critical of rules, which is often demonstrated by the amount of rules published for the same period within months of each other, all claiming they are the best.

Personally, if I haven't played the game in some time, I sell the rules. The only rules that I now keep are few old favorites and the ones our group plays.

Note, I am not discouraging anyone form manufacturing or publishing, but I believe the glut of both in this hobby has lead to a more critical spirit.

As if no-one criticized Hinchliffe's Achaemenid Persians in their Persepolis palace finery and violin shields, which didn't go very well with Garrison's proper Median dress, wicker sparae, and bows that didn't look like bent wire.

More critical? One need only look at letters to the editors of Military Modelling and Battle for Wargamers back in the '70s!

Allen

Allen, by more critical, I do mean less satisfied. It would appear to me that if we are in the golden age, then we would be more satisfied, seeing more opponents, and seeing a hobby that is growing in proportion to the amount of new products that being made available.

so long as there are differeing interretations of what Ancient battles looked like, and differing opinions on whether a big battle or a small skirmish or a medium size 'representational' game is the most fun, then of course we need more rules.

the trick is to find the rules which you like, and then stick with them until something better comes along or you get bored with it.

And the real trick is to get out of the mindset of 'finishing that army' for ever, and expecting all rules to fit around those same figures you did two decades ago.

– once you accept that different rules pay better with different armies, and that if you are going to adopt a set of rule, you should be prepared to do a new army to play with at the same time, then things fall nicely into place.

My pity is for the guys who have to play all the new stuff cause its new, yet insist that their old figures must be made to work unchanged, and they must be just as effective if not more, as they were back when the figures were new.

if you give up tennis and take up golf, you need different equipment.
Same thing with wargaming (only less sweat)

Wargame rules are like the Kama Sutra

Chazzmak,

I think you may be doing one or the other of these excellent activities a bit wrong!

Personally, I look at seven editions of WRG crap and think life still owes us some more rules!

Trajanus,

You are probably right. I've always had problems protecting my flanks.

Another important factor why new wargames should come out, which seems to be overlooked and has nothing to do with dice is that Archaeology/Anthropology/Demographics and Deciphering/Translating texts etc etc does change things and some discoveries quite dramitically change our perspective on History and the History of warfare as well as the new Civilisations being discovered all over the world, one day when we know more about these peeps will want to wargame them, for example the recently discovered Liangzhu Culture(discovered 1930's) large Walled City (larger than the Forbidden City discovered 2006) that predate Xia/Shang by quite a lot of centuries…you do not have walls 4-6M thick to keep wolves and predators out! we dont know enough about them YET…

Personally i like new ancients rules, it good to see what ideas people have and it allows you to always make sure your figures are well used.

This post inspired me to do a video on the all the ancients rules i know and i must admit there are a large number. I am certain i have only scratched the surface.
youtu.be/hVwGwlWXE9U

Hwarang wrote that:

We had 15 years of DBM, now "[W]e have at least three flavours of rules to choose from now: Its basically FoG, Impetus or DBMM." That misses MeG and ADLG, which is probably the set with the most adherence currently. FoG seems to have fizzled out a bit. Anthe TTS and others are out there too.

Actually I think the time where one set came closest to world domination might have been pre-DBM, when WRG5-6 were current. A few other sets existed but made no headway. By the time of DBM, there was already a strong DBA group and some of them never went over to DBM. Some people also kept playing WRG or its variants.

Where I am now, almost the only way to get a game is to play ADLG, which I've bought, and which is kind of OK, but doesn't really grab me. But it's what my club play so there you go . . .

It's in the nature of wargamers (and all people really) to always want to come up with something better, so it will be so with ancients rules, all pleading notwithstanding. And because different people are looking for different things (detail vs speed of play, narrow historical specificity vs universality etc) there will never be complete agreement.

What I would like to see is big game rules settling on a basing standard (probably DBx) or being completely basing agnostic, so that we can walk into the club and play any game on offer.

Cheers,
John

But it's what my club play so there you go . . .

So true, I generally play what other people play at my club. Even when I select the rules, it is to encourage new players, so I always have to default to the simplest and easiest set of rules which new players can pick up.

I am a soloist….I hate myself :-(

If there were only two sets of rules, there still probably wouldn't be consensus at the local club.

Gosh this post of mine is still alive from 2011. I almost didn't recognize what I had written. Well the rules I mentioned in my original post never took off. I'm surprise Arty Conliffe's Tactica 2 went so unnoticed given how popular his other rule sets were. POW (Principles of War) Ancients never made it past the play testing stage and sadly the author has died. As others have mentioned you play what the consensus is down your club. At my club DBMM has always been there beating off Impetus and ADLG but the alternative set is now MEG.

However in response to my original question I am looking forward to the new Peter Pig Conquerors and Kings.

I looked at pfmodels overview on Youtube. It was a good overview but it lacked a substantial engagement with current sets. Absent were

Warhammer Ancient Battles and the several successor sets (as noted by Rodney, CoA and HC.)
Might of Arms
Vis Bellica (with its big bases) and its heirs (Armati, Impetus and Sword and Spear.)
Kings of War
Hoplon (another DBA/DBM variant)
Command and Colors
Tactica
Classical Hack and the whole Hack series.
Gripping Beast's two sets Swordpoint and Milites Mundi.

There is certainly many choices out there today.

Gosh this post of mine is still alive from 2011.

The internet is forever.

I normally update these types of videos each 18months so i will add the rules listed above then. The more the merrier.

Peter, just to be clear, I really appreciated what you did in your video. And there is no way for one person to be able catalogue all the various sets out there today. Is there a way to have a collaboration or assistants to fill in the gaps for you.

I will say, that the person who helped you with MeG did not give you a good overview of the rules in my opinion. MeG is quite complicated and is certainly not a dumbed down version of DBM or WRG system generally. I consider far more intricate than ADLG.

I will say, that the person who helped you with MeG did not give you a good overview of the rules in my opinion.

Good feedback, i used a review for those rules as i have not studied them sufficiently myself to have an information opinion. I will study in more detail.

Have played MEG to death, decided to have a break from it this year, so got game of Impetus tomorrow. Their needs to be variety out there so we dont go stale.