"wargames research group ancients , your favorite edition?" Topic

I just downloaded all of the legal pdfs of the wrg ancients rules, and I am actually surprised that they look fun.

Which edition was your favorite?
do you still play?

2nd

5th?
The one where you rolled the 3 dice for morale and could get an "uncontrolled advance".
Or, you could rout when declaring a charge.
I think that 4th had the "written orders", which allowed the most flagrant gamesmanship.

Ah, the fondly remembered Thursday night rules seminars. when the "letters from Phil" would ave the postmarks compared to determine the latest interpretation.
And the amendments! "Page 13, paragraph 4, line 2. Delete 'must', insert 'may not'."
Or was it "delete 'may not', insert 'must."?

Hah!
Sounds awesome.
I'm looking to pick up a rulebook and start gaming with wrg soon.
So I'm using these opinions, and your nostalgia to make a formulated opinion ;)
Keep it going

My first was 5th, then I became proficient at 6th. I might have liked 7th better if they had called it something else.
The transition between 6th and 7th was like two different sets.

DBA 1st Edition is my favorite. I owned 7th edition Ancients and all the army books, looked stupidly complicated…

I agree with SMC: 6th edition was staple diet for many then the move the 7th was a leap. Both sets had their strengths and weaknesses…….

At OP: where did you manage to download all the versions from…please can you provide a link? thanks.

I started playing with the 5th and I had a lot of fun with the 6th.
One year I bought these rules again from John Curry ( johncurryevents.co.uk ) but unfortunately he doesn't sell the army lists ( in these years I lost all of my WRG 6th books ) .

I preferred 5th to 6th. Never liked 7th.
But compared to DBM or FoG or WAB or Warmaster Ancients they are horribly fiddly to play.

@charliemike – I have the lists. I think they hold quite a lot of useful and in some cases credible information for those who want to create Ancient armies.

4th, then 5th but mostly 6th. 7th made me give up gaming for a while…..

4th or 5th was my favourite 3rd was before my time. 6th was too bow orientated and 7th was well what made me play DBM

@Marcus Maximus
I remember them and in general I liked them. Making your list was part of the fun (in our club we had thousands of painted 25mm miniatures). We also used the Milgamex list and IMO they weren't bad at all (with a very nice way to limit your lists), these are the only list I still have at home.

We never liked much the 7th, even if we played it for a full year before giving up Ancients for a while.

I don't think they were too fiddly (for sure no more than anything Warhammer related), you had to read them with care and to be ready to argue with your opponent :-P

Luciano

I still have a mint copy of the second edition.

Played them all but hated the 7th and DBM so much I stopped playing ancients for 20yrs.

My Indian army in one edition was made up of supermen, 2HCW (2handed cutting weapon) from memory, would destroy just about anything. Then the next edition came out where shield less Mediums were dog food. In that edition I would declare my Indians would not use a weapon, they were actually better to fight without a weapon at all and keep their shield defense.

Had a photocopy of 3rd courtesy of a wargaming evening class led by Graham Trickey.
Bought 5th and maybe played a couple of games before 6th arrived. Became very proficient at 6th. Bought 7th because Mr Barker convinced me they were ace…two games convinced me otherwise. Bought DBA after playing the "two sides of A4" trial version Steve Sykes brought to Leeds Wargames Club and enjoyed the experience. Bought DBM because Mr Barker convinced me they were ace and a huge leap forward from DBA…one game convinced me otherwise.
No more WRG rules purchased since….

6th edition!

I can recall so many fun games of 6th. I think I would have enjoyed 7th too but life and work limited my opportunities. When I came back DBM was being used and those games always looked too ugly. So I've been away for decades.

I think that 4th had the "written orders", which allowed the most flagrant gamesmanship.

5th also has the written "standing orders" which are silly. To my estimation, you could simply drop that rule and game on.

Manly John does indeed remember these rules. Cardinal Hawkwood; 2nd. If I remember correctly, their was no minimum frontage per figure, not until the 3rd. did we get standard frontages for different troop types. All orders had to be written in 5 minutes, until the 5th. when standing orders already written were allowed. 6th or 7th. put a bite back in Successor army, wegdes and finnally extra punch for pike blocks.

First you must buy "Linear B, WRG and Me".

Definitely 6th

I go back and forth between 6th and 7th.

Played my first proper Ancients game with 5th; got quite good at 6th, lost patience with 7th. 5th is my favourite, mostly for nostalgic reasons.

6th edition. Then a couple of "rules lawyers" joined the club, took all the fun out of them. Had late republican/early IR Romans, Carthaginians, and Arab Conquest. All Minifigs from the early 70's. Still have the Romans and Arabs.
Still have a book of army lists around somewhere.

My favourite was 6th, if I had to choose one. 6th has a system for writing orders, while previous editions was a free for all. If you read through all the versions, you can see where rules were added to clarify things, making them longer and longer as time went on. Each edition changed something in the rules as well, just to keep people on their toes!

I always thought that 6th would have benefited from full figure removal like the WRG 1685-1845 rules.
Doing away with all that book keeping!

Played 5th, moved to 6th and played less. Quit during 7th although I felt it had potential.

Why does everyone Hate 7?

I loved 7th edition, then came DBM and killed ancients for me.

All that micromanaging of each element to get it "just so" did my head in.

Fog has gotten me interested again

aapch45 for ref WRG 7th had fatigue in….

7th was fulll of individually good ideas but as a whole it was an unworkable slow messy game that only the grognards loved :)

Ahh so it was an evolution for the fanboys….
well atleast other games then evolved from those principles

Never played WRG games before DBA. Since DBA 1.0 or 1.1, I played most versions of DBM. Loved DBM 2.something. Once 3.0 came along, we played a few games, but it just wasn't the same.

DBA still has a cherished place in my library, looking forward to DBA 3.0!

Otherwise, FoG has replaced DBM.

Fog is hard for me to get into, simply because of the sheer amount of troops you need.

Does anybody have a copy of the 4th edition (and army lists) that they would want to sell (at a reasonable price)?

if you do, send me an email at

aapch45 at gmail DOT com

Also interested in 6th edition. so shoot me an email.

Anybody who wants the free pdfs go to
link

Preferred 6th but learned on 5th edition.

Disliked 7th partially because there was no longer any explicit model to troop scale. Previous rules with the 20 men per model (generally) meant you could do things with documented unit sizes and get game fielded units in proportion if not exactly to scale.

Played 5th and 6th but hated the reaction rules. while they produced some fun results (in the first 2 games I played, my Arab camels first time went impetuous, charging recklessly at the enemy, second game fled the battle without receiving a single casualty) but in general took too long to count up the factors and too many recounts when the decision was close. And also too often stopped units doing the obvious thing. Again I remember not being able to persuade units of Hun light cavalry that had surrounded an opposing army to charge infantry in the back!
Loved 7th. which replaced this with realistic limitations on what units could do and single dice roll waver test.
As I've said previously, i think 7th was a fine set of rules for games between consenting adults!
I now use Warrior, the reincarnation of 7th, with a few changes and lots of explanations.