"Bill Banks ANCIENTS in the Digital Rules library" Topic
14 Posts
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WaltOHara | 05 Apr 2014 11:43 p.m. PST |
Howdy! Many years ago, Bill Banks published a tidy little boardgame focused on Ancient warfare. It was called "Ancients" and came in multiple editions-- the basic edition, edition 2 that added naval rules, a third edition and a combined 4th edition. 3w imploded many years ago, and when the rights reverted back to Bill, he very generously offered them up as freeware. For many years the files for Ancients were hosted on Mike Nagel's excellent Relative Range site. They were recently taken down, possibly to avoid confusion with his game Ancient Battles, which is being published by VPG. Anyway, I have just converted the entire package (sans maps and counters) to EPUB format. This includes the rules, the naval rules, the scenarios for both land and sea. It's a pretty big EPUB file compared to most of the ones I've posted so far, but it does have dozens of ancient battle scenarios included. Here's the particulars n' such: link The application to miniatures is excellent-- the game has dozens and dozens of scenarios, maps, counters, etc. Not very hard at ALL to convert to miniatures. V/R Walt O'Hara |
Who asked this joker | 06 Apr 2014 5:25 a.m. PST |
Hi Walt, That Ancients link is blank. So I could not view the file. Also, any chance you will be digitizing Imperator? Thanks, John |
Red Dragon | 06 Apr 2014 5:57 a.m. PST |
Link did not work for me as well. |
M C MonkeyDew | 06 Apr 2014 6:44 a.m. PST |
Victory Point Games link is still selling a version of this game. I haven't seen their version as my old copy still holds up well. Bob |
WaltOHara | 06 Apr 2014 8:35 a.m. PST |
Sorry. I had to pull the file. Apparently One Small Step (who own the rights to Ancients) and I had a disagreement about what Freeware means. You got a blank file because the publisher complained to Wordpress.com and Wordpress.com made the edit. My bad! Bit of a pain, that was a lot of work. I agree, I own the old 3W boxed edition of the game and it holds up pretty well. I have in back of my mind to convert the system to minis at some point, maybe using 10mm. |
Parzival | 06 Apr 2014 10:35 a.m. PST |
Well, "Freeware," means the rights holder distributes it for free for as long (or as little) as they wish to, and in the manner they wish to distribute it. It doesn't mean that someone else can distribute it, even for free. So, yeah, they were correct in asking that it be taken down. The best approach on these things is to contact the rights holder and ask permission. If you get a "yes," that's great. If you get a "no," well, that's their right. I like free stuff as much as the next guy, but I like respecting the rights holder's claim, too. |
WaltOHara | 06 Apr 2014 11:18 a.m. PST |
Me too, I'm not complaining. They have every right. My bad, I should have checked first. |
Who asked this joker | 06 Apr 2014 1:05 p.m. PST |
Victory Point Games link is still selling a version of this game. I was disappointed with the rules by VPG. I did not think they held the spirit of the old game. Basically too fiddly for my taste, Shame it got pulled Walt. It is true that the one should ask permission to repost material, even if it is "freeware." John |
WaltOHara | 07 Apr 2014 6:22 a.m. PST |
Win some, lose some! I had totally forgotten that rights had gone to OSS after 3w ceased to be, and so many people used the phrase "freeware" in association with the previous form of Ancients that one starts to believe it. As I said, they are in the right. At least *I* have a copy, heh heh heh. This might be a fun experiment in 10mm scale, at that. You really don't need to buy that many of any particular figure, just a representative type of figure, and it works for all kinds of scenarios. Hmnm.. |
Shaun Travers | 08 Apr 2014 3:16 p.m. PST |
Walt, I agree that Bill Bank's ancients would make a great miniature game. In fact, I replayed Callinicum back in 2010 using Bill Banks Ancients and 15mm miniatures! It worked fine. Here is a blog entry with an overview of the rules, detailed battle report and a bit on changing the rules to play with miniatures. link My only change of mind over the last 4 years is my comment at then end was to shorten the movement distances – I would not do that today. I have this project in the back of my mind since 2001 to create a portable miniature game using a box, some 3mm/6mm figures, magnets and using Bill Banks Ancients. But other shiny stuff seems to always take precedence. |
WaltOHara | 09 Apr 2014 8:06 a.m. PST |
Shaun: I was thinking of using Heroscape terrain and 10mm figures. It's on the giant list of to-be-dones. Walt |
Shaun Travers | 09 Apr 2014 4:45 p.m. PST |
Walt, That would look cool. |
cturnitsa | 23 Nov 2014 1:11 p.m. PST |
This topic is a few months stale, but here is a good link for looking at anything Ancients related. link |
WaltOHara | 25 Nov 2014 7:27 p.m. PST |
I'm glad you worked things out with OSS, Chuck! Walt |
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