"Does anyone play Neil Thomas Ancient rules?" Topic

We just played a very fun game of Crusaders vs Syrians in the OFM's cellar. The mechanics are very simple.
Roll to hit, roll to save, and if you lose a stand you roll for morale. If you fail you lose a stand and keep rolling. A bad series of failed morale can wipe out a unit.
Figures are WRG /DBX based, so LI/Ps are fragile. While 4 figure stands (HI/MI) have some staying power.
As with a lot of simple rules, your tactics become more important than minute understanding of the rules.
The rules lend themselves very easily to scenarios and special rules.

I recommend them highly.

Yes I have. Very simple, fun, was one of the inspirations for my 4 bases per unit system of building armies, figuring that one base from each unit would suffice for DBA and such.

Started ancients with his rules, then added a bunch of stuff.

Great stepping stone to more detailed games. Once you get into it, you realize you nheed certain additions to cover particluar units and forces.

Should be the go to starter rules for kids and girlfreinds (and it has been in my household)

:)

I've played and really enjoyed Ancient and Medeival, and hope to give both Napoleonic and 19th Century a try very soon. His Simplicity in Practice set looks really good too, I'm going to get a few games of that in soon. I'm also looking forward to his new book One Hour Wargames.

Play them quite a bit – absurdly simple, but for some reason I rather love those rules – definitely a breath of fresh air at times.

There are similar simple rules for other periods in Neil Thomas's "Wargaming an Introduction" – highly recommended!

We played the Franco Prussiam variant a few months ago.

My local group plays regularly …

You might enjoy Trebian's AMW posts on Wargaming for Grown-ups/AMW

Phil
Ancients on the Move

I use them for the Ren Italian Wars.
Love them!

It is a fun game. Glad to see lots of love for Neils rules.

If you fail you lose a stand and keep rolling. A bad series of failed morale can wipe out a unit.

You actually only roll for morale for each stand lost through melee. So if you lose another stand from a failed morale check, you don't keep rolling.

About the only thing I don't like is that phalangites fight the same as hoplites in Neils rules. There are some other oddities like companions have worse armor than Roman Equites.

But as a whole the rules are great fun and lend themselves to tweaks and mods.

Where can one buy them?

They are a fun set of rules and scale up really well. Their simplicity makes it easy to modify them to your tastes without breaking them.

I think you can buy a Kindle version. The hard copy (one print run only) is now both rare and expensive.

I got a paperback copy on eBay last month for just under £15.00 GBP inc post. There are a fair number of copies available now at about £20.00 GBP inc post.

How do you wargame an introduction? The mind boggles.

Buy the book and find out!

Will give them a try, ordered new off Amazon for 19GBP. Does this mean its been reprinted?

Are these the rules you find in the library very often? I have never used them but did find them straight forward. For me and for most, I play what is being played in my area. I would never have picked up FoG without having lived in the New Orleans area for a year and a half.

Having said this, I will be pushing a return to Might of Arms locally as we have seen ancients gaming on the wane here (with the exception of DBA). It's time to go back to what worked and that is of medium complexity for me. I can get additional gamers with medium complexity rules; high complexity rules tend to weed out the much less dedicated ;-) Ancients periods are still my favorite and I want something a bit more granular for favored periods.

For other periods, namely muskets to even Colonials, we are looking more and more to a DBN variant as a core system for larger battles. So, yes, simple rules do have their place. And honestly, I am not sure we have improved things with regards to simple rules during the last few decades. Seems to me that older rules sets still have their place and are in many ways superior to many newer "simple" rules sets in print these days.

The "I play what everyone else is playing" thing is common. The great thing with AMW is that the rules are learnt in minutes, so after a turn or two everyone is fully involved.

There's nothing tremendously original in AMW, but it works and it plays quickly. If you look back at some of the very large refights we've done on my blog as referenced by Phil above we get a good, believable result in three hours.

Might be worth bearing in mind that a new set of Thomas rules for all periods is to be released in a a few months – quicker and smaller than the current sets.

link

Have it ordered, looking forward to it.

I will tell you one thing, after building a couple Neil Thomas armies (8-10 units of four bases each) building a DBA or Sword and Spear army (one unit = 1 base) is CAKE!

:)

I have played the Ancient rules from AMW and always found them to be great fun. In addition, I am (very) slowly painting up 10mm armies for Schleswig Holstein War, which I will be using the 19th Century rules.

Oh yeah, when I have played them, we use one rank of TWO bases for light infantry/Pelosi troops.

Makes it look better to have a smaller looking, less deep unit than the heavy infantry and such.

We also give that unit of two, 2 shots per base (to make up for the 4 shots per unit they would have if regular rules 4 based unit)

Doesn't matter in melee, light units are gonna get squashed real bad whether two bases or 4 bases, and when facing other light units in melee, doesn't matter if it is 2 bases vs 2 base or 4 vs 4.

Does that make any sense?

We also give Roman AUX 2 extra movement increments, whether in good or bad going, but they Don't get the +2 dice per unit melee bonus the Legion gets (otherwise, a Roman Legion unit has the same melee as an auxillerary or other heavy infantry unit in melee, and that is just not cricket, NOBODY (hvy infantry) beats a Roman Legion straight up in good going)

Figure manufacturers must LOVE Neil Thomas rules, as say compared to DBA :)

Yet another reason to prefer Neil Thomas over DBA… Actually I can think of half a dozen rules I'd play way before I'd touch DBA again. It just seems so horrendously out of date compared to contemporary rules.

His rules rock! Fiddle with them a bit, and you have a fine game.

Why am I still awake? Because I still have like 30 MILLION bases to complete, (4 bases to a unit) just for the Dacians!

Damn you Neil Thomas!

I hope my Kreesten enjoyed our Sword and Spear game test Monday! (she says she did, but I will know the truth if she agrees to play them again!)

Meanwhile, 4 bases per unit, 12 units per army……..thats like 250 or something bases I have to do just for the Dacians!

Ever see his Pike and Shot rules? LOL! Some units have 12 bases!

There are some other oddities like companions have worse armor than Roman Equites.

Presumably because the later have shields and the former do not?

Of course you could just use Impetus basing, and leave off DBx altogether. Then you'll find building a diorama on an 8cm base looks mighty fine, and uses a bit fewer troops than building 4 DBx bases. In that case, roll for morale for every 4th "morale" hit.

I have not played but have looked at them (I have the book on my tablet). My main thing is the whole multiple stands, because I am cheap (I'm interested in historicals as a side thing only since it's just myself and my brother) so I would rather not buy multiple boxes of even the cheap 1/72 plastics if I can avoid it.

The rules themselves looked good though.

I played a quick FPW game launching some massive Garde Mobile units at Prussians in a village. The attacks broke down in chaos before the French got anywhere near -seemed pretty real to me and very quick!!!