"Ancients Gaming - Fragmented?" Topic

This evening I was reviewing some of the rulesets I've bought recently, including a couple I have no recollection of purchasing!

I was struck by the thought that I don't remember a time when ancients gaming was so split across so many systems. My impression is that we're lacking [for good or bad] the previous superpowers that brought together a significant number of gamers/army builders and meant there was a larger group of irregular players who were familiar with the rules to play occasionally.

I'm thinking of DBM, WAB, FoG etc.

Now we have multiple smaller camps for Impetus, CoE, WaC, HC, Saga, Dux B etc and of course any number of diehards playing 'legacy' sets such as WAB 1-1.5, Armati, DBMM and the like.

Is this the future – parallel lines – or is it possible we may again cluster together for warmth?

Hmm, when I started it was WRG. I suspect we won't cluster like that again. In retrospect, I don't think that so many of us played WRG because it was a great set of rules, just that it had little competition compared to today.

HC and other Warlord Games products for that matter seem very popular in the UK. FoG seems to be waning. DBMM seems to have had a slight increase in popularity as of late. The better part of the DBA community is waiting for the imminent release of DBA 3.0. WAB is still played. WaC and CoE each have a smaller following. I'm not sure it really is any different from before from my point of view.

I'm not a tournament player so I could really care if a core of players galvanize around a single set of rules. I prefer the variety and ultimately I am going to be playing games that I have opponents for. We are spoiled for choice like never before but i suspect the fragmented Ancients community is an illusion.

Lets see. Back in the day there was DBM, DBA and WAB. There was Ancient warfare, Warrior, WRG (There has always been a core following), Classical Hack, Days of Knights, Armati, Tactica. So there are a few more titles today than say 10 or 15 or 20 years ago but there was still choice.

Didn't somebody just claim the same thing about Napoleonics?

And then there's "War and Empire" rules from Forged in Battle's kickstarter.

Not any more fragmented than anything else. Without thinking hard, I know six ACW gamers who play six different sets of rules.

You also have to examine whether the people playing a "new" set are past ancients gamers switching to new rules, or whether what you are seeing are new players coming to ancients and doing so through a new set of rules.

When FoG came out, there were some new players but it largely seemed to be a new toy for the old guard. WAB was mostly new ancients players altogether, however. I know of a lot of ancients players who are twiddling their thumbs, playing this or that, waiting on the DBA 3.0 vs 2.2+ heresy wars to resolve themselves. Most DBM players I know originally played WRG, then playes DBM then Warrior then FoG, then back to DBM, and so on.

I think fragmentation is largely inevitable when you don't have some unifying force like you did with WAB or early on. Unless some super popular ruleset comes out that draws a lot of outside people in, like WAB and FoW did, then you are always going to have increasing fragmentation as new rulesets come out.

It has its good and bad points.

The good is that people have a lot of choice and can play what they want. The bad is that a manufacturer will NEVER be able to make a pack of figures that fits everyone's requirements.

I'm enjoying the diversity.

I put on an Impetus game at Partizan last weekend, played FoG-R last night … and will take the Society of Ancients stand up to support a DBA participation challenge at Phalanx in a week's time.

I will be staying over up North for a colonial game on the Sunday (using a set of rules I've never heard of) and then need to finish a home design for the Battle of Northampton for the open day on July 5th …

In the midst of all this, I hope to get back to work on my classical (Plataea) period flats (for which the rules are currently modified Neil Thomas)

This suits me as I am essentially a historical wargamer and I feel when everyone plays the same game all the time, the wargaming tends to become about playing that game, rather than about playing out the historical scenario (metagaming the rules, as some would term it, rather than playing the wargame).

Phil

I used to be a WRG Ancients player back in the previous century. I was struck by how many " different" rules were nothing but WRG with added armor classes or nobility.
This meant that you thought you could play them but with different charts.
Yeah, right.
So, that system was king. Whether for good or bad.
All the other periods were not so set in stone, which is a good thing.

The only thing to bring about a "unifying" set would be for one set to dominate the tournament scene, but that bus has left the station.

Let's see – Chainmail, Legion, Sword and Spear. Never saw WRG back in the day.

Then we stopped playing for years.

Ran into DBM at the club a few years ago and with it some DBA. Club flirted with DBMM 1.0 and FOG, no lasting commitment. Fellow at the club has a homebrew set and Warmaster gets some play as well there is some enthusiasm for HC (been irregular in attendance due to work last two years).

Most ancients players seem to be playing DBA 3 (Denver is a playtest group) which has rekindled some interest in DBMM 2.0.

It has me basing everything for DBx unless something radical comes along…

Where is DBA 3.0? The World holds its breath. It seems to me that there are really three rivulets that flow into the Ancients river: 1. Big units Big Battles like Armati, and HC or Impetus; 2. Elegant abstractions like DBA; and 3. Small units small battles/skirmishes like Saga and DB. These three schemes all focus on different factors and mechanics. So what might seem like fragmentation is probably more accurately parallel evolution You can never have a rule set that covers all three. Certainly WRG never did that.

I agree, skirmish gaming has been a force all of its own, independent of which genre/period.

My ancients have sat and gathered dust since the demise of DBM (2006/7). Tried a few sets since but there has been no one set to rule them all and so no critical mass has been reached – at least in Australia

I like DBMM – I am a little biased as I am a big fan of its intent – its a big battle set and you shouldn't worry about interaction at the level below the rules level.

I play a lot of Imperium – a Fine set of old style rules that have a few minor innovations, but are still set in the armour and weapon and morale of WRG and its era!

I like the innovation of Dux Brit and Dux Bell, but neither set seems a complete solution …

I think the problem is that most gamers want something – but not all gamers want the same thing all the time.

The only ancients rules I ever understood were DBA. I have played only that but changed with each new version 1 – 1.1 -2.0 – 2.2 and now playing DBA 3 based on the rules in the Yahoo DBA Group files. This is just verging on the too complex for me, but the writing is better and there will be diagrams. This should be the best ancients game for me ever. The Big Battle version or Giant Game will satisfy my desire to put lots of troops on the table.

If Phil had not suffered an injury with pain, and I guess insufficient treatment at the National Health Service (too old perhaps) he would have finished a few months ago. Now Sue is herding the helpers along to wrap up loose ends,

I don't think this is unique to ancients, or even to rulesets. I think there are simply a lot more sculptors, writers, and manufacturers out there than ever before.
So it's a 'golden age' in terms of availability, but the downside is the fragmentation…

I have rules I like. I am willing to look at new rules to see if they offer something I like better.

I don't play tournaments. I play for history and fun.

I started with Shock of Impact, solo. And am still recovering! I don't know that Ancients is truly fragmented, if it is at least the fragments are on speaking terms.

It is true that Ancients no longer has a WAB to do what Flames of War does for WW2. For better or worse pulling in lots of new to the period gamers and offering a popular ruleset. FoG tried but failed to be the new WRG/DBM and provide a universal tournament standard game.

Personally I love the diversity of rules available currently.

It's not rules at all.. it's miniatures/scale/basing. Rules have always been diverse… we here in San Diego played our own fun set of rules in 20/25mm because the WRG was … well anal by comparison back in the 1970's.

"Other" sets of rules have always been around as insular alternatives to the "big" ones… but the key fragmentation occurred when folks bambooozled themselves into playing with 15mm figures (because they could game bigger battles--- then started using less miniatures on bases to represent armies)… that was the big split I remember. Folks who liked to game with individual toy soldiers were left in the dust for about twenty years, because we didn't like the concept of the 15mm "army in a box".

The resurgence of 25-28mm figures created a revisiting of how people wanted to play their ancient miniature games. This occurred at a time when 15mm miniature got better (some by cheating and becoming 18mm, just as true 25mm got aced out by 28mm jumbo and their scale creeping cousins). And there is always a community who prefers tiny 10mm figures and smaller.

All of this created an opportunity for Jervis Johnson to write up his little essay on how to convert the WFB rules to play Romans..and published his points tables and it was ON!! Soon everybody was cooking army lists… it was a fun period for many gamers like me who could dust off our old 25's and start new projects painting 28's.

WE see this trend over and over in ancients… folks are too fickle to *just* play Dark Ages with the popular new set SAGA and already are going bonkers converting it to every known ancient period from cave men to Sumeria to Greeks and Space Aliens… that's what happens. SAGA is clearly a fun skirmish game, but folks like it enough to be wanting to play bigger games… something that is also a common progression.

So part of it is scale-- a skirmish game like SAGA vs something that purports to be a big battle game like FoG or Hail Caesar, or what was in between, WAB and its knock offs, and then the older sets that are still game by devotees, such as Ancient Warrior, and even Armati II.
All of these styles of game have a valid place and vying for tournament or convention space is always a challenge.

Another division in the gaming world is the line between those who prefer to play with large diorama bases, small fixed size elements, and the few who still prefer the toy soldier game with single figure removal.

So those are the tiers of gaming…figure scale, game/battle scale, and base/element/diorama/individual scale. It not 'fragmented' it's diverse and players have plastic figures now, and huge ranges in all scales.

The problem is abundance of choice now, and where to enter. Things have moved a lot since 1999, when there were mostly a few choices-- DBA DBM or DBX… 15mm or don't bother. I prefer today's diversity to the oppression of the idea that ancients meant everything was based on an element of precisely the same size and an army was 21 miniatures… people that love that game can still play it, but I'm happy that its no longer the only game in town. Tournament events are just another style of gaming, they can be as good or as bad as the rules and organizers, and the player themselves determine them to be.
JJonas

Yes things are fragmented but in a good way I think. We are fortunate these days to have such a selection of good rules ….. there's something out there for everyone.

No need to put up with a set of rules you don't like anymore if their not to your taste….then move on to something that is more to your liking.

It's not like the old days I hated having to plough through sheets of amendments handed to you the morning of the first day of a WRG comp ..people wouldn't put up with it these days and so they shouldn't. Didn't have any choice then if you wanted to play ancients….…but we do now :-)

I agree with J.J. regarding the following:

"So those are the tiers of gaming…figure scale, game/battle scale, and base/element/diorama/individual scale. It not 'fragmented' it's diverse and players have plastic figures now, and huge ranges in all scales."

But I would also add much of what is seen as 'fragmentation' may in fact be regionalization. Like many people I normally play with friends or local area groups. When you (or I) live (lived) in a large metropolitan city, the diversity is extreme and nearly every system and rule set can be found in some frequency, most often very nearby.

It wasn't until I moved up to the PNW that I noticed that with a decreased population, was a less diverse group of gamers… regionally speaking. There are still WAB players, but finding someone to play COE can be a little problematic at times for example.

It simply comes down to math I guess… The population of Los Angeles County California is 10 Million. If you add just Orange and San Diego Counties, you have just under 17 million people. Versus the population of the entire state of Washington, which is just under 7 Million.

But even in the PNW, you can find someone, somewhere playing a rules set that you love… You may just have to take a long ride to get there.

I really like HC, and I think it has a lot of potential because it has massive model support for its line. Its a great game that really lets you get out a great pile of models to play with, and its simple enough to introduce to friends in a single game and have them knowing the important rules by the end, and more importantly, wanting to play again.

In my experiance anyway.

I really dont see a lot of DBA around here.

When I started ancient wargaming there was only one ruleset being played by significant numbers, wrg 5th edition. This had advantages and disadvantages.
Most attempts at competing with these rules used very similar mechanisms, so if there was something fundamental you didn't like you had little choice. I hated the long winded reaction tests with incessant recounts if the results were close.
However it did mean everyone spoke the same language, so if for example, you read a magazine wargaming article you had an instant understanding of the terms and you knew it would be relevant.
I left the Society of Ancients when DBM became the lingua franca of the ancient wargaming world as most purely wargaming articles now had little relevance for me. (It's easier to translate an army list from a more complex system to a less complex one than vica versa).
So while there being multiple popular rulesets is great in bringing in more players, and hence more manufacturers, I do miss being able to talk about Reg C LMI LTS, JLS, Sh and everyone knowing what I'm talking about.

Das Sheep, tried HC and not my cup of tea. Much prefer Impetus as a game. And isn't that the point. There are many good games out there. So much to choose from. Frankly, WRG turned me off from ancient gaming so these new options make it more inviting to return.

Everyone who played 7th, wrote their own set of rules. This was the beginning of the fragmentation. Had barker simply listened then to the resentment 7th generated, he might have kept it as the prime mover. However, even Phil moved away from 7th with the advent of DBA. He fragmented ancients by not revising the logarithmic turgidity out of 7th. Once he saw the influx of newer ancients players through DBA, he capitalized on it by converting 7th into DBM. Brilliant game, brilliant marketing ploy that simultaneously divided ancients forever in the U.S. Then he proceeded to destroy DBM with constant revisions until it was unplayable. Sold 7th to diehard math geeks who remark extend it as Warrior; again a Great opportunity at standardization wasted because the new owners were backward looking to the old days of glory rather than making the system appealing and playable to a wider audience. DBMM emerged as what you would expect from an online committee. Then the phase of monied efforts…FOG, etc….that followed the Warhammer business model.

Overall, I cannot see a way to converge the various factions that exist. I would say what we have now is the diversity of success in growing the period, but based upon the failure of multiple opportunities ignored by those that were in a position to continue leading.

"based upon the failure of multiple opportunities ignored by those that were in a position to continue leading."

+1

I loved the lingua franca of WRG 6th edition, I'd go back to playing them tomorrow. The fragmentation of Ancients has killed it at York. I personally don't want to spend 4 hours trying to get my head round a set I've never played before or trying to teach somebody a set they have never played before. It's simply not fun. Here's a York take on the current popular rule sets;

I look at FoG and I think "dull". That's something most York players agree on. I played them for two years or so but they bored me. I wouldn't care if I never played them again. Nice production values though.

Hail Caesar; They look OK but seem to require lots of 25mm figures whereas mine are 15mm though obviously I know 15mm can be used. They look more suited for a full day's gaming a big battle rather than a pick up game at the club with only four and a half hours available.

DBMM; One look at the A4 page of grading factors put me off. I could get along with it OK in DBM and DBR but THIS? You've got to be joking! It just looks like a DBM rehash. Some of the combat factors look a bit odd too.

Impetus; The best of the bunch IMO but it's hard to get opponents in York and the morale rules can be off putting for some people.

There's a general dissatisfaction with what's available so consequently Ancients is no longer played much here other than Saga which most Ancients gamers in York, including me, think are good fun. I miss the big battles though.

If I could, I would buy warrior or DBM and rerelease it as a better version than it ended up. DBM 2.1 is where it should have stopped IMO. Also 7th, like 6th caused headaches after awhile. There are ways to streamline 7th, but sadly it has been decapitated.

The best part of all the wrg products are the fabulous wealth of information in the army lists. Some fanciful, but more than enough good work to sustain them.. Perhaps that is what I miss most about them. Yes yes I know the new stuff has them, and I suspect a little honest plagiarism, but wrg did it first. Perhaps that is why they were the initial leaders…pharaoh could fight equitably with Mongols :)

Another aspect that made ancients vastly more interesting in the early days was the ability to use artistic license with the look of troops. Unlike WW2, we really don't know exactly what everyone looked like. Made for excellent variety. I think the newer stuff dampens that aspect to some degree

Is fragmented necessarily a negative thing? WWII has a plethora of popular rules systems for example such as Battlegroup, FOW, Chain of Command,Rapid Fire, I ain't been shot mum etc etc.Rather than fragmented doesn't it just mean lots of variety which is healthy and keeps interest up for all the different types of players there may be? With Ancients our group of players started with WRG and then went to DBM and now DBMM whioh we really like. Others in Australia stuck to WRG via Warrior and now have gone to FOG and a lot have started with Impetus and Dux so a good base of players involved.I just don't see why you need a 'leader' rule set.You play what you like and/or what those you play with do or want to try.Same for us with Horse and Musket. We have stuck doggedly to WRG but numbers have moved to FOG or La Salle or whatever.More the merrier as long as they are enjoying it!

Fragmentation is both a positive--more diverse approaches means more people finding a rules set they enjoy--and a negative--harder to create a sizable cadre of people to play a particular set. I lament the lack of a unified language and set of reference point for conversation, but I do not lament the passing of languid rules support and overly complicated writing styles.

I was attracted back into ancients by the 28mm eye-candy in the WAB books*. If the WRG rules had never fragmented, and WRG 14th or 15th was the current set, I probably wouldn't have any ancient minis.

*Never did play WAB, though.

Clash of Empires has some very nice 28mm eye-candy!

If I could, I would buy warrior or DBM and rerelease it as a better version than it ended up. DBM 2.1 is where it should have stopped IMO.

I thought each version made DBM a better game… anyway, there have been further developments, first with Richard Bodley Scott's DBM 3.1 in 2005 and then my DBM 3.2 (approved by RBS and eventually agreed by Phil Barker) in 2011. There are about ten DBM competitions each year in Britain, plus a few in the USA and one in Australia – around a hundred DBM competition players altogether.

The process since 3.0 has been democratic. RBS put forward ideas on the DBM Yahoo group, took suggestions on board and then produced 3.1; subsequently I invited proposls and held polls to produce 3.2.

I've tried lots of other rules, notably Armati, Field of Glory and DBMM, and I still think DBM is the best I've played.

I suspect it was inevitable that Ancients would fragment, for the simple reason that no Ancients ruleset can come anywhere near perfectly, or even adequately, achieving what a wargamer in his heart of hearts wants it to achieve, which is furnish a wargame that is a) historically authentic, and b) easily playable.

a) encompasses keeping up with the ever-evolving conclusions (and fashions) of historical research AND being sufficiently detailed to accurately represent the encyclopaedic complexity of the armies of Antiquity (troop types, formations, command structures, tactics, etc. etc.).

b) means a game that is quickly mastered, requires no bookkeeping, minimal flipping through reference sheets, and not too much rules memorisation. The player wants to get the idea in 15 minutes and be concentrating on tactics and not rules in 30.

Impossible!

So every ruleset tries to compromise between the two mutually exclusive demands, catering for the tastes of at least a part of the wargaming spectrum that varies from historians seeing wargaming as a kind of tool of historical research, to the beer and pretzels types just looking to chill and have fun for an hour or two.

There is a solution to the problem, but it needs a separate post….

I'm starting to gain headway with WAB in my university. Most people haven't heard of it… so its nice to bring new people into an old system (I'm running 1.0). It started on a games night with the battle of marathon. The recent success of the 300 films helped to establish an interest.

There is a nasty split though. Tons of people sticking to the oldies , or switching to new systems. The tournament scene seems to be dying, with fantasy games taking over.
What do we do?

Thanks
Austinq

"What do we do?"- Austinq

We Soldier On! With toy soldiers of course! I think what we do is pick a favorite system and encourage it's use while remaining flexible enough to try new things and have one or two other systems which we are familiar enough with to have an enjoyable game with those of other preferences.

As far as 28mm Ancients goes, I am pushing forward with COE. But with that said, both WAB and Hail Caesar have a respected place on my bookshelf!

When it comes right down to it… It's really just about playing games and having fun while pushing around toy soldiers!

I'm still playing WAB for dark ages, am I supposed to have stopped?

I have been looking at the Neil Thomas rules for other ancients games…

And at Coat of Steel for Wotr.

Tried Fog but was bored…

Mike

WRG 6th kept me away from Ancients miniatures until DBA came out!
WRG was too tedious slog through the charts for me.

In my area WAB is pretty dead.
I'm glad that people elsewhere still play.

Sorry for the typo on my name! Hah!

I'm content with soldiering on :) my Persians are thriving so far, I even beat an EIR army with them.

Thanks
Austin

Sorry to be late to the party, but I didn't see this thread until today.

As far as fragmentation goes I think it's actually more remarkable that there was ever a time in which we had anything approaching rules consensuses.

From what I've seen ancients gamers are an individualistic and opinionated lot who will find flaws in anything and usually broadcast them loudly!

On the plus side, when you do find someone with similar tastes to yourself you tend to stick with them, and I think we do all appreciate the effort that others put in, even if we think that our rules of choice give a better game / are truer to history / have nicer presentation / better suit The One True Scale / have a more fully functioning index, etc…

Cheers,
Aaron