aapch45 | 27 Feb 2015 6:08 p.m. PST |
If I were to buy into an ancients/dark ages game, and only had about $150 USD to do it, and I needed the rules, and both sets of armies, what would it be? Model count? Scale? Let me know Thanks Austin |
nnascati | 27 Feb 2015 6:12 p.m. PST |
1/72nd plastics from your local hobby shop. Huge variety of ancient sets. Rules, I believe Basic Impetus is available for free. Depends on what you want from rules. Older versions of DBA may be out there for free. |
D6 Junkie | 27 Feb 2015 6:20 p.m. PST |
I agree 1/72 plastic, you can do wonders with the minis. For rules Basic Impetus or Neil Thomas Ancient Rules. link
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Maddaz111 | 27 Feb 2015 6:23 p.m. PST |
DBA – Dux Brittaniarum Dux Bellorum all three are good games… but simulate different types of battles… you can play them in fifteen mil… which is way cheaper than 28mm soldiers.. (not as pretty.. but works on a smaller table) If I knew what you wanted.. I could come up with a better shortlist of what you could buy… plastics (soft type ones) can also be pressed into use.. and they can be real cheap. a Macedonian / Persian army set from hat and a set of DBA rules plus a cloth and a bit of terrain will give you some hours of fun… |
aapch45 | 27 Feb 2015 6:27 p.m. PST |
My room mate and I enjoy 2 distinct periods in warfare: Polybian/Camillan Roman warfare and Late Roman warfare (barbarians at the gates type stuff, like chalons etc) Does DBA do a good job representing these types of warfare? Thanks Austin |
aapch45 | 27 Feb 2015 6:28 p.m. PST |
Aren't 1/72s hard to paint? |
D6 Junkie | 27 Feb 2015 6:49 p.m. PST |
Nope. Originally I wanted to run an ancients game at a convention but lived in fear of all my spears being broken by grubby gamers so I gave 1/72 minis a tryout. Here is my test TMP link |
Rebelyell2006 | 27 Feb 2015 7:01 p.m. PST |
You can go to a craft store like Hobby Lobby or Michaels and buy a matte finish or matte medium, for example Liquitex is $15 USD and the bottle will never run out. That protects the paint. A bottle of gesso from the same craft store will cost the same and last just as long. That will provide a good primer for holding the paint. You're looking at quite an expenditure up front with that, but you won't need to buy any more for the next 10 years (only because they will dry out by that point). Or you could prime with a $5 USD spray can of black paint and seal with a $5 USD spray can of a matte finish from ACE Hardware or Walmart, but in my experience campus police do not like catching people with spray cans. |
McWong73 | 27 Feb 2015 7:21 p.m. PST |
Yeah, DBA is the way to go for Polybian/Punics. In 15mm you'd have everything you need to go, and then some. |
nnascati | 27 Feb 2015 7:27 p.m. PST |
I'd recommend priming with Krylon Fusion, its made ot adhere to plastic. And really, painting with acrylics there is no chipping problem. |
nnascati | 27 Feb 2015 7:30 p.m. PST |
Austin, Email me, I have some things I can share with you. nnascati@gmail.com Nick |
elsyrsyn | 27 Feb 2015 8:35 p.m. PST |
On a tight budget, I'd probably still go with 6mm minis. You certainly get an army that looks more like an army for the price than with the larger scales. But 1/72 plastics would be my second choice. Doug |
aapch45 | 27 Feb 2015 8:39 p.m. PST |
What 6mm supplier would you suggest? Thanks Austin |
aapch45 | 27 Feb 2015 8:47 p.m. PST |
also, would 1/72s be good for WAB. I completely forgot I have the WAB 1 book Thanks Austin |
McWong73 | 27 Feb 2015 9:21 p.m. PST |
They would work fine. Just bear in mind that 1/72 plastics are one of those things where beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I much prefer the quality you can find in 15mm than the incredibly random quality of the sculpts in 1/72. |
Extra Crispy | 27 Feb 2015 9:45 p.m. PST |
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williamb | 27 Feb 2015 9:54 p.m. PST |
for 6mm rapierminiatures.co.uk or baccus6mm.com Baccus has Scale Creep Miniatures as a US dealer. both are fully compatible with each other. Both have the same proportion of command figures. I prefer Rapier's pose for the Republican Romans plus they are about 10% less expensive. Rapier also sells them with fewer figures per pack so there will be fewer excess figures for a DBA 3.0 size army. There are quite a few free sets of ancient rules on the internet. Search for free wargame rules. Wargames Research Group has some of their older rule sets available for free also. |
Privateer4hire | 27 Feb 2015 11:36 p.m. PST |
Another thought is a boardgame that folks sometimes expand into miniatures: Commands & Colors Ancients. You get wooden blocks to represent the two opposing armies and can gradually replace the units with minis and possibly the board with 3d terrain on mats. YMMV. link link link |
Bashytubits | 27 Feb 2015 11:52 p.m. PST |
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KTravlos | 28 Feb 2015 7:03 a.m. PST |
Either 1.72 plastics and DBA or Basic Impetus or Pendraken 10mm and DBA, Basic Impetus , Mighty Armies or even Hail Ceasar. But any of the suggestion work. 15mm is not expensive either if you do DBA |
Green Tiger | 28 Feb 2015 7:05 a.m. PST |
No 1:72 not hard to paint, just need a good scrub first. When I was doing teacher training I did DBA Romans and Gauls for about £5.00 GBP… |
davbenbak | 28 Feb 2015 8:58 a.m. PST |
Neil Thomas' AMW is not cheap. However, his "Wargaming: An Introduction" is pretty reasonable. It uses less figures too and features several other eras like shot and pike, horse and musket, WW II. I think his Romans v.s. Barbarian rules work pretty well. You could easily play any of the eras with 1/72 plastics for less that $100 USD investment. I often do. I've got three young kids, a mortgage and car payments. Seems like I had more money back when I was in college! |
Citizen Kenau | 28 Feb 2015 10:55 a.m. PST |
I second 1/72 plastics but you might want to compare prices with 10mm, which might be even cheaper, looks nearly as good and gives you a relatively bigger table which usually makes for more interesting games. |
20thmaine | 28 Feb 2015 11:22 a.m. PST |
To go with the flow – DBA or in fact any other ruleset – and 1/72nd scale plastics is a really good option. DBA + 1 box Casear Lybians + 1 box HaT Nubians and you have two armies.
Maybe a bit dull being all foot, virtually all warbands, but that'll have set you back about £15.00 GBP – which is around $20. USD You can add more interesting armies as you feel like it. Or go the non-DBA route and build a couple of larger armies for maybe $25 USD per army. The plastic figures are no harder to paint than any other figure. I undercoat in thinned PVA glue and then carry on from there as normal. Use acrylics. No problem. At price per figure you'd have to go below 15mm to be cheaper in metal. So it's not really a question of metal or plastic it's more what scale you'd like to game in. |
Bobgnar | 28 Feb 2015 12:10 p.m. PST |
Sue Laflin-Barker's new book on Start Ancient Wargaming is just what you need. link $23 USD for the book which explains how to make DBA armies out of plastic figures, how to paint them, make terrain, set up an play a game. She creates 2 armies from 3 boxes of plastic figures. All this seems well within your budget. |
KTravlos | 28 Feb 2015 1:28 p.m. PST |
A note for 1/72. Whether it is cheap or not it depends on the army. Armies with many types of troops can get more expensive. 15mm and 10mm can avoid this. But DBA will be within your budget whatever the choice. Even 28mm is doable. |
20thmaine | 28 Feb 2015 2:33 p.m. PST |
Fortunately HaT have produced a few army boxes from their existing sets with everything needed for a DBA army (or potentially a core force under other rules) : Theban :
Assyrian :
(I love this tribute to the 1960s style Airfix boxes!) Coming (eventually!) :
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CATenWolde | 28 Feb 2015 3:02 p.m. PST |
If you like Late Roman warfare, then I strongly suggest looking into the Dux Britanniarum rules from Too Fat Lardies, and using Splintered Light 15mm figures instead of 28mm figures. You can easily pick up the rules, the starting armies (less than 40-50 figures per side), your first reinforcements (maybe a dozen figures per side will cover you for a long time), and even some terrain (like the village from Peter Pig) for the sum you have in mind. Cheers, Christopher |
Sobieski | 28 Feb 2015 7:11 p.m. PST |
I went the 6mm route for ancients while I was a student. I've switched now, but I think it was the right choice at the time. |
Jeff of SaxeBearstein | 01 Mar 2015 4:20 a.m. PST |
What size of a playing surface will you have access to? This can be a deciding factor as to the size of your figures. With a smaller surface size you need a smaller scale. If you can go with 1/72 plastics that is great. The flaking problem was mostly due to people painting with enamels (which are very hard) and they could flake off when the soft plastic flexed. Personally I would not suggest going any smaller than 15mm figures (and I now find those too small with my aging eyes). To fix this, give it a priming coat and a finishing sealing coat. In between use acrylic paints . . . hint -- look in "dollar"-type stores for inexpensive "craft paints". They come in much larger bottles and cost much less than "hobby paints" with almost the same quality. Finally as to rules . . . "DBA" does provide a good game and doesn't need a very large playing surface. (note that I have not seen the new 3.0 version). "Basic Impetus" is free and I certainly suggest your giving it a read: link It and all of its army lists are free as well. Should your interest turn to Feudal/Medieval warfare, I would recommend Osprey's new "Lion Rampant" rules. Enjoy yourselves! -- Jeff
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Baccus 6mm | 01 Mar 2015 9:58 a.m. PST |
Amidst all this love for 1/72 plastics can I put a few words of support in for 6mm? The armies are cheap and the figures plentiful. Where you use a handful of big figures to represent a unit, in the same Base footprint you can pack in loads of the little chaps and have armies that look like armies and not like rather weedy skirmish lines. Despite the rumours, 6mm are both easy and quick to paint. It is quite possible to get an army of several hundred figures painted and ready to use in a couple of weeks. They can be used with any rules set and are particularly useful for games like DBA where you only have a few units in play at any one time. In terms of the OP's original conditions can I suggest you have a look here. link Scroll down to the SPQR boxed set. Two armies, rules, scenics and all required bases for £95.00 GBP. That's around 1000 infantry, cavalry chariots and bolt throwers. Not bad, eh? |
20thmaine | 01 Mar 2015 3:02 p.m. PST |
That's a good setup – and 6mm have the bonus of taking up less space, which could be a factor. |
miniatureperday | 01 Mar 2015 3:37 p.m. PST |
While I am a huge fan of plastic figures, I think there might be something to 6mm, 10mm and 15mm in metal for aapch45's goals. Or if he does want to do dark ages, you could even make an argument for 28mm in plastic supported by some metals here and there. Jeff of SaxeBearstein raised an excellent point in talking about paints. Craft store and dollar store paints will certainly work and are a fine way to go when starting out. Brushes can be another matter. Cheap and good is hard to come by. I'd probably recommend embracing cheap to start and worrying about getting good brushes later. While I have some nice kolinsky sables that still have a perfect point after hundreds of miniatures, I learned with cheap packs of synthetic brushes and worked around tip curl when it happened. Small synthetic flats and filberts are good for a lot of base coating even after the tip is bad because you can use the edge of the brush on any surface that's not too deep. aapch45, do you already have paints and brushes and stuff? |
Mister Tibbles | 02 Mar 2015 5:30 a.m. PST |
You can't buy sable brushes right now due to some stupid laws. i was going to suggest 10mm based for 20mm x 40mm. Pendraken make nice Romans. Bsrbsrians are the ecpensive army, do civil war would be cheaper. Rules are a personal thing. |
miniatureperday | 02 Mar 2015 2:08 p.m. PST |
So it looks like despite not being endangered, the species of sable got added to a list where you need the certification from both the country of origin for the fur and the country of origin for the re-manufacturing of brushes. It's not illegal to buy them or to import them, but simply that the brush manufacturers do not have the necessary documentation in place. If someone buys brushes made in China, containing hair from weasels in Russia and then sells them from the UK, the US wants them to get certification that the weasels hair is legit from all three countries. Yikes. Being in Canada, I don't have to deal with this crazy bureaucracy of certification from multiple nations of origin. |
ochoin | 02 Mar 2015 3:36 p.m. PST |
Plastics, again. link link Everything scratch built. Cheap as frys. |
20thmaine | 02 Mar 2015 3:41 p.m. PST |
Wow – that is so beautiful ! Much praise should be yours! |
20thmaine | 02 Mar 2015 5:33 p.m. PST |
Another thought – very cheap but you have to be the right kind of person for them : hair roller armies link |
williamb | 02 Mar 2015 9:26 p.m. PST |
With 6mm figures a full Consular army including cavalry could be made for about $50 USD link |
swammeyjoe | 08 Mar 2015 12:23 a.m. PST |
I love DBA for some periods but sadly Polybian Roman is one of its weaker points. Its at a very high scale which makes it hard to get any real flavor from the period, and the interaction between Pike and Legion could be better (pike will almost always line up far deeper compared to blades than in real life). But on a college budget it is a good start to the period. And it does work pretty great for Legion vs Warband scenarios. |
HarryHotspurEsq | 08 Mar 2015 4:24 a.m. PST |
I have to throw my hand in for wee scale metals too. The armies here are 6mm, reenacting Raphia ( 217BC ) . Still a very cheap option for a nice looking game – link Or, if that's too small, how about Dux Bellorum in 10mm? link |
balticbattles | 09 Mar 2015 2:43 p.m. PST |
I would keep half a mind what scale and period you want to play long term, and get a small setup you can expand into that later. i.e. don't get 6mm just because they're cheap, get them because you like them. If it was me, I would be getting DBA or Basic Impetus, and as many armies in 15mm with 4 figures to a 40mm stand a I could. (or possibly 6 or 10mm) But that is becuase I like to paint medium to small scales and I like variety in my games, I'd rather have a number of small armies than 2 large ones, and I like to play whole battles not skirmishes. |
monger | 10 Mar 2015 5:41 a.m. PST |
I am going to school and I am doing DBA and ADG (those silly NEW rules from France ;) With the number of figs involved ANY army combination would work. Oh… Basic Impetvs as well. |