"Best Ancients Rules for 28mm Tournament Play?" Topic

In your opinion, which rules are the best for competition play using 28mm figures?

Rally Round the King. You get 400 points – 200 base army and then 200 more rolled at random.

I played years of WRG Ancients and it was all about building your army for each game. So a player with 4000 points of all the options could hand pick each army for each opponent.

Didn't really show him as a good player as much as a good list builder.

But I'm sure there are plenty of good rules that will be mentioned.

If I ran a tournament where you could build your own army I'd limit it to having to use the same army for each game. Played in one of those with the original Tactica and it worked very well. You played everyone once.

You get 400 points – 200 base army and then 200 more rolled at random.

Well, that raises an interesting question. Are we talking about the most practical, pragmatic ruleset for tournament play, or the one that would be best in an idealised situation where practical hindrances are not an issue? To me, having to randomise half your army composition sounds deeply impractical (kind of like those LotR SBG tournaments wherein each participant has to bring both a good army and an evil army because only good-vs-evil match-ups are allowed) but quite brilliant for the idealised situation.

The basic portion of the army represents the King's personal troops while the random portion is what is raised by his vassals. Great for the campaign system in RRtK.

You're correct, it would cause quite a squeal from the traditionalists.

Impetus, either Basic Impetus or the full set.

Basic Impetus makes a great game, especially for short period tournaments. Full Impetus, using 300 point armies makes a better spectacle, while still keeping it playable within a reasonable time window.

I like it a lot, and it's been popular at the MHWA "Huzzah!" convention here in Maine for 5 years now.

Go with the recently issued Basic Impetus upgrade using 50+ VB points from the Extra Impetus army lists. You get a good clean, elegant battle and you know you you will finish in s reasonable amount of time – two hours at most.

DBA v3.0

If the scale/size of the figures makes any difference at all (which it doesn't but some folk persistently insist it does – because it does to them) then I presume the only dynamic that would affect would be how many soldiers can I carry to an event … so we might be looking at smaller scope games like DBA … (so what MajorB said)

However smaller army size Field of Glory certainly also works well and Basic Impetus is a great game (although I have only played it in 15mm and 10mm) … (so perhaps what 1ngram said and 650 pt FoG-R would be excellent) …

By 28mm, of course, some people seem to mean individually based skirmish-style figures … these are quite tedious to use so I would recommend rebasing them, but I'm sure others will have recommendations that suit.

So, for me: DBA, Basic Impetus and small army (say, 650 points) FoG-R …

Phil

SAGA! So much fun and so few figures.

Impetus basic or full edition.

Christopher

Impetus. What I like about the game is that it has both skill and luck. So it plays more like Backgammon than Chess. On any day any army with any decent player can beat any other army commanded by the best Impetus player. This takes out some of the hubris and harshness of competition play.

Impetus is great for competitions especially for 28s …..so I'll go along with what a few others have said here already. Big thumbs up from me

I would go with Phil's comment that many games work in 28mm.

In the last couple of years I have seen Hail Ceasar, WAB, WRG 6th, WRG 7th, FoG, DBMM and Impetus all run as tournament games in 28mm

To the Strongest. Combines very tight and well defined rules with an easy to read style and fast playing games. In my opinion gives historical outcomes.

I enjoyed Impetus competitions for the reasons given by others, but I think TTS is even better.

SAGA! So much fun and so few figures.

I agree. But not really an Ancients game, is it?

By 28mm, of course, some people seem to mean individually based skirmish-style figures … these are quite tedious to use so I would recommend rebasing them, but I'm sure others will have recommendations that suit.

So I would recommend sabots or movement trays in this instance. Then your figures are good for any game. If you base them for Impetus, then they are good for Impetus. More flexibility with the former. Ymmv.

If you are thinking of RUNNING a tournament, then you need to ask yourself some basic questions.

How much time will you have allotted?
How many rounds do you want to get played?
What size table space will be available?

Remember that you need to allow time BETWEEN games for people to pack up, move to another table and redeploy their troops.

This means that you probably want to use a rule set that is easily (and cheaply) available. To my mind this suggests a DBA version or Basic Impetus (the latter being FREE). Games are relatively quick for both of these rule sets so you can get a number of rounds in.

The table space available may limit the scale of your competition. With my eyes, I no longer game in 15mm . . . but that might well be your best option. But choose a scale that you know is popular in your area.

Finally, if you are looking at a Feudal/Medieval tourney, then I would suggest the new "Lion Rampant" rules (from Osprey).

-- Jeff

Having run and participated in Advanced Impetus 28mm competitions for some years, I recommend them strongly.

Set-up is quick, simple and straightforward. Play is easily resolved. Demands on the umpire are relatively minimal particularly with experienced players.

As Marcus Brutus said earlier, a lot of the hubris and harshness of competition play is removed by the nature of the rules. I cannot stress how important this is when you have new players coming in to their first comp. I had five Impetus newbies this year and it was fantastic to see more experienced players helping them through the process.

For "competition" play? Well, assuming you want to actually play in a "competition", go with what is popular in your area (or conventions you frequent – wherever there are ""). Of course in 28mm. No sense in playing Impetvs if no one plays it in your area.

As for just "rules", all the above mentioned already work well with competition play in 28mm.

Another great option is LADG. They had a decent turn-out at CW from what I hear, and they seem to have a lot of potential. In fact I got my copy last week. Very tight set of rules. Similar play to DBx., but with many little things that make it play different. They can also be played with DBA sized armies all the way up to HUGE FOG/DBMM sized. Imagine that.