Theophanes | 07 Apr 2016 4:05 a.m. PST |
Hi lads: That´s my question! Most of the pictures of battlereports of Ancient wargames I´ve seen here and in other sites, no matter scale or rules, are played on unpleasant battlefields…why? |
Temporary like Achilles | 07 Apr 2016 4:17 a.m. PST |
Lagartija Mike? Is that you? |
idontbelieveit | 07 Apr 2016 4:51 a.m. PST |
"Most" (to use your word) ancients games seem to be driven by tournament rules. For tournaments you want maximum flexibility and portability, and that seems hard (but not impossible) to combine with nice looking terrain. |
Allen57 | 07 Apr 2016 4:57 a.m. PST |
Terrain seems less important in ancients games since the troops lend themselves to open uncluttered terrain. |
YogiBearMinis | 07 Apr 2016 5:14 a.m. PST |
Many ancients players are "tournament" oriented rather than scenario players (playing rulesets like DBx or the like), and as a result play more pickup games where terrain is randomly placed rather than being modeled. The sheer variety of armies ancients/medieval players have mitigates against a lifelike collection of terrain like you see with Nappy or ACW players. Obviously, this is not true for all, but it is true for enough players that it affects what you see. |
Martin Rapier | 07 Apr 2016 5:33 a.m. PST |
And as noted above, many real Ancients battles were fought on featureless plains, for very practical reasons. Featureless plains tend to be a bit dull on the eye irl too. |
Green Tiger | 07 Apr 2016 5:48 a.m. PST |
"Unpleasant" in what way? |
79thPA | 07 Apr 2016 5:53 a.m. PST |
What is "unpleasant" about them? |
Costanzo1 | 07 Apr 2016 6:03 a.m. PST |
Because ancients players and rules come from WRG school, where attention was in army list and competition. The camp was built schematically. I think it was one of the worse parts of wargaming. |
Patrick R | 07 Apr 2016 6:13 a.m. PST |
Armies seldom liked to give battle on unfavourable terrain, we see one side digging into a "perfect position" only to see the others refuse to do battle and stay in camp. That doesn't mean that using terrain didn't happen. Generals loved to anchor and secure one or both flanks with some terrain feature like a river or a hill, but having a hill or some feature right in the middle of your battlefield tends to be disruptive for both sides. You have to start moving around it and since most ancient formations worked best in flat open terrain. |
PHGamer | 07 Apr 2016 6:54 a.m. PST |
Ancients tend to have multiple figures on rectangular stands and require precision measurements for being in/out of charge range. With realistic terrain, your stands are constantly sliding around on their own, and break up the formations you are trying to maintain. So flat terrain it is. |
PHGamer | 07 Apr 2016 6:56 a.m. PST |
When your tanks can shoot 32 inches, it doesn't matter much if it slides to 31.5 inches. When your Javelin's range is 1 inch, short range bow is 2 inches, the difference between 1 and 1.5 is significant. |
Nick Bowler | 07 Apr 2016 6:56 a.m. PST |
This is my pet peeve, and there is no reason for it. Yes, many battlefields were flat. But there could be a road, river, village etc. And many, many battlefields had terrain -- the number of river crossings, battles at passes, battles over hills was really very high. But, no matter what, a bit of brown felt with 3 trees doesn't look good as a wood. For some reason ancients players just cant be bothered modelling terrain. And the rules that are common don't help -- most don't encourage building terrain along with armies. |
GarrisonMiniatures | 07 Apr 2016 6:59 a.m. PST |
Lawnmowers hadn't been invented yet? |
mwindsorfw | 07 Apr 2016 7:27 a.m. PST |
From what I've read, the armies tended to fight on broad, flat plains. Where battles were fought in rougher terrain, it seems that one or both sides were surprised. I'm sure there are many exceptions to this, however. |
Khusrau | 07 Apr 2016 7:46 a.m. PST |
PHGamer has it. And nicely modelled terrain is useless when you can't stand your figures in it. |
Rich Bliss | 07 Apr 2016 7:46 a.m. PST |
Broad Flat Plains? Check out Cynocephalae or Pydna. |
Decebalus | 07 Apr 2016 8:23 a.m. PST |
If you look at the room about Rome at Tactica Hamburg 2016 you see, there is no reason, that ancient terrain has to be unpleasant. I think even the simple DBA tables here are better than usual. link |
jeffreyw3 | 07 Apr 2016 9:15 a.m. PST |
I don't know if "tournament games" is the complete explanation. There are some beautiful Saga warbands from the Adepticon pics, but the boards are pretty featureless and/or with abstract terrain. On the other hand, the FOW room at the last Hurricon had some amazing layouts, and prompted me to buy two Cigar Box mats. Shrug. |
Who asked this joker | 07 Apr 2016 9:30 a.m. PST |
I'm guessing he means "basic." Fighting in heavy terrain during ancient times usually was hazardous unless you had a lot of light troops and loose order auxiliaries. DBx…no tournament games in general…often feature basic terrain because it is easy to setup and tear down quickly. As already stated, terrain is not as important in the ancient eras as it is in other eras. |
Theophanes | 07 Apr 2016 9:49 a.m. PST |
Leaving aside the linguistic jokes that make me remember a taxi driver in London who could not understand how I said ¨Picadilly Circus, please¨ I´ve seen FoW and other competititve tournaments with good tables and terrain. If we need less terrain features playng ancients, we can invest more time (or money) in them, isn´t it? |
PHGamer | 07 Apr 2016 10:47 a.m. PST |
I think the price point of an ancients army is higher, as well as the investment in time for painting. The smallest army I can think of is around 80 figures, but they tend to average 200 or more. That is a lot of painting. I have knocked out FOW armies in a day or two. For ancients that could be months. |
MajorB | 07 Apr 2016 11:19 a.m. PST |
The smallest army I can think of is around 80 figures, but they tend to average 200 or more. DBA only needs 12 elements with up to 4 figures on each. |
nochules | 07 Apr 2016 11:43 a.m. PST |
For SAGA, setting up the terrain is part of the game. So you need terrain that is easy and quick to place and move. FOW generally uses preset terrain on the table, so you can spend more time making it look nice. |
StCrispin | 07 Apr 2016 12:07 p.m. PST |
i dont have pictures, but I play saga at home on lovely terrain! its a skirmish game, so a little easier. though most ancient battles take place on more open terrain, there is no reason that they need not look good. just take a look at the pics in the hail Caesar rules. the Perrys have an amazing layout for all their games. for me, the visual enjoyment is the main reason I game. nice figures on a nice table. im not very competitive, so I like the asthetics of it all. |
jdginaz | 07 Apr 2016 12:58 p.m. PST |
I call BS on the excuse that ancients players don't have nice terrain because the stands slide around on it. I have lots of nice terrain that I've used for ancient games and don't have problems with slipping. |
Who asked this joker | 07 Apr 2016 1:00 p.m. PST |
DBA only needs 12 elements with up to 4 figures on each. Indeed. The largest army I can think of in DBA is the Spartans. I think 11X4Sp and 1 7Hd. 51 figures in total. That was in 2.2. Not sure how/if the list has changed in 3.0. |
PHGamer | 07 Apr 2016 1:15 p.m. PST |
DBA is designed to be a very simple fast Ancients game with minimal outlay and footprint. My normal Warrior 7th army has 192 figures. We muster units that can have more figures than a whole DBA army. Last nights army was 131 figures. My Swiss Army at Cold Wars was 160. |
MajorB | 07 Apr 2016 1:20 p.m. PST |
DBA is designed to be a very simple fast Ancients game with minimal outlay and footprint. My normal Warrior 7th army has 192 figures. We muster units that can have more figures than a whole DBA army. Last nights army was 131 figures. My Swiss Army at Cold Wars was 160. And your point is? |
Nick Bowler | 07 Apr 2016 1:38 p.m. PST |
My FOW Soviet army has 200+ figures. Figures aren't the reason. |
timurilank | 07 Apr 2016 3:15 p.m. PST |
Theophanes wrote: "Most of the pictures of battlereports of Ancient wargames I´ve seen here and in other sites, no matter scale or rules, are played on unpleasant battlefields…why?" link From a test game.
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Shedman | 07 Apr 2016 3:48 p.m. PST |
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evilgong | 07 Apr 2016 5:04 p.m. PST |
Ancient armies can be quite different in composition. An army might be filled with hill-men armed with pointy sticks and bad attitude, or nomad horse-archers, or elephants or heavy chariots, etc, etc. Each will have a geography they like and one they'd rather avoid. No point sending good cavalry up steep wooded hills filled with jungle-fighters. So any pick-up game will need a mechanism that gives armies a chance to generate terrain that at least party matches what their army wants. Or not if dice prove unkind. (Contrast with, say western European Napoleonics where each side has broadly similar troop types) One you have a mechanism of player-generated terrain and a diverse palette of possible enemies, the players may want to bring a box of terrain to match. I'm guessing any real or perceived lack of quality on ancients games, and I'm not sure it's any better or worse than other eras, might be due to players needing to bring a wide selection of terrain items geared for utility and ease of transport. I note that at our club games, it's common, regardless of era, that people bring more, twice or even triple the volume of terrain boxes compared with troop boxes. Regards David F Brown |
ochoin | 07 Apr 2016 6:21 p.m. PST |
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Theophanes | 08 Apr 2016 1:42 a.m. PST |
Greeeat!! At least my message has caused that you show some wonderful tables :) :) !! |
maverick2909 | 08 Apr 2016 10:00 a.m. PST |
The problem is terrain and terrain placement is such a critical point in most ancients rules. Compare it to FoW. There is essentially two types of terrain in FoW, terrain I will only send my infantry into and terrain where I will send any unit into (tanks/gun teams). Contrast that with DBM and an army where 90% of my units don't want to go into rough going, it makes a huge difference what kind of terrain is placed. This is further exasperated by the rules themselves. DBM has very strict rules on placing terrain and every game I have played the placing of terrain is taken very seriously. Contrast that with the FoW games I have played where both players start throwing out roads, trains, wheat fields, agreeing on what looks cool, possibly setting up a city fight, etc. I believe this is the real difference. The terrain for DBM plays such a critical part depending on the army because of the nature with which different unit types interact differently with terrain. But now you're asking, how does this relate to 'ugly terrain'. Well if the terrain has a major effect on your army, and there are precise rules with which you are required to place terrain, this usually leads to a player bringing a bin of their own home grown terrain to match what works best with their army. I know I am guilty of this. For my Picts I have created 3 rough going terrain features slightly under 10", and 3 rough going hill features slightly under 10" so in the case of me defending, I can place 6 blobs of roughly 10" circles, and unless my opponent is also Ax(X) there is no way in hell he stands a chance. The blobs of terrain aren't impressive, something I thew together in a few hours. Contrast all this with my FoW Soviets. I have tons of terrain for them and its all of pretty nice quality. Now none of this is to say you can't have nice terrain in an ancients game, however given the current circumstances it has become the exception not the rule. |
Syrinx0 | 08 Apr 2016 3:59 p.m. PST |
ochoin, yours are definitely not ugly. You ever post a description of how you built that board? The water is fantastic. |
pilum40 | 20 Apr 2016 3:59 p.m. PST |
Ugly? My game table and game house definitely are not ugly. Here's a link… link |
Gunnar | 22 Apr 2016 10:34 p.m. PST |
Anyone claiming ancients games have to be played on a featureless kitchen table are either living in the past, stuck in a tournament mindset, or severely lacking in imagination and creativity. I play a lot of ancients games, most of them using nice terrain.
Even when there's a flat plain involved it's not necessarily ugly.
I think there's this old idea floating around that ancients are very serious business dealing with detailed geometrical movement, and that beautiful terrain just gets in the way. While everyone takes pleasure from different things, my take on it is that nice-looking terrain adds tremendously to any game – ancient or not. |
lugal hdan | 29 Apr 2016 2:38 p.m. PST |
It's ironic that the DBA rulebook actually contains the text: Since so little time is needed to paint DBA armies and the playing area is so small, players should invest time and ingenuity in making their terrain as visually attractive as their troops. (quoted without permission) …yet is the rule set most stereo-typically plagued by unattractive terrain. My games aren't anywhere close to the beauty of the tables in this thread. They do give me something to strive for though! |
JJartist | 30 Apr 2016 12:19 p.m. PST |
For every action there is an equal and opposite over reaction. Of course a decent presentation is nice to have in a miniature game is nice--- it is part of the art of the game. The highest goal is to have a miniature and physical game that looks like a "Diorama in motion" to paraphrase the late Charles Grant. But-- custom tables for every game are a rare dream- and certainly competition games makes this even more unlikely. Also it is a fact that the majority of Classical ancient battles within the areas we rather blatantly call "civilized" were rather bland and purposely featureless. again that's not an excuse to be bland--- it's an excuse to dress it up as much as one can. But terrain is adverse in most classical games-- towns were rarely fought through. Large hills were not commonly featured--- but could. Bridges and fences were not battled over like at Antietam--- such a battle is so rare-- it happens but is extremely uncommon and often more of a skirmish. The problem is that once you've made that grand Cynoscephlae table top--- you get one or two games with it.. then it gets stored in the garage and by the time you haul it out again it's trashed and gashed, dusty and musty…. start over… So I feel that people do what they do to make their games work… similarly to games like Command and Colors Ancients… geomorphic terrain is more practical. I once witnessed a game of Issus where the fellow had made a very great effort to make a tabletop-- but had kind of made the ridges along the river cliffs that looked like Point Du Hoc…. so I applaud the effort, but the result made for a strange looking game as one had to mentally reduce the vision of phalangites having to grapple up the escarpments….. and that's the rub… battles just were not fought over escarpments and towns--- or even often in woods…. these features are on the fringes in most ancient battles. Camps even though almost always close by are very rarely part of the battlescape as well as armies are more often defeated before there is any threat to a camp…. not always but most of the time. I must say that modern gamers are certainly blessed by the most ubiquitous array of lovely products to help…. I just got my 8x4 gridded mat from The Big Red BatCave Studio-- and I am most impressed. link These kinds of mats go a long way to fill in the visual background, with just a varied foundation-- and there are so many varieties coming out. I find it amusing that folks often complain about the featureless ancient games they see-- the main terrain feature of an ancient game is actually the troops! They are what you have to overcome… unless you are doing the Battle of the Crimissus! But a lot of that is also understanding the different geographic patterns of areas--- since Sicily is a lot more choppy that Italy-- river battles are far more common. River battles are almost non existent in Greece, etc…. Anyway-- all that being said it is always nice to try one's best to put on a good looking game… and there certainly is an industry of products supporting that now, making for less excuses than ever. |