"CAESAR versus the MAORI: Improbable Battles in Wargaming" Topic

Very
Armies are as much a function of their enemies as they are of their society and geography.

Agree, nothing gets to me more than match ups between armies chronologically hundreds of years apart.

i would say yes and no, I mainly play DBM where an Egyptian bowmen is the same as a Norman bowmen or a Greek hoplite spearman is the same as a Frankish spear men to a certain extent.
Don't like playing where it's going to outclass the enemy too much, I'm all for a challenge but skythains against a warwaggon or bow army doesn't really work and stops being a game, which its meant to be.

To make it fun there ought to be some rationale. You know, sort of "what if the vikings had sailed down the north American east coast and encountered the Mayans" kind of thing.

That's probably easier for me to justify internally…

John T

In my years of playing Ancients, I would estimate that less than 10% of the games were historical matchups.

I prefer historical matchups (and ideally, historical battles).

So no X-Wings vs. the Enterprise, then? Or Colonial Vipers against Star Furies?

Er…whats a historical matchup?

My WW1 BEF forces have fought the Daleks more often than they've fought the Germans, My Romano-British have had more success fighting hordes of Ogres than they have had against anyone else, and I know for certain that tomorrow several regiments of ECW pike, supported by French knights, will be asked to halt the relentless march of the undead.

I have no problem with this. Indeed I often go out of my way to ensure that it is so.

Much like I once had Orks invade Canada in 1885 through the Stargate.

On second thoughts I might even go so far as to say I avoid historical matchups; I once fought a WSS game which had a sideshow game in the midst of it, in which a daemonicaly possessed knight was running amok on the streets of a town in 18th century France, and a certain time traveller, Who shall not be named, and his companion were attempting to catch and subdue him…

My preference is historical match ups, but will play non-historical for tournaments and pick-up games. I like the opportunity to play ancients battles when I can, so will be flexible to get a game in.

Since warfare didn't change radically from 1500 BC to 1500 AD I see no problem in having hypothetical encounters from across history. This is what makes ancient gaming fun.

I think since games of romano-british vs ogres for example are obviously fantasy it does not really bother anyone.
The problem for most of us is how far we can go and still accept it.
Most of us seem to have no problem enjoying alternate reality games such as "what if" the vikings sailed furthur down the american coastline and fought against the Toltecs but a game of Ramses egyptians vs saxons might not be accepted as this type of egyptian was long gone and if the saxons raided north africa they should be up against arabic egyptians.
1stC.BC rupublican romans against 2ndC.AD germans is probably OK for most of us as we know they did fight and as we cannot collect every roman army we use what we have.
The funny thing is historically correct opponents such as that but with uniform/armour about 100 years apart is OK but 7 years war prussians against napoleonic french is not accepted although they are much closer together in the timeline.
I had more of a problem when i saw a game of 6mm against 15mm at a show last year. They had the same base size so it worked but it disturbed me.

I agree with John T, we play with armies that are relatively around the same time period but could be construed as "what if scenarios". Our play group doesn't have enough armies from the exact same time period to play historical matchups.

This coming weekend I will be playing a game of DBM with my WotR Yorkists against 15th century Samurai. Given his aggression, I have a feeling it will be Edward crossing the Korea Strait. The order has already been issued for No Quarter. To victory!