"Favorite rules for Greeks vs Persians" Topic

What's your favorite rule-set for Greek vs Persian battles? To clarify, I mean "favorite" as in (1) fun, and (2) allowing the unique strengths and weaknesses each army to be employed in battle. Any scale. Historical conclusions are an afterthought. ;)

Armati 2, for Greeks vs Persians and Greeks vs Greeks.
Usually a see saw battle.

The best rules for fun and flexibility, for me, are Hail Caesar and To The Strongest.

And they both give reasonable historic results.

Basic Impetus (augmented with rules for evasion). We've been fighting the ancient world from Alexander onwards for the past several years at the club with these rules and using Sabin's Empire game as our strategic nbackground. Thoroughly enjoyable.

I am looking forward to the new ancients set from Westwind .

I think people need to explain why their favourite rules work for Persians v Greeks, otherwise this is just posting my favourite set of ancients rules.

Yesthatphil used AMW for an SOA Battleday a few years back. You can follow his reasoning and what he did over on his SOA on the Move blog: link

Recent conversations with Phil have revolved around doing the battle with flats and DBA 3, although exactly why I'm not sure yet.

I've done a few Persian v Greek games using AMW & Armati. Any game system has to get right the balance between archery effect and movement. Can the hoplites cover the ground to the Persian line before they get shot to bits.

Most recently I did a Croesus v Cyrus game using Armati which looks at some of the issues and where Aramti has strengths and weaknesses: link

The issue often with Armati is the so-called crap-shoot with the archery. However that might be just what you need for this type of game as it keeps things in the balance and players wondering.

I wouldn't use Hail Caesar because although it gives a "fun game" in the eyes of some it has nothing to do with ancient warfare. It's just an excuse to put toys on the table and roll dice.

I'm using Hail Caesar Rules.

Take care

Andy

The rules need to model the effects of archery and of shock, plus the pavises used by the Persians.
We've refought Plataea many times, with WRG 6th, DBM, DBMM, Field of Glory, Neil Thomas AMW, Sword & Spear, and To the Strongest.
All of those rules did a good job of simulating the battle.

Impetus really captures the differences between the two sides. The Greek infantry is quite formidable being two stand units but the Persian fire power and number of units makes for challenging games. Basically the smaller, more dense Greek army tries to break a part of the Persian army before it is overwhelmed.

As a former Armati player the big problem I have with the rules is that the rigid command and control leads to games being very similar. One of the aspects of Impetus I most like is that it creates some of the command limitations in Armati without the rigid C&C restrictions. Every game in Impetus is unique.

There is easy fast play set of rules for the Battle of Marathon on www:Juniorgeneral.org, that gives the feel for the period of back and forth.

I played Marathon and Plataea using AMW and craftees figures. I felt both games gave a good result. The Hoplites were tough nuts to crack, swarms of missile fire and flanking assaults by cavalry were the only ways to thwart the Greeks. The Persian infantry typically got buzzsaw once in Melee.

@Trebian: Great link! I really liked read the blog author's thought process behind how he would approach the battle.

I would agree with the consensus here. Armati does do well, if rather formulaic. AMW seems like it could work, especially using the enhanced Persian infantry armour. Not sure about To the Strongest, and Sword and Spear simply cannot really reproduce Marathon in my experience.

The DBx system is pretty crap at actually simulating the prolonged and delicate struggle of hoplite vs sparabara at Plataea, and the archery in DBx is pretty well nerfed once the Greeks get close. Ironically due to the prevention of concentrating fire in ZoC, long range bowfire is more effective than close range bowfire, something that is thoroughly and inter-galactically broken in DBA.

The other thing DBx gets utterly wrong is the attrition effect of the Persian close-in cavalry work at battles like Plataea, where hoplites unused to mass cavalry formations had a really tough slog against committed Persian cavalry.

The one thing I did like about DBx was the ease of moving, the command and control system, and the frequently interesting battlefields under v3.

But for Greeks vs Persians (not Alexander) it is pretty well crap.

Great stuff. Thanks all!

I have Armati 2 already, I'm glad to read it does a good job for this period.

I think you will find Moogie that Armati 2 wears quickly. The system is pretty dull. On the other hand, if you find the games go well and you enjoy it then the upside is that Armati is probably one of the best written rules sets out there. Conliffe is thorough in his presentation and the rules are comprehensive (I don't think we ever found a situation where the rules didn't cover it.)

Good food for thought Marcus, thanks.