"What Replaced WAB?" Topic

As a former Warhammer Ancient Battles player, what ruleset have you replaced it with?

* I still play WAB
* I play (?) instead
* I don't play Ancients any more

Erm… option one rules out being a former WAB player… :-)

I still play WAB

Mike

You're not allowed!
It's no longer supported!!!!

Hail Caesar

War and Conquest

D. Never played it

Impetus

Clash of Empires (COE) by Great Escape Games. A cousin of WAB.

Clash of Empires

Wot's WAB?

DBX/HoTT – none of that modern stuff.

+1 for Hail Caesar.

If it was good enough for the likes of Rick Priestley and the Perry twins, then certainly good enough for me!!

Swordpoint looks to be tempting the oldhand Wabbers

I still play WAB

Hail Caeser!

I still play WAB, great game.

War and Conquest

I picked up CoE as my replacement. Too bad no one plays it around here…

Damon.

War & Conquest
Hail Caesar

CoE is my replacement. D6 Junkie and I have had very satisfying games with Successors v Romans. I like that the Roman pilum is no longer the weapon of mass destruction it used to be in WAB (and actually I am the Roman player).

Still play WAB but now also play Hail Caesar

We've played a few but no clear successor – there is some optimism that KoW Historical might catch on.

WAB 1.5 still is the best version (of WAB) for in period games, especially Dark Ages, IMO.

I've tried CoE, War and Conquest and find the changes did not help my enjoyment all that much, the added complexity of CoE made it drop out of sight locally very quickly, which made it doubly difficult to evaluate.

People made a gallant effort to keep WAB 2 afloat, but I think the massive volumes, expensive and also heavy made that more of an issue. The GW insistence on hard bound giant tomes full of too much visual padding eventually bloated itself out, like a Mongol Nurglian Warlord.
I never enjoyed hefting around WAB2, but WAB 1.5 with one paperback supplement was ok. The other thing is army books… the internet has made this redundant. Rules writers should give out army lists, and keep it basic like the original WAB AoA. (which is still my favorite format-- two pages per army, enough variety. But sadly to many loopholes that were never corrected-- if the loopholes and bad army choices were simply addressed quickly then folks may still be playing WAB 1.5 with a living army list document online)… but I digress…

WAB's current disfavor is that it is a single model style game- in a world where elements are all the rage.

WAB's greatest advantage was when it was 'hooked up' with WFB and a ready crowd of fantasy gamers could see a historical game in progress and realize they could switch over easily with just the investment in models.
Now that is dead, the connection is lost, so WAB style games are part of the past. However just because they are not supported anymore that does not diminish the merits, and of course players are even more encouraged to tinker with the rules to make them their own. That is all I ever did.

Is WAB 1.5 the original rulebook with the update rules (like FBIGO) from the various supplements, or was there another publication I missed?

The thing I loved about WAB were the beautifully painted 28mm armies, the high production values and the imagination applied to the army lists. These got me back into ancients; I never really got to play WAB but bought all the books, anyhow.

It fragmented like Alexanders empire!!

I agree. It hasn't been replaced really. Locally we had a lot of WAB players. Most play other periods instead now. Each of above mentioned games have been played a bit, but not regularly like WAB, and even then it's been with WAB armies rather than collecting new ones.

Dare I say Saga took a big chunk of Ancient/ Medieval enthusiasm, with a bit of Lion Rampant in there as well, at least as far as new army collecting went.

Swordpoint is enjoyable. It's not 'WAB', it's a different type of game, I hope it'll take off locally.

Commands and Colors Ancients with miniatures.

WAB 1.5

Played war and conquest for a good while, but it ended up just being a rounded off version of WAB, which isn't as much fun, so back I went and there I'll stay!

lugal hdan – 1.5 was a re-print of the original rules, but with errata, clarifications and new army lists added to the back of the book for good measure. Best edition by a clear mile.

I hope Swordpoint does well for all parties, but fear it might be another attempt to recreate the good old days of WAB, which instead might just fragment players even further.

Kings of War Historical rules

Another WAB 1.5 player here. It's still my favorite ancients period game system, though I also play Basic Impetus and Impetus.

WAB being out of production certainly doesn't deserve the criticism it gets. That belongs to GW who wrote it off. However, it still has a large following and the rules are almost always available through ebay and other 2nd hand sources, though the follow-on era-specific modules might be a tad pricey.

I would hope that someone might be able to pry the rights to WAB free from GW and put it back into publication, or even convince GW to republish it. The rules really are that good, and the publication values were top of the line too. A good, solid,set of rules and a great deal of supporting data included in one book. Can't beat that for value.

Hail Caesar.

I always thought WAB was nicely put together shame to see it get treated the way it did…didn't deserve that I agree.
Very much an Impetus player these days but any set that gets ancients on the table is fine by me.

I really enjoyed WAB but the guys I game with switched over to Hail Caesar which I don't enjoy as much and I also fell out of favour with the game because of the Byzantine book where the armies listed just seemed to over power armies from any other books.

I tried it, but I just couldn't get into it. Then LOTR came onto the scene and I moved to that. I haven't really looked back since.

Besides, my Arthurian troops fit in just nicely!

I gave up on Ancients after WRG 7th went astray.

DBA 3

Lion Rampant (thank you, Bashytubits!)

SAGA (up and coming after I move)

We still play some WAB. I like Hail Caesar as well. Picked up War and Conquest but have not gotten a chance to play it.

Warmaster ancients, followed soon after by FoG, and now sticking with DBA 3.0

WAB was a lot of fun, but I only got around to painting one army (Hitties), and then not nearly enough chariots.

With DBA, I can knock out a new army in a few weeks, rather than months or years!

Hail Caesar.

Hail Caesar

Hail Caesar

JJartist says : "WAB's current disfavor is that it is a single model style game- in a world where elements are all the rage."
I agree and will never have anything to do with element based rules (too much boardgame approach). But then isn't it funny if you look at the succes of SAGA and Lion Rampant for smaller actions ?

Please include a selection for 'not an Ancients gamer'

Impetus and Commands and Colors. Much to still like about WAB though.