"Playing Warrior of Rome. But what rules miniatures?" Topic

I am reading the Sidebottom Warrior of Rome books for the second time and I just got soft. I want to battle Romans against Sassanides on the hot battlefields of the east. But what rules and miniatures? For rules the Aurelian seems the best choice. For the miniatures I am so far by A&A in 28mm or Forged in Battle in 15mm. So fewer but expansiver miniaturess in 28mm or cheaper but more in 15mm? At least I want to safe some money ;)
Are the FiB 3rd century Romans the right choice?

Thanks and regards from Germany
Marcel

link

The minis are A&As from Dr Phil Hendry's collection. There's a write-up of the game and an order of battle (sanctioned by the illustrious author himself) in one of the Wargames Soldiers and Strategy editions from late last year.

I haven't played Aurelian but I have played all of the author's other rules sets. While there are some interesting mechanics I don't think the author truly understands the math and probability as there is a certain sameness and predictability to the results. There are a number of recently published rules that are suitable; To the Strongest or Mortem et Glorian would be my choices. Both have unique rules mechanics which, imho, reflect ancient warfare very well, the authors are very accessible and very supportive of the rules and army lists are available for free online and are very well researched and thought out.

I can't comment on 28mm figures as all my ancients are 15/18mm. There are a lot of very nice 15mm ranges including the wonderful Anthony Barton range or Legio Heroica's superb range. Of course stalwarts such as Essex also do a large and very nicely cast range for both parties.

I prefer Late/Patrician Romans for an opponent to the Sassanids but must admit Middle Imperial Romans certainly look cool. I just like having more foederates and hairy barbarian types with my Romans.

28s look great especially when done to the quality of Dr; Hendry's collection but 15s allow you to field more troops on the same size table and increase the spectacle. My Sassannid army has three times as many cavalry as shown in the pic above and when deployed, look the biz.

Either way, you can't go wrong. Both scales have lots of ranges to chose from and lots of very nicely sculpted figures. Its a win/win. Also, by changing the unit composition of the Sassanid army you can have lots of different opponents; Parthians, Middle, Late, Patrician Romans, Early Byzantines, Arab Conquest, Huns to name a few.

As always, you might want to see what others in your area are playing and playing with. Both To the Strongest and Mortem et Gloriam has strong solo playability.

Sorry to be so windy. Hope that helps.

Kent

Some of Aventines' late EIR minis also work well with the A&As…

Been playing Aurelian for about 9 months.

I'd recommend it – the games are fast and furious and you always get a result.

Some pics of my Sassanid army here:

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Harry Sidebottom is also a friend of the rules author – Sam Mustapha.

Barrie
TimeCast

Crusader Miniatures has some very nice 3rd century Roman legionaries. They mix in quite well with the 2nd century Aventines.

Harry is friends with just about everyone! Very clubbable, is Harry. :-)

Thank you all for your answers. I think I will go with FiB. Are the 3rd century Romans okay for Valerian to Aurelian? Can I mix some Lorica Segmentata into scale or mail troops and vice versa?

@BigRedBat: The minis are just awesome. I recognized them from the HC rulebook. I really want to have the OOb for this scenario! I think I use Aruelian, because it is written for this period and has campaign rules. But I might use To the Strongest for my punic armies. I based my 6mm for FoG and my phalanx on one 4 FoG sized bases. How are armies for To the Strongest based?

Regards Marcel

Been playing Sasanian armies for a scarily long time (measured in decades), under a variety of rules. Currently my favourite is DBMM2, and I have them in a variety of scales, from 6mm upwards, all work well, though I find that most rules don't give the Sasanians much chance in 28mm, as they tend to give the advantage to Roman legions in a frontal slugfest. You need a larger table to allow some chance for the Sasanians. Personally, I disagree, but that is how most rules are written.

With their army pack deals A&A can work out fairly cheap for metal. I bought a bundle of Samnites from them last year and it worked out to about 83p per figure.

Aventine also make Sasanians.

Hi Marcel,

Yes all of Dr Phil's lovely minis are based individually and used on sabots. This is very flexible.

For "to the Strongest!", minis can be based in any way that is convenient- people play with minis based for DBx, Impetus, WAB or whatever. This is one of the benefits of the big grid squares. So you should base the minis as you prefer. I personally use large dioramic bases.

Re the third Century- I think you could mix all the different armour types together as it was a time of considerable chaos! Mind you, they probably mixed the armour types even in less volatile times.