"Choosing the two best armies to game with" Topic

If you were trapped on a well provisioned desert island with another wargamer and could only have two armies to fight with, which two armies would you never get tired of looking at and playing different scenarios with?

Great question.
2nd Punic War- Republican Romans and Carthaginians. However I probably would tire of them as I am always into new periods and armies.

Probably 2nd Punic War. With the Carthaginian army you can have a little of everything: elephants, Numidians, Gauls, Spanish, citizen hoplites, etc. I'm pretty sure I'd tire of them and would probably start making a Macedonian army out of coconut husks and clam shells at some point.

Later Achaemenid Persian and Alexandrian Macedonian lots of different troops and at a pinch we could mix the armies up for early Asian successors to.

Mycenaeans and Hittites. Chariots are the sports cars of the Ancient world.

Punic War for me, as well.

Republican Romans vs Successor Army.

Agree with PROTR. Also Early Persians and Greeks

Early Imperial Romans and Barbarians – you can switch and swap

Late Romans & barbarians

Well, my go-to army are city state Greeks. Who doesn't like Hoplites smacking around other Greeks and Persians?

But, for this I'll go with the flow, Romans and Barbarians allow a lot of mix and match.

I don't care what armies there are, so long as I get to choose the other gamer.

A plug for Hittite Empire and New Kingdom Egyptians circa Kadesh…with a +1 for gaming opponent of choice.

Who needs two? You just need one really big Successor army. The different ways you divide it into two opposing forces can make it into two very similar armies or two very dissimilar ones, as needed. If the army is big enough, you can also take pieces of it to play smaller Greek-on-Greek or barbarian-on-barbarian battles.

The Diadochi period is also one of the most interesting and varied naval genres in existence, and it would be easy to make fleets out of bits of driftwood.

- Ix

Sassanid vs Byzantine.

Byzantine vs. Muslim.

A couple of armies of coloured wooden blocks. They can be anything; Romans, Byzantines, Imperial Guard, Panzer Divisions…

Yep two huge successor armies, as if you include everything that was in them you can do almost every other classical army.

Or pebbles and grid system to do anything :)

1st century bc Gauls (incl Britons) and late republican Romans with auxiliaries.

I like the concept BigRedBat came up with but if I can imagine a red block as a tank then I can also imagine a chariot as a tank.

If doing DBA, I would like two sides of the War of the Roses, with allies, There are many troop variations, and this is very colorful, and they are enemies.

IV/83a Wars of the Roses Armies 1455-1485 AD or Tudor Army 1486-1515 AD: 1 x General (4Bd or 3Kn), 1 x currours (Cv) or border staves (LH) or unreliable levies (7Hd), 4 x stiffened billmen (4Bd), 4 x archers (4Lb), 1 x guns (Art), 1 x Welsh (3Pk) or Irish (3Ax) or men-at-arms (4Bd/3Kn) or mercenary handgunners (Ps).
Terrain Type: Arable. Aggression: 1. Enemies: IV/16, IV/82a, IV/82b, IV/83a, IV/83b, IV/83c. Allies [Percy in 1485 only]: IV/83a .

IV/83b Rebel Army of Henry Tudor 1485 AD: 1 x General if Henry mounted but avoiding contact (CP) or if Oxford on foot (4Bd), 1 x exiled noble men-at-arms (4Bd), 4 x French pikemen (4Pk) or French Voulgiers (4Bd), 3 x French voulgiers (4Bd) or stiffened English or Welsh billmen (4Bd), 2 x Welsh or English archers (4Lb), 1 x guns (Art) or mercenary crossbowmen or handgunners (Ps).
Terrain Type: Arable. Aggression: 1. Enemies: IV/83a. Allies (compulsory in BBDBA): IV/83a [Stanleys].

If not worried about the two being enemies.
II/4e Other Chinese Armies 355-202BC: 6384 configurations

III/69 Western Sudanese Army: 1080 configurations

If you had a complete II/4e army, and played 3 games a day on average, you could play a new configuration every game for almost 6 years. They are enemies of themselves, so maybe two of II/43. How many paired configurations would that be?