ANCIENTS VOTING RESULTS:
Voters, By Setting - With a friend or two

I played a game of Legion & Empire against James Manto(rules designer) that involved a force of Sassanid Persians against a Late Roman army. Since I usually play the Sassanid persians, I decided to switch and try the Roman army for a change. The Romans were unlitmately victorious as the Sassanids over exteneded themselves after a successful carge against my line, they were surrounded and hacked down! Glory for Rome! [08 Sep 1999]

Aug. 20, 1999, Camillan Romans vs Early Seleucids, with 3 friends, using Might of Arms. It was a large game using units 2 stands wide. It was a classic setup with infantry in the center and cavalry on each wing. Each player took half the infantry on his side and the cavalry on one flank. The Seleucids weighted their cavalry on their right flank and swept away the opposing Roman cavalry after a few turns. The Seleucids also had two units of elephants mixed in with infantry to their right center. The Roman had terrible die rolls against them and they swept all before them--unusual for elephants. I was the Roman player on the right flank. The Roman and Seleucid cavalry on this flank neutralized each other. The infantry finally engaged in the center, but the Romans had lost too much on their left flank, so were outnumbered in the center. Most of the Romans routed, so we conceded the game. A twist for this game is that the Seluecids were stronger in Romans at the outset in points. The idea was that a Gallic flanking force would arrive and alter the balance. The Gauls appeared on the table but were too far away to get to the battle in time to help. [04 Sep 1999]

Romans vs Carthaginians, a training/teaching game for a frienbd using Might of Arms rules. Romans won by cracking the Carthaginian main battle line. [02 Sep 1999]

A friend of mine & I played a game of Classical Hack 24 hours ago between a Hellenistic Greek force vs a Later Macedonian force of about 500 points each. The Macedonians won on the front & the left flank. No terrain to speak of but we had fun in about 2 hours. Francis Reed [20 Aug 1999]

Fought my son James (12) to a standstill with my Byzantines against his Vikings using Warhammer Ancient Battles. A small encounter battle with no terrain, 1000 points, using the fantastic Gripping Beast figures. This was a major ploy by me to wean him off ridicuosly expensive 40K gaming (because I pay for it). He loves ancients now and we plan early Imperial Rome versus Ancient Brits armies next; now for his little friends.... [19 May 1999]

Small battle: Marian Rome vs. Early Spartans. The Romans were beaten, maunly due to being enveloped, and losing the general (his unit was hit in flank). Nasty game all in all. I failed to keep my focus :( [7 Jun 1999]

Roman Civil war with 3 legions per side (25mm) legions being about 150 figures strong in a fairly rough terrain with key objectives set for each side to obtain by set moves. A very hard fought battle over about 6 hours one Saturday. Result I acheived my objectives but suffered very heavy casualties so really a pyrric victory in that sense. My opponents failed to hit their objectives and also suffered heavy casualties (we only had about 2% difference). Using Athena ancient rules [19 May 1999]

Roman vs Egyptian/Roman in a semi desert battle with low hills and asingle oasis. The Egyptians were flanked and crushed by two chorts before their Roman alllies coud interven. [03 Jun 1999]

A DBM match between my Middle Imperial Romans and an Ottoman Turkish army. Although the legionaries annhilated most of the Ottoman's Serbian Knight allies, the Serbian ally general managed to break through the ROman line to cause considerable damage, leading to a loss for my Romans... [29 May 1999]

Malaccan infantry defated Assyrian chariots and veteran infantry while the Malaccan archers and elephants held off and then defeated Assyrian cavalry and light infantry. [23 May 1999]

Archon: Rome vs Gauls. Got me interested in Ancients again after being "turned " off for many years by the ahistorical matchups and c competition styles of play. Not the way I like to play historicals. [14 May 1999]

My last ancients game was a solo playtest of my newly acquired Archon rules set-Romans versus Carthaginians. The game went smoothly and produced very historical results. The Roman cavalry on one flank got tangled up with Numidian light horse and never got into action, while the Spanish and Liby-Phoenician horse on the other flank made short work of the Italian horse opposite them and went on to strike the flank of the Roman infantry. The Roman infantry was winning in the center until the cavalry hit them, Although the Libyan heavy infantry had managed to fight them pretty much to a draw, the Spanish and Gallic infantry weren't doing so hot. [28 Apr 99]

Might of Arms - a great game between carthagians and seleucids. The battle appeared to be a rout at one time. The game then swung back to the other side before eventually returning to the seleucids. As always, lots of fun. [17 Apr 99]

Fought against Gary Comardo's superbly painted Gauls, I used Caesarian Romans with supporting ranks to wear the Gauls down before dealing with them. As predicted, the Gauls swarmed all over the Roman vanguard, but were unable to break any of the Roman units. The Gallic cavalry did have some success against the Roman horse, but the hardy Roman infantry in reserve had by then closed upon the Gauls and beat them soundly.

In AW, you must tire (disorder) the legionnnaires before simply charging in. A good game and an historical outcome. [4 Apr 99]

A typical forest action a depleted legion versus a Gallic Hoard. Nip and all the way with the Romans breaking the Gaul's morale at the very end and holding the ground. [3 Apr 99]

Late Assyria vs. Babylonian revolt. The Babylonians attempted to hold a stream line against the Assyrians entering at uncertain locations in column of march. The Assyrians came in at the far left flank among the low hills and got hung up against good mountain auxiliaries. The Assyrian cavalry commander overextended his attack and was taken in the flank by Midianite camel scouts. The cavalry broke and fled back through the non-yet-deployed archer line, which found its morale shaking. The Babylonian general then moved his reserve horse in against the weakened line and routed it with another flank attack. The Assyrian army then withdrew in reasonable order. If the Assyrian commander had been more patient in the advance and deployed properly on arrival, the results would probably have been very different. The best Assyrian troops, the veteran palace spear/archer units, never got into the battle. Cohort and Phalanx 0.5 (house rules). [31 Mar 99]

My last game used Piquet/Archon and was a scenario in which a rebel Egyptian army with Athenian hoplite allies were attempting to break out of a besieged island in the Nile. Their opposition was a Spartan-led Persian army which started out in a scattered position. The Athenians easily over-ran the Persian infantry opposing them but harrassment by Persian horse archers and command indecision on the part of the Egyptians allowed the Persian heavy cavalry to hit the rebel flanks and a small unit of Spartan hoplites broke the Athenians. [31 Mar 99]

My last ancients game was Early Imperial Romans vs. Early Imperial Romans in a civil war scenario using DBA. Both armies were evenly matched, but a bad deployment and bad tactics of dividing his army (caused in part by the terrain) allowed me to defeat my opponent piecemeal. [31 Mar 99]

My ancient British took on a friend's Later Hoplite Greeks using WRG 7th edition rules. It was a nasty fight. I crushed his peltasts, but his hoplite ranks held off my charging warbands. [30 Mar 99]

Warhammer Ancients: Roughly 3000 points Normans vs. Later Sassanids.

WAB was selected as my favorite largely because of the numerous problems with the remainder of the rules currently available. The ideal set of rules for me would combine the best elements of WRG 7th and DBM. WAB is not ideal, but at least it is enjoyble to play. Overall it it probably too much of a step back in terms of simplicity, but as said, it is fun. The ideal set of rules should be unit based (not element based), incorporate fatigue into shooting and combat, and have some limitation on command and control (DBM does a good job at this). The rules in turn should not require a fixed number of units per army or a fixed army list per army. Finally the ideal rules should be clearly written (i.e., not written by Phil Barker), and have a well organized index that allows quick resolution of questions as they arise, and should not have an excesivley complicated series of modifiers to any combat, shooting, or morale resolution. [30 Mar 99]