"Converting DBM Lists to Warmaster Ancients" Topic

Does any one know of a Website with hints for converting DBM army lists and points to Warmaster Ancients?

While I enjoy WA there is a certain lack of refinement in the lists supplied in the rule book and I'm looking for some ideas on conversion of various troop types.

I am also looking for a system to convert DBM lists to Wramaster Ancients.

As everyone else said, lots of dice and lots of fun. I finally pulled my set out and gave it a go, wished I had done so sooner.

Ken

Nothing 'official' that I have seen, but there is a 'generic' list that allows you to cost troop types at the back of the WMA rules. I used that to come up with lists for our WOTR campaign.

One way will be to dig up the WRG lists and match the troop types there to the WMA troop types, since they have descriptions like EHI, LMI and whatnot too.

As for the lack of refinement in the WMA lists, I suspect it may be a hangover from the WMF days when they needed to restrict troop types to something like 10 blisters per army.

Thanks for the idea Captain Arjun. I still have my old WRG 6th edition lists: they should do nicely.

There is a poster on the Historical Warmaster Yahoo group who has attempted the same thing.

The problem I have is this;

The troop types in the back of the book are pretty much all of them. One of the things I like about WMA is the comparativelyt tight army lists. There are a lot more 'troop types' in DBM than there are in Warmaster, you might find you would have to create your own new troop types to fit some of them in.

Some of those 'Created' in this manner would be in my humble opinion seriously unbalancing. I am not saying the guy who has done it on Warmaster Historical has this problem you understand…. but the two systems don't play the same, a direct translation of the points value of for example, an elephant (S) would be more expensive than a WMA elephant as in Warmaster an elephgant is less use, and acts very differently, than it does in DBM.

Now for home fun this is fine, but for home fun it seems a lot of work to create a 'conversion table'. You will be better off doing what I do when 'converting' – Run down the DBM list with a pencil scribbling in the WMA equivalent. It doesn't take long and is pretty straightforward. Then you need to design an army, look at what it can do and make any obvious changes.

Pat

There is going to a supplement out later this year for Warmaster Ancients per Rick Priestly. It is going to have additional army lists and a campaign system. See below, from a posting by Rick on the yahoo Historical Warmaster group.

The supplement for Warmaster Ancients is about done – and I'll be handing the list section over to production in a few days. The supplement also includes various rules additions and the odd correction, and Rob Broom has asked me to write an extended section of rules for campaign/ladder games which I have yet to do.

There are twenty new lists – I realise that whichever 20 lists I've picked I will have missed out someone's favourite – so I'll have to say sorry in advance I guess! All the new lists include a more substantial background write up, more representational choice than the original
lists, they are compatable with the original lists, and they include longer write ups for all the troop descriptions. Some of the new lists also include variants or related armies with sub-lists. We are currently putting together models to photograph and hope to include
more photos than in the original book – not least as painting guides where the individual figure photos are especially useful. The plan is for colour throughout as in the original book.

The lists I settled on are:
Arab conquest and early Caliphate, Arthurian British, Bulgars, Carolingian Franks, Celtiberian Spanish,
Celtic Ireland, Early Egyptian – Old and Middle Kingdoms, Judas Maccabee and the Judean Revolt, Late Republican Rome, Meroe, Numidian, Palmyra, the Peloponnesian War, Qin Chinese and Warring States, Rus, Sarmatians,
Seleucid Successor, Sumer and Akkad, Thematic Byzantine,
and Visigoths.

As you can see I've included a Chinese army – which I wasn't intending to do, largely because Rob wouldn't stop nagging me until I did! There is also a selection across the whole time range – (pre)Chariot Era to Dark Ages. And there's a few biggies as well as some more obscure
armies.

Yer, but I bet you won't have 'Kwong and Upper River Guo Pre-Dynastic 560bc-570bc, excluding 563 and 564 bc when Uncle Ho was in the Navy, not Lunchtimes or Bank Holidays' armies like DBM has. There will always be someone who wants a DBM army converter.

Pat

Thanks for the input guys, particularly the news on the supplement.

To Sane Max:

I wouldn't want to go too far down the War Dogs and Flaming Pigs route myself either but there are one or two omissions that stop you using an army as nature intended.

For example there is no equivalent of the old WRG LMI or LHI types so you can't use Hypaspists or Imperial Roman Auxiliaries properly. Early Byzantine ‘regular' light cavalry is missing too.

Just a few of those kinds of things need addressing, not Freak Army of the Week stuff!

I should have checked my Original post, because whatever that was above was not what I suggested….

I would recommend the Warmaster Ancients group.. NOT the Warmaster Historicals group. I have noticed that there can be one or two over there who get a little uppity about the mention of DBx/DBM, DBA, and any other DB….

I have already done two lists for converting DBM lists to WMA: Iberians, Lusitanians, Celtiberians, and Thracians.

I have done a few more convertions that I have not posted due to their non-standard unit sizes. Some have units that are anywhere from 4-8 stands, and some have units that are only 1 or 2 stands, all depending upon the number of troops that are represented by a "Stand"…

That is one of the FIRST things that I recommend doing to come up with some "Standard" for converting DBM lists to WMA; come up with a standard number of men that a "Stand" represents, and then tailoring the number of stands per unit to reflect that actual formations that were used by the different armies.

For instance, I would see nothing wrong with having a Gallic Army fielding two units of 8 stands each of warriors. It DOES make initial control a bit easier, but because the unit is capable of accumulating so many minuses for the number of stands lost it tends to balance out the early ease of control. In Armies with Phalagites I have also made the standard unit size for a Phalanx 4 stands (Sometimes 6, but never more than that) as having them in even numbers makes for a more accurate balanance of the number of troops per stand. I have done the same with some of the Roman armies (Making the Legionnaire's units 4 stands (Except for the Triarii in a Polybian Army. I have increased the Number of Triarii units allowed, but decreased their units to just 2 stands (with normal legionnaire units at 4 stands…

In playing with different sized units we have found that it has improved the game to some extent and created more historic outcomes for many a battle that othewise would not have come out so. The "Play Balance" is no where NEAR as delicate as many would have people believe.

Yes Judas, but then, you like Hoplon.. (KIDDING KIDDING )

I never played WRG – what were LMI and LHI? A Roman Auxiliary in, say, WAB, is a unit capable of acting either in open or semi-closed order, armed with very short range missile weapons, some armour, and of a reasonable standard of discipline and ability. I would say in WMA that's Light Infantry.

Hypaspists are a problem – you either field them as Pike OR as light infantry – I doubt they would switch between roles DURING a battle – so either Light Infantry OR Pike, both of which are in the (rather sketchy) current list. If you think they should be a bit kick-ass you simply make them elite, or bodyguard status.

I was joshing Judas – we had a brief falling-out a while back 'cos he and I misunderstood each other on a thread – he thought I was saying WMA was some finely tuned Rolls-Royce of a game and changing one thing would spoil everything. I thought he was saying 'you can change anything, it will have no effect on the game at all'

What I was actually saying was that one of WMA's appeals to me was its simplicity. The one thing i do NOT want to see is a proliferation of entirely new troop-types (ie troop types that cannot already be created using the guidelines in the back of the book) just 'cos someonme thinks Turkomen Horse Archers rode the equine equivalent of Fire-Breathing dragons and had bows like sniper rifles.

I still believe that, but for home use, the world is your lobster of course!

Pat

I would tend to agree with Pat the older WRG 5th and ^th edition lists were be closer to the WAB scale than DBM.

Sane Max wrote: "Hypaspists are a problem – you either field them as Pike OR as light infantry – I doubt they would switch between roles DURING a battle"

Ah! There's the problem! That‘s having to assume that they were Pike OR as light infantry when a lot of the time they were neither, they were hoplites that moved like light infantry!

The old LMI/LHI designation was for troops that could operate in both open and close order and get the job done in either formation.

In DBM speak, Hypaspists can be fielded as Regular Spear (Superior), Regular Auxila (Superior) or Regular Pike (Superior) as the fancy takes, although I would assume it's recognised that they have to start and finish a battle in the same mode!

I guess the essential question is if a player could argue (as my Macedonian mate does) that because of their multi role training, Hypaspists can be allowed to move in WMA like Lights (with "Skirmish") but fight like Hoplites with a 3 hit rather than 2, or perhaps have the 6+ save of Roman Axuila instead.

On the basis that they were equipped the same in their Regular Spear (Superior) or Regular Auxila (Superior) role (give or take a javilin) when they acted as the link between the Taxi and Cavalry wing of the army.

I'm willing to agree if he can (a) get support for this view and (b) I get to use Roman Axuila the same manner in what ever we can decide!

well then they are just Light Infantry with the Elite special rule. No need for any conversion table at all. Hoorah.

Pat

There's practically no evidence for Hypaspists being armed differently from the rest of the Phalanx.
I don't think there's even any evidence of them acting as light infantry. Yes, they were used for special expeditions, and armed accordingly when needed – but these were not pitched battles; pikes are not much use in a skirmish.
The multi-role hypaspist is a wargamers fantasy. In a battle, they are just elite Pikemen.

Pyruse

"There's practically no evidence for Hypaspists being armed differently from the rest of the Phalanx."

It must be nice to be so certain of the realities of the ancient world! Besides who said they were part of the Phalanx?

I think its probably true to say that a lot of people (including academics) agree that the Hypaspists were nothing but elite pikemen in Alexander's later campaigns but on the other hand, there are a hell of a lot who think that in their origins under Philip and the campaigns against the Persians they held a far more flexible role acting, as I said, as the hinge between the Taxi and the Cavalry strike force.

Just as an aside (not as an historical fact) in the recent Oliver Stone film, of which the battle scenes we the only part worth watching, you can see an excellent representation of such units, RUNNING to the flank as Alexander's cavalry is manoeuvring order to protect the flank of the advancing infantry at Gaugamela.

As the Persian battle sequences were subject to a lot of work by a respected academic, alongside the Director, I would think it reasonable to assume he had some influence on these troops being included.

Needless to say none of these had pikes and their existence in the film is consistent with the role of the Hypaspists described in countless studies of Gaugamela so perhaps I'm not the only one interested in a ‘mobile hoplite role'

Regarding the Hypaspists… They were probably more of a MI than LI, as they still wore their Kit when deployed in more open order. My thoughts were that they should be a Medium Infantry that has the ability to Skirmish in SOME situations…

I would need to go back and read the rules again, but I remember that I have some notes that I made about the different troops from DBM, and how they may translate to WMA. There were some pretty strange translations as I recall, and you don't really need to go inventing new troop types. Perhaps in the Case of the Infatry being able to support some Cavalry… Maybe, but for the most part; the troop types given work pretty well… The game is very flexible for being able to work out the specifics of behavior for troops that we have some knowledge of.

Judas,

Yes, those are pretty much my views too. Not whole sale additions or completely new inventions but some careful tweaks.

In fact I'd settle for an agreement that you couldn't introduce any type that could not be made by swapping around within the original (or soon to be published) stat lines from Rick's lists.

My inital DBM reference was looking toward some common definition for missing troop types as much as anything. Not particularly looking to co-opt the entire content of all three army books with all the odd varations!

Ironically, I haven't actually played that much DBM (quite a bit of DBA though)its really WMA that's got me back into Ancients gaming in a big way!