"Anyone here primarily play Ares?" Topic

As some of you may know from my previous posts.. I'm looking for a nice set of skirmish rules to replace Mordheim. The runner-ups are pretty much SBG, Warlords, SOBH, and now Ares. Not a fan of Warrior Heroes due to the generic feeling of different troops and any other systems based on those basic reaction tables. Broadsword is mostly humanoid and I need a system that'll match all my Warhammer models (especially monsters).

I've finally gotten a deeper look at Ares and I'm surprised its not more popular. Its hard for me to find anything on this system. The best I've found is the demo rules set on their site. Currently my top runner-up as a replacement for Mordheim is SOBH due to the ability to easily match all my models with stats without looking through a ton of previous books. I also like a skirmish set that either gives even grunts multiple wounds or have a knockdown system so that they aren't so easy to remove. Its also important to me that heroes feel like heroes and there are distinct racial differences. How does Ares compare to SOBH or SBG? I couldn't get more of a feel on the character generator or the other races in the demo book.. but how are Orcs compared to a normal human? Is the character generator good? Any rules for vampires and Lizardmen? Thanks for any input.

I bought the rules a few years ago. I gave them a try a couple of times but found it tiresome to try and keep track of more than a handful of figures. I also didnt care for the unit builder. basically is the square root of stat x stat x stat x stat x each individual special rule.

Combat is attacker rolls his close combat die and weapon die and the defender rolls his combat and armor die. If you beat the defenders die he takes a wound. If you double his score he takes two wounds. If you treble it he takes three. There are instances when the attacker and defender can roll extra dice. Most basic figures have three wounds. many can have more.

There are lots of special rules to customize your figures. There are also plenty of army lists with pre made stats to use.

I dont know if its important to you or not but there doesnt seem to be a campaign system to advance you figures from game to game.

Campaign isn't critical, but its definitely a welcome aspect. Part of why I like Song of Blades and Heroes is due to having campaign rules and there are add-ons for LOTR SBG that allows campaign.

What other systems do you play? Have you tried SBG and SOBH? How do you compare Ares to it?

One thing that is unappealing to me about Ares right off the bat is that there aren't any hard numbers for combat stats. Like having someone roll 2D10 means it ranges from 2 to 20.. I prefer there to be a hard combat stat and the roll added on top of that to minimize some randomness.

Have you looked at corehiem? It's a fan made version of mordhiem that supposedly fixes some of the issues with mordhiem.

It can be found here coreheim.com

IME Ares is much more varied and versatile than the Song games, with greater potential to differentiate between models and a much more accurate point valuation system. OTOH, it is a little boggy with large numbers of models on the table and it does lack a campaign system, although there might be fan versions of those online somewhere – you'd do best to ask over on the MJ12 forums about that.

The Song games are faster-playing, and the activation mechanics force some interesting choices, but I don't find them quite as good at modeling "anything goes" forces and the limited range of quality-combat stats is a little limiting. Equipment and abilities add some variation, but I still don't see it matching Ares in that respect (although to be fair, I haven't seen all the books). Ganesha and now Antimatter are still actively releasing new material for the games, though, while Ares is pretty much static these days – that may or may not be a selling point, of course.

I prefer there to be a hard combat stat and the roll added on top of that to minimize some randomness.

That's rather iffy statistically. Two or three dice get you a nice bell curve, with low odds of real fluke rolls coming up, especially with both sides scoring at opposite ends of the spectrum. By comparison, 1d6+X where X is a value of 2 to 5 (norms for combat scores in Song) has no bell curve at all, and while it may be predictable that combat 5 beats combat 2 often, the 1:36 chance of a 1 vs 6 roll makes it more chancy than a multi-die game, not less. That's especially true with modifiers dropping the actual spread of effective combat scores – pretty rare to be more than 2 points up or down on anyone.

I've never heard of Ares. Not that this is newsworthy, but new gaming options are good.

KM: I've checked out Coreheim as well as their newest rendition, Heroheim. Heroheim has promise, but Coreheim is focused too much on balanced for it to be any fun for me. Also the warbands available are too limited. I want creatures and other crazies on the field and Coreheim sticks to basic humanoids to keep its focus on balance. Also, I'm kind of over systems that have a strict IGOUGO system. After playing Games-Workshop Warhammer series games for nearly 2 decades.. I need something different.

Chief: I'll take your word on it with the dice system. I'm terrible at math, I just like seeing static numbers to get a real range of what my model will score. I totally get you on your explanation though. SOBH also had the initial impression to me that its quite shallow with just 2 stats.. but the more I read into it and get the other expansions.. the more I appreciate the nuances. The special rules section makes a huge difference and there'll be racial expansions that also focus on weapons too in the future (Dwarf one is coming out soon, already see extras such as "heavy weapon" and "regeneration"). Event though I'll still play SOBH.. I'd still love to see other systems that I can play too.

What would you say is about the happy number for Ares in terms of models? I like games that range anywhere from 8-20 models.. with an average of around 12-15.

Chief, forgot to ask.. how are they with the pre-made stats? Do they have stats for Vampires, Undead, and Lizardmen in Ares? Also.. can you give me a quick comparison of Orcs vs Humans in Ares? That's always been one of my comparisons to see what each fantasy setting's standard is with those two archtypes.

My copy is out on (probably permanent, at this point – need to replace it someday) loan, but from what I recall orcs were a little tougher than humans in Ares but had shakier morale on average. There were stats for a variety of undead, corporeal and otherwise – not certain on vampires but I think so. There were a few lizardman/reptile man types statted up, but I don't remember them well enough to say what made them special – maybe some natural armor?

For me, the game was always about the design-your-own thing so I could use whatever figs I wanted, so the pre-done stuff is kind of hazy.

Average game size was about 10-15 models, although it could handle anything from 3-4 heroes duelling to 20-30 without getting too creaky IME. There's a mass combat variant called Ares For the Masses that did army combat ala Warhammer, although I never tried that one.

human pikeman 27 points
wounds 3 move 4"
morale 2 armor d8
close combat d6 pike d8
magic d6
special: polearm

orc swordsman 51 points
wounds 4 move 4"
morale 2 armor d6+
close combat d10 sword d8
magic d6

Have you thought of Combat Zone? I know its meant for near future skirmishes but if you go to the combat zone chronicles there are rules for doing fantasy. Its a fairly generic system that would be easy to modify to suit your needs. Its been a long time since I played it so I cant offer you any specifics at the moment.

Thanks for the info! Now I definitely like that formidable orc stat.

I agree, I would probably use the model creation. Thats already what I do in SOBH. I use the base rules as a starting point and add special rules to fit what I want. Another thing I do in SOBH is modify the rules so Personality/Hero allowance is 50% to be more like Mordheim. Currently, I'm debating whether or not to give all personalities the "Hero" skill automatically for free to make them feel more special (essentially gives them 1 guaranteed activation). Another thing I've been toying around with in SOBH is for each hero you field.. you get an additional "fate token" which allows you to use it at any time to modify your roll by 1.

Never heard of Combat Zone.. but I think I gotta draw the line now sine there are so many good skirmish rules out there.. I'll never get to any of em if I keep testing each one out. I'll stick with ones that are generic and easily adaptable to the models I have with minimal work. As much as I've heard so many good things about SBG.. I don't really want to go through the work with converting all the stats to models I have.

Where are y'all getting stats and abilities for undead for Ares from? I looked in my 2nd edition book and don't see any (unless I'm blind, which is possible)

Does Ares even have a rule that differentiates undead from the living? I didn't see it on their demo book

The undead stats are on page 74 of the second edition book.

I didnt see any special undead rules in in particular. You could use other special rules to make your undead suit your needs. A wraith or a zombie might have a persistent attack caused by the chilling touch of the wraith or the diseased mouth of the zombie.

After reading the trough the Ares rules I find I may have to give them another look. There are some interesting things in there.

There's a quick play variant of Ares where the basic grunts only get one wound and don't get to use some of the options.

Hmm, I was thinking of a system where most grunts only have 1 wound. Borrowing from Mordheim and SOBH.. there'd be a knockdown system too. Essentially when a model is reduced to 0 wounds, he just gets knocked down and is left there for an easy finishing kill on attacks that follow. If you score double your opponent's score on the last wound, they die immediately (no knockdown). If you triple, you successfully yield a brutal kill (yes, borrowed from SOBH's Gruesome Kill). For multi--wound models.. the results are the same as the base Ares system (causing 2x wounds on double score, 3x on triple, etc).

How well do you guys think this would work? Think its too much?

Also forgot to ask.. how are the rules for mounted units for Ares?

I've been playing ARES since around 2003, and have run several games at different conventions. I also set up the bestiary, which has 10-12 different races with pre-generated stats, basically to help keep players from having to crunch the numbers. ARES has a lot of upsides, but also a few things that may not appeal to some players.

First the potential downsides…

1) It can be "marker intensive." If you allow all of the actions for every model, then you can have models that are on hold, models that have borrowed an action, models that are shaken, and models that are wounded. There are a lot of different marker types that can start appearing on the table. While this doesn't bother some, it can really be a turn-off for others.

2) With attack and defense capabilites defined by two die types, catastrophic results one way or the other can auto-kill models. Because of the bell curve, this isn't going to happen a lot, but it can. While some may not like this, I actually do, as the lowliest pud can put a smackdown on a stud model.

3) Activation is by squad, so that only the the activating squad is performing actions. This means that a squad currently in base contact with an opposing squad will get a full activation, and the defending squad basically has to sit there and take it. I don't see this as a downside, but others may be frustrated with this. Defending models can defend a little better by borrowing an action, but really can't attack back until they activate.

4)I feel the point costing system is fairly accurate, but it can be a little cumbersome to work through. There are several Excel spreadsheets available, but if you're doing the calculations by hand they can take a little while.

My main problem, and it's a small one, is the marker intensiveness. This can be dealt with, and I'll explain this a little more in the upsides section that follows.

Now the potential upsides…

1) I believe the activation system is extremely cool. A number of cards are dealt to each force, and based on the number of maneuvering elements in each force. So each player has a hand of cards. Players then play these cards sequentially one at a time, from high card (ace of spades) to low card (two of clubs) and activate a currently unactivated squad or individual model of their choice. Once the activation for that squad or individual model has been completed, the next card is played. This produces a very interactive activation sequence where both players are activating models.

2) The troop building system allows for an extremely wide range of troop types to be simulated. As has been said, the calaculations can be a little cumbersome, but the bestiary has a bunch of troops already pre-generated to take this leg work out of the players hands. You might not agree with my vision of what basic orcs and humans are statted at, but they're available and the numbers are "pre-crunched."

3) I believe the morale system is very cool. Once units are engaged in combat, the units will slowly start to break down, with some models standing fast, and other models becoming shaken and then eventually routing off the table. The individual, as well as unit morale tests, work very well.

4) The marker issue can be mitigated somewhat by using the following suggestions: keep grunt troops at one wound each. This means they won't be getting marked with shaken or wounded markers. This does eliminate that aspect of the game for them, but does reduce the marker count. Certainly I'd allow hero types or creatures to have more than one wound, but this won't add very many markers back onto the table.

I've found that ARES can be very entertaining, whether running games with 5 to 10 models in each force, or running games up to around 40 to 50 models in each force. Note that if models are multi-wound models, then larger games (30+ models per force) can start to get a little marker intensive and take a little longer to play.

FInally, there really is no campaign system that I'm aware of, as we haven't officially designed or released one. I believe someone started one a few years ago on the MJ-12 Games forum, but I'm not sure how far he got with it.

Hope this helps.

Kevin

I forgot to address your mounted unit question. There is a special ability called cavalry. A cavalry model has several advantages over infantry models. It has a combat advantage of +1 per die when attacking, and also doesn't need to withdraw when moving away from infantry. Infantry also has a -1 per die penalty (I believe) when attacking cavalry.

Kevin

Thanks Kevin for the in-depth input. Is the bestiary listed anywhere? I'd like to get a better stat comparison between races.

I'm thinking if I play.. I might only let heroes borrow actions. It'll make the game run faster/smoother and make heroes that much more special.

Still debating on whether I should add in the knockdown mechanic as mentioned earlier.

The Ares Bestiary is a for-sale product that was formerly separate, but is now included with both the print and PDF rules.
link

Just purchased the Ares book. Admittedly.. the more I look into it.. the more I think SOBH might be for me for the time being. Oh well.. at least I supported a great indie game. I'll still have it in my possession in the future if I ever want anything more in-depth than SOBH. For right now.. I know I definitely want something more casual and not as many things to keep track of. I can already see myself getting lost in character generation for Ares. The simplicity of the stats on SOBH makes it easier to balance and forces me to not spend so much time making characters (both a good and bad thing.. but a good thing for me due to time constraints)

At the very least.. it was a $13 USD-$14 that I spent to finalized my decision for now and to satiate my curiosity. I am surprised that Ares doesn't have actual rules for undead. Seems like undead just cause fear.. but other than that.. no difference (though the ethereal rule for certain models do look cool).

Just to humor myself.. what do you guys think the stats for a GW Lizardman would be in Ares?

There's a Saurian on page 74 of the PDF, I could have sworn there was a Lizardman-like list in the book. But there isn't, I must have gotten it from the Yahoo Group (along with some Warzone and Star Wars lists).

The Lizards list is available on the MJ12 forum.
link

Thanks Brother Jim. My girlfriend is really going to appreciate that (she loves her Lizardmen). That'll allow me to run a few mock games with both the systems (SOBH and Ares) to see which she likes better.

As a side note.. I've tried downloading both character creators on that forum.. and none of that will unzip. Know of any other sources>?

I re-uploaded it to the forums (the modded version), I put the other one up too.

Awesome. Thanks! Downloaded em.