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"Ares Game" Topic


Ares

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aarondesk13 Oct 2003 1:38 p.m. PST

Hello all,

I just wanted to generate some discussion on the Ares game by MJ12 games. A demo is available at http://www.mj12games.com/ .

Perhaps a little background of my gaming experiences is in order. I must admit, that I'm just a newby in the miniatures gaming world. I've played WH40K, but didn't like cartooney side of it and scarcity of tactics. I own the WHFB game, but it doesn't seem to interest me. I also have played Armies of Arcana a few times. I like this system, but in a lot of ways it appears a smaller, tighter version of WHFB. There is a little learning curve with this system for maneuvers and such, and the manual is a little disorganized, but it is a good generic system.

Out of all the fantasy games out there, Ares seems to fit the bill the most of what I'm looking for. There aren't complex maneuvers or charts to look up. Basically the stronger an attribute, the larger a die for a roll. So a heavily armoured creature might roll a d12 for armour, while a weakling d4. Differences in rolls determine results.

The system does not have an IGO-UGO system (which I think is the biggest turn-off to me for a lot of fantasy games), but instead players alternate randomly and choose which units to activate on their turn. I like the bit of randomness in turn sequence- it seems a little more realistic to me. Once a unit is activated, it may perform 2 actions, such as move, attack, etc. Actions can even be held for future use, or borrowed from future use. In this manner, tactics are really important.

And since it is a generic fantasy system, any types of figures can be used and army lists are available for the traditional armies- orcs, goblins, knights, etc. There are even variants of the game for sci-fi, wild west, LOTR, and mass battles.

It looks good and I thought I'd bring it up.
Take it easy.

Revenant13 Oct 2003 1:45 p.m. PST

It's a great generic fantasy skirmish game - probably the best out there.

Enjoy it.

Rev

John Leahy Sponsoring Member of TMP13 Oct 2003 4:46 p.m. PST

Hey. Well, no surprise. I TOTALLY agree! Ares is an extremely flexible game platform. The initiative sequence is dynamic. The characteristics allow players to custom design ANY possible troop type. The mechanics are easy to use. Just a REALLY great system.

John

RoosterMan13 Oct 2003 5:33 p.m. PST

Sounds a lot like Savage Worlds. Though I haven't played SW or Ares yet...

underling13 Oct 2003 6:09 p.m. PST

"Sounds a lot like Savage Worlds. Though I haven't played SW or Ares yet..."

They're similar in that they both use multiple die types.
Where they differ is that SW uses target numbers (4 and 8, I believe) and a single die when rolling for success, and ARES uses an opposed roll mechanic, with a minimum of two dice and sometimes three being rolled.
I also like the system a lot, and have worked with Dan (MJ-12) a lot on it. It's an easily understood system, and one which can model a lot of different genres. In this respect it is also similar to SW.
Kevin

cubeblue13 Oct 2003 6:24 p.m. PST

I happened to look over the demo rules today at work a bit before I ever saw this post, but I must say the opposed roll while plugging in both combat skill, strength, and armor into one is pretty cool. I like the mechanic, but I haven't really dived into the rest of the rules. Looks like a lot of fun though. There are a lot of rules systems out there, but few of them I see have a lot of thought put into keeping the action going for both sides all the time, and keeping away from completely unnecessary charts.

Mackie13 Oct 2003 10:22 p.m. PST

I just bought the expanded rules for Ares on RPG.net. I'm planning on playing my first small solo game later today. I too am fairly new to the minis hobby about two years I think. One year of that time was spent stuck in the Warhammer 'rut'. Silly me, I bought and painted about 1,500 pts. worth of Games Workshop models for a necromancer army before I played a small solo game and realized I hated the disorganized, illogical rules. I read and tried other game systems including AD&D battlesystem skirmishes, Armies of Arcana, Mordheim, HeroQuest, Warmaster, and Warhammer Quest, and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Mordheim intrigued me the most, it had good ideas I liked, but the game mechanics were terrible. I found that I liked the details of skirmish games more than massive battles. Hopefully Ares will do it for me.

John Leahy Sponsoring Member of TMP14 Oct 2003 11:45 a.m. PST

Hey. I don't know if you have already taken a look or not but I started an Ares variant group on Yahoo. Go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ares-Variants/
You'll find all the Ares discussion you want there.

John

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