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Armies of Arcana

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pcelella18 May 2014 3:53 a.m. PST

Some friends and I are playing on having some games of Armies of Arcana. I've read some great reviews on the rules, and having read through them myself, I'm pretty impressed. It seems that the official forum on the Armies of Arcana website doesn't work though, and it also appears that nothing has been posted on the player's forum since 2012. Is there a different forum where the rules are discussed or supported, or will the official forum be working again soon? Or could it just be that there is no longer any interest in, or an active community of players for these rules?

cfielitz18 May 2014 4:15 a.m. PST

Its the main rules that I used for mass fantasy battles.

Chef Lackey Rich Fezian18 May 2014 6:28 a.m. PST

Still gets played around here, mostly in 15mm these days, but I don't know about online forums.

Cyrus the Great18 May 2014 8:33 a.m. PST

I lost interest in them a long time ago. There were some glaring errors that were pointed out in the rules that the author stubbornly refused to address. I've moved on.

Chef Lackey Rich Fezian18 May 2014 8:41 a.m. PST

To what? Easy to badmouth a game, let's hear what you're using for use-anything-you-like mass fantasy combat instead.

napthyme18 May 2014 10:34 a.m. PST

Looks like Raj's forum is down again. There is still this one that is working.

link

Brian Smaller18 May 2014 10:51 a.m. PST

I for one would like to see more about these rules, so another forum to add to the feed pushing posts off the front page shouldn't hurt too much. I have an older copy of the rules – I guess 1st Edition or something like that.

YogiBearMinis Supporting Member of TMP18 May 2014 5:57 p.m. PST

The forums, both, were an IT mess and never got fixed. From my reading of them, and a few emails with some of the principals, I gleaned a few things that I THINK are roughly correct (I am deliberately being vague with names because I know I am just posting hearsay):

1) The original author lost interest and moved on to other interests in gaming
2) the ownership of the rules got divided up among multiple people who fell out among themselves over issues of revisions, reprinting, and distribution of the rules
3) One of the remaining owners, after playing around with revisions, decided to rewrite the rules from the ground up in a different direction. He had been a prime mover in revising and promoting the game, so his moving on really hurts the current state of the game

At this time, it doesn't appear there is real momentum to prepare a 6th edition to "fix" commonly-viewed problems. There are some house rules out there to fix some issues, but I have been unable to find it.

It is a shame, because AoA is a great system for people who lost faith in Warhammer but like its general approach.

Cyrus the Great18 May 2014 11:10 p.m. PST

Chief Lackey Rich,

Everything I have to say on the subject can be found here:

TMP link

You were not part of that conversation, but nothing has changed. Mantic Games did not pan out as it only reinvented, a watered down, WH Fantasy.

Cyrus the Great18 May 2014 11:38 p.m. PST

let's hear what you're using for use-anything-you-like mass fantasy combat instead.

There has been a move to use Old Hammer, but this has divided the already small group into factions between people who just want to play and the more competitive gamers that want to keep up with the latest edition of WH Fantasy. I have temporarily shelved mass fantasy battles and play more Mordheim, Song of Blades and Heroes and I'm playtesting Frostgrave.

Zinkala19 May 2014 9:18 a.m. PST

Rwphillipsstl, your summary is fairly accurate. I'm not sure what's up with the forum. I've had a lot of trouble accessing it lately even before it stopped working completely. Raj is the one who maintains the forum and I don't know what he's up to right now.

There are 2 main problems with updating AoA.
The first is that the current owners are a group of people that have fallen out amongst themselves and any changes need a consensus of opinion. The people at Terrain Warehouse/Battlezone are working on solving this. There haven't been any public updates/news posts because the details are private and there's not much point until things are settled.

The second is that even amongst the fans on the forum there's almost no consensus on how things should be changed. There's a few things that come up continually ever since I started playing 7-8 years ago. How to represent lances, cost and effectiveness of shooting, and a bunch of special ability costs. I did a lot of work on points costs and in game effectiveness and came up with a few ideas but got tired of it and never did check everything. I don't play all that often anymore and the rules as written work pretty well for the fun games we're doing. I have copies of some of the ideas other people put forward too if you want them.

AoA isn't dead yet although at the moment it does seem to be on life support.

Thomas Thomas19 May 2014 2:35 p.m. PST

I hope some common sense will suddenly appear among the AoA "owners". A decent system just needing a careful revision.

The Manic system was a huge disappointment and the current edition of Warhammer is a mess.

For now go with fantasy DBA 3.0.

TomT

YogiBearMinis Supporting Member of TMP19 May 2014 2:50 p.m. PST

If AoA were WFB, they would just pick a solution, publish it, then later publish a different edition that reversed it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I am also in the camp that would love a new edition that, perhaps as a compromise, offered multiple options for certain areas of disagreement. Then the gamer could pick their poison depending on the style of game they play.

Personal logo Sgt Slag Supporting Member of TMP20 May 2014 12:39 p.m. PST

For mass battles, I play 2nd Ed. BattleSystem: based loosely on 2nd Ed. AD&D; customizable for new units/creatures, with rules for adapting AD&D monsters to the game; bucket-O-dice game, which I actually enjoy; it includes massed, as well as skirmish units, aerial combat and units, heroes, big monsters (dragons and such), clerical and wizard magic, undead, siege rules, etc. It covers a lot of ground.

The rulebooks come up on e-Bay for near original retail prices, $15. USD They were available, several years ago, in PDF format from RPGNow.com, but WotC pulled them, and as of today, they are still unavailable, but I hope they will be listed again.

TSR also produced a skirmish rules set, BattleSystem Skirmish, which is available on e-Bay from time to time. It, too, was available as a PDF download, but not currently. This rules set was RPG-lite, with great emphasis on mini's and terrain -- a clear predecessor for 4th Ed. D&D. While it did feature rules for units, it was clearly designed for skirmish play. Cheers!

John Leahy Sponsoring Member of TMP21 May 2014 6:59 p.m. PST

Hey Sarge. I like Battlesystem too. However, a lack of an official points system is a serious drawback. I love the scenarios in the book. Really good stuff!

We have been playing AoA since Thane's redbook edition. We like the rules. I don't like how Undead are missile immune but there is a fix for that. I have yet to see how heavy Cavalry performs so am uncertain about it's cost vs performance. My Lizardmen Lt cavalry was slaughtered in a frontal attack on some Dwarves. Haven't used Lt. Cavalry since. I have used Haradrim Medium Cavalry. it did ok. But no frontal charges. I think Cav is used best by utilizing its movement to obtain flanks and or rears on units in trouble.

I actually haven't seen missile troops be that dominant. Of course, I haven't used or played against Elves. We have used Orcs, Goblins, Lizardmen, Humans, Giants, Dwarves and several of Thane's LOTR armies. Undead, Greeks, High Elves, Ratmen and Empire are in the works.

Thanks,

John

pcelella22 May 2014 2:47 a.m. PST

What is the fix for missile immune Undead?

magokiron22 May 2014 9:45 a.m. PST

The fix I proposed WAAAY back, and was pretty much unanimously accepted was:

Missile immune: The model counts as having a 5 fixed save vs missiles.

With this rule, the high point cost of missile immune troops is still accounted for, but archers still have a chance of hitting.

Hope that helps.

Personal logo Sgt Slag Supporting Member of TMP23 May 2014 2:11 p.m. PST

John Leahy, I think you are thinking of the original boxed edition of Battlesystem; the 2nd Ed., perfect-bound book, has official troop type points listed, on pages 116-118. Cheers!

SCAdian24 May 2014 7:22 p.m. PST

pcelella,
From an old post of mine:

Actually, I like the Missile Immune for the Undead. I just can't see {realistically ;)} an arrow doing dammage to a skeleton or a zombie. See just about any current zombie movie/tv show for the school of "make it a head shot".

There are enough things that can counter this: Enchant Missiles (granted it's a lvl 3), Bless (lvl 3 but nastier than EM), Flaming Arrows (again lvl 3), All kinds of monsters that have magical missile attacks, Artillery (including handguns), any Missile that is Eldritch.

If it's that big a deal, take away Missile Immune and give them Missile Armour +3, (+4 if they have a shield) for a net cost of -3VP point to every model (-1VP if using a shield). This will give normal missiles a chance to wound, just not a very good one. eg: Skeleton with sword and shield, 17vp, Armour 2 + 4 missile bonus – 1 fom hit by a Goblin bow = Armour save of 5. Longbows and crossbows are Strength 2 of course.

This would have the added bonus of having a reason for your Skellies to be carrying a shield… :)

I have seen the other side of the coin where a missile heavy army just tears apart another army. It's of interest that one of the first Battle Tactics, Thane put up ages ago was: "How do I defeat a Missile Weapon-heavy army?"

As for firing into melee… I played SCA for years (obviously considering my 'handle') Society for Creative Anachronism. Historical re-creation group. Non-choreographed honor-based combat. I've done small battles and big battles. Archers WILL fire into melee. It happens. It's historical and occasionally hysterical. I remember one particular battle where an archer left the field:
Q: "Did you get any kills?"
A: "Yep, 16… 7 of them from their side"
Friendly fire… isn't.

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