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Armies of Arcana

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RocketToad05 Jul 2007 8:40 a.m. PST

Hi guys, new to the forum. I wrote up this review of the tabletop miniature fantasy wargame system,
'Armies of Arcana'.
I thought this would be the best place to put it in. Hope that's ok:

I started playing Armies of Arcana just under a year ago. I used to play warhammer fantasy battle and I had several large painted armies for that game system. When I tried my first few games of Armies of Arcana, I was delighted to realize that I would be able to find a new use for all of those warhammer armies and other models collecting dust. Here's a quick run-down on my view of the game:

Overall:

Armies of Arcana (AoA) is a fantasy battle game that works with either 28mm or 15mm miniatures. I play only at the 28mm scale. It is turn based and each turn is split into phases (movement, shooting, magic, combat, morale). Both players complete a phase before moving onto the next phase, which is an aspect I really like. This means that both players are constantly doing something and there is little time spent waiting for the other player to complete his entire turn before being able to respond.

Movement is handled well and one unique aspect of the game is that all units can adopt either skirmish or rank and file. They may switch between these two formations during the game and both have advantages and disadvantages. Skirmish formation allows for much better manoeuvrability and allows units to move through difficult terrain more easily. Rank and file formation is less manoeuvrable but grants the units greater bonuses in morale/courage and the mellee rules generally favour large rank and file formations when rank and file units are engaged with skirmishing units. That isn't always the case, however, as some units really excel while fighting in skirmish formation. However, without going into the details … I've found this to be a really interesting aspect of the rules as whether to adopt skirmish or rank and file formation is a very tactical decision.

Shooting is powerful in this game and missile weapons closely match the effectiveness of their real-world counterparts. However, there are many tactics available to counter missile heavy forces so I haven not seen missile-heavy armies dominate in my games so far. Also the trade off for effective missile troops is a high points cost, this helps a lot in keeping 'gun line' and shooting heavy army lists in line with those that don't want to play against that kind of list.

Magic is done very well. Most spells are support spells in nature and do things like making troops better, weakening enemy troops, creating terrain, summoning units, taking control of enemy troops temporarily and so forth. Magic is an expensive ability as wizards cost a lot so using them to just throw damage spells isn't a very wise idea. However, having a wizard summon a lake or forest in the right place or confuse an enemy unit at just the right moment can pay off in spades. Wizards can also use magic to turn very poor quality troops into much better warriors though the use of spells by granting them magical weapons, the ability to breath fire, extra limbs and so forth. Magic is also a very tactical aspect of the game, and far from overpowered.

Melee between units is resolved very quickly and is often quite brutal. Players resolve damage by rolling dice for each model's attacks and this usually results in a lot of casualties in a single phase, depending on which types of units are involved.

The final phase is morale where players must test to see if units that have suffered casualties, are heavily outnumbered or were outmanoeuvred significantly lose their nerve and break. One thing I like is that units don't generally run away unless they have taken a significant beating and suffered heavy casualties. You don't get a situation where a big unit of infantry flee because a nearby unit was destroyed or ran away. To make an enemy battleline collapse, you really have to focus a lot of damage their way. Skirmish units break much more easily than rank and file units.

Things I liked:

- Great turn sequence. Constant player involvement as both players complete their movement, shooting, magic, etc before moving to the next phase.

- Superb balance between armies. All units are created using a standard 'creature creation formula' for points allocation (which is available in the book) and it has been intensively play-tested. This has resulted in very balanced armies. I have so far never felt out-classed by my opponents army when playing equal point value games.
There are none of the 'bad match ups' you find in another system. *Ahem*

- Very tactical. I find myself constantly thinking about what do in my games … how to manoeuvre my units, whether to adopt certain formations, which spells to try and cast and so on.

- Fast-paced action. A large game consisting of about 200 models per side can easily be played in under 2 hours once both players are familiar with the rules.

- Variety of army lists. There are around 15 army lists that come with the book and another 15 or so available for free on the web-site. You can use historical armies (Persians, Egyptians, Macedonians, Romans, Greeks, Celts, Vikings, Saxons, Carthaginians, etc.) and fantasy armies (High Elves, Goblins, Dark Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, wolf-men, Barbarians, ratmen, Giant-kings, Chaos, Wood Elves, Halfling and Centaur Woodland Coalition etc.).
There is also a standard list of over a hundred monsters that any army can take so you can take a historical list and supplement it with fantasy monsters. You can also field artillery and vehicles.

- Price …. this game is very cheap. A single $20 USD rulebook is all you need. You can use any existing historical or fantasy miniatures to play the game. Every suitable model you own is valid to play with. Everything in terms of rules is included in the one rulebook or available for free on the website.

Areas for Improvement

- Vehicle rules are very flexible but a little clunky at the moment. The developer is currently producing trial rules that so far look very streamlined while keeping the same flexibility. They will be in use at the upcoming AoA Tournament in London on July 29th.

- Seige rules have not yet been fully developed and are still in testing mode.

The truth is there's very little I dislike about this game. I am overall very happy with it and I'm very glad I discovered it. It's given a new lease on life to my miniature collection.

Overal Rating: 9 / 10

P.S. This system is currently in production and the rule book is available from Dave at 'Caliver Books' in the UK (Southend), he is retailing it at £14.50.

Here is the creators website, he makes other systems as well.
thanesgames.com

jizbrand05 Jul 2007 8:59 a.m. PST

I like the game a lot. For fantasy, we play either AoA or Wargods of Aegyptus.

But my experience is just a tiny bit different: units in combat break rather easily. I never count on a unit withstanding more than a turn or two of combat. The modifiers for formations and losses are generally pretty overwhelming. So a lot of units are running at various times.

That being said, it is reasonably easy to recover them in subsequent turns, but it does tend to leave your battleline in a shambles. The nice thing about it is that units do not take morale tests when friends flee, so the damage is limited to just units that have completed combat.

And, there are very few cases of units being run down and destroyed while in flight by single figures or small units.

Hundvig Fezian05 Jul 2007 9:32 a.m. PST

Big fan of the game myself, although it rarely gets played around here. My experience with units breaking is closer to what jizbrand describes, but as he said, it's easier to recover from routing in AoA than in some games…if the enemy doesn't assign units to harrass you off of the table, a broken unit can usually expect to get back in the game.

One thing I'd add, the game has a fairly versatile "build your own model" system, so in addition to the established army and monster lists you can work in all sorts of weirdness, up to and including scifi elements. There's a little bit of room for abuse (movement is, perhaps, a bit undercosted) but for the most part it's a nice extra to an already excellent game.

Zinkala05 Jul 2007 12:22 p.m. PST

I like AoA a lot. I'm not getting in much gaming nowadays and what I do is AoA. Like Hundvig I love the creature creation aspect. I'm not into making totally new, over the top monsters or units. But I made up stats for all of my existing figures showing their different equipment and such. It's nice to see some of my old soldiers marching off the shelf again. The historical/fantasy mix is good IMO too. I've wanted to do historicals for a long time but didn't feel like starting a new system and rules when I'm already heavily into fantasy. Now I've got no excuses and when I get around to it I'll have romans and others taking on elves and dwarves.

The Black Wash05 Jul 2007 3:24 p.m. PST

I looked into this a few years back but kinda thought the fantasy lacked "flavor." (Flavor, is, by the way, what Warhammer has in spades.)

Can anyone comment on this?

Judas Iscariot05 Jul 2007 7:52 p.m. PST

One point I would like to bring up:

Shooting, historically, was not as deadly as many people would like to make it.

Even in armies where everyone had a bow (Many Persian Armies, and many Byzantine armies), it was not a very effective form of combat… Troops can pretty easily dodge or block arrows with their shields, and javelins usually only caused a formation to falter in its charge or become disordered from dodging the missiles befoe contact was made.

This is a bit of an oversimplification, but if you go to the AncMed Yahoo group, and ask one Duncan Head about Shooting… He will probably tell you that it was not as deadly as most rules systems make it out to be (That would be except for the DBx family, where it is modelled VERY differently)

Hundvig Fezian06 Jul 2007 7:13 a.m. PST

I looked into this a few years back but kinda thought the fantasy lacked "flavor." (Flavor, is, by the way, what Warhammer has in spades.)

Can anyone comment on this?

I prefer AoA because of its rules and adaptability, but there is an "official" world setting with a fair amount of history explaining why the various army lists are structured the way they are. The whole "Elven Civil War" as the driving force behind most everything is pretty clever, albeit a bit cliche.

And frankly, if you like the Warhammer fluff better, go ahead and use it for AoA. Some of the army lists are already pretty close to WFB's in terms of troop types, and making your own units is a valid option, so adding the "missing" troops is easy enough. Try doing that in Warhammer and see how well it goes over. About the only thing that AoA doesn't support so well is customizing magic spells…but there are quite a few lists already, and Thane puts out new ones on the web site every now and then.

Rich

Multiple scale war gamer06 Jul 2007 10:32 a.m. PST

Judas Iscariot,

Wrning: this is a serious question, not a troll… What is the reason that Duncan Head's opinion should be treated as especially accurate, enlightened and/or accurate to 'reality'?

I don't challenge his knowledge, I just don't accept it without some idea why he is more of an expert then "Joe Wargamer" who (also) has never endured a 'rain of longbow bolts' in real life but thinks whole units should disappear when a target.

Gracias,

Glenn

Privateer4hire06 Jul 2007 2:08 p.m. PST

"…making your own units is a valid option, so adding the "missing" troops is easy enough…"

True. With just a simple multiplication of one AoA Dwarf troop type, I was able to make my GW miners into a unit that can perform similar (AKA tunnelling) manuevers; for those AoAers wondering, I used Infiltrate as an add-on ability so that my miners can pop up in unexpected places just like they could in WHFB.

Both games (WHFB and AoA) are still very good IMO. Just different feel and approaches to a central idea. :)

Zinkala06 Jul 2007 3:07 p.m. PST

AoA is light on the fluff, but there are some people working on that. Personally for my games I never followed the warhammer fluff that closely so this isn't a huge shortcoming for me. My fluff tends to be more campaign oriented dealing with whatever we're played out at the moment.

I'm curious about the shooting in history effectiveness too. I'll have to check out that yahoo group sometime. Personally I don't see how you could easily dodge missile fire especially when in tight ranks. I'm a paintball player and even though I can see the balls coming(max 300 fps velocity), dodging isn't so easy. I have some archery experience as well. One thing I think is that we don't need to think in absolutes of killed or unwounded. Get an arrow in an arm or foot and you're a casualty that won't want to fight unless it's damn desperate.

Privateer, I'm doing an AoA dwarf army right now. I was considering using infiltrate for miners and rangers but hadn't decided whether or not I should. So far I'm just filling out units in the main list.

Tony S06 Jul 2007 3:49 p.m. PST

"Personally I don't see how you could easily dodge missile fire especially when in tight ranks."

In a word…armour. Having body armour and some sort of a shield to hide behind not only actually stops a lot of the missiles, but also – and more importantly – makes you feel safer. Feeling more protected, even if you aren't, helps soldiers' morale.

I remember a primary source of the Third Crusade Battle of Arsuf which described the Frankish infantry as porcupines, as their quilted armour stopped so many Syrian arrows.

Zinkala06 Jul 2007 8:17 p.m. PST

Oh, I agree armour would help. But a lot of the armour I've seen was lighter than what we might think. The whole trade off between weight and protection. More armour means even less chance of a dodge though. Suiting up does help the morale. I've seen that myself in the sports I've played. I'm no expert on the effectiveness of ancient weapons and armour but it's an interesting topic for me.

In AoA missile weapons are costly and effective, in warhammer slightly more expensive and not very effective. Not sure what was more historically accurate but I like it when my bows actually do something.

Elvenblade04 Oct 2007 7:35 a.m. PST

Shields help a lot against missiles in AoA as they increase your armour by 1. Longbows were very effective weapons, especially when fired en mass. Heavy armour was a good defense against them but was the reserve of the rich. It should also be noted that longbows were fairly specialist weapons an require a lot of training.

Back to AoA though, very good game with a good game balance for bows etc. Official fluff is light but you can use whatever suits your needs.

What I like about it though, is although its fantasy, the rules model the way normal things would happen in real life such as long weapons being a real deterrent against a charging enemy.

andrewgr04 Oct 2007 12:45 p.m. PST

w/r/t the effectiveness of missile fire: most fantasy games seem to take the "knights in shining armor" period of human history (basically, the Hundred Years War) as their starting point. The English Longbow and the Swiss Crossbow were without question much more effective than missile fire was during the Ancients period, which is what I'm assuming was meant by the reference to Persion and Byzantine armies not using bow fire effectively.

If you're using the Ancients period as a starting point, then certainly bow fire shouldn't be that effective, and shouldn't have that great of a range. But off the top of my head, I can't think of any fantasy games that explicitly set out with Ancient Romans or Greeks or Gauls as their model for how combat should work.

RocketToad30 Oct 2007 2:31 p.m. PST

What I like about Armies of Arcana is although its fantasy, (with monsters, spells, characters etc.) the rules model the way normal things would happen in real life such as long weapons being a real deterrent against a charging enemy, a charged enemy getting to fight back when sustaining wounds if they have rear ranks to do that etc.

It makes a concerted effort to offer up realistic, reasonable and common sense outcomes to actions taken by the players in the game.
This realism also adds to the fantasy by enhancing the contrast between the mundane and the fantastical.

I love the way all my WAB and Warhammer armies are instantly legal as well.(and so does my wife ;) )
It means I am not getting stung again to shell out for another set of brand specific models, or having to take all that time to assemble and paint them.

A rulebook and a few movement trays and I'm good to go.
Two game systems with different flavours for the one army.
Thats value for money.

Zinkala31 Oct 2007 8:05 a.m. PST

I'm in the process of planning and buying some historical armies that I've liked for years. I never got into historicals because I had a large collection of fantasy and my friends weren't as interested in playing historical match ups. I'm sure some of the old grognards will be turning in their graves but I'm looking forward to having battles of imperial romans against medievals against fantasy. Plus the historical models are generally cheaper so I can feed my lead addiction for less than GW prices.

RocketToad03 Nov 2007 3:25 a.m. PST

Historical models are cheaper and some of the companies make 28mm quality that rivals the fantasy companies so it's a no lose scenario.
Keep an eye out on November the 6th for the xmas Horde deals from Foundry.
I've picked up four 28mm Historical armies from them for use in Armies of Arcana. Most of them coming by way of the Horde discount offer.
Perry miniatures make lovely historical models as well but they are not so cheap and I'm yet to see them discounted.
Front Rank Figurines are always a very good option for Medieval Infantry and mightily cost effective as well.

mister flay29 May 2008 2:58 p.m. PST

A.o.A has got me back into wargaming
spurred on my putty pushing also, which is cool !

a good fast big fantasy battle game, without characters or magic taking over. though you can use pretty much any miniature you want , if its not in the army lists, you can create it via the ccf. very well balanced .

iv'e seen it played with 'ancient' armies also, so w.a.b armies fit in nicely, if you fancy giving alexander a dragon to ride on… well, why not !

RocketToad30 May 2008 3:37 p.m. PST

The new edition of Armies of Arcana is up for pre-ordering from Terrain Warehouse with a 10% discount.

terrainwarehouse.co.uk

RocketToad14 Jun 2008 3:00 p.m. PST

There is also a new AoA players forum for players, by players.

link

Jonny Shoreboy15 Jun 2008 8:07 a.m. PST

With the new look 5th edition out it could be a good time to check it out. I have been playing AoA for about 3 years now and have never looked back. I just love how easy the game plays. The new rulebook is in full colour too!

magokiron15 Jun 2008 3:14 p.m. PST

I've been playing AoA for over 2 years now, and I'm very pleased with this system.

Now with the release of the new rulebook, full color, lots of pics, and with a new layout, maybe some other players will be tempted to try it too.

I'm sure they'll never regret they do!

RocketToad20 Jun 2008 10:10 a.m. PST

I'm playing again next Monday night, I'll try to do a battle report for the occasion.

BrianH04 Sep 2008 10:36 p.m. PST

I am thinking of buying these rules and trying them at my local wargames club. Do they use the same drawn out combat system as WFB (roll to hit, roll against toughness, armour savings throw)? Do they differentiate between similar elite units i.e. Dark Elf Executioners versus Dark Elf Black Guard?

Elvenblade05 Sep 2008 3:56 a.m. PST

Mechanic is roll to hit, then a saving throw based on armour of defender and str of attacker. Its much quicker than WH and no tables to consult.

In the standard army lists there is no differentiation between DEE and DEBG (I think, not familiar with the WH units) but that doesn't stop you creating a slightly different unit as there is a formula for creatinng new units and calculating their points.

BrianH05 Sep 2008 10:42 p.m. PST

So for example the Black Guard could be given halberds and the Executioners axes and that would create slightly different stats?

Zinkala06 Sep 2008 4:06 p.m. PST

Yes, 2 handed weapons have different stats than halberds. If you go here link and sign up there's a large group of us willing to help you out. I've done a fair bit of work on more direct conversions of some of the Warhammer lists into AoA and there's more people doing other armies. In the official lists there are dark elf halberdiers but they only wear light armour and no option for 2 handed weapons. Like Elvenblade said there is a formula for creating your own units.

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