"Armies of Arcana: Humans v. Dwarves" Topic

I got AoA several weeks back but didn't have any fantasy armies on hand. Shortly after that, I bought paper minis downloads from microtactix and went to work making a human army (knights, swordsmen, etc.) and dwarves. Last weekend, I finally had enough stuff printed out, folded up and glued together to play a couple 1500 pt games.

The human force for the first game had a good number of longbowmen (18), a regiment of knights, a regiment of swords, and a regiment of pikes. The stunties had two regiments of dwarf warriors, a handful each of crossbowmen and halberdiers and an earth elemental (using ettin stats).

Humans won the first game for a couple of reasons. Longbows in AoA are muy, muy effective - -caused a morale failure on the first volley at one of my dwarven regiments. Giant creatures are nasty but vulnerable-unlike in other game systems I've played. Dwarves had minimal ranged weaponry (still need to print out that cannon and crew) and their mobility is more limited than the humans.

The second game, I toned down the human archer unit, replacing the points with a sorcerer. Dwarf composition remained the same. Played to only six turns, this game was more of a draw.

The sorcerer kept out of combat but was only activated as an after thought since the Magic phase hadn't been so important during reading (I had wanted to use AoA for historicals as well) and there were no mages in the first game. Magic has benefits but it's not as overpowering as in a lot of fantasy rules.

Even with lessened numbers, the archers did well again (magic help with their shooting helped augment their smaller force). The dwarves did much better holding their ground (the morale loss in the first game was a fluke more than anything) this game. The elemental still bought it but its abilities at ranged combat and using the 'sweep' against multiple enemies helped it come closer to paying for its points.

Since this was the first time actually putting minis on the table with AoA, I played just to see how the system worked. I actually prefer the objective system that Thane has placed in the rules (every 2000 pts you get to pick an objective) and at the end of each turn you check to see if somebody has pulled off enough objectives to end the game and win.

AoA is very nicely done. The rules are decently organized and make a lot of sense overall. I particularly appreciate not having to buy separate army books (Thane includes a ton of 'em in the back of the book) or updates since the author agrees that these things aren't necessary if you have a good base product to begin with.

When you consider that the army lists are included and that there is a point system for genning up your own stuff, the game is worth way more than the asking price. While I doubt I'll ever be playing AoA in any official competition, it's nice to have a decent set of rules that my friends and I can plunk down some minis with and battle.

Right now, I'm looking at how easy it would be to play sci-fi skirmish (ala 40k, VOID, etc.) using the rules since units could conceivably play as skirmish units versus rank and file (RaF) blocks.

Make some Bear Cav or Ram Rider paper figs, having the cav balance will do a lot to keep the archers off balance. You might be able to out shoot the longbowmen if you can keep from getting too shot up before you get into normal range. A good first volley from gunners can win a missile fight against skill two archers.

Also, if you use the elementals as elementals, they are arrow immune and are a great way to threaten archers.

Berserkers are good for this too, especially if they get a Stone Armor spell on them.

Thanks for the review :)

Another thing to do is give the anti-archer forces a proper sorceror. If I remember correctly, Water Magic gives you access to Fog Bank - essentially the same thing as laying smoke rounds between your army and the archers.

Another option is to go with a cheap skirmish line, whose only purpose in life is to get shot up by the archers.

Now I've only played AoA a couple of times - I can vouch for the Fog Bank working, but haven't tried the skirmish idea.

Thanks for the advice. Microtactix don't make bear cav for dwarves and my laughable sketching skills can only pass for elementals :)

I'm thinking I'll get an even better flavor for the game playing at 2000 points, too. Also, looking through the lists I'm thinking of fielding the dwarves as the Marr (name/sp?) list (they're the Roman legionnaire deal) since I wanna see how they do.

A "normal" game is 4000-6000 points per side, to give you some perspective.

At 2000 points and lower, the skirmish rule mod can add more flavor to the game, as most players will only have 3-5 units in 2000 points by the normal rules.

*jaw hits floor* *scoops up jaw and reattaches*

4-6K points?! Dang, what size of tables do you play on, Thane? I was thinking we had just about the right amount on our table when we were playing with 3-5 units. Any more and there wouldn't have been much maneuver.

Gotcha. I'll have to work on getting more figs built :)

What size of table were you playing on? And how big were those figures? :)

I usually thinking terms of a 4'X 6' table. A smaller table would make smaller games more typical. I also usually think in terms of 15mm, which I shouldn't but it is my prefered scale to play in (8 15mm armies, 3 28mm armies)

I've been reminded that 28mm armies range 2500-5000 more frequently. Few people hav 25mm armies over 5000 points.

in 15mm, you can easily do a 10000 point game on a 4X6.

Last weekend, we did a 15000 point 28mm game on a 6X8 table, which was awesome. 3 5000 point armies on each side- demons, rats undead vs. Sylvan elves, high elves and naga (player list using clan war figs). It took about 4 hours to resolve. The after-effects may be distorting my perspective some :)

The game that Jishin's thinking of was on a 4x4 space to get a feel for the game. I don't think we had a single elite unit on the field, either, and only a couple of character types.

I did a quick run-down of the Scorpion Clan models and test list that we've got for our next game, and - if we manage to get the whole force on the table - we'll have about 4000 points of 30mm models. (And that's without any of the four dragons.)

It would be an interesting battle, because the formation will definitely have some depth to it. (Not surprisingly, I foresee masses of skirmishers out front of this army. Straw Targets, hidden ninjas, etc.)

Links to our working lists are available here: link

Yeah, I played on a 4 x 4 table, too.

Oh, then 1000-3000 points is cool. We played the skirmish rules with 1000-2000 points on 4X4 areas.

Thane you had 30,000 points on table for AoA?

That sounds incredible… are there any pictures of the event?