"Armies of arcana Good or bad?" Topic

I was wondering if anyone has tried the rules for Armies of Arcanna? Are they any good? I lioke the idea of being able to use any figs to reprsent armies and being able to play in different scales. I also like that you only have to buy the one book which has all the armt lists in it without having to buy seperate army books. Let me know what you think

Check the older threads. You're sure to get a lot of responses to this one, though. AoA is quite popular, and well liked. I haven't played it, but I'm tempted. Cheers!

I like it a lot.

Fast, simple to learn, well thought out and your money goes to where it should go:

Your miniatures' budget.

Give it a try.

Good - Excellent even.

The best 1 man= 1 figure massive skirmish game I've ever played. You can run 100 figures a side in less than two hours.

Excellent game. Superb customer support: the author actively participates in the Yahoo group devoted to the game, and promptly responds to e-mail as well. Different races have different stats which make them play very differently from one another, as opposed to some of the more generic games out there. Good variety of magic, which seems to cost about the right amount. Characters add a lot of punch to a unit, but can't really go off on their own and expect to survive long. Includes a point system so you can creat stats for whatever figures you have.

I don't think the rules as written are suitable for highly competitive tournament play, as they lack rules for terrain placement, and also because the rules for army composition are so lenient that you can create highly specialized "all or nothing" armies, which is the bane of tournament play. The rules also lack procedures for sideboards in tournaments, which would pretty much be absolutely necessary, given that the undead are immune to missile fire (i.e., you'd need a way to substitute in some non-missile units when facing the undead). But this seems like a minor issue, since the overwhelming majority of games played with any system are in non-tournament settings.

I like it. I've been playing for nearly 2 years and it is one of my favorites. The rules are common sense and fast playing. Never had a boring game.

I like it a lot! It runs a lot smoother than Warhammer, is a lot lighter on the brain and I have yet to see an argument about the rules!

After our first game, we only had 3 questions about the whole book and Thane personally set us straight via the net!

To me , it is the finest Warhammer type game out there. So do yourself a favor and call Thane now. I promise you wont be disappointed.

Boduognat, King of Nervi

and I am not in Thane's service, I'm just a happy customer!

I just bought my copy about a week ago. I love it! I could not stop reading it when I first picked it up.

The rules are written so that a Warhammer player could easily adjust. Yet the rules are simple enough that no wargaming knowledge is needed. However as a warhammer player I appreciated that the rule set addressed a lot of the problems I had with the Warhammer system. Features such as simultaneous combat, mild magic, mild characters and a well balance army list allow players to field ANY army and have a reasonable chance of winning.

What I wanted most in a game system was one which used a lot of miniatures and which allowed you to field any creatures you wanted. Why should you be limited to what kinds of elves to field, or who may ally with one another? I was tired of systems where one hero or monster could destroy an entire unit. I was also fed up with systems which limited what kinds of weapons and armor races could use. For instance how come goblins always have to be lightly armed? I want Phalanx goblins with shieldwall! Anyway, AoA is all about options. You can use the armies straight out of the book or create your own. The rules are easy to use and you don’t need charts to play.

Best of all the game is in print and the creator (Thane Morgan) is actively involved in updating and maintaining the game.

Hope that helps, kind of a long post

Awesome game....

Brandu

Great Game!

Funny, I just pick up my copy on saturday and went through it in about an hour. Personally, I liked it, minimal fluff, tidy rules and much room for tinkering.

One thing does stand out in your list of considerations is that you want a ruleset that can do different figs as well as scales. AoA can do this but you might have to tinker with the army list a little to have it suit your army. For instance, if you have gnome army, I believe that AoA does not have an army list for that, hence you have to make up your own.

It's not difficult and in fact, the book teaches you how to do this but if you're the sort which dislikes doing this, it may be something you might want to consider. And I have to admit that I have not had the chance to actually play a game with these rules yet so my evaluation of it may be a little off.

But on first glance, the game has much potential to suit your needs. Hope this helps!

Thane ran a tourney here last year or something where we had sideboards - I think it was 500 out of 3000 points you could swap around between battles. It seems he wants to keep a lot of the rules kind of in flux through the constant playtesting he does, so that may explain why there aren't any hard and fast terrain rules. Or maybe it's because he likes that symmetric golf course look....
My favorite things about Arcana are the points calculator, allowing you to make up your very own army, and the fact that you can play in any scale without modifying the rules.

Wow. Thanks for all the post. I am definately picking this one up. I have been looking for something to replace wahammer. I am fed up with the new prive hike from GW and having to buy new codexes/army books every few years. AoA sounds like a great system that is right up my alley. Thanks again for allthe great posts.

How about that?

12 out of 12. A 100% satisfaction indicator.

This should be quoted by Thane on his site, surely.

=)

Way to go, man!

Ok, dumb question. What's the web address (assuming they have one)?

http://www.thanesgames.com

and a discussion group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thanesgames/

Very helpful lot.

Nathan