"will Hail Caesar overtake WAB?" Topic

Is the big burning question?

Seems, from what I've read, to be a different sort of game, therefore likely to appeal to a different set of players. Who knows, though.

Doug

I really doubt it, based on what I've read.
Clash of Empires is probably closer to that.

seems to have the same basing convention so easy to shift across?

We could always wait until it has a decent airing before deciding if it has killed off WAB.

Yes, at 2:17pm EST on June 13, 2012, it will officially surpass WAB as the game all the cool kids will be playing.

To hear some people talk about WAB, it's already dead. I think that's news to the people still playing it though.

In the last 10 years it has been pretty hard to drum up WAB locally where I'm at, so it has been pretty much dead for some time. FoW on the other hand…

Dunno if I'm going to buy into Hail Caesar. I don't think Priestly is the God of wargaming some think he is, and looking at BP the game comes across as being a bit TOO casual for my tastes…

Damon.

Who knows. I like the look of it and will certainly give it a go. It isn't like WAB is a big deal where I live so . . . I suspect the end result will hing on those few that actually paint the figures and schedule the games.

Stay Tuned!

mjc

I have no doubt that there will be plenty who respond positively to the "New! Shiny!" stimulus!

Allen

I stock WAB supplements for shows. So I would be biased. I am not sure it will sell enough in the USA to be viable, especially in my part of the country. The ancients market is a tough nut to crack in the piece meal support concept.

Many WAB players don't know that Field of Glory can accomodate its figure mounting scheme as the rules state that you can represent with lesser figures than suggested. Therefore, 20mm square stand infantry could be used 3 wide to match the basing convention for FoG at 25mm.

Basing has been one of the stumbling blocks for converting from one set of rules to another. Also, while individial basing works, it is more tedious to move figures. Magnetic sabot basing of WAB would be ideal.

Having said all this, it is a shame that so many rules still are mired in old WRG basing conventions when it comes to 25mm figures. As most figure companies really make figures in what was once 30mm scale (called 28mm now), we really should have rules that state 80mm wide basing. It is much easier to go up in size than to come down.

I'm waiting to see the War & Conquest Rules. From what I have read they seem like they might be closer to WAB than Hail Caesar.

But again I still like WAB!

"I stock WAB supplements for shows. So I would be biased."

There's potential synchronicity there, Rudy. Rick Priestley has already said to go ahead and use WAB supplements for building HC armies.

Rob Broom's (Scarab) "War and Conquest" and Stuart McQuorquodale's (Great Escape) "Clash of Empires" will indeed be more familiar to WAB players, I suspect. I've seen more of CoE, and I'm quite impressed.

"Warrior" offered an alternative "30mm" mounting scheme to accommodate the more recent 28mm figures. I don't know of anyone using it, though.

But as much as I may be unhappy with the direction WAB has gone, I do not plan to forsake it altogether.

Allen

Of the three (Hail Caesar, War and Conquest and Clash of Empires) it seems to me that Great Escape Games' Clash of Empires is the most Wabesque and the easiest for WAB players to shift to (assuming they are going to shift at all). For me personally, Clash of Empires is ticking all my boxes and looks by far the most promising at this point.

As alluded to above, Black Powder/Hail Caesar has a quite different feel to it and gives/will give a different kind of game. I have no idea what War and Conquest will be like though. For all I know it could be WAB MK3, considering who is releasing it.

I remember the hoo ha that erupted when FOG came out, and how everyone got in a tizzy about how it would take over and how it ultimately turned out to be… far less than the hype. The same could argueably be said for WAB2 – and I confess I was caught up in it. Now suddenly we have three rivals all about to release rules at more or less the same moment. I'm making no predictions, but it will be an interesting time. :)

Whatever happens I don't think we should make too many comparisons with WAB. They are all games in their own right trying to make it on their own merits. It just happens that it is disenchanted WAB players that are likely to make a sizeable portion of the market! Did these three wolves smell the FW fertilizer? Did they sense the haemorrhaging WABite blood? Is it any coincidence that we have three new rulesets all being released to compete with WAB at more or less the same time? Is it just coincidence that all three involve people that were once GW outright or else were involved in creating their products? Or, is it just that, having left the GW family circle, these gamemakers wanted to continue to be involved with GW type games (and continue to make money of course)?

Interesting times, interesting times to say the least. But don't go writing any one game off just yet.

Ummm….

who cares?

Why does any set of rules need to supplant another?

I have seen folks still happily playing WRG 6th edition. I think HC will give a different sort of game and appeal to those who are turned off by the current WAB/FoG/DBx dominated scene.

Yes, but if three rulesets are competing for the custom of disgruntled WABbites, the pieces of the pie will each be much smaller than the stale, slightly burnt pastry that is WAB.

Allen

stale, slightly burnt pastry that is WAB.

Perhaps stale but hardly burnt. After you hand scribe all the errata into the margins.

[I left the rules book and the errata in the bathroom for about 6 weeks -- working on it when the opportunity presented . My art isn't the best but hey . . . you really can transpose all that errata into the rules book! One has to be careful about what paper you use for what despite the obvious temptations . There are worse ways to spend your time in the reading room].

WAB 2.0 isn't a bad set of rules.

But that slick paper would be horrible as a bog roll.

To my mind, it was an unnecessary, flawed rules update with a hefty price tag.

Allen

Clash of Empires sounds interesting too!

I don't think my budget can take 3 new rulesets.

We will certainly give it a try in our small coven. No matter how Caesar is spelt. I do wonder about the rule book – why not spiral bound so that it can lie flat? Will they never learn. At least Impetus has.

WRG has its elements 60mm wide with varying depths. So if this can be accommodated so much the better.

Hmmm such speculation… is it important to compare? I guess folks want to know what the hot rules will be? Fashion trend in gaming? Now I will say there are differences in taste, I would say WAB is more attractive to the crowd that like curves in their super models, whereas FoG is more for the bony edgy skinny models, that fit more tightly on the 60mm catwalk.

The new WAB competitors will hopefully be successful. Impetus has taken away the Volley and Bayonet clone crowd already, and you can play WAB based figures on their sabots.

The other rules are definitely going with the idea that WAB players will be familiar with them, and their mechanics.

Hail Caesar is more it's own game, no telling how it will be received, since it is anti-competitive play I reckon that will put off those who wish to play competitively.

WAB just fizzles, it's kind of sad sometimes.. is it alive? Is it vegitative? Should they just pull the plug?

So what will be the rule book that puts snizzle in your swizzle?
I think we all want to still play WAB, but instead of everybody having their own version and amendments and complete anarchy, I hope that the natural order prevails and one of these sets becomes common…. one out of three has to be smexy!
JJ

Spiral bound doesn't display well. You can't have every set of rules displayed face out.

Ironically, it is also a more expensive way to bind AND it looks 'cheap'.

What's "Hail Caesar"? I never heard of it.

"Hail Caesar is more it's own game, no telling how it will be received, since it is anti-competitive play I reckon that will put off those who wish to play competitively."

Ummm…:

link

The UK WAB tournament powers-that-be seem to have selected their successor set already.

I have no interest in supermodels, zaftig or rail-like. I want a set of ancients rules that is imaginatively ty, tarted up in a black satin corset with a whip, and able to whip up a tasty breakfast in the morning.

Allen

WAB is dead. Only the hard core play it now and console each other on the WAB forum that they have insider knowledge that Forge World are on the verge of publishing new army books soon.

War & Conquest & Clash of Empires will battle it out now as the tournament scene replacement and one will become the new WAB. Probably the one that is supported the most with army book releases.

Hail Caesar will be hugely popular like Black Powder. Good games with good mates.

Most of us will buy all of above because we are wargamer victims looking for the new hotness.

I guess I must be one of the hardcore WAB players. Our group still plays it and has fun!

bjporter; please give more info on WAB2 compared to WAB1.5, I'm still confused whether I want to buy version 2 or not!

I think my head is going to explode.

oldbob70

Go with WAB1.5

Funny, but my copy of WAB still seems very alive. I put figures on the table and play with it and it still works and produces fun games…

Mike

A freind of mine made a great point about HC on his blog:

zerotwentythree.blogspot.com/search/label/hail%20caesar

I need to learn not to post links on here.I mess them up every time.

Don't think it is going to take much to overtake WAB 2 now days.

Kinda like trying to out swim a beached whale.

Any company that proofreads their rules and supports them should have little problem pulling away from Forge World in that race.

I disagree with stopping the posts on sensitive issues. Keep making the posts. It is posts like the this that reflects the general discussion that takes place around regional convnetions. And needs to take place before a club switches to a new set of rules. Keep on plugging. Debate show that the hobby is not dying.

"Go with WAB1.5"

There is wisdom. 90% of the issues that most players had with WAB 1.0/1.5 could have been addressed on a one- or two-page errata--including changing the rank bonuses to create a more linear battlefield.

Instead, an expensive new edition was so badly mangled that it required ten pages of errata to correct what went astray between the author's widely playtested, reviewed, and proofread draft and publication (and it ain't all fixed yet!), another two-page document to correct inconsistencies in the 2.0 charts, and another twenty-nine page document to bring the existing supplements up to speed with the new rules.

Far simpler to stick with either of the older rulebooks (you also get the advantage of an imperial Roman list that hasn't been emasculated) and make the changes that were all that were really needed in the first place, to suit the way you prefer to play.

"Any company that proofreads their rules…" Certainly incompetent production was WAB 2.0's greatest sin, Tim--after the exorbitant price tag for the little goodness that you get. But these days, the ultra-glossy Gucci rulesets are as a general rule poorly written and poorly proofread. You already know the problems with Flames of War!

Keep your standards low, if you wish to avoid disappointment.

Allen

I think it's shame what happened with WAB, more so that the flood of supplements some were expecting never happened. I'd agree about the 1.5 EIR list too!!!! Hopefully AoA will surface, maybe others too, god knows, the publishers don't seem that bothered about it. Maybe it will be annual Salute releases for WAB? Maybe Crusades will be 2018? :-(

Not sure I'll bother with Hail Caesar. I will likely sell my Black Powder and an ancients version, unless very different, will almost certainly not float my boat. I will check out Great Escape's rules and Rob Broom's. I suspect I will until at least 12 months after release before buying into any of them though. Enough to keep me going for now and I'd rather see how the land lies before plunging in with any more rules, I have enough sets that I only get to play solo with!! Still, if I end up in Malaysia or Panama, solo maybe all I'll get.

perhaps the WAB supplements will appear in close types form furtively read by candlelight like those Soviet period underground newspapers.

Perhaps an enterprising individual will set up a server in a secret base in Sweden to host it and the frustrated authors post them there?

Hail Caesar will be hugely popular like Black Powder. Good games with good mates.

I tend to agree. Like BP, Hail Caesar was written with a particular style of wargaming in mind, because that is how the authors enjoy playing their own games. Folks like me who also favor that gaming style, and/or who enjoy the Warmaster Ancients/Black Powder design philosophy, will probably also enjoy HC.

On the other hand, and as others have mentioned already, it sounds as if CoE and W&C will probably be much closer to WAB in gaming style and design philosophy. 'To each his own,' and all that!

Still hard to say about the SE USA. I have not seen any BP on any convention programs YET.

Since I spent a very enjoyable weekend playing a well-crewed WAB 2 tournament I daresay WAB seems to be quite alive. I at least never considered myself hardcore in anything. This will probably not stop me from buying (and who knows, even playing?) Hale Seeser!

fair enough. I was at the WMMS show on Sunday and people were still playing WRG 6th Edition. But probably less of them in the good old days…..

At the Colours WAB tournament last year the numbers were about a third of what they were.

I'm very much looking forward to HC and, maybe even more, Clash of Empires. And part of the reason has nothing to do with rules, per se. I consider myself less of a gamer and more of a hobbyist; I generally will play whatever system the group decides to use for any given period or project.

I've been a huge fan of Warhammer Ancient Battles for a long time, mainly because I always thought the supplements were first rate. But more and more, I've felt that the forces behind WAB were maybe less than enthusiatic about the game. Maybe even going so far as to say apathetic. This feeling, from the game's producers, takes its toll, I think. If Games Workshop/Warhammer Historical/Forge World don't seem particular interested in their game, then why should I be?

So when someone like Stuart comes along with an obvious passion about their new offering, it's hard not to get excited about it. Same goes for Rick and HC. Neither system is out yet and yet both have more support than WAB 2.0 has since its release.

I'm not ready to suggest that these new systems sound the death knell for WAB, but I do think they have the potential to draw players away simply because they're supported by people and companies that apparently feel more than ambivalence towards their own games.

ambivalence is perhaps being charitable…..

Hail Caesar is more it's own game, no telling how it will be received, since it is anti-competitive play I reckon that will put off those who wish to play competitively

Yeah, aint that great!

sometimes the tournament imperative is needed for popularity of the rules.

According to the author, Hail Caesar will have army lists for those who really want them, and lots of scenarios for those of us who prefer that type of game. Sounds good to me!

Cheers,
Scott

P.S. There are some sample army lists available in the Files section of the Hail Caesar discussion group in Yahoo: link

"will Hail Caesar overtake WAB?"

No

two different game systems, with different objectives.
(both very good IMO)

"Will Clash of Empires overtake WAB"

now that's a different story

Ok so will Clash of Empires overtake WAB then?

Be interesting to see which rules set is adopted for the Medieval contest at Colours this year. That will be the dealbuster!