To the Strongest - typical army size

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Started on WRG 3rd 4th Edition. Play almost anything.

[steve_holmes_11]

Ancients certainly suffers form a lot less "You've got the wrong colour epaulettes", or "Your 1806 gunners are wielding the 1812 bricole".

Unless those pesky archeologists discover it all and force us into the "great rebasing".

[FierceKitty]

Ancients certainly suffers form a lot less "You've got the wrong colour epaulettes", or "Your 1806 gunners are wielding the 1812 bricole".

Unless those pesky archeologists discover it all and force us into the "great rebasing".

And alleged ancients gamers ignore facts even when we have them. How many Scipionic legions have you seen on other wargames sites armed with gear four or five centuries too modern?

[sultanbev]

I stopped playing ancients at WRG4 when invisible shield walls were introduced. The latter are still around. A lot of ancients rules defy the law of physics in places so aren't worth the paper they are written on as far as I'm concerned. I have tried writing my own but didn't come up with a bland set based on our standard fall back Fire & Fury. So have bought more books and doing a lot more reading before I retry.

[Ithoriel]

I stopped playing ancients at WRG4 when invisible shield walls were introduced. The latter are still around. A lot of ancients rules defy the law of physics in places so aren't worth the paper they are written on as far as I'm concerned. I have tried writing my own but didn't come up with a bland set based on our standard fall back Fire & Fury. So have bought more books and doing a lot more reading before I retry.

Elite, impetuous, light heavy, Warband with heavy throwing weapon and force field, may be mounted on circus elephants equipped with naptha siphons?

Frankly, all wargames rules play fast and loose with reality, Ancients no more than any other as far as I can see.

[steve_holmes_11]

And alleged ancients gamers ignore facts even when we have them. How many Scipionic legions have you seen on other wargames sites armed with gear four or five centuries too modern?

I know.
What do they think they're playing at.
Utterly undermines the credibility of the hobby.

My own, of course, are wholly authentic.
Being based on that reliably textbook "Asterix in Carthage".

[steve_holmes_11]

Elite, impetuous, light heavy, Warband with heavy throwing weapon and force field, may be mounted on circus elephants equipped with naptha siphons?

Frankly, all wargames rules play fast and loose with reality, Ancients no more than any other as far as I can see.

Later rules make a greater pretence of realism.

[BKC Grenadier]

it's hardly surprising.
Compare with some popular alternatives.
* Napoleonics: 26 Years (Max), 7 big combatants. Well recorded timelines, alliances and orders of battle.
* ACW: 5 years, 2 main combatants, well recorded timelines, battle accounts from all ranks, fairly standard orders of battle.
* WW2: 7 years (More if you insist on including Sino-Japanese conflict), 6 major combatants and a number of brief contributions, well known timeline, extremely detailed order of battle and weapon stats.

Now let's do ancients:
4500 years (90% of history).
500+ army lists.
Difficulty aligning even the major timelines among the oldest lists (eg Bronze age eastern Med).
Few surviving military treatiese, some of those vague, or the work of fantasists, (or self promoters who would make Patton blush).
Very few surviving battle reports.
Dubious orders of battle.
Magical thinking by "historians" of the day.
Army reconstructions based on ceremonial art (eg sarcophagus engraving).

No wonder it's confusing.
I'm coming around to the idea of treating it in the way we do imagi-nations.

Bravo Steve, couldn't have put it better. In addition what T13A (Paul) said clarifies it even more clearly, for me personally.  The rules quoted, TtS & FK&P,  provide for all of it IMHO.....a good realistic balanced game with understandable forces (read manageable) and actually finish it in a sitting.     

" I think Steve has summarised the issues with 'ancients' extremely well. If you approach ancients wanting the same level of information regarding troop types, unit organisation etc. that we have for WWII (for instance) then it is going to be difficult if not impossible. Can you have interesting and enjoyable games? Certainly, and I am a big fan of both 'To the Strongest!' and 'For King and Parliament', both of which have (IMHO) a good balance of playability and realistic results and a bonus is that 95% of the time we actually get to finish a game properly! That said my group use dice and 'chits' instead of playing cards."