I've read the To the Strongest rules, and think they might tempt me back to ancients.
I cannot figure out the size of a typical army for the recommended 12 x 8 batlefield.
Can anybody help, whether unit count or points?
It may be a paradox, but it seems that a grid game requires more specific troop density than a free form one.
We've played a lot more For King and Parliament than TtS but have played games with some very different unit counts on the table, and all have worked.
I'm struggling to recall unit counts, but around 12 per side would not be uncommon.
Having recent purchased "For King & Parliament" from the same stable I have to agree with you Steve. I have never played Ancients and don't even have armies........yet !
I got TtS when I bought FK&P as well but have'nt played them yet.....I like FK&P too much to have time to play TtS :)
However for a comparison we refought the Battle of Inverkeithing using FK&P last Saturday (I will post a separate AAR about it) on a 10 x 16 grid (150mm squares).
The Scots get 12 units (plus command and light gun bases) in total, while the Parliamentarian (or Commonweath if you prefer) get the same number of overall units.
We usually play on a scenario basis rather than using points values/army lists.
12-15 units is about standard though will vary on how expensive the units are. Usually it recommends battles of 130-150 points for a normal game, though you can of course play much bigger battles too if you like. A standard unit is 7 points, whereas more powerful ones can be 10-15 points, weaker ones 3-4 points and then commanders and camps and so forth all cost.
Have you a particular period of ancients you're interested in? I've a bunch of sample army lists made up as project plans so could possibly give you more specific examples.
Hi
Wot mmcv said!
Great set of rules which virtually always give an exciting game. Had a really good 240 point aside game last week (but on a much bigger table than mentioned above and using 15mm figures in 10cm boxes) in which my Ancient Brits beat the evil empire. :)
Cheers Paul
Quote from: T13A on 19 October 2021, 09:39:22 AM
. . . beat the evil empire. :)
Which one? There's been so many . . .
Quote from: Raider4 on 19 October 2021, 10:00:26 AM
Which one? There's been so many . . .
Is it still Games Workshop?
Or Darth Vader and his robot army?
These things change so quickly..
Quote from: mmcv on 19 October 2021, 12:00:29 AM
12-15 units is about standard though will vary on how expensive the units are. Usually it recommends battles of 130-150 points for a normal game, though you can of course play much bigger battles too if you like. A standard unit is 7 points, whereas more powerful ones can be 10-15 points, weaker ones 3-4 points and then commanders and camps and so forth all cost.
Have you a particular period of ancients you're interested in? I've a bunch of sample army lists made up as project plans so could possibly give you more specific examples.
Thanks.
A real strength of Ancients is the massive variety available.
I find a resulting weakness is that most clusters of opposed armies tend to feature one almost unbeatable "evil empire".
I've written elsewhere about rules that my opponents and I renamed "Romans can't lose".
Another thing to avoid are the "Nobody fights" match ups.
These frequently occur with armies composed mainly of one troop type meet.
For example light bow cavalry against shieldwall type infantry.
We know in history, with logistics and campaign objectives that the infantry could be surrounded, cut off and eliminated.
But most times tey will hold their lines, and the marauders will ride off to such a town or burn some crops.
On tabletop, without the pressures of history or campaign, the shield wall can usually wait for the horesmen's ammunition to dwindle.
That brings me to two interesting and relatively balanced conflicts.
Early on Mithriadites seems one of the few rulers who can give the Marian Romans a run for their money.
14 centuries later later, and a few hundred miles to the west there are some interesting looking match ups in the Medieval Balkans.
That gap between the failure of the Crusades and the fall of Byzantium.
Later Byzantines, Eastern Latins, Venice Abroad, Ottomans and the Catalan Company.
I suspect the immitation legionaries had a lot to do with the Pontic success!
I don't have any specific lists for those but plugging some details from the Venice abroad lists into my spreadsheet could give you a 130 point army a bit like this:
3 Attached mounted generals
3 Later knights
3 Light cavalry, crossbow
2 Spearmen
3 Crossbowmen with Pavises
4 assorted Light infantry
1 1VP battle standard
Though there's some flexibility there as they have the options for a lot more light infantry if you prefer fielding your crossbowmen as lights rather than full units.
Quote from: mmcv on 19 October 2021, 12:34:27 PM
I suspect the immitation legionaries had a lot to do with the Pontic success!
I don't have any specific lists for those but plugging some details from the Venice abroad lists into my spreadsheet could give you a 130 point army a bit like this:
3 Attached mounted generals
3 Later knights
3 Light cavalry, crossbow
2 Spearmen
3 Crossbowmen with Pavises
4 assorted Light infantry
1 1VP battle standard
Though there's some flexibility there as they have the options for a lot more light infantry if you prefer fielding your crossbowmen as lights rather than full units.
Thank you, a great example: 8 "fighting" and 7 "Light" units.
That rather changes my vision of a flank to flank continuous line packed in two deep.
In fact it seems rather sparse (maybe a good thing, providing the horsies with some room to manoeuvre)
Yeah on a 12x8 grid you generally have a 10x2 deployment zone for your troops and camp. Of course, terrain concerns and enemy deployments could shrink that down a lot too. You can generally fit 2 normal units per box, so you could form up in a very deep condensed line or spread out in a long line, or even split up into separate groups. That was based on the later lists, if you go slightly earlier you can use knights rather than later knights which are a little cheaper (but not as tough) and up the number of lights, maybe even throw in some mercenary halberdiers or an extra unit of knights.
Let me know if there's any others you want a quick sample list of. They can generally be tweaked and configured in a number of ways to your liking but trying to just give you a flavour of an average army for them.
Quote from: mmcv on 19 October 2021, 02:12:22 PM
Yeah on a 12x8 grid you generally have a 10x2 deployment zone for your troops and camp. Of course, terrain concerns and enemy deployments could shrink that down a lot too. You can generally fit 2 normal units per box, so you could form up in a very deep condensed line or spread out in a long line, or even split up into separate groups. That was based on the later lists, if you go slightly earlier you can use knights rather than later knights which are a little cheaper (but not as tough) and up the number of lights, maybe even throw in some mercenary halberdiers or an extra unit of knights.
Let me know if there's any others you want a quick sample list of. They can generally be tweaked and configured in a number of ways to your liking but trying to just give you a flavour of an average army for them.
I do have a bunch of PDFs which used to be available for free.
I think the author has now replaced them with a 10 quid book of lists (or perhaps two).
However, your suggested list is extremely useful.
It's one thing to stare at a big ist of options (and be that "but I want that AAAAllll!!!" guy).
It's a whole different education to look at a specced out working army.
Maybe that's what I really enjoyed about DBA and Basic Impetus - Here's your army, a couple of choices at most - don't like it, there are about 400 others.
Quote from: steve_holmes_11 on 19 October 2021, 04:28:35 PM
It's one thing to stare at a big list of options . . .
Ahh, yes, really don't like that. Never know what to do. Paralysis by analysis.
Quote from: steve_holmes_11 on 19 October 2021, 04:28:35 PM
Maybe that's what I really enjoyed about DBA and Basic Impetus - Here's your army, a couple of choices at most - don't like it, there are about 400 others.
Also One Hour Wargames - roll for which six units (from only four possible options) you get to use.
Yeah TtS is a bit more flexible than DBA and the like but the lists for the most part are well thought out and tend to give you a core army of things you must take (usually around 80-100 points) then give you some flexibility around the rest and options for veterans etc.
Simon did take down the free ones as he's now compiled two paid pdfs as you say. The new ones are pretty comprehensive, have a lot of historical notes and get updated every few months with new lists. I haven't actually don't have the latest medieval one so that list might have some changes since but probably pretty much there.
Quote from: steve_holmes_11 on 18 October 2021, 09:13:18 PM
I've read the To the Strongest rules, and think they might tempt me back to ancients.
I cannot figure out the size of a typical army for the recommended 12 x 8 batlefield.
Can anybody help, whether unit count or points?
It may be a paradox, but it seems that a grid game requires more specific troop density than a free form one.
I have never, in 40 odd years of wargaming, played Ancients !.......everything else, but not Ancients. Having firstly purchased Portable Wargames, One Hour Wargames and then FK&P it was a no brainer to get TtS. All these have made Ancients so much easier to digest, understand and get to grips with. Never had a problem sorting out an ACW Brigade, Gd'A Division or WW2 Panzer Regt. but Ancients defied my very limited abilities with the huge breath of period, variety of armies and mind boggling unit types. Thanks to the rules above, all of them, I think I can actually manage to play an Ancients game with some semblence of knowing what I'm about lol. Just need to get TtS Ancients Army List Book now :o ;D ;D ;D
Quote from: BKC Grenadier on 04 November 2021, 08:30:17 PM
I have never, in 40 odd years of wargaming, played Ancients !.......everything else, but not Ancients.
I empathise, I really do. I have never gamed anything before 1066 and even sorting out 11th and 12th Century medieval armies is a bit of a challenge which require considerable imagination. Years ago, in the 1970s, I bought a copy of Armies of the Greek and Persian War by Richard Nelson. I still have it. I haven't looked at it years as it only made it worse.
Reading it still gave me no clear understanding of how Greek units and armies were organised. As for the Persians, well, that is where I just gave up.
Perhaps there are better books out there now and I would welcome any recommendations.
Quote from: John Cook on 05 November 2021, 09:18:15 AM
I empathise, I really do. I have never gamed anything before 1066 and even sorting out 11th and 12th Century medieval armies is a bit of a challenge which require considerable imagination. Years ago, in the 1970s, I bought a copy of Armies of the Greek and Persian War by Richard Nelson. I still have it. I haven't looked at it years as it only made it worse.
Reading it still gave me no clear understanding of how Greek units and armies were organised. As for the Persians, well, that is where I just gave up.
Perhaps there are better books out there now and I would welcome any recommendations.
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.
Hi
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.
Cheers Paul
To be honest, I think that is half the fun of ancients. Piecing together the information and trying to come up with some reasonable understanding of how things were organised. There are some decent books on those sorts of formations these days, Jusin swanton's Ancient Battle Formations is a good one looking at Greek, Macedonian and Roman formations, but certainly the information needs a bit more work and imagination to sort out. I quite enjoy that aspect of it. I find I'm somewhat daunted by the more "modern" conflicts just from the sheer volume of detailed information there is available. With ancients you can use your instincts and information from other periods and similar armies a bit more to fill in the gaps, whereas with modern stuff there'll likely be an answer somewhere, but trawling through the huge amount of information can make it difficult to find. If you aren't already quite interesting in say Napoleonics or WW2 it can be quite difficult to penetrate, particularly the 20th Century where technology and tactics became obsolete in months rather than centuries as before. The strategic picture tends to become a lot more complex as well as you get closer to the present.
There's probably some personality types who prefer one type over the other, e.g. those who are very good at finding key information and researching large detailed data sets and those who are more comfortable piecing together disparate information and using a bit of problem-solving and guesswork to fill the gaps. Both useful traits to have depending on the situation! It's probably a bit easier to be "lazy" with ancients too, since there are a lot of unknowns there's less onus on getting every detail exactly correct, if that's something that's important to you. For some, that's probably a relief, for others, added stress!
Started on WRG 3rd 4th Edition. Play almost anything.
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".
Quote from: steve_holmes_11 on 06 November 2021, 07:04:03 AM
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?
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.
Quote from: sultanbev on 06 November 2021, 10:54:54 AM
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.
Quote from: FierceKitty on 06 November 2021, 09:30:36 AM
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".
Quote from: Ithoriel on 06 November 2021, 12:57:05 PM
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.
Quote from: steve_holmes_11 on 05 November 2021, 09:38:53 AM
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. ;D
" 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."