Strength and Honour Rules

Started by KeithS, 17 January 2022, 04:59:28 PM

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KeithS

Is anyone thinking of giving the proposed Strength and Honour ancient rules a go, when they are published?  They sound to me quite interesting and a chance to play large scale encounters within a limited table space.  Not especially suited to Pendraken figures as the rules are intended for single base to represent a whole Roman legion or barbarian warband, so better suited to 2mm scale or less rather than 10mm figures.
I'll bring up the rest of the brigade.

steve_holmes_11

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with ancients rules, but have been known to cave in and buy a set.

I'm struggling more than usual to really see the appeal of Strength and Honour.
The pitch appears to be "Big battles", but unlike later eras, most campaigns have either one or zero big battles.
(I said most, so Alexander's campaign and Caesar's civil war do not constitute a majority).

Then there are the figures.
They certainly have a following among the playtest community, but lack much appeal to me.
OK I've not seen pikes or elephants yet, but hardly something to show off and impress your mates at the club.

two things tend to drive the spectacle at the very tiny end of the hobby.
Terrain, and large battlefield items.
There's certainly scope for terrain builders to have a field day with this.
Me with my grass mat and plastic trees - less so.

sultanbev

One base to represent a whole Legion, would just look crap. The growing trend of representing bigger and bigger units with less and less figures is turning wargaming into draughts, and just puts me off and into writing my own rules.
Ancient battles are meant to be epic in visual style, with thousands of warriors all close together, like we see in Rome Total War computer games and some movies. People comment that even MeG has too many figures when to me it looks like a skirmish in a football field.

I'm currently working on an idea where 4 bases is 500 men approx, so a Roman cohort would be 4 bases, most other armies using decimal system would be 8 bases a unit. And at that scale, individual companies of skirmishers or elites would show up as a single base unit at least.

As for terrain, most ancient rules seem hell bent on removing it altogether, which in geological and anthropological terms is just plain wrong. With a world population of only 300-500 million, must of the terrain would either be wilderness (long grassy plains with natural ditches; pastoral woodland or scrub), or cultivated.

The other issue I don't know what to do about, is rules using the number of figures to represent troop types. Thus armies that were meant to be hordes of horse archers, eg Huns, Mongols, that should look overwhelming and intimidating, look weedy (and presumably don't sell well) because being predominantly skirmish horse they only use 2 figures to a base compared to say 3 or 4 for closer order troop types.

Ithoriel

The Antonine Miniatures troop blocks from Warbases designed for the rules aren't entirely to my taste, being very basic, but they would be lightning fast to paint (Will would no doubt have an entire army  painted before breakfast!) and at 225 men per standard legionary block it's hard to fault the troop density.

https://warbases.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/AM-LEG1.jpg
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

FierceKitty

I second Sultanbev's views, and say the same for medieval, pike-and-shot (esp. Japanese), and horse-and-musket.
I don't drink coffee to wake up. I wake up to drink coffee.

KeithS

Quote from: sultanbev on 18 January 2022, 12:25:25 PMOne base to represent a whole Legion, would just look crap. The growing trend of representing bigger and bigger units with less and less figures is turning wargaming into draughts, and just puts me off and into writing my own rules.

To be fair the idea with these rules is to avoid using less and less figures on a base but effectively to use a block divided into lots of individual figures with virtually no detail.  The idea is to use tiny blobs of colour to represent individuals among a large crowd, and the view to be as though you are seeing the battlefield from above about 1000 feet in the air. Have a look at the Antonine miniatures mentioned by Ithoriel, for the general effect.  Obviously not to everyone's taste, but there are some advantages, cheap, relatively quick to paint (as he points out), and crucially for me allowing large scale conflicts with very limited table space.
I'll bring up the rest of the brigade.

steve_holmes_11

I can imagine using cards with top views of units printed on.
But the rules don't particularly grab me.

I suppose I'm growing fussy in my old age.

Ithoriel

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

steve_holmes_11

The legions don't look bad.
I really cannot tell what is supposed to be happening with the HOR3 shapes.

I'm sure plenty of people will dash to be part of this "next big thing".

All I'm saying it that it doesn't tick enough of my green flags, and it ticks a few too many potential reds.
That, of course, is personal opinion; something that contributes to the breadth and vibrancy of our hobby.

Ithoriel


QuoteThe legions don't look bad.
I really cannot tell what is supposed to be happening with the HOR3 shapes.

I'm sure plenty of people will dash to be part of this "next big thing".

All I'm saying it that it doesn't tick enough of my green flags, and it ticks a few too many potential reds.
That, of course, is personal opinion; something that contributes to the breadth and vibrancy of our hobby.


15 x 15 is an odd formation to use for a Roman Legionary cohort, 30x8 would look better to me - 60 x 8 would be ideal IMHO.

The barbarian formations are too blobby for my taste.

I'm sure plenty of people will dash to be part of this "next big teeny-tiny thing". - FIFY :)

I'm a fan of Oddzial Osmy's 3mm stuff but this is a "bridge too far for me."
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

fred.

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Raider4

QuoteThey look like CPUs...
Remind me of sticklebricks


Not for me, I think.

Leon

We've been doing the moulding for the Antonine 2mm figures and they're quite fun little sculpts.  They're very small (obviously!) but you can make out things like horses and shield shapes, so you can discern Legionaries vs Auxiliaries vs Cavalry, etc.
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steve_holmes_11

A constructive suggestion.

The size and resolution of the photographs posted above look far better than the ones on the Warbases website.
The pictures on the Warbases website also take an eternity to load (at least on my computer).

Fixing both these issues could reach a more favourable audience.

steve_holmes_11

AAnd a final thought for the night.

Most genius creations involve reaching out beyond what most think credible.
Whether Thandie Newton devising laws for gravity and motion, or Olivia DeHavilland building a bomber form mostly wood.


We are making judgements based on some teaser releases from the author and previews of game elements.
If, in a couple of years, we're all playing Strength and Honour (even the title gives me the third Reich shivers).
I'll be the first to ground my shield and declare "ego erravi".